Category: Aktualności

A teacher greets her students. An imam counsels his congregants. A firefighter reports for duty. New parents take their baby home from the hospital.These are routine moments in the lives of Coloradans. But the coronavirus has transformed the routine into the remarkable, upending how we live and interact with each other.  As a heavy spring snow blanketed the state on Thursday, April 16, journalists from news organizations across Colorado set out to chronicle a day in the life of the state’s residents during this extraordinary time.  It happened that this day was the deadliest to date in the U.S. for the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 4,500 people died. Colorado’s state health department reported 17 more deaths, and that the death toll had hit 374 — a figure that the state would later determine was more than 560, as more reports of COVID-19 victims surfaced.A jogger wears a face mask to protect against the new coronavirus while running through Larimer Square early Saturday, April 25, 2020, in downtown Denver.The statewide order to shut down non-essential businesses — issued a month before to the day — had taken a toll. In that month-long period, more than 231,000 people filed for unemployment, just short of the 285,000 unemployment claims filed in all of 2009 during the height of the great recession.The Colorado stories of April 16 show how much has changed in such a short amount of time. Teachers now instruct students over screens. Doctors speak to patients through masks and face shields. Newborn babies are quarantined from sick parents.But the journalists also chronicled how, even as Colorado stares down uncertainty, death and illness, life goes on. Birthdays are celebrated. Prayers are said.And in what feels like a dark hour, there are moments of hope.___7 a.m.: Venture For Success Preparatory Learning Center, Denver  Dressed in purple scrub pants and a coordinated print top, Catherine Scott started her work day with a spray bottle of bleach solution, wiping down door handles, tables and a laptop keyboard.  Scott is not a health care worker, but a preschool teacher — often tasked with opening the child care center where she works in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood.When children began arriving with their parents, Scott met them at the front door, thermometer in hand. After temperature checks, parents logged their child’s arrival on the laptop, and everybody washed their hands in the sink up front.  Scott, who the youngsters call “Miss Cathy” or “Miss Cappy,” had just three children in her classroom — a 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old — two of them new to the center. It was a far cry from the usual 15 she would have on a day without coronavirus.  After many child care providers closed last month, state officials made a recommendation that caught some by surprise: Stay open, with precautions, to care for the children of working parents.  Scott and her co-teacher recorded morning “circle time” so the video could be posted to a private YouTube channel for children whose parents kept them home. They sang their good morning song in English and Spanish and read the book “Pete the Cat and his Four Groovy Buttons.”  One of the biggest challenges of preschool in the coronavirus era is social distancing. Instead of the usual snuggles and hugs, Scott has switched to distance hugs, air high fives, and pats on the back. One student spontaneously jumped into her lap, then quickly realized her mistake.  “I sorry,” the girl said. “Air high five.”—Ann Schimke, Chalkbeat  ___8 a.m.: COVID-19 unit, St. Joseph Hospital, Denver  Dr. Peter Stubenrauch reviewed patients’ charts with his medical team during morning rounds and once again weighed the tradeoffs of long-term ventilator use.  Patients getting high levels of oxygen usually are placed on their stomach to ease pressure on the lungs. But that leaves them vulnerable to skin damage as they rest on tubes and equipment.  “Unfortunately, it comes down to an intellectual discussion between how sick are their lungs and how worried are you about the skin,” said Stubenrauch, a critical care pulmonologist with National Jewish Health, which staffs and manages the ICU. “But ultimately the skin wounds should recover (and) we need people oxygenating well enough that they’ll hopefully recover from this from a lung standpoint, too.”Nearly every patient in the unit was on a ventilator, that precious piece of equipment that can be the difference between life and death during the coronavirus crisis.The medical guidance on COVID-19 is evolving fast. Stubenrauch said doctors use the “tried and true” approaches to respiratory illness and are eyeing experimental treatments being developed. He recommended that one of his patients be added to a promising drug study. If she’s accepted, she could get the drug or a placebo the research requires. He can’t know.  Consultations with families are done by phone. Discussing life and death matters but not face to-face, with family members who can’t even be together with their loved one, is heartbreaking. And the uncertainty about COVID-19 means preparing families for the worst.”You by no means have any interest in giving up on a patient, particularly someone who came into the intensive care unit relatively recently,” Stubenrauch said. But he must “also set the expectation that we’re observing a lot of patients who remain on mechanical ventilation for prolonged periods of time and can quite suddenly take turns for the worse and pass away.”  By his shift’s end, the news in the unit was brighter. There were no new admissions for the day.—Kelley Griffin, CPR News___9 a.m.: Office in the former Morris Elementary School, YumaThe president of the United States was on the line again.  U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, elected in 2014 as a rising star in the Republican party, joined other senators on a conference call with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. The subject: How to begin reopening America’s economy.  Gardner took the call from a private office in a coworking space carved from the elementary school he attended, and his parents attended before him, in this Eastern Plains town.It’s close enough to his house that he can get there for lunch and, on this day, make chili for dinner.  Later in the day, Gardner spoke to Gov. Jared Polis about a letter they and Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet were sending to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell informing him of Colorado’s needs. He spoke to banking leaders about nagging problems with the federal Paycheck Protection Program. He conducted a pair of TV interviews.”Constant calls,” Gardner said. “There are constant calls, scheduled and unscheduled.”Gardner is up for reelection in November and his seat is considered one of the most vulnerable for Republicans in 2020. His relationship with Trump is central to the campaign, and in recent months the pair have been closely aligned and supportive of each other.Gardner has been speaking regularly with Trump throughout the crisis. He said the president recently called late at night to pick his brain about trying to bring America back to normalcy.”I talk to him about what I’m hearing,” Gardner said of the conversations. “He’s asking, ‘How do you think we should reopen the economy, get out of where we’re at right now?'”—Jesse Paul, Colorado Sun  ___9:10 a.m.: Denver City and County Building  Speaking in a basement room of a mostly quiet City and County building, Denver Mayor Michael Hancock told a dozen Emergency Operations Center staff gathered before him and others watching online that citizens need the safety and security only they can provide.  Denver Mayor Michael Hancock pulls off his mask to speak before red and white lights were illuminated on the City/County Building to show support and gratitude for first responders and medical personnel during the outbreak, April 9, 2020, in Denver.Hancock’s days are filled with meetings. Questions and concerns pile up with each one.  More residents are ignoring the stay-at-home order he put in place through the end of April to control the spread of the virus. How can Denver ease restrictions equitably? Will businesses hurt more if they open at half capacity? Should there be a curfew?  Hancock’s rollout of the stay-at-home order was not smooth. He initially announced that liquor stores and recreational marijuana shops would be closed before reversing course after long lines formed outside of both across the city, undermining social distancing guidance.  The city government, like public agencies across Colorado, faces a dire loss of tax revenue from virus-prompted shutdowns. Hancock, on a conference call with other metro area city leaders, heard of planned furloughs and open positions left dark, which Denver is considering, too.”In every challenge, the people are looking for that group of people who are going to stand up and fight on their behalf,” Hancock said. “We’re the people. We’re the ones.”—Conrad Swanson, The Denver Post  ___11:15 a.m.: Avery Parsons Elementary School, Buena Vista  The vehicles pulled into the parking lot on the west side of the school.  Michelle Cunningham was there in a surgical mask and gloves, greeting parents and students by name and giving them thumbs-up signs and smiles in lieu of high-fives and hugs.  The school counselor has been struck by the volume of families showing up for free meals. Though nearly one-third of the school district’s roughly 1,100 students are eligible for government-subsidized lunches, a measure of poverty, only about 40 children a day typically take advantage, she said. Now the district is handing out 400 meals a day, she said.  “As counselors, we know brains work best when physiological needs are met,” Cunningham said. “Its benefits go beyond food. I’m out where I connect with families. We give them a warm smile, a ‘How are things going?’… It’s a highlight of the kids’ day — a daily field trip to go get your lunch! This check-in connection can make it easier for them to ask for help.”In communities across the country, school buildings closed for learning remain open for meal distribution, extending a social safety net during the crisis. That holds true in Buena Vista, a tourism-dependent community set amid the majestic Collegiate Peaks.With retailers, restaurants, and other small businesses closed, hundreds of families are out of work. Many just received their last paychecks. The virus caused the cancellation of a summer whitewater festival in nearby Salida, part of a $75 million rafting season for the local economy.  Even so, Cunningham said she is proud of how the community has rallied.  “The school board, the business owners, the community leaders, the churches, the school’s lunch ladies … Everyone is stepping up in so many ways to support each other.”—Jan Wondra, Ark Valley Voice  ___Noon: Parking lot of the El Jebel Laundromat, Eagle County  Fabiola Grajales waited for the nose swab that would tell her whether she was finally free of the coronavirus and able to be near her family again.  In one of Colorado’s COVID-19 hotspots, a coalition of Eagle County Public Health, MidValley Family Practice and the Mobile Intercultural Resource Alliance has set up this free mobile testing site. Most patients waiting at the open-sided tent were screened in advance and recommended for the tests after showing symptoms consistent with the coronavirus.  Grajales, 27, a medical assistant at a Glenwood Springs clinic, said she started feeling sick March 2 and tested positive for the virus March 6. Over the next week, her cough worsened and she experienced shortness of breath.  “You know when you step on dry leaves? I could hear that sound coming from my lungs.”  “You get really bad headaches,” Grajales continued. “You feel like your eyes, they’re going to pop out. I couldn’t smell or taste anything.”  Doctors at Grand River Hospital in Rifle confirmed she had pneumonia and treated her there but didn’t admit her, she said.She self-isolated for 10 days before symptoms disappeared. But a follow-up test showed she still had coronavirus. After more rest, Grajales felt “90% better, maybe 95,” she said.  Waiting her turn for yet another test, Grajales said the knowledge and contacts she’s gained working in health care helped her acquire tests and treatment, with some effort.”It was hard for me,” she said. “I can’t imagine how hard it would be for other people.”She would need to wait a bit longer to learn whether she was finally well.  —Scott Condon, The Aspen Times___12:20 p.m., St. Joseph Hospital emergency room, DenverIt was another quiet day in the E.R., and the nurses gathered as they do every afternoon to discuss adjusting their schedules. This is a ripple effect of the pandemic: While parts of the health care system are stretched to the limit, emergency rooms are less busy.”Not gonna lie,” said Dr. Ramnik Dhaliwal, who started his shift at 8. “A little bit bored today.”  More people than ever before are staying home, which means fewer accidents and injuries, Dhaliwal said. He had a patient who suffered a heart attack at home and didn’t go to the ER for three days. He said it’s part messaging — people heeding calls to avoid the hospital unless it’s a true emergency — but also fear of contracting the virus at the hospital.Like all health care professionals, Dhaliwal wears personal protective equipment, or PPE. That means scrubs, a mask, protective glasses and a scrub hat. He understands the need, but he’s bothered that it takes away from the personal nature of his interactions with patients.  “Hopefully this doesn’t stay like this forever,” he said. “Just waiting for that vaccine.”  The slower traffic to the E.R. compounds the financial pressures facing health-care providers. To make sure resources are adequate to battle the virus, hospitals in Colorado and nationwide have postponed elective medicine including non-emergency surgeries and procedures.  The meeting of the nursing staff ended with the decision to send some home early.  —Claire Cleveland, CPR News  ___1:30 p.m.: Self-storage locker, Grand Junction  The self-storage yard was empty when Dawna Numbers arrived.  The rain had paused, so the 48-year-old moved quickly to load her clothes in plastic bags into the back of her red Kia for the long journey on a mostly empty interstate.With no money for rent, Numbers was headed for her mother’s house on the Front Range.Numbers has been out of work since March 25, when the coronavirus outbreak eliminated her night shift job at a fishing-line factory in Grand Junction. Like many Americans, she had tried fruitlessly to file for unemployment benefits. The state unemployment office had been slammed with more than 231,,000 new claims in the last month, slowing services to a crawl.Numbers had taken the night job so she could attend physical therapy appointments during the day. She’s worked in the past as a utility locator, a caregiver, and a Lyft driver. She had few options in Grand Junction. Many employers are shut down because of the virus.”I’ve never just felt so alone,” she said. Maybe this crisis would bring out something better in people, she hoped. Maybe she’d have better luck in Denver.”We just need to do the best we can and hopefully this ends soon and somehow we can go back to some kind of normal life,” she said. “Or hopefully better than it was before.”—Andrew Kenney, CPR News___2 p.m.: On the road from Steamboat Springs to Oak Creek  Nolan Christopher Dreher’s parents tucked him into his car seat in the back of their Toyota Highlander and drove snowy roads from Steamboat Springs to their home in Oak Creek. Nolan, cozy in a white onesie with bears on it, was two days old and on his way to meet his brothers.Lauren Dreher was hoping she had been careful enough, that the nurses and doctors and the woman who came in her hospital room to take out the trash were not infected with the virus.”At the end of the day you have to know that you did everything you could do,” she said. “I’m just hoping that that’s enough. I was trying so hard not to touch my face. You’re in labor and you brush your hair out of your face and wipe your brow.”What a weird time to bring a new human into the world, she thought. Will Nolan get a vaccine to protect him against the new coronavirus? What if social norms change so much that her third son never knows a world where people shake hands?Dreher, who had a complicated second pregnancy, planned to give birth to Nolan in Denver with an at-risk pregnancy specialist. She changed her mind as she watched the number of COVID-19 cases climb in the city. Plus, UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center isn’t nearly as busy.”It was just kind of eerie how quiet it was,” Dreher said. Adding to that surreal feeling was the fact that “everyone you came into contact with was wearing a mask, from the security guard to the nurses and doctors.” Dreher’s delivery team wore N95 masks and face shields.  She was allowed one visitor: her husband, Christopher.The Drehers are both furloughed. Lauren works for an orthodontist, and Christopher works at a French restaurant in Steamboat. They are trying to look at the bright side — more time with their new baby and sons Calvin, 6, and Landon, 4.  By late afternoon all were back in their warm home with a fresh blanket of snow outside, the first time together as a family of five.