AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Trump, stricken by COVID-19, flown to military hospital
WASHINGTON (AP) — Stricken by COVID-19, a feverish and fatigued President Donald Trump was flown to a military hospital Friday night where he was given remdesivir following treatment with an experimental drug at the White House.
In a day of whipsaw events Friday, the president, who has spent months downplaying the threat of the virus, was forced to cancel all campaign events a month before the election as he fought a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans and is hitting others in his orbit as well.
The White House said Trump's expected stay of “a few days” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center was precautionary and that he would continue to work from the hospital’s presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to keep up his official duties.
Trump walked out of the White House Friday evening wearing a mask and gave a thumbs-up to reporters but did not speak before boarding Marine One. Members of the aircrew, Secret Service agents and White House staff wore face coverings to protect themselves from the president onboard the helicopter.
In a video taped before leaving for Walter Reed, Trump said, “I think I’m doing very well, but we’re going to make sure that things work out.” He remained fully president, all authority intact.
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Cavalier White House approach to COVID catches up to Trump
WASHINGTON (AP) — Masks were rarely spotted in the West Wing. Crowds of people gathered shoulder to shoulder on the White House South Lawn. And Air Force One streaked across the sky from one massive campaign rally to another.
With ready access to testing and the best public health minds at his disposal, President Donald Trump should have been the American safest from COVID-19. Instead, he flouted his own government’s guidelines and helped create a false sense of invulnerability in the White House, an approach that has now failed him as it did a nation where more than 200,000 people have died.
Marine One, the presidential helicopter, lifted off Friday to take Trump to a military hospital from the same White House lawn that less than a week earlier had been the site of his celebratory nomination of a new Supreme Court justice as he charged toward the November election.
Several people at the event, including a U.S. senator, have since tested positive for the coronavirus. Trump is now ensconsed at Walter Reed Medical Center after running a fever and feeling fatigued following his early-morning revelation that he had tested positive for the virus.
“He let the country down by disregarding the CDC, ignoring federal guidelines and acting like he was Superman,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “He did not just downplay the virus, he paraded around like a peacock, making fun of those who took it seriously.”
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An abundance of risk, not caution, before Trump's diagnosis
WASHINGTON (AP) — Standing well apart on the debate stage, President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponent Joe Biden looked out at an odd sight — one section of the room dutifully in masks, the other section flagrantly without.
The mostly bare-faced contingent was made up of Trump's VIP guests, who had flouted the rules by removing their masks once inside the hall despite the best efforts of the debate's health advisers from the Cleveland Clinic to keep everyone safe. It was a conspicuous act of rebellion, reflecting divisions writ large across the country.
But what Trump calls the “invisible enemy” was spreading — before the debate, during it, after it, or some combination — and now it has spread to him.
No one knows how, when or from whom Trump became infected. Nor is it established who, if anyone, has contracted the disease from him. But to retrace some of his steps over the last week is to see risk at multiple turns and an abundance of opportunity for infection.
This was the case day after day and right up until a few hours before his positive diagnosis, as he took a contingent to New Jersey for a fundraiser with the White House knowing he'd been close to someone sick with COVID-19.
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What we know, and what we don't, about Trump's coronavirus
There are many unanswered questions surrounding President Donald Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said he only had mild symptoms, and his doctor said Trump was fatigued. But the president was being flown to Walter Reed Medical Center, where he was expected to stay a few days.
Here’s what we know and what we don’t know:
WHO INFECTED TRUMP?
We don’t know, although there’s no shortage of possible suspects. Trump, who typically shuns masks, was around hundreds if not thousands of people this week, traveling to a campaign rally, his golf club, the presidential debate, fundraisers and meetings with people involved in his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
White House counselor Hope Hicks, one of Trump's closest advisers, fell ill with the coronavirus Wednesday while accompanying Trump to a fundraiser in Minnesota, officials say. It’s not clear if her case is related to the president’s. And Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah ,who was at the White House last weekend, announced Friday he had tested positive.
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Trump gets experimental drug aimed at curbing severe illness
The experimental antibody drug given to President Donald Trump has been called one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from a COVID-19 infection.
Its maker, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., said the company agreed to supply a single dose, given through an IV, for Trump at the request of his physician under “compassionate use” provisions, when an experimental medicine is provided on a case-by-case emergency basis, while studies of it continue.
The new drug is in late-stage testing and its safety and effectiveness are not yet known. No treatment has yet proved able to prevent serious illness after a coronavirus infection.
Trump was given the experimental drug at the White House on Friday before he was taken to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he’ll be monitored, officials said. So far, Trump has had only mild symptoms, including fatigue.
Several physicians who treat COVID-19, including Dr. David Boulware at the University of Minnesota, had speculated that doctors might use the antibody drug, given that this approach has worked against other diseases in the past.
