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Pat Marmo walked among 20 or so deceased in the basement of his Brooklyn funeral home, his protective mask pulled down so his pleas could be heard.”Every person there, they’re not a body,” he said. “They’re a father, they’re a mother, they’re a grandmother. They’re not bodies. They’re people.”Like many funeral homes in New York and around the globe, Marmo’s business is in crisis as he tries to meet surging demand amid the coronavirus pandemic that has killed around 1,400 people in New York City alone, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.His two cellphones and the office line are ringing constantly. He’s apologizing to families at the start of every conversation for being unusually terse, and begging them to insist hospitals hold their dead loved ones as long as possible.His company is equipped to handle 40 to 60 cases at a time, no problem. On Thursday morning, it was taking care of 185.”This is a state of emergency,” he said. “We need help.”Employees deliver a body at Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home, on April 2, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.Funeral directors are being squeezed on one side by inundated hospitals trying to offload bodies, and on the other by the fact that cemeteries and crematoriums are booked for a week at least, sometimes two.Marmo let The Associated Press into his Daniel J. Schaefer funeral home in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn on Thursday to show how dire the situation has become.He has about 20 embalmed bodies stored on gurneys and stacked on shelves in the basement and another dozen in his secondary chapel room, both chilled by air conditioners.He estimated that more than 60 percent had died of the new coronavirus. For most people, the virus causes mild or moderate symptoms, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and lead to death.”It’s surreal,” he said.Hospitals in New York have been using refrigerated trucks to store the dead, and Marmo is trying to find his own. One company quoted him a price of $6,000 per month, and others are refusing outright because they don’t want their equipment used for bodies.Even if he gets a truck, he has nowhere obvious to put it. He’s wondering if the police station across the street might let him use its driveway.He’s also hoping the Environmental Protection Agency will lift regulations that limit the hours crematoriums can operate. That would ease some of the backlog.”I need somebody to help me,” he said. “Maybe if they send me refrigeration, or guide me in a way that I could set up a refrigerated trailer that I could keep, and I could supervise.”Patrick Kearns, a fourth-generation funeral director in Queens, said the industry has never experienced anything like this. His family was prepared on 9/11 for their business to be overrun, but with so many bodies lost amid the rubble, the rush never came.He’s seeing it now. The Kearns’ business in Rego Park is just minutes from Elmhurst Hospital, a hot spot in the city, which itself has emerged as the epicenter of the U.S. outbreak. Through the first 15 days of March, the family’s four funeral homes held 15 services. In the second half of the month, they had 40.Pat Marmo, owner of Daniel J. Schaefer Funeral Home, walks through a viewing room set up to respect social distancing April 2, 2020, in the Brooklyn borough of New York.Like Marmo, Kearns has converted a small chapel into a makeshift refrigerator with an air conditioner. Other funeral directors told The Associated Press this week they were prepared to take similar measures.The surge in deaths is coming at a time when there are tight restrictions on gatherings, making saying goodbye a lonely process.A family at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn this week leaned over a yellow chain serving as a cordon and tossed roses at the casket of a loved one. Another in Queens offered final goodbyes through the windows of their cars. At one cemetery in the Bronx, where visitors were barred entirely, a funeral director stood over the grave and took photos to send to mourners.”The whole process, including the experience for the family during the funeral, is one of sort of isolation rather than the support,” said Bonnie Dixon, president of Maple Grove Cemetery in Queens.Jackie McQuade, a funeral director at Schuyler Hill funeral home in the Bronx, has struggled to tell families no. But she has no choice, given rules limiting services to immediate family only, if that.One cemetery she worked with has locked its gates to family and friends. Only she and a priest were allowed at the site of a burial. She photographed the casket being lowered, hoping it could bring some closure to the family.
“We would be going crazy if it were one of our loved ones,” she said. “We’re bearers of bad news on top of a sad situation.”Marmo said he’s hardly sleeping from the stress, worried he’ll forget a small but critical task, like removing someone’s ring before they’re sent for cremation.
He’s set to host a funeral Friday for a 36-year-old New York City subway driver who died last week helping riders evacuate a burning train. There will be a limited service in his main chapel, where he has 10 chairs, lined in two rows with 6 feet (2 meters) between each. The best he can do while respecting “social distancing” guidelines.”The guy deserves a funeral down the Canyon of Heroes,” Marmo said, referring to a stretch of Broadway in lower Manhattan where ticker tape parades are traditionally held. “Is he going to get that? He’s not going to get that. And it’s horrible.”
 
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The U.S. Navy has relieved the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier who sounded the alarm about a coronavirus outbreak onboard. Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told reporters at the Pentagon on Thursday that Captain Brett Crozier would be replaced with Rear Admiral-select Carlos Sardiello, the ship’s former captain.Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly, testifies to the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington, Dec. 3, 2019. “A more agile and a more resilient mentality is necessary up and down the chain of command,” Modly said. “We require commanders with judgment, maturity and leadership composure under pressure to understand the ramifications of their actions within that larger dynamic strategic context.” Modly said he had “lost confidence” in the captain, who will remain in the Navy, according to officials. Kelly Magsamen, vice president of national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress and a former senior Pentagon official, said the decision to relieve Crosier was “outrageous” and suggested the captain should be promoted. “It is yet another unjustified punishment of a whistleblower who went through the proper chain of command to raise concerns,” Magsamen said. “Just one day ago, Navy leadership was praising this captain for raising those concerns. Today, he has been relieved without good cause amid spurious allegations of causing unnecessary panic.” Captain Brett Crozier addresses the crew for the first time as commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt in San Diego, Calif., Nov. 1, 2020.Earlier this week the Roosevelt’s captain wrote a letter of concern to his superiors urging them to take ”decisive action” to prevent deaths from the coronavirus. The letter was later leaked to the press. “We are not at war and therefore cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily,” Crozier wrote in the letter, first obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.  The Navy has been working to evacuate the bulk of the nearly 5,000 sailors aboard the Roosevelt in an effort to clean the ship after a large COVID-19 outbreak.    Modly said more than 110 of the carrier’s sailors had tested positive for the coronavirus. About 1,000 personnel have been evacuated in Guam, with plans to have about 2,700 removed from the aircraft carrier in the next couple of days. But Modly stressed on Wednesday that the Navy “cannot and will not remove all sailors from the ship.”  Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday said about 1,000 sailors would need to remain on the ship to maintain its “critical functions” and weapons. The carrier has a nuclear power plant on board, along with munitions and expensive aircraft.  
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Guidance to Americans from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on face coverings and masks will be released “in the next several days,” Vice President Mike Pence said Thursday.“I don’t think they’ll be mandatory,” President Donald Trump said of the national guidelines.Trump suggested people might want to put scarves over their faces for protection instead of the N95 respirators that are critically needed by those on the front lines responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.”If people want to wear them, they can,” Trump said of masks that could play a role in preventing a wider spread of the novel coronavirus.The response coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, Dr. Deborah Birx, cautioned that people should not “get a false sense of security” that they are protected from the virus by wearing a mask. It is more critical, she said, for people to keep their distance from each other in public and to frequently wash their hands.White House senior adviser Jared Kushner said the federal government would send to the New York public hospital system a supply of 200,000 N95 protective masks for medical workers to use through the next month.During Thursday’s media briefing by the White House coronavirus task force, Trump announced he had taken a second test for COVID-19, this one a rapid “point-of-care” test.A couple wear face masks as they sit on a bench in the sun April 2, 2020, at the Coney Island boardwalk in the Brooklyn borough of New York.”I think I took it really out of curiosity to see how quickly it worked,” Trump said.The test was done in one minute, and results came back Thursday morning within 15 minutes, according to a letter released by the White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, who said the results were negative and the president “is healthy and without symptoms.”The leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, is calling on the Trump administration to appoint a military official as a czar for production and distribution of desperately needed medical equipment.“America cannot rely on a patchwork of uncoordinated voluntary efforts to combat the awful magnitude of this pandemic,” said the Senate minority leader in a message to the president. “It is long past the time for your administration to designate a senior military officer to fix this urgent problem.”Trump was quick to react on Twitter.“Somebody please explain to Cryin’ Chuck Schumer that we do have a military man in charge of distributing goods, a very talented Admiral, in fact,” tweeted Trump, referencing Rear Admiral John Polowczyk, who is leading the supply chain task force of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.Somebody please explain to Cryin’ Chuck Schumer that we do have a military man in charge of distributing goods, a very talented Admiral, in fact. New York has gotten far more than any other State, including hospitals & a hospital ship, but no matter what, always complaining…..— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 2, 2020The president also suggested Schumer “should have pushed harder” to ensure the senator’s home state of New York, the epicenter of the pandemic in the United States, had adequate supplies to deal with the deluge of coronavirus patients.Later in the day, the White House released a letter the president sent to Schumer. In addition to making those points, it also said that if the lawmaker had spent less time focusing on impeaching Trump and more time helping the people of his state, “then New York would not have been so completely unprepared for the ‘invisible enemy.’ ”New York is the hardest hit by the disease among the 50 U.S. states. There have been about 1,400 deaths from the virus just in the city of New York.The United States has more confirmed COVID-19 infections than any other country. The total Thursday surpassed 243,000 with more than 5,700 reported deaths, according to a running count kept by Johns Hopkins University.Globally, the total number of cases has exceeded 1 million, with more than 52,000 confirmed fatalities. 
