“We owe it to our children to not delay moving forward initial studies to evaluate promising vaccine candidates,” Anderson told reporters during a video conference call Monday afternoon. “We believe it is a critical and important thing to do be doing right now, so that we have a better chance of having a vaccine for children before the next school year begins.”
Dr. Evan Anderson of Emory University was the lead author of a paper recommending COVID-19 vaccine trials for children.
More than 100 U.S. children have died from COVID-19, according to the 15-page paper in Clinical Infectious Diseases, an Oxford Academic publication. By contrast, flu-related deaths in children reported to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during regular flu seasons have ranged from 37 to 188 deaths annually over the last 15 years.
The trial studies, Anderson said, could start with low dosages. Anderson did not mention an age range for children who would participate in vaccine studies, but suggested it could start with older children. Vaccine studies for other diseases, such as Ebola, have involved children. The idea, Anderson said, “isn’t novel.”
While President Donald Trump has said a vaccine could be ready by November, many medical experts predict a vaccine may not be available until early-to-mid next year. In the meantime, researchers at Emory and elsewhere are continuing to search for vaccine participants.
To date, most COVID-19 vaccine study participants have been young-to-middle age adults. Researchers were cautious about recruiting older adults in studies, although they were initially dying at greater rates from the disease. The paper by Anderson and others say they are unaware of any COVID-19 vaccine studies involving children in the U.S.
Getting children in studies could be a challenge as concerns grow a vaccine is being rushed. Several polls show just one in five Americans would definitely get a vaccine once one is ready, a decline from about one in three Americans in August.
The paper by Anderson and others offers societal reasons for children to be part of vaccine research.
“A COVID-19 vaccine could provide direct benefits on childhood education by allowing a safer return to school, a critical factor in children maximizing their potential,” the authors wrote.
Some researchers have published papers about the need for varied trial participantsto ensure a vaccine will be effective, such as children and pregnant women. They stress any vaccine studies conducted for those groups must be safe. The American Academy of Pediatrics said in a statement Monday to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution it supports children being included in Phase III trials, which is the stage when the vaccine has met the safety and efficacy points of the first two phases and is further along in the licensure process.
The Bobcat Fire in the Angeles National Forest continues to burninto its 16th day. The blaze has grown aggressively in recent days, driven by strong wind gusts. The fire surpassed 100,000 acres over the weekend, making it one of the largest wildfires in Los Angeles County history, according to officials.
Late Monday, Mt. Wilson was again under serious threat from the fire, after several successful efforts to hold the flames back.
Earlier in the day, residents near Camp Colby were ordered to evacuate as the western front of the blaze advanced toward them. At an evening briefing, fire officials said the fire remained about two to three miles east of that area.
Firefighters are hard at work in the northern section of the fire, which has threatened homes and forced evacuations in the foothill communities bordering the Antelope Valley. Angeles National Forest officials say some homes have been lost, though a precise number was not given pending damage assessments.
Larry Smith is with the Bobcat Fire incident management team, and says it’s too soon to report on damage done.
“We’re still focusing all our resources on containment and control. But until we get this safe for our firefighters, and for the public to re-enter, there won’t be damage assessments.”
Smith also says critical water drops were delayed this afternoon, when a firefighting aircraft was grounded for about a half hour after a drone was spotted close to its take-off area.
The fire started the day “most active around Mt. Wilson, Chilao and Little Rock Creek,” forest officials said. The plan for the day: “firefighters will work to slow westward spread using defensive strategic firing, line construction and aircraft drops.”
To the east, officials said the blaze continues to threaten containment lines north of the Ranch 2 Fire, as well as Highway 39.
WATCH TONIGHT’S BRIEFING
Here’s what else we know about the fire so far today.
THE BASICS
Acreage: 106,179 acres
Containment: 13%
Resources deployed: 1,513 firefighters
The fire erupted on Sept. 6 near the Cogswell Dam and then spread rapidly amid an intense, record-breaking heat wave, prompting evacuation orders for Mt. Wilson Observatory. The cause is under investigation.
