AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
Surging coronavirus colors White House race in closing days
DALLAS, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump assured supporters packed shoulder to shoulder Saturday that “we’re rounding the turn”— despite spiking coronavirus cases — and mocked challenger Joe Biden for raising alarms about the pandemic. Meanwhile, Biden bemoaned to a smaller gathering the need to campaign at a distance but said he understood the public health reasons behind it.
With coronavirus infections reaching their highest peak of the pandemic just as the election headed into the home stretch, Trump and Biden took starkly different approaches to the public health crisis in appealing for votes in battleground states.
”We don’t want to become superspreaders,” Biden told supporters at a “drive-in" rally Saturday in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, picking up a term that has been used to describe the Rose Garden event in late September in which Trump announced his Supreme Court nominee. More than two dozen people linked to the White House have contracted COVID-19 since that gathering.
The former vice president pressed his case that Trump was showing dangerous indifference to the surging virus on a day he looked to boost his candidacy with the star power of rock legend Jon Bon Jovi, who performed before Biden took the stage at a second drive-in rally in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, in Lumberton, North Carolina, his tongue firmly in cheek, Trump called Biden “an inspiring guy" for raising alarm about the pandemic. The president said that he watched Biden’s Bucks County rally as he flew to North Carolina and sarcastically observed that it appeared attendees, who were in their cars, weren’t properly socially distancing.
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Murkowski's nod gives Barrett extra boost for Supreme Court
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett won crucial backing Saturday when one of the last Republican holdouts announced her support for President Donald Trump's pick ahead of a confirmation vote expected Monday.
Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said during Saturday’s session that while she opposed her party’s decision to push ahead with the nomination process so close to the Nov. 3 presidential election, she supported the federal judge who is on track to lock in a conservative court majority for years to come.
Barrett already appeared to have enough votes for confirmation from Senate Republicans who hold the majority in the chamber and are racing to install her on the high court before Election Day. But Murkowski's nod gives her a boost of support. Only one Republican, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, is now expected to oppose the conservative judge.
“While I oppose the process that has led us to this point, I do not hold it against her,” Murkowski said.
The Senate opened the rare weekend session despite Democratic efforts to stall Trump's nominee.
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Four years in, Trump has plenty of unfinished business
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump swept into office nearly four years ago as an outsider who promised to get things done quickly on behalf of the American people through sheer force of will and unrivaled knowledge about the art of the deal.
He has checked off some items on his to-do list.
Trump pushed through the most significant overhaul of the U.S. tax system since President Ronald Reagan. Trump, as he said he would, tilted the Supreme Court further to the right with confirmation of two conservative justices and likely a third, Amy Coney Barrett, in the coming days. His promise to get tough on illegal immigration has resulted in a surge in migrant apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico border.
But Trump has also faced the same hard truth that each of his White House predecessors learned: Governing is rarely easy.
A look at some of the president’s unfinished business as he asks voters for a second term in the White House:
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As Trump casts doubt on election, new agency contradicts him
WASHINGTON (AP) — Earlier this month, President Donald Trump was predicting on Twitter that this election would be “the most corrupt” in American history. A day later, the head of an obscure government agency he created offered a much different message.
Christopher Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, closed an online conference with a warning about “bad guys, whoever they are,” trying to “sow chaos, sow doubt” about the integrity of the U.S. election.
“I have confidence that your vote is secure, that state and local election officials across this country are working day in and day out, 24/7, that the 2020 election is as secure as possible,” Krebs said.
It was just one of many ways that CISA has been offering a counternarrative as it works behind the scenes to not only help safeguard the election but also to reassure the public despite messages to the contrary from the White House.
That conflict could be on display on Election Day. Krebs and CISA will be in the national spotlight, monitoring the election amid the inevitable voting glitches and delays, which could be worsened by the coronavirus pandemic, under a president who has said he might not respect the results if he loses.
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US sets coronavirus infection record; deaths near 224,000
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The U.S. coronavirus caseload has reached record heights with more than 83,000 infections reported in a single day, the latest ominous sign of the disease’s grip on the nation, as states from Connecticut to the Rocky Mountain West reel under the surge.
The U.S. death toll, meanwhile, has grown to 223,995, according to the COVID-19 Dashboard published by Johns Hopkins University. The total U.S. caseload reported on the site Friday was 83,757, topping the 77,362 cases reported on July 16.
The impact is being felt in every section of the country — a lockdown starting Friday at the Oglala Sioux Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota, a plea by a Florida health official for a halt to children’s birthday parties, dire warnings from Utah’s governor, and an increasingly desperate situation at a hospital in northern Idaho, which is running out of space for patients and considering airlifts to Seattle or Portland, Oregon.
“We’ve essentially shut down an entire floor of our hospital. We’ve had to double rooms. We’ve bought more hospital beds,” said Dr. Robert Scoggins, a pulmonologist at the Kootenai Health hospital in Coeur d’Alene. “Our hospital is not built for a pandemic.”
