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

Trump greets supporters following new details of his illness

BETHESDA, Md. (AP) — Infected and contagious, President Donald Trump briefly ventured out in a motorcade on Sunday to salute cheering supporters, a move that disregarded precautions meant to contain the deadly virus that has forced his hospitalization and killed more than 209,000 Americans.

Hours earlier, Trump’s medical team reported that his blood oxygen level dropped suddenly twice in recent days and that they gave him a steroid typically only recommended for the very sick. Still, the doctors said Trump’s health is improving and that he could be discharged as early as Monday.

With one month until Election Day, Trump was eager to project strength despite his illness. The still-infectious president surprised supporters who had gathered outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, driving by in a black SUV with the windows rolled up. Secret Service agents inside the vehicle could be seen in masks and other protective gear.

The move capped a weekend of contradictions that fueled confusion about Trump’s health, which has imperiled the leadership of the U.S. government and upended the final stages of the presidential campaign. While Trump’s physician offered a rosy prognosis on his condition, his briefings lacked basic information, including the findings of lung scans, or were quickly muddled by more serious assessments of the president’s health by other officials.

In a short video released by the White House on Sunday, Trump insisted he understood the gravity of the moment. But his actions moments later, by leaving the hospital and sitting inside the SUV with others, suggested otherwise.

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The Latest: Campaign says Biden tests negative for virus

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on coronavirus infections hitting President Donald Trump and others (all times EDT):

7:30 p.m.

Joe Biden’s campaign says the Democratic presidential nominee tested negative for coronavirus Sunday.

The results come five days after Biden spent more than 90 minutes on the debate stage with President Donald Trump. The president was diagnosed with COVID-19 days after the debate, and he remains hospitalized.

Biden had two negative tests on Friday, as well.

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One month out, battered Trump campaign faces big challenges

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s long-hidden tax returns leaked out. His first debate performance ignited a firestorm over white supremacy. He was hospitalized for COVID-19 after months of playing down the threat of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

And that was just this past week.

Trump’s reelection team, battered on all sides, now enters the final month of the campaign grappling with deficits in the polls, a shortage of cash and a candidate who is at least temporarily sidelined.

The crises, many of Trump’s own making, have come so quickly that they are hard to keep straight.

Recordings revealed that he acknowledged minimizing the dangers of the coronavirus earlier this year. A blockbuster story raised questions over whether he privately belittled members of the military. And even the first lady was captured on tape expressing disdain for having to decorate the White House for Christmas.

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Trump’s doctor’s comments on symptoms, care spark confusion

For the second day in a row, the Navy commander in charge of President Donald Trump’s care left the world wondering: Just how sick is the president?

Dr. Sean Conley is trained in emergency medicine, not infectious disease, but he has a long list of specialists helping determine Trump’s treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Conley said Sunday that Trump is doing well enough that he might be sent back to the White House in another day — even as he announced the president was given a steroid drug that’s only recommended for the very sick.

Worse, steroids like dexamethasone tamp down important immune cells, raising concern about whether the treatment choice might hamper the ability of the president’s body to fight the virus.

Then there’s the question of public trust: Conley acknowledged that that he had tried to present a rosy description of the president’s condition in his first briefing of the weekend “and in doing so, came off like we’re trying to hide something, which wasn’t necessarily true.”

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Record-breaking California wildfires surpass 4 million acres

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a year that has already brought apocalyptic skies and smothering smoke to the West Coast, California set a grim new record Sunday when officials announced that the wildfires of 2020 have now scorched a record 4 million acres — in a fire season that is far from over.

The unprecedented figure — an area larger than the state of Connecticut — is more than double the previous record for the most land burned in a single year in California.

“The 4 million mark is unfathomable. It boggles the mind, and it takes your breath away,” said Scott McLean, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, known as Cal Fire. “And that number will grow.”

So far, in this year’s historic fire season, more than 8,200 California wildfires have killed 31 people and scorched “well over 4 million acres in California” or 6,250 square miles, Cal Fire said Sunday in a statement. The blazes have destroyed more than 8,400 buildings.

The astonishing figure is more than double the 2018 record of 1.67 million burned acres (2,609 square miles) in California. All large fire years since Cal Fire started recording figures in 1933 have remained well below the 4 million mark — “until now,” the agency said Sunday in a Tweet.

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He’s fought COVID-19 for months. Can he ever really beat it?

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Larry Brown had been on a ventilator for 37 days. Nurses periodically turned the 45-year-old former Indiana State football player onto his stomach to help him breathe. Though sedated, he had tried to pull off the equipment keeping him alive, so his arms were strapped down.

But Brown’s lungs were filling with fluid, and doctors didn’t expect him to last much longer. As visitors weren’t allowed in the intensive care unit, a nurse placed a phone next to his ear.

