As the United States nears 200,000 deaths from COVID-19, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidelines to add breathing to the most common ways the coronavirus is spread by an infected person.The U.S. has nearly 6.8 million cases of COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University data late Sunday.An update Friday to the CDC website says there is growing evidence that small airborne coronavirus particles are produced when someone coughs, sneezes, sings, talks or breathes and can remain in the air to be breathed in by others, allowing an infection.“These particles can be inhaled into the nose, mouth, airways, and lungs and cause infection. This is thought to be the main way the virus spreads,” the CDC website says.They can also travel farther than 6 feet, for example when someone sings or exercises.There is also updated information from the CDC about how to protect yourself. The CDC’s advice has been to stay 2 meters away from someone, wash your hands and disinfect surfaces often, and wear a face mask.Now the CDC adds that people who are sick should stay home and isolate themselves and “use air purifiers to help reduce airborne germs in indoor spaces,” according to the CDC site.Taj Mahal to reopenDespite more than 5.4 million COVID-19 cases and about 100,000 new infections and more than 1,000 deaths daily, India will reopen the Taj Mahal to visitors Monday.India has 1.3 billion people and some of the world’s most crowded cities, but a strict lockdown in March devastated the economy and the lives of tens of millions of people. With that in mind, Prime Minister Narendra Modi doesn’t want to follow some other nations in tightening restrictions on daily activity again.Instead, his government has eased restrictions, including on many train routes, domestic flights, markets, restaurants — and now, the Taj Mahal.The world-famous white marble mausoleum in the city of Agra is India’s most popular tourist attraction, drawing 7 million visitors a year.It has been closed since March. Officials say that when it reopens, strict social distancing rules will be applied and daily visitor numbers will be capped at 5,000.Schools were also to resume Monday on a voluntary basis for students ages 14 to 17, but many Indian states have said it is too soon to have children in the classroom.WorldwideWorldwide the number of cases has surpassed 30.8 million, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.The U.S. remains the country with the most infections. Recent growth in U.S. cases in the Southwest and Midwest is being attributed to the reopening of schools and colleges.A four-day motorcycle rally has Missouri and other states bracing for an outbreak. Last year, over 100,000 people attended the Bikefest Lake of the Ozarks event. The annual event in Central Missouri began Wednesday and ends Sunday. A similar event was held last month in Sturgis, South Dakota. COVID-19 cases and one death in several states were traced back to Sturgis.The U.S. has nearly 6.8 million cases, Hopkins reported late Sunday. India follows the U.S. with 5.4 million cases and Brazil comes in third with 4.5 million infections, according to Hopkins.The U.S. has also recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths. The U.S. has more than 199,000 of the world’s more than 957,000 coronavirus deaths. Brazil follows the U.S. in coronavirus deaths with more than 136,000 deaths. India has reported nearly 87,000 deaths. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump appointed Amy Coney Barrett, Barbara Lagoa and Allison Jones Rushing, three conservatives, to federal appellate court judgeships in recent years and now could pick one of them as his nominee for a lifetime seat on the Supreme Court.They appear to be at the top of the U.S. leader’s list of choices to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal icon who served on the court for 27 years before her death Friday, a month and a half before the November 3 reelection contest between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden.Florida Supreme Court Justice Barbara Lagoa, currently a United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, poses in a photograph from 2019 obtained Sept. 19, 2020.Most Democrats are likely to oppose the confirmation of any of the three because it would push the current 5-4 conservative edge on the court to 6-3 and could for decades affect decisions on a host of issues, including abortion, immigration, health care, religious liberty, among others.Here are brief sketches of the three judges:Amy Coney Barrett taught law at the University of Notre Dame, one of the most prominent Catholic universities in the United States, for 15 years before Trump named her to the appellate bench in 2017. In opposing her appointment then, Democrats voiced concerns about the professed role of religion in her life.U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a law professor at Notre Dame University, poses in an undated photograph obtained from Notre Dame University, Sept 19, 2020.They cited one of her comments at Notre Dame, where Barrett, a Catholic, told students that a “legal career is but a means to an end … and that end is building the Kingdom of God.”California Senator Dianne Feinstein was one of several Democrats who questioned whether Barrett’s religious beliefs made her unqualified to adjudicate specific cases, specifically ones related to abortion, which the Catholic church opposes.”Dogma and law are two different things,” Feinstein told Barrett during her appellate court confirmation hearings. “And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern.”Republicans view her as reliably conservative and a future Supreme Court vote to overturn the landmark 1973 decision legalizing abortion rights in the U.S., but Barrett has offered conflicting comments on how she might vote on abortion cases.During her confirmation hearing to the appeals court, Barrett said she would “follow all Supreme Court precedent without fail” and would regard decisions such as Roe v. Wade as binding precedent.