AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT

Mayor suspends officers involved in man's suffocation death

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (AP) — Seven police officers involved in the suffocation death of Daniel Prude last spring in Rochester, New York, were suspended Thursday by the city's mayor, who said she was misled for months about the circumstances of the fatal encounter.

Prude, 41, who was Black, died when he was taken off life support March 30. That was seven days after officers who encountered him running naked through the street put a hood over his head to stop him from spitting, then held him down for about two minutes until he stopped breathing.

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren announced the suspensions at a news conference amid criticism that the city kept quiet about Prude's death for months.

Prude “was failed by the police department, our mental health care system, our society, and he was failed by me,” Warren said.

The mayor said she only became aware that Prude's death involved the use of force on Aug. 4, and that Police Chief La’Ron Singletary initially portrayed it as a drug overdose, which is “entirely different” than what she witnessed in body camera video. The mayor said she told the chief she was “deeply, personally and professionally disappointed” in his failure to accurately inform her what happened to Prude.

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Biden, in Kenosha, says U.S. confronting 'original sin'

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — Joe Biden told residents of Kenosha, Wisconsin, that recent turmoil following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, could help Americans confront centuries of systemic racism, drawing a sharp contrast with President Donald Trump amid a reckoning that has galvanized the nation.

“We’re finally now getting to the point where we’re going to be addressing the original sin of this country, 400 years old … slavery and all the vestiges of it,” Biden said at Grace Lutheran Church, where he met with community leaders after a private session with Blake and his family.

The visit marked the former vice president's first trip to the battleground state of Wisconsin as the Democratic presidential nominee and was a vivid illustration of the contrast he offers to Trump.

While Biden spent more than an hour with the Blake family, Trump didn't mention Blake during his own trip to Kenosha on Tuesday. Where Biden traced problems in the criminal justice system back to slavery, Trump refused to acknowledge systemic racism and offered his unvarnished support to law enforcement, blaming the recent violence on “domestic terror.”

“I can’t say if tomorrow God made me president, I can’t guarantee you everything gets solved in four years,” Biden said. But “it would be a whole better, we’d get a whole lot further down the road” if Trump isn’t re-elected.

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White House faces skepticism over prospects for a vaccine

Could the U.S. really see a coronavirus vaccine before Election Day?

A letter from federal health officials instructing states to be ready to begin distributing a vaccine by Nov. 1 — two days before the election — has been met, not with exhilaration, but with suspicion among some public health experts, who wonder whether the Trump administration is hyping the possibility or intends to rush approval for political gain.

The skepticism comes amid growing questions about the scientific credibility of the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and their vulnerability to political pressure from President Donald Trump.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious-disease expert and a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, told CNN on Thursday that it is unlikely but “not impossible” that a vaccine could win approval in October, instead of November or December, as many experts believe.

“And I would assume, and I’m pretty sure, it’s going to be the case that a vaccine would not be approved for the American public unless it was indeed both safe and effective," he said.

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Tech slump sends stock market to its biggest loss since June

NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street’s euphoria took a break Thursday, as steep losses in technology stocks dragged the rest of the market down with them.

The S&P 500 fell 3.5%, the biggest decline for stocks since early June, when investors were dealing with a surge of coronavirus infections in places like Florida, Texas and Arizona. There seemed to be no explicit catalyst for the sell-off, with economic data coming in roughly where the market had expected and no companies issuing foreboding warnings.

That said, the market felt due for a breather, investors said. Both the S&P 500 and Nasdaq hit record highs just the day before. Prior to Thursday, the S&P 500 had risen nine out of the previous 10 days.

Apple dropped 8%, Amazon lost 4.6% and Facebook gave back 3.8%. The Big Tech stocks have made massive gains this year. Investors have been betting those companies would continue posting huge profits as people spend even more time online with their devices. They’ve also assigned lofty market values to new-found darlings such as Zoom Video Communications as many Americans work remotely and students do online learning.

Market watchers have been questioning recently whether those gains were overdone. Apple is still up 64.7% for the year, and Amazon is up 82.3%. Zoom’s gain for the year is still a whopping 460.4%.

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Trump suggests polling place double-check for mail-in voters

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Thursday that people who vote early by mail should show up at their local polling places on Election Day and vote again if their ballots haven’t been counted, a suggestion that experts said would lead to chaos, long lines and more work for election officials during a public health crisis.

In a series of tweets, Trump encouraged voters to go to their polling site to “see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). If it has you will not be able to Vote & the Mail In System worked properly.”

But information on whether a ballot has been counted is typically not available right away. In several states, absentee ballots aren't even counted until after polls close. What can be checked is whether an absentee ballot has been received, and in some cases, whether it has passed a security review and will be submitted for counting.

Election officials warned that a flood of voters showing up on Nov. 3 to check the status of their ballots would mean even more disruption during the coronavirus outbreak and lengthy waits. Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said it also could undermine public health efforts.

The board “strongly discourages” people from following the president's guidance, Brinson Bell said in a statement. “That is not necessary, and it would lead to longer lines and the possibility of spreading COVID-19."

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A new $300 federal jobless benefit? Not likely for some

JACKSON, Mississippi (AP) — Down to a weekly unemployment check of $96, Fakisha Fenderson brushed aside her doctor's advice last month and began looking for a job.

In mid-May, Fenderson's employer, a door manufacturer, sent her home after a co-worker tested positive for the coronavirus. But the 22-year-old, who is six months pregnant and has asthma, felt desperate for work after a $600-a-week federal jobless benefit expired at the end of July.

