AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
The Latest: Russia reports nearly 200 more virus deaths
MOSCOW — Russia reported its second-highest one-day death toll from COVID-19 even as the number of new coronavirus infections remained steady.
The national coronavirus task force said Saturday that 197 people died over the past day, sharply up from 144 a day earlier. The highest one-day death toll was 232 on May 29.
There were 8,855 new infection cases overall. Russia has recorded more than 458,000 cases, including 5,725 deaths.
Although Moscow and its surroundings have been the epicenter of the pandemic, accounting for about half of the infections and deaths, the figures reported Saturday showed only about one-third of the new infections were in the capital area.
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No 'silver lining': Trump faces voter backlash amid crises
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — At the end of one of his most turbulent weeks in office, President Donald Trump was eager on Friday to boast of a better than expected jobs report to argue the country is poised for a booming recovery. Benjamin Lund was not moved.
The 45-year-old Milwaukee man is a longtime Republican who was raised in a conservative family in the political battleground of Wisconsin. At the onset of 2020, he had little doubt that he would support Trump's reelection.
Then the pandemic hit and Lund lost his restaurant job. A processing backlog meant he went two months without unemployment benefits. He later watched with dismay Trump's hard-line response to the police killing of George Floyd and the civil unrest that followed.
Lund, who is white, now plans to vote a straight Democratic ticket and rejects any effort by Trump to put a “silver lining” on the nation's pain.
“The people living the economic reality of what’s soon to be a recession, it’s a very different set of numbers,” Lund said. “It’s almost, in a sense, disrespectful to try and put a positive spin on where we are as a nation right now.”
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By the numbers: Trump reads economic boom into jobs data
CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump has always been a big numbers guy.
He’s proven himself adept at taking even the most grim numbers and giving himself a pat on the back or employing a creative use of data to make himself look good. But his declaration that an unexpected dip in the unemployment rate marked probably “the greatest comeback in American history” was a remarkable level of hyperbole even for him.
“This is a particularly clear example of his lack of cognitive complexity,” said Brian Ott, incoming director of communications at Missouri State University and author of “The Twitter Presidency: Donald J. Trump and the Politics of White Rage.”
The Labor Department's report on Friday that 2.5 million Americans were added to payrolls in May was clearly good news. In advance, economists had been projecting the loss of 8.3 million jobs, continuing the economic bloodletting caused by the coronavirus pandemic that has spurred the highest unemployment levels since the Great Depression.
But economists say the notion that the coronavirus-battered economy is now on a glide path to recovery glosses over some of the hard truths that American workers will face for months, if not years.
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Barr says he didn’t give tactical order to clear protesters
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General William Barr says law enforcement officers were already moving to push back protesters from a park in front of the White House when he arrived there Monday evening, and he says he did not give a command to disperse the crowd, though he supported the decision.
Barr’s comments in an interview with The Associated Press on Friday were his most detailed explanation yet of what unfolded outside the White House earlier this week. They come after the White House and others said repeatedly that the attorney general ordered officers to clear the park. Shortly after officers aggressively pushed back demonstrators, President Donald Trump — accompanied by Barr, Pentagon leaders and other top advisers — walked through Lafayette Park to pose for a photo at a nearby church that had been damaged during the protests.
The episode played out on live television and prompted an outcry from some Republicans and former military leaders, including Gen. Jim Mattis, Trump's first defense secretary. Barr told the AP that much of the criticism was unwarranted and that Mattis' rebuke was “borne of ignorance of the facts.”
Still, administration officials have spent much of the week trying to explain how the situation escalated and why smoke bombs, pepper balls and police on horseback were needed to clear the largely peaceful crowd.
Earlier in the week, White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany told reporters it was Barr who made the decision to push back the security perimeter outside the White House on Monday morning. McEnany said that when Barr arrived at Lafayette Park later that day to survey the security situation, he was surprised to see that action had not yet been taken.
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Turning grief into change, movement targets racial injustice
Momentum for what many hope is a sustained movement aimed at tackling racial injustice and police reforms promised to grow Saturday as more protesters filled streets around the world and mourners prepared to gather in the U.S. for a second memorial service for George Floyd, who died a dozen days ago at the hands of police in Minneapolis.
Formal and impromptu memorials to Floyd over the last several days have stretched from Minneapolis to Paris, Rome and Johannesburg, South Africa. In North Carolina, where he was born, a public viewing and private service for family was planned Saturday. Services were scheduled to culminate in a private burial in the coming days in Texas, where he lived most of his life.
Floyd’s final journey was designed with intention, the Rev. Al Sharpton said. Having left Houston for Minneapolis in 2014 in search of a job and a new life, Floyd is retracing that path in death.
Sharpton has plans for a commemorative march on Washington in August on the anniversary of the day Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. He said the event would be a way to engage voters ahead of November's general election and maintain momentum for a movement that has the power to “change the whole system of justice.”
