SURROUNDED BY AN INFERNO
A boat motors by as the Bidwell Bar Bridge is surrounded by fire in Lake Oroville during the Bear fire in Oroville, California, on Wednesday. Dangerous dry winds whipped up California’s record-breaking wildfires and ignited new blazes Tuesday, as hundreds were evacuated by helicopter and tens of thousands were plunged into darkness by power outages across the western United States.
WASHINGTON — Delivery of mail-order prescription drugs was delayed significantly this summer after the new postmaster general ordered major changes in U.S. Postal Service operations, according to a report released Wednesday by Senate Democrats.
The report contradicts public claims by Louis DeJoy that the recent moves he imposed “should not have impacted anybody.”
Prescription drug orders filled by mail have risen by one-fifth during the coronavirus pandemic, the report found, and delivery times for medications generally increased by as much as one-third. That means deliveries that previously took two days or three days now take an extra day, the report said.
Some delays were much longer. One mail-order pharmacy, not identified in the report, said there was “a marked increase in July in the number of patients experiencing shipment delays of seven days or more.” A different pharmacy reported that orders taking over five days have “risen dramatically.”
“I blame the postmaster general for delays in prescription deliveries that put the health of the American people at risk,” said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass.
Warren released the report Wednesday with Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. Both senators serve on the Senate Special Committee on Aging and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
At a Capitol news conference, Warren acknowledged the pandemic has “put some stress” on the Postal Service by increasing Americans’ reliance on the mail. But she said the response should have been to “put more resources in, so the post office can maintain on-time delivery.” Instead, DeJoy “cut resources” and took other steps to make on-time delivery more difficult, she said. “He’s gone in exactly the opposite direction.”
A Postal Service spokesman said the agency’s workforce, “like many others, have been impacted by the COVID-19 crisis, which has resulted in certain service disruptions.”
Rochester protests: Two protesters accused of attacking police officers in Rochester, New York, during a demonstration over the suffocation death of Daniel Prude face federal civil disorder charges, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Adam Green and Dallas Williams-Smothers, both 20, were charged with obstructing and impeding law enforcement during a civil disorder. Green, of Dansville, New York, struck an officer in the head Saturday night with a makeshift wooden shield after the crowd was told to disperse, while Dallas Williams-Smothers, of Rochester, threw a “mortarstyle, commercial grade” firework at a line of police officers that same night, according to U.S. Attorney James P. Kennedy.
“These arrests are not about deterring free speech, they’re about deterring violent and dangerous criminal activity,” Kennedy said at a news conference.
Nobel nod for Trump: An anti-immigrant Norwegian lawmaker said Wednesday that he has nominated President Donald Trump for the
Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts in the Middle East.
Christian TybringGjedde, a member of the Norwegian parliament for the populist Progress Party, said Trump should be considered because of his work “for a peace agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel which opens up for possible peace in the Middle East.”
Israel and the United Arab Emirates agreed last month to a historic deal normalizing relations and are scheduled to sign it Tuesday at the White House.
Youth vaping: Vaping by U.S. teenagers fell dramatically this year, especially among middle schoolers, according to a federal report released Wednesday.
Experts think last year’s outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and deaths may have scared off some kids, but they believe other factors contributed to the drop, including higher age limits and flavor bans.
In a national survey, just under 20% of high school students and 5% of middle school students said they were recent users of electronic cigarettes and other vaping products. That marks a big decline from a similar survey last year that found about 28% of high school students and 11% of middle school students recently vaped.
The survey suggests that the number of school kids who vape fell by 1.8 million in a year, from 5.4 million to 3.6 million, officials said.
Diplomatic immunity lawsuit: The family of a British teenager killed in a motorcycle crash has filed a lawsuit in Virginia against a U.S. diplomat’s wife who left England after allegedly causing the crash.
Anne Sacoolas claimed diplomatic immunity after the August 2019 crash that claimed the life of Harry Dunn, 19. She left the U.K. along with her husband, Jonathan, a U.S. intelligence officer at RAF Croughton, a military base in central England used by U.S. forces.
Anne Sacoolas was driving on the wrong side of the road when she struck Dunn’s motorcycle headon, authorities said.
British authorities subsequently filed criminal charges against Anne Sacoolas and sought her extradition, but U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo rejected the extradition request in January and said his decision is final.
Tennessee plane crash: Three people killed in a small plane crash near a Tennessee airport were National Guard members, an official said Wednesday.
Tennessee National Guard spokesman Chris Messina said the identities of the three killed in the plane crash would be released later. Messina said the Guard members were on leave at the time of the crash.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the three were aboard a single-engine Piper PA-28 airplane that crashed Tuesday near Warren County Memorial Airport in McMinnville, which is northeast of Nashville.
The plane took off from the airport and crashed in a nearby field, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Peter Knudson said. A witness told investigators that the plane appeared to be trying to return to the airport when it crashed.
VW diesel emissions: A German court has ruled that former Volkswagen CEO Martin Winterkorn must stand trial on fraud charges in connection with the company’s diesel emission scandal in which it sold cars with software that let them cheat on emissions tests.
The three-judge panel in Braunschweig in Volkswagen’s home region of Lower Saxony ruled that car buyers suffered a financial loss when they bought a car without being aware it was equipped with illegal software.
Winterkorn, who denied wrongdoing, resigned from Volkswagen days after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced a notice of violation on Sept. 18, 2015.