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The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.The trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.The document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.FILE – Robert Redfield, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director.As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump’s inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.Three days later, the CDC’s upper management sent the more than 60-page report with attached flow charts to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a step usually taken only when agencies are seeking final White House approval for documents they have already cleared.The 17-page version later released by the AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, “Steps for All Americans in Every Community,” geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.On April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by the AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees — including one for meatpacking plants.“We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield’s initials are R.R.R.)Redfield’s emailed comments contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.Two days later, on April 26, the CDC still had not received any word from the administration, according to the internal communications. Robert McGowan, the CDC chief of staff who was shepherding the guidance through the OMB, sent an email seeking an update. “We need them as soon as possible so that we can get them posted,” he wrote to Nancy Beck, an OMB staffer.Beck said she was awaiting review by the White House Principals Committee, a group of top White House officials. “They need to be approved before they can move forward. WH principals are in touch with the task force so the task force should be aware of the status,” Beck wrote to McGowan.The next day, April 27, Satya Thallam of the OMB sent the CDC a similar response: “The re-opening guidance and decision tree documents went to a West Wing principals committee on Sunday. We have not received word on specific timing for their considerations.“However, I am passing along their message: they have given strict and explicit direction that these documents are not yet cleared and cannot go out as of right now — this includes related press statements or other communications that may preview content or timing of guidances.”According to the documents, the CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.On April 30 the CDC’s documents were killed for good.FILE – A woman wearing a face mask walks past the White House in Washington, D.C., April 1, 2020.The agency had not heard any specific critiques from either the White House Principals Committee or the coronavirus task force in days, so officials asked for an update.“The guidance should be more cross-cutting and say when they should reopen and how to keep people safe. Fundamentally, the Task Force cleared this for further development, but not for release,” wrote Quinn Hirsch, a staffer in the White House’s office of regulatory affairs (OIRA), in an email to the CDC’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.CDC staff working on the guidance decided to try again.The administration had already released its Opening Up America Again Plan, and the clock was ticking. Staff at the CDC thought if they could get their reopening advice out there, it would help communities do so with detailed expert help.But hours later on April 30, CDC Chief of Staff McGowan told CDC staff that neither the guidance documents nor the decision trees “would ever see the light of day,” according to three officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.The next day, May 1, the emails showed, a staffer at CDC was told “we would not even be allowed to post the decision trees. We had the team (exhausted as they are) stand down.”The CDC’s guidance was shelved. Until May 7.That morning The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration had buried the guidance, even as many states had started allowing businesses to reopen.After the story ran, the White House called the CDC and ordered officials to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency re-sent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.” 
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American lawmakers are promoting legislation to change the name of the street in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington to honor Dr. Li Wenliang, the whistleblower who died of COVID-19 after Beijing silenced his attempts to warn the world about the coronavirus.“I am honored to introduce this legislation to rename the street in front the Chinese Embassy after Dr. Li,” said U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming when she offered the bill in the House of Representatives on Thursday.“May this serve as a constant reminder to the world and to the Chinese government that truth and freedom will prevail, that we will not forget the bravery of Dr. Li, and that the Chinese Communist Party will be held accountable for the devastating impact of their lies.”A companion bill was introduced in the Senate on the same day. Sen. Ben Sasse of Nebraska, one of the sponsors of the legislation, said Li is regarded as a “hero to the Chinese people.”