USA
CDC posts rationale for shorter isolation, quarantine
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations, and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults.
The CDC also maintained that, for people who catch COVID-19, testing is not required to emerge from five days of isolation — despite hints from other federal officials that the agency was reconsidering that.
The agency announced the changes last week, halving the isolation time for Americans who catch the coronavirus and have no symptoms or only brief illnesses. Isolation should only end if a person has been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and if other symptoms are resolving, the CDC added.
It similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine, from 10 days to five.
CDC officials previously said the changes were in keeping with evidence that people with the coronavirus are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.
Some experts have questioned how the new recommendations were crafted and why they were changed amid a spike in cases driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. Some also expressed dismay that the guidelines allowed people to leave isolation without getting tested to see if they were still infectious.
Also read: Snow storms and pandemic ground flights, delay holiday's end
On Tuesday, the CDC posted documents designed to address those — and other — questions about the latest recommendations. The new guidance applies to school children as well as adults, the CDC said, responding to questions raised by school leaders around the country.
In laying out the scientific basis for the revisions, the agency said more than 100 studies from 17 countries indicate that most transmission happens early in an infection. The CDC acknowledged the data come from research done when delta and other pre-omicron variants were causing the most infections. But the agency also pointed to limited, early data from the U.S. and South Korea that suggests the time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms may be shorter for omicron than for earlier variants.
The CDC also took up the question of why it didn’t call for a negative test before people emerge from isolation.
On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — the White House’s top medical adviser — said the CDC was considering including the negative test as part of its guidance.
Also read: FDA paves way for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations in young kids
The agency said lab tests can show positive results long after someone stops being contagious, and that a negative at-home test may not necessarily indicate there is no threat. That’s why, the agency said, it was recommending that people wears masks everywhere for the five days after isolation ends.
It did offer tips for those who have access to the tests and want to check themselves before leaving isolation.
Dr. Eric Topol, the head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, accused the agency of furthering confusion. He agreed that it is appropriate to shorten isolation time, but only with testing.
“We do need to come up with a strategy that limits isolation time, but we don’t want it to be one that’s adding to the spread of the virus and unwittingly leading to the virus circulating,” he said.
Yale University’s Dr. Howard Forman said the updated recommendations were communicated poorly last week, but he also applauded the CDC for trying to be more nimble while dealing with limited science, a short supply of tests and an intensifying wave of infections.
Under the previous isolation and quarantine recommendations, “it was obvious that ... society was literally going to be disrupted. If you expected people to comply with those (old) rules, you might as well have a lockdown,” said Forman, a radiologist who teaches public health policy.
The agency acknowledged people weren’t following the longer recommendations: Research suggests only 25% to 30% of people were isolating for a full 10 days under the older guidance, the CDC said.
The CDC also suggests that people exposed to the virus quarantine for five days, unless they have gotten booster shots or recently received their initial vaccine doses. The agency said anyone exposed — regardless of vaccination status — should get tested five days later, if possible.
David Bowie’s extensive music catalog is sold to Warner
The extensive music catalog of David Bowie, stretching from the late 1960s to just before his death in 2016, has been sold to Warner Chappell Music.
More than 400 songs, among them “Space Oddity,” “Ziggy Stardust,” “Fame,” “Rebel Rebel” and “Let’s Dance” on 26 Bowie studio albums released during his lifetime, a posthumous studio album release, Toy, two studio albums from Tin Machine, as well as tracks released as singles from soundtracks and other projects, are included.
Financial details of the sale were not released. Warner Chapell is the music publishing wing of Warner Music Group Corp.
READ: Towering musical theater master Stephen Sondheim dies at 91
David Bowie, born David Jones in London in 1947, died in January 2016 after battling cancer for 18 months. As a performer, Bowie had unpredictable range of styles, melding European jadedness with American rhythms and his ever-changing personas and wardrobes. The gaunt and erudite Bowie brought an open theatricality and androgyny to popular music that changed the very meaning of being a rock star. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1996.
READ: ‘Chiroharith’ Kaiser returns with great music on YouTube
Last year Warner Music Group reached a deal with the Bowie estate that gave Warner Music licensed worldwide rights to Bowie’s recorded music catalog from 1968.
