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WASHINGTON - After three nights of solemn political rhetoric at the U.S. Democratic National Convention, comedian Julia Louis-Dreyfus injected a heavy dose of humor and mockery on Thursday, all of it aimed at Republican President Donald Trump. Louis-Dreyfus, best known as the fictional vice president on the HBO comedy “Veep,” moderated the final night, firing off a string of one-liners and lightening the earnest tone of the convention to nominate Democrat Joe Biden for the White House. When the actress described herself as a union member, climate activist and patriotic Democrat, she added, “or as Donald Trump will call me in a tweet tomorrow, a washed-up, horse-faced, no-talent, has-been with low ratings,” she said. “Well, with all due respect, sir, it takes one to know one.” After a video addressing Biden’s faith, she made reference to Trump’s famous walk across Washington’s Lafayette Square in June for a photo-op in front of a church, aided by officers forcefully clearing the way fo

BRUSSELS - European Council President Charles Michel expressed concern about Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is fighting for his life after a suspected poisoning, during a call with President Vladimir Putin on Thursday, a senior EU official said on Friday. Michel, who chairs summits of European Union leaders, said the bloc’s goals for the Belarus crisis were to stop violence against protesters and citizens, and ensure that the former Soviet republic does not slide into economic or military chaos. “The Ukrainian experience is important,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity. “Nobody wants a repeat of what happened in Ukraine. The EU is not interested in another Maidan and ensuing chaos in Belarus.” “Belarus is not Ukraine, the people there are not seeking closer ties with the EU.” “The EU is seeking to support stability, talks between authorities, the opposition and the broader society, economic prosperity. Without tilting the geo-political balance for Be

BRATISLAVA - Germany stands by its offer for stricken Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny to be treated in a Berlin hospital but is not in a position to assess whether he is fit for transport, German foreign minister Heiko Maas said. “We have made available that he can be treated in Berlin. That offer stands. But it is difficult for us to assess whether he can be transported from a medical standpoint,” he said. Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants, is in a serious condition after drinking tea on Thursday morning that his allies believe was laced with poison.

LONDON - The recovery among British businesses from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic quickened again in August, but snowballing job cuts sent an ominous signal for the months ahead, a survey showed on Friday. The early reading of the IHS Markit/CIPS UK Composite Purchasing Managers’ Index , covering the services and manufacturing sectors, shot up to a nearly seven-year high of 60.3 from 57.0 in July, far above the 50 threshold for growth. A Reuters poll of economists had pointed to a reading of 57.1. While the PMI indicated a further acceleration of growth, it did not signal a return to normal levels of output across businesses, which some economists think could take years. “There were encouraging signs that customer-facing service providers have started to catch up with the rebound seen earlier this summer across the wider economy,” said Tim Moore, economics director at IHS Markit, which compiles the survey. He cited a further easing of lockdown measures and the government’s “Eat O

HONG KONG - In a landmark decision, a Hong Kong court denied on Friday a bid for the release of the first person charged with inciting separatism and terrorism under a new national security law in the Chinese-ruled city. Police said Tong Ying-kit, 23, carried a sign reading “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our times,” and drove his motorbike into officers, knocking down several on a narrow street, before falling over and getting arrested. The government of the Asian financial hub has said the protest slogan connotes separatism or subversion under the new law, stoking concern over freedom of expression in the former British colony. Two judges of Hong Kong’s High Court rejected Tong’s application for release from detention, and set Tuesday for a bail hearing. “The applicant’s application for a writ of habeas corpus is dismissed,” judges Anderson Chow and Alex Lee said in the ruling, adding that Tong should have instead sought review of an order that denied him bail. Tong was denied

BERLIN - An ambulance aircraft with a team specialised in treating coma patients is due to leave Germany to pick up stricken Russian dissident Alexei Navalny on Thursday evening, the Berlin-based Cinema for Peace Foundation said. Navalny was taken ill earlier on Thursday with suspected poisoning and is currently in a coma in a hospital in the Siberian city of Omsk. In 2018, the Foundation, founded by Slovenian-born activist and filmmaker Jaka Bizilj, arranged here to have anti-Kremlin activist Pyotr Verzilov brought to Berlin for treatment after he was poisoned in Moscow. The activists said that Verzilov, a member of the dissident Pussy Riot art collective, had requested a plane be sent for Navalny. “For humanitarian reasons, at Pussy Riot’s Pyotr Verzilov’s request, we will send at midnight an air ambulance with medical equipment and specialists with which Navalny can be brought to Germany,” Bizilj said in a statement. “We are in contact with the authorities and hope that all permits

