GOP now having to revise convention plans in Florida

With coronavirus cases surging in Florida, Republicans are planning to move the three nights of their national convention from an indoor arena to an outdoor venue in Jacksonville, but it’s still unclear how many people will be allowed to attend the events and under what restrictions, sources said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump and political advisers met Monday night to discuss shifting the events of Aug. 25, 26, and 27 out of the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena and into two outdoor options.

That’s not what Trump had envisioned when he forced the Republican National Committee to abandon plans to hold the convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, because officials there refused to guarantee the type of pre-coronavirus event the president wanted, without restrictions on social distancing.

Now, Jacksonville presents more serious challenges than Charlotte did.

California man charged with hate crime in racial incident

A 42-year-old Redondo Beach, California, man has been charged with a hate crime after prosecutors say he drove his car into a group of Black people outside a Torrance hotel while shouting racial epithets.

Dennis Wyman faces two counts of assault with a deadly weapon and one count of hit-and-run driving resulting in serious injury to another person, with the special allegation that the alleged crimes were hate crimes, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

The charges stem from a June 29 incident in the parking lot of a Staybridge Suites hotel.

Actress, husband seek reduction of their $1M bail in college scam

“Full House” actor Lori Loughlin and her fashion designer husband Mossimo Giannulli urged a judge to cut their bail from $1 million to $100,000, saying they will not flee ahead of their Aug. 21 sentencing in the college admissions bribery case.

In a filing Monday, lawyers for the famous couple who admitted to paying $500,000 to get their daughters into the University of Southern California as fake crew recruits also asked the judge to remove the requirement that their bonds be secured by a lien on their house. The defense said prosecutors had agreed.

If the judge accepts their plea deals, Loughlin will be sentenced to two months in prison and Giannulli five months.

First woman adds her name to list of doctor’s accusers

The first woman to publicly say she was sexually abused by a team doctor at the University of Michigan says she hopes to inspire other women and men to come forward.

Cathy Kalahar, who played tennis for the Wolverines in the 1970s, joins hundreds of Michigan graduates who allege that doctor Robert Anderson molested them. Anderson died in 2008.

Kalahar said Monday that Anderson assaulted her during an exam when she was a freshman in 1973. She was a member of the school’s first women’s tennis team.

Kalahar said she told a counselor at the school about what happened but that the woman, whose name Kalahar does not recall, brushed it off as a “sexual fantasy” the student was having about Anderson.

Clashes between Armenia, Azerbaijan prove bloody

Armenia and Azerbaijan forces fought Tuesday with heavy artillery and drones, leaving at least 16 people killed on both sides, including an Azerbaijani general, in the worst outbreak of hostilities in years.

Skirmishes on the volatile border between the two South Caucasus nations began Sunday. Azerbaijan said it had lost 11 servicemen and one civilian in three days of fighting, and Armenia said four of its troops were killed Tuesday.

The two neighbors in the South Caucasus have been locked in conflict over Nagorno-karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. International efforts to settle the conflict have stalled.

The current skirmishes appear to mark the most serious spike in hostilities since 2016, when scores were killed in four days of fighting.

Britain won’t use Huawei parts in 5G network after all

Britain on Tuesday backtracked on plans to give Chinese telecommunications company Huawei a role in the U.K.’S new high-speed mobile phone network.

Britain said it decided to prohibit Huawei from working on the so-called 5G system after U.S. sanctions made it impossible to ensure the security of equipment made by the Chinese company.

The U.S. had threatened to sever an intelligence-sharing arrangement with Britain because of concerns that Huawei’s involvement could allow the Chinese government to infiltrate U.K. networks.

Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told Parliament the decision would delay the rollout of 5G technology and increase costs by up to 2 billion pounds ($2.5 billion).

The decision forces British telecoms operators to stop buying 5G equipment from Huawei by the end of this year but gives them until 2027 to remove Huawei gear that has already been used in the network, which is under construction.

Possible vaccine jazzes up immunity responses in test

The first COVID-19 vaccine tested in the U.S. revved up people’s immune systems just the way scientists had hoped, researchers reported Tuesday — as the shots are poised to begin key final testing.

“No matter how you slice this, this is good news,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government’s top infectious disease expert, told The Associated Press.

The experimental vaccine, developed by Fauci’s colleagues at the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc., will start its most important step around July 27: A 30,000-person study to prove if the shots really are strong enough to protect against the coronavirus.

Tuesday, researchers reported that the vaccine boosted immunity in the first 45 volunteers who rolled up their sleeves back in March.