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

Authorities announce 2nd coronavirus death in US

SEATTLE (AP) — Health officials in Washington state said Sunday night that a second person had died from the coronavirus — a man in his 70s from a nursing facility near Seattle where dozens of people were sick and had been tested for the virus.

Researchers said earlier the virus may have been circulating for weeks undetected in Washington state.

In a statement, Public Health—Seattle & King County said the man died Saturday. On Friday, health officials said a man in his 50s died of coronavirus. Both had underlying health conditions, and both were being treated at a hospital in Kirkland, Washington, east of Seattle.

Washington state now has 12 confirmed cases.

State and local authorities stepped up testing for the illness as the number of new cases grew nationwide, with new infections announced in California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New York and Washington state.

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France closes the Louvre as virus spreads to new fronts

PARIS (AP) — Coronavirus cases surged in Italy, and France closed the world-famous Louvre Museum as the epidemic that began in China sent fear rising across Western Europe, threatening its tourism industry.

The virus has spread to more than 60 countries, and more than 3,000 people have died from the COVID-19 illness it causes.

New battle fronts in the battle opened rapidly, deepening the sense of crisis that has already sent financial markets plummeting, emptied the streets in many cities and rewritten the routines of millions of people. More than 88,000 have been infected, on every continent but Antarctica.

Australia and Thailand reported their first deaths Sunday, while the Dominican Republic and the Czech Republic recorded their first infections.

Italian authorities said the number of people infected in the country soared 50% to 1,694 in just 24 hours, and five more had died, bringing the death toll there to 34. Cases in France jumped to 130, an increase of 30 in one day.

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Buttigieg ends historic presidential campaign, urges unity

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pete Buttigieg, who rose from relative obscurity as an Indiana mayor to a barrier-breaking, top-tier candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, ended his campaign on Sunday.

The decision by the first openly gay candidate to seriously contend for the presidency — and among the youngest ever — came just a day after a leading rival, Joe Biden, scored a resounding victory in South Carolina. That sparked new pressure on the party’s moderate wing to coalesce behind the former vice-president.

“The truth is the path has narrowed to a close for our candidacy if not for our cause,” Buttigieg, 38, told supporters in South Bend, Indiana. “We must recognize that at this point in the race, the best way to keep faith with those goals and ideals is to step aside and help bring our party and country together.”

He didn’t endorse any of his former rivals, though he and Biden traded voicemails on Sunday. Buttigieg has spent the past several weeks warning that nominating progressive leader Bernie Sanders to take on President Donald Trump would be risky.

Buttigieg on Sunday called on supporters to ensure that a Democrat wins the White House in November and that the party’s success carries over to down-ballot races for House and Senate. During previous debates, Buttigieg said Sanders could threaten Democratic seats in Congress.

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Biden fights for momentum in Democrats’ shifting primary

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — An emboldened Joe Biden tried to cast himself as the clear moderate alternative to progressive Bernie Sanders on Sunday as the Democrats’ shrinking presidential field raced toward Super Tuesday.

One of Biden’s leading moderate rivals, former South Bend, Indiana, mayor Pete Buttigieg, dropped out of the campaign just 24 hours after Biden scored a resounding victory in South Carolina, his first of the 2020 rollercoaster nomination fight.

While other rivals appeared undeterred, Biden pressed his case during a round of national television interviews that reflected a stark reality a day after his resounding primary victory in South Carolina: The former vice-president was forced to rely upon free media coverage because he was understaffed, underfunded and almost out of time as he fought to transform his sole win into a national movement.

Biden vowed to improve his campaign operation, his fundraising haul — and even his own performance — in an interview on ABC’s “This Week.” He warned of a “stark choice” between him and Sanders, while making the case he was the candidate who could win up and down the ballot and in states beyond those voting next week.

Biden added a swipe at one of Sanders’ signature lines during an appearance on “Fox New Sunday”: “The people aren’t looking for revolution. They’re looking for results.”

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Judge rules head of immigration agency was unlawfully named

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that Ken Cuccinelli was unlawfully appointed to lead the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency and, as a result, lacked authority to give asylum seekers less time to prepare for initial screening interviews.

Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general and an immigration hardliner, was named to a new position of “principal deputy director” in June, which immediately made him acting director because Lee Francis Cissna had just resigned. The agency grants green cards and other visas and also oversees asylum officers.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington found Cuccinelli’s appointment violated the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, a 1998 law governing who is eligible to lead federal agencies in an acting capacity. The impact of the ruling wasn’t immediately clear.

The ruling issued Sunday was at odds with President Donald Trump’s penchant for temporary appointments. At Homeland Security, Chad Wolf is acting secretary, and the heads of Customs and Border Protection, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Citizenship and Immigration Services are also in acting roles.

The judge wrote that Cuccinelli didn’t qualify for exceptions for officials who won Senate approval for other positions or spent 90 days in the previous year at the agency.

