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AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

| October 12, 2020 3:30 AM

Trump's task: Resetting campaign that GOP fears is slipping

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is running out of time to recover from a series of self-inflicted setbacks that have rattled his base of support and triggered alarm among Republicans who fear the White House is on the verge of being lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

The one-two punch of Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis and his widely panned debate performance also has Republicans worried they could lose control of the Senate. With just over three weeks until Election Day, Senate races in some reliably red states, including South Carolina and Kansas, are competitive, aided by a surge in Democratic fundraising that has put both the Republican Party and Trump’s own campaign at an unexpected financial disadvantage.

The president will aim for a reset this week, hoping an aggressive travel schedule and Judge Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation hearings will energize his most loyal supporters and shift attention away from a virus that has killed more than 214,000 Americans on his watch.

Optimists in the president’s inner circle point to his unique ability to command attention and to his 2016 campaign, which also seemed destined for defeat before a late shift. But that comeback was aided by outside forces against an unpopular opponent. This year's campaign, other Republicans worry, may instead resemble 1980 or 2008: a close race until, at the end, it decidedly wasn’t.

“It’s not good for my side," said veteran GOP pollster Whit Ayres. "Pretty obviously, in many ways down-ballot Republicans are in the boat with Donald Trump. That’s good for Republicans in deep-red states, but more problematic for those in swing states.”

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Supreme Court nominee Barrett faces Senate despite virus

WASHINGTON (AP) — Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett are set to begin as a divided Senate charges ahead on President Donald Trump’s pick to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and cement a conservative court majority before Election Day.

Barrett, a federal appeals court judge, will tell the Senate Judiciary Committee that she is “forever grateful” for Ginsburg’s trailblazing path as a woman. But she is resolved to maintain the perspective of her own mentor, the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia and “apply the law as written,” according to her prepared opening remarks for the hearings, which start Monday as the country is in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Courts are not designed to solve every problem or right every wrong in our public life,” Barrett says in the remarks, which The Associated Press obtained.

Republicans, who control the Senate, are moving at a breakneck pace to seat Barrett before the Nov. 3 election to secure Trump's pick and hear a high-profile challenge to the Affordable Care Act and any election-related challenges.

Democrats are trying in vain to delay the fast-track confirmation by raising fresh concerns about the safety of meeting during the pandemic after two GOP senators on the panel tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

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AP FACT CHECK: Trump's shaky claims on virus, Dem misfires

WASHINGTON (AP) — Impatient to return to the campaign trail, President Donald Trump dubiously claimed he's fully recovered and immune from COVID-19, hailed a cure that isn't so and declared the coronavirus is “disappearing” even as cases spiked.

The comments over the weekend capped a week that featured the only vice presidential debate of 2020 and Trump's hurried approach to leaving his convalescence behind and getting on with the campaign for the Nov. 3 election.

With confirmation hearings beginning Monday for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, made an unsubstantiated claim that Abraham Lincoln would've waited until after the election to fill the vacancy if he were in Trump's shoes.

A look at the claims and reality:

CORONAVIRUS

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Asia Today: China to test 9 million after new outbreak

BEIJING (AP) — Chinese health authorities will test all 9 million people in the eastern city of Qingdao for the coronavirus this week after nine cases linked to a hospital were found, the government announced Monday.

The announcement broke a two-month streak with no virus transmissions reported within China, though China has a practice of not reporting asymptomatic cases. The ruling Communist Party has lifted most curbs on travel and business but still monitors travelers and visitors to public buildings for signs of infection.

Authorities were investigating the source of the infections in eight patients at Qingdao’s Municipal Chest Hospital and one family member, the National Health Commission said.

“The whole city will be tested within five days,” it said on its social media account.

China, where the pandemic emerged in December, has reported 4,634 deaths and 85,578 cases, plus nine suspected cases that have yet to be confirmed.

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Americans Milgrom, Wilson win Nobel prize in economics

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Americans Paul R. Milgrom and Robert B. Wilson have won the Nobel Prize in economics for “improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats.”

The winners were announced Monday in Stockholm by Goran Hansson, secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

The award caps a week of Nobel Prizes at a time when much of the world is experiencing the worst recession since World War II because of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Technically known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, the award was established in 1969 and is now widely considered one of the Nobel prizes.

Last year’s award went to two researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a third from Harvard University, for their groundbreaking research into efforts to reduce global poverty.

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Graham's last stand? Senator leads Barrett court hearings

WASHINGTON (AP) — Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is wielding the gavel in the performance of his political life.

