AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EST
Chinese health report says 80% of virus cases have been mild
Health officials in China have published the first details on nearly 45,000 cases of the novel coronavirus disease that originated there, saying more than 80% have been mild and new ones seem to be falling since early this month, although it's far too soon to tell whether the outbreak has peaked.
Monday's report from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention gives the World Health Organization a "clearer picture of the outbreak, how it’s developing and where it’s headed,” WHO's director-general said at a news conference.
"It’s too early to tell if this reported decline will continue. Every scenario is still on the table," Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.
The new disease, called COVID-19, first emerged in late December in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, and has spread to more than two dozen other countries. China says more than 70,000 people have been infected and 1,770 have died in mainland China, but numbers are squishy because the country is counting many cases based on symptoms rather than the methods WHO uses.
The new study reports on 44,672 cases confirmed in China as of Feb. 11. The virus caused severe disease such as pneumonia in 14% of them and critical illness in 5%.
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Pete Buttigieg's next test: Winning over minority voters
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — So far, Pete Buttigieg has made it look easy.
The once little-known former mayor of a midsize Midwestern city vaulted over a former vice president and several U.S. senators in the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire presidential primary. The 38-year-old's fresh face, intellect and turn-the-page message won votes across many demographic groups in the kickoff states.
Now the promise of his candidacy is colliding with the reality of the central question about his viability: Can he win among minority voters who form the critical foundation of the party’s base?
That will be tested Saturday in Nevada, with a diverse blend of Latinos and African Americans, but especially in South Carolina, where two-thirds of the primary electorate could be black voters, the base of the Democratic Party that Buttigieg has struggled to attract.
Buttigieg's strategy is to earn a fresh look from black and brown voters by flashing his support in the first two contests, drawing on the validation of minority leaders who have endorsed him and leveraging the personal networks of his supporters.
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'Infected': Data shows how China criminalized Muslim faith
Beijing (AP) — For decades, the Uighur imam was a bedrock of his farming community in China’s far west. On Fridays, he preached Islam as a religion of peace. On Sundays, he treated the sick with free herbal medicine. In the winter, he bought coal for the poor.
But as a Chinese government mass detention campaign engulfed Memtimin Emer's native Xinjiang region three years ago, the elderly imam was swept up and locked away, along with all three of his sons living in China.
Now, a newly revealed database exposes in extraordinary detail the main reasons for the detentions of Emer, his three sons, and hundreds of others in Karakax County: their religion and their family ties.
The database obtained by The Associated Press profiles the internment of 311 individuals with relatives abroad and lists information on more than 2,000 of their relatives, neighbors and friends. Each entry includes the detainee’s name, address, national identity number, detention date and location, along with a detailed dossier on their family, religious and neighborhood background, the reason for detention, and a decision on whether or not to release them. Issued within the past year, the documents do not indicate which government department compiled them or for whom.
Taken as a whole, the information offers the fullest and most personal view yet into how Chinese officials decided who to put into and let out of detention camps, as part of a massive crackdown that has locked away more than a million ethnic minorities, most of them Muslims.
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Disgraced religious order tried to get abuse victim to lie
MILAN (AP) — The cardinal’s response was not what Yolanda Martínez had expected — or could abide.
Her son had been sexually abused by a priest of the Legion of Christ, a disgraced religious order. And now she was calling Cardinal Valasio De Paolis -- the Vatican official appointed by the pope to lead the Legion and to clean it up -- to report the settlement the group was offering, and to express her outrage.
The terms: Martínez's family would receive 15,000 euros ($16,300) from the order. But in return, her son would have to recant the testimony he gave to Milan prosecutors that the priest had repeatedly assaulted him when he was a 12-year-old student at the order’s youth seminary in northern Italy. He would have to lie.
The cardinal did not seem shocked. He did not share her indignation.
Instead, he chuckled. He said she shouldn’t sign the deal, but should try to work out another agreement without attorneys: “Lawyers complicate things. Even Scripture says that among Christians we should find agreement.”
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Hundreds still flooded from homes in Mississippi capital
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The swollen Pearl River appeared to have crested Monday in Mississippi’s capital, but authorities warned the hundreds of evacuees in the Jackson area not to rush back home until they got the all clear, and a forecast of more rain put counties further south at risk of flooding.
No injuries were reported from the major flooding in central Mississippi and southern Tennessee. But as the high water recedes, officials expect to find damaged roads and problems with water and sewage pipes. In Savannah, Tennessee, two houses slid down a muddy bluff into the Tennessee River, although its residents had fled earlier.
"Please do not move back into your neighborhood or into your home until authorities and officials give you the OK to do so," Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news conference.
A near-record rainy winter has forced authorities to release water from swollen reservoirs, potentially worsening the flooding for those living downstream.
“It is a chess match we're playing with Mother Nature," said Jim Hopson, spokesman for the Tennessee Valley Authority.
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Apple warns China virus will cut iPhone production, sales
CUPERTINO, Calif. (AP) — Apple Inc. is warning investors that it won't meet its second-quarter financial guidance because the viral outbreak in China has cut production of iPhones.