“I would never impose my own personal convictions upon the law,” she said.But she also has written that judges should not be held to upholding Supreme Court precedents, such as the abortion decision.She won Senate confirmation on a 55-43 vote.Barbara Lagoa was the first Cuban American woman to serve on the Florida state Supreme Court before becoming a federal judge in 2019. She is the daughter of parents who fled from Cuba as Fidel Castro assumed power over the island in the 1959 revolution.”She’s an extraordinary person,” Trump has said. “I’ve heard at length about her. She’s Hispanic and highly respected — Miami. Highly respected.”In 2000, as a private attorney, Lagoa was part of the legal team that defended the Miami-based relatives of Elian Gonzales, the Cuban boy caught up in the dramatic custody dispute between his father in Cuba and his relatives in Miami. The boy was eventually returned to Cuba after swimming ashore into the U.S. as his mother drowned.  Lagoa was a state court judge for more than a decade before Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appointed her to the Florida Supreme Court in January 2019. At the time, he said, “She has been the essence of what a judge should be.”She signaled she would interpret laws as written.“It is the role of judges to apply, not to alter, the work of the people’s representatives,” she said at the time. Less than a year later, Trump tapped her for an appellate court opening.FILE – Allison Jones Rushing is sworn in before a Senate Judiciary confirmation hearing on her nomination to be a United States circuit judge for the Fourth Circuit, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Oct. 17, 2018.Allison Jones Rushing won her appellate court confirmation last year with party-line Republican support over Democratic opposition, on a 53-44 vote.Democrats, civil rights, and gay and lesbian groups opposed her nomination.  They cited her internship with Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based conservative, Christian legal nonprofit that defended a Colorado baker in a Supreme Court case who fought for the right not to bake a cake for a gay wedding and in another instance that allowed companies to opt out of providing insurance for contraceptives for employees because of the owners’ religious beliefs.In addition, Rushing defended the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as between a man and a woman. Rushing said she supported the four conservative justices who dissented when the Supreme Court struck down the ruling in 2015.Tim Chandler, the senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, defended Rushing, saying, “The Senate confirmed not only a highly qualified lawyer, but a woman of integrity, professional competence, and judicial demeanor.
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The United States on Monday will sanction more than two dozen people and entities involved in Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programs, a senior U.S. official said, putting teeth behind U.N. sanctions on Tehran that Washington argues have resumed despite the opposition of allies and adversaries.Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Iran could have enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of the year and that Tehran has resumed long-range missile cooperation with nuclear-armed North Korea. He did not provide detailed evidence regarding either assertion.The new sanctions fit into U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to limit Iran’s regional influence and come a week after U.S.-brokered deals for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel, pacts that may coalesce a wider coalition against Iran while appealing to pro-Israel U.S. voters ahead of the Nov. 3 election.The new sanctions also put European allies, China and Russia on notice that while their inclination may be to ignore the U.S. drive to maintain the U.N. sanctions on Iran, companies based in their nations would feel the bite for violating them.A major part of the new U.S. push is an executive order targeting those who buy or sell Iran conventional arms that was previously reported by Reuters and will also be unveiled by the Trump administration on Monday, the official said.The Trump administration suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons — something Tehran denies — and Monday’s punitive steps are the latest in a series seeking to stymie Iran’s atomic program, which U.S. ally Israel views as an existential threat.”Iran is clearly doing everything it can to keep in existence a virtual turnkey capability to get back into the weaponization business at a moment’s notice should it choose to do so,” the U.S. official told Reuters.The official argued Iran wants a nuclear weapons capability and the means to deliver it despite the 2015 deal that sought to prevent this by restraining Iran’s atomic program in return for access to the world market.In May 2018, Trump abandoned