Fighting intensifies in eastern Colombia; at least 23 killed
At least 23 people were killed in Colombia this weekend and 20 had to flee their homes as fighting between rebel groups intensified in the eastern state of Arauca, Colombia's Defense Minister said Monday.
The killings mark a setback for Colombia's government, which was able to bring down homicide rates in much of the country following a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. But it is now struggling to control violence in rural pockets of the country where smaller rebel groups and drug trafficking organizations are fighting over smuggling routes, coca fields, illegal mines and other assets.
Arauca is home to some of Colombia’s largest oil wells and is also crossed by a pipeline that is regularly attacked by rebel groups that steal its oil. The state borders Venezuela and drug trafficking groups have been fighting over its smuggling routes for decades.
Also read: 2 US men, ex-Colombia soldiers held in Haiti assassination
In a statement Monday, Colombia’s army said the latest outbreak of violence was caused by fighting between the National Liberation Army, or ELN, guerrilla group and former members of the FARC who refused to join the peace deal. The army said that both groups are currently fighting for dominance over the area’s drug trade.
Juan Carlos Villate, a human rights officer in the town of Tame, told Colombia’s Blu Radio that he received reports of civilians who were dragged out of their homes and executed on Sunday by members of armed groups. Villate said that he had reports of 50 people who went missing and 27 who were killed over the weekend.
Human Rights Watch said it has received reports of 24 deaths, as well as forced displacements and abductions.
“It appears that the alliance between the ELN and dissidents with the 10th Front of the FARC in the zone has broken," said the group's Colombia expert, Juan Pappier.
Arauca last year received hundreds of refugees who fled from neighboring Venezuela following fighting between the Venezuelan army and FARC splinter groups that also operate on the Venezuelan side of the border.
President Ivan Duque said on Monday that he would send more troops to the area and increase surveillance flights to intercept armed groups and monitor their activity along the border with Venezuela. Duque accused Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro of providing shelter to some of these rebel groups and said Colombia would fight them “with all its might."
While Colombia's overall murder rate has gone down since the peace deal was signed, homicides and forced displacement have also gone up in some rural pockets of the country that were previously dominated by the FARC and where smaller groups, including the ELN, are now fighting for territorial control.
Also read: Rights group: Colombian police cause deaths of 20 protesters
The ELN guerrillas initiated peace talks with the Colombian government in 2017, but those broke down following an attack on a police academy that killed 23 people.
Thousands of flights canceled, delayed at start of workweek in US
A winter storm that hit the mid-Atlantic on Monday combined with pandemic-caused shortages of airline workers to push flight cancellations to a holiday-season high, creating more frustration for travelers just trying to get home.
More than 3,000 U.S. flights and about 4,800 worldwide were canceled by late afternoon Monday on the East Coast, according to tracking service FlightAware. Another 13,000 flights were delayed, including more than 6,000 in the U.S.
Travelers could take hope from an improving weather forecast: Airlines had canceled fewer than 400 U.S. flights scheduled for Tuesday.
Also read: Snow storms and pandemic ground flights, delay holiday's end
First, however, they had to contend with a winter storm that dumped several inches of snow on the District of Columbia, northern Virginia and central Maryland before quitting Monday afternoon.
The cancellations and delays added to the despair felt over the weekend by holidays travelers trying to get home.
Jason Pevitt was stuck at the Atlanta airport for eight hours — and counting — by Monday evening, trying to get home to Virginia after spending the holidays with his family in Tampa, Florida. He was growing increasingly anxious about the risk of COVID-19 transmission in the terminal.
American Airlines canceled Pevitt's original flight to Washington’s Reagan National Airport long before a winter storm system hit the Washington area Monday. He rebooked on Delta Air Lines but got hit with more cancellations after a stopover in Atlanta — this time clearly due to the storm.
“There is just never a reason given for anything. That’s my biggest issue," said the 28-year-old, who works for an accounting company.
Many other travelers tweeted at the airlines to complain about last-minute cancellations and long delays, lost bags and hourslong hold times to reach anybody in customer service. Some said they slept in airports.
The toll of grounded flights in the U.S. was in the few hundreds per day the week before Christmas, then soared past 1,000 a day. Airlines blamed crew shortages on the spreading virus, including the highly transmissible omicron variant — new cases tripled over the past two weeks, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University.
