Trump calls off Florida segment of GOP National Convention

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bowing to the coronavirus threat, President Donald Trump on Thursday scrapped plans for a four-night Republican National Convention celebration in Florida that had been set to draw more than 10,000 people to a pandemic hot spot to mark his renomination.

Trump had already moved the convention’s public events out of North Carolina because of virus concerns. But the spiking virus shifted south, too, and the planned gathering in Jacksonville increasingly appeared to be both a health and political risk. Trump and his advisers feared that going forward with big parties and “infomercial” programming in Florida would ultimately backfire on the president.

“It’s a different world, and it will be for a little while,” Trump said, explaining his decision at a White House coronavirus briefing. “To have a big convention is not the right time.”

A small subset of GOP delegates will still formally renominate Trump on Aug. 24 in Charlotte, North Carolina, at an event scheduled to last just four hours.

Trump had decided last month to shift the ceremonial portions of the GOP convention to Florida because of a dispute with North Carolina’s Democratic leaders over holding an indoor gathering with throngs of supporters taking a pass on face masks.

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AP-NORC poll: 3 in 4 Americans back requiring wearing masks

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Three out of four Americans, including a majority of Republicans, favour requiring people to wear face coverings while outside their homes, a new poll finds, reflecting fresh alarm over spiking coronavirus cases and a growing embrace of government advice intended to safeguard public health.

The survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research also finds that about two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling the outbreak, an unwelcome sign for the White House in an election year shaped by the nation’s battle with the pandemic.

More than four months after government stay-at-home orders first swept across the U.S., the poll spotlights an America increasingly on edge about the virus. The federal government's response is seen as falling short, and most Americans favour continued restrictions to stop the virus from spreading even if they might hamstring the economy.

Support for requiring masks is overwhelming among Democrats, at 89%, but 58% of Republicans are in favour as well. The poll was conducted before Trump, who for months was dismissive of masks, said this week that it’s patriotic to wear one.

“Not wearing a mask, to me, poses a greater risk of spreading the COVID,” said Darius Blevins, a 33-year-old Republican-leaning independent from Christiansburg, Virginia, who works in bank operations. Blevins said he wears a mask in public because “it’s much more effective than not wearing the mask.”

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Cognitive Test. Trump. Biden. Campaign. Flashpoint.

WASHINGTON (AP) — It doesn’t quite have the ring of “Morning in America” and “I Like Ike.”

But the phrase “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.” is getting an unlikely moment in the spotlight as President Donald Trump has taken a detour into the politics of dementia three months before the election.

Trump, 74, attempted to demonstrate his mental fitness by reciting five words — in order, importantly — over and over in a television interview broadcast Wednesday night. The president said that collection of nouns, or ones like them, was part of a cognitive test he had aced while declaring that his likely Democratic opponent, 77-year-old Joe Biden, could not do the same.

In a battle of septuagenarians, the Trump campaign has long tried to paint Biden as having lost some of his mental sharpness. But the gambit has yet to prove successful in denting the former vice-president’s standing in the race. That leaves Trump trying to escalate the attacks while defending his own ability to handle the mental rigours of the job.

“The first questions are very easy,” Trump told Fox News. “The last questions are much more difficult. Like a memory question. It’s, like, you’ll go: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV. So they say, ‘Could you repeat that?’ So I said, ‘Yeah. It’s: Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.’”

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Portland standoff with US agents ongoing after mayor gassed

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The tense standoff between demonstrators and federal police dispatched to Portland, Oregon, dragged on Thursday after the city's mayor was tear-gassed by U.S. government agents as he made an appearance outside a federal courthouse during raucous protests.

Mayor Ted Wheeler and hundreds of others Wednesday night were objecting to the presence of federal police sent by President Donald Trump, who labeled the demonstrators as "agitators & anarchists” after Wheeler was gassed.

Also, late Thursday a federal judge specifically blocked federal agents from arresting or using physical force against journalists and legal observers at the ongoing Portland protests. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.

U.S. Judge Michael Simon previously ruled that journalists and legal observers are exempt from police orders requiring protesters to disperse once an unlawful assembly has been declared. Federal lawyers had said that journalists should have to leave when ordered.

“This order is a victory for the rule of law,” Jann Carson, ACLU of Oregon's interim executive director, said in a statement.

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White House drops payroll tax cut after GOP allies object

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Thursday reluctantly dropped his bid to cut Social Security payroll taxes as Republicans stumbled anew in efforts to unite around a $1 trillion COVID-19 rescue package to begin negotiations with Democrats who are seeking far more.

Frustrating new delays came as the administration scrambled to avert the cutoff next week of a $600-per-week bonus unemployment benefit that has helped prop up the economy while staving off financial disaster for millions of people thrown out of work since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Trump yielded to opposition to the payroll tax cut among his top Senate allies, claiming in a Twitter post that Democratic opposition was the reason. In fact, top Senate Republicans disliked the expensive idea in addition to opposition from Democrats for the cut in taxes that finance Social Security and Medicare.

“The Democrats have stated strongly that they won’t approve a Payroll Tax Cut (too bad!). It would be great for workers. The Republicans, therefore, didn’t want to ask for it," Trump contended.

“The president is very focused on getting money quickly to workers right now, and the payroll tax takes time,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said at the Capitol. Only Sunday, Trump said in a Fox News interview that “I would consider not signing it if we don’t have a payroll tax cut.”