Once a biting critic of President Donald Trump, the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman on Monday opens confirmation hearings for Judge Amy Coney Barrett in a bid to seal a 6-to-3 conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Hanging in the balance could be the future of government health care during a coronavirus pandemic that’s claimed more than 214,000 American lives. And Graham's own career appears in jeopardy like never before.

For Graham, the Republican Senate majority and Trump himself, the hearings three weeks before Election Day could be a last stand. The proceedings are a display for voters of what it means to control the presidency and the Senate. But they're also a real-time test of whether that's enough to counter a jaw-dropping $57 million fundraising haul by Graham's Democratic opponent in the South Carolina race, Jaime Harrison.

“Senator, how good is your word?” Harrison, 44, asked at a recent debate.

Graham's answer is complicated by his whipsaw shifts, particularly where Trump is concerned. He's been both friend and foe of the belligerent president. Now, they play golf. He once vowed to oppose any Supreme Court confirmation hearings in presidential election years. This week, he is chairing Barrett's, and predicting she'll be confirmed to the high court this month to replace the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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"I got stories." A life of troubles, and a story of love

BIDWELL, Ohio (AP) — “I got stories,” Tasha Lamm said when we first met her, in a little town in Appalachian Ohio. And she did.

Her problems might seem overwhelming: poverty, unemployment, a stint of homelessness, an abusive mother, a boyfriend who died of a heroin overdose. The many other things that she hinted at, but never revealed.

But Lamm is far more than the sum of her hardships. She’s a petite, talkative woman who has faced so much in her 30 years. It's as if she was almost unbreakable, with all that history feeding a palpable fighting spirit. She knew what was holding her back in life, and she knew what she needed to do to stay afloat and — hopefully, someday — escape from her tiny, troubled world.

The three of us on The Associated Press’ road trip across America met Lamm as we tried to make sense of a country upended by the coronavirus pandemic, unemployment, protests over racial justice and the brutal politics of the upcoming elections.

Her home is small, cozy, and neat, carefully decorated with things that mean something to her and her girlfriend, Alicia Mullins. Her two young boys are rambunctious and happy. On the summer day we visited, they were playing with a hose in the backyard. She doesn’t let them wander from the house. After what she’s been through, she doesn’t trust the world out there.

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Security guard jailed in deadly shooting at Denver protests

DENVER (AP) — A private security guard working for a Denver TV station is behind bars and accused in the deadly shooting of another man during dueling right- and left-wing protests, police said Sunday.

Matthew Dolloff, 30, was booked into jail for investigation of first-degree murder following the clash Saturday afternoon in Civic Center Park.

Authorities have not identified the man killed, but his son told the Denver Post it was his father, Lee Keltner, a 49-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who operated a hat-making business in the Denver area.

“He wasn’t a part of any group,” Johnathon Keltner told the newspaper. “He was there to rally for the police department and he’d been down there before rallying for the police department.”

A man — appearing to be Keltner — participating in what was billed a “Patriot Rally” slapped and sprayed Mace at a man who appeared to be Dolloff, the Post reported, based on its photographs from the scene. The man identified by the newspaper as Dolloff drew a gun from his waistband and shot the other person, according to the Denver Post journalist who witnessed the episode.

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English villages wake up to find they're Brexit's new border

SEVINGTON, England (AP) — Four years after Britain voted to leave the European Union, Brexit can still seem abstract. But in the county known as the Garden of England, it is literally taking concrete form.

Just beyond the ancient oaks and yews that surround medieval St. Mary's Church in the village of Sevington, bulldozers, dump trucks and cement mixers swarm noisily over a field. They are chewing up land to create part of Britain’s new border with the European Union — a customs clearance depot with room for up to 2,000 trucks.

No one asked local people for permission, and even in this Brexit-backing area, the disruption is straining support for the U.K.'s rupture with the EU.

“The first anyone knew about it was when a sign went up saying the footpaths had been closed,” said Sharon Swandale, whose home in the village of Mersham used to be a 20-minute walk from Sevington. Closure of the path for construction work means it’s now an almost 4-mile (6.4-kilometer) drive.

This county, Kent, voted by 60%-40% to leave the EU in Britain’s 2016 referendum, but Swandale said visions of truck stops and customs depots were not uppermost in their minds.

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Analysis: LeBron James has done it again, and did it his way

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — He went to Miami and became a champion.

He went back to Cleveland and won another title.

He went to Los Angeles and now the Lakers are back atop the basketball world.

LeBron James, love him or hate him, is in his own category now. He has led three franchises to NBA titles, something nobody has ever done. His legacy was complete long before Sunday night, when the Los Angeles Lakers became NBA champions for the 17th time by beating the Miami Heat and winning the title to cap a season like none other, in a bubble like none other.

But that legacy is just a bit shinier now.