MOSCOW - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny was fighting for his life in a Siberian hospital on Thursday after drinking tea that his allies believe was laced with poison. If confirmed, it would be the latest in a long series of poisonings and suspected poisonings of people who have fallen out with the Kremlin, which denies settling scores with its foes by murdering them. Navalny, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin and his lieutenants, began feeling ill on a plane to Moscow on Thursday morning after drinking tea at an airport cafe in the Siberian city of Tomsk. His condition became so serious that the plane made an emergency landing at the city of Omsk, en route to Moscow, where he was carried off on a stretcher. Kira Yarmysh, his spokeswoman, said he was in intensive care in a serious but stable condition, and on an artificial lung ventilator in a hospital in the city, about 2,200 km (1,370 miles) east of the Russian capital. “We assume that Alexei was poisoned with something mi

WASHINGTON - U.S. Postmaster Louis DeJoy told lawmakers on Monday that he planned to resume some cost-cutting measures that have factored in widespread service delays, defying Democratic lawmakers who have sought to block his changes. DeJoy told lawmakers that he will push to improve on-time deliveries after the Nov. 3 election, an effort that he suspended last week after a public backlash. He also said he would keep in place a management reshuffle he implemented after assuming his job in June. “These two changes, creating our new on-time transportation network and designing an engaged functional organizational structure, will be the catalyst for the significant improvements in cost, performance and growth,” DeJoy told the House of Representatives Oversight Committee. DeJoy has sought to assure Americans that widespread delays caused by his cost-cutting efforts would not cause their ballots to go uncounted in November, when up to half of U.S. voters could cast their ballots through t

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - President Donald Trump adopted a grim tone in remarks to Republicans who formally backed his bid for a second term on Monday, warning without evidence that he could face a “rigged election” in November. Trump repeated his claim that voting by mail, a longstanding feature of American elections that is expected to be far more common during the coronavirus pandemic, could lead to an increase in fraud. Independent election security experts say voter fraud is quite rare in the United States. Trump spoke in an unscheduled appearance on the first day of the sharply scaled-back Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, after he received enough votes to formally win the nomination to take on his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the Nov. 3 election. “The only way they can take this election away from us is if this is a rigged election,” Trump said. “We’re going to win this election.” Party members are meeting amid a pandemic that has kil

WASHINGTON - In a claim likely to intensify the controversy surrounding one of the most influential figures in the American Christian conservative movement, a business partner of Jerry Falwell Jr has come forward to say he had a years-long sexual relationship involving Falwell’s wife and the evangelical leader. Giancarlo Granda says he was 20 when he met Jerry and Becki Falwell while working as a pool attendant at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach hotel in March 2012. Starting that month and continuing into 2018, Granda told Reuters that the relationship involved him having sex with Becki Falwell while Jerry Falwell looked on. Granda showed Reuters emails, text messages and other evidence that he says demonstrate the sexual nature of his relationship with the couple, who have been married since 1987. “Becki and I developed an intimate relationship and Jerry enjoyed watching from the corner of the room,” Granda said in an interview. Now 29, he described the liaisons as frequent – “multiple

SAN FRANCISCO - Russian government-supported organizations are playing a small but increasing role amplifying conspiracy theories promoted by QAnon, raising concerns of interference in the November U.S. election. Academics who study QAnon said there were no signs Russia had a hand in the early days of the movement, which launched in 2017 with anonymous web postings amplified by YouTube videos. But as QAnon gained adherents and took on new topics - with President Donald Trump as the constant hero waging a misunderstood battle - social media accounts tied to a key Kremlin ally joined in. In 2019, accounts removed by Twitter and suspected of being controlled by the Internet Research Agency sent a high volume of tweets tagged with #QAnon and the movement slogan #WWG1WGA, short for Where We Go One, We Go All, said Melanie Smith, head of analysis at social media analysis firm Graphika. The IRA was indicted by Robert Mueller in his election interference prosecution. More recently, Russian g