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Yanks, Nats kneel in Black Lives Matter salute; Fauci's toss

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Nationals and Yankees knelt in unison before the first game of the baseball season as part of an opening day ceremony Thursday night that featured references to the Black Lives Matter movement, the coronavirus pandemic -- including an off-the-mark first pitch by Dr. Anthony Fauci -- and the home team’s 2019 championship.

Players from both clubs wore T-shirts saying Black Lives Matter during batting practice at Nationals Park, and the letters “BLM” were stenciled into the back of the mound at the centre of the diamond.

In a poignant reference to the racial reckoning happening in the U.S., players and other members of both teams held a long black ribbon while standing spaced out along the two foul lines. After they placed the ribbon on the ground, everyone then got on their knees.

They all then rose for a taped performance of the national anthem.

Yankees players decided Wednesday they wanted to kneel for 60 seconds before the anthem. New York officials then asked Washington if that time could be added to the pregame script. The Nationals decided they wanted to join the Yankees.

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Federal review: Alabama inmates subjected to excessive force

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama prisons have a pattern of using excessive force against male inmates, the U.S. Department of Justice announced in an investigation released Thursday, as it again accused the state of keeping prisoners in unconstitutional conditions.

In its report, the Justice Department detailed a chilling litany of incidents, including a prison guard beating a handcuffed prisoner in a medical unit while shouting, “I am the reaper of death, now say my name!” as the prisoner begged the officer to kill him. It is the second time within 18 months that the Justice Department has accused Alabama of housing male inmates in unconstitutional conditions in a prison system considered one of the most understaffed and violent in the country.

“Our investigation found reasonable cause to believe that there is a pattern or practice of using excessive force against prisoners in Alabama’s prisons for men," Assistant Attorney General Eric Dreiband for the Civil Rights Division said in a statement. Dreiband said the Justice Department hopes to work with Alabama to resolve the department’s concerns.

In findings sent to the state, federal investigators wrote that officers have beaten handcuffed or restrained prisoners, excessive force is sometimes used as retribution, the state prison system fails to investigate incidents and the violence is so common that some officers consider it normal.

“Ultimately, Alabama does not properly prevent and address unconstitutional uses of force in its prisons, fostering a culture where unlawful uses of force are common," the report read.

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On House floor, Dem women call out abusive treatment by men

WASHINGTON (AP) — Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's outrage over a Republican lawmaker’s verbal assault broadened into an extraordinary moment on the House floor Thursday as she and other Democrats assailed a sexist culture of “accepting violence and violent language against women” whose adherents include President Donald Trump.

A day after rejecting an offer of contrition from Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Fla., for his language during this week's Capitol steps confrontation, Ocasio-Cortez and more than a dozen colleagues cast the incident as all-too-common behaviour by men, including Trump and other Republicans.

“This issue is not about one incident. It is cultural,” said Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., calling it a culture “of accepting a violence and violent language against women, an entire structure of power that supports that.”

The remarkable outpouring, with female lawmakers saying they'd routinely encountered such treatment, came in an election year in which polls show women leaning decisively against Trump, who has a history of mocking women.

“I personally have experienced a lifetime of insults, racism and sexism,” said Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. “And believe me, this did not stop after being elected to public office.”

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Pepcid as a virus remedy? Trump admin's $21M gamble fizzled

As the coronavirus began its deadly march through the world, two well-respected American doctors identified a possible but seemingly unlikely remedy: Pepcid, the heartburn medication found on drugstore shelves everywhere.

There were no published data or studies to suggest that famotidine, the active ingredient in Pepcid, would be effective against the novel coronavirus.

And in early April, when government scientists learned of a proposal to spend millions in federal research funding to study Pepcid, they found it laughable, according to interviews, a whistleblower complaint and internal government records obtained by The Associated Press.

But that didn’t stop the Trump administration from granting a $21 million emergency contract to researchers trying it out on ailing patients. The Food and Drug Administration gave the clinical trial speedy approval even as a top agency official worried that the proposed daily injections of high doses of famotidine for already sick patients pushed safety “to the limits,” internal government emails show.

That contract is now under scrutiny after a government whistleblower accused a senior administration official of rushing the deal through without the scientific oversight necessary for such a large federal award. And the doctors who initially promoted the Pepcid idea are locked in a battle for credit and sniping over allegations of scientific misconduct.

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John Lewis funeral to be held at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist

ATLANTA (AP) — The funeral for the late civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis will be held Thursday at Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, which the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once led.

Lewis’ family announced that the funeral will be private, but the public is invited to pay tribute over the coming days during a series of celebrations of Lewis' life beginning Saturday in his hometown of Troy, Alabama. On Sunday morning, a processional will be held in which Lewis' body will once more cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where he and other voting rights demonstrators were beaten 55 years ago on “Bloody Sunday.”

Lewis' body will also lie in state at the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery, the Georgia state capitol in Atlanta and the U.S. Capitol in Washington.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Thursday that the public will be allowed to pay their respects in Washington to the longtime Georgia congressman Monday night and all day Tuesday.

Due to coronavirus precautions, Lewis will lie in state for public viewing at the top of the east front steps of the Capitol rather than in the Rotunda, and the public will file past on the East Plaza. Face masks will be required and social distancing will be enforced.

News from © The Associated Press, 2020