—Jennifer Brown, Colorado Sun  ___2:30 p.m.: Home of Arapahoe County coroner Dr. Kelly Lear, CentennialArapahoe County coroner Dr. Kelly Lear was at home, in jeans and a turtleneck instead of her usual scrubs, handling the administrative tasks that go along with the job since she and her fellow pathologist must stagger days in the office to maintain social distancing.But she was thinking about a case from early February: The death of a man in his 40s who had been seemingly healthy — with no serious pre-existing medical conditions – before falling ill with a cough a few weeks earlier. When she examined him then in the sterile autopsy room at the coroner’s office, she discovered lungs ravaged by an infection.More than two months later, Lear was still searching for answers to why the man died.The forensic pathologist suspected a virus and had ordered tests to prove it. The results came in mid-March. No flu. No other viruses. Nothing pinpointing what attacked his lungs.”I was basically ready to sign his death certificate as severe lung disease – unknown infection,” she said.But emerging news of the novel coronavirus got her thinking.”He showed all the symptoms and had very severe lung disease – and it looked at autopsy like what we are hearing, you know, COVID-19 lungs look like,” Lear said.A week later, Lear got the results of specimens she sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The man’s test was negative.—Kevin Vaughan, 9NEWS___4:44 p.m.: Masjid Al-Shuhada, downtown Denver  In a building that can hold up to 200 praying together, Imam Muhammad Kolila was alone as he prayed the Salat al-‘asr, one of Islam’s five daily prayers.”One of the things I really miss about community, before coronavirus, is that sense of belonging and that sense of human, physical interactions,” he said afterward. “If we have good intentions, and we lack all the resources and we do our best to pray and make sure we pray in a group, we get the same reward as we would as if we pray in the mosque. And that’s one of the things I’m trying to highlight.”Kolila has highlighted such teachings online. Like religious leaders of all faith traditions, Kolila has been streaming services — in his case, since March 16 — to provide spiritual direction at a trying time and keep his congregation connected as best he can.”One of the main objectives and one of the main missions of this mosque is to provide a safe space for people to come and pray, and connect with God, but right now we cannot create that safe space—physically,” he said. “This is why our biggest challenge is to create the space virtually.”  In addition to providing spiritual guidance digitally, Kolila has helped members in need. He regularly delivers food, supplies and money to members. The Muslim holy month of Ramadan was about to begin, providing another test for the imam and his temporarily virtual congregation.  The easing of stay-at-home orders will raise additional questions for Masjid Al-Shuhada and other places of worship: What does praying together look like in the new normal of 2020?—Victoria Carodine, 5280  ___5 p.m.: Fire Station 52, Brighton  Capt. Colin Brunt climbed into Brighton Fire Rescue Tower 51, a 46-foot long fire truck with a ladder. Trailed by his colleagues in Engine 52, Brunt traveled to Bason Kramer’s house to wish the 5-year-old a happy birthday. When they arrived, the crews switched on their lights and honked their horns while a firefighter stepped out to hand the boy a certificate.  This was not a typical day for the Brighton Fire Department, but it was a welcome one.  Since COVID-19 began to spread, Brunt has worked six 48-hour rotations. Each day of every rotation, he’s responded to multiple COVID-19 medical calls.When his six-person firefighter and EMS team shows up to a house with a presumed positive case, a paramedic enters the house for reconnaissance while Brunt and his team prepare an ambulance for the patient by wrapping the inside of the cabin with thick plastic.  Before the birthday party, Brunt’s unit extinguished a car fire, helped out on a call of a tractor-trailer hanging off the side of a highway and responded to a fire alarm. Brunt took a mask and worries about exposure to the coronavirus.”That’s our worst-case scenario that goes through all of our heads, bringing something back to our family,” said Brunt, who is married and has two daughters in kindergarten.  Birthday drive-bys — which more fire departments are doing to lift the spirits of isolated children — and other non-coronavirus calls were a nice change. “It’s a morale booster,” Brunt said.—Liam Adams, MetroWest newspapers  ___6:30 p.m.: home of Cat and Zach Garcia, Aurora  Cat Garcia had been waiting for the call from the nurses at the neonatal intensive care unit, hoping to hear good news about her baby twin boys she had yet to meet.  Three weeks earlier, she lay in St. Joseph Hospital about to undergo an emergency cesarean section. Garcia wasn’t due for another six weeks but her doctors felt like they had little choice: She had tested positive for COVID-19, had pneumonia, and was having difficulty breathing.  Bright lights filled the room. Doctors and nurses were covered from head to toe in PPE. The drugs began to take hold, and everything went dark.  When Garcia woke up, she had a breathing tube in her mouth. A nurse held up her phone to show pictures of her newborn sons, Kal and Bruce. It was the closest she was going to get to them.Her husband, Zach, who works for the Transportation Security Administration at Denver International Airport, had begun to show symptoms of COVID-19 on March 19. Cat Garcia developed a violent cough not long after, and the couple were suddenly facing the prospect of becoming parents in frightening times.Released from the hospital while Kal and Bruce gained strength in the NICU, Garcia returned home. She pumped milk and unpacked baby clothes while hoping for good news.  When the call came, the news wasn’t good. The twins — both of whom have tested negative for the coronavirus — still weren’t feeding well enough. Watching them on the NICU webcam would have to be good enough for a while longer.”We haven’t been able to hold them or see them,” Garcia said.  Three days later, the twins were sleeping in car seats on their way home, dressed in matching powder-blue pajamas and hooked up to oxygen to help them breathe.  —Adilene Guajardo, Denver 7___11:30 p.m.: Dr. Mercedes Rincon’s home office, Aurora  For nearly three decades, Dr. Mercedes Rincon has studied a molecule so obscure and unremarkable that even her colleagues tease her about it.The Spanish-born professor in the University of Colorado’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology was doing postdoctoral work at Yale when she stumbled upon an article about interleukin-6, or IL-6.She became fascinated with the molecule commonly produced in inflammation, which is familiar to arthritis and cancer researchers searching for treatments.When the coronavirus began wreaking havoc on human lungs, Rincon saw a familiar microscopic face in the mix: IL-6 is consistently present in the lungs of the most severely affected patients.  Whether IL-6 is a cause or a consequence of the coronavirus, Rincon isn’t sure. But she hypothesizes that drugs like tocilizumab, traditionally used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, could possibly target IL-6 and prevent it from producing more damaging inflammatory molecules.Early results from studies in China, as well as research in Europe and at the University of Vermont, show some promise.  “We can’t conclude anything yet,” she cautioned. “We have to be careful. We need more data.”With the clock approaching midnight, a long day coming to a close, Rincon got to work crafting a grant proposal. She wants the University of Colorado to be at the forefront of this research.With a little funding and a little luck, Rincon and her obscure molecule might just provide Coloradans — and the rest of the world — with a reason to hope. 
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The billions of dollars in coronavirus relief targeted at small businesses may not prevent many of them from ending up in bankruptcy court.Business filings under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law rose sharply in March, and attorneys who work with struggling companies are seeing signs that more owners are contemplating the possibility of bankruptcy.  Companies forced to close or curtail business due to government attempts to stop the virus’s spread have mounting debts and uncertain prospects for returning to normal operations. Even those owners receiving emergency loans and grants aren’t sure that help will be enough.  The most vulnerable companies include the thousands of restaurants and retailers that shut down, many of them more than a month ago. Some restaurants have managed to bring in a bit of revenue by serving meals for takeout and delivery, but even they are struggling financially. Small and independent retailers, including those with online stores. are similarly at risk; clothing retailers have the added problem of winter inventory that they are unlikely to sell with spring here and summer approaching.Independent oil companies whose revenue was slammed by the collapse in energy prices also are strapped, as are other companies that were already burdened with high debt levels before the virus struck.Jennifer Bennett, who closed one of her San Francisco restaurants on Wednesday, was still waiting for the financial aid she sought from the federal, state and city governments. Even with the money, she doesn’t know if the revenue will cover the bills when she’s finally able to reopen Zazie — especially if she’s required to space tables six feet apart for social distancing.”Our occupancy is going to be cut 60% to 65%,” Bennett says. “I fear bankruptcy is a possibility.”Other small companies have similar anxieties, says Paul Singerman, a bankruptcy attorney with Berger Singerman in Miami.  “There is no reliable visibility into when business operations will be able to resume the pre-COVID normal,” Singerman says.  Even larger companies are in trouble, including already struggling retailers who had to shut their stores.  The jeans company True Religion filed for Chapter 11 earlier this month, saying extended closures of its stores in the pandemic have hurt its business. Recent reports say department store chains Neiman Marcus and J.C. Penney, which has struggled for years with slumping sales, could soon file for bankruptcy protection.  The number of Chapter 11 filings rose 18 percent in March from a year earlier, a dramatic swing from the 20 percent decrease in February, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute, a trade organization for attorneys and other professionals involved in bankruptcy proceedings. The numbers don’t break out filings by company size, but given that the vast majority of companies are small to mid-size, it does give an indication that smaller companies are struggling.The federal government has already approved or given out more than 2 million loans and grants to small businesses totaling nearly $360 billion; another $310 billion is on the way to one of the programs. Still, the money may be at best a stopgap for companies with little to no revenue coming in. And the new funds are expected to go so quickly that thousands of owners won’t get loans.There’s no way to predict how many companies will file for bankruptcy. There were over 160,000 bankruptcy filings from 2008 to 2010, during the Great Recession and its aftermath, according to statistics compiled by the federal court system. The numbers don’t break out filings by company size. The majority were for liquidations. although some companies restructured their debt and continued operating under Chapter 11.  Many companies, however, just shut their doors, and that’s likely to be the case again, Singerman says. According to some estimates, 170,000 companies failed during the recession.But the Small Business Reorganization Act, which took effect in February, may encourage more companies to seek Chapter 11. The law is aimed at allowing owners to retain their ownership rather than lose their companies to their creditors; that is generally what happens in Chapter 11. The law also streamlines the reorganization process so a company is not wiped out by attorneys’ fees, says Edward Janger, a professor at Brooklyn Law School in New York whose expertise includes bankruptcy law.Another change under the law is that a bankruptcy judge can approve the reorganization over creditors’ objections, Janger says.  Business owners will try to avoid bankruptcy by seeking leniency from landlords, lenders and vendors, bankruptcy attorney David Wander says. But with their companies’ financial troubles beyond their control because of the virus outbreak, many will file for Chapter 11 because the stigma that bankruptcy has long held will be gone, says Wander, a partner at Davidoff Hutcher & Citron in New York.  “The tsunami is going to happen in the coming months and it’s going to be ongoing,” Wander says. 
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With limited supplies of coronavirus tests available, the Pentagon is focusing first on testing those performing duties deemed most vital to national security. Atop the list are the men and women who operate the nation’s nuclear forces, some counterterrorism forces, and the crew of a soon-to-deploy aircraft carrier.Defense leaders hope to increase testing from the current rate of about 7,000 a day to 60,000 by June. This will enable them to test those showing symptoms as well as those who do not.The current tight supply forced the Pentagon to take a phased approach, which includes testing sailors aboard the USS Nimitz, the Bremerton, Washington-based Navy carrier next in line to head to the Pacific. Officials hope to avoid a repeat of problems that plagued the virus-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt. On Friday the Navy disclosed a virus outbreak aboard another ship at sea, the USS Kidd.Despite President Donald Trump’s assertion that testing capacity is not an issue in the United States, Pentagon officials don’t expect to have enough tests for all service members until sometime this summer.Defense Secretary Mark Esper recently approved the tiered approach. It expands the Pentagon’s practice of testing mainly those who show symptoms of the virus to eventually testing everyone. Many virus carriers show no symptoms but can be contagious, as was discovered aboard the Roosevelt.The aim is to allocate testing materials to protect what the military considers its most important missions, while not depleting supplies for high-risk groups in the civilian population, including the elderly at nursing homes and health care professionals on the front lines of battling the virus.The first tier of U.S. troops are being tested this month, followed in May and June by the second-highest priority group: forces in combat zones such as Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Next will be those abroad outside of war zones, like troops in Europe and aboard ships at sea, as well as those returning to the United States from overseas deployments.Last in line: the remainder of the force.Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first three groups could be fully tested by June. By then the Pentagon hopes to reach its goal of being able to conduct 60,000 tests per day. To complete testing of the entire force will take “into the summer,” he said without being specific.Hyten said that testing under this tiered approach started to step up in mid-April, and that it included a plan to fully test the crew of the Nimitz. The complications that come with trying to test for coronavirus aboard a ship while it’s already underway were made clear with the Roosevelt, which pulled into port at Guam in late March after discovering its first infections. It wasn’t able to test 100% of the crew until a few days ago.Beyond its desire to limit the spread of the virus, the Pentagon views testing and associated measures such as isolating and quarantining troops as tools to keep the force viable and to ensure it can perform its central function: to defend the nation. At least 3,900 members of the military had tested positive, including more than 850 from the Roosevelt.Military members, being fitter and younger than the general U.S. population, are thought to be less vulnerable to COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. So far only two military members have died from it.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.The military’s staggered approach to testing is necessary, officials said, because of limited supplies and incomplete knowledge about the virus.”It is a supply issue right now, which is causing us not to be able to go down the full spectrum of all of the forces,” Hyten said. “So we’ll have to — that’s why we came up with the tiered approach.”Keeping coronavirus out of the nuclear force has been a high priority from the earliest days of this crisis. There are several reasons for that, including the Pentagon’s view that operating those forces 24/7 is central to deterring an attack on the United States. Also, there are limited numbers of military personnel certified to perform those missions, which include controlling Minuteman 3 intercontinental ballistic missiles from cramped underground modules and operating nuclear-armed Ohio-class submarines.Since early in the outbreak crisis, Minuteman 3 launch officers have been operating in the missile fields for 14 days at a time, an extraordinary arrangement for personnel who for years had done 24-hour shifts and then returned to base.Gen. David Goldfein, the Air Force chief of staff, said Wednesday there are no COVID-positive cases in the nuclear force. That’s a “no fail” mission, he said, that will have to work around the virus indefinitely.Other first-tier forces, Goldfein said, are elements of the new Space Force, including those who operate Global Positioning System navigation satellites as well as the satellites that would provide early warning of a missile attack on the United States or its allies.The Air Force and the other services are prioritizing testing in their own ranks, he said, “to make sure that as test kits become available, we’re able to put them where they are most needed.”Goldfein said the military understands that the limited national supply of test kits means it cannot have all that it would like.”One of the top priorities right now across the nation is nursing homes,” he said. “I would not want to take tests away from that top national priority for my younger and healthier force. As tests become available, we’ve tiered them out and we know where we need to put them.” 
