Officials purposely interfered with cdc reports on covid19. Their alleged intentions as we learn how children may be playing a larger role in spreading the virus than previously thought. Student suspended. The 12yearold boy spotted playing with a toy gun by his teacher during an online session. Police then showing up at his door. Youre a young man, dude. I dont want to see you get in trouble. Why his parents say the school should have handled the situation a lot differently. And College Gameday. Kickoff for the acc number one clemson taking on wake forest. How the game will look a lot different this season. Espns allison willi live with a game day preview. Hey, good morning. As we come on the air this saturday morning, the death toll from those devastating wildfires in the American West has now risen to at least 19 people including a 16yearold boy and dozens of people meanwhile are missing. Fires in california, washington, oregon burning millions of acres and leaving three American Cities with the worst air quality in the world. Well have the latest from on the ground in just a minute. First, though, six tropical systems in the atlantic right now including a tropical depression that is hitting florida as we speak. Rob is tracking it all from connecticut for us this morning. Rob, good morning. Reporter good morning, whit. We are ramping up Hurricane Season. Right now is the peak and Mother Nature certainly coordinating with the calendar. Heres a look at whats happening in south florida, just south of miami. Cutler bay, florida experiencin the wind, the rain, even some palm fronds coming down. Heres where it is, south of miami is the center. Another wave in the middle of the gulf is not as much of an issue as this one, which is expected to be our next storm. Nohepoedor the Florida Panhandle expected to get into the gulf of mexico and potentially get to hurricane strength making landfall sometime tuesday from panama city maybe over towards lafayette, louisiana and that is one, two of six systems that well be speaking of throughout the hour. Eva, back over to you. A busy season for sure. Rob, thank you. Now to those Deadly Wildfires tearing through towns and down the west coast. Abcs chief National Correspondent matt gutman is on the ground in portland with an arrest tied to one of those devastating fires. Good morning, matt. Reporter hey, good morning, eva. The sheriffs announcing overnight in the medford area that they made an arrest, charging a suspect with two counts of arson. That area saw several towns burned. Several people were killed and still 50 people missing there and because there was a loss of life there, that man could face murder charges. This morning, police say the fires thatorthe s talent and phoenix, oregon destroying about a thousand homes and killing five people were intentionally started. We were able to locate evidence and determine that this individual is likely the cause of the fire. Reporter Michael Jarrod bakkela was charged with two counts of arson and multiple counts of criminal mischief as 500,000 people, 10 of oregons population, are in evacuation zones. At least two fires have converged creeping closer to portland whose mayor has declared an emergency. From space nearly half the state buried under smoke. Flurries of ash came down on neighborhoods. The air quality index around here has been measured at three times the level that is hazardous to breathe. Its been raining ash here for days. The air is so thick you can barely see that church right down the street. So many with nowhere to live. We met emma and libby at a red cross shelter in salem, oregon. We had a neighbor who called us kind of hysterically screaming saying get out. You guys need to leave. Reporter with fires ripping through her town the single mom scooped up her sisters children, their dogs and fled into the night. What did you take with you . Nothing. I still have my swimsuit on. I sat in a pool that day. You literally left in a swimsuit . In a swimsuit. You know, the kids had their pajamas, half didnt have their shoes on. We just left. Reporter as thousands clogged roads out of multiple fire zones, firefighters in ferocious battles to try to save homes. With our crane camera want to show you this world of pink laid down around me and still it did nothing to stop the progress of that fire which incinerated entire neighborhoods, entire developments here. Californias north complex fire claiming at least nine lives. 16 people are still missing. The debate is over around climate change, just come to the state of california. Observe it with your own eyes. Reporter back in oregon, emma and libby got ready to pack up the dogs. They think their house is safe, but they dont know. The upheaval of covid and temporary homelessness because of these fires almost too much. Youre tearing up a little bit. Yeah. Its her senior year. School is hard for her anyway because we havent been able to start school and now we cant start school. So its been hard. For these kids to work so hard on their senior year we dont have anything. Reporter its so hard to overemphasize how bad the air quality is here in portland and across oregon. Every city has an air quality index at or around 300, which is considered hazardous to breathe. Several places we went yesterday had air quality indexes up to three times that amount. Dan . Matt, stay safe out there, please. Thank you for your reporting. All of this is playing out in the middle of the coronavirus outbreak. And this morning six months after the World Health Organization declared covid to be a pandemic, the u. S. Has confirmed more than 6. 