A virtual public meeting has been scheduled for 6:30 p.m. today. It will stream live on YouTube here, or can be viewed on the L.A. County Fire Department’s Facebook page.
As our science reporter Jacob Margolis notes, the Bobcat Fire has been fueled by growth that hasb’t burned in decades:
EVACUATIONS
A home burns as the sun sets behind smoke and flames during the Bobcat Fire on Sept. 18, 2020 in Juniper Hills. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Mandatory
Emergency officials issued evacuation orders for residents in the following areas as of Monday afternoon:
Residences along Angeles Crest Highway, between Angeles Forest Highway and Highway 39.
The unincorporated areas of Juniper Hills, Devils Punch Bowl, and Paradise Springs.
The unincorporated areas of Crystal Lake, east Fork of the San Gabriel River, and Camp Williams.
South of Hwy 138, north of Big Rock Creek, east of 87th St East, and west of Largo Vista Rd.
South of 138th St. East, north of Big Pine Hwy and Hwy 2, east of Largo Vista Rd., and west of 263rd St. East.
South of Hwy 138, north of East Ave W-14, east of 155th St East, and west of 165th St. East.
South and west of Upper Big Tujunga, east of Angeles Forest Hwy, north of Angeles Crest Hwy.
Warnings
Pasadena
Unincorporated communities of Altadena and Wrightwood.
South of Pearblossom Hwy, east and north of Angeles Forest Hwy, north and west of Mt. Emma Rd., east and south of Hwy 122, and west of Cheseboro Rd.
South of Hwy 2, north of Blue Ridge Truck Trail, east of Hwy 39, and west of the Los Angeles Co. border.
South of Ave U-8, north of East Ave W-14, east of 121st East, and west of 155th St East.
South of Pearblossom Hwy (Hwy 138), south and east of Pearblossom Hwy (Hwy 122), north and west of Mt. Emma Rd., north and east of Angeles Forest Hwy, and west of Cheseboro Rd.
South of Mt. Emma Rd., north of Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Rd., east of Angeles Forest Highway, and west of Pacifico Mountain.
SHELTER SITES
The Red Cross has established a temporary evaction point at Palmdale High School, 2137 East Avenue R. Accomodations for 300 large animals are available at the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, 2551 W. Avenue H, Lancaster.
Shelter for small animals is available at Lancaster Animal Care Center, 5210 West Ave. I, and Palmdale Animal Care Center, 38550 Sierra Highway.
A shelter site for up to 300 horses and cattle has been established at the Pomona Fairplex, 2201 N. White Ave. Officials there can be reached at 909-576-9272.
A firefighter walls over burning embers from the Bobcat Fire on Sept. 19, 2020 in Juniper Hills. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
State Route 39 is closed at Old Gabriel Canyon Road to State Route 2
State Route 2 is closed from Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road to Big Pines
Upper Big Tujunga Canyon Road
Mt. Wilson Road
Glendora Mountain Road
Glendora Ridge Road
WEATHER AND AIR QUALITY
A 1-hr time lapse of the Bobcat fire looking north from Mt Wilson. As of the last report fire was at 105,345 acres and 15% contained. Briefly critical winds and humidity expected at the fire today. Time lapse courtesy Southern California Edison. #CaWx#CAfires#BobcatFirepic.twitter.com/YsFjF9ShkY
We’re experiencing a cooling trend, which is projected to last through mid-week. Humidity will be in the low teens today, though higher mountain areas could see drier conditions. Wind gusts are expected to be about 20 to 30 mph.
The South Coast Air Quality Management District has issued a smoke advisory for the region, which is in place through this afternoon. The impact from the Bobcat, El Dorado and Snow fires is creating unhealthy air quality across parts of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside Counties.
Air Quality Forecast (Monday, September 21st): https://t.co/szsyGAFunD 🏖 Coastal: Good -to- Moderate 🏙 LA: Moderate -to- Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups 🌅 OC: Moderate 🌄 Inland Empire: Moderate -to- Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups 🌴 Coachella Valley: Moderate pic.twitter.com/B49S7DDSp3
Look up the latest air quality info for your area at airnow.gov.