“Chairman Xi [Jinping] can try to claim Dr. Li as the [Communist] Party’s own martyr, but the Chinese people know that it was Dr. Li’s selfless work and voice that the party sought to silence,” Sasse said in a written statement.Naming the street outside the embassy after Li, he said, “will draw a glaring contrast between the cruelty and lies of the Chinese Communist Party and the decency and compassion of the Chinese people.”Li, an eye doctor who practiced at Wuhan Central Hospital, warned some of his medical school colleagues at the end of December that a SARS-like phenomenon appeared to be on the horizon. He was summoned by local authorities for sounding the alarm.It has since emerged that authorities issued official documents around that time ordering that no one other than designated government officials talk about the coronavirus.At the time, China had not acknowledged human-to-human transmission of the disease – to be named COVID-19 only later – and doctors treating patients with the disease were discouraged from wearing protective equipment. Li contracted the disease and died on February 7.According to Chinese media reports, three other doctors at Wuhan Central Hospital had also succumbed to COVID-19 as of early March.Not the first attempt to rename streetThis is not the first attempt to rename the street outside the Chinese Embassy. There was a proposal in 2017 to name the street for dissident writer Liu Xiaobo, who died while in detention in a Chinese hospital that year.Similarly, the street outside the then-Soviet embassy was renamed in 1984 in honor of prominent dissident Andrei Sakharov, a renowned Russian physicist and dissident who suffered years of persecution at the hands of Soviet authorities.In an editorial advocating for the name change in honor of Liu Xiaobo, The Washington Post argued that while the Sakharov name change had raised tensions with the Soviet Union, “it also sent a strong message to Soviet diplomats and beyond that Sakharov and activists like him were not forgotten.”Similarly, the editorial said: “each time a Chinese diplomat entered or left the embassy, he or she would confront Mr. Liu’s legacy – and maybe spare a thought for the hundreds of human rights lawyers and activists currently detained by the Communist Party. This should be impetus enough for the change [of the name of the street].”Earlier this week, deputy U.S. national security adviser Matthew Pottinger said Li had embodied the true spirit of the May Fourth Movement of 1919, which was marked by patriotic calls for cultural and social reforms aimed at strengthening China in a spiritual and fundamental sense.Meanwhile, in Washington, the Chinese Embassy and its ambassador appear to be busy countering criticism over Beijing’s delay in reporting the scale and deadliness of the coronavirus outbreak. Ambassador Cui Tiankai made his case in a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday under the title “Blaming China will not end this pandemic.”The embassy’s website also featured stories about China’s Anhui and Liaoning provinces sending medical supplies to the U.S. states of Maryland and Utah, with signs touting “Anhui loves Maryland.”Elsewhere in the world, there are signs China’s diplomatic overtures have run into at least a temporary dead end. Sweden recently closed the last of the Chinese government-sponsored Confucius Institutes, and Sweden’s second-largest city called off its sister city ties with Shanghai.
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Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body.On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on the Greg Mortimer ship, summoned the strength to take a cold shower fearing the worst: losing consciousness while isolated from others.Vásquez, 36, and tens of thousands of other crew members have been trapped for weeks aboard dozens of cruise ships around the world — long after governments and cruise lines negotiated their passengers’ disembarkation. Some have gotten ill and died; others have survived but are no longer getting paid.  Both national and local governments have stopped crews from disembarking in order to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in their territories. Some of the ships, including 20 in U.S. waters, have seen infections and deaths among the crew. But most ships have had no confirmed cases.”I never thought this would turn into a tragic and terrifying horror story,” Vásquez told The Associated Press in an interview through a cellphone app from the Greg Mortimer, an Antarctic cruise ship floating off Uruguay. Thirty-six crew members have fallen ill on the ship. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said last month that about 80,000 crew members remained on board ships off the U.S. coast after most passengers had disembarked. The Coast Guard said Friday that there were still 70,000 crew members in 102 ships either anchored near or at U.S. ports or underway in U.S. waters.The total number of crew members stranded worldwide was not immediately available. But thousands more are trapped on ships outside the U.S., including in Uruguay and the Manila Bay, where 16 cruise ships are waiting to test about 5,000 crew members before they will be allowed to disembark. A fishing boat sails past the Princess Cruises’ Ruby Princess cruise ship as it docks in Manila Bay during the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Cavite city, Philippines, May 7, 2020.As coronavirus cases and deaths have risen worldwide, the CDC and health officials in other countries have expanded the list of conditions that must be met before crews may disembark. Cruise companies must take each crew member straight home via charter plane or private car without using rental vehicles or taxis. Complicating that mission, the CDC requires company executives to agree to criminal penalties if crew members fail to obey health authorities’ orders to steer clear of public transportation and restaurants on their way home.  “The criminal penalties gave us (and our lawyers) pause,” Royal Caribbean International President and CEO Michael Bayley wrote in a letter to crew members earlier this week, but he added that company executives ultimately agreed to sign.  Melinda Mann, 25, a youth program manager for Holland America, spent more than 50 days without stepping on dry land before finally disembarking from the Koningsdam ship Friday in Los Angeles. Before she was transferred to the Koningsdam, she tried to walk off another ship with other U.S. crew members last week but the ship’s security guards stopped them. For 21 hours a day, Mann remained isolated in a 150-square-foot (14-square- meter) cruise cabin that is smaller than her bedroom in her Midland, Georgia, home. She read 30 books and was only able to leave her room three times a day to walk around the ship. Her contract ended April 18, so she was not paid for weeks.  “Keeping me in close captivity for so long is absolutely ridiculous,” Mann said in a telephone interview. Earlier this week in Nassau, Bahamas, crew members from Canada aboard the Emerald Princess were told to prepare to be flown home in a charter plane. But the Bahamian government did not allow the ship to dock in the end.  A man wearing a face mask as a preventive measure against the spread of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, looks at Cruise Ships docked at the port due to a no-sail order in Long Beach, California on April 11, 2020.Leah Prasad’s husband is among the stranded crew members. Prasad said she has spent hours tracking down government agencies to help her husband, a Maitre D’Hotel for Carnival.  “He is getting discouraged. He is stuck in a cabin,” Prasad said. “It is not good for his mental health.” Angela Savard, a spokeswoman for Canada’s foreign affairs, said the government was continuing to explore options to bring Canadians home. For those aboard the Greg Mortimer in Montevideo, desperation is setting in, crew members told the AP.  The Antarctic cruise set sail from Argentina on March 15, after a pandemic had already been declared. The ship’s physician, Dr. Mauricio Usme, said that when the first passenger fell ill, on March 22, he was pressured by the captain, the cruise operator and owners to modify the health conditions that had to be met for the ship to be admitted into ports.  Dr. Usme refused. The boat anchored in the port of Montevideo on March 27. More than half of its passengers and crew tested positive for COVID-19. Finally, on April 10, 127 passengers, including some who were infected, were allowed to disembark and fly home to Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., Canada and Europe. Crew members were told to stay on board.  The doctor was hospitalized in an intensive care unit in Montevideo, along with a Filipino crew member, who later died. “People are exhausted and mentally drained,” said Dr. Usme, now recovered and back on the Greg Mortimer. “It’s a complex situation. You feel very vulnerable and at imminent risk of death.” CMI, the Miami-based company that manages the boat, said it has been “unable to get the necessary permissions” to let crew members of 22 nationalities go home, but said they were all still under contract receiving pay. Marvin Paz Medina, a Honduran man who works as the ship’s storekeeper, sent a video to the AP of his tiny cabin of about 70 square feet (6.5 square meters), where he has been confined for more than 35 days. “It’s hard being locked up all day, staring at the same four walls,” he said. Paz Medina says his children keep asking him when he’s coming home, but he doesn’t have an answer.  “We are trapped, feeling this anxiety that at any moment we can get seriously ill,” said Paz Medina. “We do not want this anymore. We want to go home.”  
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Indian police on Friday filed charges of culpable homicide, including negligence in handling toxic substances, against a South Korean-owned chemical factory where a gas leak killed 12 people and sickened more than 1,000.The chemical styrene, used to make plastic and rubber, leaked Thursday from the LG Polymers plant owned by LG Chem while workers were preparing to restart the facility after a coronavirus lockdown was eased.The cause of the leak in the city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh state was still unclear, officials said Friday.A state administrator, Vinay Chand, said authorities flew in chemicals from a neighboring state to neutralize the gas completely before allowing people to return to their homes.Chand said 316 people were still being treated in hospitals and were in stable condition. State police chief Damodar Gautam Sawang said 800 people were released after treatment on Thursday.A National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) soldier is fitted with gear before he proceeds to the area from where chemical gas leaked in Vishakhapatnam, India, May 7, 2020.Styrene gas, a neurotoxin, can immobilize people within minutes of inhalation and can be fatal at high concentrations.The police charges accuse the plant’s operators of endangering the public through negligence. Under Indian law, culpable