Month: September 2020

The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday announced charges against 345 people for committing over $6 billion in medical fraud. Those charged include more than 100 doctors, nurses and other medical professionals who filed fraudulent claims to federal health care programs and private insurers, according to the Justice Department. The bulk of the fraud — $4.5 billion — was connected to telemedicine, which has surged during the pandemic. For example, the Cleveland Clinic went from averaging 5,000 telemedicine visits a month before the pandemic to 200,000 visits just in April, the Associated Press reported. “Telemedicine can foster efficient, high-quality care when practiced appropriately and lawfully. Unfortunately, bad actors attempt to abuse telemedicine services and leverage aggressive marketing techniques to mislead beneficiaries about their health care needs and bill the government for illegitimate services,” U.S. Health and Human Services Deputy Inspector General Gary Cantrell said in a statement. “Unfortunately, audacious schemes such as these are prevalent and often harmful.”  FILE – The U.S. Department of Justice headquarters building is seen in Washington, July 13, 2018.According to the Justice Department, some telemedicine company executives allegedly paid doctors and nurse practitioners to order unnecessary medical equipment, medical tests and pain medications without interacting with a patient or with only a brief telephone conversation with a patient they had never seen.  “Durable medical equipment companies, genetic testing laboratories, and pharmacies then purchased those orders in exchange for illegal kickbacks and bribes and submitted false and fraudulent claims to Medicare and other government insurers,” according to a statement from the Justice Department. In addition to telemedicine fraud, other defendants were charged with more than $845 million worth of fraud related to substance abuse facilities, and more than $806 million was connected to other health care fraud, including the illegal distribution of opioids. “This nationwide enforcement operation is historic in both its size and scope, alleging billions of dollars in health care fraud across the country,” Acting Assistant Attorney General Brian C. Rabbitt said in a statement. “These cases hold accountable those medical professionals and others who have exploited health care benefit programs and patients for personal gain.” 
 
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U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo vowed to advocate for persecuted religious minorities in China while calling on the Vatican to reconsider renewing a deal with Beijing.”Nowhere is religious freedom under assault more than it is inside of China today,” Pompeo said Wednesday in Rome, Italy. ”Nor of course have Catholics been spared this wave of repression.”   Pompeo’s latest remarks come as the Vatican and China are negotiating to renew a controversial 2018 agreement on the nomination of bishops. The terms of that deal have not been publicly revealed.   U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, left, and U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Callista Gingrich greet Cardinal Raymond Burke, right, during a symposium in Rome, Sept. 30, 2020.While admitting nation-states’ efforts to protect religious freedom are “constrained by the realities of world politics,” Pompeo made a subtle appeal to the Vatican to reverse the planned renewal under way.   “The Church is in a different position. Earthly considerations shouldn’t discourage principled stances based on eternal truths.”  Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy to the Holy See hosted a symposium on “Advancing and Defending International Religious Freedom through Diplomacy.” Holy See Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin, and Holy See Secretary for Relations with States Archbishop Paul Gallagher also participated.  A senior State Department official confirmed the top U.S. diplomat is not scheduled to have an audience with Pope Francis during this visit.     Pompeo met with the pontiff last October.    State Department: Pompeo, Pope Francis Urge Religious Freedom in Mideast, ElsewhereSecretary of state, whose trip to Italy, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Greece has been overshadowed by an impeachment inquiry at home targeting President Donald Trump, met the pope for about a half an hourThe Pope’s office reportedly told American diplomats he would not personally receive Pompeo due to concerns of being seen as influencing the November U.S. election.  The U.S. secretary of state also met Wednesday with the Italian foreign minister. 
 