ABOUT MT. WILSON
Firefighters on duty to protect Mt. Wilson Observatory and nearby broadcast towers as the Bobcat Fire burns in the Angeles National Forest on Sept. 17, 2020. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)
The Mt. Wilson Observatory houses 18 telescopes, many of which were used to make some of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the last century. They include the 100 inch Hooker telescope that Edwin Hubble used in the 1920s to prove that our universe is still expanding.
The fire also threatens a seismic station that has recorded earthquake activity for 100 years, seismologist Lucy Jones said via Twitter.
Numerous television and radio stations have transmitters in the area, including our newsroom which broadcasts on the radio at 89.3 KPCC.
HOW WE’RE REPORTING ON THIS
This is a developing story. We fact check everything and rely only on information from credible sources (think fire, police, government officials and reporters on the ground). Sometimes, however, we make mistakes and/or initial reports turn out to be wrong. In all cases, we strive to bring you the most accurate information in real time and will update this story as new information becomes available.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
For the latest information straight from local emergency officials, check the following websites and social media accounts:
Authorities in Salt Lake City released body camera video Monday that shows an officer shooting a 13-year-old boy after his mother called 911 because the teen was acting out and needed help.
In the disturbing video from Sept. 4, the teen can be seen running from police and not complying when an officer orders him to the ground. Moments before one of the officers opens fire, another can be heard saying, “Pull your hands out.”
It isn’t clear whether the teen, whom NBC News is not identifying because of his age, was armed. A Salt Lake City police statement released Monday didn’t say, and the department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The teen suffered injuries to his intestines, ankles, shoulder and bladder, and he remains in a hospital, according to an online fundraising campaign.
The boy’s mother, Golda Barton, told a dispatcher that she wanted a “crisis intervention officer” sent to her home in the Glendale area of Salt Lake City because her son had threatened to shoot one of her co-workers and break the windows in their home, according to audio also released Monday by the Salt Lake City Police Department. She also said he’d been in a “shootout” in Nevada and a high-speed chase with police.
“He’s sick,” she said. “He needs to go to the hospital.”
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It isn’t clear whether the police dispatched to the home were crisis intervention officers, who receive 40 hours of training in mental health issues and policing, according to the department. In the statement released Monday, the department said all new officers are required to attend its crisis intervention academy, but it didn’t say whether any of the officers involved in the Sept. 4 shooting had received that training.
None of the officers involved in the shooting have been identified. It wasn’t clear whether they had been placed on administrative leave while the incident is investigated, as is standard protocol at other law enforcement agencies. The department said it was releasing the video and audio to be transparent.
In the 911 audio, Barton can be heard telling the dispatcher that her father was killed by sheriff’s deputies in Nevada this year and that her son “does not like cops at all.”
“That’s why we need a mental health worker,” she said. “It’s super important.”
Efforts to reach Barton on Monday were unsuccessful, but in an interview with NBC affiliate KSL this month she described the teen’s mental health struggles and said she called 911 after consulting with his psychiatrist.
In the video, Barton can be seen telling the officers that her son was out of control and threatening to break things. When one of the officers asked whether the teen had any weapons, she responded that he had a BB gun but added that it wasn’t real.
“Unfortunately, we have to treat them all as if they are,” the officer said.
In the video, three officers can be seen approaching Barton’s home and knocking on the door. They then run to the back yard, where one can be heard saying the teen had jumped a fence.
The officers chased the teen, who can be seen slowly walking away from them as they order him to the ground. Moments later, one of the officers can be seen firing multiple times and ordering the teen to show his hands after he’s been shot.
“I don’t feel good,” he responds. “Tell my mom I love her.”
Tim Stelloh
Tim Stelloh is a reporter for NBC News based in California.
Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., spoke like a fascist when he vowed that “nothing is off the table” if President Trump goes forward with a nomination to replace late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, according to “Life, Liberty & Levin” host Mark Levin.
