AP News Digest 2 p.m.
Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All Times EST. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org.
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ONLY ON AP
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VIRUS-OUTBREAK-MENTAL-HEALTH — The lockdowns that France has used to fight the spread of coronavirus have come at considerable cost to residents’ mental health. Surveys are noting a surge of depression, most acutely among people without work, those facing financial hardship and young adults. Mental health professionals say France’s coronavirus lockdowns and curfews have destabilized people who otherwise might not have ended up in psychiatric treatment wards. By John Leicester. SENT: 1,290 words, photos.
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VIRUS OUTBREAK-US SURGE — Nearly 37,000 people died of COVID-19 in the U.S. in November, the most in any month since the dark early days of the pandemic, engulfing families in grief, filling up obituary pages of small-town newspapers and testing the capacity of morgues, funeral homes and hospitals. By Tammy Webber and Heather Hollingsworth. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 3 p.m.
VIRUS OUTBREAK — An influential scientific panel was set to tackle one of the most pressing questions in the U.S. coronavirus outbreak: Who should be at the front of the line when the first vaccine shots become available? The U.S. government’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices scheduled an open-to-the-public, virtual meeting to vote on a proposal that would give priority to health care workers and nursing home patients. By Mike Stobbe. SENT: 865 words, photos.
BIDEN — President-elect Joe Biden unveils his economic team amid growing concerns about the pace of the nation’s economic recovery as governments reimpose restrictions to curtail the surging coronavirus pandemic. By Zeke Miller and Will Weissert. SENT: 556 words. UPCOMING: Developing from early afternoon event, 800 words by 5 p.m., photos.
TRUMP-FDA CHIEF - The head of the agency responsible for approving any COVID-19 vaccine is summoned to the White House as an increasingly frustrated President Donald Trump complains that the approval process isn’t moving fast enough. By Jill Colvin, Matthew Perrone, Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller. SENT: 700 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-CONGRESS — A bipartisan group of lawmakers is putting pressure on congressional leaders to accept a split-the-difference solution to the impasse on COVID-19 relief in a last-gasp effort to speed overdue help to a hurting nation before the holidays. By Andrew Taylor. SENT: 520 words. UPCOMING: Developing, 790 words by 5 p.m., photos.
BRAZIL BANK ROBBERY — Dozens of gunmen armed with assault rifles invaded a city in southern Brazil overnight and took control of the streets as they assaulted a local bank. Video broadcast on the Globo television network showed hooded men dressed in black walking the streets of Criciuma in the state of Santa Catarina, and local residents being held hostage during the takeover, which began around midnight and lasted almost two hours. By David Biller. SENT: 690 words, photos.
YE-TOP PHOTOS 2020 - A 64-year-old woman weeps, hugging her husband as he lay dying in the COVID-19 unit of a California hospital. A crowded refugee camp in Lesbos, Greece, engulfed in flames, disgorges a string of migrants fleeing this hell on Earth. Rain-swept protesters, enraged by the death of George Floyd in police custody, rail against the system and the heavens. This is the world that Associated Press photographers captured in 2020, a world beset by every sort of catastrophe -- natural and unnatural disaster, violent and non-violent conflict. And, in every corner of that world, the coronavirus. By Jerry Schwartz. SENT: 365 words, photos.
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WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
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POLAND ZOO-MOUSE-DEER BIRTH — A zoo in Poland claims it’s the first to have captured on video the birth of a rare Philippine mouse-deer, and everyone is hoping it’s a male so it can help the endangered species breed. SENT: 210 words, photo.
GERMANY CAR CRASH — A car drove at high speed into a pedestrian zone in the southwestern German city of Trier, killing at least two people, including a young child, and seriously injuring 15 others before the driver was stopped by police, officials said. SENT: 425 words, photos.
DELIVERY DRIVER-BURNING HOME — A 23-year-old Amazon delivery driver is being hailed as a hero after he rescued an elderly man from a burning house in central Florida. SENT: 250 words.
SWEDEN LOCKED UP — Swedish police are investigating a woman in her 70s who is suspected of having kept her son locked up — reportedly for 28 years — in an apartment south of Stockholm. SENT: 260 words, photos.
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VIRUS-OUTBREAK-EUROPE-VACCINES — The EU drug agency says it may need another four weeks to decide whether to grant its first approval for a coronavirus vaccine, even as authorities in the United States and Britain continued to aim for a green light before Christmas. SENT: 975 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-RURAL MISSOURI HOSPITAL — The coronavirus pandemic is devastating rural hospitals, including the tiny 25-bed facility in Memphis, Missouri. The situation is so dire that doctors sometimes have to send infected people home, telling them to come back if their condition worsens. SENT: 910 words, photos, video.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-BETHLEHEM CHRISTMAS — The coronavirus has cast a pall over Christmas celebrations in Bethlehem, all but shutting down the biblical town revered as Jesus’ birthplace at the height of the normally cheery holiday season. SENT: 650 words, photos.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-LEARNING-LOSS — New research shows students have fallen behind in math since the pandemic disrupted school, while most are progressing at a normal pace in reading, findings by the not-for-profit NWEA show. SENT: 640 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN — Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad says the coronavirus pandemic has increased trafficking of women and gender-based violence, leaving the health and safety of women “on the line.” SENT: 590 words, photo.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-BELGIUM — Nonessential shops in Belgium reopened Tuesday in the wake of encouraging figures about declining daily coronavirus infection rates and hospital admissions. Few overcrowding incidents were reported. SENT: 260 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-ONE GOOD THING-ASYLUM SEEKERS SCHOOL -- It started as a kind of pop-up school on a sidewalk to teach reading, writing and math to Central American children living in a camp of U.S. asylum seekers stuck in Mexico. Like countless other schools during the coronavirus pandemic, the so-called sidewalk school has had to go virtual. But instead of being hampered by the change, it has blossomed. Now some 20 teachers who are seeking asylum themselves give Zoom classes to Central American children in not only the camp, but at various shelters elsewhere in Mexico. SENT: 690 words, photos.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-VIRAL-QUESTIONS-SHOPPING — As the holiday season gets underway, health experts say to avoid shopping in stores when possible. SENT: 270 words, graphic.