that agreement to the dismay of the other parties, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, and restored U.S. sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.Iran, in turn, has gradually breached the central limits in that deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including on the size of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as well as the level of purity to which it was allowed to enrich uranium.”Because of Iran’s provocative nuclear escalation, it could have sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of this year,” the official said without elaborating, except to say this was based on “the totality” of information available to the United States, including from the IAEA.The Vienna-based agency has said Iran only began significantly breaching the 2015 deal’s limits after the U.S. withdrawal and it is still enriching uranium only up to 4.5%, well below the 20% it had achieved before that agreement, let alone the roughly 90% purity that is considered weapons-grade, suitable for an atomic bomb.”Iran and North Korea have resumed cooperation on a long-range missile project, including the transfer of critical parts,” he added, declining to say when such joint work first began, stopped, and then started again.Asked to comment on the impending new U.S. sanctions and the U.S. official’s other statements, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations dismissed them as propaganda and said they would further isolate the United States.”The U.S.’ ‘maximum pressure’ show, which includes new propaganda measures almost every week, has clearly failed miserably, and announcing new measures will not change this fact,” the mission’s spokesman, Alireza Miryousefi, told Reuters in an email.”The entire world understands that these are a part of (the) next U.S. election campaign, and they are ignoring the U.S.’ preposterous claims at the U.N. today. It will only make (the) U.S. more isolated in world affairs,” he said.The White House declined comment in advance of Monday’s announcements.’Snap back’ of UN sanctions?The U.S. official confirmed Trump will issue an executive order that would allow the United States to punish those who buy or sell conventional arms to Iran with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the U.S. market.The proximate cause for this U.S. action is the impending expiration of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors, U.S. entities are already barred from such trade, that if they buy or sell arms to Iran they will face U.S. sanctions.Under the 2015 nuclear deal the U.N. conventional arms embargo is set to expire Oct. 18.The United States says it has triggered a “snap back,” or resumption, of virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, that took effect at 8 p.m. Saturday/0000 GMT Sunday.Other parties to the nuclear deal and most U.N. Security Council members have said they do not believe the United States has the right to reimpose the U.N. sanctions and that the U.S. move has no legal effect.On Friday, Britain, France and Germany told the Security Council that U.N. sanctions relief for Iran, agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal, would continue beyond Sunday, despite Washington’s assertion.In letters to the Security Council on Saturday, China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun and Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia both described the U.S. move as “illegitimate” and said the U.N. sanctions relief for Iran would continue.Also Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council he cannot act on the U.S. declaration that U.N. sanctions had been reimposed because it was not clear whether they had snapped back.”It is not for the secretary-general to proceed as if no such uncertainty exists,” he said.Targets include Iran’s nuclear, missile, arms groupsThe new executive order will define conventional weapons broadly as any item with a potential military use, meaning it could cover such things as speed boats that Iran retrofits to harass vessels in international waters, the U.S. official told Reuters.It would also apply to conventional circuit boards that can be used in ballistic missile guidance systems, he added.The more than two dozen targets to be hit with sanctions Monday include those involved in Iran’s conventional arms, nuclear and missile programs, the official said, saying some of the targets are already sanctioned under other U.S. programs.That could prompt criticism that the U.S. move is redundant and designed for public relations purposes to look tough on Iran, a charge critics have made about past U.S. sanctions actions.Among the targets will be Iran’s “most nefarious arms organizations,” about a dozen senior officials, scientists and experts from Iran’s nuclear complex, members of a procurement network that supplies military-grade dual-use goods for Iran’s missile program, and several senior officials involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program, the U.S. official said.The official declined to name the targets, saying this would be made public Monday, and stressed that the United States wants to deter foreign companies from dealing with them even if their governments believe this is legally permitted.”You might have a split in some countries where a foreign government may claim that the U.N. sanctions don’t snap back, but their banks and companies will abide by U.S. sanctions because they want to make sure they are not a future target,” he said.
