AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
Trump comeback rally features empty seats, staff infections
TULSA, Okla. (AP) —
President Donald Trump pressed ahead Saturday with a comeback rally amid a pandemic by declaring “the silent majority is stronger than ever before," but what was meant to be a show of political force was instead met with thousands of empty seats and new coronavirus cases on his campaign staff.
Ignoring health warnings, Trump scheduled the rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It was intended to be the largest indoor gathering in the world during the outbreak that has killed more than 120,000 Americans, put 40 million more out of work and upended Trump's reelection bid. But in the hours before the event, crowds seemed significantly lighter than expected. Campaign officials scrapped plans for Trump to first address an overflow space.
Trump tried to explain away the crowd size, blaming it on the media for declaring “don't go, don't come, don't do anything" while insisting there were protesters outside “doing bad things," though the small crowds of prerally demonstrators were largely peaceful.
“We begin our campaign," Trump thundered. “The silent majority is stronger than ever before."
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Top Manhattan prosecutor leaves job after standoff with Barr
WASHINGTON (AP) — An extraordinary standoff between Attorney General William Barr and Manhattan's top federal prosecutor ended Saturday when the prosecutor agreed to leave his job with an assurance that investigations by the prosecutor's office into the president's allies would not be disturbed.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman announced he would leave his post, ending increasingly nasty exchanges between Barr and Berman. President Donald Trump, meanwhile, had distanced himself from the dispute, telling reporters the decision “was all up to the attorney general."
This episode has raised new questions about political interference in the Justice Department, particularly given that Berman was investigating Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. It also deepened tensions between the department and congressional Democrats, who have accused Barr of politicizing the agency and acting more like Trump’s personal lawyer than the country’s chief law enforcement officer.
The whirlwind chain of events began Friday night, when Barr announced that Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, had resigned. Hours later, the prosecutor issued a statement denying that he had resigned and saying that his office's "investigations would move forward without delay or interruption."
On Saturday morning, he showed up to work, telling reporters, “I’m just here to do my job."
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6 staffers setting up for Trump rally positive for COVID-19
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's campaign says six staff members helping set up for his Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, have tested positive for coronavirus.
The campaign's communications director, Tim Murtaugh, said in a statement that “quarantine procedures” were immediately initiated and no staff member who tested positive would attend the event. He said no one who had immediate contact with those staffers would attend, either.
Murtaugh said campaign staff members are tested for COVID-19 as part of the campaign's safety protocols.
Campaign officials say everyone who is attending the rally will be given temperature checks before they pass through security. They will also be given masks to wear, if they want, and hand sanitizer at the 19,000-seat BOK Center.
The rally was expected to be the largest indoor gathering in the world during the pandemic.
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Judge: Bolton can publish book despite efforts to block it
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser John Bolton can move forward in publishing his tell-all book, a federal judge ruled Saturday, despite efforts by the Trump administration to block the release because of concerns that classified information could be exposed.
The decision from U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth is a victory for Bolton in a court case that involved core First Amendment and national security issues, even as the White House pledged to keep pursuing the onetime top aide. And the judge also made clear his concerns that Bolton had taken it upon himself to publish his memoir without formal clearance from a White House that says it was still reviewing it for classified information.
“Defendant Bolton has gambled with the national security of the United States. He has exposed his country to harm and himself to civil (and potentially criminal) liability," Lamberth wrote. “But these facts do not control the motion before the Court. The government has failed to establish that an injunction will prevent irreparable harm.”
The White House signaled the legal fight would continue, saying it would try to prevent Bolton from profiting off the book.
President Donald Trump tweeted that Bolton “broke the law by releasing Classified Information (in massive amounts). He must pay a very big price for this, as others have before him. This should never to happen again!!!”
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Statues toppled throughout US in protests against racism
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Protesters tore down more statues across the United States, expanding the razing in a San Francisco park to the writer of America’s national anthem and the general who won the country’s Civil War that ended widespread slavery.
In Seattle, pre-dawn violence erupted Saturday in a protest zone largely abandoned by police, where one person was fatally shot and another critically injured.
On the East Coast, more statues honoring Confederates who tried to break away from the United States more than 150 years ago were toppled.
