AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
'QAnon' conspiracy theory creeps into mainstream politics
MILWAUKEE (AP) — President Donald Trump was more than halfway through his speech at a rally in Milwaukee when one of his hand gestures caught the eye of a supporter standing in the packed arena.
The 51-year-old woman believed the president had traced the shape of the letter “Q” with his fingers as a covert signal to followers of QAnon, a right-wing, pro-Trump conspiracy theory. She turned to the couple on her right and excitedly asked, “Did you see the ‘Q’?”
“He just did it?” asked Diane Jacobson, 63, of Racine, Wisconsin.
“Was that a 'Q'?" added Jacobson's husband, Randy, 64.
“I think it was,” replied their new friend, Chrisy. The Geneva, Illinois, resident declined to give her last name in part because she said she wanted to avoid negative “attention."
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Where did they go? Millions left city before quarantine
SHANGHAI (AP) — For weeks after the first reports of a mysterious new virus in Wuhan, millions of people poured out of the central Chinese city, cramming onto buses, trains and planes as the first wave of China’s great Lunar New Year migration broke across the nation. Some carried with them the new virus that has since claimed over 800 lives and sickened more than 37,000 people.
Officials finally began to seal the borders on Jan. 23. But it was too late. Speaking to reporters a few days after the city was put under quarantine, the mayor estimated that 5 million people had already left.
Where did they go?
An Associated Press analysis of domestic travel patterns using map location data from Chinese tech giant Baidu shows that in the two weeks before Wuhan’s lockdown, nearly 70% of trips out of the central Chinese city were within Hubei province. Baidu has a map app that is similar to Google Maps, which is blocked in China.
Another 14% of the trips went to the neighboring provinces of Henan, Hunan, Anhui and Jiangxi. Nearly 2% slipped down to Guangdong province, the coastal manufacturing powerhouse across from Hong Kong, and the rest fanned out across China. The cities outside Hubei province that were top destinations for trips from Wuhan between Jan. 10 and Jan. 24 were Chongqing, a municipality next to Hubei province, Beijing and Shanghai.
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China's virus death toll surpasses SARS but new cases fall
BEIJING (AP) — China's virus death toll rose by 89 on Sunday to 811, passing the number of fatalities in the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic, but fewer new cases were reported in a possible sign its spread may be slowing as other nations stepped up efforts to block the disease.
Some 2,656 new virus cases were reported in the 24 hours ending at midnight Saturday, most of them in the central province of Hubei, where the first patients fell sick in December. That was down by about 20% from the 3,399 new cases reported in the previous 24-hour period.
“That means the joint control mechanism of different regions and the strict prevention and control measures have worked,” a spokesman for the National Health Commission, Mi Feng, said at a news conference.
Also Sunday, new cases were reported in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Malaysia, the U.K. and Spain. More than 360 cases have been confirmed outside mainland China.
“Dramatic reductions” in the pace of the disease's spread should begin this month if containment works, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, director of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity. He assisted the World Health Organization and Chinese authorities during the outbreak of SARS, or severe acute respiratory syndrome.
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Thailand mourns victims of country's deadliest mass shooting
NAKHON RATCHASIMA, Thailand (AP) — As mourning began for the victims of Thailand's worst mass shooting, the country counted its losses: a mother shot dead at the wheel of her car as her son sat beside her, a 13-year-old student gunned down as he was riding his motorbike home and more than two dozen other people.
Authorities said the attack was carried out by a single gunman — a disgruntled soldier who opened fire on strangers before he was fatally shot Sunday at a shopping mall. Another 58 people were wounded.
The dead were mourned Sunday night in Nakhon Ratchasima, a hub for Thailand’s relatively poor and rural northeastern region. More than 1,000 people turned up for the vigil led by Buddhist monks. They lit candles and prayed and chanted in the town square featuring a statue of Thao Suranari, a governor's wife who is revered for leading troops against invaders from Laos two centuries ago.
Officials said the gunman was angry over a financial dispute with his commanding officer. He made Col. Anantarote Krasae his first victim before stealing guns from an army camp and heading to the mall, shooting wildly along the way at people inside and outside the building.
The attacker was identified as Sgt. Maj. Jakrapanth Thomma, who holed himself up in the Terminal 21 Korat, an airport-themed mall filled with colorful Lego sculptures, a merry-go-round and huge replicas of landmarks from around the world.
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Graham: DOJ has process to review Giuliani's Ukraine info
WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a close ally of President Donald Trump, said Sunday that the Justice Department has established a way to review information gathered in Ukraine by Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who has targeted Democrat Joe Biden and his son.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Attorney General William Barr told him during a conversation Sunday that the department has “created a process that Rudy could give information and they would see if it's verified.”
“Rudy Giuliani is a well-known man," said Graham. "He's a crime fighter. He's loyal to the president. He's a good lawyer.”
