AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Bolton: Trump moves in office guided by reelection concerns
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects, according to a scathing new book by former Trump adviser John Bolton that accuses the president of being driven by political calculations when making national security decisions.
The White House worked furiously to block the book, asking a federal court for an emergency temporary restraining order Wednesday against its release.
Bolton's allegations that Trump solicited Chinese help for his reelection effort carried echoes of Trump’s attempt to get political help from Ukraine, which led to his impeachment.
“I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my tenure that wasn’t driven by re-election calculations,” Bolton wrote.
The 577-page book paints an unvarnished portrait of Trump and his administration, amounting to the most vivid, first-person account yet of how Trump conducts himself in office. Several other former officials have written books, but most have been flattering about the president. Other former officials have indicated they were saving their accounts of their time working for Trump until after he left office to speak more candidly. The Associated Press obtained a copy of Bolton’s book in advance of its release next week.
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Prosecutor: Officer kicked Rayshard Brooks after shooting
ATLANTA (AP) — As Rayshard Brooks lay dying in a Wendy’s parking lot, prosecutors say the white Atlanta police officer who shot him in the back kicked him and didn’t give him medical attention for more than two minutes.
“I got him!” Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard quoted Officer Garrett Rolfe as saying.
Rolfe shot Brooks after the 27-year-old black man grabbed a Taser and ran, firing it from too far away to reach the white officer, the prosecutor said. Plus, the Taser had already been fired twice, so it was empty and no longer a threat, Howard said.
On Wednesday, he announced a murder charge against Rolfe and an aggravated assault charge against a second officer, Devin Brosnan, who the district attorney said stood on Brooks' shoulder as he struggled for his life.
The decision to prosecute came less than five days after the killing rocked a city — and a nation — already roiling from the death of George Floyd under a police officer’s knee in Minneapolis late last month.
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Race for virus vaccine could leave some countries behind
LONDON (AP) — As the race for a vaccine against the new coronavirus intensifies, rich countries are rushing to place advance orders for the inevitably limited supply to guarantee their citizens get immunized first — leaving significant questions about whether developing countries will get any vaccine before the pandemic ends.
Earlier this month, the United Nations, International Red Cross and Red Crescent, and others said it was a “moral imperative” that everyone have access to a “people’s vaccine.” But such grand declarations are unenforceable, and without a detailed strategy, the allocation of vaccines could be extremely messy.
“We have this beautiful picture of everyone getting the vaccine, but there is no road map on how to do it,” said Yuan Qiong Hu, a senior legal and policy adviser at Medecins Sans Frontieres in Geneva. She said numerous problems must be resolved to manage distribution and that few measures have been taken.
In the past, Hu said, companies have often applied for patents for nearly every step of a vaccine’s development and production: from the biological material like cell lines used, to the preservative needed to stretch vaccine doses and even how the shots are administered.
“We can’t afford to face these multiple layers of private rights to create a ‘people’s vaccine,’” she said, urging “very open conditions” so every manufacturer capable of doing so can produce a vaccine once its proven effective.
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China's new outbreak wanes as US calls for answers on virus
BEIJING (AP) — A new coronavirus outbreak in Beijing saw a decline in daily cases Thursday while the United States increased pressure on China's leaders to reveal what they know about the pandemic.
The outbreak first detected at a wholesale market in the capital last week has infected at least 158 people in China's biggest resurgence since the initial outbreak was brought under control in March. The city reported 21 new cases of COVID-19 on Thursday, down from 31 on Wednesday. City officials said close contacts of market workers, visitors and other connections were being traced to locate all possible cases as quickly as possible, with testing and prevention measures being taken.
At a meeting in Hawaii with a top Chinese diplomat, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urged China to reveal all it knows about the pandemic.
Pompeo “stressed the need for full transparency and information sharing to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and prevent future outbreaks,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement about his meeting with the Communist Party’s top diplomat, Yang Jiechi.
Pompeo has joined President Donald Trump in criticizing China’s response to the outbreak, including giving credence to a theory that the virus may have emerged from a Chinese laboratory in Wuhan.
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Prosecutors charge police, push reforms amid Floyd protests
Prosecutors across the country are defying traditionally cozy relationships with police departments, swiftly charging officers with murder, assault and other crimes following protests over the death of George Floyd and dropping charges against demonstrators.
Even just a few years ago, when protests erupted over the killings of other black men by police, officers were rarely arrested for suspected criminal acts during the demonstrations. It's been rare to charge police with crimes in the death of civilians, and winning a conviction is harder.
But the tide may be turning, led by progressive prosecutors pressing for criminal justice reforms to better hold police accountable for wrongdoing.
“Prosecutors realize that they’re being watched,” said Mark Dupree Sr., district attorney for Kansas’ Wyandotte County, which includes Kansas City. “My hope is that this is a change and that we are turning a tide.”
