Police officers not charged for killing Breonna Taylor

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for the killing of Breonna Taylor during a drug raid gone wrong, with prosecutors saying Wednesday that two officers who fired their weapons at the Black woman were justified in using force to protect themselves.

The only charges brought by the grand jury were three counts of wanton endangerment against fired Officer Brett Hankison for shooting into Taylor’s neighbors’ homes during the raid on the night of March 13. The FBI is still investigating potential violations of federal law in the case.

Ben Crump, a lawyer for Taylor's family, denounced the decision as “outrageous and offensive,” and protesters shouting, “No justice, no peace!” began marching through the streets. Some sat quietly and wept. Later, scuffles broke out between police and protesters, and some were arrested.

Taylor, an emergency medical worker, was shot multiple times by officers who entered her home on a no-knock warrant during a narcotics investigation. The warrant used to search her home was connected to a suspect who did not live there, and no drugs were found inside. The use of no-knock warrants has since been banned by Louisville’s Metro Council.

Along with the killing of George Floyd in Minnesota, Taylor’s case became a major touchstone for the nationwide protests that have gripped the nation since May — drawing attention to entrenched racism and demanding police reform. Taylor’s image has been painted on streets, emblazoned on protest signs and silk-screened on T-shirts worn by celebrities.

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Police order Breonna Taylor protesters to disperse

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — The Latest on a grand jury's decision not to indict police officers on criminal charges directly related to Breonna Taylor's death:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Some protesters in Louisville have been ordered by police to disperse hours after officials announced a grand jury’s decision to not indict police officers on criminal charges directly related to Breonna Taylor’s death.

Police on Wednesday afternoon declared a gathering on a street corner outside downtown to be “unlawful" and threatened to use chemical agents and make arrests if people did not leave.

The order was directed at a group of protesters that broke off from other demonstrators who had gathered downtown.

Curfew in the Kentucky city is set for 9 p.m.

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200,000 dead as Trump vilifies science, prioritizes politics

NEW YORK (AP) — “I did the best I could,” President Donald Trump said.

Huddled with aides in the West Wing last week, his eyes fixed on Fox News, Trump wasn’t talking about how he had led the nation through the deadliest pandemic in a century. In a conversation overheard by an Associated Press reporter, Trump was describing how he’d just publicly rebuked one of his top scientists — Dr. Robert Redfield, a virologist and head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Redfield had angered the president by asserting that a COVID-19 vaccine wouldn’t be widely available to the general public until summer or fall of 2021. So hours later, with no supporting evidence, Trump called a news conference to say Redfield was “confused.” A vaccine, Trump insisted, could be ready before November’s election.

Mission accomplished: Fox was headlining Trump’s latest foray in his administration’s ongoing war against its own scientists.

It is a war that continues unabated, even as the nation's COVID-19 death toll has reached 200,000 — nearly half the number of Americans killed in World War II, a once unfathomable number that the nation’s top doctors just months ago said was avoidable.

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Ginsburg remembered as prophet for justice, American icon

WASHINGTON (AP) — With crowds of admirers swelling outside, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was remembered Wednesday at the court by grieving family, colleagues and friends as a prophet for justice who persevered against long odds to become an American icon.

The court’s eight justices, masked along with everyone else because of the coronavirus pandemic, gathered for the first time in more than six months for the ceremony to mark Ginsburg’s death from cancer last week at age 87 after 27 years on the court.

Washington already is consumed with talk of Ginsburg’s replacement, but Chief Justice John Roberts focused on his longtime colleague.

The best words to describe Ginsburg are “tough, brave, a fighter, a winner," Roberts said, but also “thoughtful, careful, compassionate, honest.”

The woman who late in life became known in admiration as the Notorious RBG “wanted to be an opera virtuoso, but became a rock star instead,” Roberts said. Ginsburg’s two children, Jane and James, and other family members sat on one side of the casket, across from the justices.

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US experts vow ‘no cutting corners’ as vaccine tests expand

WASHINGTON (AP) — A huge international study of a COVID-19 vaccine that aims to work with just one dose is getting underway as top U.S. health officials sought Wednesday to assure a skeptical Congress and public that they can trust any shots the government ultimately approves.

Hopes are high that answers about at least one of several candidates being tested in the U.S. could come by year's end, maybe sooner.

“We feel cautiously optimistic that we will be able to have a safe and effective vaccine, although there is never a guarantee of that,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, infectious disease chief at the National Institutes of Health, told a Senate committee.

President Donald Trump is pushing for a faster timeline, which many experts say is risky and may not allow for adequate testing. On Wednesday he tweeted a link to news about the new Johnson & Johnson vaccine study and said the Food and Drug Administration “must move quickly!”

“President Trump is still trying to sabotage the work of our scientists and public health experts for his own political ends,” Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington state, said before ticking off examples of pressure on the FDA.

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Missouri governor, opponent of mandatory masks, has COVID-19

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican who has steadfastly refused to require residents to wear masks, tested positive for the coronavirus, his office said Wednesday.

Parson was tested after his wife, Teresa, tested positive earlier in the day. Teresa Parson had experienced mild symptoms, including a cough and nasal congestion, spokeswoman Kelli Jones said. She took a rapid test that came back positive and a nasal swab test later confirmed the finding. The governor's rapid test showed he tested positive and he is still awaiting results from the swab test.