The Cupertino, California-based company said Monday that all of its iPhone manufacturing facilities are outside Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, and all have been reopened. But the company said production is ramping up slowly.
“The health and well-being of every person who helps make these products possible is our paramount priority, and we are working in close consultation with our suppliers and public health experts as this ramp continues,” Apple said in a statement.
The death toll from COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus, was 1,770 as of Monday.
Apple says demand for iPhones is also down in China because many of Apple's 42 retail stores there are closed or operating with reduced hours. China is Apple's third largest retail market for iPhones, after the U.S. and Europe.
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Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fight climate change
NEW YORK (AP) — Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said Monday that he plans to spend $10 billion of his own fortune to help fight climate change.
Bezos, the world’s richest man, said in an Instagram post that he'll start giving grants this summer to scientists, activists and nonprofits working to protect Earth.
“I want to work alongside others both to amplify known ways and to explore new ways of fighting the devastating impact of climate change,” Bezos said in the post.
Amazon, the company Bezos runs, has an enormous carbon foodprint. Last year, Amazon officials said the company would work to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030.
The online retailer relies on fossil fuels to power planes, trucks and vans in order to ship billions of items all around the world. Amazon workers in its Seattle headquarters have been vocal in criticizing some of the company’s practices, pushing it to do more to combat climate change.
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Daytona 500 resumes without president, pomp or packed house
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The president is gone. So are the clouds, the long lines and most of the crowd.
The Daytona 500 resumed Monday after “The Great American Race” was postponed for just the second time in 62 years. Rain halted the event after 20 laps, with pole-sitter Ricky Stenhouse Jr. out front the entire way at Daytona International Speedway.
Forty-five minutes before the race resumed, the public address announcer told fans they would give the traditional command for drivers to restart the engines. "You guys will be the grand marshals," the announcement said.
Firesuits hung all over the garage Monday drying in the sun after the Sunday night soaking spoiled NASCAR's biggest day of the year. At entrances around the speedway, where fans were stuck in security lines for hours a day earlier, NASCAR executives thanked those who returned for more racing. Ben Kennedy, great-grandson of NASCAR's founder, was even assisting with bags searches at one checkpoint.
When the race finally started under caution, the leaders pitted for fuel and fresh tires with Brad Keselowski moving to the front for the official restart.
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'True Grit' novelist Charles Portis dies at age 86
NEW YORK (AP) — Novelist Charles Portis, a favorite among critics and writers for such shaggy dog stories as "Norwood" and "Gringos" and a bounty for Hollywood whose droll, bloody Western "True Grit" was a best-seller twice adapted into Oscar nominated films, died Monday at age 86.
Portis, a former newspaper reporter who apparently learned enough to swear off talking to the media, had been suffering from Alzheimer's in recent years. His brother, Jonathan Portis, told The Associated Press that he died in a hospice in Little Rock, Arkansas, his longtime residence.
Charles Portis was among the most admired authors to nearly vanish from public consciousness in his own lifetime. His fans included Tom Wolfe, Roy Blount Jr. and Larry McMurtry, and he was often compared to Mark Twain for his plainspoken humor and wry perspective. Portis saw the world from the ground up, from bars and shacks and trailer homes, and few spun wilder and funnier stories. In a Portis novel, usually set in the South and south of the border, characters embarked on journeys that took the most unpredictable detours.
In "Norwood," an ex-Marine from Texas heads East in a suspicious car to collect a suspicious debt, but winds up on a bus with a circus dwarf, a chicken and a girl he just met. "The Dog of the South" finds one Ray Midge driving from Arkansas to Honduras in search of his wife, his credit cards and his Ford Torino. In "Gringos," an expatriate in Mexico with a taste for order finds himself amid hippies, end-of-the-world cultists and disappearing friends.
The public knew Portis best for "True Grit," the quest of Arkansas teen Mattie Ross to avenge her father's murder. The novel was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in 1968 and was soon adapted (and softened) as a film showcase for John Wayne, who starred as Rooster Cogburn, the drunken, one-eyed marshal Mattie enlists to find the killer. The role brought Wayne his first Academy Award and was revived by the actor, much less successfully, in the sequel "Rooster Cogburn."
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Mickey Wright, golf great and early LPGA force, dies at 85
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Mickey Wright, the golf great with a magnificent swing who won 13 majors among her 82 victories and gave the fledgling LPGA a crucial lift, died Monday of a heart attack. She was 85.
She had been hospitalized in Florida the last few weeks after a fall, said her lawyer, Sonia Pawluc.
Wright joined the LPGA in 1955 and the Hall of Famer's 82 wins place her second on the all-time list behind Kathy Whitworth, who won 88. The Associated Press in 1999 named Wright the Female Golfer of the Century and Female Athlete of the Year in 1963 and 1964.
A Golf Magazine poll of experts in 2009 called her the best female golfer ever, and men's champions Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson said Wright had the best swing they ever saw.
“She was the best I’ve ever seen, man or woman,” Whitworth told espnW.com in 2015. “I’ve had the privilege of playing with Sam Snead and Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer and all of them. And some of our ladies had wonderful swings. But nobody hit it like Mickey, just nobody."