Airlines and passengers lucked out for several days with mostly favorable weather, but that changed when a winter storm hit the Midwest on Saturday and caused cancellations to spike again to new holiday-season highs.
Over the weekend, about 5,400 U.S. flights were canceled — nearly 12% of all scheduled flights — and more than 9,000 worldwide, according to FlightAware. By Monday afternoon, about 18,000 U.S. flights had been canceled since Christmas Eve.
Also read: New year brings more canceled flights for air travelers
Many of the cancellations were made hours or even a day in advance. Airline believe they have a better chance to keep lighter schedules on track, and it saves passengers from making needless trips to the airport.
More than three-quarters of Monday's scheduled flights at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport and nearly half of those at nearby Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport were scrubbed, according to FlightAware. Both airports received more than six inches of snow.
Southwest Airlines had canceled about 600 flights, or 17% of Monday's schedule, by midday. Spokesman Brad Hawkins said storms over the weekend and on Monday affected operations at some of its biggest airports, including Chicago, Denver and Baltimore, and left planes and crews out of position.
United Airlines said the nationwide COVID-19 spike caused by the omicron variant has affected its flight crews, resulting in canceled flights. Delta cited winter weather and omicron, but said it expected fewer than half as many cancellations Tuesday and Wednesday. American cited the storm in the Washington area, and said the number of employees calling in sick because of COVID-19 was similar to the past few days, although it declined to give figures.
SkyWest, a regional carrier that operates flights under the names United Express, American Eagle and Delta Connection, grounded more than 350 flights Monday after scrubbing 500 on Sunday.
Thousands of miles from the snow storms, Hawaiian Airlines said it had to cancel several flights between islands and across the Pacific due to staffing shortages.
Airlines are paying temporary bonuses to encourage pilots and flight attendants to pick up flights left empty by co-workers with COVID-19. United will pay pilots triple their usual wages for picking up open flights through most of January. Spirit Airlines reached a deal with the union to pay flight attendants double through Tuesday.
FDA expands Pfizer boosters for more teens as omicron surges
The U.S. is expanding COVID-19 boosters as it confronts the omicron surge, with the Food and Drug Administration allowing extra Pfizer shots for children as young as 12.
Boosters already are recommended for everyone 16 and older, and federal regulators on Monday decided they’re also warranted for 12- to 15-year-olds once enough time has passed since their last dose.
But the move, coming as classes restart after the holidays, isn’t the final step. A panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to decide later this week whether to recommend boosters for the younger teens with a final decision by Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director.
The FDA also said everyone 12 and older who's eligible for a Pfizer booster can get one as early as five months after their last dose rather than six months.
FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks said even though serious illness is uncommon in younger teens, a booster will help them avoid that risk — while also helping reduce the spread of omicron or any other coronavirus mutant.
“Hopefully this will be not just a call for people to go get their booster shot,” but for the tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans to rethink that choice, Marks said. “It's not too late to start to get vaccinated.”
Also read: FDA paves way for Pfizer COVID-19 vaccinations in young kids
The FDA based its latest booster decision largely on real-world data from Israel that found no new safety concerns when 6,300 12- to 15-year-olds got a Pfizer booster five months after their second dose.
Likewise, the FDA said even more data from Israel showed no problems with giving anyone eligible for a Pfizer booster that extra dose a month sooner than the six months that until now has been U.S. policy.
The chief safety question for younger teens is a rare side effect called myocarditis, a type of heart inflammation seen mostly in younger men and teen boys who get either the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. The vast majority of cases are mild — far milder than the heart inflammation caused by COVID-19 — and they seem to peak in older teens, the 16- and 17-year-olds.
Marks said the side effect occurs in about 1 in 10,000 men and boys ages 16 to 30 after their second shot — but that a third dose appears less risky, by about a third. That's probably because more time has passed before the booster than between the first two shots, he said.
While the FDA didn’t consult its independent scientific advisers before making that decision, the CDC's own advisory panel is sure to closely weigh how much benefit this age group is likely to get before backing the extra shot.
Vaccines still offer strong protection against serious illness from any type of COVID-19. But health authorities are urging everyone who’s eligible to get a booster dose for their best chance at avoiding milder breakthrough infections from the highly contagious omicron mutant.
