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President Donald Trump is promising to outline an optimistic vision for America at this week’s Republican convention. But he’ll be speaking to a public deeply pessimistic about the direction of the country and overwhelmingly dissatisfied with his and the federal government’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Most Americans think there isn’t enough being done to help individual Americans, small businesses or public schools as the pandemic stretches on, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Overall, just 31% of Americans approve of Trump’s leadership on the pandemic, a significant drop from 44% approval in March, when the virus began sweeping through the United States.
The public’s negative assessment of how Trump is handling the crisis puts him on the defensive as his November face-off against Democrat Joe Biden nears. One of Trump’s challenges as his convention opens on Monday night is to convince Americans that anything about his response to the pandemic will change or improve if voters give him four more years in office.
Yet Trump has shown little willingness to acknowledge that a course correction of any kind is needed. He’s repeatedly cast the virus as all but defeated, even when cases were sharply increasing, including in states he needs to win in November. He’s also insisted the U.S. has vastly outperformed other countries in tackling the pandemic, despite the fact the U.S. has the most confirmed cases (more than 5.7 million) and most confirmed deaths (more than 176,000) of any country in the world.
“To be persuasive, there needs to be a strategy and not just rhetoric,” Whit Ayres, a Republican pollster, said of Trump’s challenge this week.
The president heads into his four-night nominating convention with an overall approval rating of 35%. That’s down from 43% in March but still within range of where Trump has been for much of his presidency. Where he falls within that range as Election Day nears could make a difference to his reelection prospects.
His support continues to be driven overwhelmingly by Republicans, with 79% approving of his job performance compared with just 5% of Democrats.
Trump must also contend with Americans’ persistently negative view of the country’s direction as he asks voters to stay the course instead of handing the reins over to Biden. The AP-NORC poll finds that just 23% think the country is heading in the right direction, while 75% think it’s on the wrong path.
Republican strategist Gail Gitcho said the national mood makes it imperative for the president to strike an optimistic tone during his convention.
“The most important time for optimism is when pessimism is rampant,” said Gitcho, who advised Sen. Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. “That’s when it is most needed and works best.”
The president’s highest marks continue to come on the economy: 47% of Americans approve of his stewardship of the economy, though that, too, is down from 56% approval in March. Trump is expected to lean hard into his economic credentials during the convention, arguing that when the pandemic subsides, he can again lead the country into a period of sustained growth and job creation.
Trump’s advisers are also seizing on remarks Biden made last week in which he said he would shut the country down to stop further spread of the virus if that’s what public health experts recommend. They believe Americans are weary of pandemic restrictions and focused instead on ways to safely keep the economy up and running.
Biden, in an interview with ABC News, said he would “be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives because we cannot get the country moving until we control the virus.”
As the country grapples with how to keep businesses afloat and open schools for in-person learning, Americans see little help flowing to those who need it most. Two-thirds of Americans say the government is doing too little to help the individuals and small businesses. A similar share thinks the government needs to do more to help public schools with their finances.
The poll was conducted after Congress left for its August recess without passing a new round of pandemic assistance. House Democrats approved a $3 trillion relief package that included money for schools, state and local governments and other entities, but Republicans balked at the price tag and some of the provisions. It’s unclear whether lawmakers can break the logjam when they return to the Capitol in September.
The lack of action on Capitol Hill appears to have contributed to Congress’ sinking approval rating. Just 13% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing during the pandemic, down from 31% in March. The federal government as a whole has also taken a hit with the public, with approval down from 38% in March to 23% now.
Americans remain more positive in their views of how state governments are handling the pandemic, with 44% approving of their state’s performance. Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans to approve of state government, 51% to 41%.
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U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy returns the Capitol Hill Monday, this time to face the Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee, to defend postal service policies under his watch that Democrats claim are designed to slow mail deliver and hamper voting by mail. DeJoy appeared before the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Friday where he explained his policies were designed simply to make postal service more efficient and cost-effective. He also promised to ensure all mailed-in ballots for the November election would be handled safely and on time, though he offered no details as how he would do that.  DeJoy, a donor to U.S. President Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, prompted an outcry from Democrats when, shortly after his assumed his post early this summer, began cutting overtime pay, limiting extra trips by mail carriers, and removing sorting machines from post offices. Those policies have led to delays in mail delivery, including medicine, pension checks and bills. Over the weekend, led by Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the House passed a bill that would block DeJoy from continuing with his changes to Postal Service operations, along with adding $25 billion in postal service funding. The measure was viewed as largely symbolic as the Republican-led Senate is unlikely to consider it. The chairman of the Postal Service’s board of governors, Robert M. Duncan, another Trump appointee, will also be testifying before Monday’s hearing — the first public remarks he has given on the state of the embattled agency.   
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Kellyanne Conway, a long-serving advisor to President Donald Trump known for sparring with reporters, announced Sunday she will step down to focus on her family.
 
