AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Trump commutes longtime friend Roger Stone's prison sentence
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has commuted the sentence of his longtime political confidant Roger Stone, intervening in extraordinary fashion in a criminal case that was central to the Russia investigation and that concerned the president's own conduct.
The move came Saturday, just days before Stone was to begin serving a 40-month prison sentence for lying to Congress, witness tampering and obstructing the House investigation into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election.
The action, which Trump had foreshadowed in recent days, underscores the president’s lingering rage over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and is part of a continuing effort by the president and his administration to rewrite the narrative of a probe that has shadowed the White House from the outset. Democrats, already alarmed by the Justice Department's earlier dismissal of the case against Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, denounced the president as further undermining the rule of law.
Stone, 67, had been set to report to prison on Tuesday after a federal appeals court rejected his bid to postpone his surrender date. But he told The Associated Press that Trump called him Friday evening to tell him he was off the hook.
“The president told me that he had decided, in an act of clemency, to issue a full commutation of my sentence, and he urged me to vigorously pursue my appeal and my vindication,” Stone said by phone from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where he was celebrating with friends. He said he had to change rooms because there were “too many people opening bottles of Champagne here.”
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Trump undercuts health experts — again — in schools debate
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House seating chart spoke volumes.
When the president convened a roundtable this week on how to safely reopen schools with coronavirus cases rising, the seats surrounding him were filled with parents, teachers and top White House officials, including the first and second ladies.
But the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, usually the leader of disease-fighting efforts, was relegated to secondary seating in the back with the children of parents who had been invited to speak.
Intentional or not, it was a telling indication of the regard that President Donald Trump has for the government’s top health professionals as he pushes the country to move past the coronavirus. Whatever they say, he's determined to revive the battered economy and resuscitate his reelection chances, even as U.S. hospitalizations and deaths keep climbing.
Confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. hit the 3 million mark this week, with over 130,000 deaths now recorded. The surge has led to new equipment shortages as well as long lines at testing sites and delayed results.
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Trump lags Biden on people of color in top campaign ranks
WASHINGTON (AP) — Amid a summer of racial unrest and calls for more diversity in leadership, President Donald Trump lags Democratic rival Joe Biden in the percentage of people of color on their campaign staffs, according to data the campaigns provided to The Associated Press.
Twenty-five percent of the Republican president's senior staff are nonwhite, compared to 36% of Biden’s senior staff. Biden’s overall campaign team is 35% nonwhite; Trump’s campaign did not provide a comparable number.
And neither campaign provided racial breakdowns for their nonwhite staff, nor the total number of staffers who are on their payrolls, including senior staff.
Advocates for minority groups say staff diversity is necessary to ensure political candidates hear a full range of voices and viewpoints to help them understand the concerns of various communities and interest groups — especially at a time when racial injustice is front and center in the national conversation. And while Biden has an edge on Trump, there is plenty more to be done in presidential campaigns overall.
Jennifer Lawless, commonwealth professor of politics at the University of Virginia, said “there are still a lot of milestones that haven’t been hit” by political campaigns, such as a Black man or woman directing — and winning — a presidential campaign. And she said having diverse staff at lower levels in campaigns can help increase the pool of future managers, finance chairs and others.
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COVID-19 heroes must jump through hoops for workers' comp
WASHINGTON (AP) —
Lauded for their service and hailed as everyday heroes, essential workers who get the coronavirus on the job have no guarantee in most states they'll qualify for workers' compensation to cover lost wages and medical care.
Fewer than one-third of the states have enacted policies that shift the burden of proof for coverage of job-related COVID-19 so workers like first responders and nurses don't have to show they got sick by reporting for a risky assignment.
Debate over workers’ comp in the states is part of a much larger national discussion about liability for virus exposure, with Republicans in Congress seeking a broad shield for businesses in the next coronavirus relief bill.
And for most employees going back to job sites as the economy reopens, there's even less protection than for essential workers. In nearly all states, they have to prove they got the virus on the job to qualify for workers' comp.
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Zimbabwe bird sanctuary has 400 species, not enough tourists
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — A fish eagle swoops over the water to grab a fish in its talons and then flies to its nest.
Nearby are a martial eagle, a black eagle, an Egyptian vulture and hundreds of other birds. With an estimated 400 species of birds on an idyllic spot on Zimbabwe's Lake Chivero, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Harare, the Kuimba Shiri bird sanctuary has been drawing tourists for more than 15 years.
The southern African country’s only bird park has survived tumultuous times, including violent land invasions and a devastating economic collapse but the outbreak of coronavirus is proving a stern test.
