Month: May 2020

Medical school hopefuls and students eager to start other professional healthcare studies endured grueling wait times online recently to sign up for their licensing and medical school entrance exams. And then they were denied entry to the testing center’s national website.  Applicants and students wanting to take the med school entrance test — MCAT — as well as the physical therapy, occupational therapy, and nursing licensing exams, were stymied when the online test scheduling system failed, according to the medical news website MedPageToday.“I would estimate about 33,000 students were impacted,” said Matthew Durst, president of the University Medical Student Council (UMSC) at the University of Illinois College of Medicine (UICOM), told the Student Doctor Network.  Because of the coronavirus pandemic, testing centers are closed for the MCAT — administered by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMXC) —  and all appointments were cancelled in March, April and the large part of May.  The AAMC condensed the MCAT from 7 hours and 30 minutes to 5 hours and 45 minutes to handle the high volume of students who will take the test once shelter in place orders are relaxed. That allows test centers to schedule three tests a day.  But when about 62,000 students logged on May 7 to schedule their exams, the system crashed and did not come back online for hours, Gabrielle Campbell, AAMC’s chief service officer on May 8, told MedpageToday. “The system became overwhelmed with the number of accommodations requests due to the condensed processing period,” said Karen Mitchell, Ph.D., senior director of the MCAT program for AAMC.  “We are sorry that the MCAT scheduling process has been frustrating for examinees testing with accommodations and are actively working to address the issues,” the official MCAT account tweeted on May 21. We are sorry that the MCAT scheduling process has been frustrating for examinees testing with accommodations and are actively working to address the issues.— MCAT (@AAMC_MCAT) May 21, 2020Fortunately, by the end of the day, 78,000 test takers were registered for exams from May through September, with thousands of seats and multiple dates remaining. “We have made extensive changes to the exam to ensure that students can safely take the test during the COVID-19 pandemic, including shortening the test and administering the exam three times a day for all remaining dates this year. Additionally, we have increased testing capacity by 50% for each exam date,” Mitchell stated on the AAMC website. The spread of COVID-19 remaining uncertain and test dates tentative, some students expressed worry about the expense of driving long distances or overnight stays to take the exam. “I have to drive an hour and a half for my exam. One way. Since I take it on two days, I have to get a hotel room,” tweeted Emma Eaton. “My other option was a month and half later in my requested city. Does this sound equitable?” I got my request back and have to drive an hour and a half for my exam. One way. Since I take it on two days, I have to get a hotel room. My other option was a month and half later in my requested city. Does this sound equitable?— Emma Eaton (@emmabaileyeaton) May 21, 2020Cristina Goerdt contributed to this report. 
     
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Religious services in California will look much different under rules unveiled Monday that limit attendance to 100 people and recommend worshippers wear masks, limit singing, and refrain from shaking hands or hugging. The state released guidance under which county health departments can approve the reopening of churches, mosques, synagogues and other houses of worship. They have been closed since Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a stay-at-home order in March to slow the spread of the coronavirus. It’s not immediately known how soon in-person services will resume. Counties that are having success controlling the virus are likely to move quickly. Others with outbreaks — such as Los Angeles County, which has about 60% of California’s roughly 3,800 deaths — may choose to delay.  The guidelines ask worshippers to wear masks, avoid sharing prayer books or prayer rugs and skip the collection plate. They also say to avoid large gatherings for holidays, weddings and funerals, and warn that activities such as singing or group recitation “negate” the benefits of social distancing. The guidelines say even with physical distancing, in-person worship carries a higher risk of transmitting the virus and increasing the numbers of hospitalizations and deaths, and they recommend houses of worship shorten services.FILE – A woman and child sit in a circle designed to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus by encouraging social distancing at Washington Square park in front of Saints Peter and Paul Church in San Francisco, May 23, 2020.Each county will have to adopt rules for services to resume within their jurisdictions and then the guidelines will be reviewed by state health officials after 21 days. The guidelines include limiting gatherings to 25% of building capacity or 100 people, whichever is lower.  In Los Angeles County, Rabbi Shalom Rubanowitz of the Shul on the Beach in Venice Beach said he hopes his congregation can meet for this week’s Shavuot holiday, to celebrate when Jews received the Torah.  The congregation will have to figure out how to provide temperature checks and provide a place for individual prayer books and shawls. Orthodox Jews do not use technology during the Sabbath and may not carry most personal items. Some church leaders aren’t eager to reopen. The Rev. Amos Brown, pastor of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco and head of the local NAACP chapter, led a protest Monday against reopening. FILE – The Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, senior pastor of Third Baptist Church, San Francisco, California, speaks during an African American clergy announcement of support for the civil marriage of gay and lesbian couples, Sept. 21, 2012.”We are not going to be rushing back to church,” he said by phone, noting that many leaders of his denomination have been sickened or died nationwide. Freedom of religion is “not the freedom to kill folks, not the freedom to put people in harm’s way. That’s insane,” he said. Many have been eagerly awaiting an announcement on religious services after Newsom began relaxing constraints on stores and other secular outlets as part of a four-phase plan to reopen the economy.  The Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange announced last week that it is phasing in public Masses beginning June 14, starting with restricted numbers of worshippers. At first, choirs will be banned, fonts won’t contain holy water, and parishioners won’t perform rituals where they must touch each other. “We know that God is with us, but at the same time we have to be careful and make sure that we protect each other in this challenging time,” Bishop Kevin Vann said Friday. Some 47 of the state’s 58 counties have received permission to move deeper into the reopening by meeting standards for controlling the virus. The state on Monday cleared the way for in-store shopping to resume statewide with social distancing restrictions, although counties get to decide whether to permit it. Some places of worship around the country opened over the weekend after President Donald Trump declared them essential and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines for reopening faith organizations.  In California, most houses of worship have complied with social distancing, making do with online, remote and a few drive-in services.  In the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Archbishop Jose Gomez called on parishes to celebrate Pentecost — a major religious day for many Christians — next Sunday by holding food and blood drives.  FILE – Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez leads Catholics in prayer during a National Moment of Prayer at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles, April 10, 2020. The church has been livestreaming services during the pandemic lockdown.”I think it is important for all us of to be aware that this is a very dangerous illness, and we are making sure that everything is OK when we come back and celebrate the Eucharist together,” he said.  But several thousand churches have vowed to defy the current stay-at-home order on Pentecost, arguing they can do so safely. Two church services that already were held without authorization have been sources of outbreaks; one in Mendocino County and the other in Butte County. Newsom’s cautious approach to reopening has angered opponents who claim the rules violate religious freedoms. A Pentecostal church in San Diego County lost a federal appeal Friday in its quest to reopen immediately. The South Bay United Pentacostal Church of Chula Vista immediately filed an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. The nonprofit Center for American Liberty, which has filed several lawsuits over church restrictions, said the guidelines don’t go far enough. Newsom “lacks authority to dictate to California’s faithful, how they may worship,” said Harmeet Dhillon, a San Francisco lawyer and the group’s CEO. “Let people who wish to worship safely and together, do so.”  For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death. As of Monday, California had at least 94,558 confirmed cases of COVID-19, more than 3,000 hospitalizations and 3,795 deaths. The state is still seeing troubling COVID-19 flare-ups. More than 150 employees at a Farmer John meatpacking plant in Vernon, an industrial city south of Los Angeles, contracted the coronavirus. Imperial County, across the border from Mexico, has seen a surge. Two inmates from the California Institution for Men in San Bernardino County died Sunday from what appear to be complications related to COVID-19.  
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China on Monday threatened counter measures against the United States if it is punished for plans to impose on Hong Kong a sedition law, which the business hub’s security chief hailed as a new tool to defeat “terrorism.”Beijing plans to pass the new security law for Hong Kong that bans treason, subversion and sedition after months of massive, often-violent pro-democracy protests last year.But many Hong Kongers, business groups and Western nations fear the proposal could be a death blow to the city’s treasured freedoms, and thousands took to the streets on Sunday despite a ban on mass gatherings introduced to combat coronavirus.As police dispersed the crowds with tear gas and water cannon, Washington’s national security adviser Robert O’Brien warned the new law could cost the city its preferential U.S. trading status.A woman reacts after riot police fired tear gas to disperse protesters taking part in a pro-democracy rally against a proposed new security law in Hong Kong, May 24, 2020.But China’s foreign ministry said Beijing would react to any sanctions from Washington.”If the U.S. insists on hurting China’s interests, China will have to take every necessary measure to counter and oppose this,” foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian told reporters on Monday.Hong Kong has become the latest flashpoint in soaring tensions between the world’s two superpowers which China has likened to “the brink of a new Cold War.”The refusal to grant Hong Kongers democracy has sparked rare bipartisan support in an otherwise bitterly divided Washington during the Trump administration.Beijing portrays the city’s protests as a foreign-backed plot to destabilize the motherland and says other nations have no right to interfere in how the international business hub is run.Mainland agents?Protesters, who have hit the streets in the millions, say they are motivated by years of Beijing chipping away at the city’s freedoms since it was handed back to China by Britain in 1997.Hong Kong enjoys liberties unseen on the mainland, as well as its own legal system and trade status.Campaigners view the security law proposal as the most brazen move yet by Beijing to end free speech and the city’s ability to make its own laws.Of particular concern is a provision allowing Chinese security agents to operate in Hong Kong, with fears it could spark a crackdown on those voicing dissent against China’s communist rulers.On the mainland, subversion laws are routinely wielded against critics.Riot police clear up debris left by protesters attending a pro-democracy rally against a proposed new security law in Hong Kong, May 24, 2020.The proposed law, which China’s rubber-stamp legislature is expected to act on quickly, will also bypass Hong Kong’s own legislature.The city’s influential Bar Association on Monday described the proposed motion as “worrying and problematic” — and warned it may even breach the territory’s mini-constitution.The proposal has spooked investors, with Hong Kong’s stock exchange suffering its largest drop in five years on Friday. On Monday it had yet to recover, closing just 0.10 percent up.’Restore social order’Hong Kong’s unpopular pro-Beijing government has welcomed the law.”Terrorism is growing in the city and activities which harm national security, such as ‘Hong Kong independence,’ become more rampant,” security minister John Lee said in a statement welcoming the planned legislation.Police chief Chris Tang cited 14 recent cases where explosives had been seized and said the new law would “help combat the force of ‘Hong Kong independence’ and restore social order.”Last year’s protests were initially sparked by plans to allow extraditions to the mainland but soon snowballed into a popular revolt against Beijing and the city’s police force.Beijing has dismissed protester demands for an inquiry into the police, amnesty for the 8,500 people arrested and universal suffrage.The demonstrations fizzled at the start of the year as mass arrests and the coronavirus took their toll.But they have rekindled in recent weeks, with Sunday’s rally producing the most intense clashes for months and police making at least 120 arrests.During last year’s huge pro-democracy rallies, mob attacks were common on both sides of the political divide and a video of protesters beating a lawyer at Sunday’s rally was seized on by China’s state media.Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the nationalist tabloid Global Times, posted the video on Twitter — a platform banned in mainland China.”Let’s see what the Washington-backed Hong Kong democracy really looks like,” he wrote. 
 
