AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT
Trump 'running angry,' attacks polls, press and Dr. Fauci
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) — An angry President Donald Trump came out swinging Monday against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the press and polls that show him trailing Democrat Joe Biden in key battleground states in a disjointed closing message two weeks out from Election Day.
On the third day of a western campaign swing, Trump was facing intense pressure to turn around his campaign, hoping for the type of last-minute surge that gave him a come-from-behind victory four years ago. But his inconsistent message, another rise in virus cases and his attacks on experts like Fauci could undermine his final efforts to appeal to voters outside his most loyal base.
“I’m not running scared," Trump told reporters before taking off for Tucson, Arizona, for his fifth rally in three days. "I think I’m running angry. I’m running happy and I’m running very content 'cause I’ve done a great job.”
His aggressive travel comes as Trump plays defense in states he won four years ago, though the president insisted he was confident as he executed a packed schedule despite the pandemic.
“We’re going to win," he told campaign staff on a morning conference call from Las Vegas. He went on to acknowledge that he "wouldn’t have told you that maybe two or three weeks ago," referring to the days when he was hospitalized with COVID-19. But he said he felt better now than at any point in 2016. “We’re in the best shape we’ve ever been,” he said.
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The Latest: Trump plans to debate Biden despite rule changes
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the 2020 presidential campaign (all times local):
8:50 p.m.
President Donald Trump plans to attend Thursday’s debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden despite rule changes — opposed by his campaign — that are meant to foster more ordered discussions.
Trump campaign manager Bill Stepien says Trump “is committed to debating Joe Biden regardless of last minute rule changes from the biased commission in their latest attempt to provide advantage to their favored candidate.”
The nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates announced Monday that the second and final debate between the two candidates will have each nominee muted while the other delivers his two-minute remarks at the outset of each of the six debate topics. The remainder of each 15-minute block will be open discussion, without any muting, the commission said.
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As virus flares globally, new strategies target hot spots
NEW YORK (AP) — After entire nations were shut down during the first surge of the coronavirus earlier this year, some countries and U.S. states are trying more targeted measures as cases rise again around the world, especially in Europe and the Americas.
New York’s new round of virus shutdowns zeroes in on individual neighborhoods, closing schools and businesses in hot spots measuring just a couple of square miles.
Spanish officials limited travel to and from some parts of Madrid before restrictions were widened throughout the capital and some suburbs.
Italian authorities have sometimes quarantined spots as small as a single building.
While countries including Israel and the Czech Republic have reinstated nationwide closures, other governments hope smaller-scale shutdowns can work this time, in conjunction with testing, contact tracing and other initiatives they've now built up.
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Senate to work through weekend to push Barrett onto court
WASHINGTON (AP) — Wasting no time, the Senate is on track to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court by next Monday, charging toward a rare weekend session as Republicans push past procedural steps to install President Donald Trump's pick before Election Day.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he will begin the process as soon as the Senate Judiciary Committee wraps up its work Thursday. With a 53-47 Republican majority, and just two GOP senators opposed, Trump's nominee is on a glide path to confirmation that will seal a conservative hold on the court for years to come.
McConnell said Monday that Barrett demonstrated over several days of public hearings the “sheer intellectual horsepower that the American people deserve to have on the Supreme Court."
Without the votes to stop Barrett's ascent, Democrats have few options left. They are searching for two more GOP senators to break ranks and halt confirmation, but that seems unlikely. Never before as a court nominee been voted on so close to a presidential election.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer decried what he called the “farcical” process to “jam” through Trump's choice, even as the coronavirus outbreak sidelined GOP senators.
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6 Russian military officers charged in vast hacking campaign
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department announced charges Monday against Russian intelligence officers in a string of global cyberattacks that targeted a French presidential election, the Winter Olympics in South Korea and American businesses. The case implicates the same Kremlin unit that interfered in the 2016 U.S. elections, but is not related to the November vote.
The indictment accuses the six defendants, all said to be current and former officers in the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU, of hacks that prosecutors say were aimed at furthering the Kremlin's geopolitical interests and in destabilizing or punishing perceived enemies. All told, the attacks caused billions of dollars in losses and disrupted a broad cross-section of life, including health care in Pennsylvania, a power grid serving hundreds of thousands of customers in Ukraine and a French election that saw the late-stage disclosure of hacked emails.
The seven-count indictment is the most recent in a series of Justice Department prosecutions of Russian hackers, often working on behalf of the government. Past cases have focused on attacks against targets like internet giant Yahoo and the 2016 presidential contest, when Russian hackers from the GRU stole Democratic emails that were released online in the weeks before the election.
The attacks in this case are “some of the most destructive, most costly, most egregious cyber attacks ever known,” said Scott Brady, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, where the 50-page indictment was filed.