homicide is classified as killing not amounting to murder. Penalties range from 10 years in jail to life imprisonment.India’s top environmental court also asked LG Polymers India to pay a $6.6 million penalty because of “damage to life, public health and environment.” The National Green Tribunal said the factory appeared to have failed to comply with environmental and safety rules.The court formed a committee to investigate the accident and identify lapses.Choi Sang-kyu, a senior spokesman for LG Chem, said LG Polymers India operated the plant “while abiding environmental regulations.”Videos and photos after Thursday’s leak showed dozens of people lying unconscious in the streets, with white froth trailing from their mouths. People fled on foot, on motorbikes and in open trucks as police officers, some wearing gas masks, rushed to get people out of their homes.The scene evoked bitter memories of a gas leak from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in the Indian city of Bhopal in 1984 that killed at least 4,000 people and injured another 500,000, many of whom still have health problems, according to the government.LG Chem Ltd. is South Korea’s largest chemical company and produces a range of industrial products, including petrochemicals, plastics and batteries used in electronic vehicles. It is part of the family-owned LG Corp. conglomerate, which also has an electronics arm that globally sells smartphones, TVs and personal computers.South Korea’s Foreign Ministry said Friday its ambassador to India had expressed regret and condolences over the gas leak. A ministry statement said the South Korean government is closely monitoring efforts to handle the aftermath.LG Chem began operating the plant in Vishakhapatnam in 1997. Its Indian operation is one of the leading manufacturers of polystyrene in the country. The Vishakhapatnam plant has around 300 workers.The coastal city is an industrial hub known for frequent gas leak accidents. In December 2019, a leak from a pharmaceutical company killed two people.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump on Friday joined seven World War II veterans – ages 96 to 100 – in Washington to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the end of the war in Europe.The president and first lady arrived at the World War II Memorial and participated in the laying of a wreath. During a tour of the memorial, they stopped briefly in front of a wall etched with the phrase: “Here we mark the price of freedom.”White House officials described the veterans as “choosing nation over self” by joining Trump at the WWII ceremony.Timothy Davis, director of the Greatest Generations Foundation, which helps veterans return to the countries where they fought, told The Associated Press that the U.S. soldiers were originally scheduled to travel to Moscow for a commemoration event.He said that with international travel out of the question during the COVID-19 pandemic, the veterans talked to him about trying to commemorate the day in Washington.Nazi Germany’s commanders signed their surrender to Allied forces in a French schoolhouse 75 years ago Friday, ending the war in Europe.
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A bomb in southwestern Pakistan has killed at least six soldiers, including a major-rank officer, and has injured another, according to military officials.An army statement said Friday that the deadly explosion in Baluchistan province had targeted a convoy of the Frontier Corps (FC) paramilitary force, about 14 kilometers from the border with Iran.The troops were moving back to their base after conducting “routine patrolling … to check possible routes used by terrorists in mountainous and extremely treacherous terrain,” when a “reconnaissance vehicle” in the convoy hit an improvised explosive device, it said.  There were no immediate claims of responsibility.
 
The resource-rich province, Pakistan’s largest, has been experiencing a low-level separatist Baluch insurgency for years, although officials say enhanced security actions have lately reduced the violence.Extremists linked to outlawed militant organizations, including the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State, operate in Baluchistan, which also shares a portion of the country’s long border with Afghanistan.Leaders of the Afghan Taliban are also believed to be sheltering in parts of the Pakistani province, where tens of thousands of Afghan refugee families reside.
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Experts warn there could be an increase in child labor in cocoa-growing African nations as incomes and enforcement suffer due to the coronavirus pandemic. Ghana and Ivory Coast produce about 60 percent of the world’s cocoa, but both have long-standing issues with child labor in cocoa farms. Last month, Fairtrade Africa told Reuters News Agency it had received reports of possible child labor use in Ivory Coast, leading to warnings there might be a spike in cases in both Ivory Coast and neighboring Ghana.Prince Gyamfi, Ghana’s deputy country director for The International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), which is focused on child protection in cocoa-farming communities, says poverty is a major driver for child labor in cocoa farms.If the pandemic continues, he said, there will be increased economic pressures on farming families, and ongoing school closures in Ghana mean children are more likely to accompany their parents to their farms and be exposed