“I thought I had survived the worst, but this coronavirus is something else,” said owner Gary Strafford. “One-third of our visitors are from China. They stopped coming in February ... and when we were shut down in March, that was just unbelievable.”
A life-long bird enthusiast, Strafford, 62, established the center for injured, orphaned and abandoned birds in 1992 and tourism has kept the park going.
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Trump threatens to pull tax exemption for schools, colleges
In his push to get schools and colleges to reopen this fall, President Donald Trump is again taking aim at their finances, this time threatening their tax-exempt status.
Trump said on Twitter on Friday he was ordering the Treasury Department to re-examine the tax-exempt status of schools that he says provide “radical indoctrination” instead of education.
“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” he tweeted. “Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”
The Republican president did not explain what prompted the remark or which schools would be reviewed. But the threat is just one more that Trump has issued against schools as he ratchets up pressure to get them to open this fall. Twice this week Trump threatened to cut federal funding for schools that don't reopen, including in an earlier tweet on Friday.
It's unclear, however, on what grounds Trump could have a school's tax-exempt status terminated. It was also not clear what Trump meant by “radical indoctrination” or who would decide what type of activity that includes. The White House and Treasury Department did not immediately comment on the president's message.
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Storm clouds hang over Trump's attempted campaign reboot
MIAMI (AP) — Friday was supposed to be the day President Donald Trump's campaign reboot itself got a reboot. Instead, it hit another snag.
Amid uncertainty over whether he can still draw big and enthusiastic crowds to his signature rallies in the coronavirus era, Trump postponed a planned Saturday rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, citing a tropical storm expected to hit a swath of the Eastern United States.
“With Tropical Storm Fay heading towards the Great State of New Hampshire this weekend, we are forced to reschedule our Portsmouth, New Hampshire Rally at the Portsmouth International Airport at Pease,” Trump tweeted. "Stay safe, we will be there soon!”
The latest setback came as the Trump campaign casts about for ways to reverse its recent downward slide in the polls at a time when the president is facing widespread criticism over his handling of the pandemic and his harsh stance against those protesting racial injustice.
With growing whispers of a staff shakeup and behind-the-scenes finger-pointing among White House, campaign and Republican Party officials, the campaign has been looking for something to reverse the negative momentum.
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Army: Independent probe coming after Fort Hood soldier death
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — U.S. Army officials announced Friday they will begin an independent review of the command climate at Fort Hood following calls from members of Congress and community activists for a more thorough investigation into the killing of a soldier from the Texas base.
Secretary of the Army Ryan D. McCarthy said he was directing the review and that it will be conducted by an independent panel of congressional representatives selected in collaboration with League of United Latin American Citizens. The panel will examine claims and historical data of discrimination, harassment and assault.
The review comes in the wake of the death of 20-year-old Spc. Vanessa Guillen, who investigators say was bludgeoned to death at Fort Hood by a fellow soldier. She was last seen in April and was listed as missing for six weeks before the Army released details. The soldier suspected in Guillen's slaying, Spc. Aaron Robinson, died by suicide on July 1 as police were trying to take him into custody.
“The Army is deeply saddened and troubled by the loss of one of our own,” McCarthy said Friday during a press conference.
In a separate press conference Friday, U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia, D-Texas, said McCarthy had also agreed to back calls for the Department of Defense to conduct an inspector general’s investigation into the death of Guillen. She said the independent review of Fort Hood's climate showed military officials were listening.
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AP Week in Pictures, Global
JULY 4 - 10, 2020
This photo gallery highlights some of the most compelling images made or published by The Associated Press from around the world.
The selection was curated by AP photo editor Patrick Sison in New York.
Follow AP visual journalism:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apnews
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COVID hits dozens of Latin leaders, including presidents
HAVANA (AP) — The COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping through the leadership of Latin America, with two more presidents and powerful officials testing positive this week for the new coronavirus, adding a destabilizing new element to the region’s public health and economic crises.
In Brazil, President Jair Bolsonaro, 65, announced his illness Tuesday and is using it to publicly extol hydroxychloroquine, the unproven malaria drug that he’s been promoting as a treatment for COVID-19, and now takes himself.
Bolivian interim President Jeanine Añez, 53, made her own diagnosis public Thursday, throwing her already troubled political propects into further doubt.
And in Venezuela, 57-year-old socialist party chief Diosdado Cabello said Thursday on Twitter that he, too, had tested positive, at least temporarily sidelining a larger-than-life figure considered the second-most-powerful person in the country.
Another powerful figure, Venezuela's Oil Minister Tarek El Aissami, announced Friday he has the bug.