AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
Small businesses worldwide fight for survival amid pandemic
Hour after hour in the dark, Chander Shekhar´s mind raced ahead to morning.
More than three months had dragged by since the coronavirus forced Shekhar to shut down his business - a narrow, second-floor shop racked with vibrantly colored saris, on a block in New York´s Jackson Heights neighborhood once thronged with South Asian immigrant shoppers. Today, finally, he and other merchants were allowed to reopen their doors.
But they were returning to an area where COVID-19 had killed hundreds, leaving sidewalks desolate and storefronts to gather dust. Now fears were fading. But no one knew what lay ahead on this late-June Monday as owners raised the gates at jewelry stores, tandoori restaurants and bridal shops clustered near Roosevelt Avenue´s elevated train line. Overnight, the stress had woken Shekhar nine times.
"You cannot tell everybody it´s safe to come and buy from us. This is an invisible enemy that nobody can see," said Shekhar, a father of two anxious about the shop´s $6,000 monthly rent. "This is my baby," he said, of the store, Shopno Fashion. "I have worked hard for this for more than 20 years, then I got my shop. It´s not easy to leave it."
Amid the deaths of friends and customers, Shekhar is reluctant to complain. And he knows he is not alone. As economies around the world reopen, legions of small businesses that help define and sustain neighborhoods are struggling. The stakes for their survival are high: The U.N. estimates that businesses with fewer than 250 workers account for two-thirds of employment worldwide.
___
Supreme Court clears way for execution of federal prisoner
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (AP) - The Trump administration was moving ahead early Tuesday with the execution of the first federal prison inmate in 17 years after a divided Supreme Court reversed lower courts and ruled federal executions could proceed.
Daniel Lewis Lee had been scheduled to receive a lethal dose of the powerful sedative pentobarbital at 4 p.m. EDT Monday. But a court order issued Monday morning by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan prevented Lee´s execution.
A federal appeals court in Washington refused the administration´s plea to step in, leaving the hold in place, before the Supreme Court acted by a 5-4 vote. Still, Lee´s lawyers insisted the execution could not go forward after midnight under federal regulations.
With conservatives in the majority, the court said in an unsigned opinion that the prisoners' "executions may proceed as planned." The four liberal justices dissented.
Lee's execution was scheduled for about 4 a.m. EDT Tuesday, according to court papers.
___
China accuses US of sowing discord in South China Sea
BEIJING (AP) - China on Tuesday described a U.S. rejection of its maritime claims in the South China Sea as completely unjustified and accused the U.S. of attempting to sow discord between China and the Southeast Asian countries with which it has territorial disputes.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington said that a statement issued by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo deliberately distorts the facts and disregards the efforts of China and the others to achieve peace and stability in the South China Sea.
"The United States is not a country directly involved in the disputes. However, it has kept interfering in the issue," the embassy said on its website. "Under the pretext of preserving stability, it is flexing muscles, stirring up tension and inciting confrontation in the region."
Pompeo, in a statement released Monday, said the U.S. now regards virtually all Chinese maritime claims outside its internationally recognized waters to be illegitimate. The new position does not involve disputes over land features that are above sea level, which are considered to be "territorial" in nature.
Previous U.S. policy had been to insist that maritime disputes between China and its smaller neighbors be resolved peacefully through U.N.-backed arbitration.
___
Quarantine loopholes bring fresh efforts to fight outbreaks
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) - An Australian state is toughening its punishments for anyone caught violating coronavirus quarantines, including jailing rule breakers for up to six months - a warning that follows rising virus cases worldwide and violations of restrictions that are now being further tightened.
The current set of fines for breaking a mandatory 14-day hotel quarantine for some visitors or lying about their whereabouts "appears not to be enough" in some cases, Queensland state Deputy Premier Steven Miles said.
With higher fines and a threat of six months´ imprisonment, "I hope that will demonstrate to the public just how serious we are about enforcing these measures," Miles said.
Queensland shut its state borders to successfully contain the coronavirus outbreak, but reopened to all but residents of Victoria, Australia's worst affected region, two weeks ago.
The city of Melbourne in Victoria recorded 270 new coronavirus infections overnight, with more than 4,000 cases now active across the state. Melbourne is one week into a six-week lockdown in an attempt to stop a spike in new cases there.
___
White House turns on Fauci as Trump minimizes virus spike
WASHINGTON (AP) - With U.S. virus cases spiking and the death toll mounting, the White House is working to undercut its most trusted coronavirus expert, playing down the danger as President Donald Trump pushes to get the economy moving before he faces voters in November.
The U.S. has become a cautionary tale across the globe, with once-falling cases now spiraling. However, Trump suggests the severity of the pandemic that has killed more than 135,000 Americans is being overstated by critics to damage his reelection chances.
Trump on Monday retweeted a post by Chuck Woolery, once the host of TV's "Love Connection," claiming that "Everyone is lying" about COVID-19. Woolery's tweet attacked not just the media and Democrats but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and most doctors "that we are told to trust. I think it´s all about the election and keeping the economy from coming back, which is about the election."