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New York’s governor said Thursday that his state has enough ventilators to last about a week, as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases there nears 100,000.“At the current burn rate, we have about six days of ventilators in our stockpile,” Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters in the state capital, Albany. “Meaning if the rate of usage, the rate of people coming into hospitals who need ventilators, if that rate continues, in our stockpile we have about six days.”He cautioned that if cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, surge within that time frame, or if the anticipated number of cases at the peak exceeds projections or lasts longer, the state could face a shortage of breathing machines.The governor has been working with his team to purchase 30,000 ventilators for his state of 19.5 million people. Half of them would be sent to New York City, which has about 60% of the state’s virus cases. With worldwide demand surging, however, it has been difficult to get the number needed quickly enough.New York has been creative in trying to stretch its current supply of ventilators – allowing them to be refitted to assist two patients simultaneously – as well as converting anesthesia and BiPap machines, which also can push air into patients’ lungs. The state has also canceled all non-emergency surgeries to free up existing ventilators.“So yes, the burn rate of ventilators is troubling and six days of ventilators in the stockpile is troubling,” Cuomo said. “But we have all these extraordinary measures that I believe, if push comes to shove, will put us in fairly good shape.”Medical personnel wearing personal protective equipment remove bodies from the Wyckoff Heights Medical Center, April 2, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York.He said about 350 people per night requiring ventilators are admitted to hospitals in the state. New York has approximately 2,200 ventilators left in its stockpile to be deployed as needed.“Three hundred-fifty people come in every night who need a ventilator, so 2,200 you see, disappears very quickly,” Cuomo said.To date, New York has received 4,400 ventilators from the federal government.COVID-19 deaths hit 432 people n a 24-hour period in the state. In all, at least 2,400 New Yorkers have lost their lives to the respiratory virus.Late Wednesday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio warned that his hospitals need 400 more ventilators by Sunday for the expected crush of cases to come next week.He said during the week of April 5, the number needed will rise by 2,500 to 3,000 more breathing machines.On a promising note, Cuomo said that while hospitalizations are rising, so are the numbers of people recovering and being released. 
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Late one March morning, cell phones across Illinois activated simultaneously through the state’s emergency warning system, buzzing with the urgent text message:“State needs licensed health care workers to sign up at IllinoisHelps.net to fight COVID-19.”The warning came as the number of known coronavirus cases in Illinois soared, many in Chicago and the urban areas surrounding it, while the city’s sprawling McCormick Place convention center along Lake Michigan was transformed into a temporary medical facility to handle the influx of patients.But outside Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, among vast corn and soybean fields, smaller towns dot rural areas where concerns are growing about the relentless spread of the coronavirus, and physicians are sounding the alarm about what they need to fight it.“I think right now, critically, it’s people … it’s the protective equipment, the masks, and it’s prayers,” said Dr. Stephen Hippler. “We have an undersupply of testing kits, so we don’t always know who has coronavirus and who doesn’t, and we are facing a shortage of personal protective equipment, which really adds to the anxiety of this.”Hippler is a chief clinical officer for OSF HealthCare, owned and operated by the Sisters of the Third Order of St. Francis, headquartered in Peoria, Illinois. OSF HealthCare serves patients in small cities and rural markets in Illinois and Michigan through 14 hospitals with a total of 2,192 acute care beds. It also operates 30 urgent care locations.FILE – This sign near Dufur, Oregon, shows distances to the nearest towns, March 20, 2020. Rural residents fear the spread of coronavirus to areas with scarce medical resources.Unimaginable situation“I don’t know how you prepare for something like this, how you envision something like this,” Hippler told VOA. “Our health care system and our hospitals all do planning for disasters, but typically it’s around tornadoes, earthquakes, hurricanes — where an area is affected, but then others can rush in from elsewhere to help. But our planning scenarios have never [imagined a situation] where the entire world is down all at once.”Increasing the number of available working health care professionals and keeping them safe during the outbreak are among the challenges Hippler said rural health care providers face.“I think the challenges really come in around the resources required to stand up to a pandemic like this in IT [information technology], supplies, creating negative pressure rooms, just keeping up with the clinical resources and clinical guidelines,” said Hippler. “I think it’s that infrastructure that health care is built on that rural hospitals will face a challenge with.”“They’re really the sole source of hospital care for that community,” said Pat Schou, executive director of the Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network, or ICAHN, which connects and supports 57 rural medical facilities, many of them independent, throughout the state.Schou, who is also president of the board of the National Rural Health Association, said U.S. Census research shows only about 15 percent of those in the United States live in rural communities, where the population is, on average, older, poorer and has a greater percentage of those with underlying health conditions at higher risk for serious illness and hospitalization if they contract the coronavirus.“Most of these hospitals serve a rural community of around 25,000 people,” Schou said, adding that many rural patients could live a significant distance away from a health care facility.Outpatient services are keyAbout 80 percent of the business that occurs at those facilities are outpatient services, such as therapy, lab services and minor surgeries.Schou said this is the core of the business that generates revenue for many rural hospitals and is dramatically drying up as patients stay home under lockdown.“If you only have 30 to 45 days’ cash on hand, it’s going to be very, very tough,” said Schou, who believes about 25 percent of the hospitals her organization supports could suffer steep financial losses depending on the length of the COVID-19 crisis. “If this is a short-term situation, they may be fine. If it goes longer than three or four months, they are going to have severe financial strain.”The spread of the novel coronavirus globally comes after 19 rural hospital closures in the United States in 2019. The Sheps Center for Health Services Research at the University of North Carolina said that since 2005, the country has lost 170 rural health care facilities, eight of those since January.Schou said the loss of income and increasing financial strain could lead to difficult decisions for rural hospital administrators. “Do they keep all the staff? Do they lay off? What if they do have a surge that comes their way?” she asked, adding, “If we have a threefold surge, we’re going to have a serious problem.”While $100 billion in financial assistance for health care providers is on the way as part of the recently enacted $2.2 trillion federal relief package, Schou said it could take weeks to filter down to rural hospitals that may need funds, support and equipment far sooner.Competing for PPETo make matters worse, rural hospitals are competing with larger medical systems serving urban areas for critical supplies and equipment that is in short supply.“If you are a larger facility and you are treating these COVID patients, already you are a higher priority,” Schou told VOA.OSF HealthCare’s Hippler said the widespread and urgent need for personal protective equipment, or PPE, continues and is complicated by the fact that much of it is supplied in China by manufacturers that suffered disruptions when the coronavirus emerged.“It just happened that the epicenter [in China] was in the area where we get a lot of our PPE products,” he said, but PPE isn’t the only item on the growing list of needs and wants as the crisis drags on.“We all wish we had access to more testing, more reagents, a quicker way to do that,” he said.  “This is unlike flu season where it typically sweeps across the country. We’re not yet seeing a lot of that spread as intensely outside of these population centers, but we don’t know yet, it’s still early, and we’re still getting prepared.”
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The top U.S. expert on the coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci, downplayed receiving online threats and having uneasy encounters with admirers Thursday that reportedly prompted the Trump administration to provide him with security.Fauci, an influential proponent of stay-at-home orders and other strict emergency measures, has been the target of threats from the far-right after publicly correcting some of President Donald Trump’s statements about the pandemic.The director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has also been the target of unwanted interactions and communications from ardent admirers, de-emphasized concern over his safety during an interview with “CBS This Morning” co-host Gayle King.“It’s my job. This is the life I’ve chosen, and I’m doing it,” Fauci said. “I mean, obviously there’s a lot of pressure. I would be foolish to deny that. … It’s a job to do, and we’ve just got to do it.”Despite Fauci’s public corrections of Trump, the president has repeatedly applauded him during regular COVID-19 news conferences at the White House. When asked Wednesday about reports of a security team being assigned to Fauci, Trump said he does not need it.“Everybody loves him. Besides, they’d be in big trouble if they ever attacked,” Trump said. 