On Wednesday, Fulton County prosecutors charged Atlanta officer Garrett Rolfe with murder for a shooting during a sobriety check gone awry near a Wendy's. The other officer involved in Rayshard Brooks' death faces lower-level charges. The shooting happened less than a week ago.
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A teen’s killing stirs Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — When Rafaela Matos saw police helicopters over her favela and heard gunshots, she fell to her knees and asked God to protect her son, João Pedro. Then she called the boy to make sure he was OK.
“Be calm,” João Pedro wrote back, explaining that he was at his aunt’s house and everything was fine, Rafaela told The Associated Press. Minutes after he sent the message, police burst in and shot the 14-year-old in the stomach with a high-caliber rifle at close range.
João Pedro Matos Pinto was one of more than 600 people killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the first months of this year. That’s almost double the number of people killed by police over the same period in the entire U.S., which has 20 times Rio’s population. Like João Pedro, most of those killed in Rio were black or biracial and lived in the city’s poorest neighborhoods, or favelas.
As the Black Lives Matter movement brings hundreds of thousands to the streets around the world, demonstrators outraged by João Pedro’s death one month ago have been organizing the largest anti-police brutality demonstrations in years on the streets of Rio.
Still, the protests are nowhere near the size and public impact of other countries. To protesters, their struggle to gain momentum in the country where more than half the population is black or biracial, with a police violence problem that far overshadows other nations, is evidence of the depth of racism and complacence.
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As racism protests roil US, Florida revisits dark past
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — On Election Day a century ago, a white mob swept through a tiny Florida citrus town after a black man showed up at the polls to vote. Over two days of terror, the mob set fire to homes and drove black residents from their community.
It was one of the bloodiest days in American political history, with the number of deaths remaining in question — some estimates as high as 60.
That dark episode, until recently largely forgotten, came to be known as the 1920 Ocoee Election Day Riots. Others remember it as a massacre, one of the many acts of racial violence perpetrated against black citizens over the decades.
As the centennial approaches, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has before him a bill that would require schools to do more to highlight the day in their history classes. If signed by the governor, it would order state officials to identify parks, buildings and other facilities that could be renamed in honor of those who died because of the racial hatred that welled up on that day in the tiny community west of Orlando.
State Sen. Randolph Bracy, whose district includes Ocoee, urged the governor to give his blessings to the measure as a way to bring attention to the racial strife not only in the state's past but also to acknowledge the ongoing tumult spawned by recent police brutality against black people.
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India cautions China over its claim to area of deadly clash
NEW DELHI (AP) — India on Thursday cautioned China against making "exaggerated and untenable claims" to the Galwan Valley area even as both nations tried to end a standoff in the Himalayan region where their armies engaged in a deadly clash.
Twenty Indian troops were killed in Monday's clash, which was the deadliest conflict between the sides in 45 years. China has not disclosed whether its forces suffered any casualties.
Responding to China's claim to the valley, India's External Affairs Ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said both sides agreed to handle the situation responsibly. "Making exaggerated and untenable claims is contrary to this understanding,” he said in a statement.
Both sides accused each other of instigating the clash between their forces in the valley, part of the disputed Ladakh region along the Himalayan frontier.
China stuck to its position that it was Indian troops who had deliberately provoked and attacked its officers, though it also signaled it wanted talks, noting the importance of the broader bilateral relationship.
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AP PHOTOS: A first-person view inside Beijing's virus tests
BEIJING (AP) — As the number of COVID-19 cases climbed in Beijing in recent days, officials identified more than 350,000 people who needed to be tested.
I was one of them.
After word first emerged of a cluster of cases at a sprawling wholesale market in the Chinese capital, I had gone to the area to take photographs. Although I never entered the Xinfadi market and only took photos from nearby streets, unknown to me, I had been flagged as a potential vector for the virus.
My phone rang on Wednesday afternoon. An official from my neighborhood’s community association informed me that I should shortly report to the gates of a nearby sports stadium to be bused to a coronavirus testing site.
The caller did not know my name, but they knew that someone associated with my cellphone number had been in the vicinity of the market. I may have been tracked through my cellphone. A Beijing city official said Wednesday that 355,000 people have been identifed for testing via big data, but he did not specify how.
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Bangladeshi group sends cards, baskets to COVID-19 patients
DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — When her father tested positive for COVID-19, Sumona Khanom struggled to get a bed for him at an already overwhelmed Dhaka Medical College Hospital. The family struggled, too, with a lack of money to buy food.
She was exhausted. But then, solace came in the form of a fruit basket from the Bidyanondo Foundation.
There were mangoes, litchis, oranges, apples, lemons and other food. And there was a get-well card for her father that read, “We are here to stand by you. This (gift) is a token of love. Our heart goes to you!”
The basket was presented by volunteers working for the foundation, established in 2013 and known for its food assistance programs for street children and the poor. The group -- its name means “learn for fun” -- has stepped in to build awareness of COVID-19 among families of virus’ victims and the community.
Its efforts have been inspired by news reports of neglect of victims, or hostility toward them.