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

Barrett confirmed by Senate for Supreme Court, takes oath

WASHINGTON (AP) — Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed to the Supreme Court late Monday by a deeply divided Senate, with Republicans overpowering Democrats to install President Donald Trump’s nominee days before the election and secure a likely conservative court majority for years to come.

Trump’s choice to fill the vacancy of the late liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg potentially opens a new era of rulings on abortion, the Affordable Care Act and even his own election. Democrats were unable to stop the outcome, Trump’s third justice on the court, as Republicans race to reshape the judiciary.

Barrett, 48, will be able to start work Tuesday, her lifetime appointment as the 115th justice solidifying the court’s rightward tilt.

“This is a momentous day for America,” Trump said at a primetime swearing-in event on the South Lawn at the White House. Justice Clarence Thomas administered the constitutional Oath to Barrett before a crowd of about 200.

Barrett told those gathered that she believes “it is the job of a judge to resist her policy preferences.” She vowed, “I will do my job without any fear or favour.”

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Barrett swearing-in differs markedly from ‘superspreader’

WASHINGTON (AP) — This time they mostly wore masks.

It’s been only a month since President Donald Trump’s Rose Garden event to announce he was nominating Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court. That packed celebration for friends and allies of the president and his high court nominee turned into a coronavirus superspreader event.

When the just-confirmed Barrett returned to the White House on Monday to take her constitutional oath, the celebration was moved to the broader South Lawn, chairs for more than 200 guests were spread about 6 feet apart, and the mask-wearers greatly outnumbered those who declined to cover their faces.

Some participants — including Trump and Barrett — were unmasked.

But the event had a markedly different feel than the Sept. 26 Rose Garden gathering. More than two dozen attendees — including Trump, first lady Melania Trump, and Republican Sens. Mike Lee and Thom Tillis — tested positive after attending the earlier White House celebration.

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Trump, Biden hit battleground Pennsylvania amid pandemic

ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) — President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden zeroed in on the critical battleground of Pennsylvania on Monday, demonstrating starkly different approaches to rallying voters just eight days before polls close during the worst public health crisis in a century.

Trump drew thousands of largely mask-less supporters as he began a final-week charge through nearly a dozen states ahead of the election. Biden, taking a more cautious approach in effort to show that he’s taking the pandemic seriously, greeted a few dozen supporters outside a Chester, Pennsylvania, campaign field office.

“Bottom line is Donald Trump is the worst possible person to lead us through this pandemic,” Biden said as he sharpened his closing message into an indictment of Trump’s handling of the virus. Trump, meanwhile, stoked fears about Biden’s plans to address the outbreak.

“It’s a choice between a Trump boom or a Biden lockdown,” Trump claimed at a rally in Allentown, focusing on the economy and the possibility of lost jobs.

Trump returned to the White House to celebrate the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett Monday evening. Trump has sought to use the vacancy created by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month to animate conservative evangelical and Catholic voters to his candidacy, but the high court fight has been overshadowed by virus concerns.

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Coronavirus deaths are rising again in the US, as feared

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Deaths per day from the coronavirus in the U.S. are on the rise again, just as health experts had feared, and cases are climbing in practically every state, despite assurances from President Donald Trump over the weekend that “we’re rounding the turn, we’re doing great.”

With Election Day just over a week away, average deaths per day across the country are up 10% over the past two weeks, from 721 to nearly 794 as of Sunday, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Newly confirmed infections per day are rising in 47 states, and deaths are up in 34.

Health experts had warned that it was only a matter of time before deaths turned upward, given the record-breaking surge in cases engulfing the country. Deaths are a lagging indicator — that is, it generally takes a few weeks for people to sicken and die from the coronavirus.

Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases who warned over the summer of a fall surge, said what’s happening now is a confluence of three factors: “pandemic fatigue” among people who are weary of hunkering down and are venturing out more; “pandemic anger” among those are don’t believe the scourge is a real threat; and cold weather, which is forcing more Americans indoors, where the virus can spread more easily.

“When you put those three together, we shouldn’t be surprised what we’re seeing,” Osterholm said.

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Utility says its equipment may have sparked California blaze

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California Edison said its equipment may have sparked a fast-moving wildfire that forced evacuation orders for some 100,000 people and seriously injured two firefighters on Monday as powerful winds across the state prompted power to be cut to hundreds of thousands to prevent just such a possibility.

A smoky fire exploded in size to over 11 square miles (29 square kilometres) after breaking out around dawn in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. Gusts pushed flames along brushy ridges in Silverado Canyon and near houses in the sprawling city of Irvine, home to about 280,000 residents. There was no containment.

Two firefighters, one 26 and the other 31 years old, were critically injured while battling the blaze, according to the county’s Fire Authority, which didn’t provide details on how the injuries occurred. They each suffered second- and third-degree burns over large portions of their bodies and were intubated at a hospital, officials said.