But several were removed at the order of North Carolina's Democratic governor, who said he was trying to avoid violent clashes or injuries from toppling the heavy monuments erected by white supremacists that he said do not belong in places like the state Capitol grounds that are for all people.
The statues are falling amid continuing anti-racism demonstrations following the May 25 police killing in Minneapolis of George Floyd, the African American man who died after a white police officers pressed his knee on his neck and whose death galvanized protesters around the globe to rally against police brutality and racism.
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The Latest: Trump takes to stage in Tulsa amid pandemic
TOP OF THE HOUR:
— Trump stages comeback rally in Tulsa amid pandemic.
— Memorial to Black Wall Street in Tulsa covered by tarp near Trump rally.
— Trump campaign abruptly cancels outdoor campaign rally.
— Boy, 17, arrested for allegedly shooting at officers during South Dakota riots.
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Shooting in Seattle protest zone leaves 1 dead, 1 injured
SEATTLE (AP) — A pre-dawn shooting in a park in Seattle's protest zone killed a 19-year-old man and critically injured another person, authorities said Saturday.
The shooting happened about 2:30 a.m. in the area near the city's downtown that is known as CHOP, which stands for “Capitol Hill Occupied Protest," police said.
Officers responding to the shooting initially said they had trouble getting to the scene because they were "were met by a violent crowd that prevented officers safe access to the victims,” police said on their blog. Video released later in the day by the Seattle Police appears to show officers arriving at the protest zone saying they want to get to the victim and entering as people yell at them that the victim is already gone.
Two males with gunshot wounds arrived in private vehicles at Harborview Medical Center about 3 a.m., hospital spokesperson Susan Gregg said. The 19-year-old man died, and the other person was in critical condition in the intensive care unit.
The suspect or suspects fled. Investigators had no description of the shooter or shooters as of Saturday afternoon, police said.
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Police protests upend Democratic Senate contest in Kentucky
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — For months, Charles Booker languished in the shadows, talking about racial and economic justice in a long shot bid to take on Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader of the U.S. Senate. Then came a national eruption over the deaths of Black Americans in encounters with police.
Now, Booker's bid for the Democratic Senate nomination from the left wing of Kentucky politics is on the rise, creating an unexpectedly strong challenge in Tuesday's primary to the party-backed favorite, former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath.
Booker has been helped by the endorsement of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and the state's two largest newspapers. It's created a sense of momentum and led to a surge in fundraising, money that Booker has used to slam McGrath, the long-time front-runner, in TV ads. It also has added a measure of uncertainty to the script in Democrats’ uphill efforts to topple McConnell, who is seeking his seventh term.
“Over the past couple of weeks, you all have seen a shift,” Booker, a freshman state lawmaker, said at a rally this past week in his hometown of Louisville. “There is something in the atmosphere. Something is really going on here. We all are a part of history.”
Booker, 35, found the spotlight during the outbreak of protests against police, fueled in part by the death of Breonna Taylor, a Black EMT shot by Louisville narcotics detectives who knocked down her front door but found no drugs. Booker marched with protesters and felt the sting of tear gas. His voice turned raspy from speaking so much.
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NY-bred Tiz the Law wins barren Belmont Stakes
NEW YORK (AP) — Eerily empty grandstands. Masked jockeys. Shuttered betting windows.
For Tiz the Law trainer Barclay Tagg, no finer way to round out a career Triple Crown.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk about it,” the 82-year-old said. “But I thought the quiet, to me, was very nice.”
Everything was strange about this Belmont Stakes, except the winner.
Heavily favored Tiz the Law won an unprecedented Belmont, claiming victory Saturday at the first race of a rejiggered Triple Crown schedule that barred fans because of the coronavirus pandemic.
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3 slain in stabbing at UK park; police say motive unclear
LONDON (AP) — British police say three people were killed in a summer-evening stabbing attack in a park in the town of Reading, and add that it is “not currently being treated as a terrorist incident.”
Thames Valley Police says three other people are seriously wounded. The force says a 25-year-old man from the town has been arrested and they are not looking for anyone else.
The force says that “officers are keeping an open mind as to the motivation for the incident and are being supported by colleagues from Counter Terrorism Policing South East.”
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