AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT

Officer who shot Rayshard Brooks charged with felony murder

ATLANTA (AP) — Prosecutors brought murder charges Wednesday against the white Atlanta police officer who shot Rayshard Brooks in the back, saying that the black man posed no deadly threat and that the officer kicked him and offered no medical treatment for over 2 minutes as he lay dying on the ground.

Brooks was holding a stun gun he had snatched from officers but was running away and was 18 feet, 3 inches from Officer Garrett Rolfe when Rolfe opened fire, District Attorney Paul Howard said in announcing the charges five days after the killing outside a Wendy's restaurant rocked the city.

“I got him!” the district attorney quoted Rolfe as saying.

The felony murder charge against Rolfe carries life in prison or the death penalty, if prosecutors choose to seek it. He was also charged with 10 other offenses punishable by decades behind bars.

“We've concluded at the time that Mr. Brooks was shot that he did not pose an immediate threat of death,” Howard said.

___

US coronavirus outbreaks spur debate over personal freedoms

PHOENIX (AP) — When the coronavirus flared in China this week, the country canceled flights, suspended reopenings and described the situation as “extremely grave.” But with cases rising in some U.S. states, local officials have balked at even requiring people to wear masks.

In the United States, which has the most reported cases and deaths in the world, authorities are wrestling with balancing demands for constitutional rights and personal freedom with warnings from health officials that being lax will have deadly consequences.

China responded Wednesday to a new outbreak in Beijing by scrapping more than 60% of its flights to the capital, canceling classes and strengthening requirements for social distancing. It was a sharp retreat for the nation that declared victory over COVID-19 in March.

“This has truly rung an alarm bell for us,” Party Secretary Cai Qi told a meeting of Beijing’s Communist Party Standing Committee.

China’s response was to about 137 new cases, a fraction of the number some U.S. states see each day. In Arizona, more than 1,100 people visited emergency rooms on Tuesday alone with positive or suspected cases. Alabama is also fast running out of hospital space, leading to impassioned debate over whether to require masks. Other states that haven't mandated face coverings, like Texas and Florida, also are seeing infections soar.

___

AP-NORC poll: Sweeping change in US views of police violence

DETROIT (AP) — A dramatic shift has taken place in the nation’s opinions on policing and race, as a new poll finds that more Americans today than five years ago believe police brutality is a very serious problem that too often goes undisciplined and unequally targets black Americans.

The new findings from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research suggest the death of George Floyd and the weeks of nationwide and global protests that followed have changed perceptions in ways that previous incidents of police brutality did not.

About half of American adults now say police violence against the public is a “very” or “extremely” serious problem, up from about a third as recently as September last year. Only about 3 in 10 said the same in July 2015, just a few months after Freddie Gray, a black man, died in police custody in Baltimore.

In the latest poll, roughly 3 in 10 said police violence is a moderately serious problem. Those who say it is not a serious problem has declined from a third in 2015 to about 2 in 10 today.

Floyd, a black man, died in late May after a police officer in Minneapolis pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for several minutes. Experts say the dramatic change in opinion about police violence that has followed is an indication the country is grappling with how to confront centuries of structural racism and inequity.

___

Charleston officials to remove statue of slavery advocate

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Despite a South Carolina law protecting monuments, officials in the historic city of Charleston announced Wednesday that they plan to remove a statue of slavery advocate John C. Calhoun from a downtown square.

Mayor John Tecklenburg announced he will send a resolution to the City Council to remove the statue at a news conference on the fifth anniversary of the slaying of eight black church members and their pastor in Dylann Roof’s racist attack at a downtown Charleston church. The move comes as monuments to Confederates and other historical figures who repressed or oppressed other people are being removed across the country.

“What a beautiful show of support from our City Council," Tecklenburg said, adding that he was happy to see so many come together in the effort “not to erase our long and often tragic history but to begin to write a new and more equitable future.” The mayor anticipated the statue will go to a local museum or educational institution.

The next meeting of the Charleston City Council is scheduled for Tuesday.

After the Roof massacre, officials came together to remove the Confederate flag from its site on the Statehouse lawn. On Tuesday, the current pastor of Mother Emanuel stood with civil rights activists and politicians who called for the removal of the Calhoun statue, a 100-foot-tall (30-meter-tall) monument that presides over Francis Marion Square in the heart of the city.

___

Bolton says Trump asked China to help him get reelected

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump “pleaded” with China’s Xi Jinping during a 2019 summit to help his reelection prospects, according to a scathing new book by former Trump adviser John Bolton that accuses the president of being driven by political calculations when making national security decisions.

The White House was working furiously to block release of the book, whose China revelations carry echoes of Trump’s efforts to solicit political help from Ukraine that led to his impeachment.

Bolton, Trump's national security adviser for a 17-month period, called Trump's attempt to shift the June 2019 conversation to the U.S. election a stunning move, and wrote that it was among innumerable conversations that “formed a pattern of fundamentally unacceptable behavior that eroded the very legitimacy of the presidency.”

Deeply critical of the president and much of his senior team, Bolton wrote that because staff had served him so poorly, Trump “saw conspiracies behind rocks, and remained stunningly uninformed on how to run the White House, let alone the huge federal government.” He added that while he was at the White House, Trump typically had only two intelligence briefings a week “and in most of those, he spoke at greater length than the briefers, often on matters completely unrelated to the subjects at hand.”