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NEW CASTLE, DELAWARE — Joe Biden made his first in-person appearance in more than two months on Monday as he marked Memorial Day by laying a wreath at a veterans park near his Delaware home.  Since abruptly canceling a March 10 rally in Cleveland at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee has waged much of his campaign from his home in Wilmington. When Biden emerged on Monday, he wore a face mask, in contrast to President Donald Trump, who has refused to cover his face in public as health officials suggest.Biden and his wife, Jill, laid a wreath of white flowers tied with a white bow, and bowed their heads in silence at the park.The appearance was a milestone in a presidential campaign that has largely been frozen by the coronavirus outbreak. While the feasibility of traditional events such as rallies and the presidential conventions are in doubt, Biden’s emergence suggests he won’t spend the nearly five months that remain until the election entirely at home.The coronavirus has upended virtually all aspects of American life and changed the terms of the election. Trump’s argument that he deserves another term in office because of the strong economy has evaporated as unemployment rises to levels not seen since the Great Depression.  As a longtime senator and former vice president, Biden is trying to position himself as someone with the experience and empathy to lead the country out of a crisis.  Biden has adjusted to the coronavirus era by building a television studio in his home, which he’s used to make appearances on news programs, late-night shows and virtual campaign events. Some of those efforts have been marred by technical glitches and other awkward moments.Some Democratic strategists have openly worried that Biden is ceding too much ground to Trump by staying home. The president himself has knocked Biden for essentially campaigning from his basement.Biden’s advisers say they plan to return to normal campaign activities at some point, including travel to battleground states But they’re in no hurry, preferring to defer to the advice of health experts and authorities’ stay-at-home and social distancing recommendations.At 77, Biden is among the nation’s senior population thought to be especially vulnerable to the effects of the coronavirus — though so is Trump, who turns 74 next month.  “We will never make any choices that put our staff or voters in harm’s way,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said recently, adding that the campaign would resume more traditional activities “when safety allows, and we will not do that a day sooner.”Trump has not resumed the large rallies that were the hallmark of his 2016 campaign and presidency but has begun traveling outside Washington in recent weeks. He visited a facility producing face masks in Arizona and a Ford plant in Michigan that has been converted to produce medical and protective equipment.Trump even played golf at his club in Virginia on the weekend, hoping that others will follow his lead and return to some semblance of normal life and gradually help revive an economy in free fall.  It was the president’s first trip to one of his money-making properties since March 8, when he visited his private golf club in West Palm Beach. The World Health Organization declared the coronavirus a pandemic on March 11, and Trump followed with the national emergency declaration two days later.Biden’s campaign wasted little time producing an online video offering blurry, faraway footage of Trump on the golf course, imposed over images evoking the virus ravaging the nation as the number of Americans dead from the pandemic approached 100,000. The video concluded by proclaiming: “The death toll is still rising. The president is playing golf.”  Trump was spending Memorial Day visiting Arlington National Cemetery and the Fort McHenry national monument in Baltimore, to be followed by a trip to Florida’s coast on Wednesday to watch to U.S. astronauts blast into orbit. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump paid tribute Monday to the nation’s war dead on Memorial Day in a solemn wreath-laying ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery outside Washington.
 
The U.S. leader touched the wreath of red, white and blue flowers and saluted the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that is inscribed with the gratitude of the country: “Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.” A bugler played “Taps.”
 
Trump was accompanied to the ceremony by Vice President Mike Pence and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. First Lady Melania Trump and Second Lady Karen Pence watched from steps nearby along with other dignitaries.
 
But there was evidence of the ongoing coronavirus threat at this year’s annual Memorial Day ceremony at Arlington, the country’s most prominent cemetery for U.S. service men and women. Trump did not address the crowd as in years’ past and people attending the ceremony socially distanced themselves two meters apart from each other. Some military personnel wore face masks.
 
As Trump’s motorcade wound through the grassy knolls of the cemetery, cannons boomed out a salute to the fallen service members. Soldiers in dress uniforms and with masks saluted as the motorcade passed countless rows of headstones, all marked with small American flags.
 
Memorial Day is observed annually in the U.S. on the last Monday in May to honor the hundreds of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives for their country.  A flag stands next to the gravestone for a U.S. World War II veteran, at Fort Logan National Cemetery, in Sheridan, Colorado, May 23, 2020.This past weekend, U.S. flags were flown at half-staff across the country from Friday through Sunday to honor the nearly 100,000 Americans who have died from coronavirus, with the flags lowered again on Monday to pay tribute to the nation’s war dead.  
 
The U.S. coronavirus toll, by far the highest in the world, includes more than 1,000 veterans who have died from COVID-19, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.  
 
The holiday is also the unofficial start of the summer vacation season in the United States. But with social distancing guidelines and restrictions on certain travelers from overseas and millions of job losses, the holiday was different than in years past, with way fewer public tributes across the country.
 
Still, with millions of Americans anxious to resume normal lives as state governors have eased their stay-at-home restrictions, many went to beaches and lakes or ate meals in restaurants for the first time in about nine weeks.
 
But numerous crowds of people by the thousands ignored health officials’ warnings to keep a safe distance from each other and to continue to wear face masks
 
After leaving Arlington, Trump plans to spend part of Memorial Day at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where a historic battle in the War of 1812 was fought and served as inspiration for the U.S. national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” A fife and drums corps plays at a Memorial Day ceremony at Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine, in Baltimore, Maryland, May 25, 2020.Baltimore Mayor Jack Young had pleaded with the president not to come, saying it sends the wrong message when the mayor has urged Baltimoreans not to travel. Trump has refused to wear a mask in public, and Young said Trump’s visit is not essential.    
   
White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx said Sunday she is “very concerned” by the pictures and video she has been seeing all weekend of people crowded together at swimming pools and other recreation sites without masks.   
 
“We know being outside does help, we know the sun does help in killing the virus, but that doesn’t change the fact that people need to be responsible and maintain that distance,” she told the “Fox News Sunday” show. “I was hoping to convey this very clear message to the American people across the country: There is a virus out there,” she said.   
 
