No quarantine for U.S. Vice President Pence, whose COVID-19 test was negative

WASHINGTON – U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, next in line for the Oval Office, tested negative for COVID-19, hours after President Donald Trump announced that he was infected and went into quarantine, Pence’s spokesman said on Friday.

Trump’s test result cast a spotlight on Pence, a Christian conservative former lawmaker who has been one of the few constants in the Republican president’s tumultuous administration, a little more than a month before the pair seek re-election to a second term.

Pence, 61, is scheduled to debate his Democratic rival, Joe Biden’s running mate Senator Kamala Harris on Wednesday in Utah. A source at the Commission on Presidential Debates, which oversees the events, said there were no plans to scrap the debate after Trump’s positive test.

“This morning, Vice President Pence and the Second Lady tested negative for COVID-19. Vice President Pence remains in good health and wishes the Trumps well in their recovery,” spokesman Devin O’Malley said on Twitter.

Pence does not need to quarantine, because he is not considered a close contact with any individuals who have tested positive, including Trump, Pence’s doctor Jesse Schonau said in a statement. “Vice President Pence remains in good health and is free to go about his normal activities,” he said.

Pence, who was last seen publicly with Trump on Monday at a Rose Garden news conference on coronavirus testing, would take over as acting president should Trump become incapacitated while undergoing medical treatment. That has happened three times in U.S. history.

Then-President George W. Bush temporarily transferred power to Vice President Dick Cheney twice, for a few hours each in 2002 and 2007, while undergoing colonoscopies. Vice President George H.W. Bush was acting president for nearly eight hours in 1985 while President Ronald Reagan had a pre-cancerous lesion removed.

The White House said Trump is “not incapacitated” and is working in isolation while experiencing mild symptoms.

Pence filled in for Trump Friday on a conference call with governors about the coronavirus pandemic, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo told 1010 WINS radio. Pence also stood in for Trump on a call with state leaders to discuss support for vulnerable seniors.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is next in line of succession after Pence. She was tested Friday for COVID-19 and the results were negative, her spokesman said.

Harris tested negative on Thursday as part of her campaign’s routine screening for the virus.

Pence, a former governor of Indiana, has played a largely behind-the-scenes role in Trump’s White House, although he is known to have presidential ambitions of his own.

His deference has endeared him to Trump, helping Pence survive in a White House with near-constant turnover among top officials. But he has sometimes been ridiculed for his public obsequiousness to his boss.

Earlier this year Trump put Pence in charge of the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic, a brief that has not gone well. The nation’s death toll from the virus is over 207,000. New cases of COVID-19 rose in 27 out of 50 U.S. states in September compared with August, a Reuters analysis showed.

Pence has also been central to some of the administration’s legislative efforts, including the tax cuts passed in 2017. Pence staunchly opposes abortion rights and passionately supports de-regulation of business and shrinking the size of government.

-reuters

North Korea says ready to hit back if US attacks

UNITED NATIONS, United States — North Korea is preparing for “any mode of war” triggered by US military action, Pyongyang’s envoy to the United Nations warned Monday, saying his country would respond to a missile or nuclear strike “in kind.”

The statement from North Korea’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Kim In Ryong, followed warnings from US Vice President Mike Pence to Pyongyang not to test US resolve.

“If the United States dares opt for a military action (…) the DPRK is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the Americans,” Kim told a news conference at UN headquarters in New York.

“We will take the toughest counteraction against the provocateurs,” he said.

North Korea has taken “self-defensive” measures in response to US threats of military action and these reflect Pyongyang’s determination to “counter nukes and ICBM in kind,” Kim said, referring to intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Pence earlier told a news conference in South Korea that “the era of strategic patience is over” after North Korea on Sunday test-fired another missile and fears mounted that it may be preparing a sixth nuclear test.

Pyongyang is seeking to develop a long-range missile capable of hitting the US mainland with a nuclear warhead, and has so far staged five nuclear tests, two of them last year.

Kim also confirmed that a new nuclear test was under preparation, saying that the plans had been announced and that “it will take place.”

“As far as nuclear test is concerned, it was already announced to the public. It is something that our headquarters decided. At a time and at the place where our headquarters deem necessary, it will take place,” he said.

‘Got to behave’

US President Donald Trump’s decision at the weekend to send the Carl Vinson carrier-led navy strike group to the Korean peninsula shows that the “US reckless moves for invading the DPRK have reached a serious phase,” said Kim.

The North Korean deputy envoy asserted that Pyongyang would hold the United States “wholly accountable for the catastrophic consequences to be entailed by its outrageous actions.”

The envoy criticized the US missile strikes that hit an air base in Syria last week, saying Washington was resorting to a “gangster-like logic” that its military action was proportionate and could apply to the Korean peninsula as well.

Trump on Monday said his message to North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un was: “Got to behave.”

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric separately expressed concern over rising tensions on the Korean peninsula and said the latest missile test was “troubling”.

He urged North Korea to “take all the steps necessary to de-escalate the situation and return to dialogue on denuclearization.”