4 million cases and more than 193,000 deaths. Abcs trevor ault at an Elementary School in new york city with the latest on kids and covid and on allegations that Trump Officials purposely interfered with cdc reports on the virus. Heres trevor with more. Reporter overnight a report released by politico claiming Trump Officials purposely interfered with cdc reports on covid19. According to the article, staff within the administration openly pushed for cdc reporting to better align with President Trumps optimistic claims. A spokesperson for the department of heal and han es tells abc, our intention is to make sure that evidence, sciencebased data drives policy through this pandemic, not ulterior deep state motives in the bowels of cdc. This coming as researchers say children might play a larger role in the spread of covid19 than previously thought. The cdc reporting 12 children contracted the virus at two Utah Child Care facilities, then spread the virus to 12 other people including multiple family members, sending one parent to the hospital. Dont count kids out as potential parts of this spreading of this virus. Reporter Harvard Medical School researchers studying children suspected of covid19 in massachusetts hospitals say infected children had high levels of the virus in their respiratory secretions even if they didnt have symptoms. Most of the time, when infected, the kids have little or no symptoms so they can become spreaders or superspreaders. Reporter with Many School Districts resuming inperson learning a recent report showing 70,000 Elementary School students have been diagnosed with covid19 in just two weeks. And the virus continuing its rapid spread through universities, clusters now on campuses in all 50 states, more than a dozen colleges reporting over a thousand cases. Everything escalated very quickly. Its been crazy and its just really panic inducing. Reporter the university of wisconsin madison seeing cases surge. De resident halls and 22 fraternities and sororities to quarantine for two weeks as the school tries to keep up with escalating testing demands. When i went to make an appointment, it told me that there was no availability for at least a week. Reporter as the world waits for a vaccine, dr. Anthony fauci says hes still optimistic that the u. S. Still has a significant wait to return to what it was. If youre talking about getting back to a degree of normality which resembles where we were prior to covid, its going to be well into 2021, maybe even towards the end of 2021. Reporter and President Trump has continued his optimistic approach to talking about how the u. S. Is handling the pandemic. He now says were rounding the final turn against the virus though dr. Anthony fauci says he outright disagrees with that claim. Whit . Quite the prediction from dr. Fauci there. All right, trevor ault for us. Thank you. Also, a number of states are rolling out the Unemployment Benefits boost. President trump allocated it with an executive order last month but in some states the money is already running out. Abcs Deirdre Bolton is here in new york with the story and, deirdre, this just adds to the uncertainty for struggling families. Reporter it sure does, whit, because Many Americans have been receiving 300 a week as part of the lwa, thats the lost wages program. You alluded to President Trump issuing that executive order, but essentially that was making states use money from fema, whit, if you can believe that. So normally for Disaster Relief funds. So in most states the payments are about half of that federal benefit that we saw at 600 per week but they are still a lifeline for Many Americans but that lifeline has now been cut in three states. The money runs out on monday. So montana, arizona, texas, unemployed residents will no longer receive any extra benefits. Numerous other states stopping payments, as well. And, of course, the larger disturbing fact is that if any of these states there is any kind of disaster, a flood, hurricane, were seeing the fires, of course, in california, new money will have to be allocated from somewhere else to help meet those disaster efforts. Whit . Recordsetting fires out west theyre dealing with. Deirdre, i want to ask, were learning about the department of housing and urban development announcing support for renters. Reporter sure thing, whit. Of course, last evening hud secretary ben carson saying, listen, we understand weprovide a little bit of extra support, close to 2 billion for the c. A. R. E. S. Act. Long story short, if you are a renter, you are protected for the next six months. Eva . Deirdre bolton for us, thank you so much. Historic peace talks going on this morning between the taliban and the Afghan Government to end two decades of fighting. Julia macfarlane joins us from london with the latest. Good morning to you, julia. Reporter good morning, eva. Today in doha taliban officials and Afghan Government representatives are sitting down facetoface for the first time. The goal, a powersharing government to end 40 years of war. Now, this comes after repeated delays and many flareups of violence and stark challenges still remain. Theres still deep idealogical differences between the Afghan Government and the taliban over issues such as womens rights. The militants want an islamic system of government. There have been grievous attacks against afghan officials and civilians and the taliban have staunchly refused to take part in talks before the release of 5,000 jailed militants, something the u. S. Has really had to pressure the Afghan Government to agree to. All against a backdrop of a phased withdrawal of u. S. Troops from afghanistan and, of course, the u. S. President ial election drawing ever closer. Secretary of state mike pompeo is in doha this morning telling the participants they all carried a great responsibility. Hopes