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Ulises García went from being a waiter to working at a laundromat. Yelitza Esteva used to do manicures and now delivers groceries. Maribel Torres swapped cleaning homes for sewing masks.  The coronavirus pandemic has devastated sectors of the economy dominated by immigrant labor: Restaurants, hotels, office cleaning services, in-home childcare and hair and nail salons, among others, have seen businesses shuttered as nonessential. The Migration Policy Institute found that 20% of the U.S. workers in vulnerable industries facing layoffs are immigrants, even though they only make up 17% of the civilian workforce.  And some of those immigrants, those without social security numbers, are unable to access any of the $2.2 trillion package that Congress approved to offer financial help during the pandemic. The economic meltdown has forced many immigrants to branch out to new jobs or adapt skills to meet new demands generated by the virus. Those immigrants who are able to find new jobs say the possibility of catching the virus makes them nervous. “I wonder sometimes if I should quit because I don’t feel comfortable working, when the virus is everywhere,” said García, a former waiter who now works at the laundromat in Brooklyn selling detergent, bleach or fabric softener. “The problem is that no one knows for how long this will last,” he added.  For Venezuelan immigrant Yelizta Esteva there was no option other than to work after she lost the $2,100-per-month salary she earned at a Miami hair salon. Her husband also lost his job at a house remodeling company. Besides rent and bills, they send money to at least seven family members in Venezuela. “I was terrified. I was left with nothing,” said the 51-year-old immigrant, who left Venezuela in 2015 to seek asylum. Now, Esteva and her husband work for the grocery delivery service Instacart and make an average of $150 per day, working more than 12 hours daily. “I am very, very fearful,” said Esteva, who applies anti-bacterial lotion constantly while shopping at the supermarkets. “I trust God, who is protecting us.”  Most green-card holders can benefit from unemployment insurance and from the economic stimulus package. Some immigrants on a temporary work permit, like those applying for asylum, can also get unemployment insurance and the new relief checks. Immigrants in the country illegally can’t access the stimulus help or unemployment benefits even if they pay taxes. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, however, announced that his state will give cash to immigrants living in the country illegally who are hurt by the coronavirus, offering $500 apiece to 150,000 adults.  Some cities in the country are pushing similar efforts: Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, have both set up bridge funds that are open regardless of immigration status. Austin, Texas, has a fund that will be used in part to help people left out of federal relief.  Diana Mejía, health and safety coordinator for an interfaith organization that helps immigrants, Wind of the Spirit, says day laborers have shown up near the train station in Morristown, New Jersey, for years to wait to be picked up by construction and landscaping companies.  Now, Mejía says she sees new faces. “Many used to work at restaurants. Also, for construction companies that closed,” she said. In New York, Maribel Torres, a 47-year-old Mexican immigrant used to clean apartments, but tenants stopped calling her when the pandemic started. Her husband, a cook, lost his job when the restaurant he worked at closed.  Now, with support from MakerSpace, a collaborative work space full of tools and materials that people can learn to use, and La Colmena, a non-profit that helps day laborers, she is sewing masks from home.  Torres, along with three other immigrant women who do this work with her, will donate some masks and sell others. So far, they have sold about 300 online. A young day laborer who also lost his job has been making the deliveries. “I feel that we are helping, and we plan to make a little money too,” said Torres. Leymar Navas, a former attorney in Venezuela, was working as a restaurant cashier in Miami before the virus outbreak. But the sushi shop closed its doors in March, almost at the same time that her husband and her two adult sons also lost their jobs.  After a desperate search, she found a part-time job for a disinfecting company that cleans bank ATMs.  “Nobody expected this,” said the 47-year-old asylum seeker. “But any job is decent as long as you bring food to the table.” According to a Pew Research Center study conducted in March, around half (49%) of Hispanics surveyed say they or someone in their household has taken a pay cut or lost a job – or both – because of the COVID-19 outbreak, compared with 29% of white people and 36% of black people.  A recent analysis from Pew based on Census statistics found that about 8 million Hispanic workers were employed in service-sector positions that are at higher risk of job loss.  Many of the immigrants with new jobs now say they feel grateful to have a job amid the pandemic, even if it means putting their own health at risk.  
