Author: CensorBiz

Finance ministers from the 19 eurozone countries Thursday agreed on a package worth more than half a trillion euros to help companies, workers and health care systems mitigate the economic consequences of the coronavirus outbreak.Mario Centeno, president of the Eurogroup of eurozone ministers, called the package of measures “totally unprecedented.””The package we approved today is of a size close to 4 percent of European GDP,” he said. “Plus, the automatic stabilizers that are quite powerful to protect European economies in case of crisis. This is totally unprecedented. We have never ever reacted so quickly to a crisis as this one.”The measures provide for hard-hit Italy and Spain to quickly gain access to the eurozone’s bailout fund for up to 240 billion euros, as long as the money is used for the needs of their health care systems.Centeno said at a video news conference that countries are expected to identify enough health costs to access the money.People line up to buy supplies from a supermarket as the lockdown to combat the spread of coronavirus in Madrid, Spain, continues on April 9, 2020.The credit line is available only for the duration of the COVID-19 outbreak and expires immediately after that.The Eurogroup package also includes up to 200 billion euros in credit guarantees through the European Investment Bank to help companies stay afloat and 100 billion euros to offset lost wages for workers confined at home and others who are on reduced schedule.However, the deal did not include shared borrowing guaranteed by all member countries to pay for the cost of the coronavirus crisis, a key demand from Italy, Spain, France and six other countries, but rejected by Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.The finance ministers of Eurogroup left that issue open and up to national leaders of member countries as part of further negotiations on a possible fund to support the economic recovery in the longer term.
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International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva has warned that the coronavirus pandemic could lead to the world’s worst depression since the 1930s.Georgieva said Thursday that governments had already poured $8 trillion into programs to keep economies afloat but that more would be needed. She said developing countries and emerging markets would be the hardest hit. A partial recovery may be seen in 2021, she said.FILE – IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva speaks during a conference at the Vatican, Feb. 5, 2020.The U.S. automobile and aviation industries are expecting major losses amid travel and movement restrictions. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screened about 95,000 passengers Wednesday, a 96% drop from a year ago. With the Easter holiday on Sunday, many Americans normally would be traveling to spend the day with family.Washington-based Airlines for America said the United States last saw fewer than 100,000 passengers a day in 1954.The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that another 6.6 million workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, as companies and businesses shut down or limited their operations. That pushed the three-week total to nearly 17 million laid-off workers, about one-tenth of the country’s workforce.Press briefingIn his press briefing on Thursday, U.S. President Donald Trump welcomed the news that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was able to leave intensive care, although Britain’s leader remains hospitalized.White House correspondents were tested for the coronavirus as a precaution after a member of the White House press corps experienced symptoms on Tuesday.The number of infected people in the United States surpassed 460,000 on Thursday. Officials warned of a hard week ahead, even though the crisis appears to be leveling.New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said earlier that reductions in hospital admissions could be a sign that the situation in his state could soon be brighter. New York state, especially New York City, has had the most COVID-19 infections and deaths in the U.S.Health care workers take part in a national day of action calling on federal and local authorities to provide more Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) and other support during the coronavirus pandemic, in New York City, New York, April 9, 2020.One of the continuing problems for the U.S. COVID-19 crisis is a shortage of protective gear for medical staff.The Strategic National Stockpile said it was nearly out of N95 masks, surgical masks, face shields, gowns, gloves and other items. It is feared that the shortage could endanger medical professionals at a time when the equipment is most needed.Global struggleCountries worldwide continue to struggle with the health and economic fallout from the coronavirus. As of Thursday evening, nearly 1.6 million people across the globe had contracted COVID-19 and more than 95,000 had died, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center.In Europe, officials told people to stay at home during the Christian world’s Holy Week, normally a time for pilgrimages and vacations.Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the Netherlands could temporarily close its border crossings with Germany and Belgium over the Easter weekend if there was too much traffic.A man prays in front of the main gate of La Sed church after an Easter Holy Week procession was canceled due to the coronavirus outbreak in Seville, Spain, April 9, 2020.In Spain, where more than 15,000 have died from COVID-19, officials have made extra calls on citizens to remain at home rather than heading to the countryside for centuries-old religious processions.German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed “cautious optimism” about curtailing the spread of coronavirus in her country but described the situation as “fragile.”Germany has imposed shutdowns on many businesses through April 19.”We must keep this up over Easter and the days afterward, because we could very, very quickly destroy what we have achieved,” Merkel said.In the Mideast, the Saudi-led coalition that has been fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen for five years declared a two-week cease-fire starting Thursday in response to U.N. calls for peace as the world battles the coronavirus.Some leaders have expressed confidence that their countries have seen the worst of the outbreak and are beginning to plan a gradual return to normal life.
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OPEC and its allies led by Russia agreed on Thursday to cut their oil output by more than a fifth and said they expected the United States and other producers to join in their effort to prop up prices hammered by the coronavirus crisis. The cuts by OPEC and its allies, a group known as OPEC+, amount to 10 million barrels per day (bpd) or 10% of global supplies, with another 5 million bpd expected to come from other nations to help deal with the deepest oil crisis in decades.   Global fuel demand has plunged by around 30 million bpd, or 30% of global supplies, as steps to fight the virus have grounded planes, cut vehicle usage and curbed economic activity. An unprecedented 15 million bpd cut still won’t remove enough crude to stop the world’s storage facilities quickly filling up. And far from signaling any readiness to offer support, U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened OPEC if it did not fix the oil market’s problem of oversupply.   Trump, who has said U.S. output was already falling due to low prices, warned Riyadh it could face sanctions and tariffs on its oil if it did not cut enough to help the U.S. oil industry, whose higher costs have left it struggling with low prices. A White House aide said Trump held a call with Russian President Vladimir Putin and King Salman of Saudi Arabia, after a U.S. official said the move by OPEC+ sent an “important signal” to the market.  Both OPEC and Russian officials have said the scale of the crisis required involvement of all producers.   “We are expecting other producers outside the OPEC+ club to join the measures, which might happen tomorrow during G20,” the head of Russia’s wealth fund and one of Moscow’s top oil negotiators, Kirill Dmitriev, told Reuters.   Thursday’s OPEC+ talks will be followed by a call on Friday between energy ministers from the Group of 20 (G20) major economies, hosted by Saudi Arabia. OPEC and Russian sources said they expected other producers to add 5 million bpd to cuts. Brent oil prices, which hit an 18-year low last month, were trading around $32 a barrel on Thursday, half their level at the end of 2019. OPEC+, which groups the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Russia and others, would cutting output by 10 million bpd in May to June, OPEC+ documents showed. All members will reduce their output by 23%, with Saudi Arabia and Russia each cutting 2.5 million bpd and Iraq cutting over 1 million bpd. Gradual approach OPEC+ would then ease cuts to 8 million bpd from July to December and relax them further to 6 million bpd from January 2021 to April 2022, the documents showed.  OPEC+ sources said they expected cuts from the United States and others to amount to about 5 million bpd but the OPEC+ plus statement made no mention of such condition.  The sources said cuts would be gradual, as the group seeks to overcome resistance from the United States whose involvement they see as vital to a deal. U.S. officials have already said output would fall naturally over two years. The United States, whose output has surged to surpass Said and Russian production, was invited to Thursday’s OPEC+ talks but it was not clear if it had joined the video conference. Brazil, Norway and Canada were also invited. In a sign OPEC+ was struggling to win broader support, Canada’s main oil province of Alberta said output had already dropped and had not been asked by OPEC for more cuts. The province said it backed a U.S. idea for tariffs on imported crude. Before the talks, Moscow and Riyadh had been at odds over what level of production to use to calculate reductions, after Saudi Arabia hiked its supply in April to a record 12.3 million bpd, up from below 10 million bpd in March. Russian output, meanwhile, has been running about 11.3 million bpd. The two nations fell out during an acrimonious meeting in Vienna in March, when a previous production deal collapsed.   The two sides agreed on Thursday that cuts would be made from an 11 million bpd baseline for both countries, OPEC+ documents showed.   “We have managed to overcome differences. It will be a very important deal. It will allow the oil market to start on a path to recovery,” said Dmitriev, who last month was the first official to propose a deal involving members other than OPEC+.  Several U.S. states could order private companies to limit production under rarely used powers. The oil regulator in Texas, the largest producer among U.S. states with output of about 5 million bpd, meets on April 14 to discuss possible curbs.  If Saudi Arabia failed to rein in output, U.S. senators called on the White House to impose sanctions on Riyadh, pull out U.S. troops from the kingdom and impose import tariffs on Saudi oil. 
