Nation & World Glance
US attorney in NY disputes resignation, vows probes
continue WASHINGTON — The Justice Department abruptly announced late Friday that the U.S. attorney who was was overseeing an investigation into President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer was resigning. But he disputes that, saying he was staying on the job and his probes would continue.
Attorney General William Barr said in a statement that Geoffrey S. Berman was stepping down as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. The office is one of the nation’s top districts, trying major mob cases and terror cases over the years.
But Berman said in a statement later that he’d learned he was stepping down from a press release.
“I will step down when a presidentially appointed nominee is confirmed by the Senate. Until then, our investigations will move forward without delay or interruption,” he said.
Barr’s announcement came after he visited New York City, and no reason was given for the abrupt departure. It was followed by a statement from the White House nominating the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission to the job, a lawyer with virtually no experience as a federal prosecutor.
Brazil tops 1 million cases as coronavirus spreads inland SAO PAULO — Brazil’s government confirmed on Friday that the country has risen above 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases, second only to the United
States.
The country’s health ministry said that the total now stood at 1,032,913, up more than 50,000 from Thursday. The ministry said the sharp increase was due to corrections of previous days’ underreported numbers.
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro still downplays the risks of the virus after nearly 50,000 deaths from COVID-19 in three months, saying the impact of social isolation measures on the economy could be worse than the disease itself.
Specialists believe the actual number of cases in Brazil could be up to seven times higher than the official statistic. Johns Hopkins University says Brazil is performing an average of 14 tests per 100,000 people each day, and health experts say that number is up to 20 times less than needed to track the virus. Official data show a downward trend of the virus in Brazil’s north, including the hard-hit region of the Amazon, a plateau in cases and deaths in the countries’ biggest cities near the Atlantic coast, but a rising curve in the south.
AP changes writing style to capitalize ‘‘b’’ in Black The Associated Press changed its writing style guide Friday to capitalize the “b” in the term Black when referring to people in a racial, ethnic or cultural context, weighing in on a hotly debated issue.
The change conveys “an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa,” John Daniszewski, AP’s vice president of standards, said in a blog post Friday. “The lowercase black is a color, not a person.”
The news organization will also now capitalize Indigenous in reference to original inhabitants of a place.
Daniszewski said the revisions aligned with longstanding identifiers such as Latino, Asian American and Native American.