June 22, 2020 3:18 pm
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – Coronavirus cases in Florida surpassed 100,000 on Monday, part of an alarming surge across the U.S. West and South as states reopen for business and many Americans resist wearing masks or keeping their distance. Some public health officials are warning that progress won after months of lockdowns could be slipping. And hospitals in areas seeing an uptick in cases are warning that intensive care beds were filling again, and urging communities to do what it takes to control any new outbreaks. An Associated Press analysis of data compiled by Johns Hopkins University finds that new daily confirmed coronavirus cases across the country are up to more than 26,000 a day, up from about 21,000 a day two weeks ago.
June 22, 2020 4:20 am
GENEVA (AP) – The World Health Organization says the record levels of new daily COVID-19 cases worldwide may reflect the fact that the pandemic is now peaking in a number of big countries and demonstrate that the coronavirus has now become entrenched in some regions. Some countries, including the U.S. and India have attributed their rising caseloads to an increase in testing. But WHO’s emergencies chief dismissed that explanation Monday, pointing to a rise in hospital admissions and deaths in numerous countries. He said the coronavirus appeared to be peaking in numerous large countries including Brazil, the U.S. and India at the same time.
June 22, 2020 4:15 am
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro is calling the coronavirus a “product of the Chinese Communist Party” and suggesting without evidence it may have been intentionally created by the Chinese government. Navarro says on CNN’s “State of the Union” that it remains unclear how the virus started and “until we get some information about what happened in those labs or what happened in that wet market, we know that the virus was spawned in China.” President Donald Trump and his allies have been repeating the unsubstantiated theory linking the outbreak’s origin to a possible accident at a Chinese virology laboratory.
June 22, 2020 4:14 am
NEW YORK (AP) – President Donald Trump’s return to the campaign trail was designed to show strength and enthusiasm but instead highlighted growing vulnerabilities. The Saturday night rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, also crystallized a divisive reelection message that largely ignores broad swaths of voters who could play a decisive role on Election Day. The lower-than-expected turnout at the comeback rally left Trump fuming. The city fire marshal’s office reported a crowd of just less than 6,200 in the 19,000-seat arena. And at least six staff members who were helping set up for the event had tested positive for the coronavirus. After the event, Trump berated aides over the turnout.
June 22, 2020 4:10 am
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) – Tyson Foods is looking into reports that China’s customs agency has suspended poultry imports from a Tyson facility in the United States after coronavirus cases were confirmed among its employees. A Tyson spokesman said Sunday that the plant in question is in Springdale, Arkansas. The spokesman said that all global and U.S. health organizations agree that there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. The announcement out of China Sunday gave no details of the quantity of meat affected.
June 22, 2020 4:09 am
TALLADEGA, Ala. (AP) – NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace says a noose found in his garage stall at Talladega in Alabama “will not break me.” Wallace is the only Black driver in the elite Cup Series, and just two weeks ago he successfully pushed the stock car series to ban the Confederate flag at its venues. NASCAR has launched an investigation.
June 22, 2020 4:08 am
NEW YORK (AP) – Joel Shumacher, who shepherded the so-called”Brat Pack” to the big screen in “St. Elmo’s Fire” and directed two 1990s-era “Batman” films, has died. A representative says the director died Monday at 80 after a year-long battle with cancer. Schumacher’s credits included “The Lost Boys” and “Batman Forever,” “Batman & Robin,” “A Time to Kill” and “Flatliners.” Though Schumacher’s “Batman” films were trashed by critics and have been endlessly mocked, they’ve achieved cult status in later years as entertaining, self-aware, and playful offshoots of the Batman mythology in the spirit of Bob Kane.
June 22, 2020 4:07 am
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) – Teenagers, TikTok users and Korean pop music fans may have trolled the president of the United States. For more than a week before Donald Trump’s first campaign rally in three months on Saturday in Tulsa, Oklahoma, these tech-savvy groups have been mobilizing to reserve tickets for an event they had no intention of attending. While it’s unlikely they were responsible for the low turnout, their antics may have inflated the campaign’s expectations for attendance numbers. Democrat Joe Biden’s campaign says the turnout was a sign of weakening voter support. The Trump campaign blamed the “fake news media” for “warning people away from the rally” because of the coronavirus.
June 22, 2020 4:02 am
SCOTT TOWNSHIP, Pa. (AP) – Authorities say a woman and two men trying to get a car started in western Pennsylvania were struck by another car, sending four people to hospitals in critical condition. Allegheny County police say the crash happened at about 4:45 p.m. Saturday in Scott Township. Investigators said a subcompact car was heading south on Noblestown Road when it struck the 37-year-old woman, her 70-year-old father and his 61-year-old friend as the two men were working on the battery of the woman’s car. Authorities said the three and the 47-year-old female driver of the subcompact car were transported to hospitals in critical condition.
June 22, 2020 4:01 am
PITTSBURGH (AP) – August Wilson is going Hollywood, after a fashion. The famed playwright from Pittsburgh will be honored with a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame along Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street in Los Angeles. Wilson was among the Hollywood Walk of Fame’s 2021 honorees announced last week. With ceremonies on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, however, even some 2020 honorees are still awaiting their Hollywood moment. August Wilson wrote mostly about the 20th-century African-American experience from growing up in Pittsburgh’s historically black Hill District
