Biden picks Kamala Harris as running mate, first Black woman

August 12, 2020

WILMINGTON, Del. (AP) — Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.

In choosing Harris, Biden embraced a former rival from the Democratic primary who is familiar with the unique rigor of a national campaign. The 55-year-old first-term senator, who is also of South Asian descent, is one of the party’s most prominent figures. She quickly became a top contender for the No. 2 spot after her own White House campaign ended.

She will appear with Biden for the first time as his running mate at an event Wednesday near his home in Wilmington, Delaware. In announcing the pick Tuesday, Biden called Harris a “fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country's finest public servants.” She said Biden would “unify the American people" and “build an America that lives up to our ideals.”

Harris joins Biden at a moment of unprecedented national crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 160,000 people in the U.S., far more than the toll experienced in other countries. Business closures and disruptions resulting from the pandemic have caused severe economic problems. Unrest, meanwhile, has emerged across the country as Americans protest racism and police brutality.

Trump’s uneven handling of the crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president. In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.

The president told reporters Tuesday he was “a little surprised” that Biden picked Harris, pointing to their debate stage disputes during the primary. Trump, who had donated to her previous campaigns, argued she was “about the most liberal person in the U.S. Senate.”

“I would have thought that Biden would have tried to stay away from that a little bit,” he said. Harris’s record as California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco was heavily scrutinized during the Democratic primary and turned away some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of racism in the legal system and police brutality. She declared herself a “progressive prosecutor” who backs law enforcement reforms.

Biden, who spent eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president, has spent months weighing who would fill that same role in his White House. He pledged in March to select a woman as his vice president, easing frustration among Democrats that the presidential race would center on two white men in their 70s.

Biden’s search was expansive, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive; Florida Rep. Val Demings, whose impeachment criticism of Trump won party plaudits; California Rep. Karen Bass, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus; former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice; and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose passionate response to unrest in her city garnered national attention.

A woman has never served as president or vice president in the United States. Hillary Clinton was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016. Two women have been nominated as running mates on major party tickets: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. Their parties lost in the general election.

The vice presidential pick carries increased significance this year. If elected, Biden would be 78 when inaugurated in January, the oldest man to ever assume the presidency. He’s spoken of himself as a transitional figure and hasn’t fully committed to seeking a second term in 2024.

Harris, born in 1964 to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, spent much of her formative years in Berkeley, California. She has often spoken of the deep bond she shared with her mother, whom she has called her single biggest influence.

Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. In that post, she created a reentry program for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy. She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job, and focused on issues including the foreclosure crisis. She declined to defend the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of Trump administration officials during congressional hearings. Harris launched her presidential campaign in early 2019 with the slogan “Kamala Harris For the People,” a reference to her courtroom work. She was one of the highest-profile contenders in a crowded Democratic primary and attracted 20,000 people to her first campaign rally in Oakland.

But the early promise of her campaign eventually faded. Her law enforcement background prompted skepticism from some progressives, and she struggled to land on a consistent message that resonated with voters. Facing fundraising problems, she abruptly withdrew from the race in December 2019, two months before the first votes of the primary were cast.

One standout moment of her presidential campaign came at the expense of Biden. During a debate, she said Biden made “very hurtful” comments about his past work with segregationist senators and slammed his opposition to busing as schools began to integrate in the 1970s.

“There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.” Shaken by the attack, Biden called her comments “a mischaracterization of my position.”

The exchange resurfaced recently with a report that one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about the debate and that Harris hadn’t expressed regret. The comments attributed to Dodd and first reported by Politico drew condemnation, especially from influential Democratic women who said Harris was being held to a standard that wouldn’t apply to a man running for president.

Some Biden confidants said Harris’ debate attack did irritate the former vice president, who had a friendly relationship with her. Harris was also close with Biden’s late son, Beau, who served as Delaware attorney general while she held the same post in California.

But Biden and Harris have since returned to a warm relationship. “Joe has empathy, he has a proven track record of leadership and more than ever before we need a president of the United States who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be,” Harris said at an event for Biden earlier this summer.