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Biden: Trump diagnosis is 'bracing reminder' of virus stakes
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Democrat Joe Biden offered sympathy to President Donald Trump over his coronavirus diagnosis while casting the moment as a reminder of the worldwide health crisis that has hit the United States particularly hard.
Shortly after the White House announced Trump would spend “a few days” at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, the Biden campaign said it would take down its negative advertising. Biden said Friday from the battleground state of Michigan that it cannot be a “partisan moment” and that Americans must “come together as a nation.”
Speaking from the parking lot of a union hall while wearing a mask, Biden said Trump's diagnosis is a “bracing reminder to all of us that we have to take this virus seriously."
“It’s not going away automatically," Biden added.
One month before Election Day, Biden faces a unique moment in what has already been a chaotic presidential campaign. He must balance his opponent's illness and its destabilizing effect on Washington while making a closing argument that the coronavirus is serious and requires stronger leadership in the White House.
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Recordings reveal confusion behind Breonna Taylor's death
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The police officer who fatally shot Breonna Taylor described seeing only “shadowy mass” and said he didn't recall firing the 16 bullets later matched to his gun. As she lay bleeding, Taylor's boyfriend called his mother before dialing 911.
And neighbors roused by the gunfire at Taylor's apartment after midnight on March 13 only added to conflicting testimony about whether police serving a narcotics warrant announced themselves before using a battering ram to break down her door.
Details of the chaos and confusion during the raid that resulted in the 26-year-old Black woman's death were revealed in 15 hours of audio recordings released Friday. They contained testimony and recorded interviews presented last month to the Kentucky grand jury that decided not to charge any Louisville police officers for killing Taylor.
“If you told me I didn’t fire a gun, I would be like, OK,” detective Myles Cosgrove told investigators soon after the shooting.
In fact, investigators determined Cosgrove shot 16 of the 32 bullets police fired into Taylor's apartment, responding to a single gunshot from her boyfriend when they rammed down her door. Evidence showed one of Cosgrove's bullets killed Taylor.
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Bosnia: Unnerved by virus denial, survivors mourn their dead
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) — Denis Zekic was on his daily video call with his parents in Bosnia in early August when his father said he might be coming down with a fever. Less than a month later, both of Zekic’s parents were dead, joining the people who would be counted as the coronavirus pandemic’s global toll climbed toward 1 million.
Zekic says his mother, Sefketa, and father, Muharem, both were comparatively healthy before they died at age 68. They were rule followers who practiced social distancing in the city of Zenica. Before his father was hospitalized, his mother wore gloves and a face mask while caring for him, but she ended up as a COVID-19 patient in the same intensive care wing, Zekic said.
“I saw her walk into the hospital on her own feet. From a distance. With protective masks covering our faces,” he said. “Honestly, I believed that she would pull through.”
Yet Zekic and his sister soon discovered that some neighbors and acquaintances had little sympathy for their sudden double loss, but plenty of opinions and, at times, cruel disdain. One time, a random man taunted the siblings in a store, alleging that authorities had paid them to say the coronavirus killed their parents.
“How to respond to that?” Zekic said.
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Better weather won't keep California from grim fire landmark
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Firefighters may get a reprieve from the weather Saturday as red flag warnings of extreme fire danger expire. But the state is still poised to reach a grim milestone: 4 million acres burned this year by wildfires.
The state is only about 20,000 acres from reaching the unprecedented figure, fire officials said. Meanwhile, two major fires that have killed four people and incinerated hundreds of homes in the wine country and the far north continued to burn.
Powerful winds that had been expected to drive flames since Wednesday hadn't materialized, and red flag warnings of extreme fire danger for hot, dry and gusty weather were due to expire at 6 a.m.
The weekend was expected to usher in some cooling — or less intense heat — and long-range forecast models hinted at the possibility of rain early next week.
But with California a tinderbox of dead trees and dried brush after weeks of scorching weather and years of drought, fires could explode in rural areas, grasslands and dense forest even without the push of winds.
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Nobel Prizes and COVID-19: Slow, basic science may pay off
While the world wants flashy quick fixes for everything, especially massive threats like the coronavirus and global warming, next week's Nobel Prizes remind us that in science, slow and steady pays off.
It may soon do so again.
Science builds upon previous work, with thinkers “standing on the shoulders of giants," as Isaac Newton put it, and it starts with basic research aimed at understanding a problem before fixing it. It’s that type of basic science that the Nobels usually reward, often years or decades after a discovery, because it can take that long to realize the implications.
Slow and steady success in science has made researchers hopeful in the fight against the pandemic. It even offers a glimmer of climate optimism.
Many years of advances in basic molecular science, some of them already Nobel Prize-winning, have given the world tools for fast virus identification and speeded up the development of testing. And now they tantalize us with the prospect of COVID-19 treatments and ultimately a vaccine, perhaps within a few months.