AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
World hits coronavirus milestones amid fears worst to come
ROME (AP) — The world surpassed two sobering coronavirus milestones Sunday -- 500,000 confirmed deaths, 10 million confirmed cases -- and hit another high mark for daily new infections as governments that attempted reopenings continued to backtrack and warn that worse news could be yet to come.
“COVID-19 has taken a very swift and very dangerous turn in Texas over just the past few weeks,” said Gov. Greg Abbott, who allowed businesses to start reopening in early May but on Friday shut down bars and limited restaurant dining amid a spike in cases.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled back reopenings of bars in seven counties, including Los Angeles. He ordered them to close immediately and urged eight other counties to issue local health orders mandating the same.
South Africa’s health minister warned that the country’s current surge of cases is expected to rapidly increase in the coming weeks and push hospitals to the limit. Health Minister Zwelini Mkhize said the current rise in infections has come from people who “moved back into the workplace. It was therefore inevitable that there would be cluster outbreaks as infections spilled over from communities into places of congregation such as mines, factories, taxis and buses.”
New clusters of cases at a Swiss nightclub and in the central English city of Leicester showed that the virus was still circulating widely in Europe, though not with the rapidly growing infection rate seen in parts of the U.S., Latin America and India.
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Trump tweets video with 'white power' chant, then deletes it
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday tweeted approvingly of a video showing one of his supporters chanting “white power," a racist slogan associated with white supremacists. He later deleted the tweet and the White House said the president had not heard “the one statement” on the video.
The video appeared to have been taken at The Villages, a Florida retirement community, and showed dueling demonstrations between Trump supporters and opponents.
“Thank you to the great people of The Villages,” Trump tweeted. Moments into the video clip he shared, a man driving a golf cart displaying pro-Trump signs and flags shouts 'white power." The video also shows anti-Trump protesters shouting “Nazi," “racist," and profanities at the Trump backers.
“There's no question'' that Trump should not have retweeted the video and "he should just take it down,” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., told CNN's “State of the Union.” Scott is the only Black Republican in the Senate.
“I think it’s indefensible,” he added.
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Summer may decide fate of leading shots in vaccine race
People on six continents already are getting jabs in the arm as the race for a COVID-19 vaccine enters a defining summer, with even bigger studies poised to prove if any shot really works -- and maybe offer a reality check.
Already British and Chinese researchers are chasing the coronavirus beyond their borders, testing potential vaccines in Brazil and the United Arab Emirates because there are too few new infections at home to get clear answers.
The U.S. is set to open the largest trials -- 30,000 people to test a government-created shot starting in July, followed about a month later with another 30,000 expected to test a British one.
Those likely will be divided among Americans and volunteers in other countries such as Brazil or South Africa, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health told The Associated Press.
While he’s optimistic, “we’ve been burned before,” Fauci cautioned.
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Fracking pioneer Chesapeake files for bankruptcy protection
NEW YORK (AP) — Chesapeake Energy, a shale drilling pioneer that helped to turn the United States into a global energy powerhouse, has filed for bankruptcy protection.
The Oklahoma City-based company said Sunday that it was a necessary decision given its debt. Its debt load is currently nearing $9 billion. It has entered a plan with lenders to cut $7 billion of its debt and said it will continue to operate as usual during the bankruptcy process.
The oil and gas company was a leader in the fracking boom, using unconventional techniques to extract oil and gas from the ground, a method that has come under scrutiny because of its environmental impact.
Other wildcatters followed in Chesapeake’s path, racking up huge debts to find oil and gas in fields spanning New Mexico, Texas, the Dakotas and Pennsylvania. A reckoning is now coming due with those massive debts needing to be serviced by Chesapeake and those that followed its path.
More than 200 oil producers have filed for bankruptcy protection in the past five years, a trend that’s expected to continue as a global pandemic saps demand for energy and depresses prices further.
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Trump's attacks seen undercutting confidence in 2020 vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — It was a startling declaration about one of the pillars of American democracy, all the more so given its source.
The president of the United States last week publicly predicted without evidence that the 2020 presidential election would be “the most corrupt election in the history of our country.”
“We cannot let this happen," Donald Trump told an audience of young supporters at a Phoenix megachurch. "They want it to happen so badly.”
Just over four months before Election Day, the president is escalating his efforts to cast doubt on the integrity of the vote.
It's a well-worn tactic for Trump, who in 2016 went after the very process that ultimately put him in the White House. He first attacked the Republican primaries (“rigged and boss controlled") and then the general election, when he accused the media and Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign of conspiring against him to undermine a free and fair election.