“What the president is doing is traditional and constitutional,” Levin, a former Reagan Justice Department official, said at the opening of Monday’s edition of “The Mark Levin Show”.
“Chuck Schumer said that if Donald Trump — who is the president for four years — nominates someone to the Supreme Court while he’s the sitting president, and the Republican Senate — while they have a majority — vote to confirm a justice to the Supreme Court … everything is on the table,” Levin stated before asking: “Does the Constitution give the Senate — let alone one senator — the power to ‘put everything on the table’?”
Schumer’s statements, Levin continued, “are the words of a fascist, of a Brownshirt, of a totalitarian.”
“The Constitution determines what’s on the table,” he continued, adding that Democrats’ ultimate goal — amid their threats and intimidation — is to create the conditions to give them permanent control of the United States and its government.
“The Democrats have already threatened — and intend to — eliminate the filibuster rule as it applies to legislation,” said Levin, who noted that such a move would render the minority party obsolete as a force for compromise.
In November 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., ended the filibuster for judicial nominees — a move many observers said was meant to help President Barack Obama and a “President Hillary Clinton.”
Democrats have also threatened to give statehood to Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia — a move that would all but ensure four near-permanent Democratic seats in a 104-member Senate.
For the second time in a week, a federal judge said a nationwide order is necessary to ensure mail for November’s election is delivered on time, and he is threatening to demand weekly updates on efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to process election mail.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan largely sided with several people across the country, including candidates for public office, who claimed in a lawsuit that President Donald Trump, the Postal Service and the new postmaster general were endangering election mail.
“The right to vote is too vital a value in our democracy to be left in a state of suspense in the minds of voters weeks before a presidential election, raising doubts as to whether their votes will ultimately be counted,” Marrero said. He ruled after conducting a hearing Wednesday.
Officials at the Postal Service are reviewing the ruling, spokesperson Marti Johnson said in a written statement.
“There should be no doubt, however, that the Postal Service is ready and fully committed to handling expected increased volumes of Election Mail between now and the conclusion of the November 3rd election,” the statement said. “Our number one priority is to deliver the nation’s Election Mail securely and in a timely fashion.”
Last week, U.S. District Judge Stanley Bastian in Yakima, Washington, ordered an end to postal practices nationwide that slowed mail delivery since July, saying 14 states had made a “strong showing” that the Trump administration was using the Postal Service “as a tool in partisan politics.”
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Like Bastian, Marrero said the agency’s workers must treat election mail as First Class Mail.
Marrero’s 87-page ruling was more specific than Bastian’s 13-page order as he cited public statements, including from Trump, to explain why he can’t trust government assurances that new policies hampering mail delivery had been fully suspended.
“Substantial evidence indicates that the supposed rollback of the challenged practices is either unenforced and not yet fully implemented or possibly insincere,” Marrero said. “The controversy Plaintiffs raise remains very much alive.”
He said Trump, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy and the Postal Service “have not provided trusted assurance and comfort that citizens will be able to cast ballots with full confidence that their votes would be timely collected and counted.”
Instead, he said, their actions have given “rise to management and operational confusion, to directives that tend to generate uncertainty as to who is in charge of policies that ultimately could affect the reliability of absentee ballots, thus potentially discouraging voting by mail.”
“Conflicting, vague, and ambivalent managerial signals could also sow substantial doubt about whether the USPS is up to the task,” he said.
Marrero cited “a stunning lack of uniformity and a high level of confusion at various points in the USPS hierarchy regarding the standards to be followed by USPS employees on the ground.”
“The Court is left with little reason to believe that the USPS policy and operational picture will be any clearer for postal employees as the November election approaches,” he added.
Marrero gave both sides until noon Friday to settle the case in a manner consistent with his findings.
If they fail, Marrero said, he will impose an order that requires weekly reports to himself and the plaintiffs and ensures postal workers can make late and extra delivery trips, as well as work overtime from Oct. 26 through Nov. 6.
The judge rejected the U.S. government’s claims that the court case does not involve the counting of votes.