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Many Americans are mourning the death of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  Makeshift memorials to the popular liberal justice have sprung up all over the country.  One of them at the site of a  large mural dedicated to the justice in September 2019. Anush Avetisyan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice.VIDEOGRAPHER: Andrey Degtyarev
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A U.S. federal judge on Tuesday blocked an increase in immigration fees that was due to go into effect this week. The fees were set to go up Friday by an average of about 20% depending on the type of entry being sought. The halted hikes include a $50 fee for asylum applications, the first time the United States would have charged such a fee.  The cost for applying to be a naturalized citizen was due to increase from $640 to $1,170. Applicants from lower-income households have been able to ask that their fees be waived, but the new rules that were due to go into effect eliminated certain categories of waiver eligibility, such as showing extreme financial hardship. Some applicants would no longer have been eligible under tighter household income thresholds. U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes visas, asylum requests, naturalizations and other applications, reported a sharp decline in revenues earlier this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and at one point considered furloughing more than half its staff. Unlike most federal agencies, a significant portion of USCIS’s funding comes from fees collected.In this June 26, 2020 photo, Vida Kazemi is sworn in as a U.S. citizen by Allen Chrysler, immigration services officer, during a drive-up naturalization ceremony in Laguna Niguel, Calif.U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White wrote he based his injunction on several factors.  He said the Trump administration did not adequately follow procedures for making new rules, including failing to consider the impact of the higher fees on low-income applicants. White also agreed with arguments presented by the plaintiffs, a group of eight non-profit groups that work with low-income immigration applicants, who said the acting heads of the Department of Homeland Security had been improperly elevated to their roles at the time the new rules were issued. Plaintiffs in other federal immigration cases have made the same argument about Kevin McAleenan, who was named acting head of the Department of Homeland Security last year before resigning in November, and Chad Wolf, who succeeded him as acting chief.   The defendants argued the appointments were valid. But Judge White ruled the plaintiffs are “likely to succeed” on the claim that neither McAleenan nor Wolf were validly serving as acting Homeland Security secretary. 
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President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden sparred over policy and traded insults in their first debate on Tuesday night, just five weeks before the presidential election.  Mike O’Sullivan reports on the combative confrontation. Camera: Henry Hernandez 
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President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential challenger Joe Biden met Tuesday for the first presidential debate ahead of the Nov. 3 election. The 90-minute matchup was moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace and held at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. Here are three takeaways from the debate: Interruptions Trump repeatedly talked over both Biden and moderator Wallace during the debate. The result was chaotic, as both men frequently interrupted each other. The prime-time broadcast often showed a side-by-side view of the candidates with each man talking, at times simultaneously. Trump was often rebuked by Wallace, who told the president to “please let the vice president talk.” At one point Biden told Trump, “Will you shut up, man?”President Donald Trump gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio.Trump’s Taxes Just two days before Tuesday’s debate, The New York Times Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden gestures while speaking during the first presidential debate, Sept. 29, 2020, at Case Western University and Cleveland Clinic, in Cleveland, Ohio.’Race and violence’One of the six topics chosen by Wallace was “race and violence” in U.S. cities, such as in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last month. Last week, FBI and Department of Homeland Security officials warned that white supremacist groups pose a rising threat of violence in the U.S. A tense exchange between Trump and Wallace occurred when the moderator asked the president to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and tell them to stand down and not contribute to the violence occurring at some anti-racism rallies. Trump at first appeared to sidestep the question, and then when pushed, he said, “What do you want me to call them? Give me a name.” Wallace offered up the  group known as the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group. Trump spoke to the group, saying, “Proud Boys, stand back, stand by.” He then pivoted, however, criticizing left-wing activists. “Somebody’s got to do something about Antifa and the left because this is not a right-wing problem. This is a left-wing problem,” he said. 
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Republican U.S. President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger, former Vice President Joe Biden, clashed in a contentious, chaotic presidential election debate Tuesday night, trying for 90 minutes to convince American voters that the other one was unfit to lead the United States for the next four years. They argued over the world-leading coronavirus death toll of 205,000 in the U.S., the integrity and honesty of the November 3 vote, Trump’s nomination of conservative jurist Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, fractured racial relations in the U.S., environmental policies and more. Trump disputed a New York Times report this week that he only paid $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016, when he first ran for the presidency, and in 2017, his first year in office. Trump said he paid “millions of dollars,” but Biden claimed Trump “pays less tax than the average schoolteacher.” Name-calling, personal attacks Mostly they insulted each other with cutting barbs, name-calling and personal attacks.  “He’s the worst president America has ever had,” Biden contended as he and Trump stood at podiums on a debate stage at a university in the Midwestern city of Cleveland, Ohio. Several times, Biden called Trump “a clown.” Trump, seeking a second four-year term after his upset 2016 victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton, retorted to Biden, “I’ve done more things in 47 months [as president] than you’ve done in 47 years” as a U.S. senator and vice president under former President Barack Obama. Trump argued that if Biden takes over as president next January, “you will have a depression like no one has ever seen” because of the Democrat’s plan to raise taxes on corporate earnings from 21% to 28% and on individuals who make more than $400,000 a year.Watch party for the first presidential debate in Lititz, Sep. 30, 2020.Early on, the two candidates, both in their 70s, clashed sharply over how to control the unchecked pandemic in the U.S. “The president has no plan,” Biden claimed. “He knew it was deadly and didn’t tell you about it.” Biden, alluding to Trump’s frequent golf outings, said the president “should get out of the sand trap” and stop the advance of the pandemic. He referenced Trump’s recent remark that the death toll in the U.S. “is what it is,” with Biden adding that was because, “You are what you are.” Trump responded, “We’ve done a great job. We’re weeks away from a vaccine.” The president accused Biden of calling Trump xenophobic for placing initial restrictions on travel from China, where the virus originated. Trump said if he had not acted, 2 million would have died in the U.S.   