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

US labs buckle amid testing surge; world virus cases top 15M

WASHINGTON (AP) — Laboratories across the U.S. are buckling under a surge of coronavirus tests, creating long processing delays that experts say are undercutting the pandemic response.

With the U.S. tally of confirmed infections at nearly 4 million Wednesday and new cases surging, the bottlenecks are creating problems for workers kept off the job while awaiting results, nursing homes struggling to keep the virus out and for the labs themselves as they deal with a crushing workload.

Some labs are taking weeks to return COVID-19 results, exacerbating fears that people without symptoms could be spreading the virus if they don’t isolate while they wait.

“There’s been this obsession with, ‘How many tests are we doing per day?’” said Dr. Tom Frieden, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The question is how many tests are being done with results coming back within a day, where the individual tested is promptly isolated and their contacts are promptly warned.”

Frieden and other public health experts have called on states to publicly report testing turnaround times, calling it an essential metric to measure progress against the virus.

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Trump deploys more federal agents under ‘law-and-order’ push

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque, New Mexico, to help combat rising crime, expanding the administration’s intervention into local enforcement as he runs for reelection under a “law-and-order” mantle.

Using the same alarmist language he has employed to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the “radical left,” which he blamed for rising violence in some cities, even though criminal justice experts say it defies easy explanation.

“In recent weeks there has been a radical movement to defund, dismantle and dissolve our police department,” Trump said at a White House event, blaming the movement for “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.”

“This bloodshed must end,” he said. “This bloodshed will end.”

The decision to dispatch federal agents to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment when Trump is grasping for a new reelection strategy after the coronavirus upended the economy, dismantling what his campaign had seen as his ticket to a second term. With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden is elected in November and Democrats have a chance to make the police reforms they have endorsed after the killing of George Floyd and nationwide protests demanding racial justice.

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Silent spread of virus keeps scientists grasping for clues

One of the great mysteries of the coronavirus is how quickly it rocketed around the world.

It first flared in central China and, within three months, was on every continent but Antarctica, shutting down daily life for millions. Behind the rapid spread was something that initially caught scientists off guard, baffled health authorities and undermined early containment efforts — the virus could be spread by seemingly healthy people.

As workers return to offices, children prepare to return to schools and those desperate for normalcy again visit malls and restaurants, the emerging science points to a menacing reality: If people who appear healthy can transmit the illness, it may be impossible to contain.

“It can be a killer and then 40 per cent of people don’t even know they have it,” said Dr. Eric Topol, head of Scripps Research Translational Institute. “We have to get out of the denial mode, because it’s real.”

Researchers have exposed the frightening likelihood of silent spread of the virus by asymptomatic and presymptomatic carriers. But how major a role seemingly healthy people play in swelling the ranks of those infected remains unanswered — and at the top of the scientific agenda.

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Tesla picks Texas site for second US vehicle assembly plant

Electric car maker Tesla Inc. has picked the Austin, Texas, area as the site for its largest auto assembly plant employing at least 5,000 workers.

The new factory will build Tesla’s upcoming Cybertruck pickup and will be a second U.S. manufacturing site for the Model Y small SUV, largely for distribution to the East Coast.

Tesla will build on a 2,100-acre (85-hectacre) site in Travis County near Austin and will get more than $60 million in tax breaks from the county and a local school district over the next decade. Work on the plant, which will be over 4 million square feet, is already underway, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said.

He did not put a number on how many vehicles the facility would produce. “Long term, a lot,” Musk said.

The company has pledged to invest $1.1 billion and said it will pay a minimum wage of $15 per hour to employees and provide health insurance, paid leave and other benefits.

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White House, GOP agree on virus testing in new aid bill

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans and the White House reached tentative agreement for more testing funds in the next COVID-19 relief package, but deep disagreements over the scope of the $1 trillion in federal aid remain ahead of Thursday’s expected roll out.

Facing a GOP revolt, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was preparing a “handful” of separate COVID-19 aid bills, according to a top lawmaker involved in the negotiations. McConnell is set to unveil the package on Thursday, according to a Republican unauthorized to discuss the private talks and granted anonymity.

“Very productive meeting,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said while exiting a session late Wednesday at the Capitol.

A key holdup remains President Donald Trump’s push for a payroll tax cut, according to a Republican granted anonymity to discuss the private talks. Hardly any GOP senators support the idea. Instead, McConnell and some Republicans prefer another round of direct $1,200 cash payments to Americans.