The 577-page book paints an unvarnished portrait of Trump and his administration, lending the most vivid, first-person account yet of how Trump conducts himself in office. Several other former officials have written books, but they have been almost entirely flattering of the president. Other former officials have indicated they were saving their accounts of their time working for Trump until after he left office in order to speak more candidly. The Associated Press obtained a copy of Bolton's book in advance of its release next week.

___

Report: Kobe Bryant pilot may have been disoriented in fog

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The pilot of the helicopter that crashed in thick fog, killing Kobe Bryant and seven other passengers, reported he was climbing when he actually was descending, federal investigators said in documents released Wednesday.

Ara Zobayan radioed to air traffic controllers that he was climbing to 4,000 feet (1,220 meters) to get above clouds on Jan. 26 when, in fact, the helicopter was plunging toward a hillside where it crashed northwest of Los Angeles.

The report by the National Transportation Safety Board said Zobayan may have “misperceived” the angles at which he was descending and banking, which can happen when a pilot becomes disoriented in low visibility.

“Calculated apparent angles at this time show that the pilot could have misperceived both pitch and roll angles,” one report stated. "During the final descent the pilot, responding to (air traffic control), stated that they were ‘climbing to four thousand.’”

Experts said shortly after the crash that the path of the flight indicated Zobayan was disoriented.

___

Voices of protest, crying for change, ring across US, beyond

They are nurses and doctors, artists, students, construction workers, government employees; black, brown and white; young and old.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets in big cities and tiny towns in every U.S. state - and even around the world - to protest the killing of George Floyd, who died after a police officer pressed his knee into his neck as he pleaded for air.

They say they are protesting police brutality, but also the systematic racism non-white Americans have experienced since the country’s birth. Many say they marched so that one day, when their children asked what they did at this historic moment, they will be able to say they stood up for justice despite all risks.

Most say they do not support the violence, fires and burglaries that consumed some of the demonstrations, but some understand it: these are desperate acts by desperate people who have been screaming for change for generations into a world unwilling to hear them.

Yet suddenly, for a moment at least, everyone seems to be paying attention.

___

Biden calls on Trump to 'wake up' to havoc caused by virus

DARBY, Pa. (AP) — Joe Biden unleashed a stinging critique Wednesday of President Donald Trump's response to the coronavirus, calling on Trump to "wake up” to the havoc caused by the pandemic and do more to prevent further harm.

“Donald Trump wants to style himself as a wartime president," the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said at a recreation center in the Philadelphia suburbs. "Unlike any other wartime leader, he takes no responsibility, he exercises no leadership, now he has just flat surrendered the fight.”

Biden has steadily stepped up his attacks on Trump's leadership in recent weeks. But his remarks Wednesday were especially sharp, trying to counter the populism Trump hopes to ride to reelection with stern warnings about how dangerous such an approach would be.

At times pounding his podium for emphasis, Biden said the Republican president wants to declare the pandemic over even as the outbreak continues to kill Americans and disrupt the economy.

“We may lose some of the progress we’ve begun to make all because he’s lost interest,” Biden said.

___

Arizona governor facing pressure to act as virus cases surge

PHOENIX (AP) — A group of Arizona medical professionals is urging Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to take steps like requiring masks in public to slow a major increase in new coronavirus cases that has made the state a national hot spot.

The state's top Democratic politicians are also on board, with everyone from U.S. Sen. Kyrsten Sinema to mayors pushing for tougher action.

The state's biggest newspaper, The Arizona Republic, is also sounding alarms and calling for action.

So far, Ducey has resisted. Since he allowed the state's stay-home and most business closure orders to expire in mid-May, the second-term governor has taken no new steps to rein in activities like raging bar scenes and the lack of mask-wearing by many people in stores, restaurants and other public spaces.

The rising numbers may force his hand. Arizona hospitals were treating a record number of coronavirus patients Tuesday amid a surge of new cases. The state's Health Services Department reported a record number of emergency room visits for the virus as well.

___

Black Lives Matter network establishes $12M grant fund

NEW YORK (AP) — The Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation has established a fund worth more than $12 million to aid organizations fighting institutional racism, in the wake of the George Floyd protests.

On Wednesday, the foundation, which has been influential in the emergence of the broader Black Lives Matter movement, said it was setting aside $6 million in donations to support black-led grassroots organizing groups. Last week, it unveiled a separate $6.5 million fund for its network of affiliate chapters.

Beginning July 1, affiliated chapters can apply for unrestricted funding of up to $500,000 in multi-year grants, the foundation announced. Grants from both funds will be administered through a fiscal sponsor, said Kailee Scales, managing director of the foundation.

“In this watershed moment for black power building ... it is critical that we democratize giving to ensure all of us have access to the resources we need to reverse centuries of disinvestment in black communities, and invest in a future where we can all be connected, represented and free,” Scales said in a statement to The Associated Press.

According to the network’s website, the organization has more than a dozen active chapters, including Boston, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Detroit, as well as in Canada. Its newest chapter is in South Bend, Indiana.