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday his state is “decidedly in the reopening phase.” New York has been the hardest-hit state in the U.S. But Cuomo said overall, the numbers in New York are heading in the right direction.   
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As officials around the globe weigh easing lockdown restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic, they are faced with finding a balance between personal safety and personal freedom. That is the case in the southeastern U.S. state of Tennessee, which ranks about 20th among the 50 U.S. states in the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus and about 30th in the number of deaths. Tennessee’s governor put a stay-at-home order in place in mid-March. But the order expired on April 30. It also was one of the first states to see protests aimed at easing stay-at-home restrictions, which would allow for the reopening of businesses. Personal stories East Tennessee resident Andy Rines’ family reunion was canceled because of the restrictions. He calls that loss “an unfortunate consequence of a mass overreaction.” Linda Wilder, who lives in the same part of the state, has season tickets to Dollywood, a nearby amusement park. “Boy, did I pick a bad year for that,” she said, ruefully. Even when the park opens back up, she isn’t sure when she’ll feel comfortable going. Last week Tennessee relaxed more social-distancing restrictions, allowing restaurants and retail stores to lift capacity restrictions and enabling attractions and large venues to reopen with social-distancing restrictions in place. As of Friday, all 50 U.S. states had begun easing some restrictions. That’s what worries Wilder, who lives about a half-hour’s drive from a popular tourist destination, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Wilder’s husband also has a compromised immune system, which puts him among people at higher risk of contracting the coronavirus, according to health officials.Hats are displayed in a clothing store closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic Tuesday, April 21, 2020, in Nashville, Tenn.However, teacher Rines thinks the lockdown was unnecessary, as the county, and the state, are not hotbeds of coronavirus activity.  Most of Tennessee’s coronavirus infections have been in the urban centers in each third of the state: Memphis in the west, Nashville in the middle, and Knoxville in the east. Mountainous eastern Tennessee has fewer cases than the more heavily populated middle and western portions of the state.  Overall, Tennessee has recorded more than 20,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, and 336 deaths, according to Tennessee state records. Worldwide, there are more than 5.4 million confirmed cases of coronavirus and 345,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University statistics. The U.S. continues to lead the world in confirmed cases, with more than 1.6 million, and deaths, at more than 97,700.  Tourism affected View of Smoky Mountains from Wilder’s home in Dandridge, Tennessee.The restrictions have had a particularly harsh effect on Sevier County, home to many of the tourist attractions that surround the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It’s the most-visited national park in the nation.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said about half of Sevier County’s private sector workers have jobs in tourism or leisure, and the shutdown has left the streets of its tourist towns, lined with hotels, restaurants, shops, go-kart tracks and miniature golf courses, close to empty. Over the past nine weeks, 38.6 million jobless workers have filed for cash benefits, almost one of every four employees in the U.S. labor force of more than 164 million. In April, the official U.S. unemployment rate was 14.7%, but key Trump administration economic officials say it likely is higher and could approach 25% in the coming weeks.  In April, the jobless rate in Tennessee also was 14.7%, according to a Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development report released Thursday.   When the Great Smoky Mountains National Park partially reopened May 9, the weather was cool but bright and sunny, and the visitors flooded in.  Local news reports said parking lots were full. They also reported that not all visitors were wearing masks and that many were not staying 2 meters from each other or sticking to the areas of the park that had officially reopened.   Worried about reopening View of Smoky Mountains from Wilder’s home in Dandridge, Tennessee.Wilder is worried, both about the relaxation of the rules and the influx of tourists. She lives near the park, in the small lakeside town of Dandridge, in Jefferson County, Tennessee.  Wilder and her husband, whose immune system is compromised due to Crohn’s disease, have continued working throughout the shutdown, as have her two grown sons. Jefferson County, a collection of small communities with just under 55,000 residents, has recorded only 27 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and no deaths blamed on the virus. But her youngest son delivers soft drinks to grocery stores in Sevier County’s two big tourist towns, Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg.    “He’s in multiple grocery stores every day, exposed to everything,” she said. He has a history of asthma, and she worries about his lungs. She said in a recent interview that she worries that people aren’t taking the danger of the pandemic seriously enough. “So many people I’ve talked to, they’re so flippant about it,” she said.   Wilder works in a lab in Knoxville, home to about 188,000 residents and the University of Tennessee, which enrolls nearly 30,000 students each year. So far, the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center has counted only 321 cases of COVID-19 in Knox County, of which Knoxville is the county seat, and five deaths. Wilder has been working at home as much as possible, but the day after Tennessee’s Safer at Home Order expired April 30, Wilder had to make the 20-mile drive to work. She had grown used to the light traffic on the interstate highway during the stay-at-home orders, but by the time she left work on May 1, she said, “It was just like it was right before everything shut down. The interstate was just packed. Even in Dandridge, there were people everywhere.” She understands the need to get out of the house. While working from home has been a pleasant experience, Wilder said she really misses her church of 21 years and her work in the nursery there.    And she and her husband have not seen his 77-year-old mother, who lives in Knox County, since March. Wilder said her mother-in-law has been following the rules and staying home.  “She has not left the house except to pick up prescriptions at the drive-through,” Wilder said, noting that she stays in touch with her in-laws and other family members via smartphone apps. But summer is coming, and with it, the sports and recreational activities that draw people to the area in large numbers.Andy Rines and his fellow basketball coaches from Sevier County High School caught up with several of their senior players after Tennessee began lifting pandemic-related restrictions.“You know, the ball games, all the children getting together, having practices all the time,” she said. “And UT football games? There’s no way you can social-distance (keep 2 meters apart) at things like that.”   Supports reopening On the other hand, Rines is eager to get things back to normal. He teaches English and coaches basketball in nearby Sevier County.  He grieves for the experiences his students, especially his seniors, have missed out on as they completed their last year of high school in isolation. “One senior said, ‘I had no idea my last day of high school would be on a Friday in March,’” Rines said recently in an email. “As teachers, we never got to say goodbye to students we have worked with, shared with, laughed with, and cried with for four years.” Rines said he doesn’t believe the shutdown orders were necessary. As of May 22, Sevier County had had only 69 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and two deaths.  “The shutdown may have minimized the spread of COVID-19 to some degree, but given that most patients display mild symptoms or no symptoms at all, its effectiveness was minimal at best,” Rines said of Sevier County.    The World Health Organization said about 1 in 5 people who develop COVID-19 will become seriously ill. Some 80 percent recover from the disease without going to the hospital.    But in an information sheet, the WHO noted that “anyone can catch COVID-19 and become seriously ill.”    Rines said that is a gamble worth taking.  “It is essential that we get back to work,” he said. “I’m looking forward to the things that serve as the fabric of our lives – sports, concerts, banquets, business travel, amusement parks, graduations, beaches. On a personal level, I’m looking forward to the high school basketball team getting to be together again. … I’m looking forward to going back to school in the fall and seeing my students, face to face.” Does he have any fears for the future? “I have no fears for the future regarding the virus,” he said. “I never did.” 
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The United States is slowly reopening, state by state, ending lockdowns imposed to combat the coronavirus.  The pandemic has throttled many economic sectors, including the very health industry tasked with saving lives during the crisis. The fallout for health care workers and those who rely on them could linger long after the coronavirus is contained. VOA’s Carolyn Presutti has the story of one doctor who uprooted himself to work at America’s COVID-19 epicenter — and who is now unemployed.Produced by: Mike Burke
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A Florida law requiring felons to pay legal fees as part of their sentences before regaining the vote is unconstitutional for those unable to pay, or unable to find out how much they owe, a federal judge ruled Sunday.  The 125-page ruling was issued by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Hinkle in Tallahassee. It involves a state law to implement a 2016 ballot measure approved by voters to automatically restore the right to vote for many felons who have completed their sentence. The Republican-led Legislature stipulated that fines and legal fees must be paid as part of the sentence, in addition to serving any prison time.  Hinkle has acknowledged he is unlikely to have the last word in the case, expecting the administration of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to launch an appeal. The case could have deep ramifications in the crucial electoral battleground given that Florida has an estimated 774,000 disenfranchised felons who are barred because of financial obligations. Many of those felons are African Americans and presumably Democrats, though it’s unclear how that group of Floridians overall would lean politically in an election and how many would vote. The judge called the Florida rules a “pay to vote” system that are unconstitutional when applied to felons “who are otherwise eligible to vote but are genuinely unable to pay the required amount.”  A further complication is determining the exact amount in fines and other kinds of legal fees owed by felons seeking the vote — by some estimates it would take elections officials several years for those pending now. Hinkle said it’s unconstitutional to bar any voter whose amount owed could not be “determined with diligence.” Hinkle ordered the state to require election officials to allow felons to request an advisory opinion on how much they owe — essentially placing the burden on elections officials to seek that information from court systems. If there’s no response within three weeks, then the applicant should not be barred from registering to vote, the ruling said.  Hinkle said the requirement to pay fines and restitution as ordered in a sentence is constitutional for those “who are able to pay” — if the amount can be determined. The case, Kelvin Jones vs Ron DeSantis, consolidates five lawsuits filed by advocates of disenfranchised felons, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Brennan Center and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “This is a tremendous victory for voting rights,” Julie Ebenstein, senior staff attorney with ACLU’s Voting Rights Project, said in a statement. “The court recognized that conditioning a person’s right to vote on their ability to pay is unconstitutional. This ruling means hundreds of thousands of Floridians will be able to rejoin the electorate and participate in upcoming elections.” The 2018 ballot measure, known as Amendment 4, does not apply to convicted murderers and rapists, who are permanently barred from voting regardless of financial obligations. 
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Monday is Memorial Day in the United States – a day set aside to honor the hundreds of thousands of U.S. servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives for their country.  The holiday is also the unofficial start of the summer vacation season in the U.S., and like so much in 2020, the usual will be unusual. The flags that are flying at half-staff across the country to honor those service members will, under President Donald Trump’s orders, also be flying for the nearly 100,000 Americans who have lost their lives to the coronavirus, the world’s highest death toll from the disease by far.  They include more than 1,000 veterans who the Department of Veterans Affairs says have died from COVID-19. Trump plans to place a wreath at Arlington National Cemetery and then spend part of the rest of his Memorial Day at Fort McHenry in Baltimore, where a historic battle in the War of 1812 was fought.To kick off the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, ships from around the world sailed past Fort McHenry and exchanged canon fire with re-enactors on land, but it was all for show. (S. Logue/VOA)But Baltimore Mayor Jack Young pleaded with the president not to come, saying it sends the wrong message when the mayor has urged Baltimoreans not to travel. Trump has refused to wear masks in public, and Young says Trump’s visit is not essential.  Health experts and local authorities are urging people heading to the beaches and holiday picnics and cookouts to practice social distancing.  White House coronavirus task force member Dr. Deborah Birx says she is “very concerned” by the pictures and video she has been seeing all weekend of people crowded together at swimming pools and other recreation sites without masks. “We know being outside does help, we know the sun does help in killing the virus, but that doesn’t change the fact that people need to be responsible and maintain that distance,” she told Fox News Sunday. “I was hoping to convey this very clear message to the American people across the country: There is a virus out there.” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said Sunday his state is “decidedly in the reopening phase.” New York has been the hardest-hit state in the U.S. But Cuomo said overall, the numbers in New York are heading in the right direction. Among the reopenings in New York state this week are campgrounds, veterinarian offices, and professional sports training camps.  With the city’s two major league baseball teams – the Mets and the Yankees — idle, Cuomo said having sports back is like “a return to normalcy.” But it is still unclear when Major League Baseball – one of summertime’s great traditions – will be playing again or if fans will be allowed to go to the games.  France will start lifting border restrictions Monday to allow in migrant workers and tourists from other European countries.  Italian beaches remain restricted to those who live in the region where the beach is located.  And in Britain officials are urging people who don’t live in their community to stay away from their beaches. One sign in Brighton says, “Wish you were here — but not just yet.” 
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With no congregational prayers or family gatherings, Salsabiel Mujovic has been worried that this year’s Eid al-Fitr celebration will pale. Still, she’s determined to bring home holiday cheer amid the coronavirus gloom.  Her family can’t go to the mosque, but the 29-year-old New Jersey resident bought new outfits for herself and her daughters. They are praying at home and having a family photo session. The kids are decorating cookies in a virtual gathering and popping balloons with money or candy inside — a twist on a tradition of giving children cash gifts for the occasion.”We’re used to, just like, easily going and seeing family, but now it’s just like there’s so much fear and anxiety,” she said. “Growing up, I always loved Eid. … It’s like a Christmas for a Muslim.”Like Mujovic, many Muslims in America are navigating balancing religious and social rituals with concerns over the virus as they look for ways to capture the Eid spirit this weekend.  Eid al-Fitr — the feast of breaking the fast — marks the end of Ramadan, when Muslims abstain from food and drink from sunrise to sunset. Just like they did during Ramadan, many are resorting to at-home worship and relying on technology for online gatherings, sermons and, now, Eid entertainment.  This year, some Muslim-majority countries have tightened restrictions for the holiday which traditionally means family visits, group outings and worshippers flooding mosques or filling public spaces.  The Eid prayer normally attracts particularly large crowds. The Fiqh Council of North America, a body of Islamic scholars, encouraged Muslims to perform the Eid prayer at home.  “We don’t want to have gatherings and congregations,” Sheikh Yasir Qadhi, who prepared the council’s fatwa, or religious edict, said in an interview. “We should try to keep the spirit of Eid alive, even if it’s just in our houses, even if we just decorate our houses and wear our finest for each other.”Qadhi, resident scholar at East Plano Islamic Center in Texas, has been dreading delivering an Eid sermon broadcast online with no worshippers.”It’s going to be very strange to dress up in my Eid clothes and to walk to an empty place and to deliver a sermon to an empty facility,” he said before the start of the holiday. “It’s going to be very, very disheartening.”But, he said, it’s the wise decision.  Even as restrictions have eased, the mosque is still closed to worshippers, he said. Like a few others, it is holding a drive-by Eid ceremony to safely distribute thousands of bags of sweets and goodies to children in cars.  While some are eager for mosques to reopen, Qadhi said, “We don’t want to be a conduit for the situation exacerbating. We need to think rationally and not emotionally.”A woman accept treats during a drive-through Eid al-Fitr celebration outside a closed mosque in Plano, Texas, May 24, 2020.The North Texas Imams Council, of which he is a member, has recommended mosques remain closed. He said he expected the majority of mosques to stay closed to the public, though he worries about smaller mosques re-opening.In Florida, the Islamic Center of Osceola County, Masjid Taqwa is holding the Eid prayer outdoors in the parking lot with social distancing rules in place.  Guidelines posted online include worshippers bringing their own prayer rugs, wearing mandatory masks and praying next to their cars while staying at least six feet apart. Participants are told not to hug or shake hands and to listen to the sermon from their cars.  “Eid is important but more important is the health of the people,” said Maulana Abdulrahman Patel, the imam. “We’ve been taking a lot of precautions,” and not acting on “sentiments or emotional feelings,” he said, adding they have been consulting with health and other officials.  Major Jacob Ruiz, the major of administration at Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, said he and the sheriff met with Patel before the celebration.  “They wanted to have something, and they felt it was important, but they wanted to do it with pretty much the blessing and the guidance of the sheriff’s office and the sheriff,” he said. “Everybody was in agreement that it’s going to be something that’s gonna be successful for them.”  The Muslim community in the county “has been very receptive and proactive in ensuring that they keep safety guidelines,” he said.The Masjid Taqwa prayer is for men only, the mosque said, citing “constraints.” Plans for men-only prayers announced by at least one other mosque prompted objections by some about excluding women. For Masjid Taqwa, the decision to include just men was taken because having families together would make crowd control more difficult, Patel said.In Michigan, the Michigan Muslim Community Council is organizing a televised Eid ceremony. It will include the Eid sermon, greetings from local elected officials and members of Muslim communities. “People will be at home seeing each other instead of gathering in large numbers,” said council chairman Mahmoud Al-Hadidi.”It’s just to keep people connected,” he said, adding that “we’re trying to avoid any spread of the coronavirus.”Normally, Eid is an all-day celebration with large gatherings over meals and a carnival for kids, he said. “Eid is a huge thing here.”Back in New Jersey on the holiday’s eve, Mujovic and two of her daughters joined friends and others online to decorate cookies. Squeezing icing out and spreading it on cookies shaped like Ramadan lanterns or spelling out the word “EID,” the girls stopped to lick their fingers or munch on the treats.As children waved, squealed and showed off their creations, it started to feel like Eid for Mujovic. “It was nice seeing happy faces,” she said. 
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The U.S. death toll from the coronavirus is expected to reach 100,000 in a few days.  To mark the solemn landmark, the front page of the print version of the Sunday New York Times is a simple list of names of dead victims of the disease and brief personal details about them scoured from media around the country.   Sunday’s headline is “U.S. Deaths Near 100,000, An incalculable Loss.” The U.S. death toll early Sunday was more than 97,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. The global total of COVID-19 infections has risen to more than 5.3 million, according to Johns Hopkins University, with more than 342,000 deaths. A medical worker in protective suit conducts tests for residents in Wuhan, the Chinese city hit hardest by the coronavirus disease, Hubei province, China, May 15, 2020.China, the country where the coronavirus outbreak began, reported no new infections Saturday, the first time since it started reporting cases in January.  The pandemic has countries struggling to keep people safe while simultaneously reopening their economies, and has disrupted collective celebrations by Muslims throughout the world observing the end of Ramadan, as well as the Memorial Day holiday weekend in the U.S., when millions traditionally head to beaches and national parks. The U.S. continues to be the epicenter of the contagion with 1.6 million cases, nearly one-third of all cases worldwide.   Gravediggers bury an alleged COVID-19 victim at the Vila Formosa Cemetery, in the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil, May 22, 2020.Brazil comes in second with more than 347,000 infections, followed by Russia with almost 336,000 cases.  “In a sense South America has become the new epicenter of the disease,” said Michael Ryan, director of the WHO emergency program. “The most affected is clearly Brazil at this point,” he added. Brazil’s Health Secretary Wanderson de Oliveira announced Sunday that he would resign the following day. De Oliveira attempted to resign last month but stayed on at the request of then-health minister Luiz Mandetta, who was shortly thereafter fired by Brazil’s president. The country’s Health Ministry has been at odds with President Jair Bolsanaro, who has rejected recommendations by health experts in favor of protecting the economy. Brazil and Mexico reported record numbers of cases and fatalities almost every day this week, reinforcing criticism that their presidents failed to impose more stringent lockdowns measures. However, in Chile, Ecuador and Peru, which put in place early and aggressive containment measures, infections also continued to climb, overwhelming intensive care units in those countries. Beaches are beginning to open in a few places to domestic tourists in Europe. On Sunday, beaches at La Grande Motte in southern France opened with a two-day wait list, but parks in Paris remained closed. Municipal police officers wearing face masks talk to a woman, at the Promenade des Anglais, as they check that safety restrictions are being practiced, after France reopened its beaches to the public in Nice.Germans will be allowed to visit the Baltic Sea coast beginning Monday. A few dozen people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican on Sunday to receive the traditional blessing for the first time in nearly three months.Pope Francis waves to people at St. Peter’s Square after the Regina Coeli prayer, which was held without public participation due to the COVID-19 outbreak, at the Vatican, May 24, 2020.The pope has been delivering a virtual message streamed on the internet from his library for the past few months, moving on to bless an empty square. European Union countries are planning to reopen their borders especially to migrant workers in the coming weeks, though it is unclear when they may allow intercontinental travel. 
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U.S. President Donald Trump is rekindling one of his long-running conspiracy theories, that a Republican congressman turned television critic of his played a nefarious role in the death of a young woman in 2001.
 