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Relatives of Americans who are wrongfully imprisoned abroad or held hostage by militant groups say in a report Thursday that the U.S. government must do better in communicating with them, though they cite improvements over the past five years.Several of those interviewed for the report say they do not believe that the cases of their loved ones have the attention of the highest levels of government. In particular, family members of Americans detained by foreign governments on trumped-up charges are less satisfied with the attention and information they receive than are relatives of hostages held by militant or criminal groups.The report from the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation is based on interviews with 25 former hostages and detainees as well as their relatives and advocates. It cites improvements in the government’s response since U.S. officials overhauled the hostage policy five years ago, but says relatives still want more complete and accurate information and clarity about which agency is supposed to help them. Some, for instance, want the government to declassify more information so that it can be more easily shared, or to provide limited security clearances.The report is the latest outside effort to scrutinize how the government interacts with hostages and detainees and their families back home. It examines the changes to hostage policy that were instituted by the Obama administration in 2015 and that largely remain intact under President Donald Trump. Those include the creation of an FBI-led hostage recovery fusion cell and the appointment of a State Department envoy for hostage affairs.The policy revamp followed the beheadings of Westerners, including Foley, a freelance journalist, at the hands of the Islamic State group in Syria. Relatives of hostages demanded changes after they said U.S. officials threatened prosecution if they tried to raise a ransom, kept them out of the loop on rescue attempts and didn’t clearly communicate government policy.Foley’s mother, Diane, established the foundation to raise attention for hostage issues and to advocate for Americans held overseas.The report says the policy improvements have been effective and durable, resulting in better government access for hostage families and more resources. But it also says families of other detainees don’t feel like their cases are prioritized in the same way.The U.S. government distinguishes hostages who are captured by overseas criminal organizations or by militant groups designated as terrorists from detainees who are held by foreign governments, often arbitrarily or on exaggerated or fabricated charges. The distinction matters in terms of which government agency is responsible for the case.Hostage cases are worked by the FBI-led Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell and the State Department through its envoy for hostage affairs. Detainee cases are run through the State Department, largely through its consular affairs office but also its hostage office if the detention is regarded as being for illegitimate purposes.Though the hostage policy overhaul sought to establish lanes of responsibility within the government’s response, several of the report’s participants expressed confusion about which agency was supposed to be their primary point of contact.Many relatives of hostages who were interviewed said they felt they had reliable access to the government, but relatives of detainees did not feel the same, with one family advocate saying they “had to work way too hard to get the State Department’s attention and help.”The State Department did not respond to a request for comment. The FBI had no immediate comment.“There is a notable disparity in the treatment of hostage and wrongful-detainee families by the U.S. government, with the latter receiving less attention, information, and access,” the report said. It said “the U.S. government can do more to support the families of those Americans wrongfully detained abroad.”Several interviewees said they were concerned about having less access to the State Department’s hostage affairs office because of turnover there. Robert O’Brien, the official who used to hold the position, is now Trump’s national security adviser.The Trump administration has made the return of hostages and detainees a priority. Officials have eagerly touted the release of multiple high-profile Americans as validation of those efforts. Danny Burch was freed last year, 18 months after being abducted in Yemen and Kevin King, an American professor, was released by the Taliban in a prisoner exchange last November.Still, other cases remain unresolved or have not had positive outcomes.American journalist Austin Tice remains missing after vanishing in Syria in 2012. Trump recently mentioned Tice by name, saying the government was working to bring him home.Last week, the family of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson, who vanished on an unauthorized CIA mission to Iran 13 years ago, said it had been told that the U.S. government had concluded that he was dead. U.S. officials have not said what evidence led them to make that determination.
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As the United States passed 5,000 coronavirus deaths, the mayor of the Los Angeles urged people in the country’s second-largest city to wear masks in public.Mayor Eric Garcetti said people should not use scarce medical-grade masks that are needed by health professionals but said utilizing cloth masks would help reduce the spread of the virus.U.S. federal health officials have so far not recommended people wear masks.Garcetti also said wearing a mask is not an invitation for people to “suddenly all go out,” and that they should be staying home except for essential tasks such as shopping for food.Worldwide cases are on the verge of eclipsing 1 million, with 50,000 deaths. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was deeply concerned about the rapid escalation.Hindu priests wearing face masks perform rituals during the Ram Navami festival at a temple closed for devotees as part of lockdown to curb the spread of new coronavirus in Hyderabad, India, April 2, 2020.He also highlighted concerns about extra pressures felt by the poorest and most vulnerable people in areas put under lockdown orders and called for help to developing countries that may not have the resources to scale up social welfare programs.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned Wednesday that anyone can be a coronavirus carrier even if they aren’t showing any symptoms.The CDC affirmed a study from Singapore that says 10 percent of new cases were spread by people who showed no signs of being sick. The agency says the study reinforces the need for social distancing.British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, himself in isolation after testing positive for the coronavirus, said in a video message that Britain would be “massively increasing testing” as the key to ultimately defeating the virus. Italy has been the hardest-hit country in terms of deaths, with more than 13,000.  Its leaders announced Wednesday an extension of lockdown orders in hopes of continuing trends of fewer new infections to control the outbreak there.  Spain, which has also been under strict lockdown for weeks after the virus quickly spread, announced Thursday its deaths exceeded 10,000, making it the second country to pass that level. Belgium has experienced a large number of cases relative to its size, reporting Thursday it confirmed more than 15,000 cases thus far with a surge past 1,000 deaths.  With a population of 11.4 million people, Belgium sits in or near the top 10 worldwide for both figures. In Mexico, the country’s foreign ministry urged Mexicans residing in other countries – particularly the United States – not to travel home to visit family right now due to the risk of importing cases.Israel’s health ministry announced Thursday that its leader, Yaakov Litzman, has tested positive for coronavirus and is in isolation.
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Former U.S. federal judge Kevin Thomas Duffy, 87, has died from the coronavirus.Duffy presided over major cases involving organized crime and terrorism during his time on the bench.His cases included the trial of those responsible for the 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center in New York City that killed six people and injured more than 1,000, as well as an aborted plot to blow up planes over the Pacific Ocean.He was nominated to the federal bench in 1972 by former U.S. President Richard Nixon and retired in 2016.
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Since the coronavirus pandemic hit Europe and the United States, Austrian Ambassador Martin Weiss has tweeted a series of Martin Weiss, ambassador of Austria to the U.S. (in green jacket), seen here at the Austrian Airlines ticket counter March 23, 2020, as he helps ensure all goes smoothly as 300 Austrians head home.VOA: Three hundred Austrians left the United States for home last week. Was it because the outbreak seemed less severe there?Weiss: There were very different reasons for their return. Many were just tourists ready to cut their trips short. Others worked in hotels and restaurants and had simply lost their jobs. Also, many students were leaving because their schools have closed for the foreseeable future. Many of them felt that they were better off in Austria. There, they have family. There, they are familiar with the health care system, etc. Plus, many Austrians have the feeling that our government does a very good job in this crisis. The Austrian government has taken proactive steps early on, informs the public daily about the latest developments, keeps expectations at a realistic level, has adopted a huge rescue package for workers and the economy, etc. Austrians are concerned, but by and large, think our country does what it can in this difficult time.VOA: Tell us more about Austria’s stimulus package.Weiss: It amounts to roughly 10 percent of Austria’s gross domestic product. In that sense, we are in lockstep with the U.S. Both of our governments are pulling out all the stops in an effort to keep our economies, and, thereby, the livelihood of so many people who depend on it afloat.VOA: What is Austria using to test and treat patients who may be suffering from COVID-19?Weiss: Austrian company Procomcure (Biotech Gmbh) has recently developed a very promising testing kit that gives you precise results within hours. Little wonder that they are already exporting it to many countries all over the world. When it comes to testing, Austria is currently in the European median — neither extremely good nor very bad. But the government has realized that more tests are needed and is currently trying hard to get the numbers up. Without thorough testing, there is no way of getting out of this crisis for good.As to our health care system, Austria has traditionally a high number of hospital beds per capita — 750 beds per 100,000 inhabitants. We have often been criticized for that because it makes our system expensive. However, in this crisis, this seems to be a clear advantage.Austrians heading home get their papers checked on March 23, 2020 at Dulles Airport.VOA: You retweeted an image of Italian armed forces arriving in Bergamo to take away coffins from hospitals, underscoring the gravity of the situation in Italy. Is Austria doing anything to help Italy?Weiss: We have supported our southern neighbor right from the beginning, bilaterally as well as in the framework of the European Union. Just this past week, Austria transported urgently needed personal protection equipment, including 1.6 million face masks, to northern Italy. European and global solidarity is crucial these days.VOA: What do you think the future will be for multinational corporations and for globalization in the aftermath of the pandemic?Weiss: There are a lot of debates out there on how this crisis will change our lives, change corporations, change the way the world cooperates in the future, etc. Frankly, I am not so sure. As human beings, we are amazingly adept in forgetting bad things. Once something bad — or even something terrible — has passed, we are more than ready to “go back to normal.” In other words, old habits die hard. Some business models will certainly take a hit. I wonder, for example, about the future of the cruise ship industry. With so many stories about being stranded on ships, I suppose it will be a while before passengers will be ready for this kind of voyage again. But in general, I believe the world before and after corona will not be all that much different.The Austrian Embassy’s official Twitter account @AustriainUSA chose local blossoms spotted near the embassy to adorn its front page.VOA: What would you like to see the U.S. do more or less of to tackle this outbreak both domestically and abroad?Weiss: The devilish thing about this new virus is that it is highly infectious, and none of us is immune. It thus grows exponentially. … Exponential growth starts slow, little by little, and then it very rapidly explodes. I still have the feeling that many people in the U.S. and around the world fail to grasp this. The exponential curve knows no mercy. We all — the U.S., Europe and the rest of the world — have to work together and as hard as we can. It is this level of unequivocal seriousness that is needed now, and the U.S. should lead in this effort.VOA: Your tweet that has generated the most “likes” is a video clip involving a mock question about the quarantine. Given an option, a man chooses not to stay with his wife and kids. What does this say about the human condition?Weiss: This clip simply made me laugh hard. And just to be clear, it probably cuts both ways, and his wife would have quickly said “B,” too. But I have seen many somewhat humorous reactions to this crisis, and I think it is very important not to lose that, even in the toughest of times. Humor is the best medicine, they say. I´m not sure it’s a cure for COVIID-19, but it certainly helps.
