Estimated read time: 8-9 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI REQUIRES MASKS IN CHAMBER AFTER GOP MEMBER TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will require that masks be worn on the House floor after a Republican member of Congress tested positive for the coronavirus. The member, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, often shunned wearing masks and was known to vote without one.
Pelosi announced on the House floor yesterday that all members will be required to wear a mask and one will be provided if they forget. She said failure to wear a mask is a “serious breach of decorum” and members could be removed from the chamber if they aren’t wearing one. They will be able to temporarily remove them while speaking, however.
Pelosi says masking wearing is “a sign of respect for the health, safety and well-being of others present in the chamber and in surrounding areas."
Gohmert tested positive just before he was scheduled to travel to his home state with President Donald Trump. He was forced to abruptly cancel his plans, and immediately faced criticism from colleagues for not always wearing a mask on Capitol Hill, where face coverings are not mandatory and testing is sparse. “A selfish act,” one lawmaker said.
The 66-year-old Gohmert, one of the House’s most conservative and outspoken members, told a Texas news station he tested positive at the White House and planned to self-quarantine. He is at least the 10th member of Congress known to have tested positive for the coronavirus.
An eight-term lawmaker, Gohmert participated in the House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday where Attorney General William Barr testified. Before the hearing, Gohmert was seen approaching the meeting room a few feet behind Barr, and neither man was wearing a mask.
BATTLE AGAINST CORONAVIRUS COMES UP AGAINST CONSPIRACIES, HOAXES, MYTHS AND SHAMS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — As the world races to find a vaccine and a treatment for COVID-19, there is seemingly no antidote in sight for the burgeoning outbreak of coronavirus conspiracy theories, hoaxes, anti-mask myths and sham cures.
The phenomenon, unfolding largely on social media, escalated this week when President Donald Trump retweeted a false video about an anti-malaria drug being a cure for the virus and it was revealed that Russian intelligence is spreading disinformation about the crisis through English-language websites.
Experts worry the torrent of bad information is dangerously undermining efforts to slow the virus, whose death toll in the U.S. hit 150,000 Wednesday, by far the highest in the world, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. Over a half-million people have died in the rest of the world.
Hard-hit Florida reported 216 deaths, breaking the single-day record it set a day earlier. Texas confirmed 313 additional deaths, pushing its total to 6,190, while South Carolina’s death toll passed 1,500 this week, more than doubling over the past month. In Georgia, hospitalizations have more than doubled since July 1.
“It is a real challenge in terms of trying to get the message to the public about what they can really do to protect themselves and what the facts are behind the problem,” said Michael Osterholm, head of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy.
He said the fear is that “people are putting themselves in harm’s way because they don’t believe the virus is something they have to deal with.”
Rather than fade away in the face of new evidence, the claims have flourished, fed by mixed messages from officials, transmitted by social media, amplified by leaders like Trump and mutating when confronted with contradictory facts.
SECOND MINNEAPOLIS OFFICER INVOLVED IN FLOYD DEATH
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A second former Minneapolis police officer charged in the death of George Floyd will seek to have the charges against him dismissed.
Defense attorney Robert Paule filed a motion yesterday saying Tou Thao will ask the judge to dismiss the charges at a hearing on Sept. 11. An attorney for former officer Thomas Lane, Earl Gray, also has filed a motion saying he will argue to dismiss the charges against his client.
Paule said he will argue that the charges against Thao are not supported by probable cause. Prosecutors must prove that Thao knew former officer Derek Chauvin and others were going to commit a crime and “intended his presence or actions to further the commission of that crime,” Paule said in his motion.
Paule said Thao’s body camera video will show the lack of probable cause. Thao, 34, was seen in cellphone video standing near a crowd of bystanders as Chauvin pressed his knee to Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes on May 25 even after Floyd, who was Black, pleaded for air.
Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter. Thao, Lane and another officer, J. Kueng, are charged with aiding and abetting both second-degree murder and manslaughter. All four officers were fired.
