AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
In big states, tiny counties, Trump attacking voting rules
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — When Donald Trump's campaign took issue with a new rule on processing some votes in North Carolina, it didn't just complain to the Board of Elections or even file a lawsuit. It wrote to some of the state's 100 local election offices with extraordinary guidance: Ignore the rule.
“The NC Republican Party advises you to not follow the procedures,” Heather Ford wrote in an email to county officials last week.
The email urging defiance was a small glimpse at the unusually aggressive, hyperlocal legal strategy the Trump campaign is activating as voting begins. Through threatening letters, lawsuits, viral videos and presidential misinformation, the campaign and its GOP allies are going to new lengths to contest election procedures county-by-county across battleground states.
That means piling new pressure on the often low-profile election officials on the frontline of the vote count, escalating micro-disputes over voting rules and seeking out trouble in their backyards.
The local approach already is producing a blizzard of voting-related complaints. Trump and his allies have then seized on the disputes, distorted them and used them to sow broad doubts of fairness and accuracy.
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In Appalachia, people watch COVID-19, race issues from afar
BUCHTEL, Ohio (AP) — The water, so cold that it nearly hurts, spills relentlessly into a concrete trough from three pipes driven into a hillside near the edge of town.
People have been coming to the trough for at least a century, since horses were watered here and coal miners stopped by to wash off the grime. People still come - because they think the water is healthier, or makes better coffee, or because their utilities were turned off when they couldn’t pay the bills. Or maybe just because it’s what they’ve always done.
For years, Tarah Nogrady has filled plastic jugs here and lugged them back to a town so small it rarely appears on maps. As she collects water for her four Pekinese dogs waiting in the car, she doesn’t wear a mask, like so many around here. Nogrady doubts that the coronavirus is a real threat - it’s “maybe a flu-type deal,” she says.
It’s a common view in the little towns that speckle the Appalachian foothills of southeast Ohio, where the pandemic has barely been felt. Coronavirus deaths and protests for racial justice — events that have defined 2020 nationwide — are mostly just images on TV from a distant America.
For many here, it’s an increasingly foreign America that they explain with suspicion, anger and occasionally conspiracy theories. The result: At a time when the country is bitterly torn and crises are piling up faster than ever, the feeling of isolation in this corner of Ohio is more profound than ever.
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Democrats press ahead on partisan COVID bill as talks drag
WASHINGTON (AP) — With top Washington negotiators significantly apart on a huge COVID-19 relief bill, Democrats controlling the House are plunging ahead with a partisan debate on their next option — a $2.2 trillion measure that's anathema to the White House and Capitol Hill Republicans.
Thursday's vote was chiefly sought by moderate Democrats who say the party needs to display greater flexibility. But the end result was a partisan debate around the legislation that was expected to end with a mostly party-line vote, leaving lawmakers no closer to an outcome.
Voting on the $2.2 trillion plan came after a burst of negotiations this week between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The Trump administration delivered concessions Wednesday, including a $400 per week pandemic jobless benefit and a markedly higher overall price tag of $1.6 trillion, but that failed to win over Pelosi.
“This isn’t half a loaf, this is the heel of the loaf,” Pelosi said in a televised interview Thursday. Pelosi spoke after the White House attacked her as “not being serious."
The ramped-up negotiations come as challenging economic news continues to confront policymakers. The airlines are furloughing about 30,000 workers with the expiration of aid passed earlier this year, and a report Thursday showed 837,000 people claiming jobless benefits for the first time last week. Most of the economic benefits of an immediate round of COVID relief could accrue under the next administration, and failure now could mean no significant help for struggling families and businesses until February.
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Trump opposes changing debate rules but will still attend
MORRISTOWN, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump opposes changing the rules for the remaining two presidential debates against Democrat Joe Biden, but his campaign says he will attend regardless.
Tuesday's opening debate in Cleveland quickly turned chaotic, with frequent interruptions by the candidates — particularly Trump. The Commission on Presidential Debates said Wednesday that it “intends to ensure that additional tools to maintain order are in place for the remaining debates.”
The commission and representatives from Trump's and Biden's campaigns met Wednesday morning to discuss the previous night’s debate and potential changes. Some potential changes that have been discussed include adding opening and closing statements and shortening open discussion.
Trump, a Republican, tweeted Thursday that he opposed any changes. “Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time,” he tweeted shortly after landing in New Jersey, where he was to hold a campaign fundraiser at his private golf club.
On a conference call with reporters, Trump's reelection campaign indicated that Trump would attend the remaining debates regardless of whether the rules are changed.
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AP: Trooper's mic records talk of beating, choking Black man
In graphic, matter-of-fact chatter picked up on his body-camera mic, a Louisiana State trooper implicated in the death of a Black man can be heard talking of beating and choking him before “all of a sudden he just went limp.”
“I beat the ever-living f--- out of him,” the trooper said in a 27-second audio clip obtained by The Associated Press.
It is the most direct evidence to emerge yet in the death last year of Ronald Greene, which troopers initially blamed on injuries from a car crash at the end of a chase. The long-simmering case has now become the subject of a federal civil rights investigation and growing calls for authorities to release the full body-cam video.