Find more coverage on the Virus Outbreak on the featured topic page in AP Newsroom.
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TRUMP-FUNDRAISING — President Trump has raised roughly $170 million since his Election Day loss, a sum garnered through a nonstop stream of fundraising emails and text messages that have falsely claimed the election was stolen while requesting contributions for a “election defense fund.” SENT: 560 words, photo.
ELECTION 2020-WISCONSIN — President Trump filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin seeking to disqualify hundreds of thousands of ballots in a longshot attempt to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s win in the battleground state he lost by nearly 20,700 votes. SENT: 595 words.
ELECTION 2020-HOUSE GEORGIA — Voters in the Atlanta area were summoned back to the polls on to decide who to send to Washington for a month to briefly fill the seat of the late civil rights legend John Lewis. SENT: 385 words, photos.
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AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA — Azerbaijan completed reclaiming territory held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century after a peace deal ended six weeks of fierce fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh. SENT: 700 words, photos.
ETHIOPIA MILITARY CONFRONTATION — The United Nations says food has now run out for the nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea who have been sheltering in camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which has been cut off from the world for nearly a month amid fighting. SENT: 420 words, photos.
BREXIT — The British government tells businesses to make sure they are ready for big changes when the U.K. makes its final Brexit break from the European Union in exactly a month. SENT: 530 words, photos.
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BILL COSBY — Pennsylvania’s highest court questioned whether Bill Cosby’s alleged history of intoxicating and sexually assaulting young women amounted to a signature crime pattern, given studies that show as many as half of all sexual assaults involve drugs or alcohol. Cosby, 83, hopes to overturn his 2018 sex assault conviction because the judge let prosecutors call five other accusers who said Cosby treated them the same way he did his victim, Andrea Constand. SENT: 665 words, photos.
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HEALTH & SCIENCE
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PUERTO RICO-OBSERVATORY COLLAPSE -- A huge, already damaged radio telescope in Puerto Rico that has played a key role in astronomical discoveries for more than half a century completely collapsed. The telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform and the Gregorian dome — a structure as tall as a four-story building that houses secondary reflectors — fell onto the northern portion of the vast reflector dish more than 400 feet below. SENT: 800 words, photos.
CHINA MOON PROBE — The Chinese government says a robot probe launched to return lunar rocks to Earth has landed on the moon. The official China News Service said the Chang’e 5 “successfully landed on the moon in the pre-selected landing area.” It gave no more details. SENT: 320 words, photo.
AP-INTERVIEW-NUNEZ SMITH - AP interview with Dr. Marcella Nunez-Smith, a co-chair on President-elect Joe Biden’s task force advising on the pandemic response. UPCOMING: 700 words, photos by 3 p.m.
THREATENED PINE TREES-GRIZZLIES — Climate change, voracious beetles and disease are imperiling the long-term survival of a high-elevation pine tree that’s a key source of food for some grizzly bears and found across the U.S. West, U.S. officials said. SENT: 415 words, photos.
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FINANCIAL MARKETS — U.S. stocks were broadly higher, sending the S&P 500 toward another record high. SENT: 350 words, photos.
NASDAQ-BOARDROOM DIVERSITY — The Nasdaq stock exchange is seeking U.S. authority to require more diversity in the boardrooms of Nasdaq-listed companies, or to explain why they can not. It is the first major exchange to pursue such a requirement. By Michelle Chapman. SENT: 550 words, photo.
GLOBAL ECONOMY — The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts that the world economy will bounce back to its pre-pandemic levels by the end of next year. But the OECD said the recovery will be uneven across the countries and big risks remain. SENT: 650 words, photos.
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TV-PETRI HAWKINS-BYRD — Petri Hawkins-Byrd is arguably the most well-known bailiff in court TV history. She has stood side-by-side with Judith Sheindlin during approximately 12,500 cases together on the hit show “Judge Judy.” But after 25 years, the show is coming to an end. SENT: 890 words, photos, video.
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SPORTS
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BKN-NBA CHALLENGED COACHES — With no full-team workouts allowed until this weekend, the plans that NBA coaches have used in past training camps all may as well get thrown out the window this year. By Basketball Writer Tim Reynolds. UPCOMING: 650 words, photos by 4 p.m.
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HOW TO REACH US
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At the Nerve Center, Richard A. Somma can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, Courtney Dittmar (ext. 1900). For graphics and interactives, Phil Holm (ext. 7636). Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://newsroom.ap.org. For access to AP Newsroom and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport(at)ap.org or call 877-836-9477.