“There is simply no reason for the Court to ignore the severe reality that the country is in the middle of a deadly pandemic, that only five states require an affirmative excuse for citizens to vote by mail, and one state (Oregon) conducts elections entirely by mail,” he said.
The controversy regarding delivery arose this summer as many more voters prepared to vote by mail this November because of the coronavirus pandemic. DeJoy, a major donor to Trump and the GOP, imposed cost-cutting changes that he later said he suspended. Lawsuits followed.
Those calls had largely gone unheeded by Republicans who control the Senate until they nabbed a foothold recently after the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee voted to authorize more than three dozen subpoenas and depositions to compel testimony from former FBI Director James Comey and others.
Trump lashed out at Comey, a frequent target of his, accusing him and “all the sleazebags” of “treason.”
“They spied on my campaign, and we caught ‘em,” Trump said in Dayton during an event billed as being about jobs and fighting for American workers. “Let‘s now see what happens.”
The president claimed that he is “trying like hell to stay out of” investigating his political enemies ahead of a highly contentious election. Emotions are likely to be ratcheted up further in the wake of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death Friday. Republican operatives have credited a high court vacancy with partially fueling his 2016 victory over Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t have to actually, but it’s better if I do, I think,” Trump said of investigations. “I’m trying to stay out of it, but it’s a disgrace that it’s taken this long.”
Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson has been teasing a forthcoming report detailing allegations against the Bidens, with a focus on Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company, which to be released sometime this month.
Democrats have decried the Senate committee’s investigations as a fishing expedition intended to damage Biden’s presidential bid, and said that Johnson’s probes are echoing false claims seeded by a Russian disinformation project — a charge that the Wisconsin Republican has rebuffed as a “coordinated smear.” Johnson has acknowledged that the examination into Obama-era intelligence agencies would be beneficial to Trump’s reelection effort.
Trump also expressed sympathy for what “bad people” did to Michael Flynn, his former national security adviser. In 2017, Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
Flynn later moved to withdraw his plea, alleging that he was coerced into pleading guilty. The Justice Department in May took steps to cease its prosecution of Flynn after the release of FBI records detailing the origins of the criminal case against the retired lieutenant general that the department has argued in court documents lacked proper investigative grounding.
“What they’ve done to General Flynn and others is a disgrace,” Trump said.
Trump has provided no evidence to support his claims, and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates testified before lawmakers in August denying any impropriety into the FBI’s investigation into Flynn .
Exposure to the mosquito-borne illness dengue fever may provide some immunity against COVID-19, Reuters reported Monday, citing a new study.
The not-yet-published study analyzed the coronavirus outbreak in Brazil and found a link between the spread of the virus and past outbreaks of dengue fever, according to the newswire.
The study led by Miquel Nicolelis, a professor at Duke University, reportedly compared geographic distribution of coronavirus cases with the spread of dengue in 2019 and 2020.
Nicolelis found that places with lower coronavirus infection rates and slower case growth were also locations that had suffered intense dengue outbreaks this year or last.
“This striking finding raises the intriguing possibility of an immunological cross-reactivity between dengue’s Flavivirus serotypes and SARS-CoV-2,” the study reportedly said, referring to dengue virus antibodies and the novel coronavirus.
The researcher told Reuters the results are particularly interesting as previous studies have shown people with dengue antibodies in their blood can test falsely positive for COVID-19 antibodies even if they have not been infected by the coronavirus.
“This indicates that there is an immunological interaction between two viruses that nobody could have expected, because the two viruses are from completely different families,” Nicolelis said.
He added that further studies are needed to prove the connection.
Brazil has reported the third-highest number of coronavirus cases globally, behind the U.S. and India, respectively, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. It has reported more than 4.5 million cases and 136,895 deaths.
Judge Barbara Lagoa lacks some of the usual credentials of a Supreme Court justice, but her roots in the Cuban-American community could make her an attractive choice for President Trump.
The U.S.-born daughter of Cuban exiles, Judge Barbara Lagoa embodies Miami’s longstanding version of the American dream.Credit…Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press
MIAMI — As a young associate in a prestigious Miami law firm, Barbara Lagoa took on an unusual pro bono case, one without a supervising partner and against a formidable adversary: the Clinton administration.
