Nicaragua President Ortega seeks 4th term in a questioned vote
MANAGUA, Nicaragua — Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega sought a fourth consecutive term in elections Sunday against a field of little-known candidates while those who could have given him a real challenge sat in jail.
More than 13,000 polling places opened Sunday even as the opposition denounced more arrests of its leaders in activists around the county in the hours leading up to the vote.
The opposition called on Nicaraguans to stay home in protest of an electoral process that has been roundly criticized as not credible by foreign powers.
The election will determine who holds the presidency for the next five years, as well as 90 of the 92 seats in the congress and Nicaragua’s representation in the Central American Parliament.
Ortega’s Sandinista Front and its allies control the congress and all government institutions. Ortega first served as president from 1985 to 1990, before returning to power in 2007. He recently declared his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, his “co-president.”
In June, police arrested seven potential presidential challengers on charges that essentially amount to treason. They remained in detention Sunday. Some two dozen other opposition leaders were also swept up ahead of the elections.
The other contenders on Sunday’s ballot were little known politicians from minor parties seen as friendly with the Sandinista Front.
On Saturday, the Blue and White National Union, an opposition alliance, issued an alert after at least eight of its leaders were “abducted by the regime in illegal raids” in the afternoon and evening.
The Civic Alliance, another opposition coalition, reported “harassment, surveillance, intimidation, assault, attacks, illegal and arbitrary detentions” of some of its leaders around Nicaragua.
The heads of the police and army said the vote was occurring without incident.
Around midday, Ortega spoke live on television after voting. He blasted the United States for interference in Nicaragua, noted there had been alleged fraud in the last U.S. election, reminded that those who stormed the U.S. Capitol were called terrorists and remain jailed. He repeated his claim that the U.S. government supported huge protests in Nicaragua in April 2018, which he has called an attempted coup.
SpaceX return delayed:
High wind off the Florida coast has prompted SpaceX to delay the return of four space station astronauts in orbit since spring.
The U.S., French and Japanese astronauts were supposed to leave the International Space Station on Sunday, with their capsule splashing down in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday morning. But with gusts exceeding safety limits, SpaceX bumped the departure to Monday afternoon, with a nighttime return to conclude their six-month mission.
The good news is that their trip home will now last eight hours, less than half as long as before.
SpaceX still is aiming for a Wednesday night launch, at the earliest, of their replacements. This flight also has been delayed by bad weather, as well as an astronaut’s undisclosed medical
issue. The issue, described as minor, should be resolved by launch time, officials said.
China snowstorm: An early-season snowstorm blanketed much of northern China including in Beijing.
The National Meteorological Center issued an orange alert for snowstorms, the second highest level in China’s four-tier warning system.
Accumulations of more than 11 inches were forecast in some areas.
Beijing was hit hardest Sunday morning. Several highway sections were closed, bus service was suspended on more than 160 routes and flights were reduced at the city’s two major airports, state media said. High-speed trains to Tianjin and Shanghai were canceled or delayed.
The city also said that snow from neighborhoods with COVID-19 cases would not be removed, state media reported without citing a reason.
Mardi Gras sentence: A Louisiana appeals court has thrown out the 90-year prison sentence for a drunken driver who struck nine bicycle riders near a Mardi Gras parade route in March 2019, killing two of them.
The state 4th Circuit Court of Appeal said the judge who sentenced Tashonty Toney failed to sufficiently spell out the reasons for handing out the maximum sentences following Toney’s guilty plea. Therefore, the ruling said, appellate judges could not adequately review Toney’s argument that the total sentence was excessive.
The ruling, dated Wednesday, sent the case back to the criminal court in New Orleans for what the panel requested to be a “meaningful sentencing hearing.”
Blood tests showed Toney was driving with a blood-alcohol level above .21 percent.
Driving at speeds reaching 80 mph, Toney veered
at times, sending bicycles and their riders flying, court records show.
Sharree Walls, 27, of New Orleans and David Hynes, 31, a Seattle man and Tulane Law School graduate who was visiting during Mardi Gras, were killed.
Toney pleaded guilty in October 2019 to 16 criminal counts, including two counts of vehicular homicide, each of which carried a maximum 30-year sentence. His plea agreement did not include a sentencing agreement.
Germany train attack: A 27-year-old man who stabbed four people with a knife on a German highspeed train apparently attacked his victims “at random” and showed signs of mental illness, authorities said Sunday.
Police and investigators in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz said the attacker’s intentions were still unclear, but there is no indication of a terror motive. The suspect was
arrested on the train after Saturday’s attack, offering no resistance to police, and has since been taken to a psychiatric clinic.
All four victims were local men. Two remained in the hospital on Sunday.
Police said the suspect, a Syrian citizen, came to Germany in 2014 and was granted asylum in 2016. He reportedly lost his job the day before the attack.
Gas prices surge: The average U.S. price of regular-grade gasoline jumped by 5 cents over the past two weeks, to $3.49 per gallon.
The price at the pump is $1.30 higher than a year ago.
Industry analyst Trilby Lundberg of the Lundberg Survey said Sunday the rise comes as the cost of crude oil and ethanol surges.
Nationwide, the highest average price for regular-grade gas is in the San Francisco Bay Area, at $4.77 per gallon. The lowest average is in Houston, at $2.98 per gallon.