AP News Digest 2 p.m.
Here are the AP’s latest coverage plans, top stories and promotable content. All times EDT. For up-to-the minute information on AP’s coverage, visit Coverage Plan at https://newsroom.ap.org.
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ELECTION 2020-WISCONSIN — Voters line up to cast ballots across Wisconsin, ignoring a stay-at-home order in the midst of a pandemic to participate in the state’s presidential primary election. Many voters across the state did not have facial coverings, ignoring public health recommendations. Results aren’t expected immediately -- a court ruling means they likely won’t be made public before next Monday. By Scott Bauer and Steve Peoples. SENT: 1020 words. UPCOMING: Developing, polls close at 9 p.m., 1,090 words by 6 p.m., photos, video.
ELECTION 2020-VOTING — The messy fight over Wisconsin’s primary was just the beginning. Democrats and Republicans are gearing up for a series of state-by-state court battles over how to safely hold elections during a pandemic. The fights are certain to affect voter turnout – and the outcome -- in hundreds of races across the country, including the race for the White House. By Nicholas Riccardi. UPCOMING: 800 words by 5 p.m., photos.
Find more coverage on the 2020 U.S. Elections featured topic page on APNewsroom.
VIRUS OUTBREAK — New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus eclipsed the number of those killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11, health officials said. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson was in intensive care with the virus. At least 3,202 people have died in New York from COVID-19, according to the count released by the city. The deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil killed 2,753 people in the city and 2,977 overall, when hijacked planes slammed into the twin towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11, 2001. By Marina Villeneuve and Lori Hinnant. SENT: 1,088 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-INSPECTORS GENERAL — President Donald Trump sidelines the inspector general who was to oversee the $2.2 trillion economic rescue package for businesses and individuals affected by the coronavirus – the latest in a series of conflicts between a president reflexively resistant to outside criticism and an oversight community tasked with identifying fraud, misconduct and abuse. They also raise questions about whether Trump, who last month declared that “I’ll be the oversight,” will actually allow for rigorous scrutiny of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue effort. By Eric Tucker, Matthew Daly and Mary Clare Jalonick. UPCOMING: 900 words by 4 p.m., photos. WITH: VIRUS OUTBREAK-TRUMP-FACT CHECK — President Trump falsely asserts that travelers at U.S. airports are being routinely tested for COVID-19. UPCOMING: 900 words by 3 p.m., photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-REMITTANCES — The devastation wrought by COVID-19 across the developed world in cutting into the financial lifelines for people in Latin America, Africa and Asia. The World Bank estimates that a record $529 billion was transferred to developing countries through official channels in 2018. Billions more moved unrecorded in cash. Many of those remittances are sent home by people who work in jobs worst affected by the global downtown. With coronavirus shutting down industries, many earners can no longer afford to send their monthly $50, $100 or $200 to Honduras, Somalia or India. The shock waves are pushing their relatives to desperation. By Gisela Salmon, Sonia Perez D. and Michael Weissenstein. SENT: 1,300 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK- A FORTUNATE LADY — A 90-year-old survivor of COVID-19 has a message for the rest of us: Do not be afraid, and do not despair. Anna Fortunato advises that people should “keep on fighting, have that positive attitude, and pray.” She says that if she survived, others can, as well. By Allen G. Breed. SENT: 550 words, photos, video.
Find more all-format coverage on the Virus Outbreak featured topic page in AP Newsroom.
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MORE ON VIRUS OUTBREAK
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VIRUS OUTBREAK-VENEZUELA PARTY — A raucous beach party thrown by several children of Venezuela’s ruling elite has led to a cluster of coronavirus cases. It’s also shown how the revelry hasn’t stopped for the wealthy amid a widening pandemic in a country already gripped by crisis. The elites took private planes to a Caribbean island and brought in prostitutes from Europe while Venezuela went on lockdown last month. Anger has been deepening in the world’s most unequal region, where jet-setting elites have imported the virus to Latin America but the poor are bearing the brunt. SENT: 960 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-DIARY-BEIJING SPRING — The coronavirus came first to Beijing in the depths of winter. As with so many places afterward, the change seeped in gradually. Neighborhoods sealed themselves off with makeshift barriers. Apartment blocks issued identification cards. Staff at a nearby grocer donned goggles and rubber gloves over custom grey hazmat suits Authorities issued new orders, and they gradually limiting travel into and out of China. SENT: 643 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-LOBBYING — The coronavirus pandemic has tanked global markets, put 6.6 million Americans out of work and raised the likelihood of a recession. But business is booming in the Washington lobbying world” UPCOMING: 950 words by 2 p.m., photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-SPLIT FAMILIES — The coronavirus is wreaking havoc on families’ custody arrangements. New plans have had to be made as parents get sick or exposed to the illness and already-feuding former couples are battling over each other’s approach to stay-at-home orders. And as millions of people lose their jobs, some divorced parents are starting to ask to modify their child support arrangements, and those who rely on those checks are worrying about how they’ll get by. SENT: 985 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK -ONE GOOD THING RIO-FIREFIGHTER — Rio de Janeiro firefighter Elielson Silva has devised a novel approach to curing the coronavirus blues: he boards a fire truck’s retractable ladder that ferries him up to heights as high as 200 feet and, from his lofty perch, plays Brazilian tunes on the trumpet. SENT: 638 words, photos, video.