to hazardous activities.FILE – Farmers break cocoa pods in Ghana’s eastern cocoa town of Akim Akooko, Sept. 6, 2012.He said ICI found that when farmers’ incomes are negativity impacted, child labor tends to increase. A study in Ivory Coast found a 10 percent fall in income due to a drop in cocoa prices led to a five percentage point increase in child labor. ICI also found increases in child labor when children are on term breaks from school.Estimates for 2013-’14 indicate that 1.2 million child laborers were working in cocoa production in Ivory Coast, and 900,000 in Ghana.The ICI is researching the impact of cash transfer programs on child labor — where giving money to vulnerable families could be a solution. The study’s findings are being used to inform the design of a cash transfer program for vulnerable cocoa-growing households in Ghana.”We think that cash transfer programs, if designed well, could lead to a decrease in child labor by helping parents pay for school costs or education costs, allowing children to go to school, reducing pressure on the household incomes, therefore, reducing the need for child labor to help out on the family farm,” Gyamfi said.Fiifi Boafo, a spokesperson for the Ghana Cocoa Board, Ghana’s cocoa industry regulator, said Ghana’s government had employed an additional 1,300 extension officers in the last six months whose duties included educating cocoa farmers on ethical farming guidelines, such as not using children. However, he characterized the report from Fairtrade Africa as speculation that had only mentioned Ivory Coast.”We do not anticipate that this period where children are not going to school, they are automatically be going into cocoa farms,” Boafo said. “I think the basis for the reason they are not supposed to go to the farms has been established, and it will be respected, and for our part, we shall continue to engage farmers to make sure that their children stay away from the farms.”Daniel Sarpong, dean of the School of Agriculture at the University of Ghana, said Ghana is taking issues of child labor in cocoa farms seriously. He pointed to work done to mechanize the sector, where farmers were encouraged and assisted to use modern farming practices.”The idea here is to be able to phase out those labor-intensive activities that are in cocoa where they are tedious and that cocoa farmers would need children to help in those activities, so yes it is a big problem, but I think that governments are trying to find solutions to some of these things,” he said.Sarpong agreed that cash transfers could help combat child labor in Ghana.So far, Ghana has seen more than 3,000 cases of COVID-19, and Ivory Coast more than 1,500. 
 
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France will slowly begin unwinding a two-month lockdown next week, but not for its restaurants. A new poll finds the coronavirus pandemic may put nearly one-third of French restaurants out of business – a tragic development if it happens for France, known worldwide for its fine cuisine. From the Paris suburb of Rueil-Malmaison, Lisa Bryant takes a look at the industry’s dilemma — and a pro-bono movement born from the crisis.
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The Brookings Institution says at most only about 50 percent of jobs can be fully performed from home, while other studies suggest that number may be high.  The rest of the workforce still has to go to work, assuming they they still have jobs, no matter how dangerous. Anna Rice Narrates this story by Daria Dieguts.
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Authorities in Argentina evacuated 25 residents from a nursing home in Buenos Aires Thursday night after they tested positive for the coronavirus.Initial reports indicated none of those taken from the nursing home showed any symptoms.Five workers at the nursing home also tested positive for the coronavirus.The director of the nursing home, Blas Rinaudo, said the facility will continue to care for 15 other residents who tested negative for the virus and conduct follow-up tests to check their status.Meanwhile, people banged pots and pans from their balconies in Buenos Aires on Thursday evening to protest measures the government is taking to stop the spread of the coronavirus.Argentina is heading into its eighth week of lockdown.The South American nation has 5,371 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 282 deaths.
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Croatia’s defense minister has resigned after an air force training plane crashed shortly after takeoff from a military airbase in the southwest of the country.Both crew members were killed in Thursday’s crash. A similar accident three months ago, when a helicopter crashed, also killed two pilots.Damir Krsticevic announced his resignation, saying “we have to be transparent” and take responsibility for the crashes.”This is a big loss for the Croatian army,” Krsticevic said. “I am today stepping down from the role of vice president of the government and minister of defense of the Croatian Republic. Thank you.”The Croatian Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Zlin single-engine aircraft crashed at around 4 p.m. local time during a routine training flight near the central Adriatic town of Zadar.The ministry did not give any explanation for the possible cause of the accident.Images for the from the scene of the crash showed a small plane’s wreckage in flames, near what seemed to be a private house.
