AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST

Hospitalizations skyrocket in kids too young for COVID shots

Hospitalizations of U.S. children under 5 with COVID-19 soared in recent weeks to their highest level since the pandemic began, according to government data released Friday on the only age group not yet eligible for the vaccine.

The worrisome trend in children too young to be vaccinated underscores the need for older kids and adults to get their shots to help protect those around them, said Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Since mid-December, with the highly contagious omicron variant spreading furiously around the country, the hospitalization rate in these youngest kids has surged to more than 4 in 100,000 children, up from 2.5 per 100,000.

The rate among children ages 5 to 17 is about 1 per 100,000, according to the CDC data, which is drawn from over 250 hospitals in 14 states.

Overall, “pediatric hospitalizations are at their highest rate compared to any prior point in the pandemic,” Walensky said.

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Supreme Court skeptical of Biden’s workplace vaccine rule

WASHINGTON (AP) — Fully vaccinated and mostly masked, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical Friday of the Biden administration’s authority to impose a vaccine-or-testing requirement on the nation’s large employers. The court seemed more open to a separate vaccine mandate for most health care workers.

The arguments in the two cases come at a time of spiking coronavirus cases because of the omicron variant, and the decision Friday by seven justices to wear masks for the first time while hearing arguments reflected the new phase of the pandemic.

An eighth justice, Sonia Sotomayor, a diabetic since childhood, didn’t even appear in the courtroom, choosing to remain in her office at the court and take part remotely. Two lawyers, representing Ohio and Louisiana, argued by telephone after recent positive COVID-19 tests, state officials said.

But the COVID circumstances did not appear to outweigh the views of the court’s six conservatives that the administration overstepped its authority in its vaccine-or-testing requirement for businesses with at least 100 employees.

“This is something the federal government has never done before,” Chief Justice John Roberts said, casting doubt on the administration’s argument that a half-century-established law, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, confers such broad authority.

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Sidney Poitier changed movies, and changed lives

NEW YORK (AP) — We go to movies not just to escape, but to discover. We might identify with the cowboy or the runaway bride or the kid who befriends a creature from another planet.

To see yourself on screen has long been another way of knowing you exist.

Sidney Poitier, who died Thursday at 94, was the rare performer who really did change lives, who embodied possibilities once absent from the movies. His impact was as profound as Method acting or digital technology, his story inseparable from the story of the country he emigrated to as a teenager.

“What emerges on the screen reminds people of something in themselves, because I’m so many different things,” he wrote in his memoir “The Measure of a Man,” published in 2000. “I’m a network of primal feelings, instinctive emotions that have been wrestled with so long they’re automatic.”

Poitier made Hollywood history, by breaking from the stereotypes of bug-eyed entertainers, and American history, by appearing in films during the 1950s and 1960s that paralleled the growth of the civil rights movement. As segregation laws were challenged and fell, Poitier was the performer to whom a cautious Hollywood turned for stories of progress, a bridge to the growing candor and variety of Black filmmaking today.

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Arbery killers get life in prison; no parole for father, son

BRUNSWICK, Ga. (AP) — Three white men convicted of murder for chasing and killing Ahmaud Arbery were sentenced to life in prison Friday, with a judge denying any chance of parole for the father and son who armed themselves and initiated the deadly pursuit of the 25-year-old Black man.

Superior Court Judge Timothy Walmsley said Arbery left his home for a jog and ended up running for his life for five minutes as the men chased him until they finally cornered him. The judge paused for a minute of silence to help drive home a sense of what that time must have felt like for Arbery, whose killing became part of a larger national reckoning on racial injustice.

“When I thought about this, I thought from a lot of different angles. I kept coming back to the terror that must have been in the mind of the young man running through Satilla Shores,” he said, mentioning the neighborhood where Arbery was killed.

Greg and Travis McMichael grabbed guns and jumped in a pickup truck to chase Arbery after spotting him running in their neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick on Feb. 23, 2020. Their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan joined the pursuit in his own truck and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael firing close-range shotgun blasts into Arbery.

“Ahmaud Arbery was then hunted down and shot, and he was killed because individuals here in this courtroom took the law into their own hands,” the judge said. Walmsley ordered the McMichaels to serve life without parole and granted Bryan a chance to earn parole after serving at least 30 years in prison.

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Biden’s economic challenge: Finding workers and goods

President Joe Biden enters the midterm election year of 2022 determined to address what economists call a “supply” problem — there aren’t enough jobseekers or goods to meet the country’s needs.

This is also a political problem. The mismatch has obscured the strong growth and 3.9% unemployment rate achieved during Biden’s first year, the kind of performance that would typically help the president and congressional Democrats woo voters in the midterms. It has left Biden trying to showcase his economic achievements while trying to parry Republican criticism that his policies have fueled inflation.

“This is the kind of recovery I promised and hoped for for the American people,” the president said in remarks Friday. “My focus is on keeping this recovery strong and durable, notwithstanding Republican obstructionism. Because, you know, I know that even as jobs and families’ incomes have recovered, families are still feeling the pinch of prices and costs.”

Pessimism has overtaken Americans’ views on the economy, even though the economy is objectively better than it was in 2020 right before Biden took office. The index of consumer sentiment tracked by the University of Michigan is 12.5% lower than a year ago, despite people being vaccinated and 6.4 million jobs added over the past 12 months.

Shoppers are focused on shortages of cars, bath towels and even breakfast cereal. Employers can’t fill the 10.6 million jobs they’re advertising, as Friday’s employment report showed a mere 199,000 jobs gained in December. Prices for almost everything are rising — with forecasters expecting a 7.1% annual increase to turn up in next Wednesday’s inflation report.

