US Soccer repeals anthem kneeling ban: official

GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Kevin C. Cox

The US Soccer Federation has overturned a rule requiring players to stand during the US national anthem which had been introduced after Megan Rapinoe took a knee in 2016

The United States Soccer Federation said Wednesday it has scrapped a controversial policy banning players from kneeling during the national anthem.

In a statement, US Soccer said the rule introduced in 2017 was wrong, and reflected a failure of the federation to address the concerns of black people and minorities.

The USSF rule mandating that players must "stand respectfully" during the national anthem was introduced three years ago.

It came after US women's team star Megan Rapinoe knelt during the anthem at a 2016 international in a gesture of solidarity with former NFL star Colin Kaepernick.

"It has become clear that this policy was wrong and detracted from the important message of Black Lives Matter," the USSF said Wednesday as it announced the rule had been repealed.

"We have not done enough to listen - especially to our players - to understand and acknowledge the very real and meaningful experiences of Black and other minority communities in our country.

"We apologize to our players - especially our Black players - staff, fans, and all who support eradicating racism.

"Sports are a powerful platform for good, and we have not used our platform as effectively as we should have. We can do more on these specific issues and we will."

The USSF had faced mounting pressure to review the no-kneeling policy on the heels of nationwide protests which have swept through the United States following the death in police custody of unarmed black man George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

On Monday, the powerful United States Women's National Team Players Association had called on the USSF to repeal its policy and issue an apology.

Kaepernick's take-a-knee protest has become an emblematic expression of solidarity adopted during demonstrations which have rippled across the globe.

Kaepernick had begun kneeling during the anthem in August 2016 in order to draw attention to racial injustice following the deaths of several unarmed black men during confrontations with police.

He was later released by the San Francisco 49ers in early 2017 and has not played a minute in the NFL since.

US Soccer meanwhile said it would now allow its players to protest as they see fit.

"It should be, and will be going forward, up to our players to determine how they can best use their platforms to fight all forms of racism, discrimination, and inequality," the federation said.

"We are here for our players and are ready to support them in elevating their efforts to achieve social justice.

"We cannot change the past, but we can make a difference in the future. We are committed to this change effort, and we will be implementing supporting actions in the near future."

11JUN2020 

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/06/the-us-womens-national-team-is_11.html

Ancient eye-popping martial art gains popularity in modern Vietnam
WILL THEY BECOMING TO THE MMA

AFP / Manan VATSYAYANALe Van Thang, 28, student of the centuries-old martial art of Thien Mon Dao, bends a construction rebar against his eye socket inside the Bach Linh temple compound at Du Xa Thuong village in Hanoi

In a sunny temple courtyard in Vietnam, Le Van Thang pushes an iron rod hard against his eye socket and tries to make it bend -- his dizzying strength honed through years of practising centuries-old martial art Thien Mon Dao.

Thang, 28, is one of an increasing number of Vietnamese to find refuge in a sport that grew out of a need to protect the country from invaders, but now offers a route to mental wellbeing in the rapidly changing Communist nation.

Practitioners of Thien Mon Dao have long taken pride in the incredible shows of strength that form part of their routines.

The eye-popping feats include bending metal against their bodies, carrying heavy objects using their throats and lying under the path of motorbikes.

AFP / Manan VATSYAYANAA spectator touches an iron bar bent around the head of a student of the centuries-old martial art of Thien Mon Dao at the Hoan Kiem lake in Hanoi

Now many say they also take pleasure from how the sport -- which includes elements of self-defence, kung fu and weapons training -- has steered them on a new course.

Thang, a furniture seller who first began practising eight years ago, said he used to get into fights in high school and was also a gambler.

"Once I stole money from my family but after that, I was brought to Thien Mon Dao by my family and I changed," he told AFP.

"There are so many benefits: I learned how to express my ideas, how to walk properly and behave."

AFP / Manan VATSYAYANAThien Mon Dao martial arts students practise inside the Bach Linh temple compound at Du Xa Thuong village in Hanoi

Thien Mon Dao has roots going back to the 10th century, according to master Nguyen Khac Phan, whose school trains in the complex of an ornate temple on the outskirts of Hanoi. But he says the first official practice of the sport was recorded in the 18th century.

In recent years it's seen a surge in popularity, he adds, with up to three new clubs set up in the capital each year.

Vietnam currently has around 30,000 Thien Mon Dao practitioners across the country, Phan estimates, with occasional public performances helping boost the sport's appeal.