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Exit poll: Polish presidential vote headed for runoff
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — Poland’s conservative president, Andrzej Duda, was the frontrunner in Sunday's election, but fell short of the needed 50% of votes to win in a first round, according to the projection of an exit poll.
The results, if confirmed, pave the way for what is building into a very tight race in a runoff on July 12 that will most likely pit the populist incumbent against the centrist Warsaw mayor, Rafal Trzaskowski, who was in second place.
Whether Duda ultimately wins a second five-year term in two weeks’ time will determine whether the ruling nationalist party that backs him, Law and Justice, keeps its near-monopoly on political power in Poland.
The party has been in conflict with the European Union over laws that have given it control over top courts and key judicial bodies, something the 27-nation bloc has denounced as an erosion of democratic European values.
Since the Polish president has the power to veto laws, Duda winning a second term is crucial to the party as it seeks to continue to reshape the nation’s laws in line with its conservative worldview. The pro-EU Trzaskowski has vowed to block any new laws that violate constitutional norms.
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Shootings across Chicago kill 3 kids; activists seek change
CHICAGO (AP) — Activists and local leaders called for more state and federal support Sunday as weekend shootings across Chicago left three children dead, including a 10-year-old who was struck by a stray bullet that came through an apartment window.
The Saturday night death was among at least 10 shooting fatalities since Friday evening, which follow a deadly Father's Day weekend and fresh concerns about a violent summer ahead. A 1-year-old and 17-year-old were also killed.
“It's out of control where even innocent children are losing their lives,” said neighborhood activist Raul Montes Jr., who planned a Sunday evening vigil on the city's southwest side.
He called for federal intervention while a state legislator announced a new task force to addressing underlying issues.
“Violence is a result of poverty, and must be addressed with human services and support," said state Rep. La Shawn Ford, a Chicago Democrat, in a statement. The group called on federal, state and city leaders for support.
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New knotholes: Good MLB views, if fans know where to look
BOSTON (AP) — Tucked under the center field seats at Fenway Park, down some stairs from Lansdowne Street in an area previously used as the visiting team’s batting cage, is a sports bar that is preparing to reopen from the coronavirus shutdown.
Largely windowless and decorated with sepia photographs hung on dark wooden walls, the main source of light is the sunshine streaming in through a thick metal screen that reveals the true treasure of the location: a view of the Boston Red Sox field, from Green Monster to Pesky Pole, that could make the Bleacher Bar one of the few spots to watch a major league game in person this season.
“It’s one of a kind. It really is,” said Joe Hicks, who runs the restaurant and three others in the area. “Kids and families, they get excited when they walk in here and they see how cool this is. People, they walk in and they’re just naturally happy.
“Being able to see inside the park, it doesn’t get much better than that.”
Major League Baseball suspended spring training on March 12, and the season that was scheduled to open on March 26 never did. Last week, players and owners reached an agreement to play an abbreviated, 60-game season that would start July 23 or 24 in teams’ home ballparks.
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In NYC, marking 50th anniversary of Pride, no matter what
NEW YORK (AP) — There were protests, rainbow flags and performances — it was LGBTQ Pride, after all.
But what was normally an outpouring on the streets of New York City looked a little different this year, thanks to social distancing rules required by the coronavirus.
With the city’s massive Pride parade canceled, Sunday's performances were virtual, the flags flew in emptier than normal spaces and the protesters were masked.
The disruption caused by the virus would be an aggravation in any year, but particularly in this one, the 50th anniversary of the first Pride march in New York City.
“It’s a great thing to see because the original Pride started with the civil rights movement,” Matthew Fischer said as he passed out hand sanitizer Sunday at Foley Square. “So we’re really going back to the roots of that and making sure we encompass everything that empowers people to be who they are.”
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Trump denies briefing on reported bounties against US troops
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday denied that he had been briefed on reported U.S. intelligence that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing American troops in Afghanistan, and he appeared to minimize the allegations against Moscow.
American intelligence officials concluded months ago that Russian officials offered rewards for successful attacks on American service-members last year, at a time when the U.S. and Taliban were holding talks to end the long-running war, according to The New York Times.
Trump, in a Sunday morning tweet, said “Nobody briefed or told me” or Vice President Mike Pence or chief of staff Mark Meadows about “the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians.”
"Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us,” he said.
The White House had issued a statement Saturday denying that Trump or Pence had been briefed on such intelligence. “This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of the New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.