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Ellis Marsalis Jr., jazz pianist, teacher and patriarch of a New Orleans musical clan that includes famed performer sons Wynton and Branford, has died after battling pneumonia brought on by the new coronavirus, one of his sons said late Wednesday.He was 85.Ellis Marsalis III confirmed in an Associated Press phone interview that his father’s death was sparked by the virus causing the  global pandemic. “Pneumonia was the actual thing that caused his demise. But it was pneumonia brought on by COVID-19,” he said.He said he drove Sunday from Baltimore to be with his father as he was hospitalized in Louisiana, which has been hit hard by the outbreak.  Others in the family spent time with him, too.Four of the jazz patriarch’s six sons are musicians: Wynton, trumpeter, is America’s most prominent jazz spokesman as artistic director of jazz at New York’s Lincoln Center. Branford, saxophonist, led The Tonight Show band and toured with Sting. Delfeayo, a trombonist, is a prominent recording producer and performer. And Jason, a percussionist, has made a name for himself with his own band and as an accompanist. Ellis III, who decided music wasn’t his gig, is a photographer-poet in Baltimore.In a statement, Mayor LaToya Cantrell said of the man who’d continued to perform regularly in New Orleans until December: “Ellis Marsalis was a legend. He was the prototype of what we mean when we talk about New Orleans jazz. He was a teacher, a father, and an icon – and words aren’t sufficient to describe the art, the joy and the wonder he showed the world.”Branford Marsalis, Wynton Marsalis and Delfeayo Marsalis perform in the Ellis Marsalis Family Tribute in the Jazz Tent during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in New Orleans, Louisiana on April 28, 2019.Because Marsalis opted to stay in New Orleans for most of his career, his reputation was limited until his sons became famous and brought him the spotlight, along with new recording contracts and headliner performances on television and tour.”He was like the coach of jazz. He put on the sweatshirt, blew the whistle and made these guys work,” said Nick Spitzer, host of public radio’s American Routes and a Tulane University anthropology professor.The Marsalis “family band” seldom played together when the boys were younger but in 2003 toured East in a spinoff of a family celebration that became a PBS special when the elder Marsalis retired from teaching at the University of New Orleans.Harry Connick Jr., one of Marsalis’ students at the New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts, was a guest. He’s one of many now-famous jazz musicians who passed through Marsalis’ classrooms. Others include trumpeters Nicholas Payton and Terence Blanchard, saxophonists Donald Harrison and Victor Goines, and bassist Reginald Veal.Marsalis was born in New Orleans, son of the operator of a hotel where Marsalis met touring black musicians who couldn’t stay at the segregated downtown hotels where they performed. He played saxophone in high school; he also played piano by the time he went to Dillard University.Although New Orleans was steeped in traditional jazz, and rock ‘n’ roll was the new sound in the 1950s, Marsalis preferred bebop and modern jazz.Spitzer described Marsalis as a “modernist in a town of traditionalists.””His great love was jazz a la bebop – he was a lover of Thelonious Monk and the idea that bebop was a music of freedom. But when he had to feed his family, he played R&B and soul and rock ‘n’ roll on Bourbon Street,” Spitzer said.The musician’s college quartet included drummer Ed Blackwell, clarinetist Alvin Batiste and saxophonist Harold Battiste playing modern.U.S. saxophonist Branford Marsalis performs with his father, Ellis Marsalis, at the 51st Jazzaldia Jazz Festival in San Sebastian, northern Spain, July 22, 2016.Ornette Coleman was in town at the time. In 1956, when Coleman headed to California, Marsalis and the others went along, but after a few months Marsalis returned home. He told the New Orleans Times-Picayune years later, when he and Coleman were old men, that he never figured out what a pianist could do behind the free form of Coleman’s jazz.Back in New Orleans, Marsalis joined the Marine Corps and was assigned to accompany soloists on the service’s weekly TV programs on CBS in New York. There, he said, he learned to handle all kinds of music styles.Returning home, he worked at the Playboy Club and ventured into running his own club, which went bust. In 1967 trumpeter Al Hirt hired him. When not on Bourbon Street, Hirt’s band appeared on national TV – headline shows on The Tonight Show and The Ed Sullivan Show, among others.Marsalis got into education about the same time, teaching improvisation at Xavier University in New Orleans. In the mid-1970s, he joined the faculty at the New Orleans magnet high school and influenced a new generation of jazz musicians.When asked how he could teach something as free-wheeling as jazz improvisation, Marsalis once said, “We don’t teach jazz, we teach students.”Jazz musician Ellis Marsalis (second from left) makes a curtain call with former student Harry Connick Jr. (left) and sons, Wynton, Delfeayo and Branford at Lakefront Arena in New Orleans on August 4, 2001.In 1986 he moved to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. In 1989, the University of New Orleans lured him back to set up a jazz-studies program.Marsalis retired from UNO in 2001 but continued performing, particularly at Snug Harbor, a small club that anchored the city’s contemporary jazz scene – frequently backing young promising musicians.His melodic style, with running improvisations in the right hand, has been described variously as romantic, contemporary, or simply “Louisiana jazz.” He’s always on acoustic piano, never electric, and even in interpreting old standards there’s a clear link to the driving bebop chords and rhythms of his early years.He founded a record company, ELM, but his recording was limited until his sons became famous. After that he joined them and others on mainstream labels and headlined his own releases, many full of his own compositions.He often played at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. For more than three decades he played two 75-minute sets every Friday night at Snug Harbor until he decided it was exhausting. Even then, he still performed on occasion as a special guest.On Wednesday night, Ellis III recalled how his father taught him the meaning of integrity before he even knew the word.He and Delfeayo, neither of them yet 10, had gone to hear their father play at a club. Only one man – sleeping and drunk – was in the audience for the second set. The boys asked why they couldn’t leave.”He looked at us and said, “I can’t leave. I have a gig.’ While he’s playing, he said, ‘A gig is a deal. I’m paid to play this set. I’m going to play this set. It doesn’t matter that nobody’s here.”Marsalis’ wife, Dolores, died in 2017. He is survived by his sons Branford, Wynton, Ellis III, Delfeayo, Mboya and Jason.