The debate came five weeks ahead of the election. It was the first of three times the two candidates will meet face to face to debate during the next month. At Tuesday’s encounter, the two candidates frequently interrupted each other, although the debate moderator, Fox News journalist Chris Wallace, more than an hour into the face-off rebuked Trump for not following the debate rules to allow each candidate to finish his answers unimpeded. One of the most personal attacks occurred as Biden recounted a recent Atlantic magazine article alleging that Trump, on a trip to Paris in 2018 for the centenary of the end of World War I, described U.S. war dead as “suckers” and “losers,” a claim the president has denied. Biden said that his late son, Beau Biden, who served in the armed services before dying of cancer in 2015, was not a loser or sucker.  “You’re not going to talk about my son Beau that way,” Biden emotionally told Trump.  Trump said he didn’t know Beau Biden but did know Biden’s son Hunter, whom he has claimed benefited financially with a lucrative position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company, at the same time Biden was vice president and overseeing U.S. policy related to Ukraine. Racial tensions in the US On fractured racial relations in the U.S., Biden accused Trump of “using everything as a dog whistle to generate racial tension,” recalling how Trump said there were “fine people” on both sides after torch-carrying white nationalists marched in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017.From l-r, first lady Melania Trump, President Donald Trump, Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and Jill Biden, walk off stage at the conclusion of the first presidential debate Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020.Trump rejected Wallace’s overture to condemn white nationalists, instead saying he is “doing better than any Republican” ever in political support from Black voters.  The president attacked Biden for writing anti-crime legislation in the 1990s when he was a senator, saying that he referred to Black criminal suspects as “super predators.” Trump assailed “radical left Democrats” whose mayors oversee some of the country’s biggest cities. A number of violent protests erupted in those cities in recent months in demonstrations against police abuse of minorities in the aftermath of the May death of a Black man, George Floyd, while in police custody in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The president demanded that Biden commit to “law and order” in American cities. “He doesn’t want to say, ‘law and order,’” Trump contended. Biden said he advocates “law and order with justice.” The Democratic candidate said he would rejoin the international Paris climate change accord that Trump withdrew the U.S. from. Trump, asked by Wallace whether he accepts that climate change is caused by the actions of people, replied, “To an extent, yes.” But Trump contended that on-going raging wildfires in the Western U.S. could mostly be curbed by “good forest management.” Biden said that Trump’s nomination of Barrett to the Supreme Court threatened the national health care law approved during his vice presidency under Obama and imperiled the landmark 1973 court decision legalizing abortion rights in the U.S. Trump said, “I think she’s going to be fantastic. We won the election; therefore, we had the right to choose her.”   Early voting Early voting has started in some U.S. states and millions of people have requested or been sent absentee ballots, so they do not have to face other people at polling stations across the country on Election Day in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.   Trump, as he has repeatedly said in recent weeks, condemned election officials throughout the country for mailing unsolicited ballots to voters. “This is going to be a fraud like you’ve never seen,” he said, citing a handful of Trump absentee ballots found recently in a trash can. Biden urged Americans to vote and said there is “no evidence” that mailed-in ballots will lead to fraud but called for all votes to be counted in the election. Polls have shown that more Democrats favor absentee voting, while Republicans more often say they will vote on Election Day in person. The high-stakes debate, perhaps watched on television or livestreamed by 100 million people, comes as Biden has for weeks maintained about a 7-percentage-point advantage over Trump in national polls, threatening to make Trump the third U.S. president in the past four decades to lose reelection for a second four-year term in the White House.  However, the race is closer in several key battleground states, which raises the possibility that Trump could once again lose the popular vote — as he did against Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 — and still win more of the all-important state electors to claim victory. 
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U.S. security officials are warning that violent domestic extremists pose a threat to the presidential election next month, amid what one official called a “witch’s brew” of rising political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns.FBI and U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memos say threats by domestic extremists to election-related targets will likely increase in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election.Those warnings so far have largely remained internal. But New Jersey’s homeland security office took the unusual step of publicly highlighting the threat in a little-noticed report on its website last week.”You have this witch’s brew that really hasn’t happened in America’s history. And if it has, it’s been decades if not centuries,” said Jared Maples, director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness, which published the threat assessment.Nationwide protests in recent months over racial justice and police brutality have been largely peaceful, but some have led to violent confrontations, including between extremist factions from left and right.The United States is grappling with the coronavirus pandemic, high unemployment and a contentious presidential election in a polarized political climate.President Donald Trump last week declined to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election to Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump has sought to cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election because of his concerns about mail-in voting, which Democrats have encouraged during the coronavirus pandemic.Stickers that read “I Voted By Mail” sit on a table waiting to be stuffed into envelopes by absentee ballot election workers at the Mecklenburg County Board of Elections office in Charlotte, NC on Sept.4, 2020.Documented cases of mail-ballot fraud are extremely rare and election experts say it would be nearly impossible for foreign actors to disrupt an election by mailing out fake ballots.A recent internal FBI bulletin warned that domestic extremists with varying ideologies would likely pose an increasing threat to government and election-related targets in the run-up to the election, according to a person familiar with it. The bulletin was first reported by Yahoo News.An FBI spokeswoman said the agency “routinely shares information with our law enforcement partners in order to assist in protecting the communities they serve,” but declined to comment on the specific document.A DHS memo dated to Aug. 17 said ideologically driven extremists and other actors “could quickly mobilize” to engage in violence related to the election. The document, also first reported by Yahoo News, was confirmed to Reuters by a person familiar with it.The memo said that lone offender white supremacists and other lone offenders with “personalized ideologies” pose the greatest threat of deadly violence.A DHS spokesperson directed Reuters to early September remarks by acting Secretary Chad Wolf, in which he said that the department “has taken unprecedented actions to address all forms of violent extremism, to specifically include threats posed by lone offenders and small cells of individuals.”Acting-Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf, center, arrives to join