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Apollo 13’s astronauts never gave a thought to their mission number as they blasted off for the moon 50 years ago. Even when their oxygen tank ruptured two days later — on April 13.Jim Lovell and Fred Haise insist they’re not superstitious. They even use 13 in their email addresses.As mission commander Lovell sees it, he’s incredibly lucky. Not only did he survive NASA’s most harrowing moonshot, he’s around to mark its golden anniversary.”I’m still alive. As long as I can keep breathing, I’m good,” Lovell, 92, said in an interview with The Associated Press from his Lake Forest, Illinois, home.A half-century later, Apollo 13 is still considered Mission Control’s finest hour.  Lovell calls it “a miraculous recovery.”  Haise, like so many others, regards it as NASA’s most successful failure.  “It was a great mission,” Haise, 86, said. It showed “what can be done if people use their minds and a little ingenuity.”  As the lunar module pilot, Haise would have become the sixth man to walk on the moon, following Lovell onto the dusty gray surface. The oxygen tank explosion robbed them of the moon landing, which would have been NASA’s third, nine months after Apollo 11’s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took humanity’s first footsteps on the moon.Now the coronavirus pandemic has robbed them of their anniversary celebrations. Festivities are on hold, including at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where the mission began on April 11, 1970, a Saturday just like this year.That won’t stop Haise, who still lives in Houston, from marking what he calls “boom day” next Monday, as he does every April 13.Lovell, Haise and Jack Swigert, a last-minute fill-in who died in 1982, were almost to the moon when they heard a bang and felt a shudder. One of two oxygen tanks had burst in the spacecraft’s service module.FILE – In this April 10, 1970, photo made available by NASA, Apollo 13 astronauts, from left, Fred Haise, Jack Swigert and Jim Lovell pose for a photo on the day before launch.The tense words that followed are the stuff of space — and movie — fame.”OK, Houston, we’ve had a problem here,” radioed Swigert, the command module pilot.”This is Houston. Say again, please.””Houston, we’ve had a problem,” Lovell cut in.Lovell reported a sudden voltage drop in one of the two main electrical circuits. Within seconds, Houston’s Mission Control saw pressure readings for the damaged oxygen tank plunge to zero. The blast also knocked out two electrical power-generating fuel cells and damaged the third.  As Lovell peered out the window and saw oxygen escaping into the black void, he knew his moon landing was also slipping away. He shoved all emotions aside.”Not landing on the moon or dying in space are two different things,” Lovell explained, “and so we forgot about landing on the moon. This was one of survival. How do we get home?”The astronauts were 200,000 miles (322,000 kilometers) from Earth. Getting back alive would require calm, skill and, yes, luck.”The explosion could not have happened at a better time,” Lovell said.Much earlier, he said, and the astronauts wouldn’t have had enough electrical power to make it around the moon and slingshot back to Earth for a splashdown. A blast in lunar orbit or, worse still, while Lovell and Haise were on the surface, “that would be the end of it.”  “I think we had some divine help in this flight,” Lovell said.The aborted mission went from being so humdrum that none of the major TV networks broadcast the astronauts’ show-and-tell minutes before the explosion, to a life-and-death drama gripping the entire world.  As flight director Gene Kranz and his team in Houston raced to come up with a rescue plan, the astronauts kept their cool. It was Lovell’s fourth spaceflight – his second to the moon – and the first and only one for Haise and Swigert.Dark thoughts “always raced through our minds, but silently. We didn’t talk about that,” Lovell said.  Added Haise: “We never hit the point where there was nothing left to do. So, no, we never got to a point where we said, ‘Well, we’re going to die.'”The White House, less confident, demanded odds. Kranz refused, leaving it to others to put the crew’s chances at 50-50. In his mind, there was no doubt, no room for failure — only success.”Basically that was the name of the game: I’m going to get them home. My team’s going to get them home. We will get them home,” Kranz recalled.For the record, Kranz never uttered “failure is not an option.” The line is pure Hollywood, created for the 1995 movie “Apollo 13” starring Ed Harris as Kranz and Tom Hanks as Lovell.FILE – In this April 17, 1970, photo made available by NASA, the command module carrying the Apollo 13 crew parachutes to a splashdown in the Pacific Ocean.The flight controllers went into crisis mode. They immediately ordered the command module Odyssey shut down to conserve what little power remained, and the astronauts to move into the lunar module Aquarius, now a lifeboat.  One of the low points, Lovell said, was realizing they’d be cramped together in the lander.”It was designed for two people for two days. We were three people for four days.”The carbon dioxide overload, from breathing, threatened to kill them.  Engineers scrambled to figure out how to convert the square air-purifying canisters in the dead capsule into round ones that would fit in their temporary home.  Their outside-the-box, seat-of-the-pants solution, using spacecraft scraps, worked. But it was so damp and cold that the astronauts couldn’t sleep. Condensation covered the walls and windows, and the temperature was close to freezing.Dehydrated and feverish, Haise had the roughest time during the six-day ordeal. Despite the sky-high stress, Haise recalls no cross words among the three test pilots. Even Swigert fit in, despite joining the crew a scant three days before liftoff. He replaced command module pilot Ken Mattingly, who with his crewmates had been exposed to German measles, but unlike them didn’t have immunity.  Rumors swirled that the astronauts had poison pills tucked away in case of a hopeless situation. Lovell dispelled that notion on page one of his 1994 autobiography, “Lost Moon,” the basis for the “Apollo 13” film.Splashdown day finally arrived April 17, 1970 — with no guarantees.The astronauts managed to power up their command module, avoiding short circuits but creating a rainfall inside as the spacecraft decelerated in the atmosphere.The communication blackout lasted 1 1/2 minutes longer than normal. Controllers grew alarmed. Finally, three billowing parachutes appeared above the Pacific. It was only then, Lovell said, that “we knew that we had it made.”  The astronauts had no idea how much their cosmic cliffhanger impacted the world until they reached Honolulu. President Richard Nixon was there to greet them.”We never dreamed a billion people were following us on television and radio, and reading about us in banner headlines of every newspaper published,” Lovell noted in a NASA history.The tank explosion later was linked to damage caused by electrical overheating in ground tests.  Apollo 13 “showed teamwork, camaraderie and what NASA was really made of,” said Columbia University’s Mike Massimino, a former shuttle astronaut.In the decades since, Lovell and his wife, Marilyn, of nearly 68 years have discussed the what-ifs and might-have-beens.”The outcome of everything is, naturally, that he’s alive,” she said, “and that we’ve had all these years.” 