that more than 40 years of war might start to finally come to an end. Dan . And for all the civilians who suffered through those 40 years. Julia, thank you very much. Back here at home a Major Development in the federal investigation into the origins of the trump russia investigation. A new top prosecutor hand picked to join the probe has resigned. Abcs Andrew Dymburt is in d. C. With more on that and other developments in the president ial race. Andrew, good morning to you. Reporter dan, good morning. Both president ial candidates taking a brief break from the riggers of this president ial campaign to mourn the victims of 9 11. This weekend they are back at it. President trump will be stumping in north carolina. This as questions are mounting about potential election interference. This morning, the race for the White House Presses on after a brief pause in politics for the 19year anniversary of 9 11. President trump and his opponent joe biden mindful of the tragedy that gripped this nation nearly two decades ago. We mourn deeply for the nearly 3,000 precious and beautiful souls who were taken from us. Im not going to talk about anything other than 9 11. We took all our advertising down. Its a solemn day. Reporter this weekend its back to the final stretch for november, but with a new warning about foreign interference targeting the nations election integrity. Microsoft says it detected and stopped a series of cyberattacks from hackers in russia, china and iran including what it says were unsuccessful attacks on People Associated with both the trump and biden campaigns. The potential threat of election interference echoing those from 2016 and now one of the federal prosecutors working on the probe of that 2016 russia investigation has just resigned from the justice department. The Hartford Courant which first reported the story says nora dannehy was partly concerned that they were being pressed for political reasons to produce a report before the work was done. The department of justice confirmed her resignation but did not comment on the reason behind it. And its been a busy stretch for Government Agencies and the trump team. In a rare move the department of justice announcing it will also be defending President Trump in a defamation lawsuit brought on by writer jean carroll. Carroll accused the president of sexually assaulting her before he was president and sued trump when he called her a liar. Dan . The political news never stops. Andrew, thank you very much. Reminder on tuesday our chief anchor, george stephanopoulos, will moderate a town hall where uncommitted voters will have a chance to pose questions directly to President Trump. The special edition of 20 20, the president and the people a National Conversation airs at 9 00 p. M. Eastern right here on abc. Whit, over to you. Another big story were following, the four former officers charged in the killing george floyd appearing in court together for totesters were out. Their attorneys filing some key motions in the case. Abcs alex perez has the story. [ crowd chanting ] reporter hundreds gathering in front of this minneapolis courthouse. Protesters outside as the four former Police Officers accused in George Floyds death appear in person for the first time in court together inside. Earlier in the day Derek Chauvin seen with his knee on floyds neck escorted in an orange jumpsuit and bulletproof vest. In Court Attorneys arguing three key motions the judge is still considering, whether to allow a change of venue, if jurors should be kept anonymous and should chauvin charged with George Floyds murder and the three former cops charged with aiding and abetting chauvin be tried together or separately . Fighting for a joint trial, the prosecutors saying the defendants were present together and watched the air go out of floyds body together. Defense attorneys of the former cops pushing for separate trials. They would possibly take a different defense approach if they were tried individually, they say. In cou defense adjusting that chauvins knee on floyds neck for several minutes wasnt the cause of his death, but that it was instead a drug overdose. What about this idea that some of the defense is making that george overdosed on drugs . It came up several times. Your response to that . The only overdose that killed george floyd was an overdose of Excessive Force and racism by the Minneapolis Police department. Lets just be clear about that. Reporter the judge denied a defense motion to enter as evidence information about George Floyds past criminal record. The judge saying that had nothing to do with the current case. A tentative trial date has been set for march 8th of next year. Guys . Alex perez for us, so many people watching that case. Lets switch gears now, time for a check of the weather and back to rob marciano in connecticut. How you doing, rob . Reporter all right, eva. Lets touch on whats going on in the west. You heard matt gutman talk about the horrible air quality conditions there. This is a remarkable satellite picture showing you a storm thats well offshore thats actually sucking out the smoke. You see it there in the brown mixing with the white clouds all the way out to sea and wrapping around. 1,300 miles of that smoke getting wrapped into the weather system and the air quality will remain poor on the west side of the cascades and look for a bit of a south wind component. Thats only bringing more of that smoke into portland and seb monsres towe a lot ofhigr wbeasheout but ver into early next week look for cooler and some of that storm getting in and wetter and more of an onshore push that will help the situation. The next 48 hours will be tough. Thats your national check. Time f reporter and we w