AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
Biden, Trump press contrasts in Midwest after debate chaos
PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden kept up their debate-stage clash from afar on Wednesday as they competed for working-class voters in the Midwest, while elected officials in both parties — and the debate commission, too — sought to deal with the most chaotic presidential faceoff in memory.
The debate raised fresh questions about Trump's continued reluctance to condemn white supremacy, his efforts to undermine the legitimacy of the election and his unwillingness to respect debate ground rules his campaign had agreed to. Some Democrats called on Biden to skip the next two debates.
Biden's campaign confirmed he would participate in the subsequent meetings as did Trump's. But the Commission on Presidential Debates promised “additional structure ... to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues."
Less than 12 hours after the wild debate concluded, Biden called Trump's behavior in the prime-time confrontation a “a national embarrassment." The Democratic challenger launched his most aggressive day on the campaign trail all year, with eight stops planned for a train tour that began mid-morning in Cleveland and was ending 10 hours later in western Pennsylvania. Trump was to address voters and donors in Minnesota late in the day.
Biden balanced criticism of Trump with a call for national unity.
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Trump Proud Boys remark echoes Charlottesville
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to walk back his refusal to outright condemn a far right facist group during his debate with Democrat Joe Biden, but the inflammatory moment was far from the first time the president has failed to denounce white supremacists or has advanced racist ideas.
Trump's initial refusal to criticize the Proud Boys — instead saying the group should “stand back and stand by” — drew fierce blowback before he altered his message in a day-later effort to quell the firestorm.
“I don’t know who Proud Boys are. But whoever they are they have to stand down, let law enforcement do their work,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a campaign stop in Minnesota.
The new flareup over Trump's messaging on race was playing out just weeks before the election, leaving the president to play defense on yet another issue when he’s already facing criticism of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and under new scrutiny over his taxes.
And even after saying the Proud Boys should “stand down,” Trump went on call out forces on the other end of the political spectrum and tried to attack Biden. It was an echo of the way he had blamed “both sides” for the 2017 violence between white supremacists and anti-racist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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Here's the reality behind Trump's claims about mail voting
President Donald Trump continued his assault on the integrity of the U.S. elections during the first presidential debate Tuesday, spreading falsehoods about the security of voting and misrepresenting issues with mail ballots.
In the final segment of the contentious debate between Trump and Democrat Joe Biden, Trump launched into an extended argument against mail voting, claiming without evidence that it is ripe for fraud and suggesting mail ballots may be “manipulated.”
“This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” the president said of the massive shift to mail voting prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump’s riff was laden with misstatements and inaccuracies. Mail voting has proved to be safe and secure in the five states that already use it broadly. And while some irregularities and errors have occurred in the early vote, Trump on Tuesday mischaracterized those incidents.
His comments come as his reelection campaign and the Republican Party have begun challenging the way those ballots are being processed and preparing for broad legal battles after Election Day.
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Getting warmer: Trump concedes human role in climate change
President Donald Trump publicly acknowledged that humans bear some blame for climate change, but scientists say the president still isn't dealing with the reality of our primary role.
Pressed repeatedly in Tuesday night's debate, Trump gave one of his fullest accountings yet of what scientists say is an escalating climate crisis threatening every aspect of life. Pushed by moderator Chris Wallace, and at one point by rival Joe Biden, Trump also pushed back on scientific findings that his environmental rollbacks would increase climate-damaging pollution.
The climate change exchange represented a rare microburst of policy discussion from Trump in a loud, nerve-abrading debate. And it ever so lightly nailed down the position of the Republican president on climate change.
“It is a sad statement about the President’s history on climate change, but it is a major development to see him clearly acknowledge a role of greenhouse gases from human emissions,” said Chris Field, director of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University.
“It’s still outright denial of the science, in addition to denial of the devastating impacts,” such as the record wildfires once again forcing evacuations in the Western U.S, said Michael Mann, a Pennsylvania State University climate researcher and a veteran in scientists' battle to make ordinary people and leaders face facts on global warming.
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Hospitals feel squeeze as coronavirus spikes in Midwest
MILWAUKEE (AP) — The coronavirus tightened its grip on the American heartland, with hospitals in Wisconsin and North Dakota running low on space, and the NFL postponing a game over an outbreak that's hit the Tennessee Titans football team.
Like other states, health officials in Wisconsin had warned since the pandemic began that COVID-19 patients could overwhelm hospitals. That's now happening for some facilities as experts fear a second wave of infections in the U.S.
A record number of people diagnosed with COVID-19 were hospitalized in Wisconsin. Of those 646 patients Tuesday, 205 were in intensive care, with spikes in cases in northern parts of the state driving up the numbers.
Officials at ThedaCare, a community health system of seven hospitals, said they have exceeded capacity in the COVID-19 unit at their medical center in Appleton, about 100 miles (160 kilometers) north of Milwaukee. It's started sending patients to other hospitals about 40 miles (64 kilometers) away.
In North Dakota, hospitals are adding extra space amid concerns from employees about capacity. Nearly 678 COVID-19 infections per 100,000 people have been diagnosed over the past two weeks, leading the country for new cases per capita, according to the COVID Tracking Project.