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A partisan fight over voting in Wisconsin was the first issue linked to the coronavirus  to make it to the Supreme Court. Efforts to limit abortion during the pandemic could eventually land in the justices’ hands. Disputes over guns and religious freedom also are popping up around the country.The virus outbreak has put much of American life on hold, but the nation’s culture wars seem immune from the pandemic.And in a country deeply divided over politics, some liberals are accusing conservatives of using this crisis to advance long-held goals, especially in the areas of access to abortion and the ballot box. Conservatives have complained about restrictions on church services and gun shops. “We see the right as being very opportunistic to advance their agenda,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president of the liberal People for the American Way.‘Knee-jerk response’Tim Schmidt, founder and president of the gun-rights U.S. Concealed Carry Association, called restrictions on gun sales “a knee-jerk response to something we don’t quite understand. I hope and pray it doesn’t happen but that’s what I fear,” he said in a recent online forum. The clash over Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin is just one fight sparked by the coronavirus. Ultimately, conservative majorities  on both the high court and Wisconsin Supreme Court broke with more liberal colleagues to reject Democratic efforts to delay the vote and extend absentee balloting. The rulings signal an approaching season of bitter election-related litigation, said University of California at Irvine law professor Richard Hasen.”It is a very bad sign for November that the Court could not come together and find some form of compromise here in the midst of a global pandemic unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes,” Hasen wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court justices on his Election Law blog.  “And it does not look like the courts are going to be able to do any better than the politicians in finding common ground on election principles,” he addedDemocratic U.S. presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the 11th Democratic candidates debate of the 2020 U.S. presidential campaign, held in CNN’s Washington studios.‘All-mail ballots’Already, Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, has said the country should be looking “to all-mail ballots across the board” because of the pandemic. But President Donald Trump has weighed in strongly against voting by mail, even though he himself casts absentee ballots and Republicans have often favored mail-in ballots especially for older people. More fights over elections may be ahead, but the pandemic has already led to clashes in multiple states over abortion access. In Republican-led Alabama, Iowa, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas, governors sought to prohibit almost all abortions by classifying them as elective procedures that should be put off during the virus outbreak. Those efforts have, so far, been mostly blocked. In Iowa, the American Civil Liberties Union and the state reached an agreement that allows women to obtain “essential” surgical abortions. Federal court rulings have allowed abortions to continue in Alabama, Ohio and Oklahoma. But not so in Texas, where the federal appeals court in New Orleans held 2-1 Tuesday that the state’s restrictions on abortions could remain in place during the pandemic. ‘Emergency measures’U.S. Circuit Judge Kyle Duncan, a Trump appointee, wrote for the court that “when faced with a society-threatening epidemic, a state may implement emergency measures that curtail constitutional rights so long as the measures have at least some ‘real or substantial relation’ to the public health crisis.”The ruling drew a blistering dissent from Judge James Dennis, a Bill Clinton appointee, who said that results in cases involving abortion at the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals don’t stem from “the law or facts, but because of the subject matter.” Abortion rights groups on Wednesday went back to a lower court in an effort to resume abortions, and the case could still eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said Texas “has been trying to end abortion for decades and they are exploiting this pandemic to achieve that goal.” Andrea Schry, right, fills out the buyer part of legal forms to buy a handgun as shop worker Missy Morosky fills out the vendors parts after Dukes Sport Shop reopened, March 25, 2020, in New Castle, Pa.Gun stores targetedAbortion clinics aren’t the only places that states have sought to close during the pandemic. Gun stores, too, have been targeted. Most states have deemed gun sellers essential businesses allowed to remain open during the emergency. But three states — Massachusetts, New Mexico and Washington — forced those businesses to close. Gun rights groups have gone to court to pressure New Jersey’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy, and local officials in North Carolina to reverse course on gun restrictions. Other lawsuits are pending in California. Joe Bartozzi, president and CEO of the National Sports Shooting Foundation, said closing the stores is the wrong answer. “You don’t want to, in a time of crisis, be suspending civil liberties,” Bartozzi said.  Gun-control advocates said the National Rifle Association and allied groups were using the pandemic to advance their cause. “This is part of their playbook for many years which is to foment fear during a time of crisis,” said Shannon Watts, founder of the gun-control group Moms Demand Action. A sign highlighting Holy Week activities is displayed outside the Our Mother of Perpetual Help- St. James Parish, April 8, 2020, in Ferndale, Mich.Religious gatheringsSome churches also have become embroiled in fights about whether they can stay open in states that have restricted gatherings. Some states’ stay-at-home orders have specifically exempted some level of religious activity, but that hasn’t necessarily prevented clashes.In Kansas, leaders of the Republican-controlled legislature overturned Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s executive order limiting the size of religious gatherings during the virus outbreak. “It appears to be out of line and extreme and clearly in violation, a blatant violation, of our fundamental rights,” said state Senate President Susan Wagle of Wichita, an abortion opponent, who questioned why clinics were still being allowed to perform abortions while restrictions were being placed on churches.  Three Houston-area pastors sued over potential fines for holding religious services amid the virus outbreak.”We believe the government’s power stops at the church doors,” said Jared Woodfill, a lawyer who represents the pastors and said he’s working on three other pandemic-related church lawsuits in Texas, even though Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order deems religious services essential. He said it’s ironic that Wisconsin held elections. “You had elections but you can’t have church?” he asked. Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, took to Twitter to offer a different take on the same set of facts. “COVID-19: just dangerous enough to block abortion but not dangerous enough to hold elections by mail,” Strangio wrote.  
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In Italy, one of the countries hardest hit by the coronavirus, the debate is growing on whether it is time to downgrade the emergency and start easing restrictions after a strict five-week lockdown, now that the virus spread is showing what some see as signs of slowing down.On top of that, there is pressure to reopen industries and businesses in the face of what could be a massive economic meltdown.  The daily death toll has been dropping steadily – as have admissions to intensive care units. But with about 500 people still dying each day, the country’s prime minister is resisting calls to relax strict social distancing and other measures.
 
Giuseppe Conte is urging caution and says any decision to downgrade the emergency must be taken gradually and together with scientists.FILE – Medical staff in full protective gear move a patient on a stretcher down a street in Naples, as the spread of the coronavirus continues, Italy, April 2, 2020.He also warned of dire consequences yet to come for the whole of Europe if the EU does not come together and agree on a rescue package.  
