AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Virus flareups in Europe lead to club closings, mask orders

PARIS (AP) — New flareups of COVID-19 are disrupting the peak summer vacation season across much of Europe, where authorities in some countries are reimposing restrictions on travelers, closing nightclubs again, banning fireworks displays and expanding mask orders even in chic resort areas.

“Unfortunately, this virus doesn’t play ball,” British Transport Secretary Grant Shapps told Sky News.

The surges have spread alarm across Europe, which suffered mightily during the spring but appeared in recent months to have largely tamed the coronavirus in ways that the U.S., with its vaunted scientific prowess and the extra time to prepare, cannot seem to manage. The continent’s hardest-hit countries, Britain, Italy, France and Spain, have recorded about 140,000 deaths in all.

In addition to clubs and alcohol-fueled street parties, large family gatherings – usually abounding with hugs and kisses -- have been cited as a source of new outbreaks in several European countries.

A new public awareness campaign by Spain’s Canary Islands depicts a family gathering for a grandfather’s birthday, with people taking off masks and embracing. The grandfather ends up in a hospital bed with COVID-19.

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The Ultimate Recovery: Cycles of pain anchor Biden's moment

WASHINGTON (AP) — A young lawyer bounds across a parking lot in New Castle, Delaware, a blur of long sideburns, wide lapels and self-assurance. He throws open a door to a beauty salon, and the ladies inside whoop with surprise. It’s clear from the grainy footage that the stylists don’t know this 29-year-old candidate – yet.

“I’m Joe Biden, Democratic candidate for United States Senate,” he announces, shaking the hand of a grinning beautician. “Maybe if you get a chance, you’ll look me over between now and November.”

The pitch, captured in an October 1972 broadcast by WPVI in Philadelphia, is one Biden has made repeatedly since, winning seven terms in the Senate and two as vice president. But throughout his lifetime in politics, his eye has been on the next rung — the presidency -- in a quest that failed spectacularly in his first two tries.

On this, his third attempt, the White House is within Biden's reach at what in some ways seems an improbable moment. At age 77, he is too old to even be called a Baby Boomer at a time when Democrats are prioritizing youth and diversity. But he's vowing to reset the nation's compass after four turbulent years under President Donald Trump, staking his claim on the pillars of competence, experience and empathy.

“The moment has met him, right now,” says former Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. “People know he’s been there, and he’s not going to just stand there. He’s going to do something to make it better. We need that desperately right now. People are scared.”

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Freed from Belarus jails, protesters recount beatings

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — They emerged dazed, shaken and in tears from the detention center in Minsk, to be met by waiting relatives. They displayed the black-and-blue bruises on their bodies, saying police had beaten them mercilessly. One teenager asked his weeping mother to look away.

Authorities in Belarus have freed at least 2,000 of about 7,000 people who had been pulled off the streets by riot police in the days following a disputed election that kept the country's iron-fisted leader, President Alexander Lukashenko, in power.

As they reunited with loved ones early Friday, they told of being struck repeatedly with truncheons, being threatened with gang rape and held amid harsh conditions and overcrowded cells. The accounts are fueling outrage at home and have European countries weighing new sanctions against officials in Belarus.

“They were beating me without mercy,” Alexei Shchitnikov told The Associated Press upon his release, his face disfigured by bruises.

The 47-year-old company director displayed a cross drawn on his back, an apparent marking by police that he should be given rough treatment.

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Japan marks 75th anniversary of war end with no Abe apology

TOKYO (AP) — Japan on Saturday marked the 75th anniversary of its surrender in World War II, with Emperor Naruhito expressing “deep remorse” over his country’s wartime actions at a somber annual ceremony curtailed by the coronavirus pandemic.

Naruhito pledged to reflect on the war's events and expressed hope that the tragedy would never be repeated. There was no word of apology from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who gave thanks for the sacrifices of the Japanese war dead but had nothing to say about the suffering of Japan’s neighbors.

“Reflecting on our past and bearing in mind the feelings of deep remorse, I earnestly hope that the ravages of war will never be repeated,” Naruhito said in a short speech at the event in Tokyo marking the 75th anniversary of Japan’s surrender on Aug. 15, 1945.

Amid virus fears and worries about the fading memories of the fast-aging war generation, about 500 participants, reduced from 6,200 last year, mourned the dead with a minute of silence. Masks were required, and there was no singing of the “Kimigayo” national anthem.

Naruhito has promised to follow in the footsteps of his father, who devoted his 30-year career to making amends for a war fought in the name of Hirohito, the current emperor’s grandfather.

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75 years later, can Asia shake off shackles of the past?