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Kazakh president: Forces can shoot to kill to quell unrest

MOSCOW (AP) — Kazakhstan’s president authorized security forces on Friday to shoot to kill those participating in unrest, opening the door for a dramatic escalation in a crackdown on anti-government protests that have turned violent.

The Central Asian nation this week experienced its worst street protests since gaining independence from the Soviet Union three decades ago, and dozens have been killed in the tumult. The demonstrations began over a near-doubling of prices for a type of vehicle fuel and quickly spread across the country, reflecting wider discontent with authoritarian rule.

In a televised address to the nation, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev used harsh rhetoric, referring to those involved in the turmoil as “terrorists,” “bandits” and “militants” — though it was unclear what led the peaceful protests to first gather steam and then descend into violence. No protest leaders have emerged so far.

“I have given the order to law enforcement and the army to shoot to kill without warning,” Tokayev said. “Those who don’t surrender will be eliminated.”

Concerns grew in recent days that an even broader crackdown might be coming, as internet and cellphone service was severely disrupted and sometimes totally blocked, and several airports closed — making it difficult to know what was happening inside the country and for images of the unrest to reach the outside world.

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Ethiopia grants amnesty to high-profile political detainees

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia’s government on Friday announced an amnesty for some of the country’s most high-profile political detainees, including opposition figure Jawar Mohammed and senior Tigray party officials, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed spoke of reconciliation for Orthodox Christmas.

“The key to lasting unity is dialogue,” the government said in a statement on the amnesty. “Ethiopia will make any sacrifices to this end.”

It was the most dramatic move yet by the government after the country’s deadly Tigray war entered a new phase in late December, when Tigray forces retreated into their region amid a military offensive and Ethiopian forces said they would not advance further there.

The war in Africa’s second most populous country has highlighted the deadly ethnic tensions posing the greatest challenge to Abiy’s rule.

Ethiopia’s state broadcaster, EBC, named both Jawar and opposition figure Eskinder Nega, who were detained in July 2020 following deadly unrest over the killing of popular ethnic Oromo artist Hachalu Hundessa, as those granted amnesty. Eskinder, leader of the Balderas party, left a detention center on Friday evening.

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More details emerge about teen in Michigan school shooting

DETROIT (AP) — Two parents charged with their son in a Michigan school shooting failed to get their $500,000 bond reduced Friday, as prosecutors offered new allegations about the teen’s hallucinations, passion for guns and boasts about violence.

James and Jennifer Crumbley, who are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Oxford High School shooting, ignored numerous warning signs about Ethan Crumbley and instead bought him a gun that was used to kill four students and injure others on Nov. 30, assistant prosecutor Marc Keast told a judge.

In August, Ethan made a video with a different gun and told a friend in a message that it was “time to shoot up the school — jk, jk, jk,” Keast said, apparently a reference to “just kidding.”

The 15-year-old was fascinated with Nazi propaganda, even keeping a Nazi coin in plain view in his bedroom and drawing Nazi symbols in a notebook that was also used to make family grocery lists, Keast said.

Earlier in 2021, Ethan told his mother in text messages that he thought “there was a demon or a ghost or someone else inside the home,” the prosecutor said. “These weren’t one-time messages. He would repeatedly text what he was perceiving to his mother, who sometimes would not respond for hours.”

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Companies keep mum as vaccine mandate goes to Supreme Court

NEW YORK (AP) — Companies that would be affected by a Biden administration vaccine-or-testing requirement for workers have largely remained on the sidelines while the Supreme Court considers whether the rule can be enforced.

The requirement, which would apply to companies with 100 or more employees, has faced numerous court challenges and was upheld last month by a three-judge panel with the U.S. Court of Appeals. Since then, one major company — Starbucks — announced its own vaccine mandate. It said in December that all U.S. workers must be fully vaccinated by Feb. 9 or face a weekly COVID testing requirement.

Many companies, including Lowe’s and Target, have publicly said they would abide by any federal vaccine mandate and were taking steps to meet it, but stopped short of coming out with their own requirement. General Motors said in an email to The Associated Press Friday that it “stands firmly in support” of COVID-19 vaccinations, and that it was reviewing the rules “with multiple internal and external stakeholders.”

“GM continues to encourage employees to get vaccinated given the broad availability of safe and highly effective vaccines, which data consistently show is the best way to protect yourself and those around you,” General Motors said.

The arguments before the Supreme Court come as companies of all stripes are grappling with labor shortages made more acute by the rapid spread of the highly contagious omicron variant of COVID-19. Business groups like the National Federation of Independent Businesses and National Retail Federation have slammed the requirements as onerous and could hinder companies’ ability to hire workers.

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‘Jeopardy!’ champ hits $1 million; talks fame, trans rights

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Jeopardy!” champion Amy Schneider is adding to her list of bragging rights and admirers.

Already the highest-earning female contestant in the quiz show’s history and the woman with the longest winning streak, on Friday she became one of only four “Jeopardy!” players to reach seven figures in regular-season winnings.

She’s collected $1.02 million in 28 victories, solidifying her 4th-place position on the list that includes Ken Jennings with $2.5 million; James Holzhauer, $2.46 million, and Matt Amodio, $1.52 million.

Schneider, who’s also fourth in consecutive wins, will compete again Monday.

Poised and affable on TV and in an interview with The Associated Press, she doesn’t seem the gloating type. But she is tickled by the fact that she’s fulfilled a prediction made by her 8th-grade classmates in Dayton, Ohio: She was voted most likely to be a “Jeopardy!” contestant, based on her geography and spelling bee prowess.

The Associated Press