- The number of new cases of the novel coronavirus reported in the United States fell 17% last week, the fifth straight week of declines, according to a Reuters tally of state and county reports. Nearly 1,000 people a day continue to die from COVID-19, though last week’s total of more than 6,700 deaths was down 9% from the previous seven days. The United States posted 297,000 new cases for the week ended Aug. 23, down from a weekly peak of over 468,000 cases in mid-July. The country is now averaging less than 50,000 new infections a day for the first time since early June. The United States still has the worst outbreak in the world, accounting for a quarter of the global total of 23 million cases. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive graphic) The state with the biggest percentage increase in new cases last week was South Dakota at 50%. Infections have been rising since the annual motorcycle rally in Sturgis, which drew more than 100,000 people fro

JERUSALEM - The United States will ensure Israel retains a military advantage in the Middle East under any future U.S. arms deals with the United Arab Emirates, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Monday. “The United States has a legal requirement with respect to qualitative military edge. We will continue to honour that,” Pompeo told reporters after a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu said he had been reassured on the issue by Pompeo, who began a Middle East visit in Jerusalem that will showcase U.S. support for Israeli-Arab peace efforts and building a front against Iran. It will also include Sudan, the UAE and Bahrain. A U.S.-brokered deal on normalising relations between Israel and the UAE was announced on Aug. 13. But there has been some dissent in Israel over the prospect of the Gulf power now obtaining advanced U.S. weaponry such as the F-35 warplane. Speaking on CNN on Saturday, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner said the UAE had been try

NEW YORK - A gauge of global equity markets raced toward a record high on Monday in a rally that lifted the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to all-time peaks and buoyed the dollar as hopes for coronavirus treatments bolstered risk appetite. U.S. regulators on Sunday authorized the use of blood plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients as a treatment option. Shares of AstraZeneca rose on a Financial Times report that the U.S. government was considering fast-tracking its experimental vaccine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s move to give emergency authorization for the use of anti-body rich plasma was hailed by President Donald Trump. It came a day after he accused the FDA of impeding the roll-out of treatments until after the Nov. 3 presidential election. The World Health Organization was cautious about endorsing the use of the plasma to treat those who are ill, saying evidence that it works remains “low quality.” The announcement came on the eve of the Republican National Convention. Tru

AETNA SPRINGS, Calif. - California braced for more lightning storms that could spark dozens of new blazes after over 600 wildfires in the last week burned an area three times the size of Los Angeles. The worst of the wildfires, including the second and third largest in California history, were around the San Francisco Bay Area with roughly 240,000 people under mandatory evacuation orders or evacuation warnings in the state. The National Weather Service on Monday morning lifted a warning for lightning and high winds in the area, giving firefighters some relief, but kept the “red flag” alert in place for much of Northern California. “The threat of a thunderstorm over a fire area is dangerous, let alone over the second and third largest in California history,” Brice Bennett, a spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said of the two largest blazes, the LNU and SCU Lightning Complexes. The fires, which were ignited by over 13,000 lightning strikes from dry

NEW YORK - The New York state attorney general is investigating whether Donald Trump and the Trump Organization improperly manipulated the value of the U.S. president’s assets to secure loans and obtain economic and tax benefits, and said Trump’s son Eric has been uncooperative in the civil probe. The disclosure was made in a filing on Monday with a New York state court in Manhattan, where Attorney General Letitia James is demanding that the Trump Organization, Eric Trump and others comply with subpoenas from her office. Lawyers for the attorney general said the subpoenas were issued as part of her “ongoing confidential civil investigation into potential fraud or illegality,” adding there has been no determination that any laws were broken. Alan Garten, chief legal officer for the Trump Organization, where Eric Trump is an executive vice president, said the company has tried to cooperate with James, a Democrat, as the Republican Trump seeks a second term in office. “The Trump Organiz

