AP News Digest 6 p.m.
Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EDT. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org.
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NEW & DEVELOPING
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ELECTION 2020-POSTAL SERVICE — House vote underway.
Adds: TRUMP-LAW ENFORCEMENT-POLLING SITES, UNITED STATES-MIDEAST, TRUMP-STORMY-DANIELS, RESCUED-GIRLS-FIREFIGHTER-DIES, CHARLOTTE DEMONSTRATION-ARRESTS, BRITAIN-TOWER-BRIDGE.
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ONLY ON AP
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SCHOOL LAPTOP SHORTAGE — Schools across the United States are facing shortages and long delays in getting this year’s most crucial back-to-school accessories: the laptops and other equipment needed for online learning. Part of the reason is high demand and disruptions of supply chains that have jammed production of laptops and Chromebooks made by Dell, HP, Lenovo and other brands. Another critical reason, schools say, is the Trump administration’s recent sanctions on Chinese companies that have exacerbated massive backlogs. By Jocelyn Gecker and Michael Liedtke. SENT: 1,600 words, photos, 880-word abridged version.
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ELECTION 2020-TRUMP-TURNING POINTS — President Donald Trump’s improbable election cast aside the rules of American politics. He’s spent three-plus years defying history and orthodoxy in a chaotic spectacle that has dominated the national discourse and engaged both sides of a deeply, bitterly partisan country. At seminal moments along the way -- in set speeches, impromptu riffs and policy reversals -- he has redefined the presidency. But he has not shaken the coronavirus. By Jonathan Lemire and Aamer Madhani. SENT: 2,800 words, photos. Abridged version also available. WITH: TRUMP-LAW ENFORCEMENT-POLLING SITES — President Trump is threatening to send law enforcement to polling places for the upcoming presidential election, but federal law prohibits sending “troops or armed men” to any polling place in the country. SENT: 670 words, photo.
ELECTION 2020-POSTAL SERVICE — The House holds a rare Saturday session to address mail delivery disruptions. Democrats are poised to pass legislation to reverse recent changes in postal operations and send emergency funds to help the agency before the November election. By Lisa Mascaro, Anthony Izaguirre and Christina A Cassidy. SENT: 700 words, photos. Developing, with final vote expected this evening. WITH: ELECTION 2020-POSTAL SERVICE-REPUBLICANS — Congressional Republicans in tight races this fall are under pressure from both directions as the Postal Service has been thrust into the middle of election-year politics (sent).
RACIAL-INJUSTICE-KETAMINE-INJECTIONS — An analysis by The Associated Press of policies on ketamine and cases where the drug was used during police encounters uncovered a lack of police training, conflicting medical standards and nonexistent protocols that have resulted in hospitalizations and even deaths. By Patty Nieberg, a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. SENT: 1,200 words, photos. This is the Sunday Spotlight.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK — As more universities abandon plans to reopen and decide instead to keep classes online this fall, it’s leading to conflict between students who say they deserve tuition discounts and college leaders who insist remote learning is worth the full cost. By Collin Binkley SENT: 1,000 words, photos, video.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-ICU-NURSE — His COVID patients plead with him. They’re unable to speak hooked up to breathing machines, often desperately gasping for a bit of air. He sits on their bed, grasps their hand, strokes their cheek and prays. While other nurses rotate in and out of the COVID-19 ICU unit to limit their exposure to the virus, he’s asked to stay permanently. He says it’s his calling, playing the role of nurse and family as one patient after another dies. SENT: 770 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-DNC-BIDEN — Some Democrats worried Joe Biden was past his prime, and the questions fed President Trump’s narrative that his 77-year-old Democratic challenger is “confused” and incapable of presidential duties. Biden did much to dispel that caricature Thursday during his 24-minute address accepting his party’s presidential nomination. By Bill Barrow and Will Weissert. SENT: 1,140 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-HARRIS-NAME — Kamala Harris’ supporters say the way top Republicans, including President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, mispronounce Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ first name is not only disrespectful, it’s racist. By Sara Burnett. SENT: 800 words, photos.
Find more coverage of the conventions and Election 2020 on the 2020 U.S. Elections featured topic page in AP Newsroom.
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WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
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TRUMP-STORMY-DANIELS — A California court has ordered President Trump to pay $44,100 in attorney fees to porn actress Stormy Daniels to cover her legal battle over her effort to cancel a hush money deal brokered to keep her quiet about their sexual relationship a decade ago. SENT: 480 words, photos.