Children tend to suffer less serious illness from COVID-19 than adults. But child hospitalizations are rising during the omicron wave -- most of them unvaccinated.
Pediatrician and global health expert Dr. Philip Landrigan of Boston College welcomed the FDA's decisions, but stressed that the main need is to get the unvaccinated their first shots.
“It is among unvaccinated people that most of the severe illness and death from COVID will occur in coming weeks,” he said in an email. "Many thousands of lives could be saved if people could persuade themselves to get vaccinated.”
Also read: Pfizer asks FDA to OK COVID-19 booster shots for all adults
The vaccine made by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech is the only U.S. option for children of any age. About 13.5 million 12- to 17-year-olds — just over half that age group — have received two Pfizer shots, according to the CDC.
For families hoping to keep their children as protected as possible, the booster age limit raised questions.
The older teens, 16- and 17-year-olds, became eligible for boosters in early December. But original vaccinations opened for the younger teens, those 12 to 15, back in May. That means those first in line in the spring, potentially millions, are about as many months past their last dose as the slightly older teens.
As for even younger children, kid-size doses for 5- to 11-year-olds rolled out more recently, in November -- and experts say healthy youngsters should be protected after their second dose for a while. But the FDA also said Monday that if children that young have severely weakened immune systems, they will be allowed a third dose 28 days after their second. That’s the same third-dose timing already recommended for immune-compromised teens and adults.
Pfizer is studying its vaccine, in even smaller doses, for children younger than 5.
What about timing of boosters for adults who got the Moderna or Johnson & Johnson vaccines?
The FDA said it didn’t have any new data from Moderna to back a timing change and people who’d already had two Moderna shots should continue to wait six months for a booster. As for people who originally got the single-dose J&J shot, the U.S. already recommends another dose of any vaccine two months later.
CDC mulling COVID test requirement for asymptomatic: Fauci
As the COVID-19 omicron variant surges across the United States, top federal health officials are looking to add a negative test along with its five-day isolation restrictions for asymptomatic Americans who catch the coronavirus, the White House’s top medical adviser said Sunday.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is now considering including the negative test as part of its guidance after getting significant “pushback” on its updated recommendations last week.
Under that Dec. 27 guidance, isolation restrictions for people infected with COVID-19 were shortened from 10 days to five days if they are no longer feeling symptoms or running a fever. After that period, they are asked to spend the following five days wearing a mask when around others.
Read: US should consider vaccine mandate for US air travel: Fauci
The guidelines have since received criticism from many health professionals for not specifying a negative antigen test as a requirement for leaving isolation.
“There has been some concern about why we don’t ask people at that five-day period to get tested,” Fauci said. “Looking at it again, there may be an option in that, that testing could be a part of that, and I think we’re going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the CDC.”
Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said the U.S. has been seeing almost a “vertical increase” of new cases, now averaging 400,000 cases a day, with hospitalizations also up.
“We are definitely in the middle of a very severe surge and uptick in cases,” he said. “The acceleration of cases that we’ve seen is really unprecedented, gone well beyond anything we’ve seen before.”
Fauci said he’s concerned that the omicron variant is overwhelming the health care system and causing a “major disruption” on other essential services.
“When I say major disruptions, you’re certainly going to see stresses on the system and the system being people with any kind of jobs ... particularly with critical jobs to keep society functioning normally,” Fauci said. “We already know that there are reports from fire departments, from police departments in different cities that 10, 20, 25 and sometimes 30% of the people are ill. That’s something that we need to be concerned about, because we want to make sure that we don’t have such an impact on society that there really is a disruption. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
While there is “accumulating evidence” that omicron might lead to less severe illness, he cautioned that the data remains early. Fauci said he worries in particular about the tens of millions of unvaccinated Americans because “a fair number of them are going to get severe disease."
He urged Americans who have not yet gotten vaccinated and boosted to do so and to mask up indoors to protect themselves and blunt the current surge of U.S. cases.
The Food and Drug Administration last week said preliminary research indicates at-home rapid tests detect omicron, but may have reduced sensitivity. The agency noted it’s still studying how the tests perform with the variant, which was first detected in late November.