Trump tweeted twice over the weekend about the death of aide Lori Klausutis in the Florida congressional office of Joe Scarborough shortly before Scarborough left Congress and later became an MSNBC television talk show host.Scarborough often interviewed candidate Trump on his “Morning Joe” show as he ran for the presidency in 2016, but more recently, along with his wife and show co-host Mika Brzezinski, has become a thorn in Trump’s side as he faces a re-election contest in November.Earlier in May, Trump tweeted, ““When will they open a Cold Case on the Psycho Joe Scarborough matter in Florida. Did he get away with murder? Some people think so.”Then, on Saturday, Trump tweeted, “A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida…and, he’s a Nut Job (with bad ratings). Keep digging, use forensic geniuses!”A blow to her head? Body found under his desk? Left Congress suddenly? Big topic of discussion in Florida…and, he’s a Nut Job (with bad ratings). Keep digging, use forensic geniuses! https://t.co/UxbS5gZecd— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020On Sunday morning, Trump added another tweet: “A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator? Read story!”A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in his office, hit her head on his desk, & die? I would think there is a lot more to this story than that? An affair? What about the so-called investigator? Read story! https://t.co/CjBXBXxoNS— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 24, 2020Trump tweeted about the case at least as far back as 2017. But a coroner found no evidence of foul play, ruling that that the 28-year-old Klausutis died because of a heart problem, causing her to hit her head on her desk. Scarborough was in Washington at the time she died.Trump has long traded in debunked conspiracy theories.Perhaps his most discredited theory was that former U.S. President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. state of Hawaii and shouldn’t have been eligible to become the country’s leader, a claim Trump eventually acknowledged was wrong as he ran for the presidency in 2016.  Trump also claimed that he saw Muslims in a television report celebrating the Sept. 11, 2001, al-Qaida terrorist jetliner attack on the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center by dancing on the rooftop of a building in neighboring New Jersey. No such television report has been found.
 
