AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST
Sanders edges Buttigieg in NH, cementing Dem front-runners
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — Bernie Sanders won New Hampshire’s presidential primary election Tuesday night, narrowly edging moderate rival Pete Buttigieg and scoring the first clear victory in the Democratic Party’s chaotic 2020 nomination fight.
In his win, the 78-year-old Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, beat back a strong challenge from the 38-year-old former Midwestern mayor -- two men representing different generations and wings of their party.
"This victory here is the beginning of the end for Donald Trump,” Sanders declared.
As Sanders and Buttigieg celebrated, an unexpectedly strong performance from Amy Klobuchar gave her a path out of New Hampshire as the contest moves on to the string of state-by-state primary contests that lie ahead. Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren posted disappointing results and were on track to finish with zero delegates from the state.
The New Hampshire vote made clear that the early days of the Democratic contest will be a battle largely between two men four decades apart in age and ideological opposites. Sanders is a leading progressive voice, calling for substantial government intervention in health care and other sectors of the economy. Buttigieg has pressed for more incremental changes, giving Americans the option of retaining their private health insurance and making a point of appealing to Republicans and independents who may be dissatisfied with Trump.
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A victory, a caution: Takeaways from New Hampshire's primary
New Hampshire Democrats gave Bernie Sanders a win, but also a warning.
Sanders' durability, based both on his 2016 campaign and the first two contests this year, cannot be questioned. What remains unanswered is how moderates will now come at him and whether Sen. Elizabeth Warren will be able to compete credibly for the progressive wing. Her disappointing fourth-place showing gives supporters little confidence.
But Sanders' liabilities are also clear, at least among a large segment of voters in the party who are wary of the 78-year-old self-identified democratic socialist, and how that label could be demonized by President Donald Trump. As he goes forward, Sanders will have to convince voters that he can pay for his plans to fundamentally reorder the American economy in the name of economic fairness.
New Hampshire voters acknowledged a nominee with strongly liberal views might have difficulty against Trump in November, with about 6 in 10 saying it would be harder, according to an AP VoteCast survey of more than 3,000 Democratic primary voters. And more than 7 in 10 voters chose someone else.
Other takeaways from the New Hampshire primary:
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Joe Biden looks to South Carolina to resurrect his campaign
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Joe Biden brought his wounded presidential campaign to South Carolina on Tuesday, staking his hopes for a comeback on the loyalty of black voters in the state after a dismal finish in the New Hampshire primary magnified his disappointing finish in Iowa.
“I know this is going to be the fight of my life,” Biden told about 200 enthusiastic supporters gathered near the South Carolina Capitol to hear the 77-year-old former vice president deliver an emotional appeal. Biden eagerly looked ahead as the nomination fight moves beyond the overwhelmingly white opening states to Nevada, South Carolina and a Super Tuesday slate where African Americans and Latinos will hold considerable sway.
“We just heard from the first two of 50 states. Two of them,” Biden said. “That’s the opening bell, not the closing bell.”
The candidate argued that no Democratic nominee has succeeded without significant support from African Americans, the core of his base in a fractured primary field. The electorate in South Carolina’s Feb. 29 primary, the first in the South, is expected to be more than 60% black and could approach 70%, according to state party leaders.
Still, there is no Democratic precedent for the kind of comeback Biden is trying to pull off. No Democrat has claimed the nomination in the modern primary system without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire.
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China's new virus cases fall again, deaths now exceed 1,100
BEIJING (AP) — China on Wednesday reported another drop in the number of new cases of a viral infection and 97 more deaths, pushing the total dead past 1,100 as postal services worldwide said delivery was being affected by the cancellation of many flights to China.
The National Health Commission said 2,015 new cases had been reported over the last 24 hours, declining for a second day. The total number of cases in mainland China reached 44,653, although many experts say a large number of others infected have gone uncounted.
The additional deaths raised the mainland toll to 1,113. Two people have died elsewhere, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.
Japan's Health Ministry said that 39 new cases have been confirmed on a cruise ship quarantined at Yokohama, bringing the total to 174 on the Diamond Princess.
The U.S. Postal Service said that it was “experiencing significant difficulties” in dispatching letters, parcels and express mail to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.
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Trial team quits Roger Stone case in dispute over sentence
WASHINGTON (AP) — The four lawyers who prosecuted Roger Stone quit the case Tuesday after the Justice Department overruled them and said it would take the extraordinary step of lowering the amount of prison time it would seek for President Donald Trump’s longtime ally and confidant.
The departures raised immediate questions over whether Trump, who earlier in the day had blasted the original sentencing recommendation as “very horrible and unfair," had at least indirectly exerted his will on a Justice Department that he often views as an arm of the White House.
The department said the decision to undo the sentencing recommendation was made Monday night — before Trump's tweet — and prosecutors had not spoken to the White House about it. Even so, the departures of the entire trial team broke open a simmering dispute over the punishment of a Trump ally whose case has long captured the president's attention. The episode was the latest to entangle the Justice Department, meant to operate free from White House sway in criminal investigations and prosecutions, in presidential politics.
The four attorneys, including two who were early members of special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia team, comprised the entire Justice Department trial team that won convictions against Stone last fall.
Each had signed onto a Monday sentencing memo that recommended between seven and nine years in prison for Stone, who was convicted of lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia to tip the 2016 election. None lent their names to a Tuesday memo that called the original recommendation excessive.
