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

Mass surveillance system flags Uighurs for detention camps

The watch towers, double-locked doors and video surveillance in the Chinese camps are there “to prevent escapes.” Uighurs and other minorities held inside are scored on how well they speak the dominant Mandarin language and follow strict rules on everything down to bathing and using the toilet, scores that determine if they can leave.

“Manner education” is mandatory, but “vocational skills improvement” is offered only after a year in the camps.

Voluntary job training is the reason the Chinese government has given for detaining more than a million ethnic minorities, most of them Muslims. But a classified blueprint leaked to a consortium of news organizations shows the camps are instead precisely what former detainees have described: Forced ideological and behavioural re-education centres run in secret.

The classified documents lay out the Chinese government’s deliberate strategy to lock up ethnic minorities even before they commit a crime, to rewire their thoughts and the language they speak.

The papers also show how Beijing is pioneering a new form of social control using data and artificial intelligence. Drawing on data collected by mass surveillance technology, computers issued the names of tens of thousands of people for interrogation or detention in just one week.

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Pentagon chief fires Navy secretary over SEAL controversy

WASHINGTON (AP) — Defence Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday fired the Navy’s top official, ending a stunning clash between President Donald Trump and top military leadership over the fate of a SEAL accused of war crimes in Iraq.

Esper said he had lost confidence in Navy Secretary Richard Spencer and alleged that Spencer proposed a deal with the White House behind his back to resolve the SEAL’s case. Trump has championed the matter of Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, who was acquitted of murder in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive but convicted of posing with the corpse while in Iraq in 2017.

Spencer’s firing was a dramatic turn in the fast-changing and politically charged controversy. It exposed fissures in Trump’s relationship with the highest ranks of the U.S. military and raised questions about the appropriate role of a commander in chief in matters of military justice.

Gallagher was demoted from chief petty officer to a 1st class petty officer after his conviction by a military jury. Trump, however, restored Gallagher’s rank this month.

The situation escalated again in recent days.

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Pro-democracy camp looks to have won big in Hong Kong vote

HONG KONG (AP) — The pro-democracy opposition appears to have swept to a resounding victory in Hong Kong elections, as a record turnout dealt a clear rebuke to city leader Carrie Lam and her handling of violent protests that have divided the Chinese territory.

Some votes were still being counted Monday morning, but Hong Kong media tallied that the pro-democracy camp had won a commanding majority in the vote for 452 district council seats.

The result could force the central government in Beijing to rethink how to handle the unrest, which is now in its sixth month. The district councils have little power, but the vote became a referendum on public support for the protests.

The pro-democracy camp hailed its strong gains in the normally low-key race as a victory for the Hong Kong people. Winning candidates said Lam must heed the demands of protesters including free elections for the city’s leader and legislature, and an independent probe into alleged police brutality.

“We won a small battle today but it shows that Hong Kong people have a chance to win the war. We will fight on,” said Henry Sin Ho-fai, a pro-democracy candidate who won.

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As internet restored, online Iran protest videos show chaos

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Machine-gun fire answers rock-throwing protesters. Motorcycle-riding Revolutionary Guard volunteers chase after demonstrators. Plainclothes security forces grab, beat and drag a man off the street to an uncertain fate.

As Iran restores the internet after a weeklong government-imposed shutdown, new videos purport to show the demonstrations over gasoline prices rising and the security-force crackdown that followed.

The videos offer only fragments of encounters, but to some extent they fill in the larger void left by Iran’s state-controlled television and radio channels. On their airwaves, hard-line officials allege that foreign conspiracies and exile groups instigated the unrest. In print, newspapers offered only PR for the government or had merely stenographic reporting at best, the moderate daily Hamshahri said in an analysis Sunday.

They don’t acknowledge that the gasoline price hike Nov. 15, supported by its civilian government, came as Iran’s 80 million people already have seen their savings dwindle and jobs scarce under crushing U.S. sanctions. President Donald Trump imposed them in the aftermath of unilaterally withdrawing America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.

Authorities also have yet to give any overall figures for how many people were injured, arrested or killed during the several days of protests that swept across some 100 cities and towns.

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Swift moonwalks past Michael Jackson’s record at AMA Awards

Taylor Swift has moonwalked past Michael Jackson’s record at the American Music Awards.

The pop star, who walked into Sunday night’s show with 23 AMAs, won two honours during the live telecast, surpassing the King of Pop’s 24 wins.

“This year has been a lot of good, a lot of really complicated, so behalf of my family and me, thank you so much for being there and caring,” said Swift.

Swift ended the three-hour fan-voted show by winning the top prize — artist of the year — besting Ariana Grande, Drake, Halsey and Post Malone. She also earned the artist of the decade award and performed a medley of her hit songs — a performance Swift said in a Nov. 15 social media post was put in jeopardy by Scott Borchetta and Scooter Braun, the owners of her master recordings.