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-PREDICTING THE OUTCOME — A statistical model cited by the White House generates a slightly less grim figure for a first wave of deaths from the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. — a projection designed to help officials plan for the worst, including having enough hospital staff, beds and ventilators. The only problem with this bit of relatively good news? It’s almost certainly wrong. All models are wrong. Some are just less wrong than others — and those are the ones that public health officials rely on. SENT: 880 words, photo.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-CHINA- LOCKDOWN LIFTED — The lockdown that served as a model for countries battling the coronavirus around the world is set to end after 11 weeks: Chinese authorities are moving to allow residents of Wuhan to once again travel in and out of the sprawling city where the pandemic began. SENT: 800 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-MIDEAST-DISRUPTED BURIALS — Ancient burial rituals common across the largely Muslim Middle East are being disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak. As the death toll from the pandemic surpasses 4,500, fear of contamination and government-mandated lockdowns have imposed traumatic restrictions on bereaved families from Egypt to Iran to Pakistan. SENT: 940 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-LAST STATES — As most governors have imposed stay-at-home orders that public health officials say are essential to slowing the spread of the new coronavirus, leaders in a handful of states have steadfastly refused to take the action, arguing it’s unneeded and potentially harmful. Nine Republican governors have refused to issue mandates that people stay at home, but local leaders have taken action in four of those states, leaving only North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Arkansas with no such requirement throughout their states. UPCOMING: 900 words, photos by 5 p.m.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-JAPAN-STATE-OF-EMERGENCY — Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declares a month-long state of emergency for Tokyo and six other prefectures to ramp up defenses against the spread of the coronavirus as the number of infections surges. SENT: 700 words, photos.
A separate wire advisory has been sent detailing AP's complete coronvirus coverage.
AP’s coronavirus podcast, “Ground Game: Inside the Outbreak,” today looks at how the COVID-19 outbreak is affecting law enforcement in the United States, from police departments to courts and prisons. Listen to the podcast after 3 p.m. at https://appodcasts.com/category/ground-game/. Embed code is available on AP Coverage Plan.
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WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
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VIRUS OUTBREAK-RAND PAUL — Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul says he has recovered from the coronavirus and that he has started volunteering at a hospital in his hometown. Paul is an eye surgeon. SENT: 340 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-AIRCRAFT CARRIER — Navy official apologizes for calling fired captain ’stupid. ’SENT: 870 words, photos.
1976 SLAYING DNA TESTING — A judge has ordered DNA testing on a hat left at the scene of a fatal 1976 shooting that an Iowa inmate hopes will prove he has been wrongly imprisoned for decades. SENT: 215 words, photo.
BOOKS-WINFREY — Oprah Winfrey chooses “Hidden Valley Road” for book club. SENT: 645 words, photos.
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TRUMP-PRESS SECRETARY — President Trump shakes up his communications team, replacing his press secretary and adding new communications staffers as he grapples with the spread of the coronavirus. By Zeke Miller and Jill Colvin. SENT: 400 words. UPCOMING: Developing, 550 words by 4 p.m., photos.
ELECTION 2020-BIDEN-LEWIS — Civil rights icon and Georgia Rep. John Lewis is backing Joe Biden for president, giving the prospective Democratic nominee perhaps his biggest symbolic endorsement among the many veteran black lawmakers who back his candidacy. SENT: 840 words, photo.
FEDERAL DEATH PENALTY — A federal appeals court sides with the Trump administration in its effort to resume executing inmates, but sends the matter back to a lower court for further review. UPCOMING: 700 words by 4 p.m., photo.
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AUSTRALIA CARDINAL-CHARGED — Cardinal George Pell welcomed Australia’s highest court clearing him of child sex crimes and said his trial had not been a referendum on the Catholic Church’s handling of the clergy abuse crisis. Pell, Pope Francis’ former finance minister, had been the most senior Catholic found guilty of sexually abusing children and spent 13 months in prison before seven High Court judges unanimously dismissed his convictions. SENT: 1,240 words, photos.
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FINANCIAL-MARKETS — Stocks are climbing on Wall Street as markets around the world pile on even more gains following their huge rally a day earlier. SENT: 815 words, photos, developing.
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VIRUS OUTBREAK-UNVARNISHED CELEBRITIES —“We’re learning a lot about each other in quarantine!” Actress Portia de Rossi says on Instagram.We are indeed learning a lot about each other these days, and that’s especially true with our celebrities. Social distancing has meant they have no army of publicists or glam squad. They’re bored and unfiltered — and often incredibly relatable. SENT. By Entertainment Writer Mark Kennedy. 900 words, with photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-FILM-VIRTUAL VIEWING PARTIES — Movie theaters may be closed, but friends are still finding ways to watch together while staying apart thanks to applications like Netflix Party. Movie studios are getting in on the action too, with “watch parties” for old favorites like “Legally Blonde” and new releases like “Emma” on Facebook and Twitter. By Film Writer Lindsey Bahr. SENT: 800 words, photos
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US—SPORTS-DESERTED ICONS — They are cities defined by their signature sporting events. When you hear Augusta, you instantly think of the Masters. When Omaha comes up, it’s often in the same breath with the College World Series. For these cities and others, the shutdown caused by the coronavirus pandemic is an especially tough blow. By National Writer Paul Newberry. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 5 p.m.
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HOW TO REACH US
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