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Georgia authorities arrested a white father and son Thursday and charged them with murder in the February shooting death of a black man they had pursued in a truck after spotting him running in their neighborhood. The charges came more than two months after Ahmaud Arbery, 25, was killed on a residential street just outside the port city of Brunswick. National outrage over the case swelled this week after a cellphone video that appeared to show the shooting. Gregory McMichael told police after the February shooting that he and his son chased after Arbery because they suspected him of being a burglar. Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, has said she believes her son, a former football player, was just jogging in the Satilla Shores neighborhood before he was killed on a Sunday afternoon.Father, son are jailed The Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced the arrests the day after it began its own investigation at the request of an outside prosecutor. The agency said in a news release that Gregory McMichael, 64, and his 34-year-old son, Travis McMichael, had both been jailed on charges of murder and aggravated assault. The GBI news release said the McMichaels “confronted Arbery with two firearms. During the encounter, Travis McMichael shot and killed Arbery.” No other details were immediately released. It was not immediately known if either of the McMichaels had an attorney who could comment on the charges. Gregory McMichael served as an investigator for Glynn County District Attorney Jackie Johnson. He retired last year. The connection caused Johnson to recuse herself from the case. Governor says state will ‘find the truth’At a news conference before the arrests were announced Thursday, Republican Gov. Brian Kemp told reporters he was confident state investigators would “find the truth.” “Earlier this week, I watched the video depicting Mr. Arbery’s last moments alive,” Kemp told a news conference in Atlanta. “I can tell you it’s absolutely horrific, and Georgians deserve answers.” Gregory McMichael told police he suspected the runner was the same man filmed by a security camera committing a break-in. He and his grown son, Travis McMichael, grabbed guns and began a pursuit in the truck. The video shows a black man running at a jogging pace on the left side of a road. A truck is parked in the road ahead of him. One of the white men is inside the pickup’s bed. The other is standing beside the open driver’s side door. The runner crosses the road to pass the pickup on the passenger side, then crosses back in front of the truck. A gunshot sounds, and the video shows the runner grappling with a man in the street over what appears to be a shotgun or rifle. A second shot can be heard, and the runner can be seen punching the man. A third shot is fired at point-blank range. The runner staggers a few feet and falls face down. Brunswick defense attorney Alan Tucker identified himself Thursday as the person who shared the video with the radio station. In a statement, Tucker said he wasn’t representing anyone involved in the case. He said he released the video “because my community was being ripped apart by erroneous accusations and assumptions.” Tucker did not say how he obtained the video. He did not immediately respond to a phone message or an email. Trump, Biden commentThe outcry over the killing reached the White House, where President Donald Trump offered condolences Thursday to Arbery’s family. “It’s a very sad thing,” Trump said in the Oval Office, “but I will be given a full report this evening.” Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has called Arbery’s death a “murder.” During an online roundtable Thursday, Biden compared the video to seeing Arbery “lynched before our very eyes.” The outside prosecutor overseeing the case, Tom Durden, had said Monday that he wanted a grand jury to decide whether charges are warranted. With Georgia courts still largely closed because of the coronavirus, the soonest that could happen is mid-June.  
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A new Pentagon recruitment policy considers hospitalization for COVID-19 an automatic disqualification for acceptance without a medical waiver from the recruit’s military service branch. Individuals who were hospitalized with COVID-19 “are medically disqualified for accession, subject to further review of hospitalization/comorbidity records, and waiver by a Service Medical Waiver Authority,” the new policy reads. Military Entrance Processing Command (MEPCOM), which screens military applicants, said in a statement given to VOA on Thursday that patients who were hospitalized “may be contagious for a longer period than others” and “are likely to require evaluation for residual physical performance limitations (e.g., pulmonary and end-organ function) before medical qualification.”   Long-term health effects for this group “are unknown,” the command said, which is why a waiver review is required. The guidance also states that recruits who were diagnosed with COVID-19 but not hospitalized are medically qualified to process into basic training following 28 days of home isolation. “Non-hospitalized cases will not be permanently disqualified,” MEPCOM said. A DOD memo leaked to the press Monday said that any history of COVID-19 would be permanently disqualifying for recruits. A defense official told VOA the memo was “interim guidance” that was updated Wednesday.  Michael O’Hanlon, a senior defense fellow at the Brookings Institution, told VOA the tone of new Pentagon directive was regrettable. “Why not say, in gentler terms, ‘Until we can be confident that we understand the trajectory of this disease and recovery process, including the possibility of relapse or recurrence, we cannot yet take COVID-19 positive individuals into the force’?” O’Hanlon said. It’s unclear whether the change will affect recruiting numbers. James Long, a scholar and regular contributor to the Modern War Institute at West Point, said any effects at this stage would be insignificant, while cautioning about accepting recruits with potential health problems. “Even a minor health problem in the force can have massive costs and consequences for metrics like readiness and operational performance,” Long said. “I think the DOD’s medical leaders are wise to focus on this issue early.” All four service branches hit their recruiting goals in 2019, bringing tens of thousands of new service members into the U.S. military.  