In Brief: August 19, 2020

Trump campaign’s Russia contacts ‘grave’ threat, Senate says

WASHINGTON — The Trump campaign’s interactions with Russian intelligence services during the 2016 presidential election posed a “grave” counterintelligence threat, a Senate panel concluded Tuesday as it detailed how associates of Donald Trump had regular contact with Russians and expected to benefit from the Kremlin’s help.

The nearly 1,000-page report, the fifth and final one from the Republican-led Senate intelligence committee on the Russia investigation, details how Russia launched an aggressive effort to interfere in the election on Trump’s behalf. It says the Trump campaign chairman had regular contact with a Russian intelligence officer and says other Trump associates were eager to exploit the Kremlin’s aid, particularly by maximizing the impact of the disclosure of Democratic emails hacked by Russian intelligence officers.

The report is the culmination of a bipartisan probe that produced what the committee called “the most comprehensive description to date of Russia’s activities and the threat they posed.” The investigation spanned more than three years as the panel’s leaders said they wanted to thoroughly document the unprecedented attack on U.S. elections.

The findings, including unflinching characterizations of furtive interactions between Trump associates and Russian operatives, echo to a large degree those of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and appear to repudiate the Republican president’s claims that the FBI had no basis to investigate whether his campaign was conspiring with Russia.

Trump, who has repeatedly called the Russia investigations a “hoax,” said Tuesday he “didn’t know anything about” the report, or Russia or Ukraine.

How can Wall Street be so healthy when Main Street isn’t?

NEW YORK — The stock market is not the economy.

Rarely has that adage been as clear as it is now. An amazing, monthslong rally has put the S&P 500 back to where it was before the coronavirus slammed the U.S, even though millions of workers are still getting unemployment benefits and businesses continue to shutter across the country.

The S&P 500, which is the benchmark index for stock funds at the heart of many 401(k) accounts, ended Tuesday at 3,389.78, eclipsing the previous high set on Feb. 19 and erasing all of the 34% plunge from February into March in less time than it takes a baby to learn how to crawl.

From wire sources

The U.S. and global economies have shown some improvements since the spring, when business lockdowns were widespread, but they are nowhere close to fully healed. The number of virus cases continues to rise across much of the United States, and federal and local politicians for the most part lack a strategy to contain it. Many industries, such as airlines, hotels and dining, could take years to recover from the damage.

The Federal Reserve and the U.S. government get a lot of the credit for the rally after pouring trillions of dollars into the economy. Profits also remained incredibly resilient for the stock market’s most influential companies, such as Apple and Amazon. Rising hopes for a potential vaccine to halt the pandemic, meanwhile, have encouraged investors to look past the current dreary statistics.

Amazon continues to burn in 2020 despite promises to save it

NOVO PROGRESSO, Brazil — A year ago this month, the forest around the town of Novo Progresso erupted into flames — the first major blazes in the Brazilian Amazon’s dry season that ultimately saw more than 100,000 fires and spurred global outrage against the government’s inability or unwillingness to protect the rainforest.

This year, President Jair Bolsonaro pledged to control the burning — typically started by local farmers to clear land for cattle or to grow soybeans, one of Brazil’s top exports. He imposed a four-month ban on most fires and sent in the army to prevent and battle blazes.

But this week the smoke is again so thick around Novo Progresso that police have reported motorists have crashed because they can’t see.

As smoke wreaths Novo Progresso, this year’s burning season could determine whether Bolsonaro, an avid supporter of bringing more farming and ranching to the Amazon, is willing and able to halt the fires. Experts say the blazes are pushing the world’s largest rainforest toward a tipping point, after which it will cease to generate enough rainfall to sustain itself, and approximately two-thirds of the forest will begin an irreversible, decades-long decline into tropical savanna.

But residents of Novo Progresso like businessman Claudio Herculano believe the city has only grown in the last few years because of increased ranching in the area.

Biden’s convention focus: Experience to fix Trump’s chaos

NEW YORK — Joe Biden is drawing on party elders at the Democratic National Convention, making the case that he and his party are uniquely positioned with experience and expertise to repair chaos that President Donald Trump has created at home and abroad.

He’s also showing off younger Democrats the party hopes will be the political stars of tomorrow.

Former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State John Kerry are among the heavy hitters on a schedule that emphasizes a simple theme: Leadership matters. Former President Jimmy Carter, now 95 years old, will also make an appearance.

“Donald Trump says we’re leading the world. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple,” Clinton says in excerpts of his remarks released ahead of the convention’s second night. “At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos.”

On a night that Biden will formally earn his party’s presidential nomination, the convention will also introduce his wife, Jill Biden, to the nation as the prospective first lady.