 
Conte said the future of the European Union is at stake in a challenge he has compared to that of World War II. 
 
In an interview with the German newspaper Bild, Conte, said Europe must unite and deliver a solid response to head off a devastation of the European economy. He said the sooner financial instruments are created that will allow countries to deal with this crisis, the sooner everyone will emerge from this situation and enjoy economic and social advantages.Divisions between southern European nations, led by Italy, and northern ones, mainly Germany and the Netherlands, have so far stalled plans for a massive package to help the hardest-hit economies recover from the effects of the pandemic.
 
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Europe’s major stock indexes were mostly trading in positive territory Thursday, continuing the upswing enjoyed earlier in the day in Asia. London’s FTSE and the DAX index in Frankfurt were both trading at or above one-half of one percent, while Paris’s CAC-40 was slightly lower in mid-morning trading.  A currency trader walks by the screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI) at the foreign exchange dealing room in Seoul, South Korea, April 9, 2020.The good news in Europe was a spillover from Asia’s big rally, with Australia, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Shanghai all posting gains at the end of their trading sessions. Japan’s Nikkei index, however, lost a fraction of one percent as the country faces an increasing number of confirmed COVID-19 infections.   In U.S. futures trading, the Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq were all trading lower as investors brace for yet another report of huge unemployment claims from the U.S. Labor Department.  Oil markets improved Thursday, with U.S. crude oil gaining 3% to finish over $25 per barrel, while Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose nearly 2%, to settle at over $33 per barrel.  Investors are hopeful that Thursday’s meeting between OPEC members and Russia will lead to a deal to curb production, which has created a glut of supplies as demand has plunged due to the pandemic.     
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The Strategic National Stockpile is nearly out of the N95 respirators, surgical masks, face, shields, gowns and other medical supplies desperately needed to protect front-line medical workers treating coronavirus patients.The Department of Health and Human Services told The Associated Press Wednesday that the federal stockpile was in the process of deploying all remaining personal protective equipment in its inventory.The HHS statement confirms federal documents released Wednesday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee showing that about 90% of the personal protective equipment in the stockpile has been distributed to state and local governments.HHS spokeswoman Katie McKeogh said the remaining 10% will be kept in reserve to support federal response efforts.House Oversight Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y., said in a statement that the Trump administration is leaving states to scour the open market for scarce supplies, often competing with each other and federal agencies in a chaotic bidding war that drives up prices.”The President failed to bring in FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) early on, failed to name a national commander for this crisis, and failed to fully utilize the authorities Congress gave him under the Defense Production Act to procure and manage the distribution of critical supplies,” Maloney said. “He must take action now to address these deficiencies.”For the last month, health care workers across the nation have taken to social media to illustrate the shortages by taking selfies wearing home-sewn masks on their faces and trash bags over their scrubs.President Donald Trump has faulted the states for not better preparing for the pandemic and has said they should only being relying on the federal stockpile as a last resort.The AP reported Sunday that the Trump administration squandered nearly two months after the early January warnings that COVID-19 might ignite a global pandemic, waiting until mid-March to place bulk orders of N95 masks and other medical supplies needed to build up the stockpile. By then, hospitals in several states were treating thousands of infected patients without adequate equipment and were pleading for help.Trump spent the first two months of the outbreak playing down the threat from the new virus. He derided warnings of a pandemic as a hoax perpetrated by Democrats and the media, predicting as late as Feb. 26 that the number of U.S. cases would soon drop to zero.The stockpile was created in 1999 to prevent supply-chain disruptions for the predicted Y2K computer problems. It expanded after 9/11 to prepare for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear attacks. Congress provided money in 2006 to prepare for a potential influenza pandemic, though much of that stock was used during the H1N1 flu outbreak three years later.At the start of the COVID-19 crisis, the federal stockpile had about 13 million N95 respirators, masks which filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles and are critical to prevent health care workers from becoming infected. That’s just a small fraction of what hospitals need to protect their workers, who normally would wear a new mask for each patient, but who now are often issued only one to last for days.Federal contracting records show HHS made an initial bulk order of N95 masks on March 12, followed by larger orders on March 21. But those contracts won’t yield big deliveries to the national stockpile until the end of April, after the White House has projected the pandemic will reach its peak.For nearly a month, Trump rebuffed calls to use his authority under the Defense Production Act to order companies to increase production of respirators and ventilators, before he relented last week.
Asked about the AP report, the president suggested Sunday the states should be thankful for the shipments of supplies they have gotten.”FEMA, the military, what they’ve done is a miracle,” Trump said. “What they’ve done is a miracle in getting all of this stuff. What they have done for states is incredible.”
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Ecuadorean President Lenin Moreno is calling for an investigation into the handling of the bodies of coronavirus victims, especially in Guayaquil, the epicenter of the country’s outbreak.Moreno is seeking the probe amid an avalanche of complaints from relatives of victims, who accuse local authorities of mishandling the bodies of their loved ones.The sight of bodies in the street has fueled the anguish of some residents.  The virus is claiming victims so quickly that the backlog has led to bodies being stored in homes of relatives or in refrigerated shipping containers.Ecuador has 242 confirmed deaths and just as many more are suspected of dying from the coronavirus.Moreno said in a tweet that each person deserves a proper burial and that no one will be buried without being identified.Meanwhile, Health Minister Juan Carlos Zevallos said he fired one official who asked for money in exchange for handing over the remains of a victim in a Guayaquil public hospital.So far, there are more than 4,400 cases of the coronavirus in Ecuador, one of the hightest totals in Latin America.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping is offering support and resources to African countries, especially South Africa, in their fight to control the COVID-19 epidemic.  China state media said Xi recounted during a Wednesday phone call with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa how South Africa reached out to Beijing to offer support in the early stages of China’s coronavirus battle. Xi said China will share its experience in trying to prevent and control the coronavirus and strengthen the cooperation with South Africa in healthcare.  Xi is also urging Chinese nationals in South Africa to lend their support to the country’s anti-epidemic initiatives. South Africa has more than 1,800 coronavirus cases, the most of any country on the continent.  So far, the deaths of 18 people have been linked to the virus.  