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Jamon Jordan could not mourn his mother in the traditional way. At Jacquelynne Jordan’s memorial in early April, there were just seven people. No hugs. No traditional dinner where family members could gather to honor the 66-year-old matriarch’s memory.That stripped-down scenario has played out hundreds of times in Detroit — 912 to be exact, the number of city residents who have died of COVID-19.So amid the pandemic, Detroit — the nation’s largest black city, the birthplace of distinctive soulful music and black cultural significance — grieves collectively. Famed across the world as Motown, Detroiters know it as a big city with a small-town feel, with a connectivity that has only magnified the community’s pain. “People always say that Detroit is like a northern country town,” said Marsha Battle Philpot, a cultural writer known as Marsha Music. “There tends to be very closely knit familial connections. In Detroit, there’s not six degrees of separation — there are only two and, most of the time, just one. Detroit has this character, which in a time like this, exacerbates the grief and the loss. But it will also be part of the recovery because Detroit is a fighting town.” The virus has disproportionately impacted black Americans across the country, including Detroit, where more than 8,500 infections have been reported, with black people accounting for more than 64% of them. And nearly 77% of the city’s residents who have died from coronavirus-related complications have been African American. The losses have shattered the city, compounded by a heightened economic uncertainty. Among those lost: community pillars, dedicated public servants and Michigan’s youngest victim, 5-year-old Skylar Herbert, whose parents, LaVondria and Ebbie Herbert, have served Detroit for decades — as a police officer and a firefighter. “They’ve been on the front line and they’ve served with honor and integrity,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said after Skylar’s death. “They did not deserve to lose their child to this virus. Nobody does.”’ Jamon Jordan, who runs the Black Scroll Network History and Tours company in Detroit, contracted COVID-19 himself, most likely while giving tours in early March. While he was battling the virus, his mother also fell ill. Despite his mother having existing health conditions, he said they both struggled to convince doctors they needed to be tested and were told not to come to the hospital and instead self-quarantine for two weeks. Jordan got better; his mother grew sicker. She died March 28. “She did not make it to two weeks,” Jordan said. “She was brought in by ambulance and, within an hour of arriving to the hospital, she had already passed away. I made it, but she didn’t.” And then her family could safely offer only an abbreviated farewell. “In the African American community, homegoing celebrations, funerals, are just a part of a very spiritual experience that allows family and the community to move this ancestor onto the afterlife,” said Jordan, a black historian. “It’s a part of a communal practice that goes all the way back to our African roots. “It’s a blow to this culture, our practices, our traditions, that we can’t really say goodbye,” he said. “When this is over, there are things that will not exist in our community, there are ideas that we will never see come to fruition. Detroit will be different.” Tributes cascade in every day on a Facebook COVID-19 group memorial page created by Michigan State Rep. Sherry Gay-Dagnogo. Just weeks after she started it, Gay-Dagnogo’s own sister became one of hundreds honored on the page. Julena Gay was Gay-Dagnogo’s backbone, everything a sister should be. She died April 14 at the age of 63. “This type of collective loss, it’s profound,” Gay-Dagnogo said. “There’s a fear of ‘am I next?’ I started this page because people need to get beyond the thought that black people aren’t dying — they’re dying in record numbers.” Beyond the grief lies deep economic pain. Despite gains in recent years, including the city emerging from bankruptcy, swaths of neighborhoods remain blighted and 33% of Detroit residents live below the poverty line. And city leaders announced this month that the pandemic has created a projected $348 million budget deficit. A poll shared exclusively with The Associated Press, conducted in early April by the University of Michigan’s Detroit Metro Area Communities Study, found 35% of Detroiters employed full time or part time before March 1 have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic. The study surveyed 1,020 residents across demographics. Jeffrey Morenoff, one of the study’s faculty research leads and director of the university’s Population Studies Center, said roughly 1 in 5 Detroiters say they will run out of money in three months. And research associate Lydia Wileden said the survey also found 49% of black residents are concerned about access to food, water and other supplies and 42% said they wouldn’t be able to afford a $400 emergency expense. For now, the focus is on how to help the city survive the widening ripples of devastating loss. “There’s going to be an aftermath of this, not only physically, socially, spiritually but also, mentally,” said Bishop Edgar Vann, who has been senior pastor of Detroit’s Second Ebenezer Church for 45 years. “It’s going to be difficult whenever you reopen because the norms that we had will be old and shattered. But there is a uniqueness about the city and, of course, one of them is the population being 80% African American. There is a certain spirit here, there’s a grit, toughness and resilience.”  
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The United States has again demanded that Afghanistan’s feuding leaders and the Taliban insurgency set internal disputes aside and cease armed violence to focus on combating the coronavirus pandemic. American peace envoy to the country, Zalmay Khalilzad, made the call Sunday through a series of tweets to wish Afghans a happy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.  “The well-being of the Afghan people and the country itself depend on all parties devoting their full energies to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, the shared enemy of all,” Khalilzad emphasized. To all those who celebrate, Ramadan Kareem, Ramadan Mubarak, Happy Ramadan!The opportunity to reflect and think of others in these unprecedented times is a blessing.— U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) April 26, 2020At least 50 people have died out of 1,500 people who contracted the coronavirus in Afghanistan and the number of infections continues to spread in a country where decades of war has left an already underdeveloped public health system in shambles.Khalilzad said that Ramadan, which began on Friday, offered Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his political rival, Abdullah Abdullah “the opportunity to put the interest of the country ahead of their own.”  
Both the rival leaders claim to have won the September 28 presidential election and held competing inauguration ceremonies last month. The political crisis paralyzed national governance just when a U.S. negotiated peace-building agreement with the Taliban had raised hopes for finding a negotiated end to years of hostilities in Afghanistan.  
“Similarly, Ramadan offers the Taliban an opportunity to embrace a humanitarian ceasefire to reduce violence and suspend offensive military operations until the health crisis is over,” Khalilzad stressed.  Similarly, Ramadan offers the Taliban an opportunity to embrace a humanitarian ceasefire to reduce violence and suspend offensive military operations until the health crisis is over.— U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad (@US4AfghanPeace) April 26, 2020
But the Islamist insurgent group in a statement Sunday again rejected domestic and international calls for reducing violence or declaring a ceasefire during Ramadan.  Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid insisted the implementation of its February 29th U.S. troop withdrawal agreement with Washington was the “sole path” toward ending their nearly 19-year-old war and establishing peace in Afghanistan.  FILE – Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the leader of the Taliban delegation, and Zalmay Khalilzad shake hands after signing an agreement at a ceremony between members of Afghanistan’s Taliban and the U.S. in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 29, 2020.Mujahid noted the deal signed in February had required both sides to release thousands of prisoners within ten days of the signing ceremony to lay the ground for Afghan warring sides to negotiate a political settlement to the conflict.“Intra-Afghan negotiations itself would have laid the groundwork for peace, security and end of hostilities and perhaps we would have made major progress on it till now,” Mujahid said. The dialogue was supposed to open on March 10. The Taliban spokesman, however, accused the U.S.-backed Afghan government, which was not part of the pact, of creating hurdles in the way of implementation of the deal from the outset and using delaying tactics on the prisoner swap issue. He went on to also accuse American and NATO troops of violating the agreement, saying the alliance continues to provide weapons and ammunition to the Afghan government to fuel the conflict. “Demanding a ceasefire and reduction in violence at a time when the opposite side is not executing its own obligations is both illogical and opportunistic,” Mujahid said. The U.S. military denies insurgent charges of deal violations and maintains the agreement binds it to support Afghan forces if attacked. U.S. military spokesman Col. Sonny Leggett tweeted Sunday it “is committed to our support for ANDSF [Afghan National Defense Security Force] and we continue to work together despite COVID-19.” 
The U.S.-Taliban agreement called for the release of up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners, and 1,000 Afghan government personnel held by the insurgent group by March 10, when the two rivals were supposed to open direct peace talks.  But the Ghani government has to date rebased 550 insurgent inmates as part its own plan, subject to a reduction in Taliban violence and the opening of peace talks. The Taliban has responded by freeing 60 Afghan security forces, though Kabul says most of the released men were non-combatants. In his Sunday statement, Khalilzad also urged both sides to accelerate the release of prisoners. “The war on COVID-19 makes it urgent and will also aid the peace process including getting intra-Afghan negotiations underway,” he noted.   
While the Taliban insists it is living up to its side of the agreement, the insurgents have in recent days carried out major attacks against Afghan security forces, killing more than 100 of them just in the past week. 
 Afghan officials have also accused the Taliban of killing or injuring up to 800 civilians during this period, charges Taliban officials have denied.   
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New Yorkers will soon be able to go to their local pharmacies for COVID-19 testing, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday.Cuomo said 5,000 pharmacies will be allowed to conduct the tests, with the goal of carrying out 40,000 tests each day.In addition, front line health care workers at four New York City hospitals will receive antibody testing for the virus, the governor said.New York is the epicenter of the virus outbreak in United States.  The virus death toll in New York City represents about a third of the country’s nearly 54,000 fatalities.The World Health Organization warned Saturday there is “no evidence” that recovered COVID-19 patients with antibodies are immune to a second coronavirus infection.The WHO issued the warning in a scientific brief as it confirmed cases of coronavirus worldwide topped 2.8 million.  Worldwide fatalities have now exceeded 200,000, according to statistics from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.  Johns Hopkins said early Sunday the global death tally was 203,043.”Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an ‘immunity passport’ or ‘risk-free certificate’ that would enable individuals to travel or to return to work assuming that they are protected against re-infection,” the WHO said.A man collect supplies over barbed wire in the coronavirus locked down area of Selayang Baru, outside of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on April 26, 2020.”There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection,” it added.Chile said last week it would start distributing “health passports” to people who were considered recovered patients, allowing them to return to their jobs. Before receiving passports, they were screened to determine if they have developed antibodies.Other countries are also taking action to reopen their economies, even amid fears of new outbreaks.Iran, the hardest-hit country in the Middle East, warned Saturday of a “fresh outbreak” at the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.Iran’s ministry of infectious diseases said there are “signs of a fresh outbreak” in northern and central provinces “where we made great efforts to control the epidemic.”The warning came after Iran began reopening businesses that had been closed on April 11 due to the virus.Other countries are moving ahead with plans to ease travel restrictions and reopen businesses to jump-start their economies, including the U.S., the world leader by far in reported coronavirus infections and fatalities.The southeastern U.S. state of Georgia has become the center of debate about when to lift lockdown orders that have kept hundreds of millions of people at home.Friday, Georgia became the first U.S. state to launch a widespread reopening effort, allowing some nonessential businesses to reopen “on a limited basis.” The businesses were permitted to reopen their doors before the state’s monthlong shutdown is lifted on April 30, despite warnings from some elected officials in the state that the action could spark a new surge in coronavirus infections.Oklahoma also allowed some retail business to reopen Friday, and Florida opened some of its beaches to visitors a week ago. South Carolina eased some restrictions on Monday, and other states plan to relax guidelines next week.While U.S. President Donald Trump voiced opposition to Georgia’s reopening after initially supporting it, he has pushed to reopen the U.S. economy sooner than most health experts recommend.Venezuelan BMX racer Stefany Hernandez wears a mask rides her bicycle on Bolivar Avenue in Caracas, Venezuela, on April 25, 2020.The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus in the U.S. will last through next year, as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the financial health of countries around the world.The nonpartisan agency said the U.S. budget deficit will nearly quadruple from $1 trillion to $3.7 trillion this year and the unemployment rate would soar from 3.5 percent in February to 16 percent in September. The CBO predicted that unemployment would fall after September but would remain in double digits through 2021.The report intensifies pressure on the Trump administration as it tries to balance concerns over the ballooning federal deficit with the provision of stimulus money to offset the outbreak’s economic effects.Trump signed a $484 billion relief package Friday for small-business loans and to help hospitals expand COVID-19 testing. The money is part of more than $3 trillion the U.S. government has spent to boost the economy.Trump did not hold his daily coronavirus briefing Saturday.  He posted on Twitter that it was “not worth the time & effort.” He said, “What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately.”Reporters have repeatedly questioned the president about his suggestion that the coronavirus could possibly be cured by ingesting household cleaners, a position that has been roundly denounced by public health officials and manufacturers of the cleansers.The coronavirus has had a devastating effect on the global economy, but the International Monetary Fund and other organizations warn that developing countries will be the worst hit.The United Nations food agency projects that some 265 million people could experience acute hunger this year, twice as many as last year. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments to ensure health care is available to all people and that economic aid packages help those most affected.An isolated resident caresses Venezuelan doctor Diego Padron’s face as he examines her at an elderly people nursing home in Madrid, Spain, on April 24, 2020.In Spain, second to the U.S. in reported confirmed cases, more of its health care workers have been infected with COVID-19 than anywhere else in the world, according to a new report.A report by the European Center for Disease Control said about 18 percent of the 205,905 coronavirus cases in Spain were confirmed among its health care workers. The report found that 10 percent of Italy’s cases and 3 percent of the U.S. cases were detected in those who work in the medical field.Spain’s Medical Colleges Organization said the high rate of infections in health care workers is due to the lack of “essential safety measures.”Spain has seen the number of recovered cases outnumber new infections in recent days, and the government announced Saturday that children under 14 will be allowed to go outdoors Sunday for the first time since March 15.The G-20 called Friday on “all countries, international organizations, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and individuals” to contribute to its funding efforts to fight COVID-19, setting an $8 billion goal.The G-20, an international forum for the governments and central bank governors of 19 nations and the European Union, said it had previously raised $1.9 billion. Saudi Arabia, the current holder of the G-20 presidency, contributed $500 million.The U.S. has more than 907,000 COVID-19 cases, nearly one-third of the world’s reported total. There have also been more coronavirus deaths reported in the U.S. than any other country.  