In a report to the state Public Utilities Commission, Southern California Edison said it was investigating whether its electrical equipment caused the blaze. The brief report said it appeared that a “lashing wire” that tied a telecommunications line to a support cable may have struck a 12,000-volt conducting line above it, and an investigation was under way.

The report came as SCE shut off power to some 38,000 homes and businesses in five counties — including the fire areas — as a safety precuation against gusts knocking down equipment or hurling tree branches or other vegetation into power lines. However, the utility had reduced that to under 12,000 as winds eased temporarily Monday night.

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Early vote total exceeds 2016; GOP chips at Dems’ advantage

With eight days before Election Day, more people already have cast ballots in this year’s presidential election than voted early or absentee in the 2016 race as the start of in-person early voting in big states led to a surge in turnout in recent days.

The opening of early voting locations in Florida, Texas and elsewhere has piled millions of new votes on top of the mail ballots arriving at election offices as voters try to avoid crowded places on Nov. 3 during the coronavirus pandemic.

The result is a total of 58.6 million ballots cast so far, more than the 58 million that The Associated Press logged as being cast through the mail or at in-person early voting sites in 2016.

Democrats have continued to dominate the initial balloting, but Republicans are narrowing the gap. GOP voters have begun to show up at early in-person voting, a sign that many heeded President Donald Trump’s unfounded warnings about mail-voting fraud.

On Oct. 15, Democratic registrants cast 51% of all ballots reported, compared with 25% from Republicans. On Sunday, Democrats had a slightly smaller lead, 51% to 31%.

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High court won’t extend Wisconsin’s absentee ballot deadline

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is siding with Republicans to prevent Wisconsin from counting mailed ballots that are received after Election Day.

In a 5-3 order, the justices on Monday refused to reinstate a lower court order that called for mailed ballots to be counted if they are received up to six days after the Nov. 3 election. A federal appeals court had already put that order on hold.

The three liberal justices dissented from the order that the court issued just before the Senate started voting on Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination.

Chief Justice John Roberts last week joined the liberals to preserve a Pennsylvania state court order extending the absentee ballot deadline but voted the other way in the Wisconsin case, which has moved through federal courts.

“Different bodies of law and different precedents govern these two situations and require, in these particular circumstances, that we allow the modification of election rules in Pennsylvania but not Wisconsin,” Roberts wrote.

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Winds and rain whip Yucatan resorts as Hurricane Zeta nears

CANCUN, Mexico (AP) — Hurricane Zeta lashed Mexico’s Caribbean coast resorts around Tulum with high winds and rain Monday night as it headed toward the Yucatan Peninsula and then a possible landfall on the central U.S. Gulf Coast at midweek.

Zeta — the earliest ever 27th named storm of the Atlantic season — was centred about 25 miles (40 kilometres) east of the resort of Tulum, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph).

The centre was expected to make landfall in the middle of the night, and Quintana Roo state Gov. Carlos Joaquín said “nobody should be on the streets … you shouldn’t go out anymore” until the hurricane passes.

In Playa del Carmen, between Tulum and Cancun, Mexican tourist Elsa Márquez held up her beach towel to show how the force of the wind blew it out straight in the air, rattling with the strong gusts.

“This is our first experience (in a hurricane) and the truth is we are a little afraid because we don’t know what will happen, but here we are,” said Márquez, who was visiting the resort from the north-central state of Queretaro.

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Under Trump, US no longer leads world on refugee protections

For decades, America led the world in humanitarian policies by creating a sanctuary for the oppressed, admitting more refugees annually than all other countries combined.

That reputation eroded during Donald Trump’s presidency as he cut the number of refugees allowed in by more than 80%, and Canada replaced the U.S. as No. 1 for resettling people fleeing war and persecution.

Trump has arguably changed the immigration system more than any U.S. president, thrilling supporters with an “America first” message and infuriating critics who call his signature domestic issue insular, xenophobic and even racist.

Before November’s election, The Associated Press is examining some of Trump’s biggest immigration policy changes, from halting asylum to stepping back from America’s humanitarian role.

The pain from a dismantling of the 40-year-old refugee program reverberates worldwide, coming as a record 80 million people have been displaced by war and famine.

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Moon holds more water in more places than ever thought

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The moon’s shadowed, frigid nooks and crannies may hold frozen water in more places and in larger quantities than previously suspected. And for the first time, the presence of water on the moon’s sunlit surface has been confirmed, scientists reported Monday.

That’s good news for astronauts at future lunar bases who could tap into these resources for drinking and making rocket fuel.

While previous observations have indicated millions of tons of ice in the permanently shadowed craters of the moon’s poles, a pair of studies in the journal Nature Astronomy take the availability of lunar surface water to a new level.

More than 15,400 square miles (40,000 square kilometres) of lunar terrain have the capability to trap water in the form of ice, according to a team led by the University of Colorado’s Paul Hayne. That’s 20% more area than previous estimates, he said.

The presence of water in sunlit surfaces had been previously suggested, but not confirmed. The molecules are so far apart that they are in neither liquid nor solid form, said lead researcher Casey Honniball, a postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The Associated Press