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Weeks into France’s strict coronavirus lockdown, Mohammed, a 14-year-old with autism, took a pickax and started hitting the wall of his family’s house.His explanation: “Too long at home, too hard to wait.”The disruptions in daily life caused by the virus pandemic are a particularly trying ordeal for children with disabilities and the people who love them and are caring for them confined at home while special-needs schools and support programs remain closed.Mohammed hasn’t picked up the ax again since the incident last month, his father, Salah, said with relief. But the boy still gets frustrated being stuck inside and says, “I want to break the house down.”The family, like others who spoke to The Associated Press about their experiences, spoke on the condition of being identified by first name only out of concern for the privacy of their children.Mohammed, a 14-year-old with autism, on his bike outside his home April 15, 2020, in Mantes-la-Jolie, west of Paris.Making matters worse, Mohammed’s mother, who works in a nursing home, has been on sick leave after testing positive for COVID-19. For weeks, she had to live isolated on the top floor of their house in the Paris suburb of Mantes-la-Jolie. Her health has since improved.The physical distance from her family was particularly hard for Mohammed, who has a close relationship with his mother.“We kept telling him that there’s the disease. He took note. Then he tried again to go up and see her,” Salah said.Violent outbursts, incomprehension, disputes, panic attacks: Life under lockdown has been a shock to many children with special needs who suddenly lost their reassuring routines, cut off from friends and teachers. And France’s virus lockdown measures — now in their second month and set to run until at least May 11 — are among Europe’s strictest.At home, Mohammed requires constant attention so that he won’t injure or endanger himself.“That’s tough on him. We reprimand him, saying no. … We need to repeat and repeat,” Salah said. The father admits to his own fatigue, working at home as a telecom engineer while caring for Mohammed and his two brothers, ages 12 and 8.Salah knows how to detect signs on Mohammed’s face when he is under too much pressure and may get angry: “I don’t let things get heated.”Mohammed normally attends the Bel-Air Institute near Versailles, which provides specialized educational and therapeutic services for dozens of children with different types of disabilities. His teacher, Corentin Sainte Fare Garnot, is doing his best to help.“If you remove crutches from someone who needs them from one day to the next, it gets very complicated,” he said.“The feeling of loneliness and lack of activity can be very deep” for people with autism, the teacher said. Mohammed calls him several times a day.Aurelie Collet, a manager at the Bel-Air Institute, said that at first, some teenagers didn’t understand the lockdown rules keeping them stuck at home and kept going out. Others who had been well-integrated in their classes turned inward, isolating themselves in their bedrooms.The staff developed creative tools to keep communicating and working with the children, including through social networks, she said.In this photo taken April 16, 2020, Jerome, second left, Nadege and their children Thomas, 17, right and Pierre, 14, pose outside their home in Montigny-le-Bretonneux, near Paris.Thomas, 17, and Pierre, 14, brothers with intellectual disabilities who also go to the Bel-Air, have been similarly destabilized by lockdown restrictions.“I feel worried about how long the lockdown will last, what’s going to happen next,” Thomas said. The teenager wonders “how many people will get the virus, when the epidemic will stop?”Another big concern for Thomas is his future; an internship he planned to do this summer is likely to be postponed.Pierre says he’s having more nightmares than usual, adding that the lockdown is also prompting more family quarrels.At first, their parents recalled, the boys acted as if they were on vacation, playing all day and calling their friends. The parents organized activities to give Pierre and Thomas more structure amid the public health crisis.Pierre especially misses the gardening he used to do at the Bel-Air, so he planted seeds in pots to grow radishes.Under nationwide restrictions, the French can only leave home for essential services, like buying food or going to the doctor, and must stay close to home. Physical activity in public is strictly limited to one hour and within a nearby radius. Police routinely fine violators.Recognizing the burden the regulations place on people with autism, French President Emmanuel Macron announced an exception that allows them to go out to customary places without having to observe time or distance limits.The new challenges the pandemic presents to children with special needs are familiar to millions of families around the world. Across the U.S., teachers are exploring new ways to deliver customized lessons from afar, and parents of children with disabilities are not only home-schooling but also adding therapy, hands-on lessons and behavioral management to their responsibilities.Salah has started taking Mohammed out again for bike riding, an activity his eldest son enjoyed before the pandemic.