■ Elected officials resist imposing restrictions,

With the PROVIDENCE, R.I.— coronavirus coming back with a vengeance across the country and the U.S. facing a long, dark winter, many governors and other elected officials are showing little appetite for imposing the kind of lockdowns and largescale business closings seen last spring.

Many also continue to resist issuing statewide mask rules.

Among the reasons given: public fatigue, fear of doing more damage to already-crippled businesses, lack of support from Washington, and thew aye ff ff ff ff ff ff or ts to tame the virus have become fifiercely politicized.

“I think that governors and mayors are, again, in a really tough spot. The American population is emotionally and economically exhausted,” Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

“I think that there are some minimum things that governors and mayors could and should be doing right now. But the trouble is, without support fromthe federal government, it becomes very diffifficult to do these things,” Ranney said, citing the need for a stimulus package from Washington to help businesses pull through.

To sure, there are exceptions: Breaking ranks with her colleagues in one of the most aggressive steps seen in recentweeks, Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico imposed a two-week stay-at-home order Friday, saying the state is at a breaking point.

“We are in a life-or-death situation, and if we don’t act right now, we cannot preserve the lives, we can’t keep saving lives, and we will absolutely crush our current healthcare systemand infrastructure,” she said.

And Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Friday ordered a two-week “freeze” that will limit restaurants and bars to takeout only and close gyms, museums, pools, movie theaters and zoos. All businesses will be required to close their off if fices to the public and mandate work-from-home “to the greatest extent possible.”

But governors in many other states, such as New York, Maryland, Virginia and Minnesota, have taken more incremental measures, such as restricting the size of gatherings, making businesses close early, restricting capacity or cutting offff alcohol sales earlier in the evening.

Increasingly alarmed public health offifficials andmedical experts say time is running out as hospitals buckle under the crush of cases and Americans approach Thanksgiving, a period of heavy travel and family gatherings that are all but certain to fuel the spread of the virus.

The coronavirus is blamed for 10.6 million confifirmed infections and almost a quarter-million deaths in the U. S., with the closely watched University of Washington model projecting nearly 439,000 dead by March 1. Deathshave climbed to about 1,000a day on average.

New cases per day are shattering records over and over andreaching anall-time high onThursdayof over 153,000.

While over the course of the outbreak it has been Republican governors who tended to push harder to keep businesses open, the latest resistance to lock downs and similarly strictmeasures appears to cut across political lines, with the Democrats in charge in states like Colorado, Pennsylvania and North Carolina expressing no interest in taking such steps.

Nevada Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak has repeatedly argued that containing the virus is largely up to individuals.

“Some people are going to ask, ‘Why not limit retail, or casino resorts, or restaurants right now?’ That’s a fair question,” Sisolak said. “That is the tightrope of trying tobalance controlling the COVID-19 spread, protecting our hospitals from surges, and at the same time, not destroying our economy.”

In Texas, which this week became the fifirst state to surpass 1 million confirmed COVID-19 cases, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has emphasized new treatment sand vaccines that are expected to become available soon.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has taken an even harder line against new restrictions, suing after El Paso closed nonessential businesses because of a surge so severe thatmobile morgues were brought in. An appeals court Thursday temporarily lifted the shutdown.

Republicans su ff ff ff ff ff f fe red setbacks to court challenges over the presidential election in three battleground states on Friday while a law fifirm that came under fifire for its work for President Donald Trump’s campaign withdrew from a major Pennsylvania case.

The legal blows began when a federal appeals court rejected an effffffffffffort to block about 9,300 mail-in ballots that arrived after Election Day in Pennsylvania. The judges noted the “vast disruption” and“unprecedented challenges” facingthe nation during the COVID-19 pandemic as theyupheld the three-day extension.

Chief U.S. Circuit Judge D. Brooks Smith said the panel kept in mind “a proposition indisputable in our democratic process: that the lawfully cast vote of every citizen must count.”

The ruling involves a PennsylvaniaSupreme Court decision to accept mail-in ballots through Friday, Nov. 6, citing the pandemic and concerns about postal service delays.

Republicans have also askedtheU.S. SupremeCourt to reviewthe issue. However, there are not enough late-arriving ballots to change the results inPennsylvania, given President-elect Joe Biden’s lead. The Democratic former vice presidentwon the state by about 60,000 votes out of about 6.8 million cast.

The Trump campaign or Republican surrogates have fifiledmore than 15 legal challenges in Pennsylvania as they seek to reclaim the state’s 20 electoral votes, but have so far of ff ff ff ff ff fe red no evidence of any widespread voter fraud.

A Philadelphia judge found none as he refused late Friday to reject about 8,300 mail-in ballots there. The campaign has pursued similar litigation in other battleground states, with little to show for it.

In Michigan, a judge Friday refused to stop the certifification of Detroit-area election results, rejecting claims the city had committed fraud and tainted the count with its handling of absentee ballots. It’s the thirdtime a judge has declined to intervene in a statewide count that shows Biden up by more than 140,000 votes.

And, in Arizona, campaign lawyers sought to with dr a we ff ff ff ff ff ff or ts to seek a manual inspection of ballot sin metro Phoenix, as it became clear the number of ballots at issue could not change the outcome of the presidential race. Trump attorney Kory Langhofer, in the filing, alluded to updated election returns that show Democrat Joe Biden ahead by more than 11,000 votes, with about 10,000 ballots left to count.

Meanwhile, legal giant Porter Wright Morris& Arthur, which had come under fifire for its work for the Trump campaign, withdrew from a lawsuit that seeks to stop Pennsylvania offifficials from certifying the election results.

Porter Wright filed the motion Thursday, as criticismgrew that law fifi fifi fifi rm sb ac king Republican election challenges were helping Trump defy the will of the people.

Porter Wright, which has earnedmore than $700,000 from the Trump campaign, appeared to take down its Twitter feed Tuesday after it was inundatedwith attacks. The payments includemore than $140,000 paid through a Republican National Committee account for “recount” challenges, according to Federal Election Commission records.

The fifirm did not reply to specifific questions about the posts or whether it would stop representing the Trump campaign entirely. In a statement earlier this week, the fifirm said it had a long history of handling election law cases for various parties.