Ms. Lagoa represented a relative of a 5-year-old boy found off the Florida coast after his mother had drowned trying to cross over from Cuba. His name was Elián González.
Federal agents would eventually seize Elián and return him to his father in Cuba, setting off political shock waves that arguably cost former Vice President Al Gore the 2000 presidential election when he lost Florida.
“After six months, countless briefs, a few all-nighters, two oral arguments and one midnight raid by armed commandos, we learned what it was like to lose,” Eliot Pedrosa, another lawyer on the team, said at a ceremony last year when Judge Lagoa joined the Florida Supreme Court. The experience of “watching armed federal agents use force to pre-empt process,” he said, was “seared into her soul.”
That formative episode helped shape Judge Lagoa’s career as a federal prosecutor and appellate judge and thrust her into South Florida’s political culture, dominated by Cuban-American Republicans.
It is an electoral dynamic that remains powerful two decades later and has helped Judge Lagoa, who now sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, emerge as an attractive choice for President Trump as he considers whom he will name to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court.
“She’s highly thought of,” Mr. Trump, who is scheduled to travel to Miami this week, told reporters on Monday. “I’m getting a lot of phone calls from a lot of people. She has a lot of support. I don’t know her, but I hear she’s outstanding.”
Judge Lagoa, 52, does not have some of the traditional credentials for a justice. But as the U.S.-born daughter of Cuban exiles who has risen to the highest echelons of her profession, she embodies Miami’s longstanding version of the American dream.
The Cuban-American community admired her work on Elián’s case, taking issue with the federal government’s position that the boy’s father, Juan Miguel González, was his sole legal guardian and had the right to make the decision to have him returned to Cuba. Also playing a role was a young lawyer named Brett M. Kavanaugh, now a Supreme Court justice himself, who represented the boy’s Miami relatives when they needed someone to work on a federal appeal.
Almost all of Judge Lagoa’s judicial service has been on a midlevel state appeals court in Miami, where she heard mostly routine cases from 2006 to 2019. Asked to list her most significant opinions, she noted ones on employment discrimination, blood alcohol tests, car insurance, personal jurisdiction, statutes of limitations and arbitration.
In her next two judicial jobs, though, she participated in consequential cases on whether hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions in Florida were eligible to vote. Lawyers for the former felons have argued that Judge Lagoa should have recused herself the second time around.
The 11th Circuit decision this month to uphold a law enacted by the Florida Legislature that requires former felons to pay court fines and fees before they can register “silenced hundreds of thousands of voters,” Desmond Meade, the executive director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, said in a statement.
“That decision demonstrated why we are fighting so hard for people’s lives to be placed over politics,” he added, “and the desire to put people over politics should be the attitude of anyone who aspires to serve on the highest court in the land.”
It is precisely a political calculation about how the president might secure his re-election by ensuring that he carries Florida that could bolster Judge Lagoa’s chances. Democrats have been struggling to match Hillary Clinton’s popularity among Hispanics in Miami-Dade County, where the election could be won or lost. The optics of Senate Democrats pressing hard against a Latina on national television would seem unlikely to help.
And while Mr. Trump’s standing with conservative Cuban-Americans is solid, nominating Judge Lagoa could still appeal emotionally to some voters, said José Félix Díaz, a former state representative and consultant with Ballard Partners, a lobbying firm.
“I think Cuban-American abuelos and abuelas will care,” he said. “It speaks to how well Cuban-Americans have assimilated to the United States. Every time there’s a new first, it’s seismic.”
Some on the political right, however, are troubled by the fact that Judge Lagoa does not appear to have a record on any abortion cases.
Leading anti-abortion activists say they would support Judge Lagoa’s nomination, but they favor Judge Amy Coney Barrett because of her clearer record on Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. They worry a nominee whose jurisprudence on the issue is unknown could jeopardize a decades-long campaign to end the right to abortion, which now appears finally within their reach.
