Wrangling over virus relief persists despite high stakes

MIAMI (AP) — The race to corral the coronavirus pandemic took on even greater urgency Monday as a burgeoning economic crisis collided with political turmoil. While the latest experimental vaccine appeared to show promise, politicians in Washington were far apart in finding a way to bring financial relief to Americans.

With the first federal relief package poised to end, Congress was trying to agree on another deal to ease the financial burden on Americans as businesses have endured repeated closures meant to contain the spread of the virus.

The political turmoil played out amid apparent good news on the medical front, with scientists involved in the development of at least one vaccine reporting promising results in an early trial.

Congressional Republicans at odds with Democrats over how much money is enough for a new rescue package also face pushback from the White House. GOP leaders met with President Donald Trump as the White House panned some $25 billion in the party's plan that would be devoted to testing and tracing, said one Republican familiar with the discussions.

Democrats have passed a $3 trillion package in the House, while the Republican plan totals about $1 trillion.

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Trump, Congress square off over virus aid as crisis worsens

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump acknowledged Monday a “big flareup” of COVID-19 cases, but divisions between the White House and Senate Republicans and differences with Democrats posed fresh challenges for a new federal aid package with the U.S. crisis worsening and emergency relief about to expire.

Trump convened GOP leaders at the White House as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prepared to roll out his $1 trillion package in days. But the administration criticized the legislation's money for more virus testing and insisted on a full payroll tax repeal that could complicate quick passage. The timeline appeared to quickly shift.

“We’ve made a lot of progress,” Trump said as the meeting got underway.

But the president added, "Unfortunately, this is something that’s very tough."

Lawmakers returned to a Capitol still off-limits to tourists, another sign of the nation’s difficulty containing the coronavirus. Rather than easing, the pandemic’s devastating cycle is churning again, leaving Congress little choice but to engineer another costly rescue. Businesses are shutting down again, many schools will not fully reopen and jobs are disappearing, all while federal aid will expire in days.

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Workers protest racial inequality on day of national strike

NEW YORK (AP) — Workers from the service industry, fast-food chains and the gig economy rallied with organized labour Monday to protest systemic racism and economic inequality, staging demonstrations across the U.S. and around the world seeking better treatment of Black Americans in the workplace.

Organizers said at least 20,000 workers in 160 cities walked off the job, inspired by the racial reckoning that followed the deaths of several Black men and women at the hands of police. Visible support came largely in protests that drew people whose jobs in health care, transportation and construction do not allow them to work from home during the coronavirus pandemic.

“What the protesters are saying, that if we want to be concerned — and we should be — about police violence and people getting killed by the police ... we have to also be concerned about the people who are dying and being put into lethal situations through economic exploitation all over the country,” said the Rev. William Barber II, co-chairman of the Poor People’s Campaign, one of the organizations that partnered to support the strike.

Barber told The Associated Press that Monday’s turnout showed the importance of the issue to the people willing to come out during a pandemic to make their voices heard.

“Sadly, if they’re not in the streets, the political systems don’t move, because when you just send an email or a tweet, they ignore it," he said.

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Rich Americans spew more carbon pollution at home than poor

Rich Americans produce nearly 25% more heat-trapping gases than poorer people at home, according to a comprehensive study of U.S. residential carbon footprints.

Scientists studied 93 million housing units in the nation to analyze how much greenhouse gases are being spewed in different locations and by income, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Residential carbon emissions comprise close to one-fifth of global warming gases emitted by the burning of coal, oil and natural gas.

Using federal definitions of income level, the study found that energy use by the average higher income person’s home puts out 6,482 pounds of greenhouse gases a year. For a person in the lower income level, the amount is 5,225 pounds, the study calculated.

“The numbers don’t lie. They show that (with) people who are wealthier generally, there’s a tendency for their houses to be bigger and their greenhouse gas emissions tend to be higher,” said study lead author Benjamin Goldstein, an environmental scientist at the University of Michigan. “There seems to be a small group of people that are inflicting most of the damage to be honest.”

In Beverly Hills, the average person puts four times as much heat-trapping gases into the air as someone living in South Central Los Angeles, where incomes are only a small fraction as much. Similarly, in Massachusetts, the average person in wealthy Sudbury spews 9,700 pounds of greenhouse gases into the air each year, while the average person in the much poorer Dorchester neighbourhood in Boston puts out 2,227 pounds a year.

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Biden outlines priorities for next pandemic relief package

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden is calling President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic “inept” in a new statement that lays out his priorities for the next relief package in Congress.

In the statement, shared first Monday with The Associated Press, Biden charged that Trump has “turned his back on the problem" and declared that “we are plainly a nation in crisis.”

“People are looking to Congress for the support they need to keep their heads above water," he said.

Biden said the next relief package should “deliver a lifeline to those who need it most: working families and small businesses.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has been crafting the latest package behind closed doors for weeks. It's expected to include $75 billion to help schools reopen, reduced unemployment benefits alongside a fresh round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans, and a sweeping five-year liability shield against coronavirus lawsuits.