At the same time, the president and top White House aides are ramping up attacks against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert. Fauci has been increasingly sidelined by the White House as he sounds alarms about the virus, a most unwelcome message at a time when Trump is focused on pushing an economic rebound.
"We haven´t even begun to see the end of it yet," he said in a talk with the dean of Stanford's medical school Monday, calling for a "step back" in reopenings.
___
Masks for kids? Schools confront the politics of reopening
On one side are parents saying, let kids be kids. They object to masks and social distancing in classrooms this fall - arguing both could hurt their children´s well-being - and want schools to reopen full time.
On the other side are parents and teachers who call for safeguards that would have been unimaginable before the coronavirus pandemic: part-time school, face coverings for all or a fully online curriculum.
The impassioned tug-of-wars have put educators in the middle of an increasingly politicized debate on how best to reopen schools this fall, a daunting challenge as infections spike in the U.S.
"Don´t tell me my kid has to wear a mask," said Kim Sherman, a mother of three in the central California city of Clovis who describes herself as very conservative and very pro-Trump. "I don´t need to be dictated to to tell me how best to raise my kids."
With many districts still finalizing how they may reopen, President Donald Trump has ramped up pressure to get public schools back in business, threatening to withhold federal funding from those that don't resume in-person classes. Without evidence, he's accused Democrats of wanting schools closed because of politics, not health.
___
Governor shuts bars, dining as virus hits California hard
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) - As the coronavirus swept California with renewed ferocity, the governor once again closed bars, inside dining and, for much of the state, gyms, indoor church services and hair and nail salons in an effort to prevent COVID-19 cases from swamping hospitals.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a sweeping set of closures on Monday as the state recorded more than 329,000 cases and deaths topped 7,000. Hospitalizations have surged by 28% in the past two weeks, including a 20% increase in patients requiring intensive care.
That was lower than a 50% hike seen about a week ago but Newsom said he was concerned about the future and implored people to maintain social distance, wear masks in public and stay home when possible.
"COVID-19 is not going away anytime soon, until there is a vaccine and or an effective therapy," Newsom said.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles and San Diego school districts, the two largest in California with a combined K-12 student population of about 720,000, announced Monday they won´t bring students back to classrooms next month because of rising coronavirus hospitalizations and infection rates.
___
Blame game? Cuomo takes heat over NY nursing home study
NEW YORK (AP) - New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is facing blistering criticism over an internal report that found no strong link between a controversial state directive that sent thousands of recovering coronavirus patients into nursing homes and some of the nation´s deadliest nursing home outbreaks.
Scientists, health care professionals and elected officials assailed the report released last week for failing to address the actual impact of the March 25 order, which by the state´s own count ushered more than 6,300 recovering virus patients into nursing homes at the height of the pandemic.
And some accused the state of using the veneer of a scientific study to absolve the Democratic governor by reaching the same conclusion he had been floating for weeks - that unknowingly infected nursing home employees were the main drivers of the outbreaks.
"I think they got a lot of political pushback and so their response was, `This isn´t a problem. Don´t worry about it,´" said Rupak Shivakoti, an epidemiologist at Columbia University´s Mailman School of Public Health.
"It seems like the Department of Health is trying to justify what was an untenable policy," added Charlene Harrington, a professor emerita of nursing and sociology at the University of California at San Francisco.
___
Global vaccine plan may allow rich countries to buy more
LONDON (AP) - Politicians and public health leaders have publicly committed to equitably sharing any coronavirus vaccine that works, but the top global initiative to make that happen may allow rich countries to reinforce their own stockpiles while making fewer doses available for poor ones.
Activists warn that without stronger attempts to hold political, pharmaceutical and health leaders accountable, vaccines will be hoarded by rich countries in an unseemly race to inoculate their populations first. After the recent uproar over the United States purchasing a large amount of a new COVID-19 drug, some predict an even more disturbing scenario if a successful vaccine is developed.
Dozens of vaccines are being researched, and some countries - including Britain, France, Germany and the U.S. - already have ordered hundreds of millions of doses before the vaccines are even proven to work.
While no country can afford to buy doses of every potential vaccine candidate, many poor ones can't afford to place such speculative bets at all.
The key initiative to help them is led by Gavi, a public-private partnership started by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that buys vaccines for about 60% of the world´s children.
___
5 things to know today
Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
1. DEATH PENALTY GETS GREEN LIGHT The Trump administration was moving ahead early Tuesday with the execution of the first federal prison inmate in 17 years after a divided Supreme Court reversed lower courts and ruled federal executions could proceed.
2. FINDING A JOB CAN BE HARD WORK A new White House-backed ad campaign aims to encourage people who are unemployed or unhappy in their jobs or careers to go out and "find something new."
3. STRAINED DIPLOMACY IN SOUTH CHINA SEA China is accusing the U.S. of attempting to sow discord between Beijing and the Southeast Asian countries with which it has territorial disputes.
4. LIBERAL CALIFORNIA CITY'S POLICE REFORM Berkeley is considering a proposal to shift traffic enforcement from armed police to unarmed city workers in a bid to curb racial profiling and reduce law enforcement encounters that can turn deadly, especially for Black drivers.