BRITAIN-TOWER-BRIDGE — London’s famous Tower Bridge, which crosses the River Thames in the heart of the British capital, became stuck open, leaving traffic in chaos and onlookers amazed at the sight. SENT: 120 words, photos.
NATION'S CAPITAL-BABY PANDA — A brand new giant panda cub is sparking pandemic-fueled panda-mania, and officials at the National Zoo said traffic on their livestream spiked 1,200 percent over the past week. SENT: 600 words, photos.
WHITE HOUSE ROSE GARDEN RENOVATIONS — The White House Rose Garden has been spruced up in time for its moment in the campaign spotlight. First lady Melania Trump will deliver her Republican National Convention speech Tuesday night from the garden, which has been renovated in the spirit of its original 1962 design. SENT: 410 words, photos.
FRANCE-MASSACRE — Vandals have defaced a wall with graffiti denying the Holocaust in the village that was the site of the biggest massacre of civilians by World War II occupying Nazis. SENT: 230 words.
CHRIS CORNELL-STATUE-VANDALIZED — A life-sized statue of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell has been vandalized outside the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle. SENT: 160 words.
ELECTION 2020-KANYE WEST — West Virginia’s secretary of state says rapper Kanye West’s bid to get on the ballot for president is short on qualified signatures. SENT: 200 words.
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FACT CHECK-WEEK — Joe Biden and fellow Democrats spun an assortment of facts to their benefit in their national convention, omitting inconvenient truths such as Barack Obama’s record of aggressive deportations and swift action by a Republican president to save the auto industry more than a decade ago. Meantime, President Donald Trump flooded the zone with falsehoods, some so apparent that anyone with access to the internet could see the folly of them at a glance. Witness his reference to New Zealand’s “massive breakout” of COVID-19, which does not exist. SENT: 2,800 words, photos.
TRUMP-PLEDGE-FACT CHECK — President Donald Trump is accusing the Democrats of taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance at their national convention. He’s distorting what happened. SENT: 290 words, photo.
UNITED STATES-MIDEAST — The Trump administration will send two top officials to the Middle East this week in a bid to capitalize on momentum from the historic agreement between Israeli and the United Arab Emirates to establish diplomatic relations. By Diplomatic Writer Matt Lee. SENT: 360 words, photos.
SUPREME COURT-ELECTION ISSUE — The future of the Supreme Court is on the line, though it would be hard to tell from the Democratic National Convention that just concluded. By contrast, President Donald Trump and other Republican candidates rarely miss a chance to talk up Trump’s more than 200 federal court appointments. SENT: 650 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-BATTLEGROUND SWING COUNTIES — While the fight for northern swing states rages more intensely in the metro areas, a Democratic effort has been going on for months to shave President Trump’s winning margins in pivotal rural and small-town regions. SENT: 880 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-DNC-TRUMP — President Trump spent the week of the Democratic National Convention forsaking what has historically been an incumbent’s greatest advantage: He’s in the job his challenger wants. By Zeke Miller. SENT: 810 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-TULSA-MAYOR — By all accounts, Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum has been a fast-rising political star in Oklahoma. But as the city’s mayoral election approaches Tuesday, Bynum finds himself under attack from both the left and the right in the city of 420,000. SENT: 1,100 words, photo.
ELECTION 2020-OHIO-REPUBLICANS — It was a tough week to be an Ohio Republican. The party is trying to present a united front heading into its party’s national convention, following a week when one of its best-known politicians threw his support behind Democrat Joe Biden, the Republican state attorney general challenged the Trump administration, and the president took on an iconic company headquartered in the state. SENT: 760 words, photo.
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GERMANY-CORONAVIRUS-EXPERIMENT — How does coronavirus spread at a concert? Germans do a test. SENT: 500 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK—LIBERIA-RUBBER WOES — The rubber industry in Liberia has gotten so bad that some farmers are cutting down their rubber trees with hopes of producing palm oil instead. SENT: 700 words, photos.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-ASIA — South Korea is banning large gatherings, closing beaches, shutting nightspots and churches and removing fans from professional sports in strict new measures announced as it battles the spread of the coronavirus. SENT: 980 words, photos.
Find more all-format coverage on the Virus Outbreak featured topic page in AP Newsroom.
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CALIFORNIA-WILDFIRES — Firefighters and aircraft from 10 states began arriving in California Friday to help weary crews battling some of the largest blazes in state history as weekend weather threatened to renew the advance of flames that have killed six people and incinerated hundreds of homes. SENT: 780 words, photos.