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Ulises García went from being a waiter to working at a laundromat. Yelitza Esteva used to do manicures and now delivers groceries. Maribel Torres swapped cleaning homes for sewing masks.  The coronavirus pandemic has devastated sectors of the economy dominated by immigrant labor: Restaurants, hotels, office cleaning services, in-home childcare and hair and nail salons, among others, have seen businesses shuttered as nonessential. The Migration Policy Institute found that 20% of the U.S. workers in vulnerable industries facing layoffs are immigrants, even though they only make up 17% of the civilian workforce.  And some of those immigrants, those without social security numbers, are unable to access any of the $2.2 trillion package that Congress approved to offer financial help during the pandemic. The economic meltdown has forced many immigrants to branch out to new jobs or adapt skills to meet new demands generated by the virus. Those immigrants who are able to find new jobs say the possibility of catching the virus makes them nervous. “I wonder sometimes if I should quit because I don’t feel comfortable working, when the virus is everywhere,” said García, a former waiter who now works at the laundromat in Brooklyn selling detergent, bleach or fabric softener. “The problem is that no one knows for how long this will last,” he added.  For Venezuelan immigrant Yelizta Esteva there was no option other than to work after she lost the $2,100-per-month salary she earned at a Miami hair salon. Her husband also lost his job at a house remodeling company. Besides rent and bills, they send money to at least seven family members in Venezuela. “I was terrified. I was left with nothing,” said the 51-year-old immigrant, who left Venezuela in 2015 to seek asylum. Now, Esteva and her husband work for the grocery delivery service Instacart and make an average of $150 per day, working more than 12 hours daily. “I am very, very fearful,” said Esteva, who applies anti-bacterial lotion constantly while shopping at the supermarkets. “I trust God, who is protecting us.”  Most green-card holders can benefit from unemployment insurance and from the economic stimulus package. Some immigrants on a temporary work permit, like those applying for asylum, can also get unemployment insurance and the new relief checks. Immigrants in the country illegally can’t access the stimulus help or unemployment benefits even if they pay taxes. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, announced that his state will give cash to immigrants living in the country illegally who are hurt by the coronavirus, offering $500 apiece to 150,000 adults.  Some cities in the country are pushing similar efforts: Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, have both set up bridge funds that are open regardless of immigration status. Austin, Texas, has a fund that will be used in part to help people left out of federal relief.  Diana Mejía, health and safety coordinator for an interfaith organization that helps immigrants, Wind of the Spirit, says day laborers have shown up near the train station in Morristown, New Jersey, for years to wait to be picked up by construction and landscaping companies.  Now, Mejía says she sees new faces. “Many used to work at restaurants. Also, for construction companies that closed,” she said. In New York, Maribel Torres, a 47-year-old Mexican immigrant used to clean apartments, but tenants stopped calling her when the pandemic started. Her husband, a cook, lost his job when the restaurant he worked at closed.  Now, with support from MakerSpace, a collaborative work space full of tools and materials that people can learn to use, and La Colmena, a non-profit that helps day laborers, she is sewing masks from home.  Torres, along with three other immigrant women who do this work with her, will donate some masks and sell others. So far, they have sold about 300 online. A young day laborer who also lost his job has been making the deliveries. “I feel that we are helping, and we plan to make a little money too,” said Torres. Leymar Navas, a former attorney in Venezuela, was working as a restaurant cashier in Miami before the virus outbreak. But the sushi shop closed its doors in March, almost at the same time that her husband and her two adult sons also lost their jobs.  After a desperate search, she found a part-time job for a disinfecting company that cleans bank ATMs.  “Nobody expected this,” said the 47-year-old asylum seeker. “But any job is decent as long as you bring food to the table.” According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in March, around half (49%) of Hispanics surveyed say they or someone in their household has taken a pay cut or lost a job – or both – because of the COVID-19 outbreak, compared with 29% of white people and 36% of black people.  A recent analysis from Pew based on Census statistics found that about 8 million Hispanic workers were employed in service-sector positions that are at higher risk of job loss.  Many of the immigrants with new jobs now say they feel grateful to have a job amid the pandemic, even if it means putting their own health at risk.  
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Elderly people are believed to be especially susceptible to the coronavirus. As a result, many senior living facilities have been on lockdown mode, not allowing visitors in order to protect the residents. But experts say this social isolation could lead to feelings of loneliness for many seniors.  One virtual reality company, MyndVR, is donating VR headsets to all 50 U.S. states to keep seniors engaged.  VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports on the potential benefits of a virtual reality experience.
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The Detroit metropolitan area in the state of Michigan is home to one of the largest Muslim populations in the U.S. Some of those Muslims chose to work in the medical field as physicians working the front lines in the COVID-19 pandemic. VOA’s Alam Burhanan reports.
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An appeals court has reinstated a California law requiring background checks for people buying ammunition, reversing a federal judge’s decision to stop the checks that he said violate the constitutional right to bear arms.The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday granted the state attorney general’s request to stay the judge’s order.”This means that the same restrictions that have been previously in effect regarding ammunition in California are back for the time being,” the National Rifle Association, which had hailed the judge’s injunction, said in a news release.The law, which took effect in July, requires Californians to pass an in-store background check before buying ammunition. The check involves running buyers’ names through a California Department of Justice database that tracks legal purchases of guns.Gun rights activists complained the law’s red tape and database errors unfairly limited legal purchases of ammunition.U.S. District Judge Roger T. Benitez in San Diego ruled in their favor, saying the law “defies common sense while unduly and severely burdening the Second Amendment rights of every responsible, gun-owning citizen desiring to lawfully buy ammunition.”While it is intended to keep ammunition from criminals, it blocked sales to legitimate, law-abiding buyers about 16 percent of the time, Benitez wrote. Moreover, he ruled that the state’s ban on importing ammunition from outside California violates federal interstate commerce laws.Attorney General Xavier Becerra said in a court filing earlier this month that the background checks stopped more than 750 people from buying bullets illegally from July 2019 through January 2020, not including those who didn’t even try because they knew they weren’t eligible.The law requires buyers who already are in the state’s firearm background check database to pay a $1 fee each time they buy ammunition, while others can buy longer-term licenses if they do not have certain criminal convictions or mental health commitments.It took an average of less than five minutes to complete the background checks, according to state court filings.  
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The FBI is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone connected to a fire that badly damaged an Islamic center in southeastern Missouri and that coincided with the start of a holy month for Muslims.Richard Quinn, the special agent in charge of the St. Louis Division, announced the award Friday, hours after the fire broke out early that morning at the Islamic Center of Cape Girardeau. Twelve to 15 people were evacuated and escaped injury. Fire Chief Travis Hollis said the damage to the building was extensive.The Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, said the fire began at the front door of the building. CAIR noted the timing of the blaze — Thursday night was the beginning of Ramadan, a holy month during which Muslims fast and pray.”Because the fire was deemed ‘suspicious,’ and because it occurred at a house of worship on a significant religious date, we urge law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for the blaze,” CAIR’s national communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in a statement.The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state fire marshal also were investigating the fire.Cape Girardeau is about 115 miles south of St. Louis.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, issued a rare joint statement Saturday commemorating a 1945 World War II link-up of U.S. and Soviet troops on their way to defeat Nazi Germany as an example of how their countries can cooperate.The statement by Trump and Putin came amid deep strains in U.S.-Russian ties over a raft of issues, from arms control and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Syria to U.S. charges that Russia has spread disinformation about the novel coronavirus pandemic and interfered in U.S. election campaigns.The Wall Street Journal reported that the decision to issue the statement sparked debate within the Trump administration, with some officials worried it could undercut stern U.S. messages to Moscow.The joint statement marked the anniversary of the April 25, 1945, meeting on a bridge over the Elbe River in Germany of Soviet soldiers advancing from the east and American troops moving from the West.“This event heralded the decisive defeat of the Nazi regime,” the statement said. “The ‘Spirit of the Elbe’ is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause.”Last Elbe statement in 2010The Journal said the last joint statement marking the Elbe River bridge link-up was issued in 2010, when the Obama administration was seeking improved relations with Moscow.Trump had hoped to travel to Moscow to mark the anniversary. He has been complimentary of Putin, promoted cooperation with Moscow and said he believed the Russian leader’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Senior administration officials and lawmakers, in contrast, have been fiercely critical of Russia, with relations between the nuclear-armed nations at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday issued a bipartisan report concurring with a 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia pursued an influence campaign of misinformation and cyber hacking aimed at swinging the vote to Trump over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.U.S. intelligence officials have warned lawmakers that Moscow is meddling in the 2020 presidential election campaign, which Russia denies.
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The worldwide number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb, bringing misery and pain to all echelons of society.The global count of cases has reached more than 2.8 million people, and more than 197,000 people have died.There have been a growing number of coronavirus cases aboard an Italian cruise ship docked in Japan with a crew but no passengers.  The Costa Atlantica had been headed to China for repairs but was diverted to Nagasaki earlier this year.Crew members were told to stay aboard the ship but media reports say some of them were spotted in Nagasaki.Local officials say at least 91 crew members, many of them asymptomatic, have tested positive for the virus. One has been hospitalized.In Europe, Spain has more than 219,000 coronavirus cases and more than 22,500 deaths, followed by Italy with more than 192,000 cases and almost 26,000 deaths.A nurse wearing a face mask writes down a telephone message from a deceased patient’s family member, to be put in the victim’s coffin, in Corsica, April 23, 2020.Several European countries have seen a decrease in new cases and are preparing to gradually reopen businesses and ease restrictions.The number of U.S. infections is creeping up to a million with more than 905,000 cases and nearly 52,000 deaths. Despite the rising tally, several states took steps Friday to reopen their economies, with Georgia and Oklahoma allowing salons, spas and barbershops to reopen. Some business owners said it was too early to open and doing so could spark a new surge in coronavirus infections, despite facing financial collapse if they do not.The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus in the United States will last through next year, as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the financial health of countries around the world.The nonpartisan agency said the U.S. budget deficit will grow from $1 trillion to $3.7 trillion this year and said the unemployment rate would rise from 3.5 percent in February to 16 percent in September. It predicted that unemployment would fall after that time but would remain in double digits through 2021.The report puts pressure on the U.S. government as it tries to balance the concerns over the growing federal deficit with the approval of stimulus money meant to combat the outbreak’s economic effects.A woman wears a face mask to protect herself from COVID-19 as she walks past a painting in Hong Kong, April 25, 2020.On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion relief package to extend additional support for small business loans and to help hospitals expand COVID-19 testing. The money is part of more than $3 trillion the U.S. government has spent to boost the economy.Earlier Friday, the G-20 called on “all countries, international organizations, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and individuals” to contribute to its funding efforts to fight COVID-19, setting an $8 billion goal.An international forum for the governments and central bank governors of 19 nations and the European Union said Friday the G-20 already has raised $1.9 billion. Saudi Arabia, the current holder of the G-20 presidency, contributed $500 million.With no proven remedy for the coronavirus, health officials worldwide are recommending protective measures such as hygiene, social distancing and wearing masks and gloves. But people in many places are growing tired of restrictions, even as the number of cases grows.The coronavirus has had a devastating effect on the global economy, but the International Monetary Fund and other organizations warn that developing countries will be the worst hit.The United Nations food agency projects that some 265 million people could experience acute hunger this year, twice as many as last year. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments to ensure health care is available to all people and that economic aid packages help those most affected. In Brief:COVID-19’s toll continues to climb, with cases now having surpassed 2.8 millionMore than 197,000 people have died from the diseaseThe U.S. has more than 905,000 cases and almost 52,000 deathsSome states, nevertheless, are taking steps to reopen their economiesA congressional office sees U.S. COVID economic hardship lasting through 2021  Spain has more than 219,000 cases and over 22,500 deathsItaly has more than 192,000 cases and almost 26,000 deathsAuthorities in Italy say the country has passed the peak of the outbreakWith their cases down, parts of Europe are preparing to ease restrictions 
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A U.S. federal judge has ordered the release of migrant children who have been detained at the Mexico border, after ruling Friday the Trump administration was again violating an agreement to release them within 20 days.
 