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The Trump administration may consider imposing a travel ban on Brazil as the South American country records a steep increase in coronavirus cases. In an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation”, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said he expects a decision Sunday on whether to block travel from Brazil as was done with China and some European countries earlier this year.“We hope that will be temporary. But because of the situation in Brazil we’re going to take every step necessary to protect the American people,” he said.In recent months, Washington banned non-citizens who had been in China 14 days prior to their arrival from entering the United States. The same restrictions were later placed on those traveling from Europe.The United States remains the country with the highest number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the world – over 1,622,000.The number of cases in Brazil has increased in recent weeks. As of Sunday, Brazil had over 347,000 confirmed cases, making it the second-highest affected in the world after the United States, according to data from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. 
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A key U.S. coronavirus official voiced serious concerns Sunday about Americans failing to take the highly contagious disease seriously enough as the country begins to reopen its commercial and recreational life. Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, told the “Fox News Sunday” show, “I’m very concerned about people going out without social distancing,” staying at least two meters away from others to curb the chances of passing on the disease. “We have to have social distancing if they’re in groups,” she said. “They don’t know if they’re asymptomatic” and could unwittingly pass on the virus. “We want to urge people to hike, golf, play tennis,” but to do it safely by maintaining an appropriate distance from other people, she said. With the U.S. world-leading coronavirus death toll likely to top 100,000 within a week, President Donald Trump erroneously claimed on Twitter, “Cases, numbers and deaths are going down all over the Country!” Cases, numbers and deaths are going down all over the Country!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) US President Donald Trump leaves after speaking to the press on May 22, 2020, in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC. Trump urged state governors to allow places of worship to reopen immediately.Trump on Friday ordered the country’s 50 state governors to reopen houses of worship although legal experts say he lacked the authority to do so. In some states, coronavirus restrictions allowed stores and restaurants to begin to reopen with restrictions but not churches, synagogues and mosques. “In America, we need more prayer, not less,” Trump said. But Birx offered a cautionary note for worshippers, saying, “Although it may be safe for some to go to church, it may not be safe for those with [health] vulnerabilities.” She deplored some shoppers who have refused to wear face masks in stores, who claimed they had the constitutional freedom in the U.S. to defy store employee requests to do so. “There’s clear scientific evidence” that people without masks can pass on the virus to others, Birx said. “A mask does prevent others from becoming infected.” More than 38 million laid-off U.S. Workers — nearly a fourth of the country’s labor force — has filed for unemployment compensation over the last nine weeks.  The official unemployment rate in April was 14.7%, but officials predict that it could top 20% in May, when the official count for the month is released in early June. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett told CNN he believes it is quite possible the national unemployment rate will still be in double digits when Trump faces reelection Nov. 3 against the presumptive Democratic nominee, former Vice President Joe Biden. FILE – People wait in line for help with unemployment benefits in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 17, 2020.Hassett said the country’s economic recovery will be well underway in the second half of the year, but that “unemployment is something that will move back slower. If there were a [coronavirus] vaccine in July I’d be way more optimistic.” U.S. health officials had originally suggested that it was not likely that a coronavirus vaccine would be available until well into 2021. But Birx said the availability of a vaccine could be reached in late 2020 or early 2021. She said the push for the rapid development of a cure by several companies in the U.S. and elsewhere and the early production of the “most promising candidates” even before health officials have concluded that they are safe and effective could advance the timetable for inoculations.      
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A fire engulfed a warehouse on San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf early Saturday, sending thick smoke over the waterfront and threatening to spread to a historic World War II-era ship before firefighters brought the flames under control.One firefighter sustained a hand injury while battling the fire at the warehouse the size of a football field on Pier 45, San Francisco Fire Lieutenant Jonathan Baxter said.Baxter said that after the fire subsided, investigators scoured the building to determine whether homeless people were inside.”That is something of grave concern,” he told KGO-TV. “To our knowledge … nobody is supposed to be in the building and we are hoping … that there is no victim.”At least two workers told the San Francisco Chronicle they were inside the fish processing and storage warehouse when the fire broke out before dawn.Alejandro Arellano, who works for La Rocca Seafood, was cleaning out a fish storage locker when the fire began, shortly after 4 a.m.”I saw a lot of smoke. A few minutes later, fire everywhere,” he said. “It was very, very scary. I’ve never seen anything like it.”Firetruck threatenedThe fire tore through the warehouse near the end of the concrete pier, causing its walls to collapse, Baxter said. The flames singed the first firetruck to respond to the scene, forcing firefighters to turn their hoses on the vehicle to save it, he said.More than 130 firefighters fought the flames, with some using ladder trucks to drench the warehouse from above. A fire boat was used to protect the SS Jeremiah O’Brien, a liberty ship that stormed Normandy on D-Day in 1944.”Our firefighters absolutely saved the SS Jeremiah O’Brien during this fire as flames were pinching on the side of this vessel,” Baxter said.A fire official is shown reflected in a puddle in a warehouse after a fire broke out before dawn at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, May 23, 2020.The ship docks by Pier 45 and is among numerous tourist attractions on the wharf, a maritime hub for cruises around San Francisco Bay as well as fishing boats hauling in the catch of the day. Visitors come for the Dungeness crabs, clam chowders served in sourdough bread bowls, the sea lions that hang out on the floating docks and shops and curiosities on Pier 39.Shops and restaurants on the wharf have been shut by the city’s stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus and were expected to reopen on May 31.The fire was confined to the end of the pier, well away from the Musée Mécanique and its historic arcade games and the popular restaurant Alioto’s.’It’s surreal’Fishing companies that have been operating out of Pier 45 said the fire exacerbated an already tough business climate caused by the pandemic.Kenny Belov, owner of the seafood wholesaler TwoXSea, told the Chronicle his building near the warehouse was not damaged but he worried a power outage on the pier could ruin the fish in his freezer.”Not that it would ever need this, but the seafood industry didn’t need this now,” Belov said. “It’s surreal. We’ve obviously had a tough go the last couple months, with restaurants [closed]. … Of all the problems in the world, this is not a big one. But it’s frustrating.”Coast Guard crew members and police assisted by keeping other vessels away from the pier.Fire investigators were assessing any damage to the pier and were looking into the cause of the blaze, Baxter said.
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Even before the pandemic, people living in rural communities and on tribal lands were among the toughest to count in the 2020 census. The U.S. Census Bureau’s suspension of work this spring pushed those efforts even further behind.That concerns advocates in rural America and Indian Country. Alaska, West Virginia, New Mexico and other states with large rural populations are lagging behind the rest of the nation in answering the once-a-decade questionnaire.Those states have the largest concentration of households that rely on getting the forms from visiting census workers. Ultimately, it could cost them congressional seats and federal funding for highways, schools and health care.Los Alamos County, where the atomic bomb was born and many people are highly educated, has one of the nation’s highest response rates at 79%. Rio Arriba County, where a language other than English is spoken in over half of homes, is at the bottom at 9%.Waiting for drop-offsThe reason for the difference? Households in Rio Arriba and other rural counties across the U.S. rely on census workers to drop off their questionnaires, which was on hold for a month and a half because of the coronavirus pandemic.While the Census Bureau is restarting that work, leaders in rural America worry it will be difficult to catch up.We have historically been underrepresented in the past, and there's an unfortunate precedent to show we will be underrepresented again. This pandemic makes it all the more challenging,'' said Javier Sanchez, mayor of Espanola, a city of 10,000 in Rio Arriba County.I think we are struggling like every other rural community and doing the best we can amid these problems when so much is at stake in the next 10 years.”FILE – A little girl plays in her family compound in Tuba City, Ariz., April 22, 2020. People living in rural communities and on reservations are among the toughest groups to count in the 2020 census.A rolling census count shows that states with large rural populations are lagging behind the rest of the nation in answering the 2020 questionnaire. They have the largest concentration of households dependent on receiving forms from census workers in the spring.Around 5% of U.S. households fall into that category, but it accounts for anywhere from about 17% to almost 30% of homes in Alaska, West Virginia, New Mexico, Wyoming, Maine, Vermont and Montana.These are places where homes are spread apart and often hidden from main roads. Internet access is poor, and this is the first census in which most people are encouraged to respond online.Harder to reachMany people lack traditional city-style addresses, get their mail by post office box or live in areas with high concentrations of vacant, seasonal housing. While they wait for hard copies from census workers, the rest of the U.S. mostly is contacted by mail — either with invitations to respond online or with a paper form.Two months after most U.S. residents could start answering the 2020 census, response rates in states that have many households without city-style addresses ranged from 40% to 50%. The national rate is 59% as of mid-May.Households without traditional addresses are especially common on tribal lands, which have a history of being undercounted.In Rio Arriba County, more than 16% of residents are Native American, compared with just over 1% in neighboring Los Alamos County. The latter is home to Los Alamos National Laboratory and almost half its residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 15% in more rural Rio Arriba County.It's like criticizing someone for not voting when you never handed them a ballot,'' said Jose Viramontes, a spokesman for I Count NM, which is leading census outreach efforts in New Mexico.Funds at stakeFor Mayor James Schell of East Helena, Montana, an inaccurate count could jeopardize the potential for another U.S. representative pushing for federal funding to upgrade roads and wastewater infrastructure.By having that extra representation, more monies could be introduced for roads, water, sewers,” Schell said.The Census Bureau will absolutely'' be able to catch up with the rural count, said Tim Olson, associate director of field operations. When work was suspended in March, only about 10% of households without city-style addresses had received questionnaires. Now, it's at 30% two weeks into restarting door-to-door work in some places, he said.It’s going very well,Olson said.FILE - Chris Topher Chee waits for water to fill a tank in his truck in Oljato-Monument Valley, Utah, on the Navajo reservation, April 27, 2020. People living in rural or tribal communities are among the toughest to count in the U.S. census.But in some tribal areas, response rates were below 15% as of mid-May.It’s looking like there’s a real possibility of an undercount, given the obstacles we are facing,” Ta’jin Perez, program manager at Western Native Voice, an advocacy group in Montana.During the last census in 2010, American Indians and Alaska Natives living on reservations were undercounted by 4.9%, according to the Census Bureau, by far the highest undercount of any group.Olson acknowledged that some tribal lands have closed themselves off to stop the spread of the virus, and census workers won’t be able to drop off questionnaires until they reopen.“There may be some pockets that are further delayed,” he said.Deadline pushed backThe pandemic has forced the Census Bureau to push back its deadline for finishing the count from the end of July to the end of October.The agency says it’s restarting operations this week in Puerto Rico, where census forms are required to be dropped off at homes because of the devastation from Hurricane Maria in 2017. The island has a very low response rate as of mid-May — over 8%.In West Virginia, almost 30% of households don’t have traditional addresses, and the state’s response rate is 47%.While the state is getting back to pushing rural residents to fill out the census, halting work on the ground in March was like playing a ballgame “with three players off the field,” said Andy Malinoski, a spokesman for the West Virginia Department of Commerce.
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The drive-in movie, dismissed by many as a relic of an earlier time in America, is making a comeback as entertainment seemingly designed for the coronavirus era.
 