But an This May 4, 2020, photo provided by the U.S. Navy shows SEAL candidates participating in “surf immersion” during Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL training at the Naval Special Warfare Center in Coronado, Calif.COVID-19 and current troops COVID-19 hospitalizations are “not immediate disqualifications” for current troops, according to a senior defense official. However, it could potentially change the careers of some of the 113 military service members who have been hospitalized by the disease, should lingering effects impact the service members’ ability to do their jobs. The official stressed that any service member who is able to return and perform normal job duties after a COVID-19 hospitalization would not need a medical board evaluation. But those who are no longer able to perform their duties would need to undergo a medical board process that could lead to a change in military specialization or a discontinuation of service. “This is similar to what’s done with any illness or injury obtained while in the military,” the senior official told VOA.  The official likened a service member who develops lung issues from a COVID-19 hospitalization to a service member who develops chronic asthma after joining the service. Severe asthma could prevent an infantryman, for example, from carrying out certain infantry requirements, and the military may find that lung problems associated with a COVID-19 hospitalization may yield the same result. “The guidance is evolving,” the official told VOA, adding that the military would refine its policies as necessary.
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The focus of future U.S. missions to the moon may soon shift from research to commerce. Meanwhile, European scientists have discovered the closest black hole to our solar system. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi explores This Week in Space.
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A unanimous Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the convictions of two political insiders involved in the “Bridgegate” scandal that ultimately derailed the 2016 presidential bid of then-New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. The justices found evidence of deception, corruption and abuse of power in the scheme, but said “not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime.” The court concluded the government had overreached in prosecuting Christie allies Bridget Kelly and Bill Baroni for their roles in creating a traffic jam on the George Washington Bridge as political payback for a Democratic mayor who declined to support the Republican governor’s reelection. Kelly was Christie’s onetime deputy chief of staff. Baroni was a top Christie appointee to the Port Authority, the operator of the New York area’s bridges, tunnels, airports and ports. Kelly and Baroni were convicted of fraud and conspiracy for plotting in 2013 to change the traffic flow onto the George Washington Bridge between New York City and New Jersey to artificially create gridlock in New Jersey’s Fort Lee. The traffic change came after Fort Lee’s mayor declined to endorse Christie. ‘A political crusade'”For no reason other than political payback, Baroni and Kelly used deception to reduce Fort Lee’s access lanes to the George Washington Bridge — and thereby jeopardized the safety of the town’s residents. But not every corrupt act by state or local officials is a federal crime. Because the scheme here did not aim to obtain money or property, Baroni and Kelly could not have violated the federal-program fraud or wire fraud laws,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court. Christie, in a statement following the high court’s ruling, called the prosecutions of his former allies a “political crusade” against his administration, and lashed out at prosecutors and the Justice Department under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “As many contended from the beginning, and as the Court confirmed today, no federal crimes were ever committed in this matter by anyone in my Administration. It is good for all involved that today justice has finally been done,” Christie wrote. Christie has denied knowing about the plan for gridlock ahead of time or as it was unfolding. Trial testimony contradicted his account, but the scandal helped tank his White House run in 2016. Christie endorsed Donald Trump after leaving the race. ‘Complete and total exoneration’ Trump tweeted his congratulations on Thursday to Christie, calling the court’s decision a “complete and total exoneration” and said there was “grave misconduct by the Obama Justice Department!” As a candidate, Trump had attacked Christie by saying the governor “totally knew about” the lane closings before they happened. The result of the lane realignment was four days of traffic jams. A fictitious traffic study was used as cover for the change, but prosecutors said the real motive was political payback. At one point, Kelly wrote in an email: “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.”  Kelly was weeks from beginning a 13-month sentence last year when the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. Baroni had begun serving his 18-month sentence but was released from prison after the high court agreed to weigh in. The court’s decision to side with Kelly and Baroni continues a pattern from recent years of restricting the government’s ability to prosecute corruption cases.  In 2016 the court overturned the bribery conviction of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. In 2010 the court sharply curbed prosecutors’ use of an anti-fraud law in the case of ex-Enron CEO Jeffrey Skilling. 