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Voting lawsuits pile up across US as election approaches
WASHINGTON (AP) — They've been fighting in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania over the cutoff date for counting mailed ballots, and in North Carolina over witness requirements. Ohio is grappling with drop boxes for ballots as Texas faces a court challenge over extra days of early voting.
Measuring the anxiety over the November election is as simple as tallying the hundreds of voting-related lawsuits filed across the country in recent months. The cases concern the fundamentals of the American balloting process, including how ballots are cast and counted, during an election made unique by the coronavirus pandemic and by a president who refuses to commit to accepting the results.
The lawsuits are all the more important because President Donald Trump has raised the prospect that the election may wind up before a Supreme Court with a decidedly Republican tilt if his latest nominee is confirmed.
“This is a president who has expressed his opposition to access to mail ballots and has also seemed to almost foreshadow the inevitability that this election will be one decided by the courts,” said Kristen Clarke, executive director of the National Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights.
That opposition was on display Tuesday during the first presidential debate when Trump launched into an extended argument against mail voting, claiming without evidence that it is ripe for fraud and suggesting mail ballots may be “manipulated.”
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GOP lawmakers grill Comey on leadership of Russia probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — Republican lawmakers on Wednesday confronted former FBI Director James Comey about his oversight of the Trump-Russia investigation during a politically charged hearing that focused attention on problems with the probe that have become a rallying cry for President Donald Trump's supporters.
Comey, making his first appearance before Congress since a harshly critical inspector general report on the investigation, acknowledged under questioning that the FBI's process for conducting surveillance on a former Trump campaign adviser was “sloppy” and “embarrassing." He said he would not have certified the surveillance had he known then what he knows now about applications the FBI submitted in 2016 and 2017 to eavesdrop on the aide, Carter Page.
The questioning of Comey, conducted with the election just weeks away, underscores the extent to which the FBI’s investigation four years ago into potential coordination between Trump’s campaign and Russia remains front and center in the minds of Republican lawmakers, who see an opening to rally support for the president and cast him as the victim of biased law enforcement. The hearing was part of a review of the Russia probe by the GOP-led Senate Judiciary Committee.
Though Comey acknowledged the FBI’s shortcomings in the surveillance of Page, he also described that aspect of the probe as a “slice” of the broader Russia investigation, which he defended as legitimate and valid.
But those answers, including Comey's repeated assertions that he had been unaware at the time of the extent of problems, frustrated Republicans who point to the surveillance flaws to try to discredit the overall Russia investigation.
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Census takers: We're being told to finish early, cut corners
As a federal judge considers whether the Trump administration violated her order for the 2020 census to continue through October by setting an Oct. 5 end date, her court has been flooded with messages from census takers who say they are being asked to cut corners and finish their work early.
Josh Harkin, a census taker in northern California, said in an email Tuesday to the court that he had been instructed to finish up by Wednesday, even though his region in the Santa Rosa area still had 17,000 homes to count.
“Please do something to help us! We really need to go until the end of October to have a chance at a reasonable count for our communities," Harkin wrote.
Paul Costa, a census taker in California currently working in Las Vegas, said in an email to U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday that census takers were being pressured to close cases quickly, “if not at all accurately."
“Many states, including Nevada has not been properly counted yet. Especially the Southeastern states ravaged by the recent hurricanes. We want to be able to do our jobs correctly & as accurately as possible," Costa wrote.
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Pelosi and Mnuchin have 'extensive' talks on COVID relief
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin held an “extensive conversation" Wednesday on a huge COVID-19 rescue package, meeting face to face for the first time in more than a month in a last-ditch effort to seal a tentative accord on an additional round of coronavirus relief.
After a 90-minute meeting in the Capitol, Pelosi issued a statement saying the two would continue to talk. “We found areas where we are seeking further clarification," she said.
“We made a lot of progress over the last few days. We still don’t have an agreement," Mnuchin said after meeting with Pelosi and briefing top Senate Republican Mitch McConnell.
At the very least, the positive tone set by Pelosi and Mnuchin represented an improvement over earlier statements. But there is still a considerable gulf between the two sides, McConnell said.
“I’ve seen substantial movement, yes, and certainly the rhetoric has changed,” White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said.
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Virus outbreak pushes Steelers-Titans to Monday or Tuesday
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — The Tennessee Titans have at least one more day to see if the team’s coronavirus outbreak is under control before their game with the Steelers is rescheduled for Monday or Tuesday.
Only one new positive test result came back Wednesday, a day after the Titans had three players and five team personnel test positive for COVID-19. More daily test results are upcoming.
The league announced the postponement from Sunday afternoon on Wednesday.
The Titans hope to be allowed back inside their facility Saturday, though coach Mike Vrabel said that could happen before then or later. The Titans are preparing to play as early as Monday. Vrabel said he’s confident the NFL will allow them some time to practice before the game.
“We’ve worked on short weeks before," Vrabel said. "We’ve played three games in 13 days. I'm sure the other teams that we played before had a few extra days of practice. And so it’ll be important that the time that we do get to spend practicing, we take advantage of it.”