AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EDT

Trump says virus in US will get worse before it gets better

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that the “nasty horrible’” coronavirus will get worse in the U.S. before it gets better, but he also tried to paint a rosy picture of efforts to conquer the disease that has claimed more than 140,000 American lives in just five months.

He also professed a newfound respect for the protective face masks he has seldom worn. He pulled one from his pocket in the White House briefing room but didn't put it on.

After a three-month hiatus from his freewheeling daily virus briefings, Trump returned to the podium, keeping the stage to himself without the public health experts who were staples of his previous events but keeping close to scripted remarks prepared by aides.

Besides declaring support for masks as a way to fight the pandemic, he admonished young people against crowding bars and spreading the disease.

It all marked a delayed recognition by Trump that the economic reopening he's been championing since April — and, more importantly, his reelection — were imperiled by spiking cases nationwide.

___

Trump's show of federal force sparking alarm in cities

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is using the Department of Homeland Security in unprecedented ways as he tries to bolster his law and order credentials by making a heavy-handed show of force in cities around the nation in the lead-up to the November elections.

His plan to deploy federal agents to Chicago and perhaps other Democratic-run cities where violence is spiking represents Trump's latest effort to use an agency that was created after the Sept. 11 attacks to thwart terrorists to instead supplement local law enforcement in ways that bolster his reelection chances.

Trump has already deployed Homeland Security agents to Portland on the grounds of protecting federal buildings from protesters, drawing intense criticism from local leaders who say the federal presence has only exacerbated tensions rather than promoting public safety.

“This is precisely the type of tyrannical deployment of power that the Founding Fathers were specifically worried about,” said Jeffrey A. Engel, director of Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University.

Under Trump's latest plan, yet to be publicly announced, about 150 Homeland Security Investigations agents would go to Chicago to help local law enforcement deal with a spike in crime, according to an official with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

___

Virus hits frontline workers in taxed public health system

As a veteran public health worker, Chantee Mack knew the coronavirus could kill. She already faced health challenges and didn’t want to take any chances during the pandemic. So she asked — twice — for permission to work from home.

She was deemed essential and told no.

Eight weeks later, she was dead.

Mack, a 44-year-old disease intervention specialist, lost her life this spring after COVID-19 struck the Prince George’s County Health Department in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. The coronavirus infected at least 20 department employees, some of whom had attended a staff meeting where they sat close together, union leaders said.

The spread of COVID-19 underscores the stark dangers facing the nation’s public health army — the very people charged with leading the pandemic response.

___

Tesla's spent a year terrifying, electrifying Wall Street

DETROIT (AP) — Tesla's losses were mounting last summer, massive debt payments were looming, and both Wall Street and federal regulators had run out of patience with the erratic behavior of CEO Elon Musk.

One year ago this week, shares plunged 14% after Tesla posted another quarterly loss, this one for $408 million, wiping out about $6 billion of the company's worth.

Since then the stock has blasted off like a rocket at SpaceX, another Musk-led company. The electric car and solar panel maker has successfully opened a factory in China, introduced the Model Y electric SUV, made debt payments and posted profits for three straight quarters. Musk has also toned down his inflammatory posts on Twitter that had cost him and the company $40 million in penalties from U.S. securities regulators.

Today, Tesla's market value is three times that of Ford, General Motors and Fiat Chrysler, combined. A single share of Tesla now goes for nearly $1,600 — a seven-fold increase from a year ago — making it one of the most expensive publicly traded shares in the world.

“Things just turned on a dime,” said Garrett Nelson, an analyst at CFRA who specializes in the automotive industry. “It’s just been one positive announcement after another.”

___

Facing federal agents, Portland protests find new momentum

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Mardy Widman has watched protests against racial injustice unfold in her hometown of Portland, Oregon, for more than seven weeks but stayed away because, at age 79, she feared contracting the coronavirus.

But that calculus changed for Widman when President Donald Trump sent federal law enforcement agents to the liberal city to quell violent demonstrations — a tactic he's said he'll use for other cities. On Monday, a masked Widman was in the street with more than 1,000 other Portland residents — a far larger crowd than the city had seen in recent days as it entered its eighth week of nightly protests.

“It’s like a dictatorship," Widman, a grandmother of five, said, holding up a sign that read: “Grammy says: Please feds, leave Portland.”

“I mean, that he can pick on our city mostly because of the way we vote and make an example of it for his base is very frightening," she said.

Far from tamping down the unrest, the presence of federal agents — and particularly allegations they have whisked people away in unmarked cars without probable cause — has given new momentum and a new focus to protests that had begun to devolve into smaller, chaotic crowds. The use of federal agents against the will of local officials has also set up the potential for a constitutional crisis, which could escalate if Trump sends federal agents elsewhere.