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Wildfires rage on in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, having so far killed at least 35 people.  Scientists call the fires unprecedented in size and scope while officials say it’s all hands on deck to fight the fires, which have burned millions of acres of land.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports on how the US military is joining the fight.
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Robert W. Gore, whose invention of what created the breathable-yet-waterproof fabric known as Gore-Tex revolutionized outdoor wear and helped spawn uses in numerous other fields, has died. He was 83.Gore, who was president of W. L. Gore & Associates for almost 25 years and company chairman for 30 years, died on Thursday following a prolonged illness at his home in Delaware, company spokesperson Amy Calhoun confirmed Saturday.  Gore discovered a new form of a polymer in 1969 at a company lab in Newark, Delaware. His father, who began the company, asked Bob Gore to research a new way to manufacturer plumber’s tape at a low cost using PTFE, commonly known as DuPont’s Teflon, The News Journal of Wilmington reported.The son figured out that by stretching PTFE with a sudden yank, the polymer expanded by 1,000 percent. The resulting product, known as ePTFE, created a microporous structure. The introduction of Gore-Tex technology came seven years later.“It was truly a pivot point in this company’s history,” Greg Hannon, W.L. Gore & Associates’ chief technology officer, said last year. “Without which we would be much less significant of an organization than we are today.”The membrane within Gore-Tex fabric has billions of pores that are smaller than water droplets, leading to waterproof but breathable raincoats, shoes and other clothing. The patents ultimately led to countless other uses with medical devices, guitar strings and in space travel, the company said.Gore was born in Utah, the oldest of five children to Bill and Vieve Gore, who both founded the company in 1958. Bill Gore had previously joined DuPont’s workforce and ultimately came to Delaware. Bob Gore earned his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Delaware and advanced degrees from the University of Minnesota. He succeeded his father as the company’s president and CEO in 1976. Gore and his family contributed funds for buildings and engineering laboratories at the University of Delaware.Gore is survived by his wife, Jane, as well as children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Memorial plans weren’t immediately announced by the company. 
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Tropical Storm Beta on Sunday was making a slow crawl to the shores of Texas and Louisiana, casting worries about heavy rain, flooding and storm surge across the Gulf Coast.Beta was one of three named storms whirling in the Atlantic basin during an exceptionally busy hurricane season. If the system makes landfall in Texas – which forecasters predict it will sometime Monday – it would be the ninth named storm to make landfall in the continental U.S. in 2020. Colorado State hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach said that would tie a record set in 1916.Coastal communities began preparing for Beta over the weekend, with both the city of Galveston and Galveston County on Saturday issued voluntary evacuation orders. The city of Seabrook to the north of Galveston did, too.Mayor Pro Tem Craig Brown said in a statement that high tides and up to 25 centimeters of expected rainfall would leave roads impassable, especially along the city’s west end and low-lying areas.County Judge Mark Henry said during a Saturday news conference that his concern is also based on rising waters creating a storm surge and that a mandatory evacuation is not expected.“If you can survive in your home for three or four days without power and electricity, which we’re not even sure that’s going to happen, you’re OK,” Henry said. “If it’s uncomfortable or you need life support equipment, maybe go somewhere else.”Beta was brewing in the Gulf of Mexico, 355 kilometers southeast of Galveston, Texas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds at 95 kph and was moving north at 6 kph.Little change in strength was expected as the system approaches Texas, forecasters said. Earlier predictions showed Beta could reach hurricane strength before making landfall.A tropical storm warning was in effect from Port Aransas, Texas, to Morgan City, Louisiana. A hurricane watch, a tropical storm watch and a storm surge watch were all discontinued Sunday morning.In Lake Charles, Louisiana, where thousands of people remain without power more than three weeks after Hurricane Laura slammed into the coast, there are concerns that Beta could super-soak the region once again. Up to 51 centimeters of rain is possible in some parts of the area, Donald Jones, a National Weather Service meteorologist based in Lake Charles, said in a Saturday briefing.