Growing Number Of GOP Senators Oppose Impeachment Trial

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

WASHINGTON

A growing number of Republican senators say they oppose holding an impeachment trial, a sign of the dimming chances that former President Donald Trump will be convicted on the charge that he incited a siege of the U.S. Capitol.

House Democrats, who will walk the impeachment charge of "incitement of insurrection" to the Senate on Monday evening, are hoping that strong Republican denunciations of Trump after the Jan. 6 riot will translate into a conviction and a separate vote to bar Trump from holding office again. But GOP passions appear to have cooled since the insurrection, and now that Trump's presidency is over, Republican senators who will serve as jurors in the trial are rallying to his legal defense, as they did during his first impeachment trial last year.

"I think the trial is stupid, I think it's counterproductive," said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.. He said that "the first chance I get to vote to end this trial, I'll do it" because he believes it would be bad for the country and further inflame partisan divisions.

Arguments in the Senate trial will begin the week of Feb. 8. Leaders in both parties agreed to the short delay to give Trump's team and House prosecutors time to prepare and the Senate the chance to confirm some of President Joe Biden's Cabinet nominees. Democrats say the extra days will allow for more evidence to come out about the rioting by Trump supporters who interrupted the congressional electoral count of Biden's election victory, while Republicans hope to craft a unified defense for Trump.

An early vote to dismiss the trial probably would not succeed, given that Democrats now control the Senate.

Still, the Republican opposition indicates that many GOP senators would eventually vote to acquit Trump.

Democrats would need the support of 17 Republicans - a high bar - to convict him.

Biden to reinstate

COVID travel rules, add South Africa

President Joe Biden on Monday will formally reinstate COVID-19 travel restrictions on non-U.S. travelers from Brazil, Ireland, the United Kingdom and 26 other European countries that allow travel across open borders, according to two White House officials.

The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the order, also confirmed Sunday that South Africa would be added to the restricted list because of concerns about a variant of the virus that has spread beyond that nation.

Biden is reversing an order from President Donald Trump in his final days in office that called for the relaxation of the travel restrictions as of Tuesday.

The decision to reverse the order is not surprising, but the addition of South Africa to the restricted travel list highlights the new admin-istration's concern about mutations in the virus. The South Africa variant has not been discovered in the United States, but another variant - originating in the United Kingdom - has been detected in several states.

Why Biden's immigration plan may be risky for Democrats

President Joe Biden is confronting the political risk that comes with grand ambition.

As one of his first acts, Biden offered a sweeping immigration overhaul last week that would provide a path to U.S. citizenship for the estimated 11 million people who are in the United States illegally. It would also codify provisions wiping out some of President Donald Trump's signature hard-line policies, including trying to end existing, protected legal status for many immigrants brought to the U.S. as children and crackdowns on asylum rules. It's precisely the type of measure that many Latino activists have longed for, particularly after the tough approach of the Trump era.

But it must compete with Biden's other marquee legislative goals, including a $1.9 trillion plan to combat the coronavirus, an infrastructure package that promotes green energy initiatives and a "public option" to expand health insurance.

In the best of circumstances, enacting such a broad range of legislation would be difficult. But in a narrowly divided Congress, it could be impossible. And that has Latinos, the nation's fastest growing voting bloc, worried that Biden and congressional leaders could cut deals that weaken the finished product too much - or fail to pass anything at all.

"This cannot be a situation where simply a visionary bill - a message bill - gets sent to Congress and nothing happens with it," said Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for low-income immigrants.

"There's an expectation that they will deliver and that there is a mandate now for Biden to be unapologetically pro-immigrant and have a political imperative to do so, and the Democrats do as well."

THE HAGUE, NETHERLANDS

Dutch police clash with anti-lockdown protesters in 2 cities

Rioters set fires in the center of the southern Dutch city of Eindhoven and pelted police with rocks Sunday at a banned demonstration against coronavirus lockdown measures, while officers responded with tear gas and water cannons, arresting at least 55 people.

Police in the capital of Amsterdam also used a water cannon to disperse an outlawed anti-lockdown demonstration on a major square ringed by museums. Video showed police spraying people grouped against a wall of the Van Gogh Museum.

It was the worst violence to hit the Netherlands since the pandemic began and the second straight Sunday that police clashed with protesters in Amsterdam. The country has been in a tough lockdown since mid-December that is due to continue at least until Feb. 9. The government beefed up the lockdown with a 9 p.m. to 4:30 a.m.

curfew that went into force on Saturday. Justice Minister Ferd Grapperhaus condemned the violence.

"This has nothing to do with demonstrating against corona measures," Grapperhaus said in a statement. "This is simply criminal behavior; people who deliberately target police, riot police, journalists and other aid workers."

2 in 5 Americans live where COVID-19 strains hospital ICUs

Straining to handle record numbers of COVID-19 patients, hundreds of the nation's intensive care units are running out of space and supplies and competing to hire temporary traveling nurses at soaring rates.

Many of the facilities are clustered in the South and West. An Associated Press analysis of federal hospital data shows that since November, the share of U.S. hospitals nearing the breaking point has doubled.

More than 40 percent of Americans now live in areas running out of ICU space, with only 15 percent of beds still available.

Intensive care units are the final defense for the sickest of the sick, patients who are nearly suffocating or facing organ failure. Nurses who work in the most stressed ICUs, changing IV bags and monitoring patients on breathing machines, are exhausted.

"You can't push great people forever. Right? I mean, it just isn't possible," said Houston Methodist CEO Dr.

Marc Boom, who is among many hospital leaders hoping that the numbers of critically ill COVID-19 patients have begun to plateau. Worryingly, there's an average of 20,000 new cases a day in Texas, which has the third-highest death count in the country and more than 13,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19-related symptoms.

According to data through Thursday from the COVID Tracking Project, hospitalizations are still high in the West and the South, with over 80,000 current COVID-19 hospital patients in those regions. The number of cases reported in the U.S. since the pandemic's start surpassed 25 million on Sunday, according to Johns Hopkins University.

- The Associated Press