“Thank you for fighting so hard, Larry,” his sister-in-law, Ellie Brown, told him. She was careful not to say goodbye. If he could hear her, that might scare him.

Like millions of COVID-19 cases, Brown’s had started with minor symptoms — fatigue, loss of appetite. When he fell ill in mid-March, people in the United States were becoming familiar with the novel coronavirus. Mask use wasn’t widespread outside hospitals. Around Brown’s hometown, Indianapolis, fewer than 10 new cases were reported each day, on average. Businesses were just starting to shutter around him in response to state orders — but only until the country could flatten the curve, nearly everyone thought. And the vast majority of cases weren’t severe, officials said.

Yet Brown spiraled quickly. His doctors were stumped as they scoured medical texts for treatments. His close-knit family watched him deteriorate in the hospital, even as others recovered from the virus.

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Analysis: Trump faces credibility crisis over health scare

WASHINGTON (AP) — One month from Election Day, President Donald Trump is facing a credibility crisis as yawning as his health crisis, at a moment when he needs the public’s trust the most.

The president’s coronavirus infection, as well as the illnesses of several aides and allies, has imperiled the highest levels of the U.S. government. The White House’s efforts Saturday to project calm backfired in stunning fashion, resulting in a blizzard of confusing and contradictory information about the health and well-being of the commander in chief. A cleanup effort on Sunday did little to increase confidence, with Trump’s doctor saying he was trying to project an “upbeat attitude” while also revealing new details about the president’s condition that he had not previously disclosed.

It’s a moment months in the making, the collision of Trump’s repeated defiance of his own administration’s guidelines for staying safe during the pandemic and his well-known disregard for facts. The result: deep uncertainty for Americans over whom and what to believe about the health of the nation’s leader at a perilous moment in U.S. history.

“This is bigger than Donald Trump. It’s about the institution of the presidency,” said Robert Gibbs, who served as President Barack Obama’s first White House press secretary.

For any president, credibility in a crisis is paramount — the ability to rally Americans of every political persuasion around a commonly accepted understanding of the situation. For a president on the brink of an election, particularly one held in as tumultuous a year as 2020, it could be the difference between serving one term or two.

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What we know, and what we don’t, about Trump’s diagnosis

A White House physician’s comments on Sunday about the health of President Donald Trump amid his coronavirus diagnosis added a new layer of confusion even as the doctor sought to clarify contradictory statements from the day before.

Here’s what we know and what we don’t know:

WHAT WE KNOW: TRUMP’S MEDICAL CONDITION

Dr. Sean Conley, the president’s physician, said Trump was given a steroid dexamethasone after his blood oxygen level had dropped suddenly twice in recent days, but he “has continued to improve” since then. Conley said Trump could be discharged from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center as early as Monday.

Conley said Trump had a “high fever” and a blood oxygen level below 94% on Friday and during “another episode” on Saturday.

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Parents: Online learning program has racist, sexist content

HONOLULU (AP) — Zan Timtim doesn’t think it’s safe for her eighth-grade daughter to return to school in person during the coronavirus pandemic but also doesn’t want her exposed to a remote learning program that misspelled and mispronounced the name of Queen Lili?uokalani, the last monarch to rule the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Timtim’s daughter is Native Hawaiian and speaks Hawaiian fluently, “so to see that inaccuracy with the Hawaiian history side was really upsetting,” she said.

Even before the school year started, Timtim said she heard from other parents about racist, sexist and other concerning content on Acellus, an online program some students use to learn from home.

Parents have called out “towelban” as a multiple-choice answer for a question about a terrorist group and Grumpy from “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” described as a “woman hater.” Some also say the program isn’t as rigorous as it should be.

As parents help their children navigate remote classes, they’re more aware of what’s being taught, and it’s often not simply coming from an educator on Zoom. Some schools have turned to programs like Acellus to supplement online classes by teachers, while others use it for students who choose to learn from home as campuses reopen. And because of the scramble to keep classes running during a health crisis, vetting the curriculum may not have been as thorough as it should have been, experts say.

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Butler’s big night helps Heat cut Lakers’ Finals lead to 2-1

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) — Jimmy Butler is not ready to go home.

A triple-double later, he joined NBA Finals lore — and the short-handed Miami Heat might have made this title matchup a series after all.

Butler finished with 40 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists, and the Heat beat the Los Angeles Lakers 115-104 on Sunday night to get within 2-1 — doing so with starters Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic still unable to play because of injury.

It was the third 40-point triple-double in finals history, Butler coming up with the game of his life when the Heat needed it most. He was 14 for 20 from the field, and after the Heat surrendered a double-digit lead early in the fourth he made sure this one wouldn’t get away.

“Win,” Butler said. “I don’t care about triple-doubles. I don’t care about none of that. I really don’t. I want to win. We did that. I’m happy with the outcome.”