AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Trump plays down virus as he steps up pitch for second term
WASHINGTON (AP) — Gone are the days when President Donald Trump held forth daily at the White House podium flanked by members of his coronavirus task force. And the days when Vice President Mike Pence and other task force officials would head to Trump’s office to brief him immediately after their meetings.
The White House won’t say when Trump last met with the task force.
In the week since he emerged from coronavirus isolation, Trump has demonstrated new determination to minimize the threat of the virus that has killed more than 215,000 Americans and complicated his chances of winning another four years in the White House.
“The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn,” Trump told supporters Friday at an event in Fort Myers, Florida, one of many moments during a week of campaigning in which the president tried to play down the virus threat. “Don’t listen to the cynics and angry partisans and pessimists.”
In word and action, he is pushing an optimistic outlook at a moment when coronavirus infections are spiking in Europe and public health officials are raising alarm that the infection rate in the U.S. is climbing toward a new peak.
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Low-key Democrat tries to hang onto Senate seat in Michigan
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — Call him low-key, understated, maybe even “boring." First-term Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan is betting voters care more about his effectiveness, as he desperately fights to keep a seat his party is counting on to take the Senate majority.
The bespectacled, bearded 61-year-old former investment adviser is a rare Senate candidate this cycle, a Democrat running in a battleground state Donald Trump carried in 2016. But unlike Democrat Joe Biden, whose lead over the president has grown, Peters is finding it tougher to shake top Republican recruit John James, a Black business executive and combat veteran.
Michigan has something it has not seen in 20 years — a competitive Senate contest — with control of the chamber hanging in the balance and Peters trying to cut through a polarizing political climate.
Peters was the only non-incumbent Democrat to win a Senate election in 2014, when he prevailed easily despite the GOP’s successes nationally and in Michigan. He told The Associated Press his reelection campaign is “basically me just focusing on my job,” as the U.S. combats the coronavirus pandemic and the economic fallout. “I think what Michiganders want is someone who rolls up their sleeves, gets things done, not out there throwing rocks all the time."
Some allies fret that it has been tough for the nonflashy Peters to stand out with his message of pragmatism and bipartisanship. In a change from 2018, when James lost by 6.5 percentage points to the state’s senior senator, Debbie Stabenow, James has outraised Peters since announcing his candidacy. Super PACs and other outside groups on both sides are spending heavily in one of Republicans' few pickup opportunities on the Senate map.
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Trump on defense, courting voters in two must-win states
MACON, Ga. (AP) — Backed into a corner and facing financial strains, President Donald Trump went after his opponent's family and defended his own struggle to contain the pandemic as he fought to energize his sagging reelection bid in the nation's Sun Belt. With Election Day looming, Democrat Joe Biden pushed to keep voters focused on health care in the Midwest.
Trump campaigned 'Friday in Florida and Georgia, neighboring states he carried four years ago and must win again to extend his presidency. His decision to devote Friday evening's prime-time slot to Georgia in particular highlighted the serious nature of his challenge: Far from his original plan to expand into Democratic-leaning states, he is laboring to stave off a defeat of major proportions.
No Republican presidential candidate has lost Georgia since George H.W. Bush in 1992. And earlier this week, Trump had to court voters in Iowa, a state he carried by almost 10 points four years ago.
In Macon, he cited support from former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker to win favor from his rally crowd. “How good was Herschel Walker?" Trump said as the Georgia crowd roared. “He's on our side, and he's an incredible guy."
Trump had tried the same strategy Wednesday in Iowa, bringing wrestling legend Dan Gable onstage.
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Scammers seize on US election, but it's not votes they want
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The email from a political action committee seemed harmless: if you support Joe Biden, it urged, click here to make sure you're registered to vote.
But Harvard University graduate student Maya James did not click. Instead, she Googled the name of the soliciting PAC. It didn’t exist -- a clue the email was a phishing scam from swindlers trying to exploit the U.S. presidential election as a way to steal peoples' personal information.
“There was not a trace of them,” James, 22, said. “It was a very inconspicuous email, but I noticed it used very emotional language, and that set off alarm bells.” She deleted the message, but related her experience on social media to warn others.
American voters face an especially pivotal, polarized election this year, and scammers here and abroad are taking notice — posing as fundraisers and pollsters, impersonating candidates and campaigns, and launching fake voter registration drives. It’s not votes they’re after, but to win a voter's trust, personal information and maybe a bank routing number.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Better Business Bureau and cybersecurity experts have recently warned of new and increasingly sophisticated online fraud schemes that use the election as an entry, reflecting both the proliferation of political misinformation and intense interest in this year's presidential and Senate races.
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After Lebanese revolt's fury, waning protests face long road
BEIRUT (AP) —
A year ago, hundreds of thousands of Lebanese took to the streets protesting taxes and a rapidly deteriorating economic crisis. A spontaneous and hopeful nationwide movement was born, denouncing an entire political establishment that had for decades pushed Lebanon toward collapse.
Today, as crises multiply and the country dives deeper into uncertainty and poverty, protests seem to have petered out. Even widespread anger over a devastating explosion at Beirut’s port on Aug. 4, blamed on government negligence, failed to re-ignite the movement.