“This album really felt like a new beginning, and I also really love my record label, Universal and Republic. Monte Lipman, Lucian Grainge, thank you for being so generous to me and allowing me to make whatever music I want to make,” Swift said when she won best pop/rock album. “As a songwriter it’s so thrilling to me that I get to keep doing that.”

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Condolences pour in after shooting death of Alabama sheriff

HAYNEVILLE, Ala. (AP) — Law enforcement agencies in Alabama and beyond posted messages of condolences on social media Sunday in the aftermath of the fatal weekend shooting of a sheriff in the state.

Few details were immediately available about the circumstances surrounding Saturday evening’s shooting and the capture of an 18-year-old suspect hours later.

Gov. Kay Ivey tweeted that Lowndes County Sheriff John Williams had been “tragically killed” in the line of duty and that she offered her prayers and sympathy to his family and the county sheriff’s department. Williams is the fifth Alabama law enforcement officer to die from gunfire in the line of duty, and the sixth overall, in 2019, according to a statement from state Attorney General Steve Marshall.

The suspect in custody was identified as 18-year-old William Chase Johnson. Montgomery County Sheriff Derrick Cunningham initially told news outlets that Williams was shot at a gas station.

It was unclear what, if any, role race played in the shooting. The sheriff was African American.

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Bloomberg entry into presidential race raises ethics issues

NEW YORK (AP) — With Michael Bloomberg now running for president, the news service that bears his name said Sunday it will not “investigate” him or any of his Democratic rivals, and Bloomberg Opinion will no longer run unsigned editorials.

Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait announced the new rules in a note to his news organization’s 2,700 journalists and analysts Sunday, shortly after the former New York City mayor announced his candidacy.

“There is no point in trying to claim that covering this presidential campaign will be easy for a newsroom that has built up its reputation for independence in part by not writing about ourselves,” Micklethwait wrote.

Bloomberg started his news service in 1990 to complement the financial information he sold to customers. It has since expanded, with its news available in many formats, including a television and radio network and Bloomberg Businessweek magazine.

The entry of Bloomberg into the presidential race also raises potential conflict-of-interest questions involving his extensive business holdings, which go well beyond his news service. Bloomberg’s businesses, which include selling financial data services, employ more than 19,000 people in 69 countries.

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For some rural US TV viewers, local news is anything but

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — When Dianne Johnson channel-surfs for news in her rural western Nebraska home, all she sees are stories about Colorado crime and car crashes from a Denver television station more than 200 miles away.

It’s frustrating for the 61-year-old rancher, who wants to know the latest developments in Nebraska politics and sports. When floods devastated huge swaths of Nebraska this year, Johnson struggled to keep tabs on what was happening.

“If we actually had local news, we would watch it,” she said. “But all we get is Colorado drug busts and stories about who got murdered in Denver. It has nothing to do with us.”

Johnson is among an estimated 870,000 households nationwide that receive at least one distant network affiliate’s feed from their satellite TV service providers because they don’t live close enough to get conventional over-the-air signals. With no local TV news stations and a dwindling number of newspapers, many rural Americans are finding it increasingly difficult to track local elections or government decisions that affect their lives.

“It’s your connection to what’s going on in your community,” said Jim Timm, president and executive director of the Nebraska Broadcasters Association.

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Paging Dr. Robot: Artificial intelligence moves into care

The next time you get sick, your care may involve a form of the technology people use to navigate road trips or pick the right vacuum cleaner online.

Artificial intelligence is spreading into health care, often as software or a computer program capable of learning from large amounts of data and making predictions to guide care or help patients.

It already detects an eye disease tied to diabetes and does other behind-the-scenes work like helping doctors interpret MRI scans and other imaging tests for some forms of cancer.

Now, parts of the health system are starting to use it directly with patients. During some clinic and telemedicine appointments, AI-powered software asks patients initial questions about their symptoms that physicians or nurses normally pose.

And an AI program featuring a talking image of the Greek philosopher Aristotle is starting to help University of Southern California students cope with stress.

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AP Top 25: No. 2 Ohio State gains on LSU; Oregon drops to 14

No. 2 Ohio State gained some ground on No. 1 LSU in The Associated Press college football poll and Oregon dropped out of the top 10 after being upset by Arizona State.

The Tigers remained No. 1 for the fifth straight week in the AP Top 25 presented by Regions Bank, receiving 50 first-places votes. The Buckeyes got nine first-place votes, up from five last week. No. 3 Clemson received three first-place votes. No. 4 Georgia and No. 5 Alabama also held their spots.

Ohio State is coming off a 28-17 victory over Penn State that dropped the Nittany Lions three spots to No. 12.

Oregon dropped eight spots to No. 14 after losing 31-28 at Arizona State. That allowed Utah to move up a spot to No. 6 and Oklahoma to No. 7. Florida, Minnesota and Michigan round out the top 10.

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