Read: Fauci says omicron variant is 'just raging around the world'
Fauci said Americans “should not get the impression that those tests are not valuable.”
“I think the confusion is that rapid antigen tests have never been as sensitive as the PCR test,” Fauci said. “They’re very good when they are given sequentially. So if you do them like maybe two or three times over a few-day period, at the end of the day, they are as good as the PCR. But as a single test, they are not as sensitive.”
A PCR test usually needs to be processed in a laboratory. The test looks for the virus’s genetic material and then reproduces it millions of times until it’s detectable with a computer.
Fauci said if Americans take the necessary precautions, the U.S. might see some semblance of more normal life returning soon.
“One of the things that we hope for is that this thing will peak after a period of a few weeks and turn around," Fauci said. He expressed hope that by February or March, omicron could fall to a low enough level “that it doesn’t disrupt our society, our economy, our way of life.”
Fauci spoke on ABC's “This Week” and CNN's “State of the Union.”
Snow storms and pandemic ground flights, delay holiday's end
Wintry weather combined with the pandemic to frustrate air travelers whose return flights home from the holidays were canceled or delayed in the first days of the new year.
More than 2,500 U.S. flights and more than 4,100 worldwide were grounded Sunday, according to tracking service FlightAware.
That followed Saturday's mass cancellations of more than 2,700 U.S. flights, and more than 4,700 worldwide.
“It was absolute mayhem,” said Natasha Enos, who spent a sleepless Saturday night and Sunday morning at Denver International Airport during what was supposed to be a short layover on a cross-country trip from Washington to San Francisco.
Read: New year brings more canceled flights for air travelers
Saturday's single-day U.S. toll of grounded flights was the highest since just before Christmas, when airlines began blaming staffing shortages on increasing COVID-19 infections among crews.
A winter storm that hit the Midwest on Saturday made Chicago the worst place in the country for travelers throughout the weekend. About a quarter of all flights at O’Hare Airport were canceled Sunday.
Denver's airport also faced significant disruptions. Enos, who was flying on Frontier Airlines, didn't learn that her connecting flight home to California was canceled until she had already landed in Denver. Then it was a rush to find alternative flights and navigate through baggage claims packed with stranded and confused travelers, amid concerns about the spread of the highly transmissible omicron variant of COVID-19.
“It was a lot of people in a very small space and not everybody was masking,” said the 28-year-old financial analyst. “There were a lot of exhausted kids and some families were so stressed out.”
In Michigan, the authority that runs Detroit International Airport said crews were working around the clock to remove snow and maintain the airfield. Atlanta's airport authority advised travelers to arrive earlier than usual because of high passenger volume, potential weather issues and pandemic-fueled staffing shortages that could lengthen the time it takes to get through security gates.
And thousands of miles from the closest snow storms, Hawaiian Airlines said it had to cancel several flights between islands and across the Pacific due to staffing shortages.
Southwest Airlines said it was working to help customers affected by about 400 flights canceled around the country Sunday, about 11% of its schedule. The Dallas-based airline anticipates even more operational challenges to come as the storm system pushes into the Eastern seaboard.
Delta Air Lines said Sunday it was issuing a travel waiver for planned flights this week out of mid-Atlantic airports in Baltimore and Washington in preparation for forecasted winter weather.
Read: Flight cancellations snarl holiday plans for thousands
American Airlines said most of Sunday's canceled flights had been canceled ahead of time to avoid last-minute disruptions at the airport.
SkyWest, a regional carrier that operates flights under the names American Eagle, Delta Connection and United Express, grounded nearly 500 flights Sunday, about 20% of its schedule, according to FlightAware.
Airlines have said they are taking steps to reduce cancellations caused by workers affected by the omicron variant. United is offering to pay pilots triple or more of their usual wages for picking up open flights through most of January. Spirit Airlines reached a deal with the Association of Flight Attendants for double pay for cabin crews through Tuesday, a union spokesperson said.
Airlines hope that extra pay and reduced schedules get them through the holiday crush and into the heart of January, when travel demand usually drops off. The seasonal decline could be sharper than normal this year because most business travelers are still grounded.
Biden vows US to act decisively if Russia invades Ukraine
President Joe Biden conferred on Sunday with Ukraine's leader over the Russian troop buildup near its border, promising that the U.S. and allies will act “decisively” if Russia further invades the Eastern European nation.