AFP / Manan VATSYAYANAMaster Nguyen Khac Phan (front) leads students through a training class in centuries-old martial art Thien Mon Dao inside the Bach Linh temple compound at Du Xa Thuong village in Hanoi

"People come for different purposes but mostly they want to improve their health and mental health," added Phan, who has been teaching the sport since the early 1990s.

"Learning martial arts can help people see life in a better way, improve their strength... give up their mistakes to aim for better things," he said.

From tiny children who have barely started school to people in their eighties, Thien Mon Dao embraces anyone who wants to kick their way up through 18 different levels and seven belts.

Sixteen-year-old Vu Thi Ngoc Diep, one of around 10 women training at the temple compound, said the sport had also given her a way to fight gender stereotypes.

"Southeast Asian people think that girls should be gentle and not suitable for learning martial arts," she said. "But I see it differently."

Ex-head of track and field says hid doping cases to help sport's finances

CRIMINAL CAPITALISM
THE OLYMPICS &THE OLIGARCHS

AFP / Thomas SAMSON

Lamine Diack is accused of hiding Russian doping tests in return for payments totalling millions of dollars

The former head of global track and field, Lamine Diack, told his corruption trial on Thursday he had agreed to delay and stagger bans for Russian athletes caught doping for the sake of the sport's "financial health".

But Diack, who headed the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) for 16 years, denied he had known officials from his federation had directly or indirectly asked Russian athletes for hundreds of thousands of euros to hush up their cases.

Diack, an 87-year-old Senegalese, told a court in Paris it was his decision to delay bans after 23 Russian athletes failed tests in 2011.

"It was mainly for the financial health of the IAAF," he said.

"The financial health of the IAAF had to be safeguarded and I was prepared to make that compromise."

Diack has admitted that doping bans were delayed in order to allow Russian athletes to compete in the 2012 London Olympics and the world championships in Moscow the following year.

The aim was to prevent the cases derailing talks with prospective Russian sponsors including state-owned bank VTB and the RTR broadcaster.

Diack, who was once one of the most powerful leaders in Olympic sport, is being tried for corruption, money laundering and breach of trust. The charges carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison.

French prosecutors say Diack directly or indirectly demanded 3.45 million euros ($3.9 million) from Russian athletes in order to have their names cleared in an illicit system known as "full protection".
The delay in imposing bans allowed some of the Russians to win medals at the London Olympics.

- Son 'behaved like a thug' -

Diack denied being aware that Russian athletes, including runner Liliya Shobukhova, had been asked to pay hundreds of thousands of euros to benefit from the protection.

German broadcaster ARD has revealed that Shobukhova paid 450,000 euros, allegedly to have her blood passport case delayed in order to compete in the London Olympic marathon.

Diack told the court he had been "flabbergasted" to learn from prosecutors that his son Papa Massata Diack had got involved in the doping cases. He said that if what the prosecutors had told him was true, "(Massata Diack) behaved like a thug".

Massata Diack, who worked as a marketing consultant for the IAAF, is among the co-accused but will not appear at the trial. Despite two international arrest warrants issued by France, the Senegalese authorities have refused to extradite him.

Prosecutors also allege that Diack senior obtained $1.5 million from Russia to help fund Macky Sall's successful campaign for the 2012 Senegal presidential election in return for the doping cover-up.

Diack though said that when he visited Moscow in 2011 to receive an award from then-Russian president Dmitri Medvedev, "(the Russians) asked if I wanted to be a candidate" in the election.

He admitted however that the sum of $1.5 million had been mentioned in discussions with the Russian sports minister at the time, Vitaly Mutko, without giving further details.

Also on trial are the IAAF's former anti-doping chief Gabriel Dolle, who is accused of accepting bribes, and Diack senior's legal advisor Habib Cisse, suspected of acting as an intermediary between the federation and Russian track and field authorities.

Two other defendants are absent from the trial.

Valentin Balakhnichev, a former top Russian track and field official and IAAF treasurer, is accused of "giving and receiving bribes" and "aggravated money-laundering".

Alexei Melnikov, formerly Russia's chief distance running coach, is accused of "receiving bribes".