President Donald Trump at Andrews Air Force Base in Md., Aug. 18, 2020.In the spotlightTrump and his top officials have not so far publicly highlighted any threat by violent extremist groups to the election.Trump officials have pointed the finger at left-wing anarchists and anti-fascists during protests against police brutality and racism over the summer, but federal court records provide little evidence showing those arrested for violent acts had affiliations to far-left groups.Last week, the top two DHS officials acknowledged in congressional hearings, however, that white supremacists have posed the most lethal domestic threat to the United States in recent years.FBI Director Christopher Wray takes his seat to testify during an oversight hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, on Capitol Hill, Feb. 5, 2020 in Washington.FBI Director Christopher Wray said during congressional hearings earlier this month that his agency was conducting investigations into violent domestic extremists, include white supremacists and anti-fascist groups. He said the largest “chunk” of investigations were into white supremacist groups.White supremacist, anti-Semitic, anti-government, and related ideologies were tied to 77 percent of 454 alleged domestic extremist murders in the past decade, according to data compiled by the Anti-Defamation League, a New York City-based anti-hate advocacy organization, and presented at one of the congressional hearings last week.National Security Council spokesman John Ullyot told Reuters that Trump’s highest priority is “protecting the U.S. from all threats, both foreign and domestic” when asked if the president had addressed the election threat publicly.Maples, the New Jersey homeland director, said his agency did not issue a pre-election threat assessment in 2016, but that it was necessary this time around.”We want our allies and folks across the state to recognize that we need to be thinking about this,” he said.The New Jersey report outlines three possible scenarios for the November election: a quick election outcome; a protracted process where determining a winner takes months; and a legal battle that eventually goes to the Supreme Court.Each of the scenarios could lead to extremist violence, with the possibility of deadly confrontations between protesters and targeted violence toward police officers, the assessment concludes.The agency’s report says the extremists will likely be “anarchist, anti-government, and racially motivated,” but does not say which groups pose the greater threat.The domestic extremist threat has always been present, but is getting more attention this year, according to Mike Sena, president of the National Fusion Center Association, which represents state-run “fusion centers” staffed by federal, state and local public safety personnel who monitor threats and facilitate information sharing.”We have always had threats during the national election cycles from violent extremists, including terrorist organizations,” he said. “With current events, it is more in the spotlight than ever.”The Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, a bipartisan think tank, said in a June report that the outcome of the election could incite violence by the far-right or far-left.”If President Trump loses the election, some extremists may use violence because they believe — however incorrectly — that there was fraud or that the election of Democratic candidate Joe Biden will undermine their extremist objectives,” the report reads. “Alternatively, some on the far-left could resort to terrorism if President Trump is re-elected.”
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The lead attorney for U.S. President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Tuesday revealed to a federal judge that she has discussed the ongoing criminal case with the president, an extraordinary admission that raises questions about political interference. U.S. Justice Department lawyers denied any corruption or political motives in efforts to get the federal criminal case against Flynn dropped. In May, Attorney General William Barr stunned many in the legal community by ordering prosecutors to have the case dropped, a decision that came after Trump repeatedly complained that Flynn was being treated unfairly. U.S. Attorney General William Barr speaks during a press conference in Chicago, Illinois, Sept. 9, 2020.Critics have accused Barr of giving special treatment to Trump allies, such as Flynn and Trump’s longtime friend and supporter Roger Stone. Flynn’s defense counsel Sidney Powell tried to invoke executive privilege in an initial refusal to discuss details of her conversation with Trump, angering U.S. Judge Emmet Sullivan. “You don’t work for the government,” Sullivan told her. Powell, in a tense exchange with the judge, said: “I spoke one time to the president about this case to inform him of the general status” of the litigation. “I never discussed this case with the president until recently, when I asked him not to issue a pardon.” Powell downplayed a letter she sent to Barr and Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen in June of 2019, in which she informed them she would soon take over as Flynn’s lawyer, complained that the FBI had tried to entrap her client and asked the department to appoint new government lawyers to preside over the case. FILE – This sketch depicts President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, standing center, flanked by lawyers, listening to U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, right, inside the federal court in Washington, Dec. 18, 2018.When Sullivan asked whether she felt her letter to Barr was ethical, Powell replied: “Perfectly.” Powell’s discussion of the case with Trump, along with her letter to senior Justice Department officials, are likely to further stoke debate over whether the Trump administration is improperly seeking to dismiss the case.  The judge said he felt the letter to Barr “raises questions about motive” for the department to remove career prosecutors from the case and suggested the bar association might take issue with her tactics. He asked the government to schedule a follow-up meeting to discuss how Barr and Rosen responded. Kenneth Kohl, an assistant U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said he did not know details of Barr’s response but denied there was any improper political inference in the case. “I’ve never seen it in my entire career in our office and it didn’t happen here,” Kohl said. He directly attacked former top FBI officials, including former Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and former agent Peter Strzok, saying they could not be reliable witnesses for the government if it had proceeded with its prosecution of Flynn. Powell, meanwhile, told Sullivan she thought he was biased against Flynn and intended to file a motion soon to ask him to recuse himself. Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, was charged under former Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that detailed Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. Election. Flynn pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI about his conversations before Trump took office with Sergei Kislyak, who was then Russia’s ambassador to the United States, concerning U.S. sanctions imposed on Russia under President Barack Obama. He was due to be sentenced in December 2018. FILE – Former special counsel Robert Mueller testifies on Capitol Hill, July 24, 2019.Sullivan delayed that until Flynn could finish cooperating with the government in a separate criminal case. But Flynn last year switched lawyers and his new legal team claimed the FBI had set him up. Barr’s unusual move ordering the case dropped despite the guilty pleas led Sullivan to tap retired judge John Gleeson to argue against the Justice Department’s legal position. Gleeson on Tuesday urged Sullivan not to drop the case. “People who don’t hang around in federal courtrooms don’t really get just how important it is to enter a guilty plea,” he said. “People can’t plead guilty and then show up for sentencing, as this defendant did on December 18, 2018, and see how the wind is blowing.” 
 