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Brazil’s health minister said on Wednesday that the country’s attempts to purchase thousands of ventilators from China to fight a growing coronavirus epidemic had fallen through and the government is now looking to Brazilian companies to build the devices.“Practically all our purchases of equipment in China are not being confirmed,” Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said at a news conference.An attempt to buy 15,000 ventilators in China did not go through and Brazil was making a new bid, he said, but the outcome is uncertain in the intense competition for medical supplies in the global pandemic.In one positive sign for Brazil’s supply crunch, a private company managed to buy 40 metric tons of protective masks from China, with the shipment arriving by cargo plane in Brasilia on Wednesday.Young women boxes with donations of food distributed by an NGO to people suffering during the COVID-19 outbreak at the Cidade de Deus (City of God) favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on April 7, 2020.The purchase of 6 million masks worth 160 million reais ($30 million) was undertaken by pharmaceutical and hospital equipment company Nutriex, based in Goiania, 220 kilometers east of Brasilia. The firm plans to donate part of the order.Health authorities began to sound the alarm this week over supply shortages as hospitals faced growing numbers of patients with COVID-19.Confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country soared to 15,927 on Wednesday, with the death toll rising by 133 in just 24 hours to 800, the ministry said.Rio de Janeiro reported the first six deaths in four of the city’s hillside slums, called favelas, alarming authorities who fear rapid contagion in crowded communities that have limited access to medical care and often lack running water for hygiene.Two of the deaths occurred in Rocinha, one the largest slums in South America where more than 100,000 people live.Mandetta reported the first case of coronavirus among the Yanomami people on the country’s largest reservation and said the government plans to build a field hospital for indigenous tribes that are vulnerable to contagion.“We are extremely concerned about the indigenous communities,” Mandetta said.Anthropologists and health experts warn that the epidemic can have a devastating impact on Brazil’s 850,000 indigenous people whose lifestyle in tribal villages rules out social distancing.President Jair Bolsonaro said in an address to the nation that the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine was saving lives of coronavirus patients and should be used in the initial stages of COVID-19. Due to the absence of scientific evidence on its effectiveness and safety, Brazil’s health authorities limit its use to seriously ill patients who are in hospital.Mandetta said Brazil has hired local unlisted medical equipment maker Magnamed to make 6,000 ventilators in 90 days.Pulp and paper companies Suzano SA and Klabin SA, planemaker Embraer SA, information technology provider Positivo Tecnologia SA and automaker Fiat Chrysler have also offered to help build ventilators, he said. 
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The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said Wednesday that it was halting military operations nationwide in support of U.N. efforts to end a five-year war that has killed over 100,000 people and spread hunger and disease.The move aims to facilitate talks sponsored by U.N. special envoy Martin Griffiths for a permanent cease-fire. It also was pursued in part to avoid a potential outbreak of the new coronavirus, though no cases have been reported so far, military coalition spokesman Colonel Turki al-Malki said.The cease-fire will go into effect at midday Thursday for two weeks and is open to extension, he said in a statement.The announcement was the first major breakthrough since the United Nations convened the warring parties in late 2018 and they signed a cease-fire for the Red Sea port city of Hodeida.But it was unclear if the armed Houthi movement would follow suit. Spokesman Mohammed Abdulsalam said they had sent the United Nations a comprehensive vision that included an end to the war and to “the blockade” imposed on Yemen.“[Our proposal] will lay the foundations for a political dialogue and a transitional period,” he tweeted Wednesday.Strikes reportedHours after the coalition announcement, Yemen’s information minister said the Houthis had targeted Hodeida and the central city of Marib with missiles, while Houthi media said coalition strikes hit Hajja and Saada provinces.Last week, U.N. envoy Griffiths sent a proposal to the internationally recognized government, the Saudi-led coalition that supports it, and the Houthis — who control the capital, Sanaa, and most of northern Yemen.FILE – A soldier walks at the site of a Houthi missile attack on a military camp’s mosque in Marib, Yemen, Jan. 20, 2020.Griffiths welcomed the cease-fire and called on warring parties to “utilize this opportunity and cease immediately all hostilities with the utmost urgency, and make progress towards comprehensive and sustainable peace.”The adversaries are expected to convene via videoconference to discuss the proposal, which calls for halting all air, ground and naval hostilities.A senior Saudi official, speaking to reporters in Washington, said Riyadh hoped that during the next two weeks the U.N. Security Council would help pressure the Houthis “to stop the hostilities,” join the cease-fire “and also to be serious in such engagement with the Yemeni government.”The U.N. and Western allies have pointed to the threat of the coronavirus to push Yemen’s combatants to agree to fresh talks to end a war that has left millions vulnerable to disease. The United States and Britain have provided the coalition with arms, intelligence and logistics support.Spike in violenceYemen had witnessed a lull in military action after Saudi Arabia and the Houthis began back-channel talks late last year. But a recent spike in violence, including ballistic missiles fired toward Riyadh last month and retaliatory coalition airstrikes, threatens fragile peace deals in vital port cities.Yemen, already the Arab world’s poorest country, has been mired in violence since the Houthis ousted the government from power in Sanaa in late 2014.The conflict, largely seen as a proxy war between Saudi Arabia and regional arch foe Iran, has unleashed an urgent humanitarian crisis that has pushed millions to the verge of famine, forced millions more to seek shelter in displacement camps, and sparked outbreaks of cholera and diphtheria.Saudi Vice Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman tweeted that the kingdom would contribute $500 million to the U.N. humanitarian response plan for Yemen in 2020 and another $25 million to help combat the spread of the coronavirus.The United Nations appealed for more than $4 billion in 2019 for the humanitarian crisis and is expected to ask again for several billion dollars in 2020.
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Outside wartime nothing like it as ever been seen before in modern Western history. The lockdowns by democratic states with their draconian constraints on civil liberties and private enterprise fly in the face of an historical progression that’s seen the size and roles of governments shrunk and individual liberty boosted.As governments mobilize resources and coerce people in a life-and-death struggle to contain the coronavirus and mitigate its impact, the state has been unbound. People have been confined indoors, police powers have been expanded, data-surveillance increased and businesses shuttered.  All with little debate.The size and scope of the state’s role in the economy prompted by the coronavirus dwarfs anything mounted to handle the 2008 financial crash. Britain, France and other European countries have offered so far loans and subsidies worth around 15% of their GDPs. America’s stimulus package is at around 10% of GDP. The U.S. fiscal stimulus package was dubbed by Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s economic adviser, “the single largest Main Street assistance program in the history of the United States.”Municipal police officers check documents as they patrol in a street of Sceaux, south of Paris, France, during nationwide confinement measures to counter the Covid-19, April 8, 2020.In France, President Emmanuel Macron’s government not only passed legislation giving it the legal right to control the movement of people, it also seized the power to manage prices and requisition goods. In the United States, President Trump has used the Defense Production Act to prevent the export of surgical masks and gloves.State power is now at its most intrusive since the Second World War. For die-hard advocates of free markets and limited government the abrupt change in direction is horrifying. For others it is less so, even something to be embraced, a harbinger of the future, a turning point that will end up re-reordering their countries.For those on the progressive left, the reemergence of state power is a vindication of long-held beliefs that market-based models for social organization fail the majority