Sep 23, 2020
AP MORNING WIRE
Good morning. In today’s AP Morning Wire:
- US death toll from coronavirus surpasses ‘unfathomable’ 200,000.
- UK’s Johnson warns pandemic restrictions to last through winter.
- Senate Republicans plan vote on Trump’s court pick before election.
- UNGA: World leaders who skipped past meetings get their moment.
TAMER FAKAHANY
DEPUTY DIRECTOR – GLOBAL NEWS COORDINATION, LONDON
The Rundown
AP PHOTO/MARK LENNIHAN
US hits 200,000 virus dead, Trump says it’s ”a shame”; Britain faces pandemic winter of discontent
The staggering number of ccronavirus dead in the United States — 200,000 — is equivalent to a 9/11 attack every day for 67 days or around 600 fatal jetliner crashes. It is roughly equal to the population of Salt Lake City, Utah or Huntsville, Alabama.
“It is completely unfathomable that we’ve reached this point,” a Johns Hopkins University public health researcher said, eight months after the scourge first reached the world’s richest nation.
And while virus deaths in the U.S. continue at close to 770 a day on average, a widely cited model from the University of Washington predicts the U.S. toll will double to 400,000 by the end of the year as schools and colleges reopen and cold weather sets in, reports Carla K. Johnson. A vaccine is unlikely to become widely available until 2021.
The once-unimaginable grim milestone came six weeks before an election that is certain to be in part a referendum on President Donald Trump’s handling of the crisis.
Trump said it was “a shame” the U.S. reached 200,000 deaths but claimed the toll could have been much worse. “I think if we didn’t do it properly and do it right, you’d have 2.5 million deaths,” the president said.
VIDEO: Trump says 200,000 virus deaths milestone ”a shame.”
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said, “It didn’t have to be this bad. There’s a devastating human toll to this pandemic — and we can’t forget that.”
Milestone Politics: The Trump administration has prioritized politics over science at key moments over the past six months, refusing to follow expert advice that might have contained the spread of the novel coronavirus. Trump and his people routinely dismissed experts’ assessments of the gravity of the pandemic and of the measures needed to bring it under control. They have tried to muzzle scientists who dispute the administration’s rosy spin, Jason Dearen reports.
U.K.’s Winter of Discontent: British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has appealed for a “spirit of togetherness” through the winter as he unveiled a series of new restrictions on everyday life to get on top of a dramatic spike in coronavirus cases. Warning that the new restrictions could last for six months, Johnson said that pubs, restaurants and other entertainment venues in England will have to close at 10 p.m. It was a speech with deliberate echoes of World War II communal spirit, Jill Lawless and Pan Pylas report from London.
Sierra Leone Doctor’s Mission: Dr. Mamadu Baldeh is one of only four physicians managing the COVID-19 unit at Sierra Leone’s Connaught Hospital, and the only one doing so while still overseeing the infectious diseases unit. Despite the loss of colleagues, Baldeh is fighting not only to save his coronavirus patients but also to provide quality care for those afflicted with other infectious diseases as he and other health care workers fight for a better system in the West African nation, Carley Petesch reports.
AP PHOTO/STEVEN SENNE
Senate GOP plans vote on Trump’s court pick before election; Thousands expected to honor Ginsburg at Supreme Court
Senate Republicans, with the votes in hand, are racing ahead with plans to confirm President Trump’s pick to quickly fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Supreme Court.
Trump is set to announce his nominee Saturday. Appeals court judge Amy Coney Barret, a favorite of the right-wing, is considered the favorite.
Conservatives are pushing for action before Election Day, Nov. 3. Democrats say it’s too close to the election and that whoever wins the presidency should pick the court nominee.
Confirmation proceedings will spark a heated debate even as early voting for president is underway in several states,
On the campaign trail this week with Joe Biden, the generational fight to fill a suddenly vacant Supreme Court seat has become an afterthought. On the other side, President Donald Trump has found a new rallying cry.
The conflicting messages from the Republican president and his Democratic challenger reflect a broader fight to define the lens through which voters view the 2020 contest, report Steve Peoples, Zeke Miller and Alexandra Jaffe.
Supreme Court Changes: The prospect that Trump and Senate Republicans will try to fill Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat before the year is out has ignited a call for major changes on the court, including expanding the number of justices. Some Senate Democrats previously averse to a larger court said in the wake of Ginsburg’s death Friday at age 87 that the Republican push to quickly fill the high court vacancy could be a breaking point. But Joe Biden is not yet on board, Mark Sherman reports.
