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

Last-ditch virus aid talks collapse; no help for jobless now

WASHINGTON (AP) — A last-ditch effort by Democrats to revive Capitol Hill talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money collapsed in disappointment Friday, making it increasingly likely that Washington gridlock will mean more hardship for millions of people who are losing enhanced jobless benefits and further damage for an economy pummeled by the still-raging coronavirus.

President Donald Trump said Friday night he was likely to issue more limited executive orders related to COVID, perhaps in the next day or so, if he can’t reach a broad agreement with Congress.

The day’s negotiations at the Capitol added up to only “a disappointing meeting,” declared top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, saying the White House had rejected an offer by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to curb Democratic demands by about $1 trillion. He urged the White House to “negotiate with Democrats and meet us in the middle. Don’t say it’s your way or no way.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “Unfortunately we did not make any progress today.” Republicans said Pelosi was relying on budget manoeuvrs to curb costs and contended she has overplayed her hand.

Often an impasse in Washington is of little consequence for the public — not so this time. It means longer and perhaps permanent expiration of a $600 per-week bonus pandemic jobless benefit that’s kept millions of people from falling into poverty. It denies more than $100 billion to help schools reopen this fall. It blocks additional funding for virus testing as cases are surging this summer. And it denies billions of dollars to state and local governments considering furloughs as their revenue craters.

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US intel: Russia acting against Biden; China opposes Trump

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia is using a variety of measures to denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the November election and that individuals linked to the Kremlin are boosting President Donald Trump’s reelection bid, the country’s counterintelligence chief said in the most specific warning to date about the threat of foreign interference.

U.S. officials also believe China does not want Trump to win a second term and has accelerated its criticism of the White House, expanding its efforts to shape public policy in America and to pressure political figures seen as opposed to Beijing’s interests.

The statement Friday from William Evanina is believed to be the most pointed declaration by the U.S. intelligence community linking the Kremlin to efforts to get Trump reelected — a sensitive subject for a president who has rejected intelligence agency assessments that Russia tried to help him in 2016. It also connects Moscow’s disapproval of Biden to his role as vice-president in shaping Obama administration policies supporting Ukraine, an important U.S. ally, and opposing Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Asked about the intelligence assessment Friday evening in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump appeared to dispute the idea that Russia was disparaging Biden. “I think the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have — ever,” he said.

But the president seemed to agree with the intelligence indicating China didn’t want him reelected. “If Joe Biden was president, China would own our country,” he said.

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US hiring slows amid signs of longer-lasting economic damage

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. hiring slowed in July as the coronavirus outbreak worsened, and the government’s jobs report offered signs Friday that the economic damage from the pandemic could last far longer than many observers originally envisioned.

The United States added 1.8 million jobs in July, a pullback from the previous two months. At any other time, hiring at that level would be seen as a blowout gain. But after employers shed a staggering 22 million jobs in March and April, much larger increases are needed to heal the job market. The hiring of the past three months has recovered 42% of the jobs lost to the pandemic-induced recession, according to the Labor Department’s report.

Though the unemployment rate fell last month from 11.1% to 10.2%, that level still exceeds the highest rate during the 2008-2009 Great Recession.

Roughly half the job gains were in the industries hit hardest by the virus: restaurants, retail shops, bars, hotels and entertainment venues such as casinos. Those jobs have been relatively quick to return after the broadest shutdowns ended in May and June.

But economists worry that the next leg of job growth will be harder to achieve, particularly as the virus dampens confidence, leaving much of the country only partially reopened, most travel on hold and millions of employees working from home. The number of people unemployed for longer than 15 weeks jumped in July to more than 6 million, a sign many of the unemployed will have to find work at new companies or even in new occupations, a potentially lengthy process.

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Q&A: What’s up with Trump’s orders on TikTok and WeChat?

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered sweeping but vague ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of popular apps TikTok and WeChat, saying they are a threat to U.S. national security, foreign policy and the economy.

But it’s far from clear what the administration intends to actually do when the bans take effect in 45 days, since the orders are currently blank checks waiting to be filled in. Uncertainty also surrounds what effect the orders will have on the apps’ users, whether the administration will face legal challenges over its authority to ban consumer apps, and what the companies — or China — will do next. Microsoft is in talks to buy parts of TikTok, in a potential sale that’s being forced under Trump’s threat of a ban.

Here’s what’s at stake:

Q: WHAT ARE THESE COMPANIES?

A: TikTok, owned by ByteDance, is an increasingly popular video app with 100 million U.S. users and hundreds of millions globally. It has a fun, goofy reputation, full of people lip-syncing, dancing and pulling pranks, and is exceptionally easy to use. Like other social-media companies, it has raised concerns about the privacy of its users and how it moderates content. It has spawned an influencer culture of its own and nurtured music hits; Facebook and Snapchat see it as a competitive threat.

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Officials long warned of explosive chemicals at Beirut port

BEIRUT (AP) — At least 10 times over the past six years, authorities from Lebanon’s customs, military, security agencies and judiciary raised alarm that a massive stockpile of explosive chemicals was being kept with almost no safeguard at the port in the heart of Beirut, newly surfaced documents show.