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AP VoteCast: After Iowa, many NH Dems worry about fairness
WASHINGTON (AP) — Only 14% of New Hampshire Democrats said they were “very confident” that the process for picking a presidential nominee would be fair, a sign of possible doubts lingering in voters' minds at the state’s Tuesday primary.
The trouble tabulating results in last week’s Iowa caucuses, an issue that has yet to be fully resolved, may have rattled the faith of some voters amid uncertainty about who is the Democratic front-runner. The skepticism was clearest among Bernie Sanders' backers, with about 6 in 10 saying they had little or no confidence in the Democratic primary process. Majorities of voters for every other top Democratic contender described the primary process as fair.
The results from AP VoteCast suggest that Sanders' younger and generally more liberal supporters distrust their fellow Democrats, a potential reflection of the Vermont senator losing the 2016 nomination to Hillary Clinton. These suspicions could set up a bruising round of election contests in the weeks ahead as Democratic voters choose whether it is better to lean into an overtly liberal contender or embrace a more moderate challenger to President Donald Trump in November.
Matthew Gage, a 40-year-old EMT attending a Sanders party in Manchester, New Hampshire, said he was angered by the use of super delegates in the 2016 election and remains "suspicious" that the process is fair this time around.
This year, he said, "I have more confidence only because there's more eyes watching them and they know they can’t hide stuff."
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Poodle perfection: Siba wins best in show at Westminster
NEW YORK (AP) — Primped and poised, Siba the standard poodle owned the ring.
Even with the crowd at Madison Square Garden chanting for a popular golden retriever, the statuesque Siba strutted off with best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club on Tuesday night.
Adorned with black puffs and pompoms, the 3-year-old Siba was the absolute picture of what many see as the epitome of a show dog.
Not everyone shared that view. As judge Bob Slay studied Siba in the best-of-seven final ring, a fan shouted out: “No way, Slay, no way!”
Slay stuck by what he saw.
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More US firms are boosting faith-based support for employees
NEW YORK (AP) —
It has become standard practice for U.S. corporations to assure employees of support regardless of their race, gender or sexual orientation. There’s now an intensifying push to ensure that companies are similarly supportive and inclusive when it comes to employees’ religious beliefs.
One barometer: More than 20% of the Fortune 100 have established faith-based employee resource groups, according to an AP examination and there’s a high-powered conference taking place this week in Washington aimed at expanding those ranks.
“Corporate America is at a tipping point toward giving religion similar attention to that given the other major diversity categories,” says Brian Grim, founder and president of the Religious Freedom & Business Foundation that’s co-hosting the conference along with the Catholic University of America's Busch School of Business.
A few companies have long-established faith-in-the-workplace programs, such as Arkansas-based Tyson Foods, which deploys a team of more than 90 chaplains to comfort and counsel employees at its plants and offices. That program began in 2000.
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Teacher unions: Children terrified by active shooter drills
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The nation's two largest teachers unions want schools to revise or eliminate active shooter drills, asserting Tuesday that they can harm students' mental health and that there are better ways to prepare for the possibility of a school shooting.
The American Federation of Teachers and National Education Association joined with the advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund in calling for an end to unannounced drills or drills that simulate gun violence.
“Everywhere I travel, I hear from parents and educators about active shooter drills terrifying students, leaving them unable to concentrate in the classroom and unable to sleep at night,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the National Education Association. “So traumatizing students as we work to keep students safe from gun violence is not the answer. That is why if schools are going to do drills, they need to take steps to ensure the drills do more good than harm."
The report released Tuesday recommends schools concentrate on training teachers to respond to an active shooter incident rather than drilling students.
It also issued guidelines for schools that decide to use drills. Those include never simulating an actual shooting; giving parents, educators and students advance notice of any drill; working with mental health officials to create age-appropriate and trauma-informed drills; and tracking the effects of drills.
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Missteps lead publishing industry to review diversity effort
NEW YORK (AP) — As debate rages around “American Dirt,” the bestselling novel criticized for its portrait of Mexican life and culture, publishers are pledging to change a historically white industry as critics question whether it can truly transform.
Diversity has been an issue in publishing for years, but perhaps never so urgently as in the past few weeks, when Mexican American authors and others have cited “American Dirt” as evidence of a publishing culture where white voices are valued above others. Critics say flaws in Jeanine Cummins' narrative about a Mexican mother and son fleeing to the U.S. were overlooked by the book's editorial and promotional team and the many writers and booksellers who were early advocates.
“Of course, we've had a lot of conversations, looking at diversity and ways — as we always do — to address the recruitment and publishing of Latinos,” says John Sargent, CEO of Macmillan, which released Cummins' novel last month through its Flatiron Books division.
Marketed in part as a new “Grapes of Wrath,” the John Steinbeck novel which helped define the Great Depression, “American Dirt” was lauded by an industry that is predominantly white, liberal, anxious to make a profit and eager to make a difference. A book that Cummins and Flatiron had thought would personalize the experience of immigration instead became an example to some of its own distance from the issue.
Publishing executives and editors often shy away from discussing diversity on the record, but Flatiron president and publisher Bob Miller bluntly acknowledged they had not anticipated the “anger that has emerged from members of the Latinx and publishing communities.”