Even worse, she doesn't qualify for a smaller $300-a-week check the Trump administration is now offering. That program, announced Aug. 8, requires the jobless get at least $100 in state benefits to qualify.

“It would have been such a huge help,” said Fenderson, who has a 1-year old son and lives in Laurel, Mississippi. “It’s kind of crazy, and it doesn’t make sense."

The administration rolled out the new $300-a-week benefit, using money from a $44 billion disaster relief fund, after Congress and the White House failed to agree to extend the $600 payment. It was initially announced as $400, but that included an additional $100 from state funds that almost no states are providing.

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Democrats request Hatch Act probe of Republican convention

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on the House Oversight Committee are seeking an investigation into what they call repeated violations of the federal Hatch Act by members of the Trump administration during last month's Republican National Convention.

The 1939 law is intended to limit political activity by federal employees in their official capacity, although it does not apply to the president and vice president.

Throughout the convention, administration officials "repeatedly used their official positions and the White House itself to bolster President (Donald) Trump’s re-election campaign,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to the independent Office of Special Counsel. “We are alarmed that President Trump and some senior administration officials are actively undermining compliance with — and respect for — the law.”

Trump gave his acceptance speech for the GOP presidential nomination at the White House, and Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf appeared in a video of a naturalization ceremony on White House grounds led by Trump. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo also spoke to the convention through a video link while in Israel on official travel, and numerous officials used the White House for convention speaking engagements.

"We are particularly concerned with the consequences of White House actions on career employees who may have felt pressured to help organize and put on these events, potentially subjecting them to legal jeopardy,'' the Democrats wrote Wednesday. "Career employees have faced severe consequences for behavior far less egregious than what the country witnessed last week.''

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More than 250 arrested since Blake shooting in Wisconsin

KENOSHA, Wis. (AP) — More than 250 people have been arrested since the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, with more than half from outside the county that the southeastern Wisconsin city is in, police reported Thursday.

Blake, a Black man, was shot seven times in the back by a white police officer on Aug. 23, sparking three nights of unrest that resulted in roughly two dozen fires and damage to numerous downtown businesses. Two nights after the shooting, prosecutors say 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse fatally shot two demonstrators and wounded a third. His attorney claims it was self defense.

Kenosha police updated arrest figures Thursday, saying of the 252 people arrested, 132 did not live in Kenosha County. Rittenhouse came from his home in Antioch, Illinois, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) from Kenosha, to join others who walked the streets with rifles saying they were there to protect businesses from damage.

Four people arrested filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Wednesday, alleging that police were not arresting pro-police demonstrators like Rittenhouse who were breaking a curfew, while targeting others. The city's attorney called the lawsuit baseless and said it should be dismissed.

The city on Wednesday ended a curfew that had been in place since Aug. 24, a sign of calming tensions in the city of about 100,000 midway between Milwaukee and Chicago. President Donald Trump visited Kenosha on Tuesday to thank law enforcement for their efforts and his Democratic rival Joe Biden was in Wisconsin on Thursday and met with members of Blake’s family and Kenosha community leaders.

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A month on, signal in Beirut rubble raises hope for survivor

BEIRUT (AP) — A pulsing signal was detected Thursday from under the rubble of a Beirut building that collapsed during the horrific port explosion in the Lebanese capital last month, raising hopes there may be a survivor still buried there.

The effort unfolded after the sniffer dog belonging to the Chilean search and rescue team first detected something as the team was going through Gemmayzeh Street in Beirut and rushed toward the rubble of a building. The street was one of the hardest-hit in the Aug. 4 explosion.

The team then used audio detection equipment for signals or heartbeat, and detected what could be a pulse of 18 to 19 beats per minute. The origin of the pulsing signal was not immediately known but it set off a frantic search and raised new hope.

It is extremely unlikely that any survivors would be found a month after the blast that tore through Beirut in August when nearly 3,000 tons of ammonium nitrate ignited at the port. The explosion killed 191 people and injured 6,000 others and is considered to be one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions ever recorded. Thousands of homes were damaged.

“Ninety-nine percent there isn’t anything, but even if there is less than 1% hope, we should keep on looking,” said Youssef Malah, a civil defense worker. He said his men would continue working throughout the night, adding that the work was extremely sensitive.

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After a long slumber, U.S. cinemas awaken on pivotal weekend

STAMFORD, Conn. (AP) — With the previews about to start, a trickle of masked moviegoers made their way into one of the first U.S. screenings of “Tenet” at the Bow Tie Majestic 6 in downtown Stamford, Connecticut. They took their seats Tuesday night, eyeing the empty seats between each other and a little giddy at being back at the movies for the first time in many months.

Philip Scarante and Andy Flores, both 25, went every Tuesday religiously before theaters closed in March. “It’s just our thing,” Scarante said. Seeing Nolan’s latest mind-bending spectacle later on a smaller screen held no appeal. They sat down in center seats, up close.

“Everyone seems to have a mask on,” Scarante noted, looking around in the sparsely populated theater. “I didn’t expect that many people to show up.”

More Americans will make their way back to the movies this weekend than any since the pandemic shuttered theaters in March. After a few weeks of catalog films and minor releases, the $200 million “Tenet” is the first must-see main event of the pandemic, a mega-movie litmus test for how ready U.S. moviegoers are to return to cinemas.

At the same time, another $200 million movie, the Walt Disney Co.’s live-action “Mulan” remake is debuting not in theaters, as it originally intended to back in March, but on the streaming service Disney+. In an innovative, untested release, “Mulan” will be available for $30 only to Disney+ subscribers Friday.