Beth Wilson, who owns the Warwick Drive-in about an hour’s drive from Manhattan, says it has been sold out since May 15, the first day drive-ins were allowed to operate under New York’s reopening plan.
 
The drive-in has struck a chord with Americans who have been largely confined to their homes since March watching the death toll from COVID-19 accumulate on their TV screens.
 
Customers come “just to be out and for some form of entertainment that is not streaming on their TV,” said Wilson, adding she hopes the Warwick Drive-In can help people reconnect.
 
“I just want to see their happiness, their well-being.”
 
The drive-in experience is virtually tailor-made for the pandemic. Patrons control their close social interactions and any contact with other people happens outdoors, which is seen as lower risk for infection than indoors.
 
The Four Brothers Drive-In in Amenia, New York, which like Warwick has halved its capacity to put more distance between cars, is selling into next week after running out of tickets for the Memorial Day weekend.
 
“It’s a lot of first-time people that are inquiring and coming,” John Stefanopoulos, whose family owns the drive-in and an adjacent restaurant. “People want to get out of their house.”
 
Stefanopoulos sees a chance for the industry, which has shrunk by some 90% from a peak decades ago, to grow out of the crisis. He has received inquiries about developing drive-in theaters from England, Ireland and across the United States.
 
Some outsiders are looking to capitalize on the trend.
 
The Bel Aire Diner in the New York City borough of Queens propped up a screen in its parking lot and has been holding movie nights, serving food to customers in their cars while they watch classics like “The Princess Bride” and “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
 
In perhaps the most ambitious plan, one businessman said he was organizing a “drive-in on steroids” event to be held almost nightly in a parking lot of Yankee Stadium after July 4th. Marco Shalma, co-owner of the MASC Hospitality Group, said the evenings would include food, performances and a feature film, and he sees them as a way to reinvigorate New York.
 
“We make something out of nothing in New York,” Shalma said.
 
“It’s going to be epic.”
 
