No-party candidate in Florida Senate race hires lawyer and says he doesn’t live in district
Alex Rodriguez, an unknown, no-party candidate who likely influenced the outcome in a Miami-Dade Senate race, hired an attorney as prosecutors investigate.
A no-party candidate who ran in a Senate race for a Miami-Dade district has retained legal counsel as state prosecutors investigate his candidacy.
Alex Rodriguez received more than 6,300 votes in the race for Senate District 37 and likely cost incumbent Democrat José Javier Rodríguez, who
shares the same surname, his seat. Republican Ileana Garcia won the race by 34 votes after a manual recount. More than 215,000 votes were cast.
Alexis Pedro Rodriguez, whose name on the ballot appeared as Alex Rodriguez, confirmed to a Miami Herald reporter at his Boca Raton home Wednesday that he lived in Palm Beach County and wanted to run for state Senate in Miami-Dade because as a Miami native “it’s always something I wanted to do.”
According to election documents obtained by the Miami Herald, Rodriguez’s mailing address was in Palm Beach County for the 2020 election.
Rodriguez’s candidacy is in question after he listed a Palmetto Bay house on his sworn candidate oath, though he no
The CDC’s warning runs counter to messages from administration officials, who have denounced concerns that Thanksgiving celebrations will speed the virus’ spread.
“A lot of the guidelines you’re seeing are Orwellian,” Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, said on “Fox & Friends,” singling out an Oregon requirement that gatherings not exceed more than six people.
Members of the White House coronavirus task force did not even mention Thanksgiving at a news conference Thursday, even as they warned of the hazards associated with indoor gatherings and urged “vigilance” in the face of rampant infections.
An estimated 55 million Americans had planned to travel for the holiday, according to AAA Travel. But rising coronavirus infections, new quarantine rules and increased unemployment have combined to deter travelers in the past few weeks, and that number will be at least 10% lower now, the largest year-over-year decrease since 2008.
United Airlines said recently that it expected Thanksgiving week to be its busiest period since the pandemic’s onset. But on Thursday, the airline reported that bookings had slowed and cancellations had risen. American Airlines has slashed flights between the United States and Europe as cases rise sharply on both sides of the Atlantic.
Emboldened CDC officials, rarely heard from in recent months, have been speaking more forcefully since President-elect Joe Biden won the election. On Thursday, agency researchers said they were alarmed by the “exponential” rise in coronavirus infections, hospitalizations and deaths across the country.
More than 1 million new cases have been reported in the past week alone.
“Amid this critical phase, the CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period,” Dr. Henry Walke, COVID-19 incident manager at the agency, said at a news briefing. “All Americans want to do what they can to protect their loved ones.”
As of Wednesday, the seven-day average of daily new cases across the country had surpassed 162,000, an increase of 77% from the figure two weeks earli
er. More than 79,000 hospitalizations were reported Wednesday.
Officials in California on Thursday announced a curfew aimed at trying to quickly curb a surge of new coronavirus infections. Nearly all the residents of the nation’s most populous state will be barred from leaving their homes to do nonessential work or to gather from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s order comes amid what state officials and experts have described as an alarming — but not yet irreversible — wave of new infections heading into a dangerous Thanksgiving week.
Given the growing crisis, the CDC’s timing confounded some scientists
who have warned for weeks that the holiday gatherings might accelerate the pandemic.
“They’re a little late — everybody’s got their plane tickets,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectiousdisease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “But better late than never.”
Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota and a member of Biden’s COVID-19 advisory board, warned that a Thanksgiving feast was the perfect setting for spreading the virus.
“This is a bad time to be swapping air with people that are not immediate household members,” he said. “You can have one person sitting at the table who appears to be perfectly healthy, and you can infect most of the people, if not all of the people, sitting at that table.”
Small household gatherings help spread the virus, although their contribution to the overall toll has been hard to define. Older family members are particularly vulnerable to developing severe COVID-19, especially if they have chronic health conditions.
Walke and others were at pains to differentiate between household members and family members. Many Americans believe that it is safe to gather with family, even if they don’t live together; in fact, most scientists say only other members of the household are safe company.
Researchers define a household as people who have been living together under the same roof for the last 14 days. That definition might apply to unrelated roommates who share living quarters but might exclude close family members who have been living apart from their parents.
The new recommendations pose a particular quandary for families anticipating the return of a college student or hoping to host an adult child who lives in a separate residence. Neither child is part of the household.
CDC officials do not endorse testing before gathering for Thanksgiving.
Testing is far from foolproof, and a negative result indicates only that “you probably were not infected at the time your sample was collected,” according to the agency.
If members of different households are gathering in someone’s home for the Thanksgiving meal, they should all wear masks, except when eating, and remain 6 feet apart, federal officials said.
Guests should be encouraged to wash their hands with soap and water, and no one should hug or exchange handshakes. When gathering inside, attendees should wear masks as much as possible when not eating. Windows and doors should be kept open as much as possible to improve ventilation.
The CDC’s advice went so far as to urge people to speak in low voices, because shouting — or singing — can spread the virus. Only one person should serve the food, federal officials said. If there are overnight guests, they should have their own bathroom.