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

National Guard summoned to aid cities amid police clashes

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s governor declared a state of emergency early Saturday to activate the state National Guard as violence flared in Atlanta and cities nationwide following the death in Minnesota of George Floyd after a white officer pressed a knee into his neck while taking him into custody.

Another 500 Guard soldiers were mobilized in and around Minneapolis, where Floyd died and an officer faced charges Friday in his death. But after another night of watching fires burn and businesses ransacked, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said early Saturday that he was moving to activate more than 1,000 more and was considering federal help.

The Guard was also on standby in the District of Columbia, where a crowd grew outside the White House and chanted curses at President Donald Trump. Some protesters tried to push through barriers set up by the U.S. Secret Service along Pennsylvania Avenue, and threw bottles and other objects at officers wearing riot gear, who responded with pepper spray.

A person was killed in downtown Detroit just before midnight after someone in an SUV fired shots into a crowd of protesters near the Greektown entertainment district, police said. In Portland, Oregon, protesters broke into police headquarters and authorities said they lit a fire inside. In Virginia's capital, a police cruiser was set on fire outside Richmond police headquarters, and a city transit spokeswoman said a bus set ablaze was “a total loss,” news outlets reported.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp tweeted that up to 500 members of the Guard would deploy immediately “to protect people & property in Atlanta.” He said he acted at the request of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who earlier appealed in vain for calm.

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Thousands ignore Minneapolis curfew as U.S. protests spread

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Thousands of protesters ignored a curfew and vows of a forceful police response to take to the Minneapolis streets for a fourth straight night, as the anger stoked by the police killing of George Floyd spread to more cities across the U.S.

The Pentagon on Saturday ordered the Army to put military police units on alert to head to the city on short notice at President Donald Trump’s request, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders who did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations. The rare step came as the violence spread to other cities: a man shot dead in Detroit, police cars battered in Atlanta and skirmishes with police in New York City.

Criminal charges filed Friday morning against the white officer who held his knee for nearly nine minutes on the neck of Floyd, a black man, did nothing to stem the anger. Derek Chauvin, 44, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter.

Minneapolis police said shots had been fired at law enforcement officers during the protests but no one was injured.

As the night dragged on, fires erupted across the city's south side, including at a Japanese restaurant, a Wells Fargo bank and an Office Depot. Many burned for hours, with firefighters again delayed in reaching them because areas weren't secure.

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Pentagon puts military police on alert to go to Minneapolis

DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) — As unrest spread across dozens of American cities on Friday, the Pentagon took the rare step of ordering the Army to put several active-duty U.S. military police units on the ready to deploy to Minneapolis, where the police killing of George Floyd sparked the widespread protests.

Soldiers from Fort Bragg in North Carolina and Fort Drum in New York have been ordered to be ready to deploy within four hours if called, according to three people with direct knowledge of the orders. Soldiers in Fort Carson, in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas have been told to be ready within 24 hours. The people did not want their names used because they were not authorized to discuss the preparations.

The get-ready orders were sent verbally on Friday, after President Donald Trump asked Defense Secretary Mark Esper for military options to help quell the unrest in Minneapolis after protests descended into looting and arson in some parts of the city.

Trump made the request on a phone call from the Oval Office on Thursday night that included Esper, National Security Advisor Robert O’ Brien and several others. The president asked Esper for rapid deployment options if the Minneapolis protests continued to spiral out of control, according to one of the people, a senior Pentagon official who was on the call.

”When the White House asks for options, someone opens the drawer and pulls them out so to speak.” the official said.

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Analysis: Trump fuels new tensions in moment of crisis

WASHINGTON (AP) — Over 48 hours in America, the official death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 100,000, the number of people who filed for unemployment during the crisis soared past 40 million, and the streets of a major city erupted in flames after a handcuffed black man was killed by a white police officer.

It’s the kind of frenetic, fractured moment when national leaders are looked to for solutions and solace. President Donald Trump instead threw a rhetorical match into the tinderbox. “When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” he declared ominously in a late-night tweet.

Trump’s words were so jarring that Twitter attached a warning to his post — as well as to an identical message from an official White House account — saying that the president of the United States was “glorifying violence.” It’s the first time the social media giant has taken such a step with any world leader, prompting new claims of bias from Trump and some of his conservative allies.

The episode encapsulated Trump’s approach to the presidency and to this time of national crisis, which has upended nearly every aspect of American life and put his November reelection prospects at risk. He’s latched on to personal grievances and cast himself as a victim, while making only occasional references to the staggering loss of life across the country. He’s willingly stoked partisan divisions over public health, and now racial divisions in the face of a death, rather than seeking opportunities to pull the nation together.

To Trump’s detractors, none of that should come as a surprise at this late stage in his term, which has been defined by such responses at volatile moments.