- Police shot a Black man in the back multiple times in Kenosha, Wisconsin, as his three sons watched on Sunday, his family’s lawyer said, sparking a night of sometimes-violent unrest and prompting the governor to call a special legislative session to address problems with law enforcement. About 125 members of the Wisconsin National Guard will be deployed in Kenosha on Monday to counter what is expected to be another night of demonstrations, the Milwaukee Journal reported. The man, 29-year-old Jacob Blake, was rushed to a hospital after the shooting late on Sunday afternoon. Blake’s father told NBC News on Monday that his son was out of surgery and in stable condition. A video circulating on social media showed Blake walking toward the driver’s side of a gray SUV followed by two officers with their guns drawn at his back. Seven gunshot sounds can be heard as Blake, who appears to be unarmed, opens the car door. It was unknown whether the officers saw something inside the vehicle to ju

- More than a dozen environmental groups and one representing northeast Alaskan tribal villages sued the Trump administration on Monday over a plan to open the sensitive Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. In two lawsuits filed in federal court in Alaska, the groups said the plan would cause irreparable damage to a pristine tundra ecosystem that is vital to wildlife including polar bears, Porcupine caribou, and more than 150 species of birds including snow geese and peregrine falcons. The plan is part of Republican President Donald Trump’s effort to expand oil and gas production on federal lands. His opponent in the Nov. 3 presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden, has said he would permanently protect ANWR if elected. The Gwich’in Steering Committee, which represents tribes that depend on the caribou for subsistence, sued along with several other groups including the Sierra Club. Another lawsuit was filed by Earthjustice and the Natural Resources Defense Council

NEW YORK - The S&P 500 and the Nasdaq reached new record closing highs on Monday as optimism over potential medical advances in the war against the coronavirus pandemic pushed all three major U.S. stock indexes higher. The benchmark S&P 500 reclaimed its February closing high last week, confirming a bull market and the fastest recovery from a bear market trough on record. Of note, the Dow Transports index, often considered a barometer of U.S. economic health, handily outperformed the broader market. “There’s been a broadening in this rally and the what’s reflected in the transports,” said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services in Hammond, Indiana. “ volume is accompanying this expanding breadth, and those are all bullish things.” Markets worldwide were given a boost by new developments in the global race to battle the coronavirus, including an announcement from the Food and Drug Administration that it had given emergency authorization for the use

NEW ORLEANS - Fifteen years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and triggered a mass exodus, the Crescent City is bracing for new storms as it faces an entirely different crisis - the beginning of a possible wave of evictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The final eviction protections from the coronavirus relief bill, dubbed the CARES Act, expire nationwide on Aug. 24. Millions of renters around the country are worried here and evictions typically hit here Black communities hardest. But those in New Orleans face a particularly toxic combination of steep housing costs, low incomes, weak tenant rights, and housing stock that is crumbling and decrepit. New Orleans was battered here early by the coronavirus, and as tourism shut, nearly one in five residents were put out of work in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. As the city slowly tries to reopen, that dropped to 12.9% in June, but many people are still trying to catch up to lost coronavirus income,

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army said on Wednesday it was investigating two soldiers who appeared in uniform behind delegates in a video shown during the virtual Democratic National Convention. The appearance renewed questions about the politicization of the military in the run up to November’s presidential election. During Tuesday’s virtual roll call, each state and territory used a background that was symbolically important to them. The two delegates from American Samoa - which has the highest rate of military enlistment in the United States - appeared in front of two U.S. Army reservist soldiers in uniform. “Wearing a uniform to a partisan political event like this is prohibited,” the Army said in a statement. “The Army follows the Department of Defense’s longstanding and well-defined policy regarding political campaigns and elections to avoid the perception of DoD sponsorship, approval or endorsement of any political candidate, campaign or cause,” it added. Xochitl Hinojosa, a spokeswom

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday accused Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co ( GT.O ) of “playing politics” by forbidding workers from wearing hats supporting him, and said he would swap out the Goodyear tires on his limousine if there were an alternative. Trump told reporters he thought it was “disgraceful” that the company would prevent employees from wearing attire supporting the “Blue Lives Matter” movement that supports law enforcement, while allowing support for other organizations.