A DIFFICULT HOMECOMING FOR THAILAND'S ELEPHANTS

ARTIST CREATES SOCIAL DISTANCING HATS

FRENCH HEALTH CARE WORKERS PROTEST

Medical personnel from the Robert Debre hospital wear masks to help curb the spread of the coronavirus holding a placard that reads, 'there are no magic medics' as they stage a protest in Paris, Thursday, June 11, 2020. French nurses and doctors demand better pay and a rethink of a once-renowned public health system that found itself quickly overwhelmed by tens of thousands of virus patients. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

For George Floyd, a complicated life and a notorious death

By LUIS ANDRES HENAO, NOMAAN MERCHANT, JUAN LOZANO and ADAM GELLER


HOUSTON (AP) — Years before a bystander’s video of George Floyd’s last moments turned his name into a global cry for justice, Floyd trained a camera on himself.

“I just want to speak to you all real quick,” Floyd says in one video, addressing the young men in his neighborhood who looked up to him. His 6-foot-7 frame crowds the picture.

“I’ve got my shortcomings and my flaws and I ain’t better than nobody else,” he says. “But, man, the shootings that’s going on, I don’t care what ’hood you’re from, where you’re at, man. I love you and God loves you. Put them guns down.”



At the time, Floyd was respected as a man who spoke from hard, but hardly extraordinary, experience. He had nothing remotely like the stature he has gained in death, embraced as a universal symbol of the need to overhaul policing and held up as a heroic everyman.

But the reality of his 46 years on Earth, including sharp edges and setbacks Floyd himself acknowledged, was both much fuller and more complicated.

Once a star athlete with dreams of turning pro and enough talent to win a partial scholarship, Floyd returned home only to bounce between jobs before serving nearly five years in prison. Intensely proud of his roots in Houston’s Third Ward and admired as a mentor in a public housing project beset by poverty, he decided the only way forward was to leave it behind.

“He had made some mistakes that cost him some years of his life,” said Ronnie Lillard, a friend and rapper who performs under the name Reconcile. “And when he got out of that, I think the Lord greatly impacted his heart.”

FEATURE ARTICLE LONG READ THIS IS AN EXCERPT
https://apnews.com/a55d2662f200ead0da4fed9e923b60a7
READ ON 

Minneapolis police chief takes on union, promises change

COP UNIONS ARE CALLED FAKE, RAT OR YELLOW UNIONS NOT RECOGNIZED BY PRIVATE OR PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS, FEDERATIONS, OR LABOUR COUNCILS

THEY ARE ASSOCIATIONS, FRATERNAL ORDERS SET UP BY WHITE COPS FOR WHITE COPS, BENEFITS LIKE AN INSURANCE COMPANY. BLACK COPS HAVE TO FORM THEIR OWN ASSOCIATIONS OR UNIONS. 

COP UNIONS ARE MOB UNIONS IN UNIFORM.

By STEVE KARNOWSKI and AMY FORLITI

1 of 8
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo listens to a question from the media where he discussed police reforms, Wednesday, June 10, 2020 in Minneapolis. The meeting follows the Memorial Day death of George Floyd in police custody after video shared online by a bystander showed former officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd's neck during his arrest as he pleaded that he couldn't breathe. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minneapolis Police Department will withdraw from police union contract negotiations, Chief Medaria Arradondo said Wednesday, as he announced initial steps in what he said would be transformational reforms to the agency in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

Faced with calls from activists and a majority of City Council members to dismantle or defund the department, Arradondo also said he would use a new system to identify problem officers early and intervene.

“We will have a police department that our communities view as legitimate, trusting and working with their best interests at heart,” he said at a news conference more than two weeks after Floyd died after a white officer pressed his knee into the handcuffed black man’s neck even after he stopped moving and pleading for air.

MORE STORIES:
– For George Floyd, a complicated life and a notorious death
– `He is going to change the world': Funeral held for Floyd
– Were they worth it?: Key protest movements over the decades

Activists have pointed to racial inequities and brutality, as well as a system that rarely disciplines problem officers. The officer who had his knee on Floyd’s neck, Derek Chauvin, had 17 complaints against him and had been disciplined only once.

Arradondo said “taking a deliberate pause” to review the union contract is the first step toward change. He said it’s debilitating for a chief when an officer does something that calls for termination, but the union works to keep that person on the job.



Advisers will look for ways to restructure the contract to provide more transparency and flexibility, he said. The review will look at critical incident protocols, use of force, and disciplinary protocols, including grievances and arbitration, among other things.

“This work must be transformational, but I must do it right,” Arradondo said.

The union’s contract expired on Dec. 31 but remains in effect until there is a new one. Talks began in October and eventually included a state mediator; the last discussion was in early March, when the coronavirus led to talks breaking off.

Union President Bob Kroll didn’t immediately return messages.

