AP News Digest 6 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.
———————————-
NEW/DEVELOPING
———————————-
Adds: VIRUS OUTBREAK-TRUMP; ISRAEL-NETANYAHU; POLAND-LGBT-PROTEST; ITALY-ABORTION; TRIBAL-GAMING-OKLAHOMA; CZECH-FIRE; ELECTION-2020-SENATE-TENNESSEE
------------------
------------------
VIRUS OUTBREAK-TRUMP — Seizing the power of his podium and his pen, President Donald Trump on Saturday moved to bypass the nation’s elected lawmakers as he claimed the authority to defer payroll taxes and extend an expired unemployment benefit after negotiations with Congress on a new coronavirus rescue package collapsed. SENT: 1,100 words, photos.
ELECTION SECURITY VOTE BY MAIL — Brace yourself for what’s expected to be the first U.S. presidential election conducted mostly by mail. It’s likely to be a wild ride. Some three in four Americans are expected to embrace the option for the Nov. 3 presidential election, up from one in four in the 2018 contest. By Frank Bajak and Christina A. Cassidy. SENT: 1,475 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK — Reopening schools is easy. Keeping them open will be the hard part. As educators prepare to welcome students back to class for the first time in months, schools’ ability to quickly identify and contain coronavirus outbreaks before they get out of hand will be put to the test in thousands of districts around the country. By Michael Rubinkam. SENT: 1,125 words, photos.
LEBANON — Public fury over this week’s massive explosion in Beirut took a new turn as protesters stormed government institutions and clashed for hours with security forces, who responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. By Sarah El Deeb and Bassem Mroue. SENT: 960 words, photos. WITH: LEBANON-LIVES LOST -- The enormous explosion on Tuesday that killed scores of people, injured thousands and caused widespread destruction across Lebanon’s capital touched off widespread mourning for the victims. SENT: 930 words, photos; LEBANON-PHOTO ESSAY — Views inside some of the thousands of homes wrecked by the explosion. SENT: 250 words, photos.
LEBANON-FRANCE-NEOCOLONIALISM - It was almost as if Emmanuel Macron forgot that Lebanon is no longer a French protectorate. When France’s visited explosion-ravaged Beirut this week, he comforted distraught crowds, promised to rebuild the city and claimed that the blast pierced France’s own heart. His critics denounced the overtures as a neocolonialist foray by a European leader seeking to restore sway over a troubled Middle Eastern land – and distract from his mounting problems at home. By Angela Charlton and Sarah El-Deeb. SENT: 770 words, photos. Eds: This story has moved as the Sunday Spotlight.
POLICING REFORMS -- The death of George Floyd and widespread protests over racial injustice have prompted several states to move at a lightning pace to pass significant policing reform proposals that in some cases have languished for years, with other states on the verge of taking similar action. The urgency is bipartisan. By Alan Suderman. SENT: 985 words, photos.
JOB MARKET-EMPLOYED BUT STRUGGLING -- At a time when unemployment is high and a federal jobless benefit has just expired, one category of American workers has been largely overlooked: People who still have jobs but whose financial struggles have nevertheless escalated in the face of the pandemic. Some have endured pay cuts or have had their hours slashed. Others have been furloughed temporarily — without pay. Many just feel seized by the fear that their job could vanish at any time or their struggling employer will go out of business. By Sudhin Thanawala. SENT: 1,235 words, photos.
———————————————————————
———————————————————————
VIRUS OUTBREAK-STURGIS RALLY — The coronavirus outbreak may be changing the world, but it’s seemingly had little impact on the massive motorcycle rally that occurs every year at a small city along Interstate 90 in western South Dakota. SENT: 600 words, photos.
VIRUS-OUTBREAK-BRAZIL -- Brazil is leaping toward a grim milestone — 100,000 deaths from COVID-19. And five months after the first reported case, the country had not shown signs of crushing the disease. SENT: 780 words, photos.
VIRUS OUTBREAK-FRANCE -- The glamorous French Riviera resort of Saint-Tropez is now requiring face masks outdoors. SENT: 370 words, photos.
PALESTINIANS-GAZA — Hundreds of thousands of students in the isolated Gaza Strip are returning to schools that have reopened after five months of closure. SENT: 310 words, photos.
