BC-TROPICAL WEATHER

Hanna becomes first hurricane of 2020 Atlantic season

MIAMI (AP) — Tropical Storm Hanna was upgraded to a hurricane Saturday morning as it moved toward the Texas coast, becoming the first hurricane of the 2020 season. A Saturday morning update from the National Hurricane Center says Hanna’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 75 mph. The storm is centered about 100 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas. Up to a foot of rain and storm surge up to 5 feet is forecast for some areas. Tropical Storm Gonzalo is still on track to move across the southern Windward Islands later Saturday. Gonzalo is forecast to bring 1 to 3 inches of rain, with isolated totals of 5 inches.

RACIAL INJUSTICE-PORTLAND

Federal agents use tear gas to clear Portland protest

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — U.S. agents marched in a line down a street in Oregon early Saturday, clearing out protesters with tear gas at close range. The Federal Protective Service had declared an unlawful assembly outside the federal courthouse in Portland and said officers had been injured. Thousands of people had been gathered since Friday night at the demonstration that included protesters shooting fireworks, throwing glass bottles and shaking a fence that surrounds the building. The protests have roiled the city and pitted local officials against the Trump administration. The federal agents, deployed by President Donald Trump to tamp down the unrest, have arrested dozens during nightly demonstrations against racial injustice that often turn violent.

AP-US-RACIAL-INJUSTICE-SEATTLE

Judge blocks Seattle law banning police use of pepper spray

SEATTLE (AP) — A federal judge late Friday blocked Seattle’s new law prohibiting police from using pepper spray, blast balls and similar weapons that was passed following confrontations with protesters. The Seattle Times reports that U.S. District Judge James Robart at an emergency hearing late Friday granted a request from the federal government to block the new law, which the Seattle City Council passed unanimously last month. The U.S. Department of Justice, citing Seattle’s longstanding police consent decree, argued that banning the use of crowd control weapons could actually lead to more police use of force, leaving them only with more deadly weapons.

JOHN LEWIS REMEMBERED

Segregation, King meeting set Lewis on quest for justice

TROY, Ala. (AP) — The late Rep. John Lewis will be remembered with services that begin this weekend in his home state of Alabama, before lying in state at the U.S. Capitol and his funeral next week in Georgia. A service celebrating “The Boy from Troy” will be held Saturday on the campus of Troy University. His casket on Sunday will be carried across Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge, the place where he and other civil rights activists were beaten by state troopers in 1965. A lifetime of work can be traced back to his home in then-segregated Pike County, Alabama, where Lewis winced at the signs designating places as “whites only.”

VIRUS OUTBREAK-RISK BY RACE

US agency vows steps to address COVID-19 inequalities

NEW YORK (AP) — The nation’s top public health agency has released a new strategy for dealing with the coronavirus epidemic’s unequal impact on minorities. Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stress that the disproportionately high impact of the virus on certain minority groups is not driven by genetics. Rather, it’s social conditions that make people of color more likely to be exposed to the virus and more likely to get seriously ill. The CDC is vowing better data collection on how the virus is impacting minorities. It also aims to improve testing and contact tracing for minorities. And the agency wants to diversify the public health workforce responding to the epidemic.

AP-US-VIRUS-OUTBREAK-NEVADA-CHURCH

US Supreme Court denies Nevada church’s appeal of virus rule

RENO, Nev. (AP) — A sharply divided U.S. Supreme Court has denied a rural Nevada church’s request to strike down as unconstitutional a 50-person cap on worship services as part of the state’s ongoing response to the coronavirus. In a 5-4 decision Friday, the high court refused to grant the request from the Christian church east of Reno to be subjected to the same COVID-19 restrictions in Nevada that allow casinos, restaurants and others to operate at 50% of capacity. The church argued the hard cap on religious gatherings was an unconstitutional violation of its First Amendment rights. Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the majority in denying the request without explanation.

VIRUS OUTBREAK-ASIA

Asia Today: Amid new surge, India tests potential vaccine

NEW DELHI (AP) — India has begun its first human trials of a coronavirus vaccine candidate as the world’s second-most populous country recorded nearly 49,000 new cases. The additional infections take India’s total to more than 1.3 million on Saturday, with surges seen in a quarter of the country’s 36 states and union territories. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences says it administered the first dose of a trial COVID-19 vaccine on Friday. The drug Covaxin is among nearly two dozen that are in human trials around the world. South Korea reported 113 new cases, its first daily jump over 100 in nearly four months. Health authorities had forecast a temporary spike driven by imported infections including workers airlifted out of Iraq.

AP-VIRUS-OUTBREAK-THE-LATEST

The Latest: Swimming pools and gyms reopen in England

Swimming pools and gyms in England are reopening for the first time since the U.K. went into lockdown as public health officials extol the benefits of exercise in fighting COVID-19. The government has announced a fresh attack on obesity as part of the move, hoping that a fitter nation might be able to minimize the impact of future waves of the virus. But Jane Nickerson, chief executive of Swim England, says that there had been financial pressure on pools even before the pandemic and that without government support many won’t open this year _ or ever.

AP-US-BUS-DRIVER-ASSAULTED-MASKS

San Francisco bus driver assaulted with bat over mask order

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A San Francisco bus driver was assaulted with a wooden bat after asking three passengers to wear a mask in keeping with city health orders to combat the coronavirus. A San Francisco police spokesman said three men boarded the bus Wednesday afternoon and refused the driver’s requests to put on masks. The driver pulled over to let them off. As he was escorting them off, one of the passengers pulled out a wooden bat and struck the driver several times. The extent of the driver’s injuries was not made public.

TEXAS GIRL-LIFE SUPPORT

Texas court says girl stays on life support, pending trial

DALLAS (AP) — A Texas appeals court has ruled that a hospital must keep a 17-month-old girl on life support pending a trial addressing the merits of the law doctors invoked to withdraw life-sustaining treatment. The ruling came in Friday after the case has been making its way through the courts for months. On Nov. 10, Cook Children’s Medical Center in Forth Worth had planned to remove Tinslee Lewis from life support after invoking the state’s “10-day rule.” The law can be employed when a family disagrees with doctors on withdrawing life-sustaining treatment. Doctors have said Tinslee is in pain and won’t ever improve. Her mother says she should make any end-of-life decision.

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

×