Arradondo sidestepped a question about whether he thought Kroll, often seen as an obstacle to changes, should step down. He also didn’t directly answer a question about whether residents should worry about a slowdown in police response time as a pushback against attempts to transform the department. Some City Council members have said in the past that their wards saw such slowdowns when they complained about police action.

Full Coverage: Death of George Floyd

In an interview later, Arradondo said it’s up to the union’s members to decide whether Kroll should resign. But he said he hopes the union leadership takes to heart “the fierce urgency of now.” He said he doesn’t believe rank-and-file officers are an obstacle to change. He also said citizens “should not be concerned or worried” about any slowdown in service.

“Our men and women continue to show up,” he said. “They’re showing up on their shifts. They’re showing up out there in the community. They’re answering the calls.”]

Arradondo fired the four officers who were at the scene of the encounter with Floyd the day after his death. Chauvin is charged with second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter, and the other three officers are charged with aiding and abetting.

One of those officers, Thomas Lane, posted bail of $750,000 and was released Wednesday with conditions. Chauvin, J. Kueng and Tou Thao remained in custody.

Arradondo’s predecessor, Janee Harteau, and Mayor Jacob Frey are among those who have complained that the police union is a roadblock to change. Frey, who praised Arradondo’s announcement, said this week that the city has difficulty terminating and disciplining officers because of the union. Bob Bennett, an attorney who has sued the department many times over police misconduct allegations, has said that the union has more sway over police conduct than chiefs do.

While a majority of City Council members called for dismantling the department, they provided no clear plan on how that would happen. Frey has said he would not support abolishing the department.

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, who is prosecuting the four officers, told The Associated Press in an interview earlier Wednesday that he’s not calling for dismantling or defunding the department but that the people who are “should be listened to rather than dismissed.”
He said it was fair to question whether community groups that fight against gun violence should get more money, for example, and whether schools with officers should also have more nurses and counselors

“Nobody’s saying defund safety,” Ellison said. “What they’re doing is they’re challenging the 19th, 20th century model of how we deliver safety ... how it’s not really working very well and coming up with alternatives.”
Arradondo, the city’s first African American police chief, joined the Minneapolis Police Department in 1989 as a patrol officer, working his way up to precinct inspector and head of the Internal Affairs Unit, which investigates officer misconduct allegations. Along the way, he and four other black officers successfully sued the department for discrimination in promotions, pay and discipline.

He was promoted to assistant chief in early 2017, then became chief later that year, after Harteau was fired for the way she handled the fatal police shooting of Justine Ruszczyk Damond, an Australian native who had called 911 to report a possible sexual assault behind her home.

Many hoped Arradondo could alter the culture of a department that critics said too frequently used excessive force and discriminated against people of color. Arradondo made some quick changes, including toughening the department’s policy on use of body cameras. But critics have said more needs to be done.

UPDATED
Stolen Banksy honoring Bataclan victims found in Italy
By ANDREA ROSA

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Italian authorities unveil a stolen artwork painted by the British artist Banksy as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attacks at the Bataclan music hall in Paris, during a press conference in L' Aquila, Italy, Thursday June, 11, 2020 . The L’Aquila prosecutors office said the work was recovered on Wednesday during a search of a home in Tortoreto, a city near the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region’s Teramo province. (AP Photo/Andrea Rosa)

L’AQUILA, Italy (AP) — Italian authorities on Thursday unveiled a stolen artwork by British artist Banksy that was painted as a tribute to the victims of the 2015 terror attacks at the Bataclan music hall in Paris.

L’Aquila prosecutors said the work was recovered on Wednesday during a search of a home in the countryside of Tortoreto, near the Adriatic coast in the Abruzzo region’s Teramo province. It had been “hidden well” in the attic, prosecutors said.

No arrests have been made. 


French officials last year announced the theft of the piece, a black image appearing to depict a person mourning that was painted on one of the Bataclan’s emergency exit doors.

Ninety people were killed at the Bataclan on Nov. 13, 2015, when Islamic extremists invaded the music hall, one of several targets that night in which a total of 130 people died.

Authorities said they were still investigating how the artwork arrived in Italy, and the role of any Italians potentially involved. They said the discovery was the fruit of a joint Italian-French police investigation.

At a news conference Thursday in L’Aquila, a French embassy liaison officer, Maj. Christophe Cengig, said the Bataclan owners were informed that the work had been recovered.

“It belongs to the Bataclan, it belongs to all of France in a sense,” he said. The owners, he added, “were thrilled, very happy.”