Mnuchin said the negotiators have agreed to an amount on direct payments, but declined to share details.

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Nearly 1 in 4 VA employees report sex harassment, audit says

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly 1 in 4 employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs say they have been subjected to unwanted sexual comments and other harassment — one of the highest levels in federal government — and an audit says the Trump administration has not been doing enough to protect them.

At a House hearing Wednesday, lawmakers heard VA express a commitment to “changing the culture” to make the department more welcoming to women, but that long-sought improvements urged by the Government Accountability Office could take until 2024 to fully implement.

Lawmakers responded that they’re not willing to wait, even if it means passing legislation to force more immediate changes.

“The VA is not the same VA as four years ago,” insisted acting VA deputy secretary Pam Powers, pointing to increased outreach to women and improved trust ratings in the VA from employees and patients alike according to internal polling.

The GAO audit said the agency has outdated training and policies, a leadership structure that creates conflicts of interest in reviewing harassment complaints, and gaps in reporting complaints to VA headquarters in Washington.

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AP PHOTOS: Facing federal agents, Portland protests swell

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Night after night for nearly two months, protesters have taken to the streets of Portland, Oregon, for demonstrations against racial injustice that have devolved into vandalism and clashes with authorities.

Long after such unrest subsided in other cities, small groups of protesters in Portland continued to set fires, spray graffiti on public buildings and battle officers.

The continued conflict prompted soul-searching in the progressive city, which became increasingly polarized over how to handle it.

More recently, the Trump administration’s decision to call in federal agents to help protect the federal courthouse — the focus of much protest activity — has galvanized many in Portland anew. Protests have again swelled and attracted a broader base in a city that’s increasingly unified and outraged about the use of federal officers.

The clashes have continued, with some protesters trying to break into the courthouse, while authorities respond with tear gas and projectiles.

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Joe Biden calls Trump the country’s ‘first’ racist president

WASHINGTON (AP) — Joe Biden said Wednesday that President Donald Trump was the country’s “first” racist president.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s comments came during a virtual town hall organized by the Service Employees International Union. When a questioner complained of racism surrounding the coronavirus outbreak and mentioned the president referring to it as the “China virus,” Biden responded by blasting Trump and “his spread of racism.”

“The way he deals with people based on the colour of their skin, their national origin, where they’re from, is absolutely sickening,” the former vice-president said. “No sitting president has ever done this. Never, never, never. No Republican president has done this. No Democratic president. We’ve had racists, and they’ve existed. They’ve tried to get elected president. He’s the first one that has.”

Biden also suggested that Trump is using race “as a wedge” to distract from his mishandling of the pandemic.

Many presidents — including the nation’s first, George Washington — owned slaves.

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House votes to remove Confederate statues from Capitol

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House has approved a bill to remove statues of Gen. Robert E. Lee and other Confederate leaders from the U.S. Capitol, as a reckoning over racial injustice continues following the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, in Minneapolis.

The House vote also would remove a bust of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, the author of the 1857 Dred Scott decision that declared African Americans couldn’t be citizens.

The bill directs the Architect of the Capitol to identify and eventually remove from Statuary Hall at least 10 statues honouring Confederate officials, including Lee, the commanding general of the Confederate Army, and Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president. Three statues honouring white supremacists — including former U.S. Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina — would be immediately removed.

“Defenders and purveyors of sedition, slavery, segregation and white supremacy have no place in this temple of liberty,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said at a Capitol news conference ahead of the House vote.

The House approved the bill 305-113, sending it to the Republican-controlled Senate, where prospects are uncertain. Seventy-two Republicans, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California and Minority Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana, joined with 232 Democrats to support the bill.

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Opening day amid virus: Masks, empty parks, social justice

Opening day, at last.

A baseball season that was on the brink before it ever began because of the virus outbreak is set to start Thursday night when excitable Max Scherzer and the World Series champion Washington Nationals host prized ace Gerrit Cole and the New York Yankees.

When it does get underway — the DC forecast calls for thunderstorms, the latest rocky inning in this what-can-go-wrong game — it’ll mark the most bizarre year in the history of Major League Baseball.

A 60-game season, stars opting out. Ballparks without fans, players wearing masks. Piped-in sound effects, cardboard cutouts for spectators. Spray-painted ads on the mound, pitchers with personal rosin bags.

And a rack of strange rules. DHs in the National League, well, OK. An automatic runner on second to start the 10th inning? C’mon, now.

The Associated Press