“I want everybody to know that myself and the first lady are both fine,” Parson said in a video posted on his Facebook page.

“Right now I feel fine. No symptoms of any kind,” Parson said in the video. “But right now we just have to take the quarantine procedures in place.”

Gov. Parson postponed several events through the remainder of the week. He and his wife had been traveling around the state this week for events that included a ceremonial bill signing in Cape Girardeau, where a photo posted Tuesday on the governor’s Facebook page showed both of them wearing masks.

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Saudi king's rare address to UN showcases monarch in charge

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia’s King Salman made a rare address to the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, using the moment to highlight the foundational notions of his regime — his steadfast commitment to the Palestinians, his stature as custodian of Islam’s holiest sites and his assertion that Iran is responsible for much of the region’s instability.

The prerecorded speech to world leaders suggested that the 84-year-old king, who delivers only a handful of public remarks each year, retains oversight of high-level policies despite the immense powers amassed by his son, the crown prince.

In delivering his remarks, he became only the second Saudi king to deliver a speech to the world assembly. The first was his late brother, King Saud, in 1957 at U.N. headquarters in New York. And like his brother's speech 63 years prior, King Salman noted the sacred role of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the importance that entails.

“We in the kingdom, due to our position in the Muslim world, bear a special and historic responsibility to protect our tolerant Islamic faith from attempts by terrorist organizations and extremist groups to pervert it,” Salman said.

He emphasized at the top of his speech that he was speaking from “the birthplace of Islam, the home of its revelation” — a reference to the Muslim belief that the word of God was revealed to the Prophet Muhammad some 1,400 years ago in the mountainous caves of Mecca.

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GOP Senate report on Biden son alleges conflict of interest

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two Republican-led Senate committees issued a politically charged report Wednesday alleging that the work Joe Biden’s son did in Ukraine constituted a conflict of interest for the Obama administration at a time when Biden was engaged in Ukraine policy as vice president. But the report also offered no support for President Donald Trump's claim that the Democratic presidential nominee had improperly pressed for the firing of the country's top prosecutor to protect his son.

The report did not implicate Biden in wrongdoing, focusing instead on his son Hunter, who it said “cashed in” on his father's position by joining the board of a Ukrainian gas company. The document says that work created conflict-of-interest concerns, including among two Obama administration officials, but acknowledged that it was ultimately “not clear” what impact Hunter Biden's paid board position had on policy with Ukraine.

Biden’s campaign immediately panned the report, released six weeks before the election, as an effort by an ally of Trump's to damage his election opponent. The campaign said the investigation was founded on “a long-disproven, hardcore rightwing conspiracy theory" and, even before the report was released, issued a detailed statement aiming to rebut point-by-point allegations that it said had long been debunked by media organizations as well as by U.S. and Ukrainian officials.

Hunter Biden's work in Ukraine remains a prominent line of attack in conservative circles heading into the election. Trump himself has repeatedly drawn attention to the issue, with his request for Ukraine to investigate the Bidens spurring an impeachment case against him. He's continued to trumpet the claims even as his own administration has warned of a concerted Russian effort to denigrate Joe Biden and has asserted that a Ukrainian lawmaker who is involved in spreading an “unsubstantiated" anti-Biden narrative has been an “active Russian agent” for over a decade.

The investigation, from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee and the Finance Committee, produced stark political divisions. Democrats have accused Republican Sen. Ron Johnson, the Homeland Security chair, of a politically motivated initiative at a time when they say the committee should be focused on the pandemic response and other, less partisan issues.

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Trump, social media, right-wing news stir up antifa scares

LEITCHFIELD, Ky. (AP) — The group gathered around the town square, waiting for the arrival of what has become a new American boogeyman: antifa.

Michael Johnson and others were certain that school buses full of radical left-wing extremists from big cities were coming to Leitchfield, Kentucky, where about 50 of their neighbors had gathered on the courthouse lawn to chant, “Black lives matter!” and wave signs in solidarity with the nation's surging protest movement.

The June 10 protest ended peacefully with no sign of any antifascist activists in the town of less than 7,000 people, but Johnson and his son sat awake outside their house all night, armed with a shotgun, just in case the antifa rumors he saw circulating online were true.

“There’s no reason not to believe it after you watch TV, what’s going on,” said Johnson, 53.

It's a scene that has unfolded in many other cities and small towns this year, the product of fear and conflict stoked by bogus posts on social media, right-wing news outlets and even some of the nation's most powerful leaders.

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Utility equipment eyed as possible source of fire near LA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Federal investigators are looking into whether a huge wildfire near Los Angeles was sparked by Southern California Edison utility equipment, according to the company.

Edison has turned over a section of an overhead conductor from its transmission facility in the area where the Bobcat Fire started more than two weeks ago, company spokesman David Song said Wednesday.

The initial report of fire was near Cogswell Dam in the San Gabriel Mountains at 12:21 p.m. on Sept. 6.

In an incident report filed with the state Public Utilities Commission last week, Edison said its nearby equipment experienced an issue five minutes earlier, 12:16 p.m.

A circuit at a nearby substation experienced a "relay operation,” indicating its equipment detected some kind of disturbance or event, Song said.