January 2020

Revelers around world usher in new decade ’

(AP) - Revelers around the globe are bidding farewell to a decade that will be remembered for the rise of social media, the Arab Spring, the #MeToo movement and, of course, President Donald Trump.

A look at how the world is ushering in 2020:

AUSTRALIA

More than a million people descended on a hazy Sydney Harbour and surrounding areas ahead of the ringing in of the new year despite the ongoing wildfire crisis ravaging New South Wales, Australia’s most populous state.

Firearms instructor took out gunman at Texas church service

WHITE SETTLEMENT, Texas (AP) — Alarms went off in Jack Wilson’s head the moment a man wearing a fake beard, a wig, a hat and a long coat walked into a Texas church for Sunday services.

By the time the man approached a communion server and pulled out a shotgun, Wilson and another security volunteer were already reaching for their own guns.

Three years in, no sign of Trump’s replacement for Obamacare

WASHINGTON (AP) — As a candidate for the White House, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that he would “immediately” replace President Barack Obama’s health care law with a plan of his own that would provide “insurance for everybody.”

Back then, Trump made it sound that his plan — “much less expensive and much better” than the Affordable Care Act — was imminent. And he put drug companies on notice that their pricing power no longer would be “politically protected.”

Bring on 2020: Some Democrats end year with campaign events

BOSTON (AP) — Many of the Democratic candidates looking to unseat President Donald Trump in 2020 are spending the last day of 2019 ringing in the new year with would-be supporters. Elizabeth Warren is marking her anniversary of forming a presidential exploratory committee with a speech at Boston’s Old South Meeting House on Tuesday highlighting how she’d stamp out government corruption. The Congregational church is famous for being the organizing point for the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

Saints eager to tackle tougher road to Super Bowl

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — For the second time since 2011, a Saints team coached by Sean Payton and quarterbacked by Drew Brees has finished a regular season 13-3, only to learn that was not good enough to secure a toptwo playoff seed in the NFC and a first-round bye.

In both cases, remarkably, New Orleans was edged out by the same two franchises: Green Bay and San Francisco.

The NBA’s East is loaded at the top, and might stay that way

(AP) - The West is used to being loaded at the top. The East, not so much.

But a new year is arriving with a new look in the NBA’s Eastern Conference. The league will wake up on Wednesday — the first day of 2020 — with six teams with winning percentages of .600 or better, the first time that’s been the case on New Year’s Day since 1998.

“This is a tough part of the country, a tough part of our league,” Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said.

Tigers defeat Liberty, 74-57

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BATON ROUGE – For the second straight December, LSU put the first loss on one of the country’s last remaining undefeated teams as the Tigers scored an impressive 74-57 win over Liberty Sunday afternoon at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

Liberty fell to 14-1 on the season, one year and a week after LSU downed 12-0 Furman in the Assembly Center on Dec. 21, 2018 by almost an identical score, 75-57.

Trump signs law to reduce robocalls, though they won’t end

NEW YORK (AP) — An anti-robocalls measure signed into law Monday by President Donald Trump should help reduce the torrent of unwanted calls promising lower interest rates or pretending to be the IRS, though it won’t make all such calls disappear.

The new law gives authorities more enforcement powers and could speed up measures the industry is already taking to identify robocalls. And when phone companies block robocalls, they must do so without charging consumers. This should help Americans dodge many of these annoying calls.

Woman sues Epstein estate, says she was 14 during encounter

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — A woman who says she was 14 when she had a sexual encounter with financier Jeffrey Epstein at his mansion sued his estate in Florida court on Monday for coercion, inflicting emotional distress and battery.

The lawsuit filed in Palm Beach County asks for an undisclosed amount of money. The lawsuit doesn’t give the woman’s name and only refers to her as “JJ Doe.”

The woman went to Epstein’s Florida mansion in 2003 when she was “a vulnerable child without adequate parental support,” the lawsuit said.

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