Giuliani is also under scrutiny by federal authorities. That means the Justice Department would be putting itself in the awkward position of appearing to work with someone it is actively investigating to gather potentially damaging information against one of the president's political rivals.
Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec declined to comment when asked about Graham's statements.
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The Latest: 'Frozen 2' songwriter's Oscars secret? Sneakers
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Latest on the 92nd Academy Awards, which are being bestowed Sunday at the Dolby Theatre (all times local):
2:40 p.m.
“Frozen 2’s” Kristen Anderson-Lopez has a secret hiding under her emerald gown: Sneakers.
An award-winning composer along with husband Robert Lopez, Anderson-Lopez lifted her dress proudly to show off her comfortable kicks, shouting to the fan bleachers that it’s the “only way to do the Oscars.”
Already Oscar winners for “Let It Go” and “Remember Me,” from “Coco,” the couple is nominated this year for the song “Into the Unknown.”
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Trump budget to face skepticism, be overwhelmed by politics
WASHINGTON (AP) — Confronted with trillion-dollar-plus deficits for as far as the eye can see, President Donald Trump is offering a budget plan that rehashes previously rejected spending cuts while leaving Social Security and Medicare benefits untouched.
Trump’s fiscal 2021 budget plan, expected to be released Monday, isn’t likely to generate a serious Washington dialogue about what to do, if anything this election year, about entrenched fiscal problems that have deficits surging despite a healthy economy. It was being released on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, a move that minimizes attention.
A blueprint written as if Trump could enact it without congressional approval, the budget proposal relies on rosy economic projections and fanciful claims of future cuts to domestic programs to show that it is possible to bend the deficit curve in the right direction.
The reality is that no one — Trump, the Democratic-controlled House or the GOP-held Senate — has any interest in tackling a chronic budget gap that forces the government to borrow 22 cents of every dollar it spends.
Trump’s reelection campaign, meanwhile, is focused on the economy and the historically low jobless rate while ignoring the government’s budget.
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Outrage after gunman ambushes NYC police twice in 12 hours
NEW YORK (AP) — A gunman was taken into custody Sunday after he ambushed police officers in the Bronx twice in 12 hours, wounding two in attacks that ignited outrage from officials who blamed the violence on an atmosphere of anti-police rhetoric.
The man, whose name was not immediately released, was captured after he walked into a police station in the Bronx and started shooting shortly before 8 a.m. Sunday. His shots struck a lieutenant in the arm and narrowly missed other police personnel before he ran out of bullets, lay down and tossed his pistol.
That attack came just hours after the same man approached a patrol van in the same part of the Bronx late Saturday and fired at two officers inside, wounding one before escaping on foot, police said.
Despite multiple shots fired in both incidents, nobody was killed, and all are expected to recover, police said.
"It is only by the grace of God and the heroic actions of those inside the building that took him into custody that we are not talking about police officers murdered inside a New York City police precinct,” Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said at a news conference.
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The Latest: Warren stresses party unity to defeat Trump
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 Democratic presidential race and Tuesday's primary in New Hampshire (all times local):
3:20 p.m.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren has largely avoided attacks from her key presidential rivals lately — but doesn’t see an advantage for anyone in them.
Speaking to reporters after a rally in Concord, New Hampshire, on Sunday, Warren said, “Look, we’re going to have to bring our party together in order to beat Donald Trump.”
She added: “And the way we do this is not by launching a bunch of attacks on each other and trying to tear each other down.”
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Hurricane-force winds pound UK and Europe, upend travel
LONDON (AP) — Storm Ciara battered the U.K. and northern Europe with hurricane-force winds and heavy rains Sunday, halting flights and trains and producing heaving seas that closed down ports. Soccer games, farmers' markets and cultural events were canceled as authorities urged millions of people to stay indoors, away from falling tree branches.
Named by the U.K. Met Office weather agency, the storm brought massive gusts that hit 93 mph (150 mph) at the northern Welsh village of Aberdaron and 86 mph (138 kph) at the Welsh town of Capel Curig. A British Airways plane is thought to have made the fastest ever flight by a conventional airliner from New York to London.
The fierce winds propelled a Boeing 747-436 to make the 3,500-mile transatlantic journey from New York to London in just 4 hours and 56 minutes, landing 102 minutes early and reaching a top speed of 825 mph (1,327 kph), according to flight tracking website Flightradar24. Two Virgin Airlines flights also roared across the Atlantic, with all three smashing the previous subsonic New York-to-London record of 5 hours and 13 minutes, Flightradar24 reported.
Storm surges ate away at beaches and pounded rock cliffs and cement docks. The Met Office issued 190 emergency flood warnings and urged people not to try to drive through flooded roads. Residents in the town of Appleby-in-Westmorland in northwest England battled to protect their homes amid severe flooding as the River Eden burst its banks.
Three people were injured after a pub roof partially collapsed Saturday evening in the city of Perth in central Scotland.