In Brief: June 24, 2020

Trump-backed House candidates lose in Kentucky, N. Carolina

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Voters rebuffed President Donald Trump’s preferences and nominated two Republicans he opposed to House seats from North Carolina and Kentucky on Tuesday. Calls in higher-profile races in Kentucky and probably New York faced days of delay as swamped officials count mountains of mail-in ballots.

In western North Carolina, GOP voters picked 24-year-old investor Madison Cawthorn, who uses a wheelchair following an accident, over Trump-backed real estate agent Lynda Bennett. The runoff was for the seat vacated by GOP Rep. Mark Meadows, who resigned to become Trump’s chief of staff and joined his new boss in backing Bennett.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, a libertarian-minded maverick who often clashes with GOP leaders, was renominated for a sixth House term in Kentucky. Trump savaged Massie in March as a “disaster for America” who should be ejected from the party after he forced lawmakers to return to Washington during a pandemic to vote on a huge economic relief package.

Cawthorn, who will meet the constitutionally mandated minimum age of 25 when the next Congress convenes, has said he’s a Trump supporter, and Massie is strongly conservative. Still, their victories were an embarrassment to a president whose own reelection campaign has teetered recently.

As states ease voting by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic, a deluge of mail-in ballots and glacially slow counting procedures made delays inevitable. That torturous wait seemed a preview of November, when numerous states will embrace mail-in voting and officials are warning that uncertainty over who is the next president could linger for days.

With student gathering, Trump gets a more boisterous crowd

PHOENIX — It wasn’t quite one of his signature big-stadium rallies.

But President Donald Trump drew something closer to the jam-packed audience of political supporters he’s been craving as hundreds of young conservatives filled a Phoenix megachurch Tuesday to hear his call for them to get behind his reelection effort.

The crowded Dream City Church for the gathering of Students for Trump offered a starkly different feel compared to Trump’s weekend rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his first of the coronavirus era, which drew sparser attendance.

Trump hailed the “patriotic young Americans who stand up tall for America and refuse to kneel to the radical left.”

“You are the courageous warriors standing in the way of what they want to do and their goals,” he told the boisterous crowd. “They hate our history. They hate our values, and they hate everything we prize as Americans.”

Powerful earthquake shakes southern Mexico, at least 5 dead

MEXICO CITY — A powerful earthquake centered near the southern Mexico resort of Huatulco on Tuesday killed at least five people, swayed buildings in Mexico City and sent thousands fleeing into the streets.

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said one person was killed in a building collapse in Huatulco, Oaxaca. Otherwise he said reports were of minor damage from the magnitude 7.4 quake, including broken windows and collapsed walls. Oaxaca Gov. Alejandro Murat said a second person was killed in an apparent house collapse in the mountain village of San Juan Ozolotepec and a third died in circumstances he did not explain.

Federal civil defense authorities reported two more deaths: a worker at the state-run oil company, Pemex, fell to his death from a refinery structure, and a man died in the Oaxaca village of San Agustin Amatengo when a wall fell on him.

Pemex also said the quake caused a fire at its refinery in the Pacific coast city of Salina Cruz, relatively near the epicenter. It said one worker was injured and the flames were quickly extinguished. Churches, bridges and highways also suffered damage during the quake.

López Obrador said there had been more than 140 aftershocks, most of them small.

Baptists and Walmart criticize rebel-themed Mississippi flag

JACKSON, Miss. — The Confederate-themed Mississippi flag drew opposition Tuesday from two big forces in the culturally conservative state: Southern Baptists and Walmart.

Walmart said it will stop displaying the Mississippi flag while the state debates whether to change the design. The Mississippi Baptist Convention said lawmakers have a moral obligation to remove the Confederate battle emblem from the state flag because many people are “hurt and shamed” by it.

“We believe it’s the right thing to do, and is consistent with Walmart’s position to not sell merchandise with the confederate flag from stores and online sites, as part of our commitment to provide a welcoming and inclusive experience for all of our customers in the communities we serve,” company spokesperson Anne Hatfield said.

The announcements increase pressure for change in a state that is slow to embrace it. Protests against racial injustice across the U.S. are focusing new attention on Confederate symbols.

Mississippi has the last state flag that includes the Confederate battle emblem: a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. The NCAA, the Southeastern Conference, prominent business organizations and other religious groups have already called for the state to adopt a more inclusive banner.

White House wins ruling on health care price disclosure

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration won a court ruling Tuesday upholding its plan to require insurers and hospitals to disclose the actual prices for common tests and procedures in a bid to promote competition and push down costs.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar called the decision in federal court in Washington, D.C., “a resounding victory” for President Donald Trump’s efforts to open up the convoluted world of health care pricing so patients and families can make better-informed decisions about their care.

“This may very well be bigger than healthcare itself,” Trump tweeted Tuesday, on the ruling. “Congratulations America!”

But the American Hospital Association, which sued to block the Trump administration regulation and was on the losing side, announced it would appeal. Industry argues that forcing the disclosure of prices negotiated between hospitals and insurers amounts to coercion.

That means the decision by U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols may not be the final word.

Rope found hanging in Wallace’s garage was coincidence

NASCAR stood by its decision to alert federal authorities to a rope that resembled a noose found in Bubba Wallace’s garage stall at Talladega Superspeedway, even after the investigation determined it had been there since at least last October.

U.S. Attorney Jay Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr. said Tuesday an investigation determined “nobody could have known Mr. Wallace would be assigned” to that same stall. NASCAR said it was the lone garage stall with a pull down rope that resembled a noose.

Wallace is the only Black driver at NASCAR’s top level and has become a leading activist in the sport during a push for racial equality. He has worn an “I Can’t Breathe” shirt, had a Black Lives Matter paint scheme and successfully pushed NASCAR to ban the Confederate flag.

In using his newfound voice, the 26-year-old has said he’s received death threats and NASCAR had assigned him at-track security.

It made for heightened sensitivity and a potential overreaction when a crew member for Richard Petty Motorsports reported a noose had been found sometime after Sunday’s race was delayed by rain. NASCAR said it was “angry and outraged” over the “heinous act” that the series directly linked to racism.

Trump’s brother seeks to halt family tell-all book

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s brother is asking a New York City judge to prevent the president’s niece from publishing a tell-all book, which is expected to be released later this month.

In court papers, Robert Trump’s lawyers argue that Mary Trump and others had signed a settlement agreement in the late 1990s that included a confidentially clause explicitly saying they would not “publish any account concerning the litigation or their relationship,” unless they all agreed.

The settlement agreement related to the will of Donald Trump’s father, New York real estate developer Fred Trump.

“Confidentiality was at the essence of the Settlement agreement,” the court papers say.

Robert Trump argues the publication of the book is prohibited by the settlement agreement reached in 2001 and he never consented to it being published. Mary Trump is the daughter of Fred Trump Jr., the president’s older brother, who died in 1981.