Conway, 53, has been at Trump’s side since day one, managing his 2016 campaign that catapulted the reality TV star into the world’s most powerful office.
 
But the past four years of singular loyalty to Trump, including defending him on TV and with informal “gaggles” with the press, have taken a toll on the combative spin doctor who coined the phrase “alternative facts.”
 
While she made a name for herself as one of Trump’s sharpest defenders, her husband, prominent Washington lawyer George Conway, is a strident critic of the president, repeatedly and loudly questioning his mental fitness for office.
 
“I will be transitioning from the White House at the end of this month,” she said in a statement.
 
“George is also making changes. We disagree about plenty but we are united on what matters most: the kids.”
 
She said their four children would be starting the new academic year remotely.
 
“As millions of parents nationwide know, kids ‘doing school from home’ requires a level of attention and vigilance that is as unusual as these times,” she said.
 
“For now, and for my beloved children, it will be less drama, more mama.”
 
Her announcement came a day after her 15-year-old daughter Claudia tweeted that she was “devastated” that her mother would speak at the Republican convention, and pledged to seek legal emancipation “due to years of childhood trauma and abuse.”
 ‘Alternative facts’
 
Separately, George Conway said he would be stepping back from the Lincoln Project, a group of anti-Trump Republicans he co-founded, and taking a break from Twitter, which he frequently used to assail the president.
 
The dislike was mutual, with Trump calling him the “husband from hell.”
 
Kellyanne Conway came to prominence just days after Trump took office for coining the term “alternative facts” while defending the debunked White House claim that the 45th president’s inauguration crowd was larger than Obama’s.
 
In 2017 she referred to a non-existent terrorist attack, “the Bowling Green massacre,” to defend Trump’s immigration ban.
 
During Trump’s term she was both famous and notorious for sparring with the media, often by finding a way to change the topic, turn the question back on the reporter, or merely complain.
 
She did all of it with a flamboyant fashion sense — snake-skin pattern dress one day, a bright red one the next — standing out in an often-gray city.
 
Her work led her at one point to be depicted on the long-running U.S. comedy show Saturday Night Live as “Kellywise”, a spoof of the murderous, sewer-dwelling clown from horror novel and film “It”.
 
A lawyer and pollster by training, she also stuck out her White House role while a parade of other aides was forced out, quit or left in humiliation.
 
In her statement, Conway described her time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue as “heady” and “humbling” and said her departure was her call.
 