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Federal agents, local streets: A 'red flag' in Oregon

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal law enforcement officers’ actions at protests in Oregon’s largest city, done without local authorities’ consent, are raising the prospect of a constitutional crisis — one that could escalate as weeks of demonstrations find renewed focus in clashes with camouflaged, unidentified agents outside Portland’s U.S. courthouse.

State and local authorities, who did not ask for federal help, are awaiting a ruling in a federal lawsuit filed late last week by state Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum. She said in court papers that masked federal officers have arrested people off the street, far from the courthouse, with no probable cause — and whisked them away in unmarked cars.

constitutional law experts said Monday the federal officers’ actions are a “red flag” in what could become a test case of states’ rights as the Trump administration expands its federal policing into other cities.

“The idea that there’s a threat to a federal courthouse and the federal authorities are going to swoop in and do whatever they want to do without any co-operation and co-ordination with state and local authorities is extraordinary outside the context of a civil war,” said Michael Dorf, a professor of constitutional law at Cornell University.

“It is a standard move of authoritarians to use the pretext of quelling violence to bring in force, thereby prompting a violent response and then bootstrapping the initial use of force in the first place,” Dorf said.

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Navy vet beaten by federal agents: 'They came out to fight'

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — The Navy veteran stands passively in Portland, Oregon, amid swirling tear gas. One of the militarized federal agents deployed by President Donald Trump swings a baton at him with full force. With both hands. Five times.

Under the assault, 53-year-old Christopher David seems like a redwood tree — impervious to the blows. But in a video shot by a reporter, another officer — wearing green military camouflage, a helmet and gas mask — sprays David full in the face with what appears to be pepper gas.

Video of the Saturday night incident has gone viral. Accounts of it have been reported by news outlets in the United States and around the world.

Today, David, who suffered two broken bones in his hand, finds himself a reluctant symbol of the protests taking place in Oregon's largest city and the federal response to it. Militarized officers from a handful of agencies have been using tear gas, flash-bangs, pepper spray, “less-lethal” impact weapons and other munitions to disperse crowds.

“It isn’t about me getting beat up. It’s about focusing back on the original intention of all of these protests, which is Black Lives Matter,” David said in a phone interview Monday with The Associated Press.

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Biden, lawmakers warn of foreign interference in election

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Monday that he is putting Russia and other foreign governments “on notice” that he would act aggressively as president to counter any interference in U.S. elections. The statement came hours after Democratic leaders issued a new warning that Congress appears to be the target of a foreign interference campaign.

Biden said in a statement that he would treat foreign interference as an “an adversarial act that significantly affects the relationship between the United States and the interfering nation’s government.” He criticized President Donald Trump for not doing enough in response to U.S. intelligence agencies' assessment that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election.

“If any foreign power recklessly chooses to interfere in our democracy, I will not hesitate to respond as president to impose substantial and lasting costs,” Biden said.

The new alarms give a renewed urgency to concerns that foreign actors could be trying to influence the vote or sow disinformation. Biden said last week that he had begun receiving intelligence briefings and warned that Russia, China and other adversaries were attempting to undermine the presidential election. Biden gave no evidence, but he said that Russia was “still engaged” after 2016 and that China was also involved in efforts to sow doubts in the American electoral process.

During an online fundraiser Monday night, Biden added: “It’s going to be tough, there’s not much I can do about it now except talk about it, and expose it, but it is a serious concern. It is truly a violation of our sovereignty.”

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'Men's rights' lawyer eyed in shooting of NJ judge's family

A self-described “anti-feminist” lawyer found dead in the Catskills of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound is the prime suspect in the shooting of a federal judge's family in New Jersey, the FBI said Monday.

Roy Den Hollander, who received media attention including appearances on Fox News and Comedy Central for lawsuits challenging perceived infringements of “men’s rights,” was found dead Monday in Sullivan County, New York, two officials with knowledge of the investigation told The Associated Press.

The FBI said Den Hollander was the “primary subject in the attack” and confirmed he had been pronounced dead but provided no other details. Found among his personal effects was information about another judge, New York Chief Judge Janet DiFiore, a state court spokesperson said.

A day earlier, a gunman posing as a FedEx delivery person went to the North Brunswick, New Jersey, home of U.S. District Judge Esther Salas, and started shooting, wounding her husband, the defence lawyer Mark Anderl, and killing her son, Daniel Anderl.

Salas was at home but in another part of the house and was unharmed, said the officials, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

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Fauci to throw 1st pitch at Yankees-Nationals opener in DC

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the first game of Major League Baseball’s pandemic-delayed regular season.

The Washington Nationals announced Monday that Fauci -- a self-described fan of the reigning World Series champions -- accepted the team’s invitation to have the pregame honour Thursday night.

The Nationals host the New York Yankees to open the season nearly four months after it originally was scheduled to begin. Spring training was halted in March because of the COVID-19 outbreak and teams resumed preparing to play this month.

In their new release about Fauci’s role at the opener, the Nationals refer to him as “a true champion for our country” during the pandemic “and throughout his distinguished career.”

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News from © The Associated Press, 2020