Though she is lesser known in Washington than Judge Barrett, Judge Lagoa has been someone to watch for veteran Florida lawyers for years.
A graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an editor of The Columbia Law Review, Judge Lagoa worked at various Miami law firms, including Greenberg Traurig, before joining the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District of Florida in 2003. Three years later, Gov. Jeb Bush, a Republican, named her to the Third District Court of Appeal.
Judge Lagoa is married to Paul C. Huck Jr., a partner at the Jones Day law firm and a fellow member of the Federalist Society. Mr. Huck served as general counsel to former Gov. Charlie Crist and as deputy attorney general of Florida. The couple has three daughters, including fraternal twins. Judge Lagoa’s father-in-law, Paul C. Huck, is a senior federal judge in the Southern District of Florida, appointed by President Bill Clinton.
Last year, in his second day in office, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, a Republican, elevated Judge Lagoa to the state’s Supreme Court. He announced his nomination in downtown Miami at the Freedom Tower, a building steeped in exile symbolism, where many Cubans first entered the United States. Speaking in Spanish, Judge Lagoa thanked her parents, noting that her father’s unrealized dream in Cuba was to become a lawyer.
Eight months later, Mr. Trump nominated her to the 11th Circuit, where she quickly encountered for a second time the question of the former felons’ voting rights. Legal experts were divided over whether Judge Lagoa’s failure to disqualify herself ran afoul of ethics rules.
“This is a clear case in which recusal is necessary to preserve public confidence in the fairness and impartiality of the judiciary,” said Deborah L. Rhode, an authority on legal ethics at Stanford Law School. “Failing to recuse herself creates both the fact and appearance of impropriety.”
Lawrence J. Fox, who teaches legal ethics at Yale Law School, was more tentative. “This situation presents a serious example ofthe appearance of impropriety, if not impropriety itself,” he said.
Bruce A. Green, an expert in legal ethics at Fordham Law School, said that Judge Lagoa had explained her position in ruling on a recusal motion from the former felons.
“Judge Lagoa issued a detailed, well-considered opinion, supported by case law, explaining why she did not have to recuse herself,” he said. “The opinion seems pretty convincing, and in any case, it certainly was not a slam dunk for recusal.”
The two cases concerned a 2018 ballot measure that amended the state’s Constitution to end the disenfranchisement of people convicted of felonies, except for murder and sexual offenses, “upon completion of all terms of sentence, including parole or probation.”
The next year, the state’s Republican-controlled Legislature enacted a law that defined that phrase to include the payment of fines, restitution, costs and fees.
Judge Lagoa was an active participant when the case on former felons was argued before the Florida Supreme Court on Nov. 6, 2019. But she said she took her recusal obligations seriously.
“The impartiality of judges, and the appearance of impartiality, are key to ensuring public confidence in our courts,” she had told the Senate Judiciary Committee in October.
She was confirmed to the 11th Circuit two weeks later.
The Florida Supreme Court issued its decision in January, ruling against the former felons. Judge Lagoa did not participate in the decision.
In the meantime, a separate federal suit challenging the state law under the federal Constitution was moving forward.
In July, though, the full 11th Circuit agreed to hear the case, and lawyers for the former felons asked Judge Lagoa and two other judges to recuse themselves.
Judge Lagoa and another former Florida Supreme Court justice, Judge Robert J. Luck, rejected the motion.
“We did play a role, we were involved in, and we did participate in the advisory opinion to the governor proceeding,” they wrote in a 25-page decision. “We sat during oral argument, and we asked questions to the lawyers appearing before that court.”
But the state case, they said, “was a separate proceeding involving different persons, different issues and different courts.”
This month, by a 6-to-4 vote, with Judges Lagoa and Luck in the majority, the 11th Circuit ruled against the former felons. Had they recused themselves, the appeals court would have deadlocked, a victory for the former felons.
For the people trying to promote her nomination in South Florida, though, Judge Lagoa’s life story as the daughter of immigrants matters just as much as her record.