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NASA may have just found the next man to walk on the moon — or the first woman to land on Mars — or someone who can float above the Earth and make repairs to the International Space Station.Wednesday was the deadline for submitting an application to join the next class of astronauts.NASA says more than 12,000 people applied — the largest number in three years — proving that those who believe Americans have lost interest in space are wrong.“We’ve entered a bold new era of space exploration with the Artemis program, and we are thrilled to see so many incredible Americans apply to join us,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said Wednesday. “The next class of Artemis Generation astronauts will help us explore more of the moon than ever before and lead us to the red planet.”The Northrop Grumman Antares rocket, with Cygnus resupply spacecraft onboard, launches from Pad-0A at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Wallops Island, Virginia, Feb. 15, 2020.Artemis is the name NASA has given to its next big era in space exploration — and among the 12,000 would-be astronauts could be a name that becomes as legendary as John Glenn, the pioneering Gemini program, Neil Armstrong and Apollo.NASA received applications from every one of the 50 states and four U.S. territories. But the odds of being picked to fly into space are remote.Candidates must have a master’s degree in science, technology, math or engineering.NASA’s Astronaut Selection Board will assess each applicant’s qualifications and invite those who pass to the Johnson Space Center in Houston for interviews and medical tests before making a final selection.The board must pare down the 12,000 hopefuls to around 12.It’s an exclusive club. Only 350 men and women have been chosen for astronaut training since the 1960s. NASA currently has 48 astronauts in the pool.FILE — A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket, carrying the U.S. Air Force’s Space Test Program-2 mission, lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., June 25, 2019.“We’re able to build such a strong astronaut corps at NASA because we have such a strong pool of applicants to choose from,” selection board manager Anne Roemer said. “It’s always amazing to see the diversity of education, experience and skills that are represented in our applicants. We are excited to start reviewing astronaut applications to identify the next class of astronaut candidates.”So how does one person who dreams of space stand out among 12,000 other dreamers?Astronaut Kayla Barron, who was part of the NASA class of 2017, said if you’re lucky enough to qualify as a finalist, there is no reason to feel intimidated or that you can’t be yourself.“When I go into that interview room and sit at the end of this long table with all of these astronauts and senior NASA officials … what are they looking for? What do they want from me? For some reason the last thing I thought before I walked [in] the door was,  ‘Don’t make any jokes,’ ” she recalled with a laugh. “Because I was so worried I was going to say something sarcastic or whatever.”This NASA image obtained March 24, 2020, shows the city lights at the intersection of Europe and Asia as they sparkle as the International Space Station orbited 262 miles above.But when one of the panel members made a joke seemingly at Barron’s expense, she said, “I dished it right back at him. And there was this moment of silence and I was like, ‘Oh, no, that was the one I wasn’t supposed to do.’ But then [astronaut] Kjell Lindgren started laughing … everyone started laughing and it just relaxed me … just be yourself, be honest about who you are. I think that goes a long way.”When the astronauts are chosen, they will go through about two years of training in such skills as spacewalking and robotics. They must also show people skills, including leadership and teamwork — two qualities that are essential for living on the International Space Station, taking a trip to the moon or enduring a long journey to Mars.NASA expects to introduce the new astronaut candidates in the summer of 2021 with plans for a trip to the moon in 2024 and a mission to Mars in the next decade.
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The U.S. military is deploying hundreds more troops to the country’s southern border amid the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to protect the nation from potentially infected migrants, according to the commander of U.S. Northern Command.“As we look at trying to peel off the external potential for COVID exposure to our U.S. citizens, there’s actually an increased demand signal, not a decreased demand signal, for securing the southern border,” General Terrence O’Shaughnessy told reporters Wednesday.Medical personnel work at the Samaritan’s Purse field hospital in New York’s Central Park on April 1, 2020.Lieutenant General Laura Richardson, the commander of the U.S. Army component of Northern Command, said 540 additional troops would deploy to the southern border with Mexico “very soon,” without elaborating.Meanwhile, in Guam, the Navy is working to evacuate the bulk of the nearly 5,000 sailors aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt aircraft carrier, in an effort to clean the ship after a large COVID-19 outbreak.Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told reporters Wednesday that 93 of carrier’s sailors had tested positive for the coronavirus, with seven testing positive without showing symptoms. Only about 25 percent of the carrier’s sailors have been tested so far, he added.About 1,000 personnel have already been evacuated, with plans to have about 2,700 off the Roosevelt in the next couple of days, but Modly stressed that the Navy “cannot and will not remove all sailors from the ship.”Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Gilday said about 1,000 sailors would need to remain on the ship to maintain its “critical functions” and weapons. The carrier has a nuclear power plant on board, along with munitions and aircraft.Pedestrians wear personal protective equipment as they cross Main Street in the Flushing section of the Queens borough of New York on April 1, 2020.Earlier this week the Roosevelt’s captain wrote a letter of concern to his superiors urging them to take “decisive action” to prevent deaths from the coronavirus.“We are not at war, and therefore cannot allow a single sailor to perish as a result of this pandemic unnecessarily,” Navy Captain Brett Crozier wrote in the letter first obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle.The massive, 1,000-bed Navy hospital ships Mercy and Comfort have together only started treating a handful of patients, despite the Mercy’s arrival in Los Angeles several days ago and the Comfort’s arrival in New York Harbor on Monday.Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyThe U.S. military hospital ship Comfort has arrived in New York to help free up hospital beds in a city desperately needing help to fight the coronavirus outbreak.O’Shaughnessy told reporters that the small number was actually “good news” because it showed the military had arrived at the locations “early” and “ahead of need.”Field hospitals have been deployed to New York City and Seattle, with others soon to deploy to New Orleans and Dallas. The Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in Manhattan was transformed into a temporary hospital capable of receiving more than 2,500 patients, with the first arriving there earlier this week.More than 17,000 National Guardsmen are deployed across the country, with several assisting with supply and testing distribution, assessing symptoms of patients and administering COVID-19 tests.As of early Wednesday, 1,343 coronavirus cases around the globe were related to the U.S. military — 771 service members, 273 civilians, 225 dependents and 74 contractors — the Pentagon said. One U.S. service member, one defense contractor, one spouse and two Defense Department civilians have died from the virus.
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Disability Rights Montana is asking the state Supreme Court to order the release of some prison and jail inmates to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.The ACLU of Montana filed the emergency petition Tuesday on behalf of the rights group and asked for a hearing or for the court to appoint a special master to oversee a reduction of the number of people in custody during the ongoing pandemic.  “With a virus this contagious and this lethal, the state has an obligation to act immediately,” Bernadette Franks-Ongoy, executive director of Disability Rights Montana, said in a statement. “Without swift action, the ripple effect of an outbreak in correctional facilities will endanger everyone, hitting people with disabilities especially hard. Reducing the number of people in prisons and jails is consistent with the recommendations of public health experts and will save lives.”The petition argues that subjecting non-dangerous prisoners with disabilities to an outbreak of COVID-19 amounts to deliberate indifference to prisoners’ health and safety.Inmates in overcrowded facilities are unable to exercise social distancing, which is one of the key ways to prevent the spread of the virus, the petition states.On March 23, Chief Justice Mike McGrath asked city and county courts to consider releasing as many people from jail as possible to avoid the spread of the virus. The petition argues that only some counties are doing so.  “This is a dire emergency,” said Justin Stalpes, attorney at Beck, Amsden and Stalpes. “The response cannot be patchwork — the only thing that will stop, or at least slow, the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak in correctional facilities and communities is a swift and uniform state-wide response.”For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, the virus can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.  Montana’s health department reported 208 cases of COVID-19, 17 hospitalizations and five deaths as of Wednesday morning.