“Time and again, Russia has made it clear: They will not abide by accepted norms, and instead, they intend to continue their destructive, destabilizing cyber behavior," said FBI Deputy Director David Bowdich.
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High court allows 3-day extension for Pennsylvania ballots
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will allow Pennsylvania to count mailed-in ballots received up to three days after the Nov. 3 election, rejecting a Republican plea in the presidential battleground state.
The justices divided 4-4 on Monday, an outcome that upholds a state Supreme Court ruling that required county election officials to receive and count mailed-in ballots that arrive up until Nov. 6, even if they don't have a clear postmark, as long as there is not proof it was mailed after the polls closed.
Republicans, including President Donald Trump’s campaign, have opposed such an extension, arguing that it violates federal law that sets Election Day as the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November and that such a decision constitutionally belongs to lawmakers, not the courts.
The state Republican Party chairman, Lawrence Tabas, said the party disagrees with the decision and, noting the 4-4 decision, “it only underscores the importance of having a full Supreme Court as soon as possible.”
“To be clear, the Supreme Court decided not to grant a stay — which does not mean the actions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court would withstand a legal challenge to their judicial overreach should the court hear the case," Tabas said.
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Morales party claims win as Bolivia seems to shift back left
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia appeared Monday to be shifting sharply away from the conservative policies of the U.S.-backed interim government that took power last year after leftist President Evo Morales resigned, with the self-exiled leader's party claiming victory in a weekend presidential election.
The leading rival of Morales's handpicked successor, Luis Arce, conceded defeat as did interim President Jeanine Áñez, a bitter foe of Morales.
Officials released no formal, comprehensive quick count of results from Sunday's vote, but two independent surveys of selected polling places gave Arce a lead of roughly 20 percentage points over his closest rival — far more than needed to avoid a runoff.
Áñez asked Arce “to govern with Bolivia and democracy in mind.”
Arce, meanwhile, appealed for calm in the bitterly divided nation saying he would seek to form a government of national unity under his Movement Toward Socialism party.
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Pandemic air travel milestone; 1 million passengers screened
SILVER SPRING, Md. (AP) — The number of passengers screened in a single day for flights in the U.S. topped one million for the first time since COVID-19 infections began to spike last March.
The notable milestone, reached Sunday, signifies both the progress made since the darkest days of pandemic for the devastated U.S. airline industry, when fewer than 100,000 people were screened per day in April, and how far it still has to go.
The million plus passengers screened Sunday compares with 2.6 million on the same day last year, or roughly 60% fewer, according to the Transportation Security Administration.
The TSA said that the 6.1 million passengers at U.S. checkpoints the week of Oct. 12 through Oct. 18 was the greatest volume measured since the start of the pandemic.
Vacation plans and business trips were frozen in the spring as millions took shelter. With so little known about the virus, few wanted to board planes or walk through an airport even if they could.
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Toobin suspended by the New Yorker, steps away from CNN
NEW YORK (AP) — Author-commentator Jeffrey Toobin has been suspended by the New Yorker and is stepping away from his job as CNN's senior legal analyst pending what the cable network is calling a “personal matter.”
Vice reported earlier Monday that Toobin had exposed himself during a Zoom meeting with staffers of the New Yorker and WNYC radio. In a statement Monday afternoon, the New Yorker said Toobin had been “suspended while we investigate the matter.” It declined further comment. A CNN spokesperson said in a statement that "Jeff Toobin has asked for some time off while he deals with a personal issue, which we have granted.”
The 60-year-old Toobin has been a New Yorker writer for more than 20 years and joined CNN in 2002. He is the author of several books, most recently “True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump," published in August. His other works include “The Run of His Life: The People v. O. J. Simpson” and “The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court."
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AP Media Writer David Bauder contributed to this report.
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Few fans, masked umps, muted celebrations for World Series
ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — A World Series like no other opens Tuesday night with Clayton Kershaw’s Los Angeles Dodgers pursuing redemption, Kevin Kiermaier’s Tampa Bay Rays seeking acclaim and Major League Baseball relieved just to reach the championship of the pandemic-delayed season.
Buzz figures to be dampened, with attendance down to about 11,000 in the smallest crowd for a Series game since roughly 1909.
The entire Series will be played on artificial turf for the first time since 1993, at new $1.2 billion Globe Life Field, home of a Texas Rangers team eliminated on Sept. 20. Traditional postgame victory celebrations are barred. But surroundings are largely irrelevant to the favored Dodgers and under-the-radar Rays.
Los Angeles, baseball’s biggest spender, is back in the Series for the third time in four years as it seeks its first title since 1988.
Plate umpire Laz Diaz will be masked — along with the rest of the crew.