AP News in Brief at 6:09 p.m. EDT
Hospitals approaching capacity as Miami closes restaurants
MIAMI (AP) — Hospitals rapidly approached capacity across the Sunbelt, and the Miami area closed restaurants and gyms again because of the surging coronavirus Monday, as the U.S. emerged from a Fourth of July weekend of picnics, pool parties and beach outings that health officials fear could fuel the rapidly worsening outbreak.
The seesaw effect — restrictions lifted, then reimposed — has been seen around the country in recent weeks and is expected again after a holiday that saw crowds of people celebrating, many without masks.
“We were concerned before the weekend and remain concerned post-holiday, as anecdotal stories and observed behavior indicate that many continue to disregard important protective guidance,” said Heather Woolwine, a spokeswoman for the Medical University of South Carolina.
Confirmed cases are on the rise in 41 out of 50 states plus the District of Columbia, and the percentage of tests coming back positive for the virus is increasing in 39 states.
Florida, which recorded an all-time high of 11,400 new cases Saturday and has seen its positive test rate lately reach more than 18%, has been hit especially hard, along with other Sunbelt states such as Arizona, California and Texas.
___
Justices rule states can bind presidential electors' votes
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a decision flavored with references to “Hamilton” and “Veep,” the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday that states can require presidential electors to back their states’ popular vote winner in the Electoral College.
The ruling, in cases in Washington state and Colorado just under four months before the 2020 election, leaves in place laws in 32 states and the District of Columbia that bind electors to vote for the popular-vote winner, as electors almost always do anyway.
So-called faithless electors have not been critical to the outcome of a presidential election, but that could change in a race decided by just a few electoral votes. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the presidency.
A state may instruct “electors that they have no ground for reversing the vote of millions of its citizens," Justice Elena Kagan wrote in her majority opinion that walked through American political and constitutional history with an occasional nod to pop culture.
Such an order by a state "accords with the Constitution — as well as with the trust of a Nation that here, We the People rule,” Kagan wrote.
___
Small business aid went beyond hard-hit companies, data show
WASHINGTON (AP) — The government on Monday identified roughly 650,000 mostly small businesses and nonprofits that received taxpayer money from a federal program that probably softened job losses from the coronavirus but also benefited some politically connected firms.
The Treasury Department’s Payroll Protection Program approved applicants from a broad swath of industries. Some that were less directly impacted by the pandemic, such as manufacturing and construction, received a greater proportion of the loans than the hard-hit restaurant and hotel industries. Many law firms and private equity companies also obtained loans.
Businesses owned by politicians also borrowed from the program, including a minor league baseball team owned by the family of the governor of Ohio. A large franchisee of Wendy's, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants, whose CEO is a major donor to President Donald Trump, received loans totaling $15 to $30 million.
Other recipients included Kanye West’s clothing and sneaker brand Yeezy, Ice Cube’s professional basketball league, Planned Parenthood clinics in more than two dozen states and the anti-tax group headed by Grover Norquist, Americans for Tax Reform.
As of June 30, the program had handed out $521 billion. The Treasury Department identified just a fraction of the total borrowers Monday, naming only companies that got more than $150,000. Those firms made up less than 15% of the nearly 5 million small companies and organizations that received loans.
___
Maxwell moved to NY for Epstein-related sex abuse charges
NEW YORK (AP) — Jeffrey Epstein's longtime confidante Ghislaine Maxwell was transferred Monday to New York to face charges that she recruited women and girls, one as young as 14, for him to sexually abuse, the Bureau of Prisons said.
Prosecutors have asked a judge to schedule a Friday court appearance in Manhattan federal court for for Maxwell, 58, who was arrested last week at a $1 million estate she had purchased in New Hampshire.
Maxwell, the daughter of the late British publishing magnate Robert Maxwell, was the former girlfriend and longtime close associate of Epstein, who killed himself in a Manhattan jail last August while he awaited trial on federal sex trafficking charges.
Maxwell has been indicted on multiple charges, including that she conspired to entice girls as young as 14 to engage in illegal sex acts with Epstein from 1994 through 1997.
Several of Epstein's victims have described Maxwell as his chief enabler, recruiting and grooming young girls for abuse. She has denied wrongdoing and called claims against her “absolute rubbish.”
___
NY count: 6,300 virus patients were sent to nursing homes
NEW YORK (AP) — New York hospitals released more than 6,300 recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes during the height of the pandemic under a controversial, now-scrapped policy, state officials said Monday, but they argued it was not to blame for one of the nation's highest nursing home death tolls.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration, which has taken intense criticism over the policy, instead contended the virus’ rampant spread through the state’s nursing homes was propelled by more than 20,000 infected home staffers, many of whom kept going to work unaware they had the virus.
“Facts matter. And those are the facts,” state Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said in a news conference.
New York’s report came more than a month after The Associated Press did its own count finding that hospitals around the state released more than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients to nursing homes under a March 25 Health Department directive that required nursing homes to take recovering coronavirus patients.