“This is like a safety valve to him. He needs it. … We’re having a hard time following him, he’s going ahead, happily shouting,” Salah said with a smile in his voice.Sainte Fare Garnot is helping the family find concrete solutions. Because playing soccer with his brothers in the garden has proven difficult for Mohammed because the rules of team games are too complex for him, Sainte Fare Garnot suggested that the three boys instead take shots at goal in turn.France is still playing catch-up with some developing-country peers in terms of educational opportunities for children with autism spectrum disorders, and teachers fear that some will also have to spend months relearning skills they may have lost during the lockdown period.The president has announced that schools will be “progressively” reopened starting May 11, but authorities have not provided details yet about special-needs children. France counts more than 350,000 school students with disabilities, including 70,000 in the special education system that includes the Bel-Air.The uncertainty is especially hard for young people like Mohammed. “I know he will ask me again,” his teacher said. “‘When is it ending?’”  
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The cancellation of marathons and major races because of coronavirus lockdown measures doesn’t mean sports lovers can’t compete. Racing and breaking records is still possible – it’s just a bit more complicated. Maxim Moskalkov reports. 
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The head of the world’s largest humanitarian network is urging governments to start thinking about tackling the economic damage from the coronavirus with something like the Marshall Plan used by the United States to help countries recover after World War II.Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which operates in 192 countries, warned Friday of the risk of social unrest, hunger and starvation as a result of the pandemic.”We need to plan together with institutions a social response before it is too late,” he said.Rocca said during a video news conference that the lack of any source of income for millions of people because of lockdowns was “a huge concern for us, both in Western countries as well as in the countries in fragile and protracted crisis.”Without a major economic recovery program, he said, people will abandon their communities if “their only option is hunger and starvation,” which will increase migration.Rocca, who also heads Italy’s Red Cross, said this “should give a wake-up a call to the international community.”Postwar help for Western EuropeThe Marshall Plan was an American initiative approved in 1948 to help Western Europe recover after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The U.S. transferred $12 billion to West European countries to spur their economic recovery, which according to one estimate would be equivalent to over $128 billion in 2020.Rocca said he thought a similar economic initiative “is an imperative on which the governments should start to think.”FILE – Anti-lockdown protesters gather outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, April 20, 2020.He cited a number of problems as the world deals with COVID-19: people not respecting lockdowns, including those needing to find food; loss of income for those put out of work; a lack of safe water, adequate sanitation and reliable energy for homes; and insufficient means with which to communicate and obtain information.Rocca also cited the challenges of getting medical supplies and equipment to countries in need, and sanctions creating additional barriers to the flow of humanitarian aid.He said every decision political leaders make must be “an informed decision” taken after consulting with scientists, and they should strike “the balance of the economy and the human rights, to protect the health and life of the communities.”Calling for global unity, Rocca said Red Cross and Red Crescent teams were supporting the most vulnerable communities affected by the crisis.Work in SyriaCiting Syria, he said Red Crescent volunteers in protective gear were distributing food door to door and operating ambulances around the clock. Before COVID-19, he said, more than 6 million Syrians were at risk of food insecurity, “and now, due to the economic crisis, the number could rise to between 9 [million] and 10 million.”FILE – A member of the military stops people riding on a rickshaw at a check post during a government-imposed countrywide shutdown amid concerns over the coronavirus disease outbreak in Narayanganj, Bangladesh, April 9, 2020.In Bangladesh, where more than 1 million Rohingya Muslim refugees from Myanmar have swelled the population, Rocca said volunteer teams had set up water distribution points and were going home to home to teach more than 372,000 people handwashing skills. In Venezuela, teams have worked to provide more than 40 tons of humanitarian aid, including medical supplies and hygiene items, to those most in need, he said.  Rocca warned that in 43 out of 55 African countries, there are just 5,000 intensive care beds, which means five beds for every million people, compared with Europe, where there are 4,000 beds for every million people.  “We are only starting to see glimpses of the impact COVID-19 might have on the African continent,” he said.