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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was buried early Tuesday during a private ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery.  Her casket was carried by a U.S. Army escort under “dependent honors” for dependents of military service members, CNN reported.She was buried next to her Army veteran husband, Martin Ginsburg, who died in 2010.Ginsburg laid in repose last Wednesday and Thursday at the Supreme Court before her casket was taken to the U.S. Capitol on Friday, where she became the first woman to lie in state there.She died Sept. 18 at age 87 of metastatic pancreatic cancer, ending a 27-year tenure on the nation’s highest court. On Sept. 26, President Donald Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett, who sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, to replace Ginsburg.
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The U.S. National Football League announced Tuesday that two of its teams, the Tennessee Titans and Minnesota Vikings, have suspended team activities after three Tennessee players and five staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. NFL sources say Tennessee reported the positive tests Tuesday. The Vikings had not reported a positive test, but as they hosted the Titans team at their stadium Sunday in Minneapolis, they said in statement posted to their Twitter account, they were suspending in-person activities as a precautionary measure until further notice. The Vikings say they will work closely with the league and the NFL Players Association – the players’ union – to monitor the situation. In a joint statement Tuesday, the NFL and the association said, “Both clubs are working closely with the NFL and the NFLPA, including our infectious disease experts, to evaluate close contacts, perform additional testing and monitor developments. All decisions will be made with health and safety as our primary consideration.” While two cases had been reported since the NFL season began early this month, this is the first “outbreak” in the league on a single team since training camps opened in early July. The NFL has been holding its games in empty or nearly empty stadiums. The league has not said whether the affected teams’ games this week, the fourth week of the NFL season, will proceed as scheduled.  FILE – NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell speaks during a news conference in Miami, Feb. 3, 2020.That determination will be reached by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in consultation with an eight-member group comprising coaches, executives and former players from various team affiliations. It was established to prevent members of the league’s competition committee from making self-interested decisions on which teams might have to cancel or postpone games. The Titans are scheduled to host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, while the Vikings play at the Houston Texans. 
 