It is both bewildering and frustrating for those who believe only a sustained popular uprising can bring change in Lebanon.
Some argue the protests lost momentum because of the political elite’s moves to hijack and weaken the movement. Protesters have been met with violence, arrest and intimidation. Others say Lebanese have become numb to incompetence and corruption among the political class.
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White House: Tennessee mask mandate 'must be implemented'
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The White House quietly told Tennessee early this week that “a statewide mask mandate must be implemented" to curb its growing spread of COVID-19, strong instructions that the White House and governor did not discuss publicly before the report emerged in a records request.
The Oct. 11 state report for Tennessee, where Republican Gov. Bill Lee has let counties decide whether to require masks in public, first came to light in a records request by WUOT-FM. The Associated Press obtained the report from the Knox County Health Department afterward.
"A statewide mask mandate must be implemented to stop the increasing spread among residents in rural and urban areas of Tennessee," the item in a list of recommendations states.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he was not in favor of mask mandates, but the recommendations of the task force and public health agencies, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have often been at odds with the White House's rhetoric.
The report takes the strongest tone to date in urging Tennessee to act, though Lee has made it clear for months that he did not think masks should be required across the state. Lee, who has urged people to wear masks, continued to advise against a statewide mandate Friday in an online news conference, in which he didn't mention the White House's instruction a few days earlier.
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Biden email episode illustrates risk to Trump from Giuliani
WASHINGTON (AP) — A New York tabloid’s puzzling account about how it acquired emails purportedly from Joe Biden’s son has raised some red flags. One of the biggest involves the source of the emails: Rudy Giuliani.
Giuliani has traveled abroad looking for dirt on the Bidens, developing relationships with shadowy figures, including a Ukrainian lawmaker who U.S. officials have described as a Russian agent and part of a broader Russian effort to denigrate the Democratic presidential nominee.
Yet Giuliani says foreign sources didn’t provide the Hunter Biden emails. He says a laptop containing the emails and intimate photos was simply abandoned in a Delaware repair shop and the shop owner reached out to Giuliani's lawyer.
That hasn’t stopped the FBI from investigating whether the emails are part of a foreign influence operation. The emails have surfaced as U.S. officials have been warning that Russia, which backed Trump’s 2016 campaign through hacking of Democratic emails and a covert social media campaign, is interfering again this year. The latest episode with Giuliani underscores the risk he poses to a White House that spent years confronted by a federal investigation into whether Trump associates had coordinated with Russia.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that intelligence agencies had warned the White House last year that Giuliani was the target of a Russian influence operation. The newspaper, citing four former officials, said that assessment was based on information including intercepted communications showing Giuliani had been in contact with people tied to Russian intelligence.
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New Zealand's Ardern appears headed for big win and 2nd term
AUCKLAND, New Zealand (AP) — Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern appeared headed for a landslide win and a second term in office Saturday during early vote counting in New Zealand’s election.
With about one-third of votes counted, Ardern’s liberal Labour Party had nearly double the amount of votes than its main challenger, the conservative National Party.
One question will be whether Labour can win an outright majority in Parliament, something that hasn’t happened since New Zealand implemented a proportional voting system 24 years ago. Typically, parties must form alliances to govern, but this time there’s a chance Ardern and Labour will be able to go it alone.
A record number of voters cast early ballots in the two weeks leading up to the election.
On the campaign trail, Ardern has been greeted like a rock star by people who have crammed into malls and spilled onto streets to cheer her on and get selfies with her.
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Trump changes course, approves California relief for 6 fires
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — President Donald Trump's administration abruptly reversed course and approved California's application for disaster relief funds to clean up damage from six recent deadly and destructive blazes that have scorched the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday.
“Just got off the phone with President Trump who has approved our Major Disaster Declaration request. Grateful for his quick response,” Newsom said in a brief statement.
Neither he nor the White House gave details on why the administration shifted positions less than two days after it initially denied the state's request for a declaration that officials said could provide the state with hundreds of millions of dollars.
The reversal came the same week the Pacific Gas and Electric utility cut off service to more than 40,000 Northern California customers to prevent powerful winds from damaging equipment and sparking wildfires amid a fall heat wave. Electricity was restored to most customers by Friday evening, PG&E said.
Preliminary inspections found 30 instances of weather-related damage, including downed power lines in areas where winds were the strongest, PG&E said.
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Suspect in teacher's beheading in France was Chechen teen
PARIS (AP) — A suspect shot dead by police after the gruesome beheading of a history teacher in an attack near Paris Friday was an 18-year-old Chechen, police said.
France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor’s office said that authorities investigating the horrific killing of the man in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine have also arrested nine suspects, including the grandparents, parents and 17-year-old brother of the attacker.
The teacher had discussed caricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad with his class, authorities said.
Chechnya is a predominantly Muslim Russian republic in the North Caucasus. Two wars in the 1990s triggered a wave of emigration, with many Chechens heading for western Europe.
France has seen occasional violence involving its Chechen community in recent months, believed linked to local criminal activity and score-settling.