Biden and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's call came as the U.S. and Western allies prepared for a series of diplomatic meetings to try to de-escalate a crisis that Moscow said could rupture ties with Washington.
“President Biden made clear that the United States and its allies and partners will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement following the call.
Psaki added that Biden underscored his commitment to the principle of “nothing about you without you," the tenet that it won’t negotiate policy that impacts Europe without its allies’ input.
Biden has spoken of hitting Russia with economy-jarring sanctions if it moves on Ukraine's territory, but he said last month that U.S. military action is not on the table.
Read:Biden signs $768.2 billion defense spending bill into law
The Kremlin has demanded that any further expansion of NATO exclude Ukraine and other former Soviet countries. The Russians have also demanded that the military alliance remove offensive weaponry from countries in the region.
The White House has dismissed Russia's demands on NATO as a non-starter. A key principle of the NATO alliance is that membership is open to any qualifying country. And no outsider has membership veto power. While there’s little prospect that Ukraine would be invited into the alliance anytime soon, the U.S. and its allies won’t rule it out.
Zelenskyy said in a Twitter posting after Sunday's call that “keeping peace in Europe, preventing further escalation, reforms, deoligarchization were discussed.”
“We appreciate the unwavering support,” Zelenskyy said.
The United States has made little progress in efforts to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to ease tensions. Senior U.S. and Russian officials are scheduled to meet Jan. 9-10 in Geneva to discuss the situation. Those talks are to be followed by meetings at the NATO-Russia Council, and at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Biden spoke with Putin for nearly an hour on Thursday. He told reporters the next day that he warned Putin that his economy would pay a “heavy price” if Russia, which has massed some 100,000 troops near the border, made further moves against Ukraine.
“I’m not going to negotiate here in public, but we made it clear that he cannot — I emphasize cannot — move on Ukraine,” Biden said Friday.
Biden said he told Putin it was important for the Russians to take steps before those meetings toward easing the crisis. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, in describing the presidents' conversation this past week, said Biden's pursuit of sanctions “could lead to a complete rupture of relations between our countries and Russia-West relations will be severely damaged.”
U.S. intelligence findings indicate Russia has made preparations for a potential invasion in early 2022. But White House officials say it remains unclear whether Putin has already made a decision to move forward with military action.
Read: Biden tries COVID cajoling, avoids new decrees that divide
Still, Biden said he remained hopeful for the upcoming talks. White House officials say they will consult closely with Western allies.
"I always expect if you negotiate you make progress, but we’ll see,” he said Friday. ”We’ll see.”
Past military incursions by Putin loom large as Biden weighs his next steps.
In 2014, Russian troops marched into the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and seized the territory from Ukraine. Russia’s annexation of Crimea was one of the darker moments for President Barack Obama on the international stage.
The U.S.-Russia relationship was badly damaged near the end of President George W. Bush’s administration after Russia’s 2008 invasion of its neighbor Georgia after Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered his troops into the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday he feared that Putin was intent on invading Ukraine and “nothing other than a level of sanctions that Russia has never seen will deter him.”
“Russia needs to understand we are united in this,” Schiff told “Face the Nation" on CBS. ”I also think that a powerful deterrent is the understanding that if they do invade, it is going to bring (NATO) closer to Russia, not push it farther away."
2 missing; survivors count blessings after Colorado fire
Search teams looked for two missing people on Sunday in the snow-covered but still smoldering debris from a massive Colorado wildfire, while people who barely escaped the flames sorted through what was left after the blaze and investigators tried to determine its cause.
The flames ripped through at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers) and left nearly 1,000 homes and other buildings destroyed in suburbs between Denver and Boulder. It came unusually late in the year following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow. Experts say those conditions, along with high winds, helped the fire spread.
Rex and Barba Hickman sifted through the ashes of their Louisville home with their son and his wife.
Their son Austin cut a safe open with a grinding tool to reveal gold and silver coins, melted credit cards, keys and the charred remains of the couple’s passports.
They evacuated with their dog, their iPads and the clothes on their back. Rex Hickman said he was heartbroken to see there was nothing left of their home of 23 years.