 
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Russian President Vladimir Putin called on Wednesday for global oil producers and consumers to address “challenging” oil markets, while U.S. President Donald Trump complained that oil cheaper “than water” was hurting the industry.Oil prices fell nearly 70% from January highs as coronavirus lockdowns hammered demand and as Saudi Arabia and Russia have flooded the market in a race for market share after a deal they engineered on supply curbs broke down.Oil and natural gas sales are a key revenue source for Russian coffers, while low prices are also hurting shale oil producers in the United States.  Speaking at a government meeting, set up via a video link as a precaution against the coronavirus, Putin said that both oil producers and consumers should find a solution that would improve the “challenging” situation of global oil markets.He also said if investments into the oil sector fell, oil prices would be sure to spike, something he said “no one needs.””That’s why we, together with the main producers and consumers, should work out such decisions, which would mitigate the situation on the market on the whole,” Putin said, according to the readout of the meeting.FILE – U.S. Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette gestures during an interview at the LNG terminal of the deepwater port of Sines after visiting the port, in Sines, southern Portugal, Feb. 12, 2020.Flurry of diplomacyOn Tuesday, U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette spoke with his Russian counterpart, Alexander Novak, about the price slump, and they agreed to hold future discussions involving other major world oil producers and consumers.The call occurred a day after Trump and Putin agreed in a phone conversation to have their top energy officials discuss global oil market turmoil.Putin said that the United States was also worried about the state of the oil market as shale oil producers need a price around $40 per barrel to turn a profit.”That’s why this is also a hard challenge for the American economy,” he said.Trump plans to meet with oil executives on Friday to discuss potential aid to the industry, including possible tariffs on oil imports from Saudi Arabia, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing unidentified sources.The meeting is to take place at the White House and will include Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Occidental Petroleum Corp., the newspaper said in a report on Wednesday.Crude oil benchmarks ended a volatile quarter with their biggest losses in history. On Wednesday, oil slid toward $25 a barrel, after touching its lowest level in 18 years.”There is so much oil and in some cases it’s probably less valuable than water. At some points of the world the water is much more valuable. So we’ve never seen anything like it,” Trump said.Pact’s collapseThe discussions between Washington and Moscow mark a new twist in oil diplomacy since the collapse this month of a deal between the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other producers, including Russia, on cutting production.The failure to agree on an extension to a pact that had propped up the market since 2016 led to the scrapping of all restrictions and a dash for market share.FILE – Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak is pictured at EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Oct. 29, 2014.Brouillette and Novak “had a productive discussion on the current volatility in global oil markets,” Energy Department spokeswoman Shaylyn Hynes said.”Secretary Brouillette and Minister Novak discussed energy market developments and agreed to continue dialogue among major energy producers and consumers, including through the G-20, to address this unprecedented period of disruption in the world economy,” she said.The Russian Energy Ministry said on Wednesday the ministers noted that the fall in the demand and oversupply created risks for stable supplies to the markets.The United States has grown in recent years into the world’s largest oil and gas producer, thanks to a technology-driven shale drilling boom. But the current price of oil is below the production cost of many American drillers, threatening the highly leveraged U.S. shale industry.’Crazy’ productionTrump on Monday said Saudi Arabia and Russia “both went crazy” with their production after the supply deal failed. “I never thought I’d be saying that maybe we have to have an oil [price] increase, because we do,” he said.The Trump administration is trying to persuade Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, to cut crude output. It will soon send a special energy envoy, Victoria Coates, to the kingdom.The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Russia and Saudi Arabia were not holding talks regarding the oil market at the moment and that Putin had no immediate plans to have a phone call with Saudi leadership.But the Kremlin added that such talks could be set up quickly if necessary. 
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The U.S. Peace Corps’ response to the coronavirus pandemic, evacuating all 7,300 volunteers who were working in 61 countries, has left many of them uncertain about their future, with supporters of the humanitarian organization concerned it may not survive a prolonged shutdown.“I’m not going to lie. It kind of sucks,” said Alisia Moreno, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in a rural village in East Timor before being ordered to evacuate on March 15.  She is now back at her parents’ house in Colorado and ending a 14-day self-quarantine period. Established in 1961 by President John F. Kennedy with a mission to promote cross-cultural understanding and provide assistance where needed, the Peace Corps has never before suspended worldwide operations. It has in the past suspended some country-specific or regional programs due to natural disasters, the eruption of violence or civil strife, and other safety concerns. During the Ebola outbreak in 2014, the Peace Corps pulled its volunteers from West Africa but resumed regional operations in 2016.Peace Corps Director Jody Olsen said in a statement the unprecedented decision to suspend programming worldwide and withdraw all volunteers in March was made to avoid, “a situation where volunteers would have been stranded overseas as borders and air space were shutting down to prevent the spread of COVID-19.” The growing coronavirus outbreak has infected more than 800,000 people worldwide, and left more than 39,000 others dead, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.For many Peace Corps volunteers, the evacuation process was chaotic and upending. Some volunteers were given 24 hours’ notice to leave their sites in rural communities with the expectation they would soon return. “When it did happen it was like, wait, what? We assumed that we were going to the capital to try and be all together so that we weren’t burdens on our community. And they were just like, ‘OK, we’re sending you on the next plane,’” said Moreno, who traveled about three hours by local taxi from her village in the eastern part of East Timor to the Peace Corps office in the capital, Dili.Flight cancelations and airport closures also caused delays and frustration for volunteers and staff, who worked around the clock to coordinate the evacuations.Abrupt goodbyeMost volunteers were recent college graduates. They took on a two-year commitment to live in rural communities in developing nations, learn the local language, and work as teachers or partner with organizations assisting small farmers and local businesses.Many are supportive of the Peace Corps’ decision to evacuate the volunteers due to health and safety concerns but are upset they were forced to abandon the friendships and projects they developed. Danielle Collier plans to reapply as soon as the agency resumes operations.“It’s bittersweet. And at first it was more bitter than it was sweet,” said Danielle Collier, who worked as an education volunteer in North Macedonia before she was evacuated to her family’s home in Utah. “I don’t personally feel like I completed my service because it was such an abrupt goodbye,” said Moreno, who was halfway through her tour.Prolonged shutdownIn her recent statement, director Olsen emphasized the agency is not closing its offices around the world and plans “to return to normal activities as soon as conditions permit.”Peace Corps advocates, however, are concerned that a prolonged shutdown could make the agency vulnerable to opponents who want to cut foreign aid programs.“The more, I think, it is an agency that has no volunteers in the field, the harder it gets for them to sustain those programs and for posts to keep them open,” said Glenn Blumhorst, president of the National Peace Corps Association, or NPCA, a political advocacy group of former volunteers.U.S. President Donald Trump’s past proposals to significantly reduce foreign assistance, including deep cuts to the Peace Corps budget, have been overturned by bipartisan congressional opposition. The NPCA is calling for increased Peace Corps funding to help evacuated volunteers and restart worldwide operations once the pandemic ends.Out of workGiven the uncertainty as to how long the coronavirus threat will last, the Peace Corps terminated the service of all its volunteers, putting them out of work, rather than suspending service.“There wasn’t really a good way to do it. I wish there was a better way to do it,” Blumhorst said.The volunteers will receive an evacuation allowance in addition to normally allocated readjustment funds and full health coverage for the next two months. Director Olsen said volunteers seeking to return to the corps “will be given expedited consideration over the next year.” Collier, who was in North Macedonia for three months, said she plans to go back.  “I definitely don’t feel like it is over,” she said.The other volunteers now enter the American workforce with few prospects at a time when most businesses and industries are closed to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.    
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The U.S. military hospital ship Comfort has arrived in New York to help free up hospital beds in a city desperately needing help to fight the coronavirus outbreak. The massive ship is just one of many military assets deployed to help the national response to the virus. VOA Pentagon correspondent Carla Babb has the latest.
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Thousands of South Korean workers on U.S. bases were placed on unpaid leave Wednesday, after the United States and South Korea failed to reach a deal on how to split the cost of the U.S. military presence here.  Through seven rounds of talks, South Korea has refused the Trump administration’s demand to massively increase its contribution toward the approximately 28,500 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea. The latest cost-sharing deal expired at the end of the year, but the U.S. had been covering the salaries of Korean employees with funds that ran out this week.  Starting Wednesday, about 4,000 Korean civilian employees, who work in areas such as logistics and administration, will be indefinitely furloughed. The U.S. will temporarily cover the salaries of about 4,500 others whose duties are considered essential, U.S. officials said.  The cost-sharing dispute has caused unusual friction in the 70-year-old alliance that both sides regularly refer to as “ironclad.” The friction is especially ill-timed, coming as the U.S. military fights off the coronavirus and as North Korea test-fires a record number of short-range missiles. During a last-minute push to reach a deal, the head South Korean negotiator, Jeong Eun-bo, said the two sides had reached the “final stages for sealing a deal,” but called the furloughs “regrettable.”FILE – Amphibious assault vehicles of the South Korean Marine Corps travel during a military exercise as a part of the annual joint military training called Foal Eagle between South Korea and the U.S. in Pohang, South Korea, April 5, 2018.“This is an unfortunate day for us. It’s unthinkable. It’s heartbreaking. The partial furlough of [Korean National] employees is not what we envisioned or hoped what would happen,” said General Robert Abrams, the top U.S. commander in Korea. “The furlough is in no way a reflection of their performance, dedication or conduct, but rather due to a lack of a burden sharing agreement making programmed funds unavailable,” Abrams said.  U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded South Korea pay up to $5 billion to support the U.S. military presence — or about five times the amount Seoul paid in 2019. Local media reports suggest the U.S. had recently lowered its demand to $4 billion. Trump accuses South Korea of taking advantage of U.S. protection. He has at times hinted he would support pulling troops from South Korea. At other times, he denies a withdrawal has been discussed.  South Korean officials have rejected Trump’s cost-sharing demands as absurd, noting that any deal will have to be reasonable, since it will have to be ratified by South Korea’s parliament. The issue could become even more politically sensitive ahead of South Korea’s legislative election this month. South Korean officials have warned that the furloughs could impact military readiness.  Camp Humphreys, the main U.S. base in South Korea, is already in partial lockdown after more than a dozen service members, contractors, and other individuals related to the U.S. military in South Korea tested positive for the coronavirus. 