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Trump cuts WHO funding as US economy clouds speedy recovery

WASHINGTON (AP) — Grim employment and spending numbers darkened the prospects for a speedy recovery in the U.S. as the economic devastation from the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread, even as states moved to reopen more sectors.

President Donald Trump meanwhile announced that the United States will end its support for the World Health Organization, charging it didn’t respond adequately to the pandemic because of China’s “total control” over the U.N. agency.

Trump said Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the agency to mislead the world when the virus was first discovered.

The U.S. is the largest source of financial support for the WHO, and its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization. Trump said the U.S. would be “redirecting” the money to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” without providing specifics.

The WHO declined to comment on the announcement.

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Quarantine bottlenecks add to woes of returning Filipinos

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — When his cruise ship sailed into Manila Bay after weeks of voyaging like a castaway amid port closures set off by the global pandemic, Erick Arenas felt he was finally home.

But the 34-year-old dance performer of the Ovation of the Seas saw an ominous sign even before he can set foot on homeland. An array of the world’s best-known cruise ships was waiting at anchor off the Philippine capital to drop off thousands of Filipino crew members like him who were displaced across the world by the contagion.

“I thought I was on my final mile to home,” said Arenas, whose homecoming was made tragic by the death of his father from pneumonia a few weeks before his ship reached Manila.

Nearly a month after disembarking, however, Arenas was still stuck in complete isolation in a hotel used for quarantine in metropolitan Manila, about an hour’s drive from his home in Cavite province.

“It’s not only COVID-19 that we’re fighting against. It’s our mental health, it’s our, you know, frustration,” Arenas told The Associated Press in an online video interview from his hotel room overlooking a business district devoid of the usual crowds under a lockdown.

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Italy's seas speak: No tourists or boats mean cleaner water

FIUMICINO, Italy (AP) — Pollution from human and agriculture waste spilling into the seas off Rome has decreased 30% during Italy's coronavirus lockdown, preliminary results from a nationwide survey of seawater quality indicate.

Authorities stressed it was too soon to give the lockdown sole credit for the change, saying that shifting sea currents and limited rainfall in April and May also could have been responsible for reduced runoff of livestock and fertilizer waste.

But Marco Lupo, director general of the Lazio region’s environmental agency, hypothesized that the evaporation of tourism starting in March could have reduced the amount of sewage produced by the 30 million tourists who normally visit Rome each year.

In addition, the lockdown meant Italians couldn’t flock to their seaside vacation homes as they normally would in spring, a phenomenon that typically overwhelms local water treatment plants and results in increased pollutants spewing into the seas, Lupo said.

“This year, coastal towns have been much less populated, decreasing the (human-caused pollution) burden” on the water, he told The Associated Press.

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Trump strikes China over virus, Hong Kong and student visas

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has announced that he would withdraw funding from the World Health Organization, end Hong Kong’s special trade status and suspend visas of Chinese graduate students suspected of conducting research on behalf of their government, escalating tensions with China that have surged during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump has been expressing anger at the World Health Organization for weeks over what he has portrayed as an inadequate response to the initial outbreak of the coronavirus in China’s Wuhan province late last year.

The president said in a White House announcement Friday that Chinese officials “ignored” their reporting obligations to the WHO and pressured the organization to mislead the public about an outbreak that has now killed more than 100,000 Americans.

“We have detailed the reforms that it must make and engaged with them directly, but they have refused to act,” the president said. “Because they have failed to make the requested and greatly needed reforms, we will be today terminating the relationship.”

The U.S. is the largest source of financial support for the WHO, and its exit is expected to significantly weaken the organization. Trump said the U.S. would be “redirecting” the money to “other worldwide and deserving urgent global public health needs,” without providing specifics.

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China says US action on Hong Kong 'doomed to fail'

BEIJING (AP) — The mouthpiece of China’s ruling Communist Party said U.S. moves to end some trading privileges for Hong Kong “grossly interfere” in China’s internal affairs and are “doomed to fail.”

Saturday's editorial in the newspaper People’s Daily was responding to an announcement from President Donald Trump, after China’s ceremonial parliament bypassed Hong Kong’s local legislature to advance legislation that could severely curtail free speech and opposition political activities in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory.

It was the “firm determination of all Chinese people” to oppose interference in Hong Kong affairs by any external forces, the paper said.

“This hegemonic act of attempting to interfere in Hong Kong affairs and grossly interfere in China’s internal affairs will not frighten the Chinese people and is doomed to fail," it said. Attempts at “forcing China to make concessions on core interests including sovereignty and security through blackmailing or coercion ... can only be wishful thinking and day-dreaming!"

China has threatened to retaliate over the U.S. move to cancel trading advantages granted to Hong Kong after its handover from British to Chinese rule in 1997.

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AP Week in Pictures, Global

MAY 23 - 29, 2020

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