The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has been challenging the Trump administration’s child detention policies on behalf of plaintiffs who contend the coronavirus pandemic has triggered more delays in the release of the migrant children.
 
The center’s argument against the administration is being made under a 1997 pact known as the Flores agreement, which generally requires minors who have been detained in non-licensed facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border to be released within the 20-day period.
 
The plaintiffs maintain the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) stopped releasing children to their parents or other guardians in California, Washington state and New York to avoid getting involved with the states’ lockdown rules, which have been imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
 
They also allege the administration stopped the release process for some children because their parents or guardians could not easily arrange to be fingerprinted as required for background checks.
 
The plaintiffs argued the delays could expose the children to the coronavirus if it spreads in detention facilities. They cited a non-profit detention center in Texas where a 14-day quarantine order was put into effect.
 
In addition, the plaintiffs accused the government of releasing a teenager who turned 18 while in “quarantine” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead of sending him to family placement program where arrangements had been made to accommodate him.
 
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the case, did not agree with all of the allegations but once more ordered the administration to “expedite the release of the children.”
 
Gee concluded that “ORR and ICE shall continue to make every effort to promptly and safely release” the detained children who are represented by the plaintiffs.
 
In a separate ruling last month, Gee described the immigration detention centers as “hotbeds of contagion.”
 