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The United States should be prepared to endure 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the #COVID-19 coronavirus over the next two months even if Americans continue to keep their distance from each other. The peak number of deaths will come over the next two to three weeks, according to the White House coronavirus task force.  “Our country is in the midst of a great national trial unlike any we have faced before,” said U.S. President Donald Trump as the White House on Tuesday formally introduced its extended 30-day social-distancing guidelines based on statistical models.  “This is going to be one of the roughest two or three weeks we’ve ever had in our country,” Trump predicted.  For the most part, the two physicians on the podium with the president and Vice President Mike Pence administered the bitter medicine to the American public.  “This is a number we need to anticipate, but we don’t necessarily have to accept it as inevitable,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, of the anticipated 100,000-plus fatalities.  Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, gestures to a chart as President Donald Trump listens as they speak about the coronavirus in the White House, March 31, 2020, in Washington.“There’s no magic bullet,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, an immunologist who is the response coordinator on the White House’s coronavirus task force. “There’s no magic vaccine or therapy,” just behaviors that can change the course of this viral pandemic.  More than 187,000 people in the United States have been diagnosed with the coronavirus. Total deaths in the country from the disease has exceeded 3,800 (about one-fourth of those in New York City) eclipsing the reported number in China and in excess of the number of lives lost initially in the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001.  The first COVID-19 case in the U.S. was reported in the Western state of Washington on Feb. 29. In this March 27, 2020, photo provided by Office of Governor, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, walks the corridor of a nearly completed makeshift hospital erected by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York.The governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said the apex of his state’s battle against the disease is still 7 to 21 days out. During his daily briefing for the media, which aired live, for the most part, by the country’s three top cable TV news channels, Cuomo continued to express frustration with securing critical supplies for hospital intensive care units. He announced New York has put in an order from China for 17,000 ventilators at a cost of $25,000 each.  Cuomo said states and the federal government are all in competition to secure the breathing machines.  “It’s like being on eBay (an online auction site) with 50 other states bidding on a ventilator,” the governor said. “That’s literally what we’re doing.” Forcing states to compete for critically needed supplies, “doesn’t make sense,” Cuomo added.  About 10,000 ventilators in the federal government’s inventory need to be held back for an anticipated surge in different parts of the country, Trump said.  “We have a reserve right now. It’s like oil reserves, but more valuable,” the president explained.  The chairman of the National Governors’ Association, Larry Hogan of Maryland, told CNN on Tuesday that his counterparts are pushing the federal government to coordinate purchases of scarce items for medical facilities so that states are not competing against each other.  New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, center, walks the practice courts with officials at the USTA Indoor Training Center where a 350-bed temporary hospital will be built March 31, 2020, in New York.Hours later, the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio said he needs an answer “right now” on a request that had been made to the White House for relief medical staff, including 1,000 nurses, 300 respiratory therapists and 150 physicians.   In the afternoon, before the briefing, Trump spoke on the phone with nine executives of top network service providers to thank the companies “for their tireless work to keep Americans connected during this time of social distancing,” said White House spokesman, Judd Deere. “The president thanked these leaders for not only rising to the increased demand but extending services to all Americans at no additional cost and for waiving bills and late fees for those experiencing financial hardship.”  In recent days, the president has adopted a more somber tone about the overall human toll that is going to be caused by the coronavirus in the country. Earlier he had brushed off the disease as nothing worse than the annual waves of influenza and stated, “the cure can’t be worse than the disease,” suggesting he would relax now-extended restrictions so the economy would not be more severely crippled. The president has now pivoted from leaning toward the advice of some on his economic team who advocated loosening the social distancing restrictions to the public health officials – and members of his reelection team – with dire warnings.  Trump this week began publicly warning of the worst-case scenario of more than 2 million Americans dying of the virus if people returned to work and school prematurely. On Tuesday, Trump also suggested a fourth phase spending bill by Congress that would total $2.2 trillion (a similar price tag that was on the third phase), but this legislation, he said, would focus solely on jobs and rebuilding the country’s infrastructure.  “We have a strong dollar. People want to invest in the United States” so “this would be a great time to borrow money at a zero interest rate” to fund fixing roads, highways, tunnels and bridges, Trump said. Democratic congressional leaders have also started work on potential programs for a fourth phase bill, including infrastructure efforts that would put people to work, more money for unemployment benefits and more help for hospitals. Republican leaders, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have been cooler to the idea of more action now.  McConnell said on the Hugh Hewitt radio show Tuesday, “Let’s see how things are going and respond accordingly.” 
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Millions of U.S. workers are losing their jobs in a surge of layoffs as businesses large and small shut their operations amid the coronavirus pandemic.A week ago, nearly 3.3 million workers filed for unemployment benefits. The figure is expected to rise rapidly in the coming weeks, with 40 million people predicted to be unemployed by mid-April.Before the pandemic struck the United States, 5.8 million U.S. workers were unemployed — 3.5% of the workforce of 164.6 million. That figure had changed little in the past six months and was a linchpin of a robust economy.FILE – An empty restaurant is seen in Manhattan borough following the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New York City, March 15, 2020.Now, the world’s largest economy has been hurt by what President Donald Trump describes as the “horrible scourge” of the coronavirus.
On Tuesday, investment banker Goldman Sachs Group forecast a far steeper decline in the U.S. than it had previously, predicting that output of goods and services would plunge by an annualized 34% in the April-to-June period, compared to its earlier estimate of 24%.Goldman Sachs economists said the U.S. jobless rate would soar to 15% by mid-year, an estimate that would leave 25 million workers unemployed. Its earlier estimate was for a 9% jobless rate.James Bullard, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (in the midwestern state of Missouri), predicted the unemployment rate may climb to 30% in the second quarter because of the business shutdowns, with a plunging 50% drop in the gross domestic product.  An estimated 190,000 stores have closed, making that about 50% of retail space. On Monday alone, major retailers Macy’s, Kohl’s and Gap announced that collectively, they are laying off 290,000 workers.  FILE – The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts overlooking the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. (Diaa Bekheet/VOA).In Washington, D.C., the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts furloughed the 96 musicians playing for the National Symphony Orchestra without pay, even though the U.S. Congress just last week approved a $25 million rescue fund for the cultural hub, where all performances have been canceled.Some employers initially said they would continue to pay their workers, but many of those decisions have quickly been scrapped because of uncertainty on how the coronavirus might spread or when the pandemic will end.  Global management consulting firm Mckinsey & Company says a quarter of U.S. households already live from paycheck to paycheck, with 40% of Americans unable to cover an unexpected expense of $400 without borrowing.The $2 trillion rescue package approved by Congress last week and signed into law by Trump calls for enhanced unemployment compensation for laid-off workers. States normally pay jobless workers a fraction of their normal pay, but the national assistance plan will add $600 a week in extra pay for the next four months if workers are unemployed for that length of time.Goldman Sachs economists say they expect a significant recovery in the July-to-September period, with the GDP expanding by 19%.“Our estimates imply that a bit more than half of the near-term output decline is made up by year-end,” they wrote.State governments across a wide swath of the U.S. have ordered millions of Americans to stay home in the coming weeks, except to buy groceries, purchase carry-out food, go to medical appointments or exercise by themselves or with family members.  Such orders have forced many businesses deemed not essential to close their doors, although the term, “essential,” has varied among the 50 states, leading to a patchwork of functioning commerce depending on where one lives. 
 
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The death of a U.S. prisoner in the state of Louisiana is amplifying concerns that COVID-19 could spread unchecked in America’s detention facilities that hold more than two million people nationwide. Health officials and local leaders warn the prison population is especially vulnerable to an outbreak, and that hospitals near prisons would be overwhelmed by any inmate epidemic. VOA’s Chris Simkins reports, some prisons are taking steps in hopes of lessening a looming crisis
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The death of a U.S. prisoner in the state of Louisiana is amplifying concerns that COVID-19 could spread unchecked in America’s detention facilities that hold more than two million people nationwide. Health officials and local leaders warn the prison population is especially vulnerable to an outbreak, and that hospitals near prisons would be overwhelmed by any inmate epidemic. VOA’s Chris Simkins reports, some prisons are taking steps in hopes of lessening a looming crisis.
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From the East Coast to the middle of the country, U.S. governors say the worst is yet to come as the death toll and the number of people infected with the coronavirus increase. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee has the details.