In the southern Idaho city of Twin Falls, St. Luke's Magic Valley Medical Center said it would no longer accept children because it is overwhelmed with coronavirus patients. Except for newborns, all under age 18 will be sent 128 miles (206 kilometers) away in Boise.
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Reid says Biden should end Senate filibuster after 3 weeks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Senate leader Harry Reid says if Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, Joe Biden should take “no more than three weeks” to test bipartisanship before ending the filibuster so Democrats can overcome what they call Republican obstruction and pass bills.
The retired Nevada Democrat told The Associated Press in an interview that he understands Biden wants to work with Republicans, as the former vice president and Delaware senator has in the past. But Reid said there is just too much that needs to be done in the country for to wait around trying to reach agreements under the decades old-Senate practice of requiring 60 votes to advance legislation.
"Biden — who wants always to get along with people — I understand that,” Reid said by telephone from Nevada.
“We should give the Republicans a little bit of time, to see if they’re going to work with him,” he said. "But the time’s going to come when he’s going to have to move in and get rid of the filibuster.”
Asked how long Biden should wait it out before changing the rules, Reid said: “No more than three weeks.”
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The Latest: Jon Bon Jovi does what he can at Biden rally
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on the presidential campaign (all times local):
5:25 p.m.
Rock star Jon Bon Jovi gave a small concert at a drive-in rally in eastern Pennsylvania for Joe Biden on Saturday, performing three songs and praising Biden's response to the coronavirus.
The rocker took the stage in Dallas, Pennsylvania, wearing a black face mask that he peeled off to play acoustic versions of “Who Says You Can’t Go Home?,” “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “Do What You Can,” which was recently released and dedicated to those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.
Bon Jovi also pulled out notes to praise Biden, saying, “I wrote my comments down because I’ve never played at a drive-in with all the horns honking, so it’s a little different.”
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AP PHOTOS: Virus makes Friday nights empty, quiet in Europe
ROME (AP) — In much of Europe, city squares and streets, be they wide, elegant boulevards like in Paris or cobblestoned alleys in Rome, serve as animated evening extensions of living rooms, places to gather and be seen, areas to laugh, chat and drink with friends.
Yet with the continent hit hard by a surge of record new daily infections, European governments have once again put limitations on how residents live and socialize. In response, AP photographers across Europe delivered a snapshot of how Friday evening — the gateway to the weekend — looks and feels now.
In Italy for instance, a “passeggiata,”or stroll, is an after-dinner ritual. And since dinner there and in much of southern Europe often starts at 9 p.m. or even later, people are out frequently until midnight or beyond, debating politics, chatting about old times, pausing to study shop window displays, buy an ice cream or have a smoke.
Not any more.
The streets of Paris and other big French cities have been deserted at night after authorities imposed a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew to try to curb a coronavirus surge that has seen France top 1 million total infections. The move has plunged noisy, crowed Paris streets into silence and darkness — with only a few cars and almost-empty buses and subway trains still operating.
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Crews vacuum 'murder hornets' out of Washington nest
BLAINE, Wash. (AP) — Heavily protected crews in Washington state worked Saturday to destroy the first nest of so-called murder hornets discovered in the United States.
The state Agriculture Department had spent weeks searching, trapping and using dental floss to tie tracking devices to Asian giant hornets, which can deliver painful stings to people and spit venom but are the biggest threat to honeybees that farmers depend on to pollinate crops.
The nest found in the city of Blaine near the Canadian border is about the size of a basketball and contained an estimated 100 to 200 hornets, according to scientists who announced the find Friday.
Crews wearing thick protective suits vacuumed the invasive insects from the cavity of a tree into large canisters Saturday. The suits prevent the hornets' 6-millimeter-long stingers from hurting workers, who also wore face shields because the trapped hornets can spit a painful venom into their eyes.
The tree will be cut down to extract newborn hornets and learn if any queens have left the hive already, scientists said. Officials suspect more nests may be in the area and will keep searching. A news briefing was planned Monday on the status of the nest.
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Beyond the Needle: Probability experts assess 2020 race
NEW YORK (AP) — The one thing most likely to conjure nightmares of the 2016 election night for opponents of President Donald Trump is the Needle.
A graphic on The New York Times' website, the Needle measured in real time the probability of victory for Trump or Hillary Clinton as votes were counted. Its steady movement triggered anxiety for Clinton supporters, who repeatedly refreshed the page, and elation for Trump fans.
There’s no sign that the Needle will be making a reappearance on Nov. 3, which would be one change in the world of election probability gurus following the unexpected 2016 result. Nate Silver's influential FiveThirtyEight blog used a number, not a needle, for the same task four years ago but won't on election night 2020.
Silver said the change had more to do with uncertainties created by the high volume of early voting this year than any failures in 2016.
“I just think people need to be exceptionally careful,” he said.