“This is completely my choice and my voice. In time, I will announce future plans.”
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The U.S. Republican National Convention starts Monday, with party stalwarts set to renominate President Donald Trump for a second term in the White House and the chief executive himself unleashing attacks on Democratic opponent Joe Biden for four straight nights. Last week, Democrats, wary of gathering in large numbers in the face of the coronavirus pandemic, nominated the former vice president as their presidential candidate at a virtual convention.   RNC delegates arrive at the Charlotte Convention Center ahead of the start of the 2020 Republican National Convention in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, Aug. 23, 2020.The Republicans are planning a different scenario, meeting Monday in the mid-South city of Charlotte, North Carolina. President Trump is expected to arrive in Charlotte Monday afternoon as delegates formally nominate him to be the Republican presidential candidate.  From Tuesday to Thursday, most of the action will take place in Washington. Trump plans to make his renomination acceptance speech on the South Lawn of the White House on the last night of the convention, concluding with a crescendo of fireworks. Ross Richardson, a Trump supporter and resident of Charlotte, uses the hand sanitizer station set up outside of the Charlotte Convention Center in uptown Charlotte, North Carolina, Aug. 23, 2020,Delegates in Charlotte are subject to regular temperature checks and daily testing for COVID-19. All were required to be tested before they left their states, and throughout the convention they are wearing devices to enable contact tracing.  On Sunday, barricades were being put up for blocks around the Charlotte Convention Center as 336 delegates conducted meetings in the nearby Westin hotel. The size of the Republican gathering will be downscaled, just not as much as the Democrats’ conclave. Gone at both party conventions are the thousands of delegates who have crammed into arenas and stadiums at quadrennial conventions in years past. “I live 15 minutes from the arena, and yet I’m not going to be part of it,” Sarah Reidy-Jones, the vice chairman of the Mecklenburg County GOP, told VOA. Reidy-Jones was one of North Carolina’s delegates to the convention, but because of the downscaling, the closest she would get to the convention center was dropping off a fellow delegate there Sunday morning. “It’s really emblematic of everything shutting down right now across the country,” she said. Delegates at work Delegates in attendance are expected Monday to formally renominate the 74-year-old Trump for another four-year term after he won the 2016 election. Some of the speeches by Republican leaders later in the week extolling Trump’s presidency are being delivered at an auditorium not far from the White House. “It is disappointing, especially to the businesses downtown, that were really looking forward to the economic impact that the convention would have brought with it,” John Steward, chairman of North Carolina’s 9th Congressional district Republican Party, told VOA. “But it’s still exciting to be in North Carolina and to have the president here and everybody from across the country, at least those that can, to be able to experience the city and see it,” Steward said. Signs for the 2020 Republican National Convention outside of the Charlotte Convention Center in Charlotte, North Carolina, Aug. 22, 2020.While Trump narrowly won the state of North Carolina in the 2016 presidential election, Mecklenburg County, where Charlotte is located, has historically voted blue in both local and national elections. Charlotte, which hosted the Democratic National Convention in 2012, is governed by a Democratic mayor, and the state’s governor is also a Democrat. Demonstrators protest near the Charlotte Convention Center, the site of the Republican National Convention, in Charlotte, North Carolina, Aug. 23, 2020.Protests against the RNC have been held in downtown Charlotte over the weekend. On Monday, at least one protest has been planned by the group “Resist RNC.” A “Never Trump” convention, organized by moderate Republicans, is also expected to be held Monday a few blocks from the convention site. Protesters from FILE – Joe Biden accepts the Democratic presidential nomination in Wilmington, Delaware.Trump claimed that “the Democrats held the darkest and angriest and gloomiest convention in American history.” He accused them of “attacking America as racist and a horrible country that must be redeemed.” Republicans are billing their convention as “Honoring the Great American Story.” The Trump campaign said that each night will include remarks from political leaders as well as “everyday Americans whose stories are filled with hope and patriotism.” All three living former Democratic presidents — Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama — along with 2004 nominee John Kerry and 2016 nominee Hillary Clinton, spoke on behalf of Biden at the Democratic convention. But neither former Republican President George W. Bush nor 2012 nominee Mitt Romney, who now is a Utah senator and a Trump critic, is on the Republican convention schedule.  