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U.S. President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, meets informally Tuesday with senators on Capitol Hill, kicking off an accelerated confirmation process that Republicans intend to complete before the November 3 presidential election in the face of Democratic opposition.
 
Barrett, who would be Trump’s third conservative appointee to the nation’s highest court if confirmed by the Senate, meets first with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell.  
 
She will also meet with Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, Republican committee members Mike Crapo, Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee and other Republican senators.
 
The informal meetings are part of a traditional process leading to confirmation hearings that are set to begin on October 12. A Barrett confirmation would give the court a clear 6-3 conservative majority.
 
Graham has said the Judiciary Committee will probably vote on Barrett’s nomination on October 22, paving the way for a vote before the full Senate, where Trump’s Republican allies have a 53-47 majority.
 
Democrats are strongly opposed to Barrett and Republicans’ acceleration of the confirmation process. They maintain the winner of the presidential election should nominate a successor to liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18 at the age of 87. Most Americans also share that perspective, according to national polls.
 
Barrett currently serves on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit after being nominated by Trump and confirmed by the Senate in 2017.
 
Since her confirmation to the 7th Circuit, Barrett has authored more than 100 opinions that have consistently reflected her conservative values.
 
The 48-year-old Barrett is a devout Catholic who is very popular among conservative evangelical Christians, arguably Trump’s most loyal supporters. Abortion rights groups are concerned that Barrett’s confirmation could threaten the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion in the U.S.  
 
As a professor at Notre Dame Law School, Barrett expressed some criticism of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade, which protects a pregnant woman’s right to have an abortion without unnecessary government restriction.
 
Democrats also have voiced concerns that Barrett could cast a deciding vote in a Supreme Court case on November 10, in which Trump and Republican allies are asking the court to strike down Obamacare, a nationwide health care law known formally as the Affordable Care Act.
 