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Huawei’s chairman warned Tuesday that more U.S. moves to increase pressure on the Chinese tech giant might trigger retaliation by Beijing that could damage its worldwide industry.  Huawei Technologies Ltd., which makes smartphones and network equipment, reported that its 2019 sales rose by double digits despite curbs imposed in May on its access to U.S. components and technology. But the chairman, Eric Xu, said 2020 will be its “most difficult year” as Huawei struggles with the sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.  Huawei is at the center of tensions with Washington over technology and possible spying that helped to spark Trump’s tariff war with China in 2018.Xu said he couldn’t confirm news reports President Donald Trump might try to extend controls to block access to foreign-made products that contain U.S. technology. Xu said Huawei can find other sources but warned more American action might trigger Chinese retaliation against American companies.”I think the Chinese government will not just stand by and watch Huawei be slaughtered,” Xu said at a news conference. He said U.S. pressure on foreign suppliers “will be destructive to the global technology ecosystem.”  “If the Chinese government followed through with countermeasures, the impact on the global industry would be astonishing,” Xu said. “It’s not only going to be one company, Huawei, that could be destroyed.”  Huawei, China’s first global tech brand, denies U.S. accusations the company is controlled by the ruling Communist Party or facilitates Chinese spying. The company says it is owned by the 104,572 members of its 194,000-member workforce who are Chinese citizens.Chinese officials say the Trump administration is abusing national security claims to restrain a rival to U.S. tech companies.  Last year’s sales rose 19.1% over 2018 to 858.8 billion yuan ($123 billion), in line with the previous year’s 19.5% gain, the company reported. Profit increased 5.6% to 62.7 billion yuan ($9 billion), decelerating from 2018’s 25% jump.  Huawei has had to spend heavily to replace American components in its products and find new suppliers after Trump approved the sanctions on May 16, Xu said.  The controls, if fully enforced, could cut off access to most U.S. components and technology. Washington has granted extensions for some products, but Huawei says it expects the barriers to be enforced.  The company, the world’s No. 2 smartphone brand behind Samsung, said 2019 handset sales rose 15% to 240 million units.  Xu said it was impossible to forecast this year’s handset sales until the spreading coronavirus pandemic is brought under control.Huawei phones can keep using Google’s popular Android operating system, but the American company is blocked from supplying music and other popular services for future models.  Huawei is creating its own services to replace Google and says its system had 400 million active users in 170 countries by the end of 2019. That requires Huawei to persuade developers to write applications for its new system, a challenge in an industry dominated by Android and Apple’s iOS-based applications.  Huawei hopes Google applications can run on the Chinese company’s system and that its apps can be distributed on the American company’s online store, Xu said.  Huawei also is, along with Sweden’s LM Ericsson and Nokia Corp. of Finland, one of the leading developers of fifth-generation, or 5G, technology. It is meant to expand networks to support self-driving cars, medical equipment and other futuristic applications, which makes the technology more intrusive and politically sensitive.  The Trump administration is lobbying European governments and other U.S. allies to avoid Huawei equipment as they prepare to upgrade to 5G. Australia, Taiwan and some other governments have imposed curbs on use of Huawei technology, but Germany and some other nations say the company will be allowed to bid on contracts.  The company has unveiled its own processor chips and smartphone operating system, which helps to reduce its vulnerability to American export controls. The company issued its first smartphone phone last year based on Huawei chips instead of U.S. technology.  Huawei also is embroiled in legal conflicts with Washington.  Its chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou, who is Ren’s daughter, is being held in Vancouver, Canada, for possible extradition to face U.S. charges related to accusations Huawei violated trade sanctions on Iran.  Separately, U.S. prosecutors have charged Huawei with theft of trade secrets, accusations the company denies.  The company, headquartered in the southern city of Shenzhen, also has filed lawsuits in American courts challenging government attempts to block phone carriers from purchasing its equipment.   
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Don’t wear face masks to fend off the coronavirus, the World Health Organization says. “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” WHO executive director of health emergencies Mike Ryan said Monday. The WHO says the only people who need masks are those who are already sick and those who are caring for the sick. Ryan also cited the global shortage of medical supplies and the risk frontline workers are facing every day. “The thought of them not having masks is horrific,” Ryan said. Although some medical researchers endorse face masks and say effective ones can be homemade, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says they are ineffective in filtering small particles from the air and may not help if an infected person sneezes or coughs nearby.  UN resolutions The U.N. Security Council voted remotely for the first time Monday and approved four resolutions, including one that continues a sanctions monitoring mission for North Korea and another extending the U.N. mission in Somalia.  Council members and staffers have been teleworking for almost three weeks. But some are decrying the new procedures as restrictive and cumbersome and no substitute for meetings and debates.  US death toll The U.S. coronavirus death toll reached a grim record Monday with 486 deaths reported – the biggest one-day number so far with the total number approaching 3,000. President Donald Trump says the number of tests for the virus across the country hit the 1 million mark, which he says is the most of any country. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says U.S. labs are carrying out 100,000 tests a day, which he also says is a global record.President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing with the coronavirus task force, at the White House, Tuesday, March 17, 2020, in Washington.The Pentagon announced Monday that a U.S. National Guardsman, Capt. Douglas Linn Hickok, died Saturday, becoming the first U.S. military member to succumb to the coronavirus.  “This is a stinging loss for our military community, and our condolences go out to his family, friends, civilian co-workers and the entire National Guard community,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said. “The news of this loss strengthens our resolve to work ever more closely with our interagency partners to stop the spread of COVID-19,” he added. California prepares California Governor Gavin Newsom is calling on retired doctors to hang out their shingles again and is also recruiting medical and nursing students to help with an expected surge of coronavirus cases in that state, the nation’s most populous.  “California’s health care workers are the heroes of this moment, serving on the front lines in the fight against this disease. To treat the rising number of patients with COVID-19, our state needs more workers in the health care field to join the fight. If you have a background in health care, we need your help,” Newsom said Monday.  The state’s health agency is preparing stadiums and convention centers to serve as makeshift hospitals.  Pastor arrested Also Monday, a sheriff outside Tampa, Florida arrested a pastor who held services Sunday despite the governor’s orders against gatherings of more than 10 people.  “Shame on this pastor, their legal staff and the leaders of this staff for forcing us to do our job. That’s not what we wanted to do during a declared state of emergency,” Sheriff Chad Chronister said. “We are hopeful that this will be a wakeup call.” Pastor Rodney Howard-Browne said he sanitized his church before the service, calling it an “essential business” like police and firefighters. He also attacked the media for alleged “religious bigotry and hate.” 
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A man who was among the five people stabbed during a Hanukkah celebration north of New York City has died three months after the attack, according to an Orthodox Jewish organization and community liaison with a local police department. Josef Neumann, 72, died Sunday night, the Orthodox Jewish Public Affairs Council said in a tweet. The funeral for Neumann, a father of seven and great-grandfather, is being held Monday. No additional details were provided.  On Dec. 28, an attacker with a machete rushed into a rabbi’s home in an Orthodox Jewish community in Monsey, New York, an ambush Gov. Andrew Cuomo called an act of domestic terrorism fueled by intolerance and a “cancer” of growing hatred in America. Cuomo said in a statement on Monday that he was “deeply saddened” to learn about the death. FILE – David Neumann, center, wipes his eyes as he speaks to reporters in New City, N.Y., Jan. 2, 2020, about his father, Josef Neumann, who was stabbed in an attack on a Hanukkah celebration.”This repugnant attack shook us to our core, demonstrating that we are not immune to the hate-fueled violence that we shamefully see elsewhere in the country,” the governor said. Rabbi Yisroel Kahan, who is the community liaison for the Ramapo Police Department that serves Monsey and executive director of Oizrim Jewish Council, shared the news of Neumann’s passing on his Twitter account as well.  “We were hoping when he started to open his eyes,” Rabbi Yisroel Kahan told The Journal News on Sunday night. “We were hoping and praying he would then pull through. This is so very sad he was killed celebrating Hanukkah with friends just because he was a Jew.” Federal prosecutors said the man charged in the attack, Grafton Thomas, had handwritten journals containing anti-Semitic comments and a swastika and had researched Adolf Hitler’s hatred of Jews online. Thomas’ lawyer and relatives said he has struggled for years with mental illness; they said he was raised in a tolerant home and hadn’t previously shown any animosity toward Jewish people.Thomas was indicted on federal hate crime charges as well as state charges, including attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty. The Hanukkah attack came amid a string of violence that has alarmed Jews in the region. 
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