-----------------------------------—————
WHAT WE’RE TALKING ABOUT
-----------------------------------——————
ITALY-ABORTION — Italy approves outpatient use for abortion pill. SENT: 250 words.
CZECH-FIRE — 1 killed, 10 injured in Czech Republic apartment fire. SENT: 200 words, photo.
BRITAIN-RACISM -- British radio host Sideman quit the BBC over the corporation’s decision to include a racial slur in a news report about a racist attack. SENT: 190 words.
GEORGIA CHASE-DEADLY SHOOTING -- The father and son jailed on murder charges in the slaying of Ahmaud Arbery are asking a Georgia judge to grant them bond and to throw out two charges in their indictment. SENT: 380 words, photos.
------------------------------------
—————————————————
ELECTION 2020-TRUMP -- They hustled down the stairs, the rain dabbing their polo shirts and golf attire, as they dashed inside the clubhouse, drinks in their hands and masks missing from their faces. It was an unexpected perk of their country club membership: being the audience for President Donald Trump’s hurriedly announced news conference at his course in Bedminster, New Jersey, where they were props in a surreal gathering that violated COVID-19 safety guidelines. SENT: 990 words, photos.
FACT CHECK-WEEK -- It was a week of relentless attacks by President Trump and his allies on mail-in voting for the November election, and truth took a beating at every turn. On the coronavirus, Trump painted a far rosier picture than his own health experts on when a vaccine could become available. And he falsely claimed once more that kids are basically immune from the disease. SENT: 2,800 words, photos. Find AP Fact Checks at https://apnews.com/APFactCheck
TRUMP-FACT CHECK -- President Trump is teasing the possibility of executive action to require health insurance companies to cover preexisting conditions. It’s something that he says “has never been done before.” It’s been done before. SENT: 640 words, photos.
ELECTION-2020-ARPAIO’S-LAST-RACE -- Joe Arpaio’s primary defeat in his bid to win back the sheriff’s post in metro Phoenix marks what’s likely to be the 88-year-old’s last political campaign. SENT: 865 words, photos.
ELECTION 2020-SENATE-KANSAS -- Democrats are pinning their unusually high hopes for winning a Senate seat in Kansas on a retired doctor and former lifelong moderate Republican who’s vexed conservatives during a decade in the Legislature. SENT: 760 words, photos.
ELECTION-2020-SENATE-TENNESSEE — U.S. Senate candidate Marquita Bradshaw said Saturday that her campaign fundraising is in full swing and she plans to visit all 95 Tennessee counties as she tries to flip the seat from Republican to Democrat. SENT: 440 words, photos.
ELECTION-2020-DOCTORS-REGISTERING-VOTERS -- Doctors, hospitals and medical students are ramping up efforts to register voters as part of a nationwide campaign this month. In Boston, an ER doctor has created thousands of voter registration kits for distribution at hospitals and doctor’s offices. Students at Harvard and Yale’s medical schools are planning to go head-to-head as part of a national voter registration competition among medical schools. SENT: 680 words, photos.
————————
———————-
TRIBAL-GAMING-OKLAHOMA — Four Oklahoma American Indian tribes have filed a federal lawsuit over gaming compacts with two other tribes that were ruled invalid by the Oklahoma State Supreme Court. SENT: 400 words.
2020-CENSUS-DOOR-KNOCKERS -- The Census Bureau has another challenge as widespread door-knocking for the 2020 survey begins next week. Previously-committed census takers are dropping out because of pandemic fears. The loss of these so-called door-knockers - formally known as enumerators - is happening just when the agency faces newly tightened deadlines to reach the hardest to count communities, including minorities and immigrants. SENT: 915 words, photos.
RACIAL INJUSTICE-PORTLAND —Protesters in Portland, Oregon, defied police orders to disperse and threw rocks, frozen or hard-boiled eggs and commercial-grade fireworks at officers as unrest in the Northwest city continued. SENT: 560 words, photos.
ALASKA NATIVE-VIETNAM VETS -- A new push from the federal government will allow Alaska Natives who are veterans of the Vietnam War to apply for 160 acres of federal land in Alaska. SENT: 970 words, photos.
MICHIGAN FLOOD-LOST LAKES --A nonprofit organization wants to gain ownership of four Michigan dams, including two that failed in storms on May 19. Meanwhile, nature is returning to craters left from the lakes drained by the failed dams, but not always in a good way. SENT: 675 words, photos.