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The lone Kentucky detective facing charges related to the fatal shooting of Breonna Taylor pleaded not guilty Monday.
Brett Hankison’s plea comes five days after a grand jury indicted him on three counts of wanton endangerment for firing into the home of Taylor’s neighbors. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison on each count.
Hankison’s lawyer asked that his client be allowed to keep firearms for self-defense, saying Hankison, who was fired in June, “has received a number of threats.” The judge turned down the request.
The grand jury declined to charge Hankison or the other two undercover narcotics officers who opened fire inside Taylor’s house with her shooting. The decision not to charge the officers set off protests in Louisville and across the country.
On Monday, Louisville’s mayor lifted the curfew put in place after people refused to end their nighttime protests. Mayor Greg Fischer’s statement said the 9 p.m. curfew had served its purpose.
“We sadly saw some violence, including the shooting of two police officers, one of whom remains hospitalized, dealing with complications of his injuries. But we believe the curfew helped, by ensuring fewer people were out late in the day,” Fischer said.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the protests were largely peaceful, with a few people taking advantage of the situation to commit violence.
“Let me say this, 99.99% of people that took to the streets or the sidewalks did so peacefully, raised their voices to be heard and we should listen. We should listen to the trauma and to the pain,” Beshear said.
Meanwhile, Kentucky state Rep. Lisa Willner, a Louisville Democrat, said Monday that she’s starting to craft legislation that would narrow the scope of the state’s rioting statute.
Her proposal, which she intends to offer in next year’s legislative session, would protect people from being charged with first-degree rioting if they’re present but don’t engage in destructive or violent actions. Her response comes after Democratic state Rep. Attica Scott was charged with the felony last week while participating in Louisville protests for racial justice.
“This is not any attempt at all to weaken the current law,” Willner said in a phone interview. “It’s just to make sure that people who are peacefully protesting, who are merely exercising their First Amendment rights, are clearly not engaging in rioting.”
Scott was among demonstrators who converged in downtown Louisville to express their disagreement with the grand jury decision. Many marched along Louisville’s streets chanting “Breonna Taylor, say her name,” and “no justice, no peace.”
Taylor was shot multiple times after her boyfriend opened fire as officers entered her home during a narcotics raid on the night of March 13, authorities said. Taylor’s boyfriend said he didn’t know who was coming in and fired in self-defense. One officer was wounded.
A coroner’s report obtained Monday says Taylor was shot five times and died of multiple gunshot wounds. It says she was hit in the torso, her upper left extremity and both lower extremities. She tested negative for drugs and alcohol.
Scott, the state’s only Black woman representative, was arrested and charged Thursday night with the felony of first-degree rioting as well as unlawful assembly and failure to disperse, which are misdemeanor offenses.
Police said Scott was in a group whose members damaged buildings and set fire to a library.
Scott called the charges “ludicrous” and said she would never be involved in setting fire to a library. She said she was arrested as she walked with her daughter to the sanctuary of a church.
Kentucky law defines a riot as a public disturbance involving five or more people “which by tumultuous and violent conduct creates grave danger of damage or injury to property or persons or substantially obstructs law enforcement or other government function.”
The law defines first-degree rioting as knowingly participating in a riot that causes injury to a person who is not rioting or causes substantial property damage.
Scott said she and her daughter were driving from a protest to a church that offered refuge to people who would otherwise be caught violating the curfew when police blocked their route, so they parked and walked to the church instead. Officers then converged on them to make arrests before the curfew took effect, Scott said.
“LMPD swarmed us,” Scott said. “They started yelling, ‘Circle ’em, circle ’em.’ They wouldn’t let us leave to go back to our vehicle. And they wouldn’t let us literally cross the street to get to the church and sanctuary.”
Willner said Scott’s arrest “raises the question of how many others have been accused of rioting in the first degree — which is a felony — who are facing loss of voting rights, simply by being present.”
“We can make the language much clearer so that in order for a person to be convicted for riot in the first degree, it should be clear that they participated in the unlawful action by engaging in violent or destructive acts or by complicitly encouraging others to engage in violent or destructive acts,” she said.
Republicans have overwhelming majorities in both chambers of the Kentucky legislature.
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A standoff between South Florida police and President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale ended after an officer who was friends with Parscale convinced him to surrender, officials said.
Fort Lauderdale Officer Christopher Wilson wrote in a report that he had just finished a shift Sunday evening when a mutual friend called him and told him that a SWAT team was at Parscale’s home, and he was refusing to come out. When Wilson arrived at the Fort Lauderdale home, he was able to persuade Parscale to come outside. Body camera footage released Monday shows officers rushing Parscale and knocking him to the ground before taking him into custody.
The standoff started earlier Sunday after Parscale’s wife fled the home and asked for help from a real estate agent showing a nearby house, officials said. They called 911, and officers responded.
The wife told officers that Parscale had been stressed out recently and that he had made comments about shooting himself, according to a police report. Investigators said 10 guns were later removed from the home. The wife also said that Parscale drinks and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder.
One of the responding officers reported that he witnessed bruising on the wife’s arm and face. She told him that the injuries had come from an altercation with Parscale earlier that week, according to the police report. The officer called Parscale and asked him to leave the house unarmed, but the report said Parscale remained in the home for about an hour, until Wilson arrived and convinced him to come outside.
Parscale was hospitalized Sunday under the state’s Baker Act. That act allows anyone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others to be detained for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation.
Parscale was demoted from the campaign manager’s post in July but remained part of the campaign, helping run its digital operation.
Standing 6’8″ and with a distinctive beard, Parscale had become a celebrity to Trump supporters and would frequently pose for photos and sign autographs ahead of campaign rallies. But Trump had begun to sour on him earlier this year as Parscale attracted a wave of media attention that included focus on his seemingly glitzy lifestyle on the Florida coast that kept him far from campaign headquarters in Virginia.
