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AP News in Brief at 6:09 p.m. EDT

| September 27, 2020 3:30 PM

NY Times: Trump paid $750 in US income taxes in 2016, 2017

President Donald Trump paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the past 15 years, according to a report Sunday in The New York Times.

Trump, who has fiercely guarded his tax filings and is the only president in modern times not to make them public, paid $750 in taxes to the federal government the year he was elected, 2016, and $750 again his first year in office.

Speaking at a news conference at the White House, Trump dismissed the report as “fake news” and said he has paid taxes, though he gave no specifics.

The disclosure, which the Times said comes from tax return data it obtained extending over two decades, comes at a pivotal moment ahead of the first presidential debate Tuesday, and weeks before a divisive election.

A lawyer for the Trump Organization, Alan Garten, and a spokesperson for the Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press on the report.

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Trump, Biden battle over quick confirmation of court pick

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Sunday that confirmation of his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett will go “quickly” but his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, implored the Republican-led Senate to hold off on voting on her nomination until after the Nov. 3 election to “let the people decide.”

Speaking at a press conference at the White House, the president spotlighted Barrett's Roman Catholic religion, portraying her as a victim of attacks on her faith. But it's her conservative approach to the law, particularly health care, that is drawing opposition from Democrats, not her private beliefs.

“It's a disgrace,” Trump said. He vowed she will be confirmed “very quickly.”

Trump's announcement of Barrett for the seat held by the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is launching a high-stakes, fast-track election season fight over confirmation of a conservative judge who is expected to shift the court rightward as it reviews health care, abortion access and other hot-button issues.

Biden on Sunday appealed directly to his former colleagues in the Senate to “take a step back from the brink.”

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Nearly 1M who died of COVID-19 also illuminated treatment

The nearly 1 million people around the world who have lost their lives to COVID-19 have left us a gift: Through desperate efforts to save their lives, scientists now better understand how to treat and prevent the disease — and millions of others may survive.

Ming Wang, 71, and his wife were on a cruise from Australia, taking a break after decades of running the family’s Chinese restaurant in Papillion, Nebraska, when he was infected. In the 74 days he was hospitalized before his death in June, doctors frantically tried various experimental approaches, including enrolling him in a study of an antiviral drug that ultimately showed promise.

“It was just touch and go. Everything they wanted to try we said yes, do it,” said Wang’s daughter, Anne Peterson. “We would give anything to have him back, but if what we and he went through would help future patients, that’s what we want.”

Patients are already benefiting. Though more deaths are expected this fall because of the recent surge in coronavirus infections in the U.S. and elsewhere, there also are signs that death rates are declining and that people who get the virus now are faring better than did those in the early months of the pandemic.

“Some of the reason we’re doing better is because of the advances," Dr. Francis Collins, director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, told The Associated Press. Several drugs have proved useful and doctors know more about how to care for the sickest patients in hospitals, he said.

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Joe Biden: Vacancy about health law, not court expansion

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden wants voters to see Republicans’ push for a speedy Supreme Court confirmation as an end-run of Congress and the 2010 health care law.

In remarks on Sunday, the former vice president sidestepped any talk of expanding the court to counter conservative gains should he defeat President Donald Trump in November and Democrats regain a Senate majority. Biden called that scenario a distraction from the practical effects that Trump’s nominee, conservative federal judge Amy Coney Barrett, could have if she succeeds the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“They see an opportunity to overturn the Affordable Care Act on their way out the door,” Biden said, speaking near his Delaware home. “The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court right now, as I speak, to eliminate the entire Affordable Care Act.”

Biden repeated his calls that the Senate delay confirmation proceedings until after the Nov. 3 election, moving ahead then if Trump wins another term or awaiting a nomination from Biden if the Democrat prevails.

The focus on health care reflects the Democrats' larger strategy in recent days. They tacitly concede Republicans are likely to confirm Barrett, giving conservatives a 6-3 court majority. So, rather than fight a losing battle, as they did with Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s 2018 confirmation, Democrats want to raise the pressure on Republicans by focusing on how a conservative supermajority of justices might affect Americans’ everyday lives.

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Jill Biden, Doug Emhoff team up in final campaign stretch

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff are both from New Jersey. They married politicians who have been in the national spotlight for years. And now they're building a team as the better halves of the Joe Biden campaign.

Biden and Emhoff have rapidly become two of the campaign’s most prolific surrogates, engaging in in-person campaign events and virtual fundraisers at a pace that often outmatches their spouses at the top of the ticket.

While Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have spent their days campaigning in key states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida, Jill Biden and Emhoff have had nonstop schedules of virtual fundraisers, constituency-focused events and trips to important but less high-profile states like Virginia and Maine, where Jill Biden visited this week.