At the same event, she bluntly assailed Trump, labeling him a “drug pusher” for his promotion of the unproven and much-questioned malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus. After Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests about the death of George Floyd, a Black man in police custody, Harris said his remarks “yet again show what racism looks like.”

Harris has taken a tougher stand on policing since Floyd’s killing. She co-sponsored legislation in June that would ban police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and create a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would also reform the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.

The list in the legislation included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.

“We made progress, but clearly we are not at the place yet as a country where we need to be and California is no exception,” she told The Associated Press recently. The national focus on racial injustice now, she said, shows “there’s no reason that we have to continue to wait.”

Ronayne reported from Sacramento, California. Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe, Jill Colvin and Julie Pace contributed from Washington.

Voters will judge Omar's mix of progressivism and celebrity

August 11, 2020

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Rep. Ilhan Omar is about to learn whether voters in her Minneapolis-area congressional district support the mix of confrontational, anti-Trump progressivism and celebrity that she brings to the job.

Omar, the first Somali American and one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, is facing a surprisingly well-funded challenger in Minnesota's Democratic primaries on Tuesday. Antone Melton-Meaux, a Black lawyer and mediator, raised millions of anti-Omar dollars to fill mailboxes and flood airwaves. His “Focused on the Fifth” message has portrayed Omar, a member of “The Squad” of four progressive female lawmakers, as out of touch with the 5th District.

Omar rejected Melton-Meaux’s attacks, saying they were funded by interests that wanted to get her out of Congress because she’s effective. She also downplayed Melton-Meaux’s money and played up her ground game before the vote, saying, “Organized people will always beat organized money.”

The outcome may not be known Tuesday night if the results are close. Absentee voting in Minnesota was heavy, and officials must count mail-in ballots that arrive as late as Thursday under safety rules imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and Republican challenger Jason Lewis were expected to easily win their primaries in the only statewide races on the ballot. Elsewhere, in western Minnesota's conservative 7th District, former state Sen. Michelle Fischbach was the endorsed Republican in a three-way race for the right to challenge Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson. Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, is one of the GOP's top targets to flip a House seat in November.

After entering Congress with fanfare, Omar hurt herself early with comments about Jews, money and Israel that even some fellow Democrats called anti-Semitic, and found herself apologizing. She also came under scrutiny when her marriage fell apart and she married her political consultant months after denying they were having an affair.

Republicans also raised questions about continuing payments to her new husband's firm, though experts said they aren't necessarily improper. Progressive Democrats gained confidence in Omar’s reelection chances after primary victories last week by fellow “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and by a Black Lives Matter activist in a St. Louis-area congressional primary. Progressives also claimed momentum from the renewed focus on racial and economic justice following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

Shari Dveris, a 42-year-old school teacher, said she voted for Melton-Meaux because she doesn’t think the congresswoman “has done anything for her constituents,” echoing the challenger’s claim that Omar prioritized celebrity over the interests of her district. Dveris, who voted early on Monday in St. Louis Park, a Minneapolis suburb with a large Jewish community, said Omar “pulled a bait-and-switch” on the Jewish community during her 2018 campaign, namely with her support for the Boycott, Divest and Sanction, or BDS Movement against Israel.

“I just think that he’ll do more for us,” she said. “(Melton-Meaux) seems very honest and upfront, and I’m impressed with what he’s said so far.” John Hildebrand, a 47-year-old teacher in Minneapolis who voted for Omar, said her national profile is an advantage.

“I think just her presence encourages other Muslims and Somalis to run for office and to seek to be represented,” he said. “I think she just engages people in the political system more and more.”

Mohamed Ibrahim is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.

Police break up protests after Belarus presidential vote

August 10, 2020

MINSK, Belarus (AP) — Phalanxes of Belarusian police in full riot gear violently dispersed thousands of demonstrators who poured into the streets to challenge the early count from Sunday's presidential election indicating the longtime authoritarian leader won a sixth term by a landslide.

Hundreds of people were detained, according to a leading rights group. The brutal crackdown that began late Sunday and lasted through the night followed a tense campaign that saw massive rallies against President Alexander Lukashenko, who has ruled the ex-Soviet nation with an iron hand for 26 years.

