AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
2 shootings, 2 days: In Kenosha, a microcosm of US strife
KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — A Black man, accosted by police on a domestic dispute call, is left with bullet wounds in his back that will likely keep him from ever walking again. A white 17-year-old, rifle in hand, strolls past authorities untouched amid cries that he just gunned down three people protesting the Black man’s shooting.
Two moments of bloodshed, two days and 2 miles apart in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And in those two moments, this mid-sized Midwestern city seemed a stark microcosm of a nation wracked by discord over racial inequity, policing and the meaning of public safety.
The chain of events that began Aug. 23 with Jacob Blake’s shooting has become a disputed X-ray of a divided society -- a black-and-white picture where some see racial injustice that proves the urgency of the Black Lives Matter movement, while others see rioting that spurred a teenager to try to defend a community against chaos.
But to many in Kenosha -- taking stock of a convulsive week ahead of President Donald Trump’s planned visit Tuesday -- it’s not as simple as that.
As people here navigate barricaded streets, boarded-up windows and their own place along some of the deepest fault lines cleaving the U.S., there are many more than two perspectives on what happened, what it means and the way forward.
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Biden unleashes attacks, blames Trump for protest violence
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Accusing President Donald Trump of “poisoning” the nation’s values, Joe Biden condemned violence at recent protests Monday and blamed Trump as the battle over who's to blame and who can keep Americans safe emerged as the sharpest dividing line for the campaign's final weeks.
Biden, in his most direct attacks yet, accused Trump of causing the divisions that have ignited the violence, delivering an uncharacteristically blistering speech and distancing himself from radical forces involved in altercations.
He said of Trump, "He doesn’t want to shed light, he wants to generate heat, and he’s stoking violence in our cities. He can’t stop the violence because for years he’s fomented it.”
Biden also tried to refocus the race on what has been its defining theme — Trump’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic that has left more than 180,000 Americans dead — after a multi-day onslaught by the president’s team to make the campaign about the violence rattling American cities.
Biden himself has largely remained near his home in Delaware to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, but he stepped out in a new phase of his campaign on Monday, in a peech in Pittsburgh and a brief stop at a local firehouse.
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Appeals court keeps Flynn case alive, won't order dismissal
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington declined Monday to order the dismissal of the Michael Flynn prosecution, permitting a judge to scrutinize the Justice Department's request to dismiss its case against President Donald Trump's former national security adviser.
The decision keeps the case at least temporarily alive and rebuffs efforts by both Flynn's lawyers and the Justice Department to force the prosecution to be dropped without any further inquiry from the judge, who has for months declined to dismiss it. The ruling represents the latest development in a criminal case that has taken unusual twists and turns over the last year and prompted a separation of powers tussle involving a veteran federal judge and the Trump administration.
In a separate ruling Monday, a three-judge panel of the same appeals court again threw out a lawsuit by House Democrats to compel former White House counsel Don McGahn to appear before a congressional committee.
The Flynn conflict arose in May when the Justice Department moved to dismiss the prosecution despite Flynn's own guilty plea to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition period.
But U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who had upbraided Flynn for his behavior at a 2018 court appearance, signaled his skepticism at the government's unusual motion. He refused to dismiss the case and instead scheduled a hearing and appointed a retired federal judge to argue against the Justice Department's position. That former judge, John Gleeson, challenged the motive s behind the department's dismissal request and called it a “gross abuse” of prosecutorial power.
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Liberty announces investigation into Falwell's tenure
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Liberty University is opening an independent investigation into Jerry Falwell Jr.'s tenure as president, a wide-ranging inquiry that will include financial, real estate and legal matters, the evangelical school's board announced Monday.
In a statement, the board said it had retained an outside firm to investigate “all facets” of the school's operations under Falwell, and that it was “committed to learning the consequences that have flowed from a lack of spiritual stewardship by our former president.”
Calls for such an investigation had been mounting since Falwell's departure last week from the post he had held since 2007.
He officially resigned on Tuesday, after a confusing day of back-and-forths about whether or not he would be leaving. His departure came after a news outlet published an interview with Giancarlo Granda, a much younger business partner of the Falwell family. Granda said that he had a yearslong sexual relationship with Becki Falwell and that Jerry Falwell participated in some of the liaisons as a voyeur.
Although the Falwells have acknowledged that Granda and Becki Falwell had an affair, Jerry Falwell has denied any participation. The couple allege that Granda sought to extort them by threatening to reveal the relationship unless he was paid substantial monies.
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A Zoom Thanksgiving? Summer could give way to a bleaker fall
As the Summer of COVID draws to a close, many experts fear an even bleaker fall and suggest that American families should start planning for Thanksgiving by Zoom.
Because of the many uncertainties, public health scientists say it’s easier to forecast the weather on Thanksgiving Day than to predict how the U.S. coronavirus crisis will play out this autumn. But school reopenings, holiday travel and more indoor activity because of colder weather could all separately increase transmission of the virus and combine in ways that could multiply the threat, they say.
Here's one way it could go: As more schools open for in-person instruction and more college students return to campuses, small clusters of cases could widen into outbreaks in late September. Public fatigue over mask rules and other restrictions could stymie efforts to slow these infections.
A few weeks later, widening outbreaks could start to strain hospitals. If a bad flu season peaks in October, as happened in 2009, the pressure on the health care system could result in higher daily death tolls from the coronavirus. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has said that scenario is his biggest fear.
