May 29, 2020 4:12 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is escalating his war on social media companies, signing an executive order challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet. He declared he was “fed up” with what he considers bias as prepared to sign the order on Thursday. Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets. Legal experts have expressed doubts Trump can do much by himself, without an act of Congress. And the order is certain to face legal challenges.
May 29, 2020 4:10 am
South Korea has reported 58 new cases of the coronavirus, all in the Seoul metropolitan area, as officials scramble to stem transmissions linked to a massive e-commerce warehouse near the capital. The figures announced Friday by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention brought national totals to 11,402 infections and 269 deaths. Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun called for officials to examine working conditions at warehouses of online shopping companies, which have seen orders surge during the pandemic, and other congested workplaces. South Korea has reported 177 new COVID-19 cases over the past three days, a resurgence that threatens to erase some of its hard-won gains against the virus.
May 29, 2020 4:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – The tensions between the Trump administration and China are growing. The administration may soon expel thousands of Chinese graduate students and impose other sanctions against Chinese officials. These are the latest signs of escalating tensions over trade, the coronavirus pandemic, human rights and the status of Hong Kong. President Donald Trump says he intends to make an announcement about China on Friday. Officials say he is considering a proposal to revoke the visas of Chinese students affiliated with educational institutions in China that are linked to the People’s Liberation Army or Chinese intelligence. The officials were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
May 29, 2020 4:07 am
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) – The Minneapolis officer who was seen on video kneeling on the neck of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in custody after pleading that he could not breathe, has been arrested and charged with murder. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman says Derek Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter, after his office gathered enough evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. He did not have immediate details, but said a criminal complaint would be made available later. The charges come after three days of protests, which had been escalating in violence.
May 29, 2020 4:05 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is calling protesters in Minneapolis “thugs” and vowing that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Trump tweeted as violence boiled over Thursday night, with protesters torching a police station. Trump and his allies had taken a very different tone with the in-custody death of a black man in Minneapolis compared with past instances of police brutality involving African Americans, questioning the officers and sympathizing with the man who died. Trump said earlier Thursday that he felt “very, very badly” about George Floyd’s death, calling it “a very shocking sight.”
May 29, 2020 4:03 am
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Some county and state officials are warning that a flood of mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania will create problems in Tuesday’s primary election that must be fixed before November’s presidential election. For one, they are warning that there will be no way to produce timely election results in November unless the law changes. Even in Tuesday’s relatively low turnout primary election, election-night results might be unlikely in closely contested races. Of more immediate concern is the question of whether voters can mail their ballots back to county election offices in time to be counted in Tuesday’s primary election.
May 28, 2020 4:13 pm
BOSTON (AP) – The Boston Marathon has been canceled for the first time in its 124-year history. Organizers said Thursday that they instead will have a “virtual event” in which participants who verify that they ran 26.2 miles on their own will receive their finisher’s medal. The race had originally been scheduled for April 20 before being postponed for five months because of the coronavirus pandemic. The longest-running annual marathon in the world, the Boston Marathon began in 1897.
May 28, 2020 8:45 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Roughly 2.1 million people applied for U.S. unemployment benefits last week, a sign that companies are still slashing jobs in the face of a deep recession even as more businesses reopen and rehire some laid-off employees. About 41 million people have now applied for aid since the virus outbreak intensified in March, though not all of them are still unemployed. The Labor Department’s report Thursday includes a count of all the people now receiving unemployment aid: 21 million. That is a rough measure of the number of unemployed Americans. áThe national jobless rate was 14.7% in April, the highest since the Great Depression.
May 28, 2020 4:05 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump is escalating his war on social media companies, signing an executive order challenging the liability protections that have served as a bedrock for unfettered speech on the internet. He declared he was “fed up” with what he considers bias as prepared to sign the order on Thursday. Still, the move appears to be more about politics than substance, as the president aims to rally supporters after he lashed out at Twitter for applying fact checks to two of his tweets. Legal experts have expressed doubts Trump can do much by himself, without an act of Congress. And the order is certain to face legal challenges.
May 28, 2020 4:03 am
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) – The U.S. has surpassed a jarring milestone in the coronavirus pandemic: 100,000 deaths. That number Wednesday is the best estimate and most assuredly an undercount. But it represents the stark reality that more Americans have died from the virus than from the Vietnam and Korea wars combined. According to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, the virus has infected more than 5.6 million people worldwide and killed over 350,000. The U.S. has the most infections and deaths by far. Early on, President Donald Trump downplayed the severity of the coronavirus and predicted the country wouldn’t reach this death toll.