Convention schedule FILE – Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) is flanked by Senators Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and John Cornyn (R-TX) as he speaks about his new police reform bill unveiled by Senate Republicans during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, June 17.Monday’s speakers for Trump include South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, the lone Black Republican in the U.S. Senate, Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise, Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest son. Also on the Monday schedule are Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a St. Louis, Missouri, couple who drew national attention in June for brandishing guns at Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home as they marched by. The McCloskeys face criminal charges, the unlawful use of a weapon, in the incident. FILE – First lady Melania Trump speaks during an Indian Health Service (IHS) Task Force briefing on “Protecting Native American Children in the Indian Health System” at the White House in Washington, July 23, 2020.First lady Melania Trump is speaking on behalf of her husband on Tuesday, likely from the White House, while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and two more of Trump’s adult children, Eric Trump and Tiffany Trump, are also making a pitch on behalf of their father. The Wednesday convention schedule includes Vice President Mike Pence, speaking from Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where U.S. soldiers defended the young country from a British attack in 1814, inspiring the writing of the U.S. national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Other Wednesday speakers include Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn, Iowa Senator Joni Ernst and South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. The Thursday list, before Trump’s acceptance speech, includes Housing Secretary Ben Carson, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton and the fourth of Trump’s adult children, Ivanka Trump, who is a White House adviser to her father.  
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Brazil’s president threatened Sunday to punch a reporter in the face for asking about his wife’s bank deposits, allegedly linked to a corruption scheme involving an aide to their senator son. “I want to punch you in the face, OK?” the right-wing Bolsonaro was heard replying to the reporter from O Globo newspaper in an audio recording released by the daily. The president did not take any follow-up questions from other journalists after the exchange and left without making further comments. The O Globo reporter was referring to an article published earlier this month in the magazine Crusoe that linked First Lady Michelle Bolsonaro to retired police officer Fabrício Queiroz, a friend of the president, and former adviser to their now senator son Flavio Bolsonaro. According to the magazine, Queiroz deposited about $13,000 in checks from government employees in the first lady’s account between 2011 and 2016. Queiroz was an aide to younger Bolsonaro when he was a Rio de Janeiro state legislator, before his father became president in January 2019. During and after the campaign Jair Bolsonaro has promised not to tolerate corruption. While both Queiroz and Flavio Bolsonaro are being investigated, Queiroz is under arrest in connection with bank deposits of $213,500 made at the time. 
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Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he isn’t blaming President Donald Trump for the coronavirus outbreak, but he does blame him for “walking away” from the crisis.  “The idea of saying that this is going to go away, that some miracle is going to happen is unrealistic,” Biden said, adding that Trump has repeatedly promoted “crazy” treatments and “hasn’t listened to the scientists.”  Biden and his vice presidential running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris, spoke to ABC News television in an interview broadcast Sunday night. It was their first joint interview since teaming up for the Democratic ticket.  The interview was conducted last Friday, the day after the conclusion of the Democratic National Convention.  On Sunday evening, Trump announced he had helped to end a regulatory logjam and prompted the federal Food and Drug Administration to grant emergency authorization of so-called convalescent plasma to treat COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. Trump called it a “powerful therapy” with “an incredible rate of success, although government scientists said the treatment needs further study.Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar speaks during a media briefing in the James Brady Briefing Room of the White House, Aug. 23, 2020, in Washington.On Monday, Republicans begin their national convention to nominate Trump and Vice President Mike Pence for a second term. Trump and his supporters are certain to cite the FDA emergency authorization of the treatment, which uses antibodies from the blood of patients who have recovered from COVID-19 to treat the disease in others, as a prime example of Trump’s leadership in fighting the pandemic.  Biden said that if elected president, he would follow the advice of public health experts, including shutting down the nation’s economy again if that is what it takes to stem the coronavirus pandemic. “I would be prepared to do whatever it takes to save lives. We cannot get the country moving until we control the virus,” Biden said. He also called on governors to require the wearing of face masks. To those who refuse to wear masks, Biden said, “give me a break.” He called the wearing of masks a patriotic responsibility for Americans to protect their neighbors by not passing along the virus. Biden said the president hasn’t listened to public health experts and scientists, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and instead has suggested people do “crazy things” like consuming disinfectant to kill the coronavirus. Biden said he has been pleading with the president to devise a national plan, saying Trump has no notion how to reach Americans.Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his wife Jill Biden watch fireworks during the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 20, 2020, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del.Harris dismissed as a “distraction” any talk about the sharp words she had with Biden during one of the Democratic presidential debates over the matter of school busing. She said Biden understands that Black families own only one-tenth of the wealth that whites do, and that Blacks and Hispanics are twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as whites.  