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The worldwide number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb, bringing misery and pain to all echelons of society.The global count of cases has reached more than 2.8 million people, and more than 197,000 people have died.There have been a growing number of coronavirus cases aboard an Italian cruise ship docked in Japan with a crew but no passengers.  The Costa Atlantica had been headed to China for repairs but was diverted to Nagasaki earlier this year.Crew members were told to stay aboard the ship but media reports say some of them were spotted in Nagasaki.Local officials say at least 91 crew members, many of them asymptomatic, have tested positive for the virus. One has been hospitalized.In Europe, Spain has more than 219,000 coronavirus cases and more than 22,500 deaths, followed by Italy with more than 192,000 cases and almost 26,000 deaths.A nurse wearing a face mask writes down a telephone message from a deceased patient’s family member, to be put in the victim’s coffin, in Corsica on April 23, 2020.Several European countries have seen a decrease in new cases and are preparing to gradually reopen businesses and ease restrictions.The number of U.S. infections is creeping up to a million with more than 905,000 cases and nearly 52,000 deaths. Despite the rising tally, several states took steps Friday to reopen their economies, with Georgia and Oklahoma allowing salons, spas and barbershops to reopen. Some business owners said it was too early to open and doing so could spark a new surge in coronavirus infections, despite facing financial collapse if they do not.The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus in the United States will last through next year, as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the financial health of countries around the world.The nonpartisan agency said the U.S. budget deficit will grow from $1 trillion to $3.7 trillion this year and said the unemployment rate would rise from 3.5 percent in February to 16 percent in September. It predicted that unemployment would fall after that time but would remain in double digits through 2021.The report puts pressure on the U.S. government as it tries to balance the concerns over the growing federal deficit with the approval of stimulus money meant to combat the outbreak’s economic effects.A woman wears a face mask to protect herself from COVID-19 as she walks past a painting in Hong Kong, April 25, 2020.On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion relief package to extend additional support for small business loans and to help hospitals expand COVID-19 testing. The money is part of more than $3 trillion the U.S. government has spent to boost the economy.Earlier Friday, the G-20 called on “all countries, international organizations, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and individuals” to contribute to its funding efforts to fight COVID-19, setting an $8 billion goal.An international forum for the governments and central bank governors of 19 nations and the European Union said Friday the G-20 already has raised $1.9 billion. Saudi Arabia, the current holder of the G-20 presidency, contributed $500 million.With no proven remedy for the coronavirus, health officials worldwide are recommending protective measures such as hygiene, social distancing and wearing masks and gloves. But people in many places are growing tired of restrictions, even as the number of cases grows.The coronavirus has had a devastating effect on the global economy, but the International Monetary Fund and other organizations warn that developing countries will be the worst hit.The United Nations food agency projects that some 265 million people could experience acute hunger this year, twice as many as last year. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments to ensure health care is available to all people and that economic aid packages help those most affected.   
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An unmanned cargo spacecraft with food, fuel and supplies docked at the International Space Station (ISS) on Saturday.Russian Progress 75 cargo ship left the Baikonur Cosmodrom in Kazakhstan, a few minutes before 1 a.m. GMT and transported almost 3 tons of food and other supplies to the ISS.Scientists and staff, both in Baikonur and at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, monitored the three-hour journey and the docking.The cargo ship is set to remain at the station until December, when it will leave and burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.   
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State and local governments across the United States have obtained more than 30 million doses of a malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump to treat patients with the coronavirus, despite warnings from doctors that more research is needed.At least 22 states and Washington, D.C., secured shipments of the drug, hydroxychloroquine, according to information compiled from state and federal officials by the Associated Press. Sixteen of those states were won by Trump in 2016, although five of them, including North Carolina and Louisiana, are now led by Democratic governors.Supporters say having a supply on hand makes sense in case the drug is shown to be effective against the pandemic that has devastated the global economy and killed nearly 200,000 people worldwide, and to ensure a steady supply for people who need it for other conditions, like lupus.But health experts worry that having the drug easily available at a time of heightened public fear could make it easier to misuse it. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Friday warned doctors against prescribing hydroxychloroquine for treating the coronavirus outside of hospitals or research settings because of reports of serious side effects, including dangerous irregular heart rhythms and death among patients.It’s the latest admonition against the drug that Trump mentioned 17 times in various public appearances, touting its potential despite his own health advisers telling him it is unproven.Oklahoma spent $2 million to buy the drugs, and Utah and Ohio have spent hundreds of thousands on purchases. The rest of the cities and states received free shipments from drug companies or the U.S. government over the last month. Ohio received a large donation from a local company.FILE – This April 7, 2020, photo shows a bottle of hydroxychloroquine tablets in Texas City, Texas.Several states, including New York, Connecticut, Oregon, Louisiana, North Carolina and Texas, received donations of the medication from a private company based in New Jersey called Amneal Pharmaceutical. Florida was given 1 million doses from Israeli company Teva Pharmaceutical.The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent 19 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to 14 cities including Washington, D.C.; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Baltimore, Maryland, from the federal government’s national stockpile, a source that also provided South Dakota and California with supplies. The U.S. government received a donation of 30 million doses from Swiss drugmaker Novartis on March 29 to build up the stockpile, which does not normally stock the drug.”If he (Trump) hadn’t amplified the early and inappropriate enthusiasm for the drug, I doubt if the states would have even been aware of it,” said Dr. Kenneth B. Klein, a consultant from outside Seattle, Washington, who has spent the last three decades working for drug companies to design and evaluate their clinical trials.Klein said it’s understandable that government and health officials looked into hydroxychloroquine — which is approved for treating malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus — as a possible remedy during a frightening pandemic, but the time and energy has been misspent. The potential side effects are worrisome, especially because many coronavirus patients already have underlying health conditions, he said.”The states and the federal government are reacting in light of that fear. But it’s not a rational response,” Klein said.Doctors can already prescribe the malaria drug to patients with COVID-19, a practice known as off-label prescribing, and many do. Medical and pharmacy groups have warned against prescribing it for preventive purposes. The FDA has allowed it into the national stockpile, but only for narrowly defined purposes as studies continue.Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, has previously acknowledged that the drug is “not without controversy,” but defended the state’s efforts to build up a supply. As questions mounted Friday, though, he distanced himself from an $800,000 purchase the state made from a local company and said it would be investigated.Herbert also halted a plan to spend $8 million more to buy 200,000 additional treatments. “The bottom line is, we’re not purchasing any more of this drug,” he said.FILE – This April 6, 2020, photo shows an arrangement of hydroxychloroquine pills in Las Vegas.Other states have received it from the federal government. South Dakota, with a population of 885,000 people, received 1.2 million doses and is using the drug for a trial as well as doctor-approved prescriptions for COVID-19 positive patients.South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, a Republican and Trump ally, said earlier this month she pushed the White House to provide enough hydroxychloroquine to give it to every hospitalized person, others who are vulnerable to the coronavirus and “front line” health care workers. As of Tuesday, 200 people in South Dakota were being treated with the drug, according to Sanford Health.It is one of several states that say they are using some of the doses for clinical trials going on to assess whether the drugs has benefits for COVID-19 patients.Many states, however, have opted to steer clear over concerns about side effects and lingering questions about the drug’s effectiveness. At least one of those states is led by a Republican governor, Tennessee, where the state’s Department of Health sent a letter warning against using the drug or hoarding it.”We were seeing a flood of inappropriate prescribing and hoarding, quite frankly,” Health Commissioner Lisa Piercey told reporters.Kansas health director Dr. Lee Norman said the state has no plans to buy the drug because evidence is lacking that it helps treat COVID-19.Most states aren’t paying for the drug, and it’s not clear why Utah didn’t get it from the federal reserve or a donation from a business like Amneal Pharmaceutical.News releases from state governments show the New Jersey-based company has sent millions of doses of the drug free of charge to states, including 2 million to New York and 1 million to Texas. A company spokesperson declined to provide a list of donations or answer other questions from the Associated Press.FILE – This April 6, 2020, photo shows an arrangement of Hydroxychloroquine pills in Las Vegas.Pharmaceutical companies can often manufacture pills they already make fairly cheaply. The donations may have been done to earn good publicity while setting companies up to make future sales if hydroxychloroquine ends up being a reliable treatment for the virus, Klein said.Controversy has swirled around the drug since Trump started promoting it in the White House briefing room on March 19.He mentioned the drug in briefings through April 14, and the White House distributed news releases praising Trump’s efforts to stockpile it for use in areas of the country hard-hit by the virus. But for the past week, as studies have shown mixed or even harmful results, Trump has gone silent on the drug.Asked about it Thursday, Trump said he hadn’t heard of a study done at U.S. veterans hospitals with preliminary results that showed no benefit, and he rejected the notion that he had stopped promoting hydroxychloroquine as a cure.”I haven’t at all. I haven’t at all,” Trump said. “We’ll see what happens.”  
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The Ethiopian community in the Washington, D.C., area is mourning the loss of a woman who died from coronavirus shortly after giving birth, without seeing her newborn.Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, was eight months pregnant when she began experiencing symptoms including fever, shortness of breath and loss of sense of smell. On March 25 she was hospitalized, and her son was born one month early via emergency cesarean section. On April 21 she died due to complications from the virus. Her son is healthy and does not have the disease.On Friday at the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex in Virginia, mourners wore masks and stood at a safe distance from one another.  Her husband, Yilma Asfaw, collapsed on the casket, crying out in Amharic. “You didn’t see the boy you were looking for. You left your four children, and what would I do for them?” Despite his distress, his friends and family were unable to comfort him due to the distancing restrictions.Her 17-year-old daughter, Mihret Yilma, said the loss is impossible to process. “I didn’t just lose one person. I lost three. I lost my mother, my sister and my friend. We were very close. She left without saying goodbye,” she told VOA, speaking a mix of Amharic and English.  “She taught me the meaning of strength and faith. We are safe because of her prayer night and day.”The daughter has been thrust into the role of mother, mixing milk formula to feed the baby and taking care of the newborn for three weeks. She said she takes solace in her new responsibility.“The newborn baby reminds me of my mother,” she said. “I feel like I am finding my mother through my siblings. From now on, they are all I’ve got. Mom used to say when I have my own children that I wouldn’t need a babysitter and that she would raise my children.”Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, was eight months pregnant when she fell ill. She died from coronavirus shortly after giving birth. Here, her family mourns at her graveside.Yilma, 50, and Wegene, 43, won the Diversity Visa Lottery to come to the United States 10 years ago, bringing their daughter Mihret and son Naol Yilma, now 10. They had their third child, another son, Asher Yilma, after arriving in the U.S. The father is a school bus driver for Montgomery County, Maryland.The Washington, D.C., area is home to the largest population of people of Ethiopian descent in the U.S., with an estimated 100,000 living in the region.“This family is going to need us in the future. They’re going to need our support and our assistance, like so many families in our community,” Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart told local television station WUSA9.Etsegenet Bekele is a neighbor and had known Wegene since she came to the U.S. She lived on the third floor and Wegene on the eighth. “This is so painful for a new mother. I have no words. It is so painful,” she said. “She was a good person for everyone, but she would die for her children more than anything. She is a soldier for children.”She said to mourn in such circumstances is painful, as people are keeping distance and can’t console each other. “You can’t get over it even after crying and everything is done from a distance. In our culture to be buried like this is deeply painful.”Yilma said he still can’t accept the loss of the woman he has loved since they were both children.“We have been together for 25 years,” he said. “She was my childhood friend; she was my childhood partner. She was my adviser, my lead, I don’t even know what to say. She loved her children. She was the kind of person who welcomed people with open arms. My sorrow is deep and bitter,” he told VOA.This story originated in the Africa Division with reporting contributions from VOA Amharic Service’s Tsion Girma. 
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The senior Department of Homeland Security official who was thrust into the spotlight by President Donald Trump to describe the effects of temperature on COVID-19 has been the subject of misconduct allegations for his previous government work.A Department of Energy Inspector General investigation was still pending Friday based on evidence submitted by a whistleblower that William Bryan abused his government position with energy consulting work in Ukraine.It’s unclear if Trump was aware of that investigation when he called on Bryan at his daily briefing Thursday to explain DHS research that prompted a presidential riff on the potential to cure the virus with disinfectant and kill it with sunlight.Bryan has been acting undersecretary for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate since May 2017. Before that, he was president of ValueBridge International’s Energy Group, a consulting firm in Virginia, following previous work with the Department of Energy.Trump nominated him to be the undersecretary of the directorate, which is charged with developing technology for the components of DHS. But days after his Senate hearing in August, a government whistleblower and his attorneys received a letter from the Office of the Special Counsel that information they provided about Bryan showed a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing.”The letter, first reported by The Hill newspaper in September, said the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency, had referred the matter to the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General, which opened an investigation.The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, said the IG would conduct an investigation to see if his allegations could be substantiated and would inform Congress and the president.Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, speaks about the coronavirus April 23, 2020, in Washington, D.C.The allegations against Bryan, which were reported by The New York Times in October 2018, center around his time as a senior adviser in the Office of International Affairs in 2016. He was designated a “special government employee,” which allowed him to do limited private sector work.The whistleblower, Robert Ivy, alleged that Bryan used his DOE position to develop his business interests with ValueBridge, including by providing money to foreign officials with the goal of influencing their actions and improperly sharing proprietary information.The allegations reference players who featured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.The complaint, which was also obtained by AP, describes Bryan’s dealings with Rinat Akhmetov, the Ukrainian energy oligarch who hired Paul Manafort as an adviser years before Manafort became chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign. According to the complaint, Bryan denied ever interacting with Manafort, who was convicted in Mueller’s Russia investigation related to Manafort’s work in Ukraine — though they did stay at the same Hyatt Hotel in Kyiv on one occasion recounted by the whistleblower.It says Bryan, as the head of an international Energy Department team that traveled to Ukraine with the goal of stabilizing the country’s energy security, aligned himself with Ahkmetov, became manipulated by the oligarch and his lieutenants and cashed in “personally on the cowboy capitalism that has driven so much of the former Soviet Union.”FILE – The Department of Energy is seen in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2015.Ivy, a former DOE official who now works in the private sector, and his attorney said Friday that they provided information to the IG investigation but have not received any notice of a conclusion. Both expressed surprise that Bryan, who has a military background but is not a scientist, was called upon by the Trump to discuss the research.”Bill Bryan should not be in that position in the first place,” said John Tye, Ivy’s attorney and the founder and CEO of Whistleblower Aid. “The U.S. government found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing by him on both the corruption and security violation matters.”The Department of Energy referred questions about the investigation, which remains open, to its Inspector General’s office, which did not respond to a request for information. DHS also did not respond to questions or make Bryan available for an interview.Bryan presides over an organization that has had its budget cut by the Trump administration, despite the prominent role the president gave it during his briefing to discuss how work done at an agency lab in Maryland showed the virus breaking down when exposed to light and humidity.Under the final year of President Barack Obama, the agency had a budget of $841 million, more than half of which was for research and development. The Trump administration cut that to around $583 million in its first budget to fund other priorities. It proposed restoring some of that this year and raising it to $643 million. 
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Pamela Austin, a recruiter at Adventist Health Bakersfield in California, made seven job offers to foreign nurses in February and just finished a first round of interviews with 12 more candidates. They are from all over the world, including the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Australia and Malaysia.The international candidates fill the private hospital’s critical need for experienced nurses who can work in emergency rooms and intensive care units, Austin said — jobs that can’t be met only with U.S. nurses, many of whom are recent graduates.That need could go unfilled, however, if U.S. President Donald Trump extends a 60-day hold on green cards he ordered in the name of protecting American jobs amid the coronavirus outbreak.”It would be a huge setback,” Austin said. “Those are holes I don’t have people to fill.”Trump says the measure is necessary at a time when unemployment has climbed to levels last seen during the Great Depression.A car drives on a highway parallel to a border fence between the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, April 22, 2020.Critics have dismissed the move as the president’s veiled attempt to achieve cuts to legal immigration that he previously suggested but couldn’t persuade Congress or the courts to accept — and to distract voters from his handling of the pandemic.But immigrant advocates and political opponents are not the only ones who oppose the measure: Hardliners from Trump’s base say it doesn’t go far enough to limit immigration.The order “is designed to satisfy powerful business interests that value a steady flow of cheap foreign labor,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, wrote in a letter to the president Thursday.The Center for Immigration Studies, another hardline group, said the 60-day pause “will provide little relief to Americans” and criticized an exemption for foreigners who agree to invest at least $900,000 in the U.S.The proclamation, signed Wednesday, excludes temporary nonimmigrant visas for hundreds of thousands of workers a year, including farm workers, software engineers and others in fields deemed to have labor shortages. It doesn’t apply to green-card applicants already in the United States.Many families will be barred from immigrating as long as the freeze lasts — more than 200,000 people at last year’s levels. Spouses of U.S. citizens and their children under 21 are exempt, but parents, adult children, grandchildren, adult siblings and other relatives aren’t.Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration attorney who advises hospitals, said he had hoped Trump’s proclamation would provide a blanket exemption for nurses, who often arrive on green cards. Instead, it only exempts health care workers whose work is deemed essential to recovering from the COVID-19 outbreak.”Embassies and consulates make the decisions,” he said. “They don’t have any special expertise in COVID-19, like none of us do.”Houston immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez said he doesn’t expect the suspension to have much of an effect — at least in the short term — because embassies and consulates had already halted routine visa processing last month in response to the pandemic.”This is more of a show from the administration than anything else,” he said.But other immigrant advocates predict profound changes if the measure becomes permanent.This undated image from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service shows the front of a sample ‘green card,’ formally known as a Permanent Resident Card.Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless, a company that advises families and individuals on green cards, estimates 358,000 applicants a year would be unable to get permanent residency if the order were extended.He said the casualties would include roughly 50,000 diversity visas each year for countries that send fewer people to the U.S., and that the measure would have a big impact on immigrants from Asia, Central America and eastern Europe.Rand says Trump is using the pandemic to achieve changes to the immigration system that he couldn’t get past Congress or the courts. He called the 60-day halt a “double fig leaf” to make the measure more palatable.”I don’t think it takes much guesswork that President Donald Trump is going to use his discretion to extend it 60 days from now and again and again and again,” Rand said.The edict has similarities to legislation Trump tried unsuccessfully to pass in 2017 that would slash legal immigration, largely through family-based visas that the president has referred to derisively as “chain migration.”Last month, the administration effectively suspended asylum by rapidly expelling anyone who enters the country along borders with Mexico and Canada. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week extended the policy through May 20 on public health grounds.Trump told reporters that he may extend the most recent order or modify it next week, in two months or “as we go along” to be “made tougher or made less tough.””We don’t want to hurt our businesses, and we don’t want to hurt our farmers,” he said Wednesday. “Very important.”Joe Biden, Trump’s presumed Democratic rival in November’s election, echoed those who called the measure an attempt to divert attention from the president’s handling of the pandemic.”Rather than execute a swift and aggressive effort to ramp up testing, Donald Trump is tweeting incendiary rhetoric about immigrants in the hopes that he can distract everyone from the core truth: He’s moved too slowly to contain this virus, and we are all paying the price for it,” Biden said Tuesday.Matt Hill, a campaign spokesman, said Thursday that Biden would not maintain the policy if elected. 
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President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion bill Friday to aid employers and hospitals under stress from the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 50,000 Americans and devastated broad swaths of the economy.The bill is the latest effort by the federal government to help keep afloat businesses that have had to close or dramatically alter their operations as states try to slow the spread of the virus. Over the past five weeks, roughly 26 million people have filed for jobless aid, or about 1 in 6 U.S. workers.Trump thanked Congress for “answering my call” to provide the critical assistance and said it was “a tremendous victory.” But easy passage of this aid installment belies a potentially bumpier path ahead for future legislation to address the crisis.Trump said most of the funding in the bill would flow to small business through the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides money to small businesses to keep workers on their payroll.“Great for small businesses, great for the workers,” Trump said.The measure passed Congress almost unanimously Thursday as lawmakers gathered in Washington as a group for the first time since March 27. They followed stricter social distancing rules while seeking to prove they can do their work despite the COVID-19 crisis.“Millions of people out of work,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “This is really a very, very, very sad day. We come to the floor with nearly 50,000 deaths, a huge number of people impacted, and the uncertainty of it all.”Anchoring the bill is the Trump administration’s $250 billion request to replenish a fund to help small- and medium-size businesses with payroll, rent and other expenses. This program provides forgivable loans so businesses can continue paying workers while forced to stay closed for social distancing and stay-at-home orders.The legislation contains $100 billion demanded by Democrats for hospitals and a nationwide testing program, along with $60 billion for small banks and an alternative network of community development banks that focus on development in urban neighborhoods and rural areas ignored by many lenders. There’s also $60 billion for small-business loans and grants delivered through the Small Business Administration’s existing disaster aid program.Passage of more coronavirus relief is likely in the weeks ahead. Supporters are already warning that the business-backed Paycheck Protection Program will exhaust the new $250 billion almost immediately. Launched just weeks ago, the program quickly reached its lending limit after approving nearly 1.7 million loans. That left thousands of small businesses in limbo as they sought help.Pelosi and allies said the next measure will distribute more relief to individuals, extend more generous jobless benefits into the fall, provide another round of direct payments to most people and help those who are laid off afford health insurance through COBRA.Democrats tried to win another round of funding for state and local governments in Thursday’s bill but were rebuffed by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who says he’s going to try pump the brakes on runaway deficit spending. McConnell says he doesn’t want to bail out Democratic-governed states for fiscal problems that predated the pandemic, but there’s plenty of demand for state fiscal relief among Republicans, too.After the Senate passed the bill Tuesday, McConnell said Republicans would entertain no more coronavirus rescue legislation until the Senate returns to Washington in May. He promised rank-and-file Republicans greater say in the future legislation, rather than leaving it in the hands of bipartisan leaders.Pelosi attacked McConnell for at first opposing adding any money to his original $250 billion package and saying cash-strapped states should be allowed to declare bankruptcy, a move that they currently cannot do and that would threaten a broad range of state services. McConnell’s comments provoked an outcry — including from GOP governors — and he later tempered his remarks.The four coronavirus relief bills approved so far by Congress would deliver at least $2.4 trillion for business relief, testing and treatment, and direct payments to individuals and the unemployed, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The deficit is virtually certain to breach $3 trillion this year. 
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President Donald Trump said Friday that he wouldn’t approve a $10 billion loan for the U.S. Postal Service unless the agency raised charges for Amazon and other big shippers to four to five times current rates.”The Postal Service is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies and every time they bring a package, they lose money on it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.The president was responding to a question about reports his administration plans to force major changes in postal operations as the price for approving a $10 billion loan that was included in the government’s $2 trillion economic rescue package.Under the rescue package legislation, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin must approve the loan before the Postal Service can receive the money. Officials at the Postal Service had no immediate reaction to Trump’s comments.Trump said the changes the administration would insist on would make it a “whole new ballgame” at the Postal Service. He said the Postal Service did not want to make the changes because they did not want to offend Amazon and other companies.Looking at Mnuchin, who was with him in the Oval Office, the president said, “If they don’t raise the price of the service they give … I’m not signing anything and I’m not authorizing you to do anything.”‘Postal reform program’Mnuchin told reporters that he had Treasury officials working with the Postal Service on the terms of the loan if postal officials decided they need more money.”We are going to post certain criteria for [a] postal reform program as part of the loan,” Mnuchin said. He said the Postal Service board already was searching for a new postmaster general to run the agency and undertaking reforms of operations.The Washington Post, which first reported the administration’s push for changes at the Postal Service, quoted unnamed officials as saying that senior Postal Service officials had been told the administration wanted to use the $10 billion loan as leverage to influence how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances.Trump has complained for years that the Postal Service is being exploited by Amazon and other shippers and that that is why the agency is losing so much money.
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When Seblewongel Alemu learned Thursday that she would get a $5-an-hour pay hike upon returning to the South Dakota pork processing plant where she likely had contracted COVID-19, she greeted the news with just a trace of enthusiasm.
 