USPS CONSIDERING CLOSING POST OFFICES AHEAD OF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service is considering closing post offices across the country, sparking concerns ahead of an anticipated surge of mail-in ballots in the 2020 elections, U.S. Sen Joe Manchin and a union leader said yesterday.
Manchin said he has received numerous reports from post offices and colleagues about service cuts or looming closures in West Virginia and elsewhere, prompting him to send a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy asking for an explanation.
The possible cutbacks come as DeJoy, a major donor to President Donald Trump who took control of the agency last month, moves to eliminate overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers, potentially causing a delay in mail deliveries. A recent document from the Postal Service, obtained by The Associated Press, described the need for an “operational pivot” to make the cash-strapped agency financially stable.
A spokesman for the Postal Service referred questions to a prior statement from DeJoy, which said the agency “has experienced over a decade of financial losses, with no end in sight, and we face an impending liquidity crisis.” The statement goes on to say that “it is critical that the Postal Service take a fresh look at our operations and make necessary adjustments.”
RGB UNDERGOES NON-SURGICAL MEDICAL PROCEDURE IN NEW YORK
WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has undergone a nonsurgical medical procedure in New York City and expects to be released from a hospital there by the end of the week.
The nation's high court said in a statement last night that Ginsburg, who is 87, had a minimally invasive procedure to “revise a bile duct stent” at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The stent had originally been placed last August, when Ginsburg was treated for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas.
The statement said that, according to Ginsburg’s doctors, “stent revisions are common occurrences and the procedure, performed using endoscopy and medical imaging guidance, was done to minimize the risk of future infection.”
The procedure follows another one earlier this month at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to clean out the stent. Ginsburg had gone to the hospital after experiencing fever and chills and was treated for a possible infection.
The statement from the court says Ginsburg “is resting comfortably and expects to be released from the hospital by the end of the week.”
Ginsburg, the oldest justice on the nine-member court, announced earlier this month that she is receiving chemotherapy for a recurrence of cancer. The liberal justice, who has had four earlier bouts with cancer, said her treatment so far has succeeded in reducing lesions on her liver.
JOHN LEWIS PRAISED AT FUNERAL IN ATLANTA
ATLANTA (AP) — John Lewis was lauded as a warrior and a hero during a ceremony yesterday at the Georgia Capitol, where the civil rights icon who represented much of Atlanta in Congress will lie in repose before a funeral service that at least two former presidents are expected to attend.
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said Lewis called on “America to be America again,” referencing the poem in which Langston Hughes reproaches the country for not living up to its ideals.
“Until his last days, he was calling on America to be America again in his words and deeds,” she said, citing his visit to the Black Lives Matter street mural in Washington, D.C., as well as a video conference he participated in with former President Barack Obama.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called Lewis a “beloved Georgian, an American hero and a friend to all who sought a better, fairer, more united society.”
“And even today, as our country faces a public health crisis and new challenges rooted in injustice, I know that the example left behind by Congressman Lewis ... will inspire all of us to do the hard necessary work to overcome our shared challenges and emerge stronger,” Kemp said.
Kemp presented the Lewis family with a folded Georgia state flag.
Among the other guests at the ceremony was Martin Luther King III, the son of the great civil rights leader who Lewis joined on the podium in the March on Washington.
King brought his 12-year-old daughter, Yolanda, saying her presence was an appropriate tribute to Lewis.
“Whenever he saw young people, he always made a bee line for them to encourage them. His entire career was about lifting up the next generation,” King said.
People lined the streets as the hearse carrying Lewis’ body moved through downtown. It stopped briefly in front of a mural of Lewis with the word “Hero” before arriving at the state Capitol, where it was met by Kemp and Bottoms.
Members of the public later filed into the state Capitol rotunda to pay their respects to Lewis, pausing to take photographs in front of his flag-draped coffin. It lay underneath a life-size portrait of former Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens.
The funeral service in Atlanta is set for today, followed by a private burial.
Copyright © 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