Harris and Biden also downplayed differences they had on issues such as health care. Harris supported a Medicare-for-all type insurance system while Biden, who as his vice president helped President Barack Obama enact the Affordable Care Act, wants to add a public option to the existing private insurance markets. “We both believe that health care is a right, not a privilege,” Biden said. Harris said she would be honored to serve as Biden’s vice president and says the call to be his running mate was a “surreal” moment. Biden said he did not feel pressure to choose a Black woman to run with him but added that women make up 51% of the country’s population and that “the government should look like the people, look like the country.” When questioned about whether a 78-year-old man is mentally prepared to become president of the United States – and possibly serve until he is 86 years old — Biden said, “watch me.” 
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A federal judge on Sunday ordered a stay in President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign’s lawsuit seeking to ban drop boxes and other changes to Pennsylvania’s mail-balloting procedures.The Nov. 3 election promises to be the nation’s largest test of voting by mail and the two major parties are locked in numerous lawsuits that will shape how millions of Americans vote this autumn.The Republican president has repeatedly and without evidence said that an increase in mail-in ballots would lead to a surge in fraud, although Americans have long voted by mail.Drop boxes have taken on new urgency after cost-cutting measures at the U.S. Postal Service slowed mail delivery nationwide.In Connecticut, Secretary of State Denise Merrill is recommending that voters return their ballots via drop box rather than through the mail for the November election, after receiving reports that some ballots mailed a week before the state’s Aug. 11 nominating contests arrived too late to be counted.Three-quarters of ballots in that August primary were cast absentee, she said, up from roughly 4% in prior years. Merrill, a Democrat, said the state’s 200 newly installed drop boxes had proven a safe and popular option.”I do not understand why people think they’re such a problem,” Merrill said. “They’re more secure than mailboxes.”Democratic Governor Tom Wolf has defended Pennsylvania’s use of drop boxes, arguing they are legal and essential, particularly in the age of the coronavirus.Wolf’s state, which Trump won by less than 1 percentage point in 2016, is considered essential to his reelection effort.J. Nicholas Ranjan, U.S district judge for western Pennsylvania appointed by Trump, said the federal case brought by the Trump campaign would not move forward until similar lawsuits in state courts are completed or unless they are delayed.Justin Clark, Trump’s deputy campaign manager, said the judge’s decision recognized that the issue touched on both state and constitutional issues.”The federal court is simply going to reserve its judgment on this in the hopes that the state court will resolve these serious issues and guarantee that every Pennsylvanian has their vote counted—once,” Clark said.The Trump campaign is seeking to ban ballot drop boxes, which were deployed in the state’s most recent primary and that allow voters to submit absentee ballots and bypass the U.S. Postal Service.The campaign argues the drop boxes were not explicitly authorized in a bipartisan bill passed by the state legislature last year that expanded the state’s mail-balloting procedures.The suit also wants the residency requirement for poll watchers lifted, so that any Pennsylvania voter could serve in that function at any polling location in the state.“The Court will apply the brakes to this lawsuit and allow the Pennsylvania state courts to weigh in and interpret the state statutes that undergird Plaintiffs’ federal-constitutional claims,” Ranjan said.The Trump campaign says the ballot drop box invites fraud. The federal judge asked the campaign to provide evidence of actual fraud, but the campaign declined, arguing it did not have to do so in order to win the case.
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Five people are dead in Haiti’s southeast and west departments, presidential press secretary Eddy Jackson Alexis announced Sunday after Tropical Storm Laura hit the country with an estimated 200 mm (8 inches) rain and maximum sustained winds of up to 85 kph. The president and all the members of his government presented their condolences to the victims’ families, Alexis tweeted.5 moun deja mouri pandan pasaj tanpèt twopikal #TTLaura nan depatman Sidès ak Lwès peyi a. Chèf Leta a ansanm ak tout Gouvènman an prezante senpati yo a fanmi viktim yo. Alèt wouj la toujou kenbe sou tout peyi a. @Pwoteksyonsivilpic.twitter.com/O5LTQ16m64— Communication Haïti (@MCHaiti) August 23, 2020 The press secretary said the death toll is still being assessed and that among the victims were a 10-year-old girl, a woman who was swept away by flood waters and a man who was found dead in the Bicentenaire neighborhood of the capital, Port-au-Prince, near the national palace.In an earlier tweet Sunday, the press secretary said the Peligre Dam, a flood-controlling and energy generating hydroelectric plant in the Artibonite River valley in Haiti’s lush agricultural sector, had flooded and was subsequently opened.5 moun deja mouri pandan pasaj tanpet twopikal #Laura nan depatman Sidès ak Lwès peyi a. Baraj Pelig la ranpli. Otorite yo blije lage dlo a. Moun nan Latibonit atansyon pral gen anpil dlo nan vale a. ALÈT WOUJ la toujou kenbe sou tout teritwa nasyonal la.@Pwoteksyonsivil#COUN— Eddy Jackson Alexis (@Eddyjalexis) August 23, 2020″Residents of the Artibonite region, stay alert, there will be flooding in the valley. The Red Alert is still in effect for the entire country,” Alexis warned.  
 
