Monday, December 21, 2020
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Our Market makeover By TREVOR HOAG The Iola Register
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Congress seals deal on COVID relief package By ANDREW TAYLOR The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — After months of Washington gridlock, Congress is set to act on a $900 billion pandemic relief package, finally delivering longsought cash to businesses and individuals and resources to vaccinate a nation confronting a frightening surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths. The relief package, agreed to on Sunday and expected to draw votes in Congress on Monday, would establish a temporary $300 per week supplemental jobless benefit and a $600 direct stimulus payment to most Americans, along with a new round of subsidies for hard-hit businesses and money for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction. House and Senate leadSee RELIEF | Page A2
HUMBOLDT — Our Market is moving forward. After being stalled for several months due to financial setbacks, renovations are moving forward and things are opening up. The project of remaking Moon’s Hometown Market got its wind back through $20,000 received from the City of Humboldt and an $80,000 loan provided by Allen County. Multiple additional grants and benefactors also bolstered the process. The butcher shop portion of the facility has informally opened in order to process deer, and will be again during the second part of the season. The grocery store is slated to open sometime in January. “The butcher market part of it, we’re about 90-95% complete,” said construction manager Mike Hofer on Thursday. Hofer is working with proprietors Scott and Amy Welch to bring their vision into a reality. “I’m helping them get everything organized, ordered, put in place, plus doing the carpet work and whatever else,” he said. Although the Moon’s building looks pretty much the same from the outside, the inside has been transformed into a functioning processing facility with everything from a kill room with meat hooks to newly acquired energy efficient coolers/freezers designed to cut down on electrical costs. Obtaining the coolers, in
Donny Van Leeuwen cuts PVC pipe outside Humboldt’s Our Market. At right, the former Moon’s Hometown Market is getting a makeover. REGISTER/
TREVOR HOAG
particular, was key to the project, as otherwise utility costs would have been untenable, running perhaps twice as much, $6,000 to $8,000 a month compared to $3,000 to $5,000 a month. As for more specific timelines, “we’re hoping to have the market open about the first or the second week of January,” Hofer said. First, however, some key inspections and sterilizations must be completed. “The grocery store, shortly after that.”
New lights were being installed starting Friday inside of the main portion of the grocery store. This primary area is currently being painted as well. Along with those busy painting others were cutting
Next up: Those over 75, essential workers By JOHN HANNA and MIKE STOBBE The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal advisory panel recommended Sunday that people 75 and older and essential workers like firefighters, teachers and grocery store workers should be next in line for COVID-19 shots, while a second vaccine began rolling out to hospitals as the nation works to get the coronavirus pandemic under control. The two developments came amid a vaccination program that began only in the last week and has given initial shots to about 556,000 Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and Germany’s BioNTech already is being distributed, and regulators last week gave approval to the one from Moderna Inc. that began shipping Sunday. Earlier this month, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices said health care workers and nursing home residents — about 24 million people — should be at the very front of the line for the vaccines.
PVC pipe outdoors. It was impossible to distinguish between those on an official payroll and those just lending a hand. As Hofer explained, “We’ve See MARKET | Page A4
Trump downplays Russia involvement in hacking By JILL COLVIN and MATTHEW LEE The Associated Press
A federal advisory panel recommended Sunday that people 75 and older and essential workers should be next in line for COVID-19 shots. UNSPLASH.COM Sunday’s vote by the panel was who should be next in line, and by a vote of 13-1, it decided that it should be people 75 and older, who number about 20 million, as well as certain front-line workers, who total about 30 million. The essential workers include firefighters and police; teachers and school staff; those working in food, agricultural and manufacturing sectors; corrections workers; U.S. Postal Service employ-
ees; public transit workers; and grocery store workers. They are considered at very high risk of infection because their jobs are critical and require them to be in regular contact with other people. It’s not clear how long it will take to vaccinate those groups. Vaccine doses have come out slower than earlier projections. But at the same time, some experts noted that See VACCINE | Page A2
WASHINGTON (AP) — Contradicting his secretary of state and other top officials, President Donald Trump on Saturday suggested without evidence that China — not Russia — may be behind the cyber espionage operation against the United States and tried to minimize its impact. In his first comments on the breach, Trump scoffed at the focus on the Kremlin and downplayed the intrusions, which the nation’s cybersecurity agency has warned posed a “grave” risk to government and private networks. “The Cyber Hack is far greater in the Fake News Media than in actuality. I have been fully briefed and everything is well under control,” Trump tweeted. He also claimed the media are “petrified” of “discussing the possibility that it may be China (it may!).” There is no evidence to
President Donald Trump joins West Point cadets during the Army-Navy football game on Dec. 12. (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GET-
suggest that is the case. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said late Friday that Russia was “pretty clearly” behind the operation against the United States. “This was a very significant effort and I think it’s the case that now we can say pretty clearly that it was the Russians that engaged in this activity,” Pompeo said in the interview with radio talk show host Mark Levin. Officials at the White House had been prepared to put out a statement Friday afternoon that accused See RUSSIA | Page A4
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