AP News in Brief at 11:04 p.m. EDT

2020’s 1st Atlantic hurricane lashes Texas; floods expected

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP) — Hurricane Hanna roared ashore onto the Texas Gulf Coast on Saturday, bringing winds that lashed the shoreline with rain and storm surge, and even threatening to bring possible tornadoes to a part of the country trying to cope with a spike in coronavirus cases.

The first hurricane of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season made landfall twice as a Category 1 storm on Saturday afternoon within the span of little over an hour. The first landfall happened at around 5 p.m. about 15 miles (24 kilometres) north of Port Mansfield, which is about 130 miles (209 km) south of Corpus Christi. The second landfall took place nearby in eastern Kenedy County. Hanna had come ashore with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph (145 kph). As of Saturday night, those winds had weakened to 75 mph (120 kph).

Many parts of Texas, including areas near where Hanna came ashore, have been dealing with a surge in coronavirus cases in recent weeks, but local officials said they were prepared for whatever the storm might bring.

Chris Birchfield, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Brownsville, said residents needed to remain alert. While Hanna’s winds were expected to weaken throughout Saturday night, the storm’s real threat remained heavy rainfall, he said.

“We’re not even close to over at this point. We’re still expecting catastrophic flooding,” Birchfield said.

___

Tear gas fired again; Portland protest standoff continues

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Federal agents again repeatedly fired tear gas to break up rowdy protests in Portland, Oregon, that continued into the early morning Saturday as demonstrations that have happened every night for two months showed no signs of letting up.

Authorities say six federal officers were injured and one person was arrested.

Thousands gathered in front of the downtown federal courthouse beginning Friday evening. Demonstrations have happened in Oregon’s largest city nightly since George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis in May. President Donald Trump said he sent federal agents to Portland to halt the unrest but state and local officials say they are making the situation worse.

Late Friday, a federal judge denied a request by Oregon’s attorney general to restrict the actions of federal police.

The latest demonstration went until federal agents entered the crowd around 2:30 a.m. Saturday and marched in a line down the street, clearing remaining protesters with volleys of tear gas at close range. They also extinguished a large fire in the street outside the courthouse.

___

Amid virus, uncertainty, parents decide how to school kids

Joshua Claybourn is leaning toward sending his kindergarten daughter to in-person classes at a private school next month. Holly Davis’ sixth-grade daughter will learn online, though the family has not yet decided what to do for school for a teenage daughter who requires special accommodations for hearing problems and dyslexia and another who’s starting college.

As they decide how their children will learn this fall amid the coronavirus pandemic, parents are anxiously weighing the benefits of in-person instruction against the risks that schools could shut their doors again or that their children could contract the virus and pass it on.

“To say we are stressed might be an understatement,” said Davis, of Noblesville, Indiana, whose family is self-isolating after one of their daughters was exposed to COVID-19 at a cross country meet. “We’re being forced to make impossible decisions.”

Across the country, chaos and disarray have marked the start of the school year as families await directives from district officials and, where they have a choice, make agonizing decisions over whether to enrol their children online or in person — often with very little guidance.

If their kids are not in classrooms, parents will have to line up child care — or find the time to help them learn online. They have no idea if it will be safe to send their children to school — or whether the school doors will open at all or stay open if someone is diagnosed with the virus.

___

Regis Philbin, television personality and host, dies at 88

NEW YORK (AP) — Regis Philbin, the genial host who shared his life with television viewers over morning coffee for decades and helped himself and some fans strike it rich with the game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,” has died at 88.

Philbin died of natural causes Friday night, just over a month before his 89th birthday, according to a statement from his family provided by spokesman Lewis Kay.

Celebrities routinely stopped by Philbin’s eponymous syndicated morning show, but its heart was in the first 15 minutes, when he and co-host Kathie Lee Gifford — on “Live! with Regis and Kathie Lee” from 1985-2000 — or Kelly Ripa — on “Live! with Regis and Kelly” from 2001 until his 2011 retirement — bantered about the events of the day. Viewers laughed at Philbin’s mock indignation over not getting the best seat at a restaurant the night before, or being henpecked by his partner.

“Even I have a little trepidation,” he told The Associated Press in 2008, when asked how he does a show every day. “You wake up in the morning and you say, ‘What did I do last night that I can talk about? What’s new in the paper? How are we gonna fill that 20 minutes?’”

“I’m not gonna say it always works out brilliantly, but somehow we connect more often than we don’t,” he added.

___

Sinclair pulls show where Fauci conspiracy theory is aired

NEW YORK (AP) — The Sinclair Broadcast Group said Saturday it is pulling from the air an edition of its “America This Week” program that discusses a conspiracy theory involving Dr. Anthony Fauci and the coronavirus.

Sinclair spokesman Michael Padovano said Sinclair hopes to add context and other viewpoints and still air the controversial segment on the next week’s edition of “America This Week.”

Meanwhile, Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, talked in detail in a new podcast about the “serious threats” and hate mail directed his way.

“America This Week” is hosted by Eric Bolling, a former Fox News Channel personality, and sent to stations Sinclair owns in 81 markets. The show it initially distributed for this weekend’s show featured an interview with Judy Mikovits, maker of the widely discredited “Plandemic” video, and her lawyer, Larry Klayman.

Mikovits, an anti-vaccine activist, said she believed that Fauci manufactured the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 and shipped it to China. There has been no evidence that the virus was produced in a lab, much less any of Fauci’s involvement.