Picking a Justice: Barack Obama spent hours reading legal briefings as he mulled candidates for the Supreme Court. Bill Clinton savored building a personal connection with Ruth Bader Ginsburg before selecting her. And Ronald Reagan offered a personal touch in making his case for Anthony Kennedy after his first two picks for a vacancy went sideways. By contrast, Donald Trump is flying by the seat-of-his-pants with his frequent public deliberations on replacing Ginsburg, a process that’s moving at warp speed.
Ginsburg Memorial: Thousands of people are expected to pay their respects at the Supreme Court to the late women’s rights champion, leader of the court’s liberal bloc and feminist icon who died last week. The court is closed to the public because of the pandemic. But the justice’s former colleagues, family, close friends and the public will have the chance today and Thursday to pass by the casket of the second woman on the Supreme Court.
UNTV VIA AP
World leaders who skipped past UN meetings get their moment; Global powers clash, virus stirs anger at virtual debate
For some world leaders, the pandemic brings an opportunity of sorts on the global stage.
This year’s virtual U.N. gathering means those who generally wouldn’t appear have a chance to address the world. Take Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, who missed last year’s event. Today, Maduro will speak from the comfort of the presidential palace in Caracas without having to worry about getting arrested if he comes to New York, Christine Armario reports.
Others who will speak at the General Assembly for the first time include Saudi Arabia’s 84-year-old King Salman and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has defended his drug crackdown that left more than 5,700 mostly poor people dead.
On the first day of leader speeches, the head of the global body exhorted nations to unite and tackle the era’s towering problems: the coronavirus, the “economic calamity” it unleashed and the risk of a new Cold War between the United States and China.
As Secretary-General Antonio Guterres opened the first virtual “general debate” of the General Assembly, the yawning gaps of politics and anger became evident. China and Iran clashed with the U.S., and leaders expressed frustration and outrage at the handling of the pandemic, Edith M. Lederer reports.
They said it: Leaders at the virtual UN, in their own words.
VIDEO: UN chief says poverty rising for first time in 30 years.
Telling COVID’s Story: World leaders participating this week are presenting their own visions of the fight against the pandemic, both in their respective countries and around the world while sometimes criticizing other nations and arguing the U.N. itself needs reform. While some heads of state may present a rosy picture of their handling of the crisis, as their political futures at home depend on it, there will also likely be calls to arms around the development of a coronavirus vaccine, mitigating inequality and cooperation between nations to stop the spread of a virus that has killed nearly 1 million people, Peter Prengaman reports.
AP PHOTO/HASSAN AMMAR
Lebanon Blast Aftermath
An image captured by an AP photographer showing a dust-covered girl carried against a man’s shoulder, a gash bleeding from her forehead, has come to symbolize the devastation of the Aug. 4 blast at the Beirut port. The explosion took 193 lives and wounded 6,500.
Among the dead are at least 43 Syrians, plunging a war-weary community into further misery. Zeina Karam and Hassan Ammar have this moving exclusive story behind the photo which captures the particular pain of Syrian refugee families in Lebanon, which is now home to about a million who fled the horrors of war in their own neighboring country.
Other Top Stories
Louisville is preparing for more protests and possible unrest in advance of the state attorney general’s announcement about whether he will charge officers in Breonna Taylor’s shooting death. The Metro Police Department said that authorities were placing barricades around Jefferson Square Park, where many of the demonstrations have been held, and the perimeter of the downtown area. Taylor, a Black emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times March 13 by officers who entered her home using a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. No drugs were found inside.
A lack of firefighting resources in the hours after a wildfire was sparked allowed the fast-moving blaze to make an unprecedented run through Southern California mountains and eventually find fuel in old-growth trees to become one of Los Angeles County’s largest fires ever. The Bobcat Fire has burned for more than two weeks and was still threatening more than 1,000 homes after scorching its way through brush and timber down into the Mojave Desert. It’s one of dozens of major blazes across the West.
The German hospital in Berlin treating Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny for poisoning says his condition improved enough for him to be released from the facility.
Navalny, the most visible opponent of President Vladimir Putin, was flown to Germany two days after falling ill in August on a domestic flight in Russia. German chemical weapons experts have determined he was poisoned with a Soviet-era nerve agent. Navalny was kept in an induced coma for more than two weeks. Members of his team accused the Kremlin of involvement in the poisoning, charges that Russian officials have vehemently denied.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim says he has secured a majority in Parliament to form a new government in Malaysia that is “strong, stable and formidable.” If he succeeds, it will mark a dramatic comeback for Anwar after his roller-coaster political journey. Once a high flyer in the ruling party, Anwar was convicted of homosexual sodomy and corruption after a power struggle with then- Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in 1998. He was imprisoned for a second time for sodomy in 2014. Anwar and his supporters have long denied the allegations.
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