Yet in a circle of negligence, nothing was done — and on Tuesday, the 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate blew up, obliterating the city’s main commercial hub and spreading death and wreckage for miles around.

President Michel Aoun, in office since 2016, said Friday that he was first told of the dangerous stockpile nearly three weeks ago and immediately ordered military and security agencies to do “what was needed.” But he suggested his responsibility ended there, saying he had no authority over the port and that previous governments had been told of its presence.

“Do you know how many problems have been accumulating?” Aoun replied when a reporter pressed whether he should have followed up on his order.

The documents surfacing in social media since the blast underscore the corruption, negligence and incompetence of Lebanon’s long-ruling political oligarchy, and its failure to provide its people with basic needs, including security.

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Mauritius declares emergency as stranded ship spills fuel

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The Indian Ocean island of Mauritius declared a “state of environmental emergency” late Friday after a Japanese-owned ship that ran aground offshore days ago began spilling tons of fuel.

Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth announced the development as satellite images showed a dark slick spreading in the turquoise waters near environmental areas that the government called “very sensitive.”

Mauritius has said the ship was carrying nearly 4,000 tons of fuel and cracks have appeared in its hull.

Jugnauth earlier in the day said his government was appealing to France for help, saying the spill “represents a danger” for the country of some 1.3 million people that relies heavily on tourism and has been been hit hard by the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our country doesn’t have the skills and expertise to refloat stranded ships, so I have appealed for help from France and President Emmanuel Macron,” he said. Bad weather has made it impossible to act, and “I worry what could happen Sunday when the weather deteriorates.”

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AP sources: Whitmer met with Biden as he nears VP decision

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer travelled to Delaware last weekend to meet with Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s first known in-person session with a potential running mate as he nears a decision.

Whitmer visited Biden Sunday, according to two high-ranking Michigan Democrats who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. The first-term governor of the battleground state has long been on his short list of possible running mates.

Flight records show a chartered plane left Lansing’s Capital Region International Airport for Delaware Coastal Airport at 5:33 p.m. and returned at 11:16 p.m.

The governor’s office declined to confirm or deny the trip.

“We don’t discuss her personal schedule,” spokeswoman Tiffany Brown said.

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Liberty U’s Falwell takes leave after social media uproar

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Jerry Falwell Jr. took an indefinite leave of absence Friday as the leader of Liberty University, one of the nation’s top evangelical Christian colleges, days after apologizing for a social media post that caused an uproar even among fellow conservatives.

The private university in Lynchburg, Virginia, gave no reason for Falwell’s departure in a one-sentence announcement Friday afternoon. But it came after Falwell’s apology earlier this week for a since-deleted photo he posted online showing him with his pants unzipped, stomach exposed and his arm around a young woman in a similar pose.

The statement said the executive committee of Liberty’s board of trustees, acting on behalf of the full board, met Friday and requested Falwell take leave as president and chancellor, “to which he has agreed, effective immediately.”

A high-profile supporter of President Donald Trump, Falwell has served since 2007 as president of the university founded by his evangelist father, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell.

He did not immediately return a call seeking comment. University spokesman Scott Lamb said he had no further comment.

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US reports show racial disparities in kids with COVID-19

NEW YORK (AP) — Racial disparities in the U.S. coronavirus epidemic extend to children, according to two sobering government reports released Friday.

One of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports looked at children with COVID-19 who needed hospitalization. Hispanic children were hospitalized at a rate eight times higher than white kids, and Black children were hospitalized at a rate five times higher, it found.

The second report examined cases of a rare virus-associated syndrome in kids. It found that nearly three-quarters of the children with the syndrome were either Hispanic or Black, well above their representation in the general population.

The coronavirus has exposed racial fractures in the U.S. health care system, as Black, Hispanic and Native Americans have been hospitalized and killed by COVID-19 at far higher rates than other groups.

Meanwhile, the impact of the virus on children has become a political issue. President Donald Trump and some other administration officials have been pushing schools to re-open, a step that would allow more parents to return to work and the economy to pick up.

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Endangered Brazilian monkeys get a bridge to themselves

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The overpass juts from a forest over a four-lane highway in a rural area outside Rio de Janeiro. It’s meant for a very special sort of pedestrian: golden lion tamarins, small orange primates that for decades have been at risk of extinction.

The little primate, whose name derives from the shock of orange fur that frames its face like a mane, has watched its habitat shrink over decades — even centuries — of rampant deforestation. Animal traffickers have also targeted the brightly colored monkeys.

Bowing to pressure from an environmental association — and following a court order — the highway’s administrator in late July finished construction of the overpass that’s aimed at helping conserve the species.

About 20 metres (65 feet) wide and twice as long, the bridge connects the Poco de Dantas biological reserve in Rio state’s Silva Jardim municipality with a farm that the Golden Lion Tamarin Association acquired to transform into an ecological park.

Recently planted trees on the overpass — only inches tall at present — are expected within two years to reach heights allowing the monkeys to cross from one swath of Atlantic forest to another.