In Riviere Froide, in the southeastern Nippes Department, residents told VOA Creole they fear for their lives as the river threatens homes and businesses near its banks.  “We are in grave danger because when this river overflows it causes major problems. There are people who have children who need to evacuate but they don’t have the resources to do that,” a man who stood on the bank of the overflowing, muddy river told VOA. He urged the government to send help immediately.   Another male resident told VOA many of the homes on the bank of the river have multiple people living in them and that the river also swept away livestock.”The river is a big threat to the people living near it (now),” he said.  Video recorded by VOA Creole shows river waters sweeping away parts of makeshift, tin-roof homes. Some people are seen standing seemingly helpless on the front porch of their homes as the river creeps closer and closer. Other residents attempt to salvage property as people standing on the opposite side of the riverbank shout at them to watch out. In the background a woman screams.Raging floodwaters of the Riviere Froide in Haiti’s southwest theatens homes, Aug. 23, 2020. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)Residents said some people regularly wade or swim across the river because there is no passible road they can take.   The latest weather forecast Sunday predicts wind and thunderstorms continuing through Tuesday as Laura still threaten lives in Haiti and the Dominican Republic with flash flooding. According to the U.S.  National Hurricane Center, the tropical storm is now heading east toward Cuba.  Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File352p | 1 MB352p | 2 MBOriginal | 5 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioTropical Storm Laura lashed Haiti with torrential rains, high winds and flash flooding. In the Riviere Froide region in the southeast, residents lives and homes are threatened by raging river waters. (Video by Matiado Vilme/VOA Creole)Haiti’s ministry for the protection of civilians (Homeland Security) announced on Twitter that a press conference is planned for later Sunday to inform the public about the storm damage. The ministry says the prime minister, interior minister, homeland security minister and other government officials will be on hand to answer reporters’ questions.   Tropical Storm Laura hits Haiti at a time when the Caribbean nation is still struggling with the coronavirus. The latest public health ministry figures published this week indicate 8,082 infections and 196 deaths.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File352p | 4 MB352p | 5 MB352p | 6 MBOriginal | 12 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioTropical Storm Laura caused major flooding in the Riviere Froide region of Haiti’s southeast where the raging river swept away homes and livestock, Aug. 23, 2020. (Video by Matiado Vilme/VOA Creole)
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday headed to the Middle East, the first of two senior U.S. officials to travel to the region this week as the Trump administration presses an ambitious Arab-Israeli peace push that President Donald Trump hopes will burnish his foreign policy credentials ahead of November’s election.  Pompeo is traveling to Israel, several Gulf Arab states and Sudan and will be away when he is scheduled to speak on Tuesday to the Republican National Convention, which will nominate Trump for a second term. Should Pompeo appear by remote or recorded video, it will break a long tradition of secretaries of state declining to participate in the public political nomination process.Previous secretaries of state have shunned overtly partisan rhetoric. Pompeo’s three immediate predecessors made a point of being out of the country and unavailable during their political parties’ presidential nominating events. If Pompeo’s planned speech to the convention goes ahead, he is likely to tout Trump’s Mideast policies and the recent agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates to normalize relations.  To accelerate progress in the region, Pompeo is expected to be followed to many of the same destinations later in the week by Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, diplomats said.The separate visits come as the administration seeks to capitalize on momentum from the historic agreement between Israel and the UAE.Pompeo, Kushner to Mideast as US Presses Arab-Israeli PeaceNeither trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthrough In addition to Israel and Sudan, the State Department said Pompeo would travel to Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Officials said stops in Oman and Qatar are also possible.  “The U.S. commitment to peace, security, and stability in Israel, Sudan, and among Gulf countries has never been stronger than under President Trump’s leadership,” the State Department said in a statement announcing Pompeo’s trip.Kushner and his team are expected to visit Israel, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia and Morocco on their trip, which is scheduled to begin at the end of the week, according to the diplomats, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the itinerary has not yet been finalized or publicly announced.In Israel, Pompeo will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “to discuss regional security issues related to Iran’s malicious influence, establishing and deepening Israel’s relationships in the region, as well as cooperation in protecting the U.S. and Israeli economies from malign investors,” the State Department said.”Malign investors” is a reference to China, which is seeking to gain a commercial foothold in Israel.In Khartoum. Pompeo will meet Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok “to discuss continued U.S. support for the civilian-led transitional government and express support for deepening the Sudan-Israel relationship,” the department said. Sudan is eager to be removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism and normalizing ties with Israel would be a step toward that goal.However, removal from the terrorism list is also dependent on completion of a compensation agreement for victims of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. A tentative deal struck several months ago is still awaiting finalization.  