————————————
————————————
ISRAEL-NETANYAHU — Thousands of demonstrators have thronged the streets near the official residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a renewed show of strength as weeks of protests against the Israeli leader showed no signs of slowing. SENT:460 words.
POLAND-LGBT-PROTEST — A large crowd of LGBT rights supporters has gathered in Warsaw to protest the arrest of a transgender activist who had carried out acts of civil disobedience against rising homophobia in Poland. SENT: 400 words photos.
MAURITIUS-LEAKING-SHIP -- Anxious residents of the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius are stuffing fabric sacks with sugar cane leaves to create makeshift oil spill barriers as tons of fuel leak from a grounded ship. The government has declared an environmental emergency and France says it is sending help from its nearby Reunion island. Wildlife workers and volunteers have ferried dozens of baby tortoises and rare plants to the mainland. SENT: 760 words, photos.
SOMALIA-ATTACK — A car bomb explodes at the gates of a military base in Somalia’s capital, killing at least eight soldiers and wounding 14 others, police say. SENT: 320 words.
BELARUS-ELECTION - After 26 consecutive years in office, the autocratic leader of Belarus is confronting something unfamiliar as he tries to win a sixth term: circumstances beyond his control. Discontent over a worsening economy and his government’s dismissive response to the coronavirus pandemic has helped fuel the country’s largest opposition rallies since the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Alexander Lukashenko became independent Belarus’s first and only elected president, so far. SENT: 990 words, photos.
VENEZUELA-FAILED-ATTACK -- A Venezuelan court has sentenced two former U.S. special forces soldiers to 20 years in prison for their part in a blunder-filled beach attack aimed at overthrowing President Nicolás Maduro. Defense lawyers said they were barred from the secretive jailhouse proceedings in what they consider a violation of their clients' constitutional rights. SENT: 700 words, photos.
HONG KONG-US-CHINA — Hong Kong’s leader and China’s top representative in the city took pot shots at the United States after the Trump administration sanctioned them and nine other officials for allegedly cracking down on freedom and undermining the local autonomy of the former British colony. SENT: 560 words, photos.
CZECH-WILDLIFE-SANCTUARY -- Wild horses, bison and other big-hoofed animals once roamed freely in much of Europe. Now they are transforming a former military base outside the Czech capital in an ambitious project to improve biodiversity. SENT: 640 words, photos.
—————————————
—————————————
CHINA-HUAWEI — An executive of Chinese tech giant Huawei says it is running out of processor chips to make smartphones due to U.S. sanctions. SENT: 570 words, photo.
————————————-
————————————-
FILM-THE-SECRET-GARDEN -- Frances Hodgson Burnett’s children’s classic “The Secret Garden” has been adapted into several films, television series and even a Broadway musical. But it had been 27 years since Mary Lennox had last been committed to film and the time seemed ripe for another visit to Misselthwaite Manor. Like “Little Women,” every generation is entitled to its own version. SENT: 635 words, photos.
———————
———————
GLF—PGA CHAMPIONSHIP — Li Haotong, the first Chinese to lead any major after a round, is two shots ahead of Brooks Koepka and a host of others going into the third round of the PGA Championship. Koepka is bidding for a third straight PGA title. UPCOMING: 800 words, photos by 8 p.m.
FBC--VIRUS OUTBREAK-COLLEGE SPORTS — The Mid-American Conference is the first league at college football’s highest level to cancel its fall season because of the coronavirus. MAC schools rely heavily on revenue from road games against power conference teams, and most of those games are off. SENT: 600 words, photos.
BKN--NBA-BODY CLOCKS — The NBA body clock is finely tuned: morning shootaround, afternoon nap, evening game. Well, that’s in normal times. In the bubble, all bets are off. SENT: 650 words, photos.
-----------------------
HOW TO REACH US
-----------------------
The Nerve Center, Richard A. Somma can be reached at 800-845-8450 (ext. 1600). For photos, Donald E. King ext. 1900. For graphics and interactives, ext. 7636. Expanded AP content can be obtained from http://newsroom.ap.org. For access to AP Newsroom and other technical issues, contact apcustomersupport(at)ap.org or call 877-836-9477.