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Biden warmly welcomed in Selma as Dems court black voters

SELMA, Ala. (AP) — Joe Biden received a warm reception Sunday in this crucible of the civil rights movement as he and other Democratic presidential hopefuls appealed for black support in a town where demonstrators were once beaten for marching for the right to vote.

Themes of fighting voter suppression, providing the poor with a way up and defeating President Donald Trump took centre stage at events marking the 55th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” the day in 1965 white police attacked black marchers in Selma. This year’s commemoration came two days before Alabama Democrats join voters in more than a dozen states in the Super Tuesday cluster of primary elections.

Just hours after strong support by black voters in South Carolina lifted Biden to his first primary victory, the former vice-president spoke during the morning worship at historic Brown Chapel AME Church.

An excited buzz and cheers arose as Biden entered the sanctuary, and many in the congregation stood to applaud as he moved toward the pulpit. Quoting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., former President Barack Obama and the Bible, Biden said the country has moved the wrong way under Trump.

“We’ve been dragged backward and we’ve lost ground. We’ve seen all too clearly that if you give hate any breathing room it comes back,” he said.

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Virus accelerates in Italy; US urges citizens to avoid north

MILAN (AP) — Coronavirus infections in Italy rose 50% Sunday and the U.S. government issued its strongest travel warning yet, advising Americans against any travel to two regions in northern Italy that have been hard hit by the virus that first emerged in China in December.

Authorities said the total number of people infected in Italy had risen to 1,694, a 50% jump from just 24 hours earlier. Five more people infected with the virus have died, bringing the deaths in Italy to 34, while 83 people have fully recovered.

Italian health authorities said the increases were expected, since it takes as long as two weeks for containment measures to take effect, and because Italy has a large number of elderly people. Still, the numbers highlighted the rapid impact the virus is having on Italy, the epicenter of the outbreak in Europe.

‘’This acceleration was expected, unfortunately,’’ said Giovanni Rezza, director of the infective illness department at the National Health Institute. He said it would be another week or 10 days until the spread of the virus slowed down in the country.

With numerous cases in other European countries traced back to Italy, many countries have issued travel warnings for the 11 Italian towns that have been on lockdown since the virus exploded there on Feb. 21. But none have gone as far as the U.S. government, which on Sunday urged Americans not to travel to the regions of Lombardy and Veneto, raising the warning to the highest level. It is one step shy of the U.S. travel advisory for China, which urged Americans to leave the country.

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Some states make it harder for college students to vote

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Vanderbilt University student Will Newell wishes it was easier for college students like him to cast ballots in Tennessee, one of 14 states holding a presidential primary on Super Tuesday.

The campus has no locations for early voting, so students must visit an off-campus polling location to cast a ballot on Election Day. Newell drives but worries that many students who don’t have their own transportation won’t make it to a precinct. He said some campus groups offer rides to students, but the university itself does not provide a shuttle.

He supports a bill introduced in the Tennessee Legislature that would require early voting locations at large colleges and universities in the state. That’s not the only restriction working against college students in the state. Tennessee, where overall voter turnout is low, is among several states that does not allow a college student ID. But it does allow a handgun license.

“It just makes the last part of actually getting them to the polls to vote a lot more difficult,” Newell, a senior public policy and economics major, said of the ballot-casting hurdles faced by students in the state.

As Democratic candidates seek a boost from young voters in 2020, their impact at the polls could be blunted in a number of states that make voting more difficult for college students. Those include laws related to voter IDs, residency requirements and on-campus polling places. Critics say many of those laws are designed to dampen turnout among voters who typically lean Democratic.

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AP Photos: Migrants head to Turkish-Greek border

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — All it took was a thinly veiled suggestion by a Turkish official that his country would no longer prevent migrants and refugees from trying to cross Turkey’s borders into the European Union. Within hours, thousands were heading from Istanbul to the Greek border, about three to four hours’ drive away.

By the time Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially announced the borders were open Saturday, Greek authorities — who by no means intended to open their own border — had been playing a cat-and-mouse game with migrants attempting to break through the frontier. They fired tear gas and stun grenades to thwart efforts to push through the border by groups of migrants hurling rocks and pieces of wood.

After a mostly quiet day Sunday, violence erupted again Sunday afternoon. One policeman suffered facial injuries. Greek authorities said Turkish authorities also fired tear gas at the Greek border.

Greece said about 10,000 attempts to cross through its land border had been thwarted Saturday, and another 5,500 between Sunday morning and evening. Most of those gathered on the border were young Afghan men, although there were also families with young children and people from other countries.

Hundreds of others took advantage of good weather to make the short but often perilous sea crossing from the Turkish coast to offshore Greek islands. There, most were from Afghanistan and Africa.

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South’s military: North Korea fires unidentified projectile

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s military says North Korea has fired at least one unidentified projectile.

The launch on Monday came two days North Korea’s state media said leader Kim Jong Un supervised an artillery drill aimed at testing the combat readiness of units in front-line and eastern areas.

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff couldn’t immediately confirm what the projectile was or how far it flew.