Neither Pompeo’s nor Kushner’s trip is expected to result in announcements of immediate breakthroughs, but both are aimed at building on the success of the Israel-UAE agreement by finalizing at least one, and potentially more, normalization deals between Arab countries and Israel in the near future.The administration has forged ahead with those efforts over Palestinian objections and without any indication the Palestinians are willing to enter negotiations with Israel. The Arab world had long held that a settlement to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict was a prerequisite for a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace.Israel and the United Arab Emirates announced on Aug. 13 they would establish full diplomatic relations, in a U.S.-brokered deal that required Israel to halt its contentious plan to annex occupied West Bank land sought by the Palestinians.  The agreement was a key foreign policy victory for Trump as he seeks reelection and reflected a changing Middle East in which shared concerns about archenemy Iran have largely overtaken traditional Arab support for the Palestinians.Last week, the administration took the controversial step in the U.N. Security Council of triggering the restoration of all international sanctions on Iran, something that only Israel and the Gulf Arab nations have publicly supported. Thirteen of the 15 council members, including U.S. allies Britain, France and Germany, have rejected the move.The State Department had no immediate comment on Pompeo’s plans to address the Republican National Convention, which would be an unprecedented and unconventional step for any Cabinet member let alone the secretary of state who oversees a corps of career diplomats steeped in nonpartisanship.Like his two immediate predecessors, John Kerry and Hillary Clinton, both of whom were unsuccessful Democratic Party nominees for president, Pompeo was a member of Congress before joining the executive branch. Both Clinton and Kerry eschewed the Democratic National Convention while they served as America’s top diplomat.When President Barack Obama was officially nominated for a second term during the party convention in 2012, Clinton was literally half a world away, traveling to the Cook Islands, Indonesia, China, East Timor, Brunei and far eastern Russia. When Clinton was nominated in 2016, Kerry was traveling in Europe and Southeast Asia.It’s not just Democrats. When Republicans nominated John McCain in 2008, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on a trip to Portugal, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. 
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Firefighters battling history-making wildfires in Northern California say the weather is not in their favor as they struggle to bring more than 600 separate blazes under control.Hot weather, unpredictable winds, and possible lightning strikes that could set more fires are making an incredibly difficult job even harder.  The U.S. National Weather Service forecasters posted a Red Flag Warning for Sunday and Monday for the San Francisco Bay area north along the coast.California Wildfires Burn Million Acres; Trump OKs Disaster AidThe weather forecast doesn’t offer much help to more than 14,000 firefighters battling the state’s blazesThese warnings mean that warm temperatures, stronger winds and lower humdity are expected to combine to produce an increased risk of fire danger.   “There’s a lot of potential for things to really go crazy out there,” California fire chief Mark Brunton said, noting that the winds can blow from any direction.  President Donald Trump declared a major disaster area for Northern California, making the state eligible for federal funds to help those who have lost their homes and property.State officials are calling the fires the second-largest clusters of wildfires in recorded California history.As of Sunday, about 450,000 hectares have been torched. More than 1,000 homes and buildings have been incinerated. Thousands have fled their homes. At least five fire-related deaths have been reported.  There are reports that a number of ancient redwood trees have been destroyed.Soot, smoke and haze are clouding the skies over other parts of the state, creating a health hazard.  Experts blame the latest fires on storms that brought lots of lightning but no rain. The extreme heat that baked California last week, including a 54 degree Celsius (130 Fahrenheit) reading in Death Valley, is aggravating the fire risk.    
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A former Soviet republic on the fault line between Russia and Europe is boiling with revolt this summer. Sounds familiar — but Belarus 2020 isn’t Ukraine 2014, and that’s why it’s hard to predict what will happen next. Here is a look at what’s different this time, and why it matters: No real leader The uprising in Belarus erupted last week in a democratic vacuum, in a country where challengers to President Alexander Lukashenko are jailed or exiled and where there is no experienced parliamentary opposition. So those at the forefront of Minsk protest marches have been ordinary Belarusians, instead of established political leaders like those who helped galvanize crowds and funding for Ukraine’s 2014 protest movement, centered around the Maidan independence square in Kyiv. In Belarus, “the absence of bright leaders undoubtedly weakens the protests … Leaders bring awareness,” independent political analyst Valery Karbalevich said. So Belarusian protesters formed a new Advisory Council this week to try to “offer the street a clear plan and agenda,” he said. However, opposition figure Maria Kolesnikova argues that the mass protests this month in Minsk, which came together in decentralized clusters