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Cindy McCain details husband’s friendship with Biden for DNC

WILMINGTON, Del. — Cindy McCain is going to bat for Joe Biden, lending her voice to a video set to air during Tuesday night’s Democratic National Convention programming focused on Biden’s close friendship with her late husband, Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

She’s just the latest Republican to join in the convention, after a number of notable GOP former elected officials — including former Ohio Gov. John Kasich — endorsed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee on Monday night. It’s a continuation of a major theme that Democrats have pushed through the first night of the convention — an effort to broaden the party’s appeal to occasional Republicans and disaffected Trump voters.

In an advance clip from the video shared with The Associated Press, Cindy McCain talks about how Biden, then a Delaware senator, met her husband when John McCain was assigned to be a military aide for him on a trip overseas. The two became friends, and the families would gather for picnics in the Bidens’ backyard.

“They would just sit and joke. It was like a comedy show, sometimes, to watch the two of them,” she says in the clip.

Cindy McCain is not expected to offer an explicit endorsement, but her involvement in the video is her biggest public show of support yet for Biden’s candidacy. McCain was the 2008 Republican presidential nominee against Democrat Barack Obama, who won the election with Biden as his vice presidential running mate.

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After years of big moments, Bill Clinton’s DNC role shrinks

WASHINGTON — Few people ever have logged more time on Democratic National Convention stages than Bill Clinton.

But when the former president delivers his 11th speech to his party’s faithful on Tuesday, it will be like none they’ve seen since he was a relative national unknown from Arkansas four decades ago. It will be brief.

Clinton’s address at the virtual convention will be limited to just five minutes — hardly enough time for the famously loquacious Clinton to get warmed up. The remarks will come before the time slots reserved for brighter stars, including presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden’s wife, Jill.

Even abbreviated, Clinton’s appearance is tricky for his party. In the #MeToo era, as Democrats are focused on overt appeals to female voters, putting Clinton on stage is problematic for Democrats, given the numerous accusations of sexual misconduct against him.

An aide says Clinton’s speech will focus on Trump, including broadsides that go beyond the blistering speech he delivered during his 2016 convention address — when he helped the party formally choose his wife, Hillary, as its presidential nominee. The remarks were pretaped from the Clintons’ home in Chappaqua, New York.

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Mali’s president announces resignation after soldiers mutiny

BAMAKO, Mali — Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita announced his resignation late Tuesday on state television, hours after mutinous soldiers fired shots into the air outside his home before detaining him and the prime minister.

The dramatic development comes after several months of regular demonstrations calling for Keita to step down from power three years before his final term was due to end.

Speaking on national broadcaster ORTM just before midnight, a distressed Keita wearing a mask amid the COVID-19 pandemic said his resignation was effective immediately. A banner across the bottom of the television screen referred to him as the “outgoing president.”

“I wish no blood to be shed to keep me in power,” Keita said. “I have decided to step down from office.”

He also announced that his government and the National Assembly would be dissolved, certain to further the country’s turmoil amid an eight-year Islamic insurgency and the growing coronavirus pandemic.

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Colleges grapple with coronavirus as students return

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Notre Dame and Michigan State universities became the latest colleges to move classes online because of the coronavirus on Tuesday as colleges struggle to contain outbreaks and students continue to congregate in large groups without masks or social distancing.

The decisions came the same day a third school in the 17-member University of North Carolina system reported a COVID-19 cluster in off-campus housing.

Notre Dame president the Rev. John Jenkins announced the university’s decision to cancel in-person undergraduate classes for two weeks in an address to students and staff.

“It is very serious, and we must take serious actions,” Jenkins said, referring to the news that nearly 150 students had tested positive.

Jenkins said he decided against sending students home after consulting with health care experts. Instead, the university is imposing restrictions on student activity, including limiting access to dormitories to residents and barring students from major gathering places on campus.

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Britney Spears asks court to curb father’s power over her

LOS ANGELES — Britney Spears on Tuesday asked a court to keep her father from reasserting the broad control over her life and career that he has had for most of the past 12 years.

In documents filed by her court-appointed lawyer that give a rare public airing to the wishes of the 38-year-old pop superstar, she asked that her father not return to the role of conservator of her person, which gave him power over her major life decisions from 2008 until 2019, when he temporarily stepped aside, citing health problems.

“Britney is strongly opposed to James return as conservator of her person,” the document says.

James Spears has kept his separate role as conservator over his daughter’s finances. For the first 11 years of the conservatorship, he served as co-conservator with attorney Andrew M. Wallet, who resigned from the role early last year.

That briefly left James Spears with sole power over Britney Spears’ life, money and career, a situation she says she very much wants to avoid repeating.