“It’s going to be months, if not a year, before you even go to trial. So you can’t let this peter out," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview late Friday. "Otherwise you’ll end up in a year and people will go on to another story, and you will not have the public notice and pressure that you need.”
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Biden formally clinches Democratic presidential nomination
WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden has formally clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, setting him up for a bruising challenge to President Donald Trump that will play out against the unprecedented backdrop of a pandemic, economic collapse and civil unrest.
“It was an honor to compete alongside one of the most talented groups of candidates the Democratic party has ever fielded," Biden said in a statement Friday night, ”and I am proud to say that we are going into this general election a united party."
The former vice president has effectively been his party's leader since his last challenger in the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, ended his campaign in April. But Biden pulled together the 1,991 delegates needed to become the nominee Friday after seven states and the District of Columbia held presidential primaries Tuesday.
Biden reached the threshold three days after the primaries because several states, overwhelmed by huge increases in mail ballots, took days to tabulate results. A team of analysts at The Associated Press then parsed the votes into individual congressional districts. Democrats award most delegates to the party’s national convention based on results in individual congressional districts.
Biden now has 1,995 delegates, with contests still to come in eight states and three U.S. territories.
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Black Lives Matter protests mostly peaceful in Australia
SYDNEY (AP) — Black Lives Matter protests across Australia proceeded mostly peacefully Saturday, as thousands of demonstrators in state capitals honored the memory of George Floyd and protested the deaths of indigenous Australians in custody.
Organizers of the Sydney protest got a late reprieve when their appeal against a Friday ruling declaring the rally unauthorized was granted. The New South Wales Court of Appeal gave the green light just 12 minutes before the rally was scheduled to start, meaning those taking part could not be arrested.
Up to 1,000 protesters had already gathered in the Town Hall area of downtown Sydney ahead of the decision.
Floyd, a black man, died in handcuffs on May 25 while a Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee on his neck even after he pleaded for air and stopped moving.
In addition to Australia, protests were held Saturday in other countries as well, including South Korea and Japan.
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The loneliest of D-Day remembrances is hit by pandemic
COLLEVILLE-SUR-MER, France (AP) — At daybreak on Saturday, Charles Shay stood lonesome without any fellow veteran on the very same beach where he waded ashore 76 years ago, part of one of the most epic battles in military historic that came to be known as D-Day and turned the tide of World War II.
Compared to last year, when many tens of thousands came to the northern French beaches of Normandy to cheer the dwindling number of veterans and celebrate three-quarters of a century of liberation from Nazi oppression, the coronavirus lockdown turned this year's remembrance into one of the eeriest ever.
“I am very sad now," said Shay, who was a 19-year-old U.S. Army medic when he landed on Omaha Beach under horrific machine-gun fire and shells. “Because of the virus, nobody can be here. I would like to see more of us here," he told The Associated Press.
Normally, 95-year-old Shay would be meeting other survivors of the 1944 battle and celebrating with locals and dignitaries alike, all not far from his home close to the beaches that defined his life.
“This year, I am one of the very few that is probably here," he said, adding that other U.S. veterans could not fly in because of the pandemic.
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Russian Orthodox priest tends to Moscow's COVID-19 patients
MOSCOW (AP) — The Rev. Vasily Gelevan bends over a COVID-19 patient at her apartment to administer Holy Communion and say words of comfort while clad in a hazmat suit.
The bedside ministry is one of many such visits the 45-year old Russian Orthodox priest makes daily as he shuttles across Moscow in a minivan to tend to people fighting the coronavirus at their homes or in hospital rooms.
Gelevan's family at first wasn't happy with his decision to come in close contact with those infected with the virus, but the father of five sees pastoral care as a responsibility he can't refuse, especially during a pandemic.
“I put myself in their place,” he said. “For me, the visit of a priest giving Holy Communion would be the most desirable thing. It doesn’t matter that I wouldn’t see his face. I would hear his voice, he would come and embrace me, show his sympathy and bring me the most precious thing in the world — the Holy Communion!”
For several years before the coronavirus outbreak, the priest visited the gravely ill at Moscow hospitals. Then the coronavirus hit the Russian capital.
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Colin Kaepernick has more support now, still long way to go
When Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to take a stand against police brutality and racial injustice in 2016, he was mostly alone.
Politicians, team owners and fellow players criticized him, fans burned his jersey, and he was booed even at home. Four years later, his protest is widely viewed as prescient.
Even NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell apologized to players for not listening to them earlier and encouraged them to protest peacefully.
“We, the National Football League, condemn racism and the systematic oppression of black people,” Goodell said in a video released Friday. “We, the National Football League, admit we were wrong for not listening to NFL players earlier and encourage all to speak out and peacefully protest. We, the National Football League, believe black lives matter. I personally protest with you and want to be part of the much needed change in this country."
Global opinion has shifted so much that more people are now vilifying those who attack Kaepernick or misrepresent his stance.