___

Mnuchin: Virus aid package soon, $1,200 checks by August

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that Republicans were set to roll out the next COVID-19 aid package Monday and assured there was backing from the White House after he and President Donald Trump’s top aide met to salvage the $1 trillion proposal that had floundered just days before.

Mnuchin told reporters at the Capitol that extending an expiring unemployment benefit — but reducing it substantially — was a top priority for Trump. The secretary called the $600 weekly aid “ridiculous” and a disincentive for people to go back to work. He also promised a fresh round of $1,200 stimulus checks would be coming in August.

“We’re prepared to move quickly,” Mnuchin said after he and Mark Meadows, the president’s acting chief of staff, spent several hours with GOP staff at the Capitol. He said the president would “absolutely” support the emerging Republican package.

Mnuchin’s optimistic assessment came before Democrats weighed in publicly on the updated proposal, which remained only a starting point in negotiations with House and Senate leaders in the other party. He said he recently called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ahead of shuttle negotiations next week on the broader deal.

The White House and Senate Republicans were racing to regroup after plans to introduce a $1 trillion virus rescue bill collapsed Thursday amid GOP infighting over its size, scope and details. It was expected to bring $105 billion to help schools reopen, new money for virus testing and benefits for businesses, including a fresh round of loans, tax breaks and a sweeping liability shield from COVID-related lawsuits.

___

Fight for police-free schools has been years in the making

PHOENIX (AP) — The group of protesters started out small, just a handful of students who told officials at school board meetings why they wanted police out of Madison, Wisconsin, schools.

Over four years, their numbers grew but not their results. So they took to yelling from the audience and making emotional pleas about how police make students, especially those of colour, feel unsafe.

But officers remained at four high schools in the Madison Metropolitan School District until George Floyd’s death by Minneapolis police ushered in a national reckoning over police brutality and racial injustice.

That’s when the school board president, who had long resisted removing police, had a change of heart. Madison quickly joined cities like Minneapolis, Phoenix, Denver and Portland, Oregon, in abandoning partnerships with police on campuses.

The move may seem sudden, but it follows years of well-organized, student-driven action. Only now, more grown-ups are listening.

___

Civil rights icon John Lewis remembered in his hometown

TROY, Ala. (AP) — Civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman John Lewis was remembered Saturday — in the rural Alabama county where his story began — as a humble man who sprang from his family’s farm with a vision that “good trouble” could change the world.

The morning service in the city of Troy in rural Pike County was held at Troy University, where Lewis would often playfully remind the chancellor that he was denied admission in 1957 because he was Black, and where decades later he was awarded an honorary doctorate.

Lewis, who became a civil rights icon and a longtime Georgia congressman, died July 17 at the age of 80.

Saturday morning’s service was titled “The Boy from Troy,” the nickname the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave Lewis at their first meeting in 1958 in Montgomery. King had sent the 18-year-old Lewis a round-trip bus ticket because Lewis was interested in trying to attend the then-all-white university in Troy, just 10 miles (16 kilometres) from his family’s farm in Pike County.

It was the first of six days of memorials and services.

___

Hunger organization pushes out Yoho after Capitol incident

WASHINGTON (AP) — A nonpartisan Christian organization that seeks to end hunger said Saturday it asked for and received the resignation of Rep. Ted Yoho from its board of directors following what it called his “verbal attack” on Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., accused Yoho, R-Fla., of using a vulgar and sexist insult while upbraiding her during a confrontation last Monday on the steps of the Capitol. Yoho maintained he did not use the words cited, though a reporter who witnessed the incident confirmed the language as she described it.

In a statement, Bread for the World said its board met Friday with Yoho and sought his resignation “as an action that reaffirms our commitment to coming alongside women and people of colour, nationally and globally, as they continue to lead us to a more racially inclusive and equitable world.”

On its website, Bread for the World says its “collective Christian voice” lobbies Congress and the administration on ending hunger nationally and worldwide.

“As a bipartisan Christian organization committed to alleviating hunger and poverty through sound public policies, Bread for the World upholds the values of respect, dignity, and compassion that Jesus calls us to when engaging decision makers from across the political spectrum,” the statement said. “We believe that Rep. Ted Yoho’s recent actions and words as reported in the media are not reflective of the ethical standards expected of members of our Board of Directors.”

___

Women reflect on sexist slur that often goes unpunished

Ask a woman if she’s been called the B-word by a man — perhaps modified by the F-adjective — and chances are she’ll say, “You mean ever, or how many times?”

Because most women will tell you it’s a pretty universal experience, especially if they’ve held a position of power in the workplace. “I’d say, maybe 25 times?” estimates Ellen Gerstein, who spent years in technology publishing, a fairly male-dominated field, before becoming a pharmaceutical executive. “And that’s just to my face.”

In fact, Gerstein says, use of the word as a slur against women has come to feel so unfortunately routine that her own memories of it tend to blur together — unlike, say, the time 20 years ago when a male colleague asked her who she’d “lap danced” to push a project ahead. But she says she was filled with admiration when she heard Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez take to the floor of the House and call out a male colleague for vulgar words.

“I thought, listening to her, ‘Wow, you’re 100% right,’” says Gerstein, now 52. “Why didn’t I apply those same standards to myself?”

Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks on Thursday, widely shared online, amounted to a stunning indictment not only of the words of Rep. Ted Yoho, R-Florida, who she said called her a “f—————g bitch” in front of reporters, but a culture of abusive language against women that can lead to violence. Her speech resonated with many women — in politics and out, supportive of her politics or not — who said the language had been tacitly accepted for far too long.