of people. They hope the crisis will provide the opportunity to refashion along less market-oriented and more socialist lines. In the United States, supporters of Bernie Sanders say the crisis has exposed for all to see America’s threadbare social-safety net and the need for a government-run single-payer health care system.Last week, Britain’s former Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said that the government’s massive and unprecedented underwriting of the British economy and labor market vindicated his pre-coronavirus election manifesto, the most left-wing program ever presented by the modern Labour Party.On Europe’s far right, too, there is self-preening as well as hope that the eventual political outcome from the coronavirus will be along lines more to their liking. A future of strong nation states and powerful central governments far less hedged in by Brussels is what they hope the coronavirus will lead to.Europe’s nationalist populists have long demanded more border controls and have advocated for a break with the Schengen system of passport-free travel. They hope the imposition of temporary border controls, in the face of the disapproval of Brussels, will lead to the break-up of Schengen permanently. Luca Zaia, governor of Italy’s hard-hit Veneto region and a member of Matteo Salvini’s populist Lega party, told reporters last month that “Schengen no longer exists” and forecast, “it will be remembered only in the history books.”Some are not waiting for history to reward them. FILE – Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban replies to an oppositional MP during a question and answer session of the Parliament in Budapest, Hungary, March 30, 2020.Hungary’s firebrand populist Viktor Orbán, a proponent of what he dubs ‘illiberal democracy,’ has seized the moment to accrue more power. Since his reelection in 2010 civil libertarians have denounced him for initiating a concerted erosion of democratic checks and balances, including the curbing of judicial independence, the politicization of the civil service and state interference in media and civil society. Last week, the country’s parliament, which is controlled by his right-wing nationalist party, gave Orbán the power to rule by decree indefinitely, shrugging off opposition demands for at least an end-date to his one-man-rule in the heart of the European Union. “The Hungarian situation offers us a glimpse of how world politics may function during and after the coronavirus crisis unless we give it careful thought,” frets Umut Korkut, a politics professor at Scotland’s Glasgow Caledonian University. Tom Palmer, a vice president at the Atlas Network, a non-profit which advocates for free-market economic policies and limited government, agrees. The Hungarian example — as well as the unbinding of the state elsewhere in the West — prompts his alarm. “There is a rising tide of authoritarian statism coming,” he says.Coffins arriving from the Bergamo area are being unloaded from a military truck that transported them in the cemetery of Cinisello Balsamo, near Milan in Northern Italy, March 27, 2020.But some governments appear just to be trying to manage public fear with no aim to prolong intrusive power. Others are exploiting it. In many cases established democracies are giving people enough confidence to accept restrictions in exchange for health security. Positive examples include South Korea and Israel, where the introduction of tough measures reflect a strong public consensus for action. In Britain, an opinion poll this week showed that two-thirds of the public back police enforcement of lockdown measures. Italy’s Prime Minister, Giuseppe Conte, got overwhelming public approval for his nationwide shut-down.But the unbinding of the state does raise serious questions about government overreach and individual rights.Other analysts and commentators remain more sanguine, pointing out that while many Western governments have taken emergency powers during this viral outbreak, no other democracy has given a leader full control as in Hungary. Faced with the prospect of tens of thousands – even hundreds of thousands – of deaths, Western governments have had little option but to expand their authority. People want governments to do whatever is needed to save lives. Once the acute phase of the pandemic is over, everything can revert to how it before, they say. The crisis may even allow for an improvement of democracy — a renewal involving reform of hidebound bureaucracy and a reduction in red tape as well as a greater nimbleness and responsiveness by government. The fight against the Coronavirus has exposed bureaucratic inertia in the West, a leaden-footedness and a failure to act quickly enough. Critics say bureaucracies have become arthritic, adjusting too slowly to the burgeoning crisis and have been reluctant to embrace innovation and flexibility. FILE – A laboratory technician prepares COVID-19 patient samples for semi-automatic testing at Northwell Health Labs, March 11, 2020, in Lake Success, New York.With the exception of Germany, many Western states have bungled virus testing and been sluggish to embrace the greatest strength of advanced democracies — their industries and manufacturers. As in Britain, so in the United States, commercial and university laboratories were blocked for weeks from developing their own tests for the virus. The government-designed testing kits rolled out at first were faulty.Belatedly, Western governments have started to try to be more responsive and to be smarter in the securing the resources needed to fight the insidious virus, cutting back on red tape, opportunistically embracing innovation, trying to reinvent themselves while tossing aside economic orthodoxy, all for the collective good. That all might leave a lasting legacy.But it remains unclear whether the unbound state will relinquish its expanded authority once the crisis is over. “Some will reassure themselves that it is just temporary and that it will leave almost no mark, as with Spanish flu a century ago,” the Economist magazine editorialized last month. “However, the scale of the response makes covid-19 more like a war or the Depression. And here the record suggests that crises lead to a permanently bigger state with many more powers and responsibilities and the taxes to pay for them,” the editors noted. Governments are never good at handing back powers they have seized. Outside of the democratic states of the West, the picture is gloomier. Dictators and strongman are using the crisis to tighten their grip on power. Many are fearful of political and social revolt triggered by scarcity, fear and an uncontrolled spread of the virus. A member of the non-profit Cambodian Children’s Fund sprays disinfectant to help curb the spread of the new coronavirus in the slum neighborhood of Stung Meanchey in southern Phnom Penh, Cambodia, March 24, 2020.In Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev has cited the threat of the coronavirus to crack down even harder on opposition to his rule. So, too, in Cambodia, where Hun Sen has been arresting dissidents on grounds they’re spreading false information about the virus and he’s scapegoating Muslims for its emergence and introducing the contagion into the country. “In Thailand, Cambodia, Venezuela, Bangladesh, and Turkey, governments are detaining journalists, opposition activists, healthcare workers, and anyone else who dares to criticize the official response to the coronavirus,” says Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “For authoritarian-minded leaders, the coronavirus crisis is offering a convenient pretext to silence critics and consolidate power. Censorship in China and elsewhere has fed the pandemic, helping to turn a potentially containable threat into a global calamity. The health crisis will inevitably subside, but autocratic governments’ dangerous expansion of power may be one of the pandemic’s most enduring legacies,” he fears.FILE – Lebanese policemen remove protesters’ tents in Martyrs Square in Beirut, March 28, 2020.The coronavirus has given governments in the Middle East some breathing space from protest movements that have been burgeoning this year. Public demonstrations have been banned on social distancing grounds. But the Virus and food scarcity risks upending regimes.  In Beirut, protesters flouted a curfew last week chanting, “We want to eat, we want to live.” In Tripoli, the country’s second-largest city, protesters shouted: “Dying from the coronavirus is better than starving to death.”A precipitous fall in oil prices risks destabilizing even strong central powers. With revenues plunging, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family is also at risk, say analysts. Few, though, believe another a coronavirus-sparked repeat of an Arab spring would give rise to the emergence of democracy in the region — more likely just a swap out of authoritarians.Speaking to the French nation last month, France’s Emmanuel Macron promised his people,  “The day after we emerge victorious, will not be like the day before.” His words were meant to reassure the French that the virus would give rise to helpful reform. But they could prove prophetic in quite the opposite way for many countries.   