TOKYO (AP) — Northeast Asia doesn’t so much repeat history as drag it along like an anchor.

The bombs stopped falling 75 years ago, but it is entirely possible — crucial even, some argue — to view the region’s world-beating economies, its massive cultural and political reach and its bitter trade, territory and history disputes through a single prism: World War II and Japan’s aggression in the Pacific.

Even as Northeast Asia’s tangle of interlinking economic and political webs grows denser by the day, the potential for an unraveling may loom as large now as at any time since 1945.

Japan in 2020 is unrecognizable to the fascist military machine that once rolled across Asia. Its military is now legally constrained as a “self-defense force.” Its constitution demands peaceful cooperation with the world. Postwar Japan has pumped trillions of yen (tens of billions of dollars) into regional development.

So how does this peaceful, generous, stable nation still enrage so many? Why do the crimes of long-dead Japanese politicians and soldiers still loom so large in its neighbors' eyes?

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Post Office warns states across US about mail voting

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service is warning states coast to coast that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted, even if mailed by state deadlines, raising the possibility that millions of voters could be disenfranchised.

Voters and lawmakers in several states are also complaining that some curbside mail collection boxes are being removed.

Even as President Donald Trump rails against widescale voting by mail, the post office is bracing for an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

The warning letters sent to states raise the possibility that many Americans eligible for mail-in ballots this fall will not have them counted. But that is not the intent, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in his own letter to Democratic congressional leaders.

The post office is merely “asking elected officials and voters to realistically consider how the mail works, and be mindful of our delivery standards, in order to provide voters ample time to cast ballots through the mail," wrote DeJoy, a prominent Trump political donor who was recently appointed.

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Trump gets endorsement of NYC police union

BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — Seeking to amplify his law-and-order message, President Donald Trump on Friday told hundreds of New York Police Department officers that “no one will be safe in Biden’s America" if the former Democratic vice president defeats him in November .

“This guy has been taking your dignity away and your respect,"" Trump said of former Vice President Joe Biden. “And I'm telling you on Nov. 3 you're going to be getting it back."

Trump spoke to members of the City of New York Police Benevolent Association, the union representing some 24,000 rank-and-file officers as he steps up his attacks on Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris. The president's campaign is looking to raise doubts about the Biden-Harris ticket’s ability to keep the peace in the nation’s biggest metropolises. Trump was formally endorsed by the union during the event at his New Jersey golf course.

Trump is ripping a page out of Richard Nixon’s law-and-order campaign playbook from 1968 — when American streets were rife with racial protests and Nixon campaigned vowing to crack down and restore order in an appeal tailored to white voters.

At a moment when the nation has been jarred by sometimes violent protests over police brutality, Trump has repeatedly blamed big city mayors in Democratic-strongholds - including New York, Portland, Seattle, Chicago - for undermining police officers.

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Georgia park with Confederate sculpture shuts gates to rally

ATLANTA (AP) — Suburban Atlanta's Stone Mountain Park, home of a giant sculpture of Confederate leaders, says it will close its gates Saturday in the face of a planned right-wing rally.

The event has sparked fears of violence, especially before an all-Black militia said earlier this week that it would cancel plans to show up. Other groups were still planning to counterprotest.

Pro-Confederate, white supremacist and other right-wing groups had planned their event in response to a march by the Black militia group on July 4.

Last year, the park also closed down rather than allow a rally organized by white supremacists to go forward.

The organizers were led by an Arkansas group called Confederate States III%, which applied for a permit. But Stone Mountain Memorial Association spokesperson John Bankhead said the park denied the permit on Aug. 4. The denial cited a violent clash between groups in April 2016. Bankhead said the park has not received any other permit applications. He said police would be present to keep demonstrators away.

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Trump orders Chinese owner of TikTok to sell US assets

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday gave the Chinese company ByteDance 90 days to divest itself of any assets used to support the popular TikTok app in the United States.

Trump’s executive order said there is “credible evidence that leads me to believe that ByteDance … might take action that threatens to impair the national security of the United States.”

Trump last week ordered sweeping but vague bans on dealings with the Chinese owners of TikTok and the messaging app WeChat, saying they are a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy and the economy.

It remains unclear what the TikTok orders mean for the app’s 100 million U.S. users, many of them teenagers or young adults who use it to post and watch short-form videos. Trump on Friday also ordered ByteDance to divest itself of "any data obtained or derived" from TikTok users in the U.S.

Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok.

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AP Week in Pictures, Global

AUG. 8 - 14, 2020

This photo gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published by The Associated Press from around the world.

The selection was curated by AP photo editor Patrick Sison in New York.

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