- U.S. television ratings for the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday fell short of the same night in 2016, according to Nielsen data, which did not include online viewing options popular with younger audiences. The event, which was held virtually for the first time because of the COVID-19 pandemic, was watched by roughly 19.2 million people on 10 U.S. broadcast and cable television networks, said Nielsen. That represented a 22% decline from the convention’s second night in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was running for president. Nielsen measured TV viewership from 10 p.m. to 11:15 p.m. Eastern time. It did not account for people who watched online via platforms such as YouTube, Twitter or various websites, for which there is no standard, third-party measurement. On Tuesday, Democrats formally nominated Joe Biden for president, more than three decades after his first unsuccessful run for the White House. The evening featured a coast-to-coast roll call of deleg

- Microsoft Corp ( MSFT.O ) on Sunday said in a court filing that Apple Inc’s ( AAPL.O ) threat to cut off the creator of “Fortnite” from Apple’s developer tools would hurt Microsoft’s gaming business, as well as other game developers. The filing came in a dispute between Apple and Epic Games. Apple removed Epic’s titles from its App Store after the game maker violated the iPhone maker’s in-app payment rules. Epic says that Apple has also threatened to cut off its access to Apple tools needed to maintain “Unreal Engine,” software that many game developers license to create better graphics. Microsoft said the move would hurt at least one of its own game titles called “Forza Street” that uses the engine for the iOS version of the game. Kevin Gammill, Microsoft’s general manager of gaming developer experiences, said Microsoft has an “enterprise-wide” license to Unreal Engine and that Apple’s move would hamper it and other gaming firms’ ability to make games with the technology for Macs a

LOS ANGELES, (Variety.com) - After months-long cinema closures, the U.S. box office has opened to the most significant degree since pre-pandemic times. Movie theaters in Florida, Texas, Georgia and other parts of the country that were able to safely reopen welcomed the first major theatrical premiere since March: Solstice Studios’ “Unhinged,” a thriller starring Russell Crowe. The film played in 1,823 venues in North America, marking the widest release yet since the pandemic hit. “Unhinged” pocketed more than $4 million over the weekend, a promising result given the challenging environment. In normal times, that figure wouldn’t be much to crow about. However, only a fraction of the nation’s 6,000 movie theaters are currently in business — and major markets like New York, California and New Jersey are still closed without a set date to reopen. The biggest ticket sales for “Unhinged” came from drive-ins in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, as well as multi-screen theaters in Dal

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Nearly two dozen massive wildfires continued to ravage parts of California on Saturday, fueled by high temperatures and ongoing lightning strikes, including 100 that hit on Friday, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said. The fires have killed six people and incinerated nearly 700 buildings since beginning after an earlier lightning storm last week. Together, the blazes have burned nearly a million acres, the agency said Saturday. Wildfire is threatening parts of the San Francisco Bay Area, the forested region near the University of California at Santa Cruz and a wide swath of the area between San Francisco and the state capital of Sacramento. On Saturday, President Donald Trump declared the fires to be a major disaster, the White House said. The declaration, which allows federal funds to be used to help people and businesses harmed by the fires in seven counties to pay for temporary housing, home repairs and other needs, came despite a thr

- Equinor has finished evacuating its Titan oil-production platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico ahead of twin storms moving into the region, a spokesman said on Sunday. The company also shut-in oil production at the facility, which is about 65 miles (105 km) off the coast of Louisiana, as Tropical Storm Marco moved up the U.S. Gulf of Mexico and a second storm, Laura, is expected to enter the Gulf this week. BP, Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell also halted production at offshore facilities.

- Storm Marco strengthened into a hurricane on Sunday afternoon as it continued to move towards the U.S Gulf coast, the U.S National Hurricane Center said. “Life-threatening storm surge and hurricane-force winds expected along portions of the U.S. Gulf coast,” said the NHC’s latest bulletin. Marco was located about 300 miles (482.8 km)south-southeast of the mouth of the Mississippi River and about 460 miles southeast of Lafayette, Louisiana, the forecaster said. The storm’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 75 miles per hour with higher gusts, it added.