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Even as coronavirus deaths mount across Europe, New York and other hot spots, the U.S. and other governments are beginning to envision an exit strategy and contemplating a staggered and carefully calibrated relaxation of the restrictions designed to curb the scourge.”To end the confinement, we’re not going to go from black to white; we’re going to go from black to gray,” top French epidemiologist Jean-François Delfraissy said in a radio interview.At the same time, politicians and health officials emphatically warn that while deaths, hospitalizations and new infections may be leveling off in places like Italy and Spain, and even New York has seen encouraging signs amid the gloom, the crisis is far from over, and a catastrophic second wave could hit if countries let their guard down too soon.”We are flattening the curve because we are rigorous about social distancing,” New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said. “But it’s not a time to be complacent. It’s not a time to do anything different than we’ve been doing.”‘Terrible’ developmentIn a sharp reminder of the danger, New York state on Wednesday recorded its highest one-day increase in deaths, 779, for an overall death toll of almost 6,300.”The bad news is actually terrible,” Cuomo lamented. Still, the governor said that hospitalizations were decreasing and that many of those now dying fell ill in the outbreak’s earlier stages.In Britain, meanwhile, Prime Minister Boris Johnson spent a second night in intensive care but was improving and sitting up in bed, authorities said.Passengers wearing face masks ride a ferry on Yangtze River after travel restrictions to leave Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and China’s epicenter of the novel coronavirus disease outbreak, were lifted, April 8, 2020.In China, the lockdown against Wuhan, the industrial city of 11 million where the global pandemic began, was lifted after 76 days, allowing people to come and go. The reopening was seen as a positive sign but also reflected the communist state’s extensive surveillance apparatus and powers of coercion.Wuhan residents will have to use a smartphone app showing that they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus. Even then, schools remain closed, people are still checked for fever when they enter buildings, and masks are strongly encouraged.In the U.S., with more than 14,000 deaths and more than 400,000 infections, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was considering changing self-isolation guidelines to make it easier for those exposed to someone with the virus to return to work if they have no symptoms.
Under the proposed guidance, aimed at workers in critical fields, such people would be allowed back on the job if they take their temperature twice a day and wear a mask, said a person who was familiar with the draft but was not authorized to discuss it and spoke on condition of anonymity.’Glimmers of hope’Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious-diseases expert, said that the Trump administration has been working on plans to eventually reopen the country and restart the economy amid “glimmers of hope” that social distancing is working to stop the virus’s spread.”That doesn’t mean we’re going to do it right now,” he said on Fox News. “But it means we need to be prepared to ease into that. And there’s a lot of activity going on.”The U.S. is seeing burgeoning hot spots in such places as Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Chicago, Detroit, Colorado and Pennsylvania. The New York metropolitan area, which includes northern New Jersey, Long Island and lower Connecticut, accounts for about half of all virus deaths in the U.S.A worker wears a sanitary mask to protect against the novel coronavirus as he works in a greenhouse of the Saracino Flower Farm, in Aprilia, near Rome, April 8, 2020.In Europe, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte is expected to announce in the coming days how long the country’s lockdown will remain in place amid expectations that some restrictions could be eased. Discussions are focused first on opening more of the country’s industries.Proposals being floated in Italy include the issuing of immunity certificates, which would require antibody blood tests, and allowing younger workers to return first, as they show less vulnerability to the virus.Italy, the hardest-hit country, recorded its biggest one-day jump yet in people counted as recovered and had its smallest one-day increase in deaths in more than a month. Nearly 18,000 have died there.In Spain, which has tallied more than 14,000 dead, Budget Minister María Jesús Montero said that Spaniards would progressively recover their “normal life” from April 26 onward but warned that the “de-escalation” of the lockdown will be “very orderly to avoid a return to the contagion.”The government has been tight-lipped so far about what measures could be in place once the confinement is relaxed, stressing that they will be dictated by experts.French authorities have likewise begun to speak openly of planning the end of the confinement period currently set to expire April 15, without giving specifics. The virus has claimed nearly 11,000 lives in France.Three necessary conditionsFrance’s Delfraissy, who leads the scientific council advising the president, said three things are necessary for people to start leaving home regularly: intensive care beds need to be freed up; the spread of the virus must slow; and there have to be multiple tests to see if people are or have been infected and to trace them. He said the French would also need to wear masks in public.British government officials, beset with a rising death toll of more than 7,000, said there is little chance the nationwide lockdown there will be eased when its current period ends next week.The European Union expressed privacy concerns about virus-tracking mobile apps that governments are developing. The apps use smartphone location data to monitor the movements of virus carriers under quarantine — technology the EU said raises questions of “fundamental rights and freedoms.”The desire to get back to normal is driven in part by the damage to world economies.The Bank of France said the French economy has entered recession, with an estimated 6% drop in the first quarter compared with the previous three months, while Germany, Europe’s economic powerhouse, is also facing a deep recession. Expert said its economy would shrink 4.2% this year.A passer-by wearing a protective face mask, following an outbreak of the coronavirus disease, walks past a temporarily closed Seibu department store in Tokyo, April 8, 2020.Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, could contract by a record 25% this quarter, the highest since gross domestic product began to be tracked in 1955.Worldwide, nearly 1.5 million people have been confirmed infected and over 80,000 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. The true numbers are almost certainly much higher, because of limited testing, different rules for counting the dead and concealment by some governments.For most, the virus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and death. Over 300,000 people have recovered.
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A California appeals court ordered the dismissal of a criminal case Tuesday against a Mexican megachurch leader on charges of child rape and human trafficking on procedural grounds.Naason Joaquin Garcia, the self-proclaimed apostle of La Luz del Mundo, has been in custody since June following his arrest on accusations involving three girls and one woman between 2015 and 2018 in Los Angeles County. Additional allegations of the possession of child pornography in 2019 were later added. He has denied wrongdoing.  While being held without bail in Los Angeles, Garcia has remained the spiritual leader of La Luz del Mundo, which is Spanish for “The Light of the World.” The Guadalajara, Mexico-based evangelical Christian church was founded by his grandfather and claims 5 million followers worldwide.It was not clear when he would be released.  The attorney general’s office said it was reviewing the court’s ruling and did not answer additional questions.  Garcia’s attorney, Alan Jackson, said he and his client are “thrilled” by the decision.  “In their zeal to secure a conviction at any cost, the Attorney General has sought to strip Mr. Garcia of his freedom without due process by locking him up without bail on the basis of unsubstantiated accusations by unnamed accusers and by denying him his day in court,” Jackson said in a statement.La Luz del Mundo officials in a statement urged their followers to remain respectful and pray for authorities.  “(W)e are not to point fingers or accuse anyone, we must practice the Christian values that identify us, such as patience, prudence, respect and love of God,” they said.The appeals court ruling states that the Los Angeles County Superior Court must dismiss the 29 counts of felony charges that range from human trafficking and production of child pornography to forcible rape of a minor.The appeals court ruled that because Garcia’s preliminary hearing was not held in a timely manner and he did not waive his right to one, the complaint filed against him must be dismissed.  In June, Garcia was arraigned on 26 counts and waived his right to a speedy preliminary hearing — a common move. The following month, he was arraigned on an amended complaint that included three additional charges of possession of child pornography. That time, he did not waive the time limits for a preliminary hearing.  His hearing was postponed several times — in some instances, because prosecutors had not turned over evidence to the defense — as he remained held without bail, prompting his attorneys to file an appeal.  The appeals court ruled that a preliminary hearing on an amended complaint for an in-custody defendant must be held within 10 days of the second arraignment — unless the defendant waives the 10-day time period or there is “good cause” for the delay.  The appeal only mentioned the dismissal of Garcia’s case and not those of his co-defendants, Susana Medina Oaxaca and Alondra Ocampo. A fourth defendant, Azalea Rangel Melendez, remains at large.  It was not immediately clear if the co-defendants’ cases would also be tossed.  In February, a Southern California woman filed a federal lawsuit against the church and Garcia. In it, she said Garcia, 50, and his father sexually abused her for 18 years starting when she was 12, manipulating Bible passages to convince her the mistreatment actually was a gift from God.The lawsuit will continue despite the dismissal, the woman’s lawyers said Tuesday in a statement.  The dismissal is the latest in a series of blunders on this high-profile case for the attorney general’s office.  Attorney General Xavier Becerra himself pleaded with additional victims to come forward — a move defense attorneys said could taint a jury pool.”It would be hard to believe that, based on the information that we’re collecting, that it’s only these four individuals,” Becerra said in June, repeatedly calling Garcia “sick” and “demented.”Prosecutors Amanda Plisner and Diana Callaghan also said multiple times in court that they expected to file additional charges based on more victims as the case continued to be investigated. But ultimately they only added three counts of possession of child pornography to the original complaint.Plisner and Callaghan were additionally sanctioned by a Superior Court judge in September, who said they had violated a court order in failing to give defense lawyers evidence. The judge later rescinded the sanctions and overturned $10,000 in fines she had levied. 