L’Aquila Prosecutor Michele Renzo said authorities believed the motivation for the theft was financial, not ideological.

Some Chinese nationals were living in the Tortoreto home, but they appeared unaware that the work was there. Teramo Carabinieri Col. Emanuele Pipola said someone else had access to the attic.

Stolen Banksy work from door of Paris Bataclan found in Italy

AFP/File / Thomas SAMSONA number of works left around Paris by street artist Banksy during a 2018 visit were subsequently stolen

Italian police said Wednesday they had retrieved a work by famed street artist Banksy commemorating the victims of the November 2015 Paris terror attacks stolen from the Bataclan concert hall.

The work was an image of a girl in mourning painted on one of the emergency doors of the Parisian venue, where Islamic State gunmen massacred 90 people. It had been cut out and taken in 2019.

"We have recovered the door stolen in the Bataclan with a Banksy work portraying a sad young girl," a senior Italian police officer from Teramo, in Italy's central east Abruzzo region, told AFP. The raid was conducted with French police, he added.

The work was found in an abandoned farmhouse in Abruzzo, according to l'Aquila prosecutor Michele Renzo, who said further details would be provided on Thursday.

Works by Banksy, known for their distinctive style, irreverent humour and thought-provoking themes, have been found on walls, buildings and bridges from the West Bank to post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans.

At auction, they have sold for more than $1 million.

- Stealing works -

The portion of the Bataclan door is not the only Banksy to have been stolen from Paris.

In 2018, the artist "blitzed" the French capital with murals during a whirlwind trip, which he said was to mark the 50th anniversary of the Paris student uprising of 1968.

After he appeared to authenticate eight of the Paris works on his Instagram account, it did not take long for thieves to strike.

Works stolen included a mural of a businessman in a suit offering a dog a bone, having just sawed the animal's leg off.

POMPIDOU CENTRE/AFP / -Another Banksy artwork stolen from Paris is this one of a masked rat, which disappeared from outside the Pompidou Centre

Another was an image of a masked rat wielding a box cutter, which disappeared from outside the Pompidou Centre.

Banksy took on the rat as his avatar, a symbol of the vilified and downtrodden, in homage to Paris street artist Blek le Rat. Blek started out in 1968 when a general strike by students and workers brought France to a halt.

Some of the stolen works have since been recovered and fans have covered some of his Paris street art with Plexiglass to protect them.

But one mural of a migrant girl was defaced with blue spray paint shortly after news of its discovery spread on social media.

Banksy is believed to have started out as a graffiti artist in London, although he has kept his identity a secret.

The most dramatic of his Paris 2018 creations was a pastiche of Jacques-Louis David's "Napoleon Crossing the Alps", with Bonaparte wrapped in a red niqab. It appeared on a wall in an ethnically mixed district of northern Paris.

Unemployment woes a mounting strain on Trump in Florida
By BOBBY CAINA CALVAN

Lorin Lynch poses for a photo outside her home Monday, June 8, 2020, in Wesley Chapel, Fla. When the tourists stopped coming in March, so did Lynch's paychecks from a Tampa Bay hotel. Her desperation grew as she burned through her savings while awaiting financial relief from Florida's unemployment office, an ordeal that lingered for many weeks before the 26-year-old single mother finally got an unemployment check.(AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — When the tourists stopped coming in March, so did Lorin Lynch’s paychecks from a Tampa Bay hotel. She burned through her savings while awaiting financial relief from Florida’s unemployment office. It took nearly three months before the 26-year-old single mother finally got a check.

Even as Florida reopens for business, Lynch is still fuming over an unemployment system that was among the country’s slowest to respond to the economic calamity triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. The state’s own statistics show that about 40% of the 2.2 million claims it received remain unpaid.

Even with unemployment checks now arriving, Lynch said, “I’m honestly terrified about how I’m going to feed my son each day and what’s going to happen next.”

That frustration is a problem for Florida Republicans as they try to secure their state again for President Donald Trump. Trump’s path to winning reelection is exceedingly narrow without Florida’s 29 electoral votes. The broken unemployment insurance system raises the prospect that thousands of out-of-work Floridians will bring their anger to the voting booth in a state where races are decided by the slimmest of margins.

“I’ve been a Trump supporter, but I’m kind of questioning everything,” said Lynch, who voted for him in 2016 when she lived in Minneapolis. She was initially impressed by his business acumen, she said, but is now questioning his leadership in crisis.