“What matters the most is our health,” she told VOA by phone, not long after receiving a local union’s text message about the new incentive at the Smithfield Foods plant in the city of Sioux Falls. Now recovering, Seblewongel added, “It is important that they put in proper safety measures and we will not be exposed to such danger again.”
 
The meat-packing plant is one of the nation’s hot spots for novel coronavirus infections. More than 800 of its 3,700 workers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus, the South Dakota Department of Health confirmed, according to the local KELOLAND News site. It said at least two deaths have been connected to the plant.   
Smithfield shuttered the plant – which accounts for roughly 5% of U.S. pork production, in the form of bacon, fresh pork, hot dogs, deli and smoked meats – on April 14. On Thursday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report urging Smithfield to step up efforts to fight COVID-19 so the plant can reopen safely.   
 CDC makes recommendations
 
Last week, CDC investigators who visited the plant found that at least one department had fewer workers on its production lines – a result of both illness and intentional social distancing – and had slowed speeds accordingly. Managers said they were installing more hand-sanitizing dispensers plus plexiglass barriers between close workstations.
 
The CDC report also encouraged Smithfield to take steps such as improving health screening, relaxing sick-leave policies, increasing cleaning and access to handwashing, and improving social distancing. Where assembly line work makes that difficult, it recommends more personal protective equipment.Seblewongel Alemu, recovering from COVID-19, wants to make sure enhanced safety measures are in place before she returns to work at Smithfield Foods in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. She is shown here in a Skype screen grab. The report emphasized its recommendations “are discretionary and are not required or mandated by CDC.” It also noted that, while its recommendations were for this specific Smithfield plant, “broader interim recommendations for meat and poultry processing industries are in development.”
 
Smithfield, contacted at headquarters in the Virginia city for which it’s named, declined VOA’s requests for comment. A representative directed queries to the company’s web page on its COVID-19 response. Neither Smithfield nor the CDC report gave a specific date for reopening the Sioux Falls facility.
 
Workers at the idled plant are getting two weeks of “shutdown pay” at their standard rate for a 40-hour work week. A deal announced Thursday with Smithfield will bring workers an extra $5 an hour for their basic 40-hour week, effective May 1 through July 31, said a spokesperson for the United Food & Commercial Workers International Union’s Local 304A.  
 Language challenges
 
Smithfield managers cited communication problems, given “approximately 40 different languages spoken by employees,” CDC investigators found. Their report urged Smithfield to try to overcome those barriers. Gathering demographic information could “provide a better understanding of what workplace factors may have contributed to the spread of COVID-19 among employees,” the report said.
 
The plant’s most prevalent languages are English, Spanish, Swahili, Nepali, French and Vietnamese – along with Kunama, Tigrinya, Amharic and Oromo, spoken in Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea. At least 1,000 of Smithfield’s workers come from those two Horn of Africa countries, said Aschenaki Bekele, chairman of the Ethiopian Collaboration Union in Sioux Falls.FILE – A truck arrives at Smithfield Foods’ pork plant in Smithfield, Virginia, Oct. 17, 2019.“I work with a lot of immigrants,” said Seblewongel, a fluent English speaker originally from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. She joined Smithfield five years ago, shortly after moving to Sioux Falls with her then-husband and their adolescent daughter. She packages processed foods on the night shift, with co-workers who are mostly Spanish speakers and Asians, including Nepalese.
Many immigrants are willing to take on the physical demands of meat packing as they try to advance, several Ethiopian and Eritrean workers in Sioux Falls told VOA, and they appreciate overtime. Production work there starts at $15 an hour, with benefits, according to a Smithfield ad posted in early April.
 Employment concerns
 
But immigrants, like other workers, fear losing their jobs.
 
“After the outbreak was announced in the U.S., we never stopped working,” Seblewongel said. “I had to keep working without any protective [equipment] in place because I have no other means of income. But we were always afraid we might be too exposed to the virus.”
 
Kooper Caraway, president of the Sioux Falls AFL-CIO, said workers at Smithfield had “raised the alarm” about COVID-19 risks by mid-March.
 
“They asked the plant to institute staggered scheduling, to institute temperature checks and secondary screening, to institute social distancing and things like this,” he said. “But unfortunately, the management didn’t take those calls seriously until dozens of workers had already tested positive.”
 
Caraway also noted that because the Sioux Falls plant has “people from all over the world,” workers “were in a position to be able to identify the plant as a potential hot spot very soon, because they were getting calls” of warning from relatives and friends abroad, in eastern Asia and elsewhere.Machine operator Halefom Tesfalem says Smithfield Foods should have taken more coronavirus precautions at its plant in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Shown here in a Skype screen grab, he is recovering from COVID-19.Complaints of lax precautions
 
Halefom Tesfalem, an Eritrean who works as a sanitation department machine operator, contends that Smithfield didn’t take enough precautions – even after the first COVID-19 case was detected. The CDC report said that was on March 24. Halefom tested positive on April 7.
 