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Religious communities around the United States are reacting cautiously to President Donald Trump’s call to reopen houses of worship. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has the story.   
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The United States will exempt some foreign athletes who compete in professional sporting events in the United States from entry bans imposed because of the novel coronavirus epidemic, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said on Friday.”In today’s environment, Americans need their sports. It’s time to reopen the economy and it’s time we get our professional athletes back to work,” Wolf said in a statement issued by the department announcing he had signed an order for the exemption.President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing to reopen the U.S. economy after drastic measures to combat the pandemic this year put tens of millions of people out of work.Major U.S. professional sports were shut down as part of the effort to tackle COVID-19, the respiratory disease cause by the coronavirus which has killed more than 96,000 people in the United States and infected more than 1.6 million.In its response to the epidemic, the Trump administration has also imposed bans on entry of travelers from China, where the epidemic started, as well as Iran and much of Europe.Besides the athletes, the exemption applies to the sporting leagues’ essential staff, spouses and dependents, the statement said.The sports covered by the exemption include Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the Professional Golfers’ Association Tour, the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, the National Hockey League, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and the Women’s Tennis Association. 
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The Trump administration discussed last week whether to conduct its first nuclear test explosion since 1992, the Washington Post reported late on Friday, citing a senior official and two former officials familiar with the matter.The topic surfaced at a meeting of senior officials representing the top national security agencies after accusations from the administration that Russia and China are conducting low-yield nuclear tests, the Washington Post said.The meeting, however, did not conclude with any agreement to conduct a nuclear test.A decision was ultimately made to take other measures in response to threats posed by Russia and China and avoid a resumption of testing, the report added.U.S. officials could not be reached immediately for a comment. 
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The United States is condemning China’s push to impose a new security law on Hong Kong, with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying if the law passes it would be a death knell for the territory’s autonomy.  VOA’s Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine has the story.Videographer:  VOA Mandarin Service, Nike Ching Skype Video interview
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Memorial Day weekend is rapidly approaching, and for the first time in 20 years, the American Automobile Association did not release Memorial Day travel projections. 
 
Last year, the AAA estimated that 43 million Americans traveled for the annual holiday weekend — the second highest travel volume on record according to the organization. The approximation included 3.25 million people traveling by air.   
 
The AAA tweeted recently, “The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to significantly suppress travel over the Memorial Day weekend.” The COVID-19 pandemic is likely to significantly suppress travel over the Memorial Day weekend – the unofficial start of the summer travel season – but there are indications that people have begun planning for future trips. #AAA#Travelhttps://t.co/ZVqgNK2KV2pic.twitter.com/Pr0CCstEjj— AAA Travel (@AAA_Travel) May 14, 2020
For Americans still considering flying, the failure of major airlines to enforce safe social distancing guidelines could be reason for pause. 
 
The American Airlines passenger planes are parked on a runway due to flight reductions to slow the spread of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at Tulsa International Airport in Tulsa, Oklahoma, March 23, 2020. American Airlines announced it would make more standard seats available and restrict access to some seats “when possible” to allow more space.  United Airlines has similarly stated it would “avoid where possible seating customers next to each other,” and it provides an option for customers to reschedule flights expected to reach full capacity.  On the other hand,  Delta and Southwest Airlines both have specified they would block middle seats, with Delta reducing its total number of passengers per flight to between 50% and 60% capacity, depending on the aircraft type. Despite not meeting the 6 feet of physical distance guidelines, the four major airlines have assured customers the planes are equipped with high-efficiency filters (HEPA) to circulate the air and the usage of electrostatic spraying to sanitize aircrafts. With some airlines, like United, reducing their flight schedules by 90% because of coronavirus fears, airline industry heads say they see the business struggling for the next few years.  
    
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The suspect killed during what the FBI is calling a “terrorism-related” attack at a Texas naval air base voiced support for hardline clerics, according to a group that monitors online activity of jihadists.The attack Thursday at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi wounded a sailor and left the gunman dead. The gunman was identified on Friday by the FBI as Adam Salim Alsahli, 20, of Corpus Christi. He had been a business major at a local community college.The gunman tried to speed through a security gate at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, opening fire and wounding the sailor, a member of base security, U.S. officials told the AP. But the sailor was able to roll over and hit a switch that raised a barrier, preventing the man from getting onto the base, the officials said.Other security personnel shot and killed the attacker.There was an initial concern that the gunman may have had an explosive device, but Navy experts swept the area and the car and found nothing. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details about an ongoing investigation. Officials worked late Thursday to process the crime scene and had recovered some type of electronic media.Social media postsThe FBI was examining social media posts investigators believe were made by the shooter expressing support for extremist groups, including al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, two officials familiar with the investigation told AP on condition of anonymityU.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Friday on NBC’s “Today” show that the wounded sailor was “doing well.” He also said the FBI knew the basics of what happened during the attack but was working through details, including those related to the suspect.“We hope to know more in the coming days as to what happened, what this person was motivated by,” Esper said. “But we need to let the facts come out, let the investigators do their job, and we’ll see where this ends up.”Social media accounts matching Alsahli’s profile on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp featured support for hardline clerics, mostly from Saudi Arabia, and jihadi figures such as Ibrahim al-Rabaysh, who had been a spokesman for the Yemen branch of al-Qaida and who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in 2015, according to Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group.Alsahli had been a student at Del Mar College, a community college in Corpus Christi, according to a statement on Friday from school spokeswoman Melinda Eddleman. He had been a business administration major and had attended classes in the fall 2018, spring 2019 and fall 2019 semesters.A search of court records in Corpus Christi showed Alsahli had received a traffic ticket in August for failing to yield. The ticket was dismissed in January after Alsahli took a driver safety course.FBI Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Leah Greeves said at a news conference Thursday that investigators were working to determine whether a second person of interest was at large, but she did not elaborate. She also would not discuss a potential motive.Items taken from houseLater, federal agents were seen carrying items from inside a house that a Corpus Christi police tactical unit had surrounded and a public records search by local television station KRIS indicated was Alsahli’s last known address. A police spokesman would not confirm that the activity was related to the shooting at the naval station.The injured sailor was discharged from a hospital where she was treated for minor injuries, according to a statement from the command.The station, which was locked down for about five hours Thursday, had a similar lockdown in December. In another incident at the base last year, a man pleaded guilty of destruction of U.S. government property and possession of a stolen firearm for ramming his truck into a barricade.The shooting also came months after a Saudi air force officer who was training at a Navy base in Pensacola, Florida, killed three U.S. sailors and wounded eight other people in a shooting that American officials described as an act of terrorism. The country’s top federal law enforcement officials said this week that the gunman in December’s attack, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani, had been in touch with al-Qaida operatives about planning and tactics in the months before the shooting. Alshamrani was killed by a sheriff’s deputy.According to U.S. officials, unlike Pensacola, there are no international or foreign national students at the Texas base. The military put several new safety procedures in place after the Pensacola shooting to restrict and better screen international students.
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China’s decision to propose new legislation tightening control over Hong Kong has sparked a wave of condemnation from American lawmakers and officials, in yet another sign of worsening relations between the economic superpowers.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released a statement Friday saying he “condemns” China’s parliament for proposing legislation that he claimed “would be a death knell for the high degree of autonomy Beijing promised for Hong Kong.”FILE – Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speaks during a press briefing at the State Department in Washington, May 20, 2020.He also vowed that “any decision impinging on Hong Kong’s autonomy and freedoms … would inevitably impact our assessment of One Country, Two Systems and the status of the territory.”Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, also denounced Beijing’s moves, saying China has used the global crisis around the pandemic as cover for increasing authoritarianism.”A further crackdown from Beijing will only intensify the Senate’s interest in reexamining the U.S.-China relationship,” McConnell said.White House reportEven before Beijing’s Hong Kong announcement this week, the Trump administration was reviewing its China policy, publishing a FILE – Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen speaks at the Taipei Guest House as part of her inauguration for her second term in office, in Taipei, May 20, 2020, in this handout picture taken by the Taiwan Presidential office.Addressing Tsai formally as “president,” Pompeo became the highest-level U.S. official to offer congratulations to a Taiwan president. In the past, top U.S. officials refrained from speaking out in order to not offend Beijing, which does not recognize Taiwan as an independent country.Russell Hsaio, executive director with Global Taiwan Institute, told VOA that the U.S. needs to send a strong signal of political support to Taiwan at this moment.”This was probably as much a signal to Beijing as it was to Taipei,” he said, “To the former, while the United States still adheres to its One-China Policy, Washington will not allow Beijing to dictate how it conducts relations with a democratic ally and important security partner of the United States.”A day after Tsai’s inauguration, the U.S. approved a possible sale of heavy weight torpedoes to Taiwan in a deal estimated to cost $180 million, a gesture certain to anger Beijing.  Hsaio said the enhancement of U.S.-Taiwan ties is a function of growing trust between Washington and Taipei.Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
 