Read: Officials probe cause of massive Colorado fire; 3 missing
“There’s a numbness that hits you first. You know, kind of like you go into crisis mode. You think about what you can do, what you can’t do,” he said. “The real pain is going to sink in over time.”
The couple have to find a rental property and clothes in the short-term, and their insurance company told them Sunday it would take at least two years to rebuild their home.
“We know how fortunate we are,” Rex Hickman said. “We have each other. We have great friends, wonderful family. So many people have got to be suffering much more than we are, and we feel for them.”
While homes that burned to the foundations were still smoldering in some places, the blaze was no longer considered an immediate threat — especially with Saturday’s snow and frigid temperatures.
Authorities initially said everyone was accounted for after the fire. But Boulder County spokesperson Jennifer Churchill said the reports of three people missing were later discovered amid the scramble to manage the emergency. One was found alive, officials said Sunday.
Crews were still looking for a woman at a home in Superior and a man living near Marshall. Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said their homes were “deep in hot debris and covered with snow. It is a difficult task.”
Other investigators were seeing if the missing people might have made it out, but not contacted their families or friends, Pelle said.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and federal emergency officials visited some of the damaged neighborhoods Sunday morning.
“I know this is a hard time in your life if you’ve lost everything or you don’t even know what you lost,” Polis said after the tour. “A few days ago you were celebrating Christmas at home and hanging your stockings and now home and hearth have been destroyed.”
Read:Colorado wildfires burn hundreds of homes, force evacuations
The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Utility officials found no downed power lines around where the fire broke out.
Pelle said Saturday authorities were pursuing a number of tips and had executed a search warrant at “one particular location.” The sheriff refused to give details again Sunday, including whether he thought the fire was set.
“It’s complicated and it’s all covered with a foot of snow,” Pelle said of the scene where the fire started. “The outcome of that investigation is vital — there is so much at stake. We are going to be professional. We are going to be careful.”
Of at least 991 buildings destroyed by the fire, most were homes. But the blaze also burned through eight businesses at a shopping center in Louisville, including a nail salon and a Subway restaurant. In neighboring Superior, 12 businesses were damaged, including a Target, Chuck E. Cheese, Tesla dealership, a hotel and the town hall.
The two towns are about 20 miles (30 kilometers) northwest of Denver with a combined population of 34,000.
The flames stopped about 100 yards (90 meters) from Susan Hill’s property in Louisville. She slept Saturday night in her home using a space heater and hot water bottles to stay warm since her natural gas service had not been turned back on.
She choked up as she remembered seeing the sky change color and recalled nervously sprinting out of town with her college-age son and the dog, cat and a fire box with birth certificates and other documents.
“I don’t even know how to describe it,” she said. “It’s so sad. It’s so awful. It’s just devastating.”
Utility crews expected to restore electricity to the homes still standing Sunday, but warned gas service might take longer to get back.
People lined up to get donated space heaters, bottled water and blankets at Red Cross shelters. Xcel Energy urged other residents to use fireplaces and wood stoves to stay warm and keep their pipes at home from freezing.
Superior resident Jeff Markley arrived in his truck to pick up a heater. He said he felt lucky to be “just displaced” since his home is intact.
“We’re making do, staying with friends, and upbeat for the new year. Gotta be better than this last one,” Markley said.
'So many memories': Over 500 homes feared destroyed by fire
One couple returned home Friday to find the mailbox about the only thing left standing. Charred cars and a burned trampoline lay outside smoldering houses. On some blocks, homes reduced to smoking ruins stood next to ones practically unscathed by the flames.
Colorado residents driven from their neighborhoods by a terrifying, wind-whipped wildfire got their first, heartbreaking look at the damage the morning after, while others could only wait and wonder whether their homes were among the more than 500 feared destroyed.
At least seven people were injured, but remarkably there were no immediate reports of any deaths or anyone missing in the aftermath of the blaze outside Denver.
Cathy Glaab found that her home in the town of Superior where she lives with her husband had been turned into a pile of charred and twisted debris. It was one of seven houses in a row that burned to the ground.
“The mailbox is standing,” Glaab said, trying to crack a smile through tears. She added sadly, “So many memories.”
Despite the devastation, she said they intend to rebuild the house they had since 1998. They love that the land backs up to a natural space, and they have a view of the mountains from the back.