Election officials declared that early returns show 65-year-old Lukashenko winning with more than 80% of the vote while the main challenger, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, a former English teacher and political novice, had about 8%.

Tsikhanouskaya rejected the official claims, saying “I will believe my own eyes — the majority was for us.” Thousands of her supporters quickly took to the streets of the capital to protest what they saw as official manipulations of the vote. They faced rows of riot police in black uniforms who moved quickly to disperse the demonstrators, firing flash-bang grenades and beating them with truncheons.

After breaking up the big crowds, police relentlessly chased smaller groups of protesters across downtown Minsk for the next several hours. Several other cities across the country saw similar crackdowns on protesters.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Olga Chemodanova said that police efforts to restore order were continuing overnight, but wouldn't say how many people were detained. Ales Bilyatsky of the Viasna human rights group told The Associated Press several hundred were detained and hundreds injured in the police crackdown.

“What has happened is awful,” Tsikhanouskaya told reporters Sunday. An AP journalist was beaten by police and treated at a hospital. At Minsk' Hospital No. 10, an AP reporter saw a dozen ambulances delivering protesters with fragmentation wounds and cuts from stun grenades and other injuries.

“It was a peaceful protest, we weren't using force,” said 23-year-old protester, Pavel Konoplyanik, who was accompanying his friend who had a plastic grenade fragment stuck in his neck. “No one will believe in the official results of the vote, they have stolen our victory.”

Konoplyanik, whose legs were also cut by fragments of police grenades, said he doesn't want to leave the country but fears that he might have no other choice. Two prominent opposition challengers were denied places on the ballot, but Tsikhanouskaya, the wife of a jailed opposition blogger, managed to unite opposition groups and draw tens of thousands to her campaign rallies, tapping growing anger over a stagnant economy and fatigue with Lukashenko's autocratic rule.

Lukashenko was defiant as he voted earlier in the day, warning that the opposition will meet a tough response. “If you provoke, you will get the same answer,” he said. “Do you want to try to overthrow the government, break something, wound, offend, and expect me or someone to kneel in front of you and kiss them and the sand onto which you wandered? This will not happen.”

Mindful of Belarus’ long history of violent crackdowns on dissent — protesters were beaten after the 2010 election and six rival candidates arrested, three of whom were imprisoned for years — Tsikhanouskaya called for calm earlier Sunday.

“I hope that everything will be peaceful and that the police will not use force,” she said after voting. After the polls closed, about 1,000 protesters gathered near the obelisk honoring Minsk as a World War II “hero city,” where police harshly clashed with them, beating some with truncheons and later using flash-bang grenades to try to disperse them. Some of the protesters later tried to build barricades with trash containers, but police quickly broke them up.

Three journalists from the independent Russian TV station Dozhd were detained after interviewing an opposition figure and were deported. Tsikhanouskaya emerged as Lukashenko's main opponent after two other aspirants were denied places on the ballot. Viktor Babariko, head of a major Russia-owned bank, was jailed for charges he called political, and Valery Tsepkalo, entrepreneur and former ambassador to the United States, fled to Russia with his children after warnings that he would be arrested and his children taken away.

Tsepkalo's wife Veronika became a top member of Tsikhanouskaya's campaign, but she left the country too early Sunday, fearing for her safety, said campaign spokeswoman Anna Krasulina. Over the weekend, eight members of Tsikhanouskaya's campaign staff were arrested.

Many voters were defiant in the face of Lukashenko's vow not to tolerate any protests. “There is no more fear. Belarusians will not be silent and will protest loudly," 24-year-old Tatiana Protasevich said at a Minsk polling place.

As polls opened, the country’s central elections commission said more than 40% of the electorate had cast ballots in five days of early voting, a process the opposition saw as offering fertile ground for manipulation.

“For five nights nobody has guarded the ballot boxes, which gives the authorities a wide field for maneuverings,” Veronika Tsepkalo told AP before leaving Belarus. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, whose assessments of elections are widely regarded as authoritative, was not invited to send observers.