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Fake news about the coronavirus can do real harm. Polygraph.info is spotlighting fact-checks from other reliable sources here​.Daily DebunkClaim: Plagues occur exactly every 100 years.Verdict: MisleadingRead the full story: “Have Plagues Repeated Exactly Every 100 Years? The predictive value of cherry-picked data is generally low to insignificant.” — Snopes, April 7​ Social Media Disinfo​A soldier waits for health workers to board a free shuttle service in Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines, March 20, 2020. REUTERS/Eloisa Lopez/FilCirculating on social media: Misleading posts about how countries in Asia are handling the COVID-19 pandemic.Read the full story: “Misinformation circulates online about COVID-19 cases and lockdown measures in Asia​,” Agence France-Presse Factual Reads on CoronavirusDr. Fauci Says He Doesn’t Think Americans Should Ever Shake Hands Again to Prevent Spread of Coronavirus
The leading infectious disease expert on President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force told the Wall Street Journal that an end to handshaking would be good for reducing future transmissions of the novel coronavirus and would also cut the number of influenza cases.
— Newsweek, April 8
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After more than two months indoors, Wuhan resident Tong Zhengkun was one of millions of people enjoying a renewed sense of freedom when the Chinese city’s 76-day coronavirus lockdown was lifted Wednesday.  “I haven’t been outside for more than 70 days,” an emotional Tong said as he watched a celebratory light display from a bridge across the broad Yangtze River flowing through the city, where the coronavirus outbreak started late last year. “Being indoors for so long drove me crazy.” Later in the day, Wang Chun took to a downtown street to film a mask-free dance routine with a friend for posting on the internet  “I’ve been inside for 2 1/2 months. I’m so happy Wuhan has defeated the virus,” Wang said after again donning her mask.  Like so many others in the city, Wang was still waiting to hear about when she would get back to work.  “That’s a very good question,” she said with a laugh.  FILE – Residents wearing face masks walk at an old residential community blocked by barriers in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China’s coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, Apr. 5, 2020.Streets in the city of 11 million people were clogged with traffic and masked pedestrians visited the few snack shops that had reopened in the nightlife area. Long lines formed at the airport and train and bus stations as thousands streamed out of the city to return to their homes and jobs elsewhere. Yellow barriers that had blocked off some streets were gone, although the gates to residential compounds remained guarded.  Tong said his apartment complex was shut down after residents were found to have contracted the coronavirus. Neighborhood workers delivered groceries to his door.  Such measures won’t be entirely abandoned following the end of Wuhan’s closure, which began on Jan. 23 as the virus was raging through the city and overwhelming hospitals. Schools are still closed, temperatures are checked when people enter buildings and masks are strongly encouraged. City leaders say they want to simultaneously bring back social and commercial life while avoiding a second wave of infections. Travelers wearing face masks and goggles to protect against the spread of new coronavirus sit at Wuhan Tianhe International Airport in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province, April 8, 2020.The ability to travel again is a huge relief, however, and around 65,000 people were expected to depart Wednesday by plane and train. Wuhan residents are now permitted to leave without special authorization as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.  It didn’t take long for traffic to begin moving swiftly through the reopened bridges, tunnels and highway toll booths. Nearly 1,000 vehicles went through a busy highway toll booth at Wuhan’s border between midnight — when barricades were lifted — and 7 a.m., according to Yan Xiangsheng, a district police chief.  According to airport official Lou Guowei, the first departing flight left Wuhan Tianhe International Airport at 7:25 a.m. for Sanya, a coastal city in Hainan province known for its beaches.  “The crew will wear goggles, masks, and gloves throughout the flight,” chief flight attendant Guo Binxue was quoted as saying by China’s official Xinhua News Agency. “It will be very smooth because we have made much preparation for this flight.” Xiao Yonghong had found herself stuck in Wuhan after returning to her hometown on Jan. 17 to spend the Lunar New Year with her husband, son and parents-in-law. “We were too excited to fall asleep last night. I was looking forward to the lockdown lift very much. I set up an alert to remind myself. I was very happy,” said Xiao, who was waiting for her train outside Hankou station with her son and husband, all three of them wearing masks and gloves.  At the airport, Chen Yating took personal protection a step further, wearing white coveralls, gloves, a mask and a baseball cap. She was waiting to catch a flight to the southern Chinese business hub of Guangzhou.  “We are living in a good era,” Chen said. “It is not easy to have today’s achievement.” The end of Wuhan’s lockdown came one day after Japan declared a state of emergency for Tokyo, Osaka and five other prefectures in an effort to stem the virus’s spread. India and much of Europe and the U.S. have also ordered stay-at-home orders, although not nearly to the same extreme as Wuhan. Restrictions in the city where most of China’s more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths from COVID-19 were reported have been gradually eased as cases declined. The government reported no new cases in the city on Wednesday. People wearing protective suits are seen in Biandanshan cemetery in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus disease outbreak, April 1, 2020.While there are questions about the veracity of China’s count, the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and Hubei province, where the city is located, have been successful enough that other countries adopted similar measures. “The people in Wuhan paid out a lot and bore a lot mentally and psychologically,” resident Zhang Xiang said. “Wuhan people are historically famous for their strong will.” During the lockdown, Wuhan residents could leave their homes only to buy food or attend to other tasks deemed absolutely necessary. Some were allowed to leave the city, but only if they had paperwork showing they were not a health risk and a letter attesting to where they were going and why. Even then, authorities could turn them back on a technicality such as missing a stamp, preventing thousands from returning to their jobs outside the city.  Residents of other parts of Hubei were allowed to leave the province starting about three weeks ago, as long as they could provide a clean bill of health. People leaving the city still face numerous hurdles at their final destinations, such as 14-day quarantines and nucleic acid tests.  Wuhan is a major center for heavy industry, particularly autos, and while major plants have restarted, the small and midsize businesses that employ the most people are still hurting from both a lack of workers and demand. Measures are being instituted to get them back on their feet, including 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in preferential loans, according to the city government.  The exact source of the virus remains under investigation, though many of the first COVID-19 patients were linked to an outdoor food market in the city.  
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