READ: Colorado wildfires burn hundreds of homes, force evacuations
Rick Dixon feared there would be nothing to return to after he saw firefighters try to save his burning home on the news. On Friday, Dixon, his wife and 21-year-old son found it mostly gutted with a gaping hole in the roof but still standing. Only smoldering rubble remained where several neighboring homes once stood in a row immediately next to theirs.
“We thought we lost everything,” he said, as he held his mother-in-law’s china in padded containers. They also retrieved sculptures that belonged to Dixon’s father and piles of clothes still on hangers.
The wildfire erupted Thursday in and around Louisville and Superior, neighboring towns about 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Denver with a combined population of 34,000.
Tens of thousands were ordered to flee as the flames swept over drought-stricken neighborhoods with alarming speed, propelled by guests up to 105 mph (169 kph).
At a Costco in Superior, two store employees came running toward the checkout lines, one of them shouting, “Everyone evacuate, evacuate, evacuate!” said Katrina Peterson, who was inside.
A video she made showed dark skies and whirling debris outside. The falling ash filled her ears, and she had to squint to keep it from getting in her eyes. The store was left standing.
The cause of the blaze was under investigation. Emergency authorities said utility officials found no downed power lines around where the fire broke out.
With some roads still closed Friday, people walked back to their homes to get clothes or medicine, turn the water off to prevent the pipes from freezing, or see if they still had a house. They left carrying backpacks and pulling suitcases or wagons down the sidewalk.
David Marks stood on a hillside overlooking Superior with others, using a pair of binoculars and a long-range camera lens to see if his house, and those of his neighbors, were still there, but he couldn't tell for sure whether his place was OK. He said at least three friends lost their homes.
He had watched from the hillside as the neighborhood burned.
“By the time I got up here, the houses were completely engulfed,” he said. “I mean, it happened so quickly. I’ve never seen anything like that. … Just house after house, fences, just stuff flying through the air, just caught on fire.”
By first light Friday, the towering flames that had lit up the night sky had subsided and the winds had died down. Light snow soon began to fall, and the blaze, which burned at least 9.4 square miles (24 square kilometers), was no longer considered an immediate threat.
“We might have our very own New Year’s miracle on our hands if it holds up that there was no loss of life,” Gov. Jared Polis said, noting that many people had just minutes to evacuate.
READ: Father, son arrested in wildfire that threatened Lake Tahoe
The wildfire broke out unusually late in the year, following an extremely dry fall and amid a winter nearly devoid of snow so far.
Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said more than 500 homes were probably destroyed. He and the governor said as many as 1,000 homes might have been lost, though that won’t be known until crews can assess the damage.
“It’s unbelievable when you look at the devastation that we don’t have a list of 100 missing persons,” the sheriff said.
The sheriff said some communities were reduced to just "smoking holes in the ground.” He urged residents to wait for the all-clear to go back because of the danger of fire and fallen power lines.
Sarah Owens, her husband, adult son and their dog got out of their Superior home within 10 minutes of learning about the evacuation from a Facebook post. But as everyone tried leaving by way of the winding streets of the well-to-do Rock Creek neighborhood, it took them 1 ½ hours to go 2 miles (3.2 kilometers).
“The good news is I think our house may be OK,” Owens said.
But from now on, she said, she plans to have a bag packed in case of another fire.
“I never thought a brush fire could cause this kind of destruction,” Owens said. “I want to stay here. No matter where you live, there are always going to be natural disasters."
Superior and Louisville are filled with middle- and upper-middle-class subdivisions with shopping centers, parks and schools. The area is between Denver and Boulder, home to the University of Colorado.
Scientists say climate change is making weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.
Ninety percent of Boulder County is in severe or extreme drought, and it hasn’t seen substantial rainfall since mid-summer. Denver set a record for consecutive days without snow before it got a small storm on Dec. 10, its last snowfall before the wildfires broke out.
Bruce and Mary Janda faced the loss of their Louisville home of 25 years in person Friday after learning it had been destroyed through a neighbor’s photos.
“We knew that the house was totaled, but I felt the need to see it, see what the rest of the neighborhood looked like,” Bruce Janda said. “We’re a very close knit community on this street. We all know each other and we all love each other. It’s hard to see this happen to all of us.”