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Quarantines and travel don’t mix, but Greece is contemplating opening its borders to travelers from at least two other countries whose COVID-19 outbreaks are under control to revive tourism, which has been devastated by the pandemic.The move, according to Tourism Minister Harris Theoharis, would include setting up a “corona corridor” among Greece, Cyprus and Israel, attracting tourists less willing to travel far in the coming months, allowing them access to the islands of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas by early July.”Several details still have to be worked out,” Theoharis told VOA. “But when we knocked on Israel’s door, it opened wide open. The interest is there; so too with Cyprus.””It is an ambitious scheme that could square the circle,” he said.After Cyprus, Greece is the European Union’s most vulnerable country in terms of tourism. The profitable industry accounts for about one-fifth of its economy and 1 in 4 jobs. Also, in recent years, the country has become a favorite travel destination for young Israelis, attracting nearly a million visitors from the Middle Eastern country.Details of the corona corridor plan have yet to be finalized. However, its creation, Theoharis said, would allow travelers to forgo quarantines or two-week isolation periods.”You don’t want to go on holiday knowing that you will spend it in lockdown,” Theoharis said.Empty chairs with various slogans from the union of bars and restaurants owners are placed at Athens’ main Syntagma square May 6, 2020.Times nevertheless remain difficult for the tourism industry.Since much of the world went into lockdown and nations closed their borders to slow the spread of COVID-19, international travel has plunged, bringing an industry employing 75 million to a standstill.While travelers cannot globe-trot as they did three months ago, studies show that many still dream of escaping their homes — albeit for nearer destinations.The European Union’s executive body, the European Commission, is to release the first EU-wide guidelines for coronavirus-era tourism on Wednesday. Until then, though, several states, including Greece, have wasted no time in taking matters into their own hands.Detailed negotiations with Israel and Cyprus in coming weeks will focus on attempts to thrash out a deal to revive tourism while preventing a catastrophic second wave of the disease.”That means agreeing on every possible guideline and health protocol — from the medical clearances travelers will need to have before setting foot in either of the three countries, to whether hotels will offer breakfast and dinner buffets,” Theoharis said. “Tracking and tracing systems will also have to be in place if there is an outbreak of infections at a resort.””It is a difficult exercise,” he said.Yet with the EU reluctant to issue a blanket release on travel, options like the corona corridor are gaining appeal.The Czech Republic is said to be considering a similar plan with neighboring Slovakia and Croatia. Malta, the Mediterranean island nation that relies heavily on tourism, has also called for the creation of “safe corridors” among territories and regions proven successful in their management of the COVID-19 pandemic.Early and rigorous controls instituted by the Greek government of Prime Minister  Kyriakos Mitsotakis have helped keep most of the country’s idyllic hot spots free of the pandemic.A man wearing a mask to protect against the coronavirus walks in Syntagma square in central Athens, on May 5, 2020.Even so, several Greek hoteliers remain wary of the corona corridor proposal.On Crete, a hugely popular spot for U.S. and British vacationers, hotel owners are considering keeping resorts closed until authorities provide ironclad assurances to ensure their operation.”We are not prepared to risk any human life for the sake of business and profit,” said Manolis  Tsalakakis, president of the hotel owners’ association in Rethimon, a city on Crete’s northern coast, “but we need to be legally covered in the case that we do have an infection during holiday stays.””These are all parameters that have be in put in place before we even consider opening up for business again.”Meanwhile, Italy, among the countries hardest hit by the pandemic, has raised serious concerns about the plan, saying it creates unfair competition, further penalizing the country as it struggles to recover from the death, fear and hardship brought on by the virus.On Thursday, though, Theoharis said Greece would eventually reach out to Italy if its corona corridor plan proves effective.”Israel and Cyprus are just the start,” he told VOA. “Bulgaria, Austria may join in at the next step, eventually bringing in Italy and the United States, where huge pools of expats are eager to come back and visit.”Each step must be planned, though, he said.”We have to first stand up, before we start walking and running again,” he said. 
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Photographers and models typically go from one photo shoot to another. COVID-19 pandemic restrictions are making their jobs challenging, but just like thousands of people around the world, they are finding a way to work. Iacopo Luzi reports in this piece adapted by Cristina Smit.
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