AP News in Brief at 9:04 p.m. EDT

Massive Beirut blast kills more than 70, injures thousands

BEIRUT (AP) — A massive explosion rocked Beirut on Tuesday, flattening much of the city's port, damaging buildings across the capital and sending a giant mushroom cloud into the sky. More than 70 people were killed and 3,000 injured, with bodies buried in the rubble, officials said.

It was not clear what caused the blast, which struck with the force of a 3.5 magnitude earthquake, according to Germany’s geosciences center GFZ, and was heard and felt as far away as Cyprus more than 200 kilometers (180 miles) across the Mediterranean. Lebanon's interior minister said it appeared that a large cache of ammonium nitrate in the port had detonated.

The sudden devastation overwhelmed a country already struggling with both the coronavirus pandemic and a severe economic and financial crisis. For hours after the explosion, the most destructive in all of Lebanon’s troubled history, ambulances rushed in from around the country to carry away the wounded. Hospitals quickly filled beyond capacity, pleading for blood supplies, and generators to keep their lights on.

For blocks around the port, where the explosion took place, bloodied residents staggered through streets lined with overturned cars and littered with rubble from shattered buildings. Windows and doors were blown out kilometers (miles) away, including at the city's only international airport. Army helicopters helped battle fires raging at Beirut’s port.

Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi told a local TV station that it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. Witnesses reported seeing an orange cloud like that which appears when toxic nitrogen dioxide gas is released after an explosion involving nitrates.

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'Too many are selfish': US nears 5 million virus cases

BOSTON (AP) — Fourth of July gatherings, graduation parties, no-mask weddings, crowded bars — there are reasons the U.S. has racked up more than 155,000 coronavirus deaths, by far the most of any country, and is fast approaching an off-the-charts 5 million confirmed infections, easily the highest in the world.

Many Americans have resisted wearing masks and social distancing, calling such precautions an overreaction or an infringement on their liberty. Public health experts say the problem has been compounded by confusing and inconsistent guidance from politicians and a patchwork quilt of approaches to containing the scourge by county, state and federal governments.

“The thing that’s maddening is country after country and state after state have shown us how we can contain the virus,” said Dr. Jonathan Quick of the Duke Global Health Institute. “It’s not like we don’t know what works. We do.”

Confirmed infections in the U.S. have topped 4.7 million, with new cases running at more than 60,000 a day. While that's down from a peak of well over 70,000 in the second half of July, cases are on the rise in 26 states, many in the South and West, and deaths are climbing in 35 states.

On average, the number of COVID-19 deaths per day in the U.S. over the past two weeks has gone from about 780 to 1,056, according to an Associated Press analysis.

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Tropic storm Isaias whips up eastern US, killing at least 4

WINDSOR, N.C. (AP) — At least four people were killed as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain Tuesday along the U.S. East Coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, where it caused floods and fires that displaced dozens of people.

Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Authorities said two others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland and New York City.

Isaias sustained top winds of up to 65 mph (105 kph) more than 18 hours after coming ashore, but it was down to 50 mph max winds as of 8 p.m. EDT Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm's center was passing through the middle of Vermont, moving north-northeast at about 40 mph (65 kph).

As Isaias sped northward, the hurricane center warned of flash flood threats in New York's Hudson River Valley and the potential for severe river flooding elsewhere in the mid-Atlantic region.

In Philadelphia, the Schuylkill River was projected to crest early Wednesday at 15.4 feet (4.7 meters), its highest level in more than 150 years. By Tuesday night, the river had already overtopped its banks in low-lying Manayunk, turning bar-lined Main Street into a coffee-colored canal.

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Chasm grows between Trump and government coronavirus experts

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the early days of the coronavirus crisis, President Donald Trump was flanked in the White House briefing room by a team of public health experts in a seeming portrait of unity to confront the disease that was ravaging the globe.

But as the crisis has spread to all reaches of the country, with escalating deaths and little sense of endgame, a chasm has widened between the president and the experts. The result: daily delivery of a mixed message to the public at a moment when coherence is most needed.

Trump and his political advisers insist that the United States has no rival in its response to the pandemic. They point to the fact that the U.S. has administered more virus tests than any other nation and that the percentage of deaths among those infected is among the lowest.

“Right now, I think it’s under control,” Trump said during an interview with Axios. He added, “We have done a great job.”

But the surge in infections, hospitalizations and deaths tells a different story. And it suggests that the president is increasingly out of step with the federal government’s own medical and public health experts.

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Questions being raised after Kodak's stock has a big moment

Eastman Kodak's potentially lucrative deal to help the U.S. government make more generic drugs domestically is threatening to turn into a regulatory headache for the fallen photography giant.

Kodak's depressed stock price surged last week before the company announced its plans to work with the President Donald Trump's administration in exchange for a $765 million loan. That prompted Sen. Elizabeth Warren to send a Monday letter asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate whether insider trading laws have been broken.

The SEC is now in the early stages of a probe, according to a report published Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal. The newspaper cited unidentified people familiar with the matter.

The SEC declined to comment on the report.

Kodak said Tuesday that the Rochester, New York, company intends to cooperate with any potential inquiries, without saying whether it has been contacted by the SEC.

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Worries about 2020 census' accuracy grow with cut schedule

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Census Bureau is cutting its schedule for data collection for the 2020 census a month short as legislation that would have extended the national head count's deadlines stalls in Congress. The move is worrying researchers, politicians and others who say the change will miss hard-to-count communities, including minorities and immigrants, and produce less trustworthy data.