The directive was intended to help free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But several relatives, patient advocates and nursing administrators who spoke to the AP at the time blamed the policy for helping to spread the virus among the state’s most fragile residents. To date, more than 6,400 deaths have been linked to the coronavirus in New York’s nursing home and long-term care-facilities.
___
Judge orders Dakota Access pipeline shut down pending review
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — A judge on Monday ordered the Dakota Access pipeline shut down for additional environmental review more than three years after it began pumping oil — handing a victory to the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and delivering a blow to President Donald Trump’s efforts to weaken public health and environmental protections his administration views as obstacles to businesses.
In a 24-page order, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., wrote that he was “mindful of the disruption" that shutting down the pipeline would cause, but that it must be done within 30 days. Pipeline owner Energy Transfer plans to ask a court to halt the order and will seek an expedited appeal, spokeswoman Vicki Granado said.
The order comes after Boesberg said in April that a more extensive review was necessary than what the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers already conducted and that he would consider whether the pipeline should be shuttered during the new assessment.
“The Court does not reach its decision with blithe disregard for the lives it will affect,” Boasberg wrote Monday.
“Yet, given the seriousness of the Corps’ NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) error, the impossibility of a simple fix, the fact that Dakota Access did assume much of its economic risk knowingly, and the potential harm each day the pipeline operates, the Court is forced to conclude that the flow of oil must cease,” he added.
___
AP Photos: Argentines have balcony parties amid quarantine
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A few days of the silence and solitude of quarantine was all that Marcela Álvarez could stand.
She went to the balcony of her house in Buenos Aires' Villa Devoto neighborhood, wired up Christmas lights, set up a speaker and began playing music.
She feared that the neighbors would complain. Instead, they began doing the same, and "the festival of the balconies” was born — an Argentine variant of the occasional street serenades that have popped up in countries around the world during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Instead of separation, the quarantine measures imposed in March brought Alvarez, 53, together with people who had been strangers, dancing at their windows and balconies to rock, Latin music and reggaeton with disco-like lights anbd smoke.
“Today I am happy. I could connect with all my neighbors and I met a lot of people I didn't know, much better than in other moments," she said. “I hate what is happening with the coronavrus, but this has completely enriched my life.”
___
Trump lashes out at NASCAR, Wallace over flag and noose
WASHINGTON (AP) — NASCAR’s layered relationship with President Donald Trump took a sharp turn Monday when Trump blasted the racing organization for banning the Confederate flag and wrongly accused the sport’s only full-time Black driver of perpetrating “a hoax” when a crew member found a noose in the team garage stall.
Trump suggested Bubba Wallace should apologize after the sport rallied around him after the noose was found in his assigned stall at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama. Federal authorities ruled last month the noose had been hanging since October and was not a hate crime. NASCAR and the FBI have exclusively referred to the rope – which was used to pull the garage door closed – as a noose.
It was the only garage pull out of 1,684 stalls at 29 inspected NASCAR tracks to be fashioned as a noose.
NASCAR President Steve Phelps has bristled at suggestions the noose was a hoax. Wallace was shown a photograph of the noose, never personally saw it, and was told by NASCAR officials he was the victim of a hate crime.
“Has @BubbaWallace apologized to all of those great NASCAR drivers & officials who came to his aid, stood by his side, & were willing to sacrifice everything for him, only to find out that the whole thing was just another HOAX?” Trump tweeted. “That & Flag decision has caused lowest ratings EVER!”
___
White woman charged after racist Central Park confrontation
NEW YORK (AP) — A white woman who called the police during a videotaped dispute with a Black man over her walking her dog without a leash in Central Park was charged Monday with filing a false police report.
In May, Amy Cooper drew widespread condemnation was fired from her job after frantically calling 911 to claim she was being threatened by “an African-American man,” bird watcher Christian Cooper. On the video he recorded of the woman, he sounds calm and appears to keep a safe distance from her.
District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. said in a statement on Monday that his office had charged Amy Cooper with falsely reporting the confrontation, a misdemeanor that carries a maximum penalty of a year behind bars. She was ordered to appear in court on Oct. 14.
Cooper's attorney, Robert Barnes, said Cooper would fight the charge. His client, he said, has already lost her livelihood and "her public life. Now some demand her freedom?”
Reached by phone on Monday, Christian Cooper said he had no reaction or comment.
___
Native American groups ask NFL to force Redskins name change
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a dozen Native American leaders and organizations sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Monday calling for the league to force Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to change the team name immediately.
The letter was signed by 15 Native American advocates and obtained by The Associated Press. It demands the team and the NFL cease the use of Native American names, imagery and logos — with specific importance put on Washington, which last week launched a “ thorough review ” of its name.
The letter was delivered on the same day that President Donald Trump voiced his opposition to any name change by the team. Several team sponsors have come out in favor of change recently and Snyder showed his first indication of willingness to do so amid a nationwide movement to erase racially insensitive symbols.
According to their letter, the groups “expect the NFL to engage in a robust, meaningful reconciliation process with Native American movement leaders, tribes, and organizations to repair the decades of emotional violence and other serious harms this racist team name has caused to Native Peoples.”
The NFL did not immediately respond to a message confirming receipt of the letter. Goodell last week expressed support for Snyder's review process of the name.