WASHINGTON - Top Democrats and Republicans blamed each other for stalled talks on coronavirus aid legislation on Sunday, a day after the House of Representatives approved $25 billion in new funds for the U.S. Postal Service, a bill that Republicans declared dead. The Democratic-led House passed the bill on Saturday in a special session called by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to prevent dwindling Postal Service funding and planned service cuts from interfering with delivery of mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election. But the vote failed to shift a stalemate over the next phase of coronavirus aid since Aug. 6, when talks between the White House and Democratic congressional leaders broke down over funding levels and unemployment benefits. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Republican-controlled chamber would “absolutely not pass” the postal bill. White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on Sunday criticized the Democratic vote as “a largely messaging bill” and blamed Pelosi for

- Twitter Inc on Sunday placed a disclaimer on U.S. President Donald Trump’s tweet criticizing the promotion of drop boxes by Democrats as an option for voters, saying the tweet violated the company’s “civic and election integrity” rules. “So now the Democrats are using Mail Drop Boxes, which are a voter security disaster. Among other things, they make it possible for a person to vote multiple times. Also, who controls them, are they placed in Republican or Democrat areas? They are not Covid sanitized. A big fraud!” Trump said in a tweet posted on Sunday morning. Twitter, in a disclaimer attached to the tweet, said: “Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the tweet to remain accessible.” Democrats across the country are promoting drop boxes as a convenient and reliable option for voters who do not want to entrust their ballots to the U.S. Postal Service. Republican officials in other states have prevented their use.

JERUSALEM - Israel’s cellphone surveillance for coronavirus contact-tracing may have overcome challenges by privacy watchdogs, but the state tracking policy is hard put to deal with low-tech evasion methods seemingly lifted from TV cop shows. Some Israelis, fearing a quarantine order after unwittingly being near a coronavirus carrier, are rendering themselves untraceable while in public by switching their cellphones to “airplane mode” or using prepaid “burner” SIM cards instead. Such actions are not illegal and, although there is only anecdotal evidence for their prevalence, they drew remonstration from Communication Minister Yoaz Hendel on Sunday. “This is a problem,” he told Ynet TV. “Ultimately, we are not a police state. We will not manage to compel the citizens of the State of Israel to keep to the health regulations.” The surveillance, initially instituted without parliamentary oversight by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been anchored in legislation at the behest of Isr

FRANKFURT - Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny, who is being treated in a German hospital after what his allies say was a poison attack, will survive, Jaka Bizilj, founder of the Cinema for Peace Foundation, told mass tabloid Bild. “Navalny will survive poison attack, but be incapacitated for months as a politician,” Bizilj, whose foundation sent the air ambulance that collected Navalny in Russia’s far east, was quoted as saying by the paper.

(This August 21 story has been refiled to fix name to National School Boards Association from National School Board Association in the 16th paragraph) By Ernest Scheyder - John Marshall keeps a picture of Breonna Taylor in his office at the headquarters of Kentucky’s largest school district, a visual reminder, he says, of the need for curriculum changes that better honor and focus on Black stories. Taylor, a Black emergency medical technician, spent her senior year of high school at Kentucky’s Jefferson County Public Schools, where Marshall, the district’s chief diversity officer, has been leading a system-wide revamp of teaching materials and practices. Taylor was shot dead by police officers in March. Her death and that of George Floyd, killed by Minneapolis police in May, and others have set off a national reckoning over race and race relations. No criminal charges have been filed against the officers involved in Taylor’s death, infuriating many in the school district, where a ma

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE - Some Democrats and Republicans have a “real desire” to reach agreement on a smaller coronavirus relief bill that could be worth around $500 billion, a senior Trump administration official said late on Tuesday. The official said the agreement could include funding for the U.S. Postal Service, additional funding for loans to small- and medium-sized businesses to keep workers on their payrolls and potentially added money for schools. “I think there’s a real desire by some in the Democratic caucus and some in the Republican conference, both in the House and the Senate, to do a smaller deal on the things we can agree upon,” the official said. “It could be about $500 billion.” That amount still falls far short of what Democrats have been seeking in protracted discussions with the administration. U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday said Democrats in Congress are willing to cut their relief bill in half to get an agreement on new legislation. “