The Census Bureau said late Monday that the door-knocking and ability for households to respond either online, by phone or by mail to the questionnaire will stop at the end of September instead of the end of October so that it can meet an end-of-the-year deadline to turn in numbers used for redrawing congressional districts.

Census experts, academics and civil rights activists worry the sped-up count could hurt its thoroughness and produce inaccurate data that will have lasting effects through the next decade. The count determines how $1.5 trillion in federal spending is distributed and how many congressional districts each state gets.

“This move will rush the enumeration process, result in inadequate follow-up, and undercount immigrant communities and communities of color who are historically undercounted," U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, wrote Census Bureau director Steven Dillingham in a letter Tuesday.

In the letter, Maloney, a Democrat from New York, requested interviews before her committee with eight Census Bureau officials, including two recent additions to the bureau's leadership whose appointments by the Trump administration have been sharply criticized as politically driven.

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AP PHOTOS: Terror, death, devastation in Lebanon explosion

As they watched a huge mushroom cloud rise over the seaport capital, many who felt the massive explosion in Beirut on Tuesday thought it was a nuclear detonation. Others described the popping and bursting of fireworks and a raging fire that spread to another building, triggering the blast felt kilometers (miles) away.

The explosion collapsed balconies, shattered windows and ripped bricks from buildings, killing more than 70 people and injuring more than 3,000.

A gallery of photos curated by Associated Press photographers captures the horror, devastation and reach of the explosion: Dazed people covered in blood staggering or standing motionless on streets strewn with glass and mortar; distraught men carrying the limp body of an unconscious, or possibly deceased, woman; a man with a bandage-wrapped head, his face half-hidden by blood; motorcycles and Army vehicles weaving through debris-covered streets to rescue and ferry those hurt to hospitals; small clusters of people carrying stretchers bearing the wounded; thick black smoke billowing from the explosion site.

Interior Minister Mohammed Fahmi told a local TV station that it appeared the blast was caused by the detonation of more than 2,700 tons of ammonium nitrate that had been stored in a warehouse at the dock ever since it was confiscated from a cargo ship in 2014. Witnesses reported seeing an orange cloud like that which appears when toxic nitrogen dioxide gas is released after an explosion involving nitrates.

The explosion also happened amid rising tensions between Israel and the militant Hezbollah group along Lebanon’s southern border. Israel denied any responsibility.

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Minneapolis mayor: City seeks right mentors for new officers

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said the city is working to pair new police officers with “the right individuals” for field training following George Floyd's death, in which a senior officer rejected a younger colleague's question about how Floyd was being restrained.

In an interview with The Associated Press as part of its AP Newsmakers series, Frey said the city wants to make sure that the training new officers get isn't undermined once they go into the field.

“We need to make sure that those who are in a supervisory role, those that are riding with new officers with new cadets, are the right individuals to be role models,” Frey said. “You learn from who your role models are, and that can be a good thing and that can also be a bad thing.”

Floyd, a 47-year-old Black man who was in handcuffs, died May 25 after Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee against Floyd’s neck for nearly eight minutes as Floyd pleaded for air. Chauvin, who is white, is charged with second-degree murder. Three other officers who were at the scene — Thomas Lane, Tou Thao and J. Kueng — are charged with aiding and abetting.

Attorneys for Lane and Kueng have portrayed the two officers as rookies who deferred to the far more senior Chauvin. Body camera video shows as Floyd repeatedly said he couldn’t breathe, Lane asked Chauvin whether the officers should turn Floyd from his stomach to his side. Chauvin responded that they would keep Floyd as he was.

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Trump encourages mail voting in key battleground Florida

WASHINGTON (AP) — In an abrupt reversal, President Donald Trump now is encouraging voters in the critical swing state of Florida to vote by mail after months of criticizing the practice, and only days after threatening to sue Nevada over a new vote-by-mail law.

His encouragement follows a surge in Democratic requests to vote for mail in Florida, a state that Trump almost certainly must win to secure a second term. Democrats currently have about 1.9 million Floridians signed up to vote by mail this November, almost 600,000 more than the Republicans’ 1.3 million, according to the Florida Secretary of State.

In 2016, both sides had about 1.3 million signed up before the general election.

“Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail!,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany rejected the notion that the president has changed his views. She said he supports absentee voting by mail for a reason, as opposed to states mailing out ballots to all voters regardless of whether they requested them. Most election officials say there is little effective difference between absentee voting and voting by mail.

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Disney to release 'Mulan' on streaming service, for a price

“Mulan” is no longer headed for a major theatrical release. The Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday that it will debut its live-action blockbuster on its subscription streaming service, Disney+, on Sept. 4.

But this is no “Hamilton”: Customers will have to pay an additional $29.99 on top of the cost of the monthly subscription to rent “Mulan." The company plans to release it in theaters in areas where Disney+ is not available.

“In order to meet the needs of consumers during this unpredictable period, we thought it was important to find alternative ways to bring this exceptional family-friendly film to them in a timely manner,” Disney CEO Bob Chapek said on the company’s earnings call. “We see this as an opportunity to bring this incredible film to a broad audience currently unable to go to movie theaters.”

The live-action remake of the animated film was one of the first major films to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Originally set for a March 27 release, “Mulan” moved to late July, then late August and was then pulled from the calendar all together as COVID-19 cases spiked through the U.S.

Along with Warner Bros.’ “Tenet,” “Mulan” was going to be one of the first major movies to open in theaters since the shutdown. Exhibitors, most of which have been closed for over four months, have been desperate for new films that would help draw wary audiences back to theaters.