___

Biden unveils caregiver plan, says Trump 'quit' on country

NEW CASTLE, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden offered a massive plan on Tuesday to create 3 million jobs and improve care for children and the elderly as he accused President Donald Trump of having “quit” on the country during a deadly pandemic.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee promised to spend more than three quarters of a trillion dollars — $775 billion over 10 years — to increase tax credits for low-income families, bolster care-giving services for veterans and other seniors and provide preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds.

"This is about easing the squeeze on working families” and showing families the “dignity and respect they deserve,” he said during a speech in New Castle, Delaware.

It's the third plank of Biden’s larger economic recovery plan, following a $2 trillion environmental proposal he released last week and a $700 billion package unveiled the week before seeking to increase government purchasing of U.S.-based goods and invest in new research and development. Biden is attempting to illustrate for voters how the coronavirus can present opportunities for job growth and new policy priorities in contrast to Trump, who has promised to rebuild the economy stronger than ever but otherwise struggled to articulate what he hopes to accomplish with a second term.

“For all his bluster about his expertise about the economy, he’s unable to explain how he’ll help working families hit the hardest,” Biden said. He added that Trump “failed his most important test as an American president: the duty to care for you, for all of us.”

___

Asia Today: After touting virus drop, SKorea sees cases rise

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — Just days after South Korean officials hopefully declared the country’s COVID-19 epidemic was coming under control, health authorities reported 63 new cases following a dual rise in local transmissions and imported infections.

South Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday said at least 36 of the new cases came from the densely populated Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people live.

The KCDC didn’t immediately confirm whether the numbers included a new cluster of infections discovered at a front-line army unit in Pocheon, north of Seoul, where at least 13 troops have reportedly tested positive.

The KCDC said 29 of the new cases were local transmissions and tied the other 34 to international arrivals as the virus continues to spread in Asia, the United States and beyond. The government also plans to send to send two military planes to Iraq on Wednesday to evacuate around 300 South Korean construction workers amid the spread of the virus there.

The country had reported four local transmissions on Monday, which was the lowest in two months, prompting a celebratory tweet from President Moon Jae-in who said the nation was winning its fight against COVID-19.

___

Cops: 14 injured after shooting outside Chicago funeral home

CHICAGO (AP) — Fourteen people were injured, one person was being questioned and multiple suspects were being sought after gunfire erupted outside a funeral home on Chicago’s South Side where at least one squad car was present, police officials said Tuesday.

First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said mourners outside a funeral home in the Gresham neighborhood were fired upon from a passing vehicle. Carter said several targets of the shooting returned fire. The vehicle later crashed and the occupants fled in several directions. Carter said all the victims were adults.

A person of interest was being questioned Tuesday night but no arrests had been made, said police spokesman Hector Alfaro.

The victims were taken by the Chicago Fire Department to nearby hospitals in serious condition, said spokesman Larry Langford. They include at least four women between the ages of 24 and 38, one of whom was shot in the chest, police said. Other victims include a 40-year-old man who was shot in the chest, arm and forearm, and two men, 32 and 22, who were shot in a hand, police said.

Police said the shooting happened at or near the site of a funeral or post-funeral event for a man fatally shot last week in the Englewood neighborhood.

___

Virus antibodies fade fast but not necessarily protection

New research suggests that antibodies the immune system makes to fight the new coronavirus may only last a few months in people with mild illness, but that doesn’t mean protection also is gone or that it won’t be possible to develop an effective vaccine.

“Infection with this coronavirus does not necessarily generate lifetime immunity,” but antibodies are only part of the story, said Dr. Buddy Creech, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. He had no role in the work, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The immune system remembers how to make fresh antibodies if needed and other parts of it also can mount an attack, he said.

Antibodies are proteins that white blood cells called B cells make to bind to the virus and help eliminate it. The earliest ones are fairly crude but as infection goes on, the immune system becomes trained to focus its attack and to make more precise antibodies.

Dr. Otto Yang and others at the University of California, Los Angeles, measured these more precise antibodies in 30 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 and four housemates presumed to have the disease. Their average age was 43 and most had mild symptoms.

___

Safe at home? Social distancing difficult around MLB plates

Just like his strong arm and limber legs, Joe Girardi made good use of his mouth over 15 seasons as a big league catcher. So much so that slugger Chili Davis once told him to shut it.

“He was like, ‘You’re bothering me, I’m trying to hit,’” recalled Girardi, now manager of the Philadelphia Phillies. “I said, ‘Well, I’m trying to bother you, Chili.’”

Girardi doesn’t think that kind of chatter will happen as much this season amid the coronavirus pandemic.

There’s some concern that home plate could become a hot spot for transmission as baseball attempts to play a shortened 60-game season starting Thursday.

Social distancing elsewhere around the diamond is fairly easy. But with the batter, catcher and umpire gathered within a few feet of each other around home plate, it might not be possible for all parties to follow government guidance to avoid 10 to 15 minutes of close exposure to others.