They’ve campaigned together more than their spouses have, visiting New Hampshire earlier this month and Iowa over the weekend. And in a joint interview this weekend, they said they’ve begun to build a partnership that will help the campaign and a potential Biden administration.

“Don’t you think the American people love seeing people in government who respect one another and are friends with one another?” Jill Biden said as she campaigned in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Saturday. “Especially in this time of the pandemic, and it’s such a divisive government that we’re living in now, this chaos of Donald Trump’s America, I think people are looking for people who are strong to come together to lead this country forward. And I think the four of us are going to show that.”

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With anger at police high, officers face greater danger

CHICAGO (AP) — A man walks up to a squad car and opens fire on two sheriff’s deputies sitting inside. Two police officers are shot after responding to sounds of gunfire during a protest.

The shootings — one in Los Angeles and the other 2000 miles (3,200 kilometers) away in Louisville, Kentucky, less than two weeks later — are stark reminders of the dangers law enforcement officers face at a time when anger toward them in the wake of police killings of Black Americans, such as George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, has boiled over.

“I think it’s more than a suggestion that people are seeking to do harm to cops,” Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown told reporters at a recent briefing.

The suspect who shot the deputies in Los Angeles has not been caught, so it’s not known why he opened fire. And authorities have not said why the suspect in Louisville, who was captured, targeted the officers. Those shootings came during protests of a grand jury decision not to charge police for Taylor’s killing.

It is unclear how many times officers across the country have been shot at or otherwise attacked this year; police departments say such statistics are not readily available.

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Military suicides up as much as 20% in COVID era

WASHINGTON (AP) — Military suicides have increased by as much as 20% this year compared to the same period in 2019, and some incidents of violent behavior have spiked as service members struggle under COVID-19, war-zone deployments, national disasters and civil unrest.

While the data is incomplete and causes of suicide are complex, Army and Air Force officials say they believe the pandemic is adding stress to an already strained force.

And senior Army leaders — who say they've seen about a 30% jump in active duty suicides so far this year — told The Associated Press that they are looking at shortening combat deployments. Such a move would be part of a broader effort to make the wellbeing of soldiers and their families the Army's top priority, overtaking combat readiness and weapons modernization.

The Pentagon refused to provide 2020 data or discuss the issue, but Army officials said discussions in Defense Department briefings indicate there has been up to a 20% jump in overall military suicides this year. The numbers vary by service. The active Army's 30% spike — from 88 last year to 114 this year — pushes the total up because it's the largest service. The Army Guard is up about 10%, going from 78 last year to 86 this year. The Navy total is believed to be lower this year.

Army leaders say they can't directly pin the increase on the virus, but the timing coincides.

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Appellate court halts Wisconsin ballot-counting extension

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin's presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans and President Donald Trump in the key presidential battleground state.

As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots.

The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.

U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they're postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action.

No further details were immediately posted by the appeals court.

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Nearly a year after sudden exit, Shepard Smith returns to TV

NEW YORK (AP) — Two weeks shy of a year after abruptly quitting Fox News Channel with a declaration that “truth will always matter,” Shepard Smith returns to television this week at his unexpected new home.

He begins a general interest nightly newscast Wednesday at 7 p.m. on the financial network CNBC, putting him back in the time slot he loved before Fox moved him to the afternoon seven years ago.

The 56-year-old newsman, a Fox News original who joined that network at its start in 1996, says he's relishing the fresh start.

“We're going to come out and do just the news,” he said. “We're not planning to do any analysis in our news hour. We're going to have journalists, reporters, sound and video. We're going to have newsmakers and experts ... but no pundits. We're going to leave the opinion to others. It's exactly what I've been wanting to do. It's what I've been working at for 30 years.”

He'll work out of a new studio that's been built for him at CNBC's New Jersey headquarters by three crews that kept construction going 24 hours a day over eight weeks.

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Barrett could be Ginsburg's polar opposite on Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amy Coney Barrett paid homage to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her White House speech Saturday as a shatterer of glass ceilings. She said she would be mindful of the woman whose place she would take on the Supreme Court.

She even commented that her children think their father is the better cook, much as Ginsburg used to talk about her husband's prowess in the kitchen.

But the replacement of the liberal icon Ginsburg, the second woman to serve on the high court, by Barrett, who would be the fifth, would represent the most dramatic ideological change on the Supreme Court in nearly 30 years and cement conservative dominance of the court for years to come.

Barrett, a judge on the federal appeals court based in Chicago, made clear in her Rose Garden address that she looks to conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, for whom she once worked, and not Ginsburg, on matters of law.

“His judicial philosophy is mine, too. Judges must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy makers,” Barrett said. She was referring to their common method of interpreting laws and the Constitution based on what they were understood to mean when they were written.