“A lot of people have been saying, `Is this going to be like Harvey? Is this going to be like Imelda?’” Jones said. “We’re not talking about rainfall totals yet that are on the orders of magnitude that we saw with that.” Imelda, which struck southeast Texas in 2019, was one of the wettest cyclones on record. Harvey — which dumped more than 127 centimeters of rain on Houston in 2017.However, if the storm ends up moving a bit more slowly than what’s being forecast now, rainfall totals could be even higher than 51 centimeters, Jones said.“Harvey was a very specific and unique event, but we are talking about the same idea in terms of very heavy, heavy rainfall,” he said.Forecasters were predicting up to 1.2 meters of storm surge from Port Aransas, Texas, to Rockefeller Wildlife Refuge, Louisiana. Strong winds, and life-threatening surf and rip current conditions were also expected with the storm.Forecasters ran out of traditional storm names on Friday, forcing the use of the Greek alphabet for only the second time since the 1950s.Meanwhile, Hurricane Teddy remained a powerful hurricane Sunday, with maximum sustained winds at 185 kph and moving northwest at 19 kph. Teddy was centered 550 kilometers south-southeast of Bermuda less than a week after Hurricane Paulette made landfall in the wealthy British territory.A tropical storm warning was in effect for Bermuda. Large swells from Teddy were impacting the Lesser Antilles, the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, Bermuda, the U.S. East Coast and Atlantic Canada, forecasters said.Tropical Storm Wilfred was still at sea but expected to dissipate by Tuesday.Parts of the Alabama coast and Florida Panhandle were still reeling from the effects of Hurricane Sally, which roared ashore on Wednesday. At least two deaths were blamed on the system. Roughly 82,300 were still without power in the Florida Panhandle on Saturday. Gulf Power said 95% of its customers in hardest hit Escambia and Santa Rosa counties will have power restored by the end of the day Tuesday.Meanwhile, residents in Springfield were warned to avoid contact with standing water after about 19,000 liters of raw sewage spilled into Lake Martin, according to county health officials.The Salvation Army was distributing roughly 10,000 meals Saturday at 10 locations throughout the Panhandle.  
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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council on Saturday he cannot take any action on a U.S. declaration that all U.N. sanctions on Iran had been reimposed because “there would appear to be uncertainty” on the issue.U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month that he triggered a 30-day process at the council leading to the return of U.N. sanctions on Iran on Saturday evening that would also stop a conventional arms embargo on Tehran from expiring on October 18.But 13 of the 15 Security Council members say Washington’s move is void because Pompeo used a mechanism agreed under a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, which the United States quit in 2018.”There would appear to be uncertainty whether or not the process … was indeed initiated and concomitantly whether or not the (sanctions) terminations … continue in effect,” Guterres wrote in a letter to the council, seen by Reuters.”It is not for the Secretary-General to proceed as if no such uncertainty exists,” he said.U.N. officials provide administrative and technical support to the Security Council to implement its sanctions regimes and Guterres appoints independent experts to monitor implementation.He said that “pending clarification” of the status of the Iran sanctions, he would not take any action to provide that support.Washington argues it triggered the return of sanctions — known as “snapback” — because a U.N. resolution that enshrines the pact still names it as a participant. Diplomats say few countries are likely to reimpose the measures lifted under the 2015 deal that aimed to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons.”If U.N. Member States fail to fulfill their obligations to implement these sanctions, the United States is prepared to use our domestic authorities to impose consequences for those failures,” Pompeo said in a statement on Saturday.He said that in the coming days Washington would announce additional measures to strengthen the implementation of the U.N. sanctions and “hold violators accountable.” The United States is trying to push Iran to negotiate a new deal with Washington.Russia’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Dmitry Polyanskiy responded on Twitter, “We all clearly said in August that U.S. claims to trigger snapback are illegitimate. Is Washington deaf?”Longtime U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany told the council on Friday that U.N. sanctions relief for Iran would continue and that any decision or action taken to reimpose U.N. sanctions “would be incapable of legal effect.”Iran’s U.N. Ambassador Majid Takht Ravanchi said on Twitter on Saturday, “U.S. illegal and false ‘deadline’ has come and gone … Swimming against international currents will only bring it more isolation.” 
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