Much of her anger is directed at Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Trump ally. DeSantis has acknowledged that the unemployment system known as CONNECT was like a “jalopy in the Daytona 500” being “left in the dust.”

To stem criticism and the political fallout, DeSantis beefed up staffing and ordered additional servers to help rescue the beleaguered system. He claims the system is now functioning and blames user error and fraudulent claims for some of the unpaid benefits.

As of Wednesday, state data showed more than 880,000 claims remain unpaid, while 1.2 million Floridians have received unemployment benefits totaling nearly $5 billion.

In Washington, the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer, has asked the Labor Department for an internal investigation. Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, recently assailed the system in a TV interview

“We have to make the unemployment system function, and your state isn’t very functional,” he told WFTV in Orlando, taking a shot at DeSantis. “And that relates to management of the system.”


A small group of demonstrators gathers at Lake Eola Park to protest the Florida unemployment benefits system, Wednesday, June 10, 2020, in Orlando, Fla. Many Florida unemployed workers are still trying to apply for and receive unemployment benefits since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. (AP Photo/John Raoux)
Florida’s unemployment woes add to the troubles for Trump five months from Election Day. Polling shows social unrest, the pandemic and the economic fallout have eroded his support among older people and in key battleground states.

Democrats in Florida have been handed a cudgel, said Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida associate professor who co-wrote “Politics in Florida.”

“There is a large pool of voters who might have their votes swayed because of this issue. The question is how many,” Jewell said.

Protesters tried to draw attention to the system’s woes Wednesday by holding rallies in Tallahassee, Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa and other communities.

Some of the hardest-hit counties lie along the state’s crucial Interstate 4 corridor, stretching from Orlando to Tampa Bay. In Orange County, home to Disney World, nearly a fourth of the workforce lost jobs. In nearby Osceola County, about a third of workers are unemployed
Hundreds of thousands of Floridians in the Democratic strongholds of Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Broward counties were also left reeling by job losses, and Democrats have begun highlighting the unemployment fiasco to boost party turnout.

Florida, like other states, has begun lifting the restrictions that caused its economy to sputter and unemployment to surge. In April, Florida’s unemployment rate hit 12.9%, up from 2.8% in February. Figures for May haven’t yet been released.

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported new jobless claims in Florida continued to fall as restaurants and retailers began calling people back to work. Some 110,000 Floridians filed for new jobless claims last week, according to the federal government, down from more than 207,000 claims the week before.

“It’s one of those things where once the issue is solved, it’s going to disappear,” said Florida Republican Party chairperson Joe Gruters. “I don’t think anybody ever expected the wave of unemployment applications at the same time the way it did during this crisis.”

Gruters’ mother was among those who couldn’t get an unemployment check.

“Someone should go to jail over that,” Gruters tweeted in April.

Trump has blamed Democrats for any “lateness” in payments, saying he “told them this would happen, especially with many states which have old computers,” he tweeted in April. He did not elaborate.

Republicans have since turned to promising a rapid rebound. “They’ve already built the best economy in Florida’s history once, and they will do it again after they are reelected this November,” the Republican National Committee said.

But Democrats aren’t likely to let it go. They’ve sought to cast the issue as the result of a long-standing Republican effort to weaken the social safety net in Florida.

They point to changes made under the previous governor, Republican Rick Scott, who won election to the U.S. Senate in 2018. Under his watch, Florida cut the number of weeks people could collect benefits and put it on a sliding scale — from 12 to 23 weeks — depending on the state’s unemployment rate.

Claimants in Florida currently get aid for up to 12 weeks -- tied with North Carolina for the shortest period of any state.

Other changes made it more difficult for some to apply, including by eliminating paper applications and stiffening the required proof that recipients were actively looking for work. Critics say the changes were aimed at reducing payments, as well as artificially deflating unemployment numbers.

Carolina Nunez is registered as a Republican but in recent years has supported Democrats. When she lost her paychecks in March and struggled to claim benefits, she blamed Republicans.

So did her husband, Chris Kee, a sheriff’s deputy in central Florida, who voted for DeSantis in 2018 and for Trump in 2016.

Despite uncertainty spawned by the coronavirus and anti-police brutality protests, Kee and Nunez are sure of one thing: They won’t be voting for Trump in November.

“We hear one thing coming from our governor and people who share his views, saying everything is fixed,” he said. “But everyone else who is going through the system, or is trying to receive benefits, is saying otherwise.”

___

Associated Press writer Kelli Kennedy in Miami contributed to this report.