One certainty is that the virus will still be around, said Jarad Niemi, a disease-modeling expert at Iowa State University.
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Detroit turns island park into COVID-19 memorial garden
DETROIT (AP) — A Detroit island park was transformed Monday into a drive-thru COVID-19 victims memorial as policy makers across the U.S. moved forward with plans to reopen schools and public spaces.
Hearses led processions around Belle Isle Park in the Detroit River, where more than 900 large photos of local coronavirus victims provided by relatives were turned into posters and staked into the ground.
As the death toll continued to rise around the world, officials announced plans to bring children back to school in Rhode Island, allow diners back inside New Jersey restaurants and let fans watch football inside an Iowa college stadium.
New COVID-19 cases were linked to travelers on vacation in Europe and the head of the World Health Organization cautioned against opening societies too quickly.
More than 847,000 people worldwide have perished from the virus and more than 25.3 million have contracted it, according to Johns Hopkins University — figures experts say understate the true toll due to limited testing, missed mild cases and other factors.
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Americans divided over armed civilians who flock to protests
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The scenes have become commonplace in 2020: People gathered at state Capitols with semiautomatic long guns strapped across their chests. A couple near St. Louis emerging from their mansion brandishing firearms as Black Lives Matter demonstrators marched by the house. Men roaming the streets with rifles during protests over racial inequality, punctuated by two people being killed in Wisconsin and another in Oregon over the weekend.
The coronavirus pandemic, protests against racism and police killings, a rancorous election and some people's perception that cities are being overrun by violent mobs have brought about a markedly more aggressive stance by some gun owners and widened the divide over firearms in the U.S.
Americans are turning out more often and more visibly with guns, a sign of the tension engulfing the country.
Last week's arrest of a 17-year-old accused of killing two people in Kenosha, Wisconsin, with a semiautomatic rifle is just the latest flashpoint. Over the weekend, supporters of President Donald Trump streamed into Portland, Oregon, resulting in a clash with protesters that ended with a supporter of a right-wing group fatally shot.
The white teenager and other gun-toting protesters have been denounced as radical vigilantes who benefit from a double-standard — that if they were Black gun owners brandishing their firearms, the police would use deadly force against them.
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In aftermath of Hurricane Laura, residents worry about help
LAKE CHARLES, La. (AP) — In a matter of hours last week, Hurricane Laura tore through the tire shop Layla Winbush's family started just under a year ago, reducing most of it to rubble and scattering hundreds of tires across the lot. The storm also damaged her home, which now reeks of mold.
Federal and state officials are on the ground to help residents with home repairs and hotel stays. But Winbush said she feels alone, particularly after seeing a video of President Donald Trump, who visited the area Saturday, joking with Gulf Coast officials that they could sell copies of his signature for $10,000.
“We can’t depend on the president. We can’t depend on nobody,” she said. “We’ll just take what we have and get it done.”
As evacuated Lake Charles residents return home, many worry they wouldn’t have enough support from both the federal and state governments as they face a rebuilding process certain to take several months, if not longer.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards on Monday warned that residents were in for a long recovery, with 324,000 power outages across the state and hundreds of thousands of people without water or under boil water advisories. Meanwhile, stifling heat and humidity were adding to the trouble of clearing out debris, patching roofs and starting rebuilding work.
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El Al flight LY971 to Abu Dhabi was no typical air journey
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — From the Israeli captain’s emotional greeting in Arabic upon takeoff in Tel Aviv, to the warm Emirati reception on the ground in scorching Abu Dhabi, it was obvious this was no typical flight.
Monday’s El Al flight LY971 marked the first-ever direct flight from Israel to the United Arab Emirates, placing a significant stamp on this month’s historic U.S.-brokered deal to normalize relations between the two nations.
The journey was steeped in symbolism. U.S. and Israeli flags adorned the tarmac at Ben-Gurion Airport as Israeli music played, and the word “peace” was emblazoned in English, Hebrew and Arabic above the cockpit window of the Boeing 737. On board, the “Making History” motto featured prominently on each seat’s headrest covering and complimentary fabric bags of the “Abraham Accord Inaugural Flight” were distributed.
A special menu was prepared, highlighting touches of Middle Eastern cuisine, and the director-general of Israel’s Health Ministry even handed out a limited-edition face-mask featuring the Israeli and Emirati flags. The American diplomats on board sported a tri-country face mask amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Prior to boarding, the deal’s mastermind, President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, waxed poetic on the flight’s meaning.
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Amazon wins FAA approval to deliver packages by drone
NEW YORK (AP) — Getting an Amazon package delivered from the sky is closer to becoming a reality.
The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it had granted Amazon approval to deliver packages by drones.
Amazon said that the approval is an “important step," but added that it is still testing and flying the drones. It did not say when it expected drones to make deliveries to shoppers.
The online shopping giant has been working on drone delivery for years, but it has been slowed by regulatory hurdles. Back in December 2013, Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos said in a TV interview that drones would be flying to customer’s homes within five years.
Last year, Amazon unveiled self-piloting drones that are fully electric, can carry 5 pounds of goods and are designed to deliver items in 30 minutes by dropping them in a backyard. At the time, an Amazon executive said deliveries to shoppers would be happening “within months,” but more than 14 months have passed since then.