Tsikhanouskaya had crisscrossed the country, tapping into public frustration with a worsening economy and Lukashenko’s swaggering response to the pandemic. Belarus, a country of 9.5 million people, has reported more than 68,500 coronavirus cases and 580 deaths but critics have accused authorities of manipulating the figures to downplay the death toll.

Lukashenko has dismissed the virus as “psychosis” and declined to apply measures to stop its spread, saying a lockdown would have doomed the already weak economy. He announced last month that he had been infected but had no symptoms and recovered quickly, allegedly thanks to playing sports.

Yet for some voters, Lukashenko's long, hardline rule was a plus. “He is an experienced politician, not a housewife who appeared out of nowhere and muddied the waters,” retiree Igor Rozhov said Sunday. “We need a strong hand that will not allow riots."

Associated Press journalists Jim Heintz and Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow contributed to this story.

Portland protesters rally as arrest of activist draws ire

August 11, 2020

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The arrest during protests in Portland, Oregon, of a Black woman who became a leading activist in the racial justice movement after she was assaulted by a white supremacist three years ago has galvanized local and national Black Lives Matter groups.

More demonstrations were planned in the city Monday night, and authorities declared one outside the North Precinct an unlawful assembly, ordering everyone to leave. Portland has seen more than two months of often violent, nightly protests since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis.

Authorities said Demetria Hester, 46, won't be charged following her arrest early Monday. Hester had been booked on suspicion of disorderly conduct and interfering with a police officer during the protest that began Sunday night. Hester’s arrest drew a sharp rebuke from national Black Lives Matter activists, who are increasingly focusing on demonstrations in Oregon’s largest city.

After her release, Hester said at a news conference that she would keep protesting and joined others in announcing plans for a fundraiser to send Black mothers to Washington, D.C. “I was born and bred to do this. This is a dream come true,” Hester said. “This is a revolution and we’re getting reparations."

Hester and 15 other people were arrested during Portland’s 73rd consecutive nights of protest. A group of about 200 demonstrators gathered at a park and then marched to the police union headquarters, where some people set fires outside the building and launched fireworks at officers.

Two officers were injured, including one who was burned on the neck when a firework exploded, police said. Police declared a riot shortly after 10 p.m. and began arresting people, including Hester. President Donald Trump once more seized on the protests and said on Twitter that Portland was “out of control.” He urged Democratic Gov. Kate Brown to bring in the Oregon National Guard.

On Monday, civil rights groups in Portland and members of the international Black Lives Matter organization, who traveled to Portland, decried Hester’s arrest and said the city was at the center of the racial justice protest movement.

“The struggle here in Portland has become almost ground zero because what we’ve seen under this administration is the kind of flexing that we haven’t really seen in our generation, ever,” said Janaya Khan, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Toronto. “People only protest when politicians and policies and police have failed to protect them. "

Hester gained prominence in 2017 when she was assaulted by a white supremacist while riding a light-rail train. The man who attacked Hester, Jeremy Christian, stabbed two men to death the following night and critically injured a third man when they came to the defense of two Black women — one of them wearing a Muslim head-covering — who were being harassed by Christian.

Hester gave emotional testimony this spring at Christian’s murder trial. Christian was convicted and given two life sentences without possibility of parole. Hester has reappeared in public this summer as one of the main organizers of a group of mostly white parents who have been protesting nightly. She leads marches each night, using a bullhorn to chant in a voice cracking with fatigue.

Pompeo opens anti-China, anti-Russia tour in Czech Republic

August 11, 2020

PRAGUE (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is in the Czech Republic at the start of a four-nation tour of central and eastern Europe expected to focus on threats to the region posed by Russia and China.

Amid post-election violence and concerns about significant democratic backsliding in nearby Belarus, Pompeo plans to use his visit to push his hosts to counter Russian and Chinese influence. Russia and China are active and seeking greater roles throughout the continent in the energy, infrastructure and telecommunications sectors, a trend the United States is keen to reverse.