“There was no formal guidance telling us that there were infectious cases and that measures would be taken. There were broader alerts that suggested that we take cautious measures,” he said, suggesting that safeguards such as social distancing and temperature checks began too late. Though workers suspected of infection were told to go home, “others were convening in the cafeteria and other places.”
 
Halefom said many of the infections in Sioux Falls “are from workers bringing it to their homes.”
 
After two weeks of isolating at their respective homes, both Seblewongel and Halefom say they are feeling better. Their symptoms are subsiding. Halefom says he’s grateful he didn’t infect any of his three family members. Selbewongel remains fearful of spreading the disease to her daughter – 17-year-old Hanan Mustefa, a high school junior – so she continues to wear a facemask and gloves.
 
“The last 14 days felt like I was somewhere far away. …I didn’t know if I would come out alive, if I would ever go back to work or if I would ever see my daughter again,” Seblewongel said, describing uncertainties “as painful as the virus.”
 
Concerns over the pandemic prompted Smithfield Foods to temporarily close two other plants in mid-April: in southeastern Wisconsin and in Missouri. Smithfield is a wholly owned subsidiary of the WH Group Ltd. of Hong Kong, which calls itself the world’s largest pork company.
 
At least two major U.S. beef packing companies also have suspended operations this month because of COVID-19, the farm journal AgWeb reports. JBS USA closed its plant in Greeley, Colo., after at least two employees died. National Beef Packing Co. halted work at its facility in Tama, Iowa.This report originated with VOA’s Horn of Africa Service, with Carol Guensburg contributing. Salem Solomon provided some translation. 
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Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer on Friday lengthened her stay-at-home order through May 15, while lifting restrictions so some businesses can reopen and the public can participate in outdoor activities like golf and motorized boating during the coronavirus pandemic.
The measure immediately replaces one that was scheduled to expire next week. Michigan has had nearly 3,000 deaths related to COVID-19, behind only New York and New Jersey among U.S. states.
People are now required, rather than encouraged, to wear face coverings in enclosed public spaces such as grocery stores if they can medically tolerate it. Employers must provide non-medical grade masks to their in-person employees.
Landscapers, lawn-service companies, plant nurseries and bike repair shops can resume operating, subject to social-distancing rules. Stores selling nonessential supplies can reopen for curbside pickup and delivery. Big-box retailers no longer have to close off garden centers and areas dedicated to selling paint, flooring and carpet.
Whitmer said people with multiple in-state homes can resume traveling between them, though it is strongly discouraged.
“The vast majority of people in this state are doing the right things. We’ve seen the curve get pushed down,” the Democratic governor told The Associated Press. “I think it’s appropriate to reevaluate along the way. At this point we feel like’s good to have our first wave of reengagement in this way.”
The order continues to prohibit in-person work that is not necessary to sustain or protect life, with exemptions for various critical jobs. Restaurants remain closed to dine-in customers under a separate measure, and bars, movie theaters, gyms and other sports facilities also are still shuttered.
The prior stay-home order — in tandem with guidance issued by Whitmer’s office — prompted lawsuits on behalf of anglers, landscaping companies, cottage owners and others. Republicans who control the Legislature also criticized it and plan to vote Friday to limit her emergency powers despite a certain veto. Conservative demonstrators held a large rally at the state Capitol last week, and a much smaller protest took place Thursday outside the governor’s residence in Lansing.
Whitmer defended the previous order, which she issued April 9 and was stricter than one that took effect March 24. Imposing some of the country’s toughest restrictions, she said, was necessary because of what were rapidly rising cases and deaths that threatened to overwhelm hospitals.
“Michigan’s COVID-19 experience was tougher than just about any other state,” said Whitmer, whose moves have been backed by health experts and in public polling.
Landscaping and more outdoor activities, she said, were “naturally parts of our economy that we could move forward on” now. While golfing is allowed, the use of carts is not. State parks will generally remain open and people already were allowed to run, walk, hike and ride bikes.
Whitmer said her administration is talking with medical and business experts to assess different jobs and industries for risk, to promulgate safety protocols and to determine “markers” that need to be reached before reopening additional sectors. She said more will be revealed on Monday.
The order does not explicitly address Detroit-area automakers’ ability to restart plants. It continues to list “transportation and logistics” and “critical manufacturing” as sectors where some employees can go to work. Talks continue between the Detroit Three and the United Auto Workers union.
“This is one of what will be many waves,” Whitmer said. “My hope is that we can contemplate the next one. But it all depends on if people observe these best practices, if we can keep the COVID-19 trajectory headed downward and if we can keep people safe.”
 
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The G-20 is calling on “all countries, international organizations, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and individuals” to contribute to its funding efforts to fight COVID-19, setting an $8 billion goal.An international forum for the governments and central bank governors of 19 nations and the European Union, the G-20 already has raised $1.9 billion, it said Friday. Saudi Arabia, the current holder of the G-20 presidency, contributed $500 million.“Global challenges demand global solutions, and this is our time to stand and support the race for a vaccine and other therapeutic measures to combat COVID-19,” Saudi G-20 Sherpa Fahad Almubarak said. “We commend the existing funding efforts from around the world and underscore the urgency to bridging the financing gap.”Britain says it has performed the first human trial of a coronavirus vaccine in Europe.A poultry vendor wearing a face mask to help curb the spread of the coronavirus prepares birds at a wet market in downtown Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, April 24, 2020.Two volunteers were injected Thursday in the city of Oxford, where a university team developed the vaccine in less than three months. Hundreds of other volunteers will be injected with the trial vaccine, and the same number will get a vaccine for meningitis so the results can be compared. Volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting.The trial offers new hope just as an antiviral drug proved ineffective against coronavirus on patients in China. In a randomized trial, Remdesivir, a drug made by California-based Gilead Sciences, did not show any benefits for COVID-19 patients, and it failed to reduce the presence of the virus in their bloodstreams.The United States conducted the first vaccine test in March in Seattle, Washington. Canada, Russia and other countries also are working on developing a vaccine, but experts say even if a successful one is developed soon, manufacturing and distribution would take a longer.Studies also have shown the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is not effective in treating the virus and could, in fact, endanger COVID-19 patients. U.S. President Donald Trump has touted the drug as an effective “game-changer” in treating the disease. On Thursday, he denied having changed his opinion.“We had a lot of very good results, and we had some results that perhaps aren’t so good, I don’t know. I just read about one,” Trump said at the daily briefing.The president also said he may extend social distancing guidelines beyond May 1 if he doesn’t feel the country is in a safe place.At noon Friday, Trump is scheduled to sign the $484 billion relief package that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday. The package was approved by the Senate earlier this week and would secure additional support for small business loans, help hospitals and expand COVID-19 testing.Students wearing masks to help stop the spread of the new coronavirus sit for the Diploma of Secondary Education (DSE) exams at a school in Hong Kong, April 24, 2020.With no proven remedy for the coronavirus, health officials worldwide are recommending protective measures such as hygiene, social distancing and wearing masks and gloves. But people in many places are growing tired of restrictions, even as the number of cases grows.Several European countries have seen a decrease in new cases and are preparing to gradually reopen businesses and ease restrictions.Some U.S. states are making similar plans.  Georgia Governor Brian Kemp is allowing some businesses to re-open Friday. Politicians and public health officials urged Kemp to reconsider, but Trump supported Kemp’s move.  At Thursday’s coronavirus briefing, however, the president said he “wasn’t happy” with Kemp who has given the green light for tattoo parlors, hair salons, gyms, bowling alleys and spas to open Friday.  Some Georgia business owners say it is too early to open and will not open their businesses Friday, despite facing financial collapse.There are at least 2.7 million cases of the virus worldwide and more than 190,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center in the U.S. state of Maryland.In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Prince Charles were among those who were infected but recovered.In the United States, Sen. Elizabeth Warren reported Thursday that her eldest brother died from the disease on Tuesday. Warren was a former contender in the Democratic run for the presidency.The Australian government called on G-20 countries to push for the phasing out of so-called wildlife wet markets, which many consider a health risk for humans, as well as for animals.The coronavirus has had a devastating effect on the global economy, but the International Monetary Fund and other organizations warn that developing countries will be the worst hit.The United Nations food agency projects that some 265 million people could experience acute hunger this year, twice as many as last year.U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments to ensure health care is available to all people and that economic aid packages help those most affected. 
 
  
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Editor’s Note: This is one in a series of profiles of Americans struggling with the economic impact caused by the coronavirus pandemic.Joyce Rydstrom of Alta, Iowa, had to shut the doors to her hair salon last month when the governor ordered a suspension of nonessential businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.Meanwhile, the meatpacking industry, a major driver of the Iowa economy, has suffered repeated blows as virus outbreaks have caused processing plants that usually operate around the clock to shut down for days at a time. The economy, both personal and statewide, seems anything but stable these days.Rydstrom has done hair for 36 years. She used to see 10 to 12 clients a day. Now, she joked, “I’m just seeing days.” While her husband, Dave, is able to continue growing his crops of corn, soybeans, hay and oats, she has been home with time on her hands. This week she planted her first vegetable garden.“Normally when I’m at the salon, I come home after a whole day and I’m pooped. I don’t want to go out and garden,” she said. But now, she added, “because I’m home, I thought, ‘Let’s just go for it.’”On Thursday the U.S. Department of Labor said that last week 4.4 million people filed initial unemployment claims. The New York Times reports nearly one in six American workers has lost a job recently. Over the past five weeks, a total of 26 million people have filed new unemployment claims.In many ways, Rydstrom and her family are lucky. Her husband has been able to work on his farm despite the shutdown. Her son’s and daughter’s families, with four kids each, live nearby. They still have income and have received their government stimulus checks. Her parents, who live in a neighboring county, are in good health.For their community, however, much depends on the continued operation of the Tyson Foods pork-processing plant in the county seat, Storm Lake. The pork industry has suffered twin blows: with restaurants closed, there’s a surplus of pork on the market, depressing the price; and pork processing plants have seen one closure after another after viral outbreaks among employees. The latest was Wednesday: a Tyson Foods plant in the city of Waterloo, about 250 kilometers east of Alta.Local news reports say some hog farmers are killing their pigs because they have nowhere to sell them and no room to keep them.Rydstrom worries about what will happen if the Tyson plant in Storm Lake – a hog slaughterhouse, meat packing plant and turkey processing plant – has to close.If it shuts down, she said, “that would devastate the majority of Buena Vista County.” She said a friend who works at the plant says employees are being “above and beyond cautious” to keep themselves safe and healthy.Joyce Rydstrom of Alta, Iowa, had to shut the doors to her hair salon in March amid the coronavirus pandemic. These days, she spends some of her free time gardening.Amid the uncertainty, Rydstrom said she misses the normal things she used to take for granted. Handshakes, for example. A friendly touch.“People need physical touch,” she said. She is mindful of her older clients who have lost spouses. “They’re living by themselves, a lot of these widow ladies, they want somebody to put their hand on their shoulder or even just give them a little extra brushing with their hair,” she said.While she’s had time off, she’s been trying to connect with long-term clients on the telephone.“I’ve been trying to keep in touch with them as best I can and let them know I’m thinking about them and holding a spot for them in my appointment book when the time comes,” she said.But Rydstrom’s business funds are running low. A neighbor and regular customer recently said he knew she couldn’t cut his hair for him and asked if he could borrow her hair-cutting clippers. She sent him home with them. Later, he sent them back – with $20.“I thought, there’s my income for a whole week,” she joked.Joking aside, her emergency fund is shrinking while the salon remains closed.“I have the internet to pay and the utilities to pay, and there’s no income,” she said. She has applied every week for unemployment, which, thanks to federal funds, has been expanded to include the self-employed but has not received a response yet. And the federal stimulus money hasn’t come. She said by the time she’s able to get back to work, her “little cushion” of reserve funding will be used up.“When I go back to work, I will be starting at ground zero,” she said in an email. “I will have to build up my bank account again.”Yet, she added, “I am not going to lose sleep over it. I feel God gave me the salon years ago, and he is going to help me once again to work again where he wants me. It won’t come overnight, but I am confident that I will be OK.” 
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