RACIAL-INJUSTICE-MISSISSIPPI FLAGS — Design enthusiasts say some of the five finalists for a new Mississippi flag are distinctive and others have problems. The state recently retired the last state flag with the Confederate battle emblem. SENT: 1,000 words, photos.
RACIAL INJUSTICE-POLICE SHOOTING-LOUISIANA — Police in Louisiana shot and killed a man as he tried to enter a convenience store with a knife, authorities said Saturday. The shooting was captured on video, and the state ACLU condemned what it described as a “horrific and deadly incident of police violence against a Black person.” SENT: 330 words.
FEDERAL-EXECUTION-LETHAL-INJECTION-Q&A — Lawyers trying to halt next week’s federal execution of their client say an autopsy on an inmate put to death by a lethal injection last month shows he suffered “extreme pain” before he died. SENT: 770 words, photo.
PORTLAND PROTESTS — Dueling demonstrations in Portland by right-wing and left-wing protesters have turned violent, with demonstrators hurling rocks and other items at each other and getting into fights.. SENT: 460 words, photos.
CHARLOTTE DEMONSTRATION-ARRESTS — Several people have been arrested in Charlotte, North Carolina, after some demonstrators skirmished with authorities, as delegates arrived for the start of the Republican National Convention, police said. SENT: 210 words, photos.
RESCUED-GIRLS-FIREFIGHTER-DIES — Crews have recovered the body of a Detroit firefighter who vanished into the Detroit River while helping save some girls from drowning a day earlier, authorities said. SENT: 250 words, photos.
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RUSSIA-NAVALNY — Russian dissident Alexei Navalny, who is in a coma after a suspected poisoning, arrived in Berlin on a special flight for treatment by specialists at the German capital’s main hospital. A representative of the nongovernmental organization that arranged the flight confirmed that the plane had landed and that Navalny was in stable condition. SENT: 870 words, photos.
BELARUS-PROTESTS — Authorities in Belarus have blocked more than 50 news media websites reporting on how the country has been shaken by two weeks of protests demanding that authoritarian President Alexander Lukashenko resign after 26 years in power. SENT: 570 words, photos. WITH: BELARUS-FACES OF PROTEST-PHOTO GALLERY — Holding signs or personal tokens of resistance, protesters described their fears and hopes to The Associated Press, after nearly two weeks of protests against President Alexander Lukashenko’s 26-year rule. SENT: 560 words, photos.
MALI-CRISIS — A high-level delegation from the West African economic bloc is traveling to Mali’s capital to meet with the military leaders and the president who was overthrown this week. The international community has expressed alarm about the coup d’etat, which deposed Mali’s democratically elected leader who still had three years left in his term. SENT: 500 words, photos.
PAKISTAN-TALIBAN — Pakistan issues sweeping financial sanctions against Afghanistan’s Taliban, just as the militant group is in the midst of U.S.-led peace process in the neighboring country. The penalties were issued as part of Pakistan’s efforts to avoid being blacklisted by the Financial Action Task Force, which monitors money laundering and tracks terrorist groups’ activities. SENT: 590 words, photos.
IRAN-NUCLEAR — The head of the U.N.’s atomic watchdog agency will head to Tehran next week to press Iranian authorities for access to sites where the country is thought to have stored or used undeclared nuclear material. SENT: 440 words.
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SCIENCE
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TROPICAL WEATHER-DUAL THREAT — Two tropical storms advanced across the Caribbean Saturday as potentially historic threats to the U.S. Gulf Coast, one dumping rain on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands while the other was pushing through the gap between Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula and Cuba. SENT: 740 words, photo.
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CAR--INDY 500-ANDRETTI — Marco Andretti is aloof and introverted like his father. But his peers love him and insist the fan image of an entitled third-generation racer is way off the mark. Andretti is on the pole Sunday at the Indianapolis 500. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos by 7 p.m.
SOC—CHAMPIONS LEAGUE FINAL — The disrupted Champions League season ends with Sunday’s final between Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern Munich. PSG is trying to win Europe’s premier event for the first time. Bayern is eyeing its sixth title. SENT: 950 words, photos.
THE STANFORD EFFECT — Two former Stanford athletes are spearheading a protest over the school’s decision to cut sports. The move will ultimately harm the U.S. Olympic team. Stanford sent 29 athletes to the Rio Games, and 15 won medals. SENT: 900 words, photos.
FBN--WASHINGTON-RIVERA —Washington coach Ron Rivera ran his first practice since telling players he had a form of skin cancer. He knows he’ll struggle during treatment and has a plan B in place for defensive coordinator Jack Del Rio to take over. SENT: 640 words, photos.
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HOW TO REACH US
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