Over the summer, he hyped a million ticket requests for the president’s comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that ended up drawing just 6,000 people. A furious Trump was left staring at a sea of empty seats and, weeks later, promoted Bill Stepien to campaign manager.
Parscale was originally hired to run Trump’s 2016 campaign by Jared Kushner, the president’s powerful son-in-law. While the Republican National Committee owns most of the campaign’s data, voter modeling and outreach tools, Parscale ran most of the microtargeted online advertising that Trump aides believe was key to his victory four years ago.
Under the state’s Red Flag Law, officials could ask a judge to bar Parscale from possessing any weapons for up to a year.
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Northern California’s wine country was on fire again Monday as strong winds fanned flames in the already scorched region, destroying homes and prompting orders for nearly 70,000 people to evacuate. Meanwhile, three people died in a separate fire farther north in the state. In Sonoma County, residents of the Oakmont Gardens senior living facility in Santa Rosa boarded brightly lit city buses in the darkness overnight, some wearing bathrobes and using walkers. They wore masks to protect against the coronavirus as orange flames marked the dark sky.  The fire threat forced Adventist Health St. Helena hospital to suspend care and transfer all patients elsewhere.  The fires that began Sunday in the famed Napa-Sonoma wine country about 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of San Francisco came as the region nears the third anniversary of deadly wildfires that erupted in 2017, including one that killed 22 people. Just a month ago, many of those same residents were evacuated from the path of a lightning-sparked fire that became the fourth largest in state history.  “Our firefighters have not had much of a break, and these residents have not had much of a break,” said Daniel Berlant, assistant deputy director with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. Sonoma County Supervisor Susan Gorin evacuated her property in the Oakmont community of Santa Rosa at about 1 a.m. She is rebuilding a home damaged in the 2017 fires. Gorin said she saw three neighboring houses in flames as she fled early Monday. “We’re experienced with that,” she said of the fires. “Once you lose a house and represent thousands of folks who’ve lost homes, you become pretty fatalistic that this is a new way of life and, depressingly, a normal way of life, the megafires that are spreading throughout the West.” More than 68,000 people in Sonoma and Napa counties have been evacuated in the latest inferno, one of nearly 30 fire clusters burning across the state, said Cal Fire Division Chief Ben Nichols. Many more residents have been warned that they might have to flee, even though winds eased significantly Monday afternoon, giving firefighters an opportunity to make some progress, he said.An air tanker drops retardant as the LNU Lightning Complex fires tear through the Spanish Flat community in unincorporated Napa County, Calif., Aug. 18, 2020.”The smoky skies that we’re under are a sign that there’s not a lot of air movement out there moving the smoke around,” Nichols said at an evening briefing. “Not good for air quality, and folks outside exercising, but great for us to work on containing this fire and working on putting it out.”  The Glass Fire broke out before 4 a.m. Sunday and merged with two other fires to scorch more than 56 square miles (145 square kilometers) as of Monday. There was no containment. Officials did not have an estimate of the number of homes destroyed or burned, but the blaze engulfed the Chateau Boswell Winery in St. Helena and at least one five-star resort. Logan Hertel of Santa Rosa used a garden hose to fight flames at a neighbor’s house in the Skyhawk neighborhood until firefighters could relieve him.  “Seems like they got enough on their hands already. So I wanted to step in and put out the fire,” Hertel said.  Dominic Wiggens, who lives in the same neighborhood, evacuated but returned later Monday. His home was still standing, but many others were gone. “It’s so sad,” he said.  Pacific Gas & Electric was inspecting its equipment as it sought to restore power to more than 100,000 customers who had it turned off in advance of gusty winds and in areas with active fire zones. The utility’s equipment has caused previous disasters, including the 2018 Camp Fire that killed 85 people and devastated the town of Paradise in the Sierra Nevada foothills. More than 1,200 people were also evacuated in Shasta County for the Zogg Fire, spread over 23 square miles (59 square kilometers) by Monday.  Shasta County Sheriff Eric Magrini said three people died as a result of the fire, though he gave no details. “It’s with a sad heart that I come before you today,” he said, urging residents to heed advice to leave. “When you get that order, evacuate immediately. Do not wait.” Residences are widely scattered in the forested area in the far northern part of the state. The region was torched just two years ago by the deadly Carr Fire — infamously remembered for producing a huge tornado-like fire whirl. The causes of the new fires were under investigation. Mark Ghilarducci, director of the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, said 2020 has been challenging.  “The silver lining to it is that people who live in California become more prepared, they’re more aware, they know these events take place and we’re seeing a citizenry that does get it and is working hard to be prepared,” he said.  Numerous studies in recent years have linked bigger wildfires in America to climate change from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Scientists say climate change has made California much drier, meaning trees and other plants are more flammable. The latest fires erupted as a giant ridge of high pressure settled over the West, producing powerful gusts blowing from the interior toward the coast while slashing humidity levels and raising temperatures. So far in this year’s historic fire season, more than 8,100 California wildfires have now killed 29 people, scorched 5,780 square miles (14,970 square kilometers), and destroyed more than 7,000 buildings.  Most of the losses occurred after a frenzy of dry lightning strikes in mid-August ignited a massive outbreak of fires. Fire worries were developing across Southern California, although it was unclear how strong the predicted Santa Ana winds would become. Heat and extreme dryness were also expected to create problems.  Conditions were also hot, dry and windy in parts of Arizona, where the Sears Fire in Tonto National Forest north of Phoenix has grown to more than 14 square miles (36 square kilometers) since it erupted Friday. Authorities reported zero containment.  
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New reported revelations that President Donald Trump paid little in federal taxes, along with the president’s unsubstantiated allegations of mail-in voting fraud, and the political battle to name a new conservative Supreme Court justice before the November election, have shifted media focus of the U.S. presidential campaign away from the coronavirus pandemic. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on how both Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are reacting to these issues as they prepare for the first of three presidential debates on Tuesday, and how all this might impact the race.
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