via messaging app Telegram, show that Belarusians no longer need a vertical hierarchy telling them what to do. And a leaderless protest has one key advantage, she said: “It cannot be beheaded.” Orderly protests When unprecedented crowds of 200,000 people marched through the tidy, broad avenues of Minsk on Sunday, they came to a halt at red traffic lights, waiting obediently until they turned green. In Ukraine, by contrast, “protesters burned tires and threw Molotov cocktails,” said Syarzhuk Chyslau, leader of the Belarusian White Legion organization. That’s in part because the Minsk marches lack the kind of far-right and neo-Nazi militant groups that joined Ukraine’s uprising and fanned the violence. It’s also because Belarusians aren’t driven by the deep-seated anger at Russian influence that fueled Ukraine’s uprisings in 2004 and 2014, or Georgia’s ground-breaking Rose Revolution in 2003. While Ukraine has been geopolitically split between pro-West and pro-Russian camps since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarusians are broadly Moscow-friendly. Not a single European Union flag has appeared at the Minsk rallies, and the protesters aren’t pursuing NATO membership at the Kremlin’s expense; they just want to freely choose their own leader after an election they believe was stolen from them. Pavel Latushko, a former Lukashenko loyalist now on the protesters’ Advisory Council, hopes this could allow Belarusians to count on help from both Brussels and Moscow to settle the current tensions. “If the EU and Russia together acted as a mediator in resolving the Belarusian crisis, this would be an ideal option,” Latushko told The Associated Press. Economics While Ukraine’s protest movement built a huge tent camp in the center of Kyiv, complete with food delivery and security forces, the only perks for protesters in Belarus so far are bottles of water. “There are no oligarchs in Belarus who would give money for hot meals, medical treatment and tents. Even to pay police fines, Belarusian protesters collect money themselves,” analyst Alexander Klaskouski said. Unlike Ukraine’s largely privatized economy, Belarus’ economy remains 80% state-run, and little has evolved since the Soviet era. That makes it even more remarkable that workers at state-run factories have joined this week’s protests and strikes. “The structure of the economy allowed Ukrainians not to be afraid of the state, which in Belarus could throw any person out on the street with nothing at all,” said Klaskouski. The EU and U.S. also had economic interests in Ukraine before its 2014 uprising, but have only a marginal role in the largely closed-off Belarusian economy. Moscow’s role Given that, the Kremlin can’t easily portray Belarus’ protests as a Western-backed effort to sow chaos in its backyard the way it could in Ukraine. Russia used that argument to justify its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula and backing for separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine in a war that still simmers, six years on. But Russia’s role in Belarus is pivotal, as the country’s top trade partner and main military ally. So far, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear to Germany and France that they should steer clear of any interference, but hasn’t revealed how he wants to deal with the protesters or with Lukashenko, the only leader in the former Soviet space who’s been in power longer than Putin himself. Potential parallels Ukraine has been a cacophonous democracy for much of the 29 years since winning independence from the USSR, and Belarus is dubbed Europe’s last dictatorship — but they share some similarities. “Lukashenko made the same mistake as [former Ukrainian President Viktor] Yanukovych — he began to brutally beat peaceful protesters, which sparked a tsunami of popular protest, insulted dignity and triggered a revolution,” said analyst Vladimir Fesenko, director of the Penta Center in Kyiv. Belarusian economist Dmitry Rusakevich, 46, participated in the Kyiv protests on the Maidan, and now goes out to Minsk’s Independence Square every evening. “Maidan woke up Belarusians and showed that we need to fight for freedom,” he said. “It took the calm Belarusians a long time to muster the courage to say no to the dictator.” 
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Former Ukrainian prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko has tested positive for the novel coronavirus and is in serious condition with a fever, her party’s spokeswoman said on Sunday. Tymoshenko, 59, who twice served as premier before her defeat in the 2010 presidential election, became the first high-profile Ukrainian politician known to have contracted COVID-19. Parliament has been on summer vacation since mid-July. “Her condition is assessed as serious, her temperature is up to 39 [Celsius],” the spokeswoman for her Fatherland party said, declining to say whether Tymoshenko had been hospitalized or give further detail. Ukraine has experienced a sharp rise in infections this week, with a new 24-hour total of 2,328 cases reported on Saturday. The overall number of infections reached 104,958 along with 2,271 deaths. Tymoshenko rose to prominence as co-leader of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004 in which pro-Western Viktor Yushchenko was confirmed as president after a court declared the election result to have been rigged in favor of his pro-Moscow foe. She served twice as prime minister under Yushchenko before the two fell out after years of political turmoil. Tymoshenko ran for president in 2010 and lost to Russian-backed Viktor Yanukovich and in 2011 was sentenced to seven years in prison on abuse of office charges, which she denied, calling the accusations politically motivated. She was freed from prison in early 2014 after Yanukovich was toppled in a popular uprising that put Ukraine on a path away from former Soviet master Moscow toward closer ties with the European Union and the United States.  
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