Pompeo on Tuesday was opening his visit in the Czech city of Pilsen, where he was to visit the Patton Museum and memorial to the World War II liberation of western Czechoslovakia by U.S. troops. In his talks, Pompeo will likely face questions about the Trump administration’s decision to reduce the U.S. military presence in Germany. President Donald Trump wants to withdraw thousands of American troops from bases in Germany and redeploy some of them eastward, including to neighboring Poland, the last stop on Pompeo’s week-long trip.

Two of Pompeo's other three destinations — the Czech Republic and Austria — also share a border with Germany, while Slovakia borders Austria, the Czech Republic and Poland. Germany is pointedly not on Pompeo's itinerary.

In Prague on Wednesday, Pompeo will meet Czech President Milos Zeman and Prime Minister Andrej Babis to discuss nuclear energy cooperation and “efforts to counter malign actions of Russia and communist China,” the State Department said.

Energy and the tenuous political situation in the Balkans will top Pompeo’s agenda with Slovenian officials in Ljubljana, where he is expected to deliver a statement with the foreign minister about the security of 5G networks, the department said.

In Vienna, Pompeo will meet Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz to review trade relations and regional security. Pompeo will also hold talks with the head of the Vienna-based U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is charged with monitoring Iran’s adherence to the 2015 nuclear deal from which the U.S. has withdrawn.

The Trump administration is trying to convince other members of the U.N. Security Council to indefinitely extend an arms embargo on Iran that is due to expire in October, under terms of the nuclear deal.

In Warsaw, Poland, Pompeo plans talks with President Andrzej Duda, who recently won a narrow reelection after a bitter campaign that concerned human rights advocates and others.

Chris Pratt, Katherine Schwarzenegger greet baby daughter

August 10, 2020

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Chris Pratt and Katherine Schwarzenegger say they are “beyond thrilled” and “extremely blessed" after she gave birth to their first child together. The 41-year-old ”Avengers” actor and the 30-year-old children’s book author announced the birth of daughter Lyla Maria Schwarzenegger Pratt in a joint post on their Instagram accounts Monday.

The post included a photo of the hands of both parents and child and a pair of Bible verses; including Psalms 126:3: “The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.” Pratt also has a 7-year-old son with his first wife, Anna Faris.

The baby is the granddaughter of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver.

Iran says UAE-Israel deal a 'stab in the back' to Muslims

August 14, 2020

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran’s Foreign Ministry strongly condemned a historic deal establishing full diplomatic relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel, calling it a stab in the back to all Muslims, state TV reported Friday.

Iran, in the ministry statement, called the normalizing of ties between the two countries a dangerous, “shameful" measure and warned the UAE against Israel interfering in the “political equations" of the Persian Gulf region.

“The UAE government and other accompanying governments must accept responsibility for all the consequences of this action,” the statement said. In a deal brokered by the U.S., the UAE and Israel announced Thursday they agreed to establish full diplomatic ties and Israel will halt plans for annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state.

The agreement makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state — and the third Arab country, after Egypt and Jordan — to have full diplomatic ties with Israel. They announced it in a joint statement, saying deals between Israel and the UAE were expected in the coming weeks in such areas as tourism, direct flights and embassies.

Iran said in the state TV report the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE revealed the “strategic stupidity" of the two countries and said it “will undoubtedly strengthen the axis of resistance in the region.”

The ministry statement called the deal a “dagger that was unjustly struck by the UAE in the backs of the Palestinian people and all Muslims.” The historic deal delivered a key foreign policy victory for U.S. President Donald Trump as he seeks re-election and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.

A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said the deal amounts to “treason,” and should be reversed. Hossein Amirabdollahian, advisor to Iran’s Parliament speaker, criticized the deal on his Twitter account on Friday.

“UAE’s new approach for normalizing ties w/fake, criminal #Israel doesn’t maintain peace & security, but serves ongoing Zionists’ crimes," he said. Iran’s former chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, Mohsen Rezaei, said in a tweet the UAE has been making itself “the paradise of Israel" for the last 10 years.

“No Muslim zealous warriors and no Arabs betray Palestine, only nerveless stabs from behind,” he said.