Her friends mention her modest upbringing in the blue-collar city of Hialeah. She rode her bike and roller skated around the neighborhood. Her parents saved up to send her to Catholic school. It was a big deal when she went away to New York for law school.
“In the country my parents fled, the whim of a single individual could mean the difference between food or hunger, liberty or prison, life or death,” Judge Lagoa said last year, when she was nominated to the Florida Supreme Court. “Unlike the country my parents fled, we are a nation of laws — not of men.”
Patricia Mazzei reported from Miami, and Adam Liptak from Washington. Elizabeth Dias contributed reporting from Washington.
Tucker Carlson reflected on the fragility of life Monday following the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, reminding viewers that “life is bigger than politics, even this year.”
The “Tucker Carlson Tonight” host opened his show by commenting on reports that Ginsburg’s final wish was to not be replaced until a new president was sworn into office, a sentiment he described as “pathetic” if true.
“Keep in mind, we don’t know actually what Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s final words were,” Carlson said. “Did she really leave this world fretting about a presidential election?
“We don’t believe that for a second,” he continued. “If it were true, it would be pathetic because life is bigger than politics, even this year.
“We wouldn’t wish final words like that on anyone,” Carlson added, “so we choose to believe that Ruth Bader Ginsburg didn’t actually say that, but [rather] in real life, she was thinking in the end about her family and where she might be going next. Human concerns, not partisan ones.”
Ginsburg’s death Friday ignited a political firestorm over whether a new Supreme Court justice should be nominated and confirmed before the November election. Trump plans to move forward with the nomination process and announce his pick at the end of the week, as Democrats threaten to pack the high court in retaliation should they win the White House and Senate this fall. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., even declined to rule out impeaching Trump again to block his choice for Ginsburg’s seat.
Shortly after Ginsburg’s passing was announced, NPR reported that she told her granddaughter days earlier that her “most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.”
“Ruth Bader Ginsburg doesn’t get to pick her replacement from her deathbed,” Carlson retorted. “That’s not how it works. We have a Constitution we are supposed to be defending and that’s the whole point of the Constitution.
“If Justice [Antonin] Scalia had said something like that, no one would have cared. We would have been embarrassed for him,” the host went on. “On some level, Democrats know all this. All this talk about Ginsburg’s dying wish is ridiculous and insulting to all of us in our country and they will stop soon.
However, Carlson concluded, “Democrats have an alternative argument at the ready and one they’ve been honing all year that goes like this: ‘Do what we want or we will hurt you.’ That’s the real argument they’re making. “
About 200,000 Americans have died of the novel coronavirus, but Democratic presidential candidate Joseph R. Biden says it’s closer to 200 million.
“If Donald Trump has his way, the complications from COVID-19, which are well beyond what they should be — it’s estimated that 200 million people have died, probably by the time I finish this talk,” said Mr. Biden in a Sunday speech in Philadelphia.
The Census Bureau reports that the U.S. population is about 331 million, meaning that a 200 million death count would represent nearly two-thirds of the population.
This isn’t the first time Mr. Biden has misstated the U.S. coronavirus death count. In a Sept. 9 speech in Warren, Michigan, he said there had been “6,114 military deaths” from the virus, although the Defense Department said there had been seven.
The Biden campaign told PolitiFact that he meant to say “Michigan deaths.”
In June, Mr. Biden said that 120 million Americans had died from the virus, as opposed to 120,000, prompting a retort from President Trump.
“If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News would come down on me with a vengeance,” tweeted Mr. Trump on June 25.
Mr. Biden said at last week’s CNN town hall that “all the people would still be alive,” if only Mr. Trump had “done his job.”
If I ever said something so mortifyingly stupid, the Fake News Media would come down on me with a vengeance. This is beyond a normal mistake. Why isn’t the media reporting it? pic.twitter.com/KkuWLkMfp7
200 million deaths? That’s most of the US population.
I have mixed feelings on Trump, but Biden doesn’t seem to know what day it is. He’ll be a puppet for the hard left. Really hope he doesn’t win. pic.twitter.com/Bz2wHQIkiy