Master Trooper Chris Hollingsworth, who died last week in a single-car crash, is heard recounting the May 2019 arrest of Greene in rural north Louisiana on audio provided to the AP through an intermediary who asked not to be identified because the case remains under investigation. Its veracity was confirmed by two law enforcement officials familiar with the case who spoke on condition of anonymity. State Police did not dispute the tape’s authenticity.
“Choked him and everything else trying to get him under control,” Hollingsworth is heard saying, apparently in his part of a phone conversation with a colleague.
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Barrett opposed 'abortion on demand,' raising doubts on Roe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett signed a 2006 newspaper ad sponsored by an anti-abortion group in which she said she opposed “abortion on demand” and defended “the right to life from fertilization to the end of natural life.”
The ad, which had more than 1,200 names attached to it, appears to be the most direct expression of Barrett’s opposition to abortion and is sure to intensify debate that she would vote to restrict, if not overturn, abortion rights if she is confirmed to the Supreme Court.
It was not included in materials Barrett provided to the Senate Judiciary Committee for her pending high-court nomination or in 2017, when she was nominated to the job she currently holds as a judge on the federal appeals court based in Chicago.
President Donald Trump has nominated Barrett to take the seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, an abortion rights supporter who died last month.
White House spokesperson Judd Deere said Barrett already has distinguished her personal views from her responsibility as a judge. “As Judge Barrett said on the day she was nominated, ‘A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policymakers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold,’” Deere said in an email.
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Conservative hoaxers face charges over false voter robocalls
Two conservative operatives were charged Thursday with felonies in connection with false robocalls that aimed to dissuade residents in Detroit and other U.S. cities from voting by mail, Michigan's attorney general announced.
Jacob Wohl, 22, and Jack Burkman, 54, each face four felony counts in Detroit, including conspiring to intimidate voters in violation of election law and using a computer to commit crimes, Attorney General Dana Nessel said.
The calls falsely warned residents in majority-Black Detroit and urban areas in at least four other states that voting by mail in the Nov. 3 election could subject people to arrest, debt collection and forced vaccination, Nessel said.
The men, who have a history of staging hoaxes and spreading false smears against prominent Democrats and government officials, are not in custody and no date for their arraignments has been set.
Nessel said her office would work with local law enforcement to secure their appearances if necessary, saying the men could face arrest and extradition or could voluntarily come to Michigan to face the charges.
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Facebook, Twitter flounder in QAnon crackdown
CHICAGO (AP) — Facebook and Twitter promised to stop encouraging the growth of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon, which fashions President Donald Trump as a secret warrior against a supposed child-trafficking ring run by celebrities and government officials, after it reached an audience of millions on their platforms this year.
But the social media companies still aren’t enforcing even the limited restrictions they’ve recently put in place to stem the tide of dangerous QAnon material, a review by The Associated Press found. Both platforms have vowed to stop “suggesting” QAnon material to users, a powerful way of introducing QAnon to new people.
But neither has actually succeeded at that.
On Wednesday, hours after a chaotic debate between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, a video from a QAnon account that falsely claimed Biden wore a wire to cheat during the event was trending on Twitter, for example.
Twitter is even still running ads against QAnon material, in effect profiting off the type of tweets that it has vowed to limit. In some cases Facebook is still automatically directing users to follow public and secret QAnon pages or groups, the AP found.
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After pandemic delay, Biden launching in-person canvassing
NEW YORK (AP) — After months of avoiding direct contact with voters because of the pandemic, Joe Biden's campaign is about to launch door-to-door canvassing across several battleground states.
The decision comes amid growing concern from Democratic officials on the ground in key states who fear that Biden has been giving a significant advantage to President Donald Trump and his Republican allies, who have been aggressively courting voters at their doorsteps for months. The reversal also reflects a sense of rising urgency as polls tighten just a month before Election Day.
Biden’s campaign, which detailed the new effort to The Associated Press, insists that its existing phone and online voter outreach is effective. The new plans will build upon what's already in place, not replace it.
“Our voter contact operation is the most innovative and technologically advanced of any presidential campaign in history, and it has been thriving in this unprecedented environment," Biden campaign manager Jenn O'Malley Dillon said.
"We’re now expanding on our strategy in a targeted way that puts the safety of communities first and foremost and helps us mobilize voters who are harder to reach by phone now that we’re in the final stretch — and now that Americans are fully dialed-in and ready to make their voices heard.”
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Potty training: NASA tests new $23M titanium space toilet
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s first new space potty in decades — a $23 million titanium toilet better suited for women — is getting a not-so-dry run at the International Space Station before eventually flying to the moon.
It’s packed inside a cargo ship set to blast off late Thursday from Wallops Island, Virginia.
Barely 100 pounds (45 kilograms) and just 28 inches (71 centimeters) tall, it’s roughly half as big as the two Russian-built toilets at the space station. It's more camper-size to fit into the NASA Orion capsules that will carry astronauts to the moon in a few years.
Station residents will test it out for a few months. If the shakedown goes well, the toilet will be open for regular business.
With SpaceX now launching astronauts to the space station and Boeing less than a year from sending up its first crew, more toilets are needed. The new one will be in its own stall alongside the old one on the U.S. side of the outpost.