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will next week chair a special meeting of the UN Security Council on North Korea.  CBB

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Trump wins Indiana and Kentucky, Clinton takes Vermont: networks

WASHINGTON, United States — Republican Donald Trump won Indiana, the home state of his running mate Mike Pence, while Hillary Clinton took the northeastern state of Vermont, in the first results of Tuesday’s US presidential election, television networks projected.

It was still too early to determine a winner in three of the first six states to close their polls — Republican-leaning South Carolina and Georgia, and the key battleground of Virginia, the networks said.

Those first results give the 70-year-old Republican billionaire an early lead in the count of Electoral College votes — 19 to three for Clinton.

The lead in the running tally toward the magic number of 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House — a majority of the 538 up for grabs — was expected to change hands as the evening wore on in the closely contested election. CBB

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Michelle Obama stumps with Hillary; Pence in plane scare

WINSTON-SALEM, United States—First Lady Michelle Obama implored voters to troop to the polls as she stumped Thursday for Democrat Hillary Clinton, while the race suffered a scare when Donald Trump’s running mate’s plane skidded off the runway.

No one was reported hurt in the incident, in which the plane carrying Indiana Governor and Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence came to rest in grass next to the runway after landing at New York’s rain-soaked LaGuardia airport.

But with the mishap coming in the final throes of a combative campaign that will be decided November 8, several Twitter users described it as a metaphor for the 2016 race.

Trump, speaking in Ohio, said he was grateful that those on the plane avoided “grave, grave danger.”

“I just spoke to Mike Pence. He’s fine,” Trump said.

Clinton also expressed relief that no one was hurt.

The former first lady and secretary of state enlisted the current first lady, who enjoys sky-high support, in hammering Trump and making the case for a third straight Democratic term in the White House.

Obama earned thunderous roars of approval from a crowd of 11,000 as she took the stage with Clinton in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, one of the swing states in play, where they accused Trump of seeking to depress turnout.

Obama has emerged as a compelling force in the hard-fought campaign, delivering powerful arguments against the Republican billionaire and in support of Clinton’s bid to become the first female US president.



“She is ready to be commander-in-chief on Day 1, and yes, she happens to be a woman,” Obama said of Clinton, whom she called “my girl.”

The 52-year-old wife of President Barack Obama has energized Democrats by criticizing Trump for his strident rhetoric and for what she brands his “frightening” attitude towards women.

Trump’s strategy was “to make this election so dirty and ugly that we don’t want any part of it,” she said.

“When you hear folks talking about a global conspiracy and saying that this election is ‘rigged,’ understand that they are trying to get you to stay home.”

Clinton has basked in the results of new polls showing her with an impressive lead with just 12 days to go.

North Carolina voted for Obama in 2008, then for Republican nominee Mitt Romney in 2012.

But Clinton has expanded her narrow lead to 2.4 points in the southeastern state, where Republican leaders worry that Trump’s slow collapse will hurt them in congressional races.

Clinton, whose campaign announced a large fundraising haul on Thursday, struck a tone of unity and optimism.

“As Michelle reminds us, this election is about our kids and, in my case, our grandkids,” Clinton said. “Starting right now, let’s come together. Let’s work together and be hopeful and optimistic and unified.”

Combative Trump

The latest rolling poll average compiled by tracker RealClearPolitics showed Clinton, who turned 69 on Wednesday, with a 5.4 point lead in a national race against Trump and two outsiders — pointing to a likely electoral college victory for the Democrat.

In Toledo, Ohio, Trump quipped that the election should be scrapped.

“I am just thinking to myself right now we should just cancel the election and just give it to Trump,” he told the crowd.


Trump’s standing has been hit hard, particularly among female voters, since the release this month of a 2005 video in which he boasts that his celebrity allows him to grope women with impunity.

But the 70-year-old Manhattan real estate mogul turned serious in an interview with Fox News, saying that NBC — the company that owns the “Access Hollywood” show that recorded Trump’s 2005 comments — broke the law and could be sued.

“It was an illegal act,” he said.

Trump meanwhile took heart from a new survey that shows him with a two-point lead in Florida, a state where presidential races are often won and lost — and a must-win state for him.

“We don’t want to give this away,” the combative candidate promised supporters in Ohio.

‘Fast and loose’

The RealClearPolitics poll average still puts Clinton ahead in Florida by 1.6 percentage points, but she wants to lock it in.

The president, who narrowly won Florida in 2008 and 2012, campaigns for her there Friday, while Clinton is scheduled to join pop star Jennifer Lopez on stage Saturday in Miami.

As Clinton called on voters to rise above the nastiness of the race, new WikiLeaks disclosures threatened her campaign, notably an email in which aide Douglas Band detailed his own money-making efforts both on behalf of Bill Clinton personally and the foundation.

Band wrote of helping the former president “secure and engage in for-profit activities — including speeches, books, and advisory service engagements.”

Trump pounced, calling the activity outright corruption.

“If the Clintons were willing to play this fast and loose with their enterprise when they weren’t in the White House, just imagine what they’d do given the chance to once again control the Oval Office,” he said./rga

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net