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The coronavirus pandemic accelerated across Latin America, Russia and the Indian subcontinent on Friday even as curves flattened and reopening was underway in much of Europe, Asia and the United States.
Many governments say they have to shift their focus to saving jobs that are vanishing as quickly as the virus can spread. In the United States and China, the world’s two largest economies, unemployment is soaring.  
The Federal Reserve chairman has estimated that up to one American in four could be jobless, while in China analysts estimate around a third of the urban workforce is unemployed.
But the virus is roaring through countries ill-equipped to handle the pandemic, which many scientists fear will seed the embers of a second global wave.
India saw its biggest single-day spike since the pandemic began, and Pakistan and Russia  recorded their highest death tolls. Most new Indian cases are in Bihar, where thousands returned home from jobs in the cities. For over a month, some walked among crowds for hundreds of miles.
Latin America’s two most populous nations — Mexico and Brazil — have reported record counts of new cases and deaths almost daily this week, fueling criticism of their presidents, who have slow-walked shutdowns in attempts to limit economic damage.  
Cases were rising and intensive-care units were also swamped in Peru, Chile and Ecuador — countries lauded for imposing early and aggressive business shutdowns and quarantines.  
Brazil reported more than 20,000 deaths and 300,000 confirmed cases Thursday night — the third worst-hit country in the world by official counts. Experts consider both numbers undercounts due to widespread lack of testing.
“It does not forgive, it does not choose race, or if you are rich or poor, black or white,” Bruno Almeida de Mello, a 24-year-old Uber driver, said at his 66-year-old grandmother’s burial in Rio de Janeiro. “It’s sad that in other countries people believe, but not here.”  
She had all the virus’s symptoms, but Vandelma Rosa’s death certificate reads “Suspected of COVID-19,” he said, because her hospital lacked tests. That means she didn’t figure in the death toll, which nevertheless on Thursday marked its biggest single-day increase: 1,181.
President Jair Bolsonaro has scoffed at the seriousness of the virus and actively campaigned against state governors’ attempts to limit movement and commerce.
Bolsonaro fired his first health minister for supporting governors. His second minister resigned after openly disagreeing with Bolsonaro about chloroquine, the predecessor of the anti-malarial often touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a viable coronavirus treatment.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador downplayed the threat for weeks as he continued to travel the country after Mexico’s first confirmed case. He insisted that Mexico was different, that its strong family bonds and work ethic would pull it through.  
The country is now reporting more than 400 deaths a day, and new infections still haven’t peaked.
Armando Sepulveda, a mauseleum manager in the massive Mexico City suburb of Ecatepec, said his burial and cremation business has doubled in recent weeks.
“The crematoriums are saturated,” Sepulveda said. “All of the ovens don’t have that capacity.” Families scour the city looking for funeral services that can handle their dead, because the hospitals can’t keep the bodies, he said.
Meanwhile Mexico’s government has shifted its attention to reactivating the economy. Mining, construction and parts of the North American automotive supply chain were allowed to resume operations this week.  
Russian health officials registered 150 deaths in 24 hours, for a total of 3,249. Many outside Russia have suggested the country is manipulating its statistics to show a comparatively low death rate. The total confirmed number of cases exceeded 326,000 on Friday.
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, who himself recovered from coronavirus, said earlier this week that only 27 regions out of 85 are ready to gradually lift their lockdowns. At least three cabinet ministers also contracted the disease, as well as the Kremlin spokesman.
China announced it would give local governments 2 trillion yuan ($280 billion) to help undo the damage from shutdowns imposed to curb the spread of the virus that first appeared in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 and has now infected at least 5.1 million people worldwide, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The Bank of Japan said it would provide $280 billion in zero-interest, unsecured loans to banks for financing small and medium-size businesses.
European countries also have seen heavy job losses, but robust government safety-net programs in places like Germany and France are subsidizing the wages of millions of workers and keeping them on the payroll. Tourism, a major income generator for Europe, has become a flashpoint as countries debate whether to quarantine new arrivals this summer for the virus’s two-week maximum incubation period.
Spain’s National Statistics Institute published its tourism report Friday showing columns of zeros for overnight stays, average length of stays and occupancy rates in April. Spain is Europe’s second most popular tourist destination, after France, and an economic recovery without visitors is all but unthinkable.  
Nearly 39 million Americans have lost their jobs since the crisis accelerated  two months ago. States from coast to coast are gradually reopening their economies and letting people return to work, but more than 2.4 million people filed for unemployment last week alone.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said over the weekend that U.S. unemployment could peak in May or June at 20% to 25%, a level last seen during the depths of the Great Depression almost 90 years ago. Unemployment in April stood at 14.7%, a figure also unmatched since the 1930s.
In an eerie echo of famous Depression-era images, U.S. cities are authorizing homeless tent encampments, including San Francisco, where about 80 tents are now neatly spaced out on a wide street near city hall as part of a “safe sleeping village” opened last week. The area between the city’s central library and its Asian Art Museum is fenced off to outsiders, monitored around the clock and provides meals, showers, clean water and trash pickup.
Nathan Rice, a 32-year-old who is camping there, said he’d much rather have a hotel room than a tent on a sidewalk.
“I hear it on the news, hear it from people here that they’re going to be getting us hotel rooms,” he said. “That’s what we want, you know, to be safe inside.”
Despite an often combative approach  to scientists who disagree with him, Trump’s approval ratings have remained steady, underscoring the way Americans seem to have made up their minds about him. A poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research says 41% approve of his job performance, while 58% disapprove. That’s consistent with opinions of him throughout his three years in office.
The World Bank announced a $500 million program for countries in East Africa battling COVID-19 and deadly flooding along with historic swarms of ravenous desert locusts. The added threat of the pandemic has further imperiled a region where millions lack regular access to food.
While many African countries have been praised for their response to the coronavirus, Tanzania is the most dramatic exception, run by a president who questions — or fires — his own health experts and says prayer has solved the crisis.  
The East African country’s number of confirmed virus cases hasn’t changed for three weeks, and the international community is openly worrying that Tanzania’s government is hiding the true scale of the pandemic. Just over 500 cases have been reported in a country of nearly 60 million people.
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Sitting outside an urgent care medical center, Michelle Thomas feels sick. She traveled 30 minutes across town from her Washington, D.C., neighborhood to seek treatment for a persistent cough and fever. Both are common symptoms for COVID-19 in a city that has lost at least 400 residents to the pandemic.“There’re no doctors’ offices in my neighborhood. I really don’t see a doctor regularly and wouldn’t know what to do if I got the virus,” Thomas told VOA.The 73-year-old retired schoolteacher is like millions of African Americans who have long-struggled to access adequate health care. Now, her concerns are heightened.“I know my age and health problems put me at greater risk for serious illness from the virus,” she said. Thomas’s plight comes as COVID-19 has proved especially deadly for many minority communities in America. Nationwide, more than 20,000 African Americans have died from the coronavirus, according to the American Public Media (APM) Research Lab. Authors of the survey acknowledged the numbers were incomplete because some states have not reported data broken down by race and ethnicity.  Even so, APM’s data show the black mortality rate from COVID-19 is three times higher than that of white people. Researchers believe minorities are more at risk of catching the virus because they disproportionately hold jobs for which teleworking and staying at home is not an option. Dr. Ala Stanford administers a COVID-19 swab test on Wade Jeffries in the parking lot of Pinn Memorial Baptist Church in Philadelphia, April 22, 2020.Snapshots of uneven health careMany longtime health care practitioners in urban areas say the pandemic has highlighted chronic shortcomings in health care delivery — and health outcomes — in African American neighborhoods.  “In D.C. neighborhoods, where 95% of the residents are black, the life expectancy is 72 years old. But just a few miles away in predominantly white neighborhoods, it is 87,” said Dr. Wayne Frederick, a surgical oncologist and president of Howard University, in Washington. “So, when you start looking at all the social determinants of health in both areas, you begin to see why the discrepancies exist.” In a city where in 2018, African Americans were estimated at 46% of the population, the Department of Health reports they account for 77% of COVID-19 deaths. By comparison, whites make up about 42% of city residents but just 11% of COVID-19 deaths. Nationwide, African Americans comprise 13% of the U.S. population. A survey from 40 states and the District of Columbia found that black people account for 27% of COVID-19 deaths.  Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, left, commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, departs a news conference with District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser at a temporary alternate care site constructed in response to the coronavirus outbreak.”This virus has not left the District,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said at a recent news conference. “We are working at building a healthy community and (to) improve access to better health care.”Decades of research show that many African Americans go untreated or undertreated for diabetes, hypertension and other medical conditions that add to the mortality risk for COVID-19. The problem extends to the nation’s capital, where in 2019, the federal government estimated that 97% of residents had some form of health insurance. Frederick blames poor health outcomes on a dearth of medical facilities in African American communities.“In one of the biggest populated black D.C. neighborhoods, there’s only one acute care facility, which is functioning at a very low level. And most of the acute care facilities are in the other neighborhoods,” he said. “It’s not a matter of not having health insurance. It’s a matter of having access to doctors’ facilities and other health care providers.” Some African American leaders are calling for more government spending directed at preventive care and coronavirus testing in black communities.“If you spend as much money on the lower tier of the health care outcomes, you actually help the entire system,” Frederick said. “We need more doctors and ambulatory care services in black neighborhoods.” He noted that Howard University’s medical school graduates more than 100 physicians every year, some of whom set up practices in underrepresented neighborhoods.In the short term, health officials are scrambling to increase testing and contact tracing in minority communities to slow down rates of infection.As Washington resident Thomas waits for her bus home, she said she hopes people in her community take the virus seriously. “I don’t want to see more people die,” she said. 
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