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Yemen’s separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC) on Sunday announced it would establish a self-ruled administration in the regions under their control, which the internationally recognized Saudi-backed government said would have “catastrophic consequences” for a November peace deal.Under a deal to end the power struggle in south Yemen, agreed to in Riyadh, the STC and other southerners were supposed to join a new national cabinet and place all forces under control of the internationally recognized government. The STC is supported by the United Arab Emirates.“The announcement by the so-called transitional council of its intention to establish a southern administration is a resumption of its armed insurgency… and an announcement of its rejection and complete withdrawal from the Riyadh agreement,” Yemen’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Twitter.”The so-called transitional council will bear alone the dangerous and catastrophic consequences for such an announcement,” it said.  
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The FBI is offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of anyone connected to a fire that badly damaged an Islamic center in southeastern Missouri and that coincided with the start of a holy month for Muslims.Richard Quinn, the special agent in charge of the St. Louis Division, announced the award Friday, hours after the fire broke out early that morning at the Islamic Center of Cape Girardeau. Twelve to 15 people were evacuated and escaped injury. Fire Chief Travis Hollis said the damage to the building was extensive.The Missouri chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim advocacy group, said the fire began at the front door of the building. CAIR noted the timing of the blaze — Thursday night was the beginning of Ramadan, a holy month during which Muslims fast and pray.”Because the fire was deemed ‘suspicious,’ and because it occurred at a house of worship on a significant religious date, we urge law enforcement authorities to investigate a possible bias motive for the blaze,” CAIR’s national communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, said in a statement.The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and the state fire marshal also were investigating the fire.Cape Girardeau is about 115 miles south of St. Louis.
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U.S. President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, issued a rare joint statement Saturday commemorating a 1945 World War II link-up of U.S. and Soviet troops on their way to defeat Nazi Germany as an example of how their countries can cooperate.The statement by Trump and Putin came amid deep strains in U.S.-Russian ties over a raft of issues, from arms control and Russia’s intervention in Ukraine and Syria to U.S. charges that Russia has spread disinformation about the novel coronavirus pandemic and interfered in U.S. election campaigns.The Wall Street Journal reported that the decision to issue the statement sparked debate within the Trump administration, with some officials worried it could undercut stern U.S. messages to Moscow.The joint statement marked the anniversary of the April 25, 1945, meeting on a bridge over the Elbe River in Germany of Soviet soldiers advancing from the east and American troops moving from the West.“This event heralded the decisive defeat of the Nazi regime,” the statement said. “The ‘Spirit of the Elbe’ is an example of how our countries can put aside differences, build trust and cooperate in pursuit of a greater cause.”Last Elbe statement in 2010The Journal said the last joint statement marking the Elbe River bridge link-up was issued in 2010, when the Obama administration was seeking improved relations with Moscow.Trump had hoped to travel to Moscow to mark the anniversary. He has been complimentary of Putin, promoted cooperation with Moscow and said he believed the Russian leader’s denials of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.Senior administration officials and lawmakers, in contrast, have been fiercely critical of Russia, with relations between the nuclear-armed nations at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.The Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday issued a bipartisan report concurring with a 2017 U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia pursued an influence campaign of misinformation and cyber hacking aimed at swinging the vote to Trump over his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.U.S. intelligence officials have warned lawmakers that Moscow is meddling in the 2020 presidential election campaign, which Russia denies.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has forced Australia and New Zealand to abandon almost all Anzac Day services Saturday. Lockdowns and social distancing regulations have forced many to mark the occasion, a day of remembrance of Australians and New Zealanders who have died in combat, with simple services at home.  
 
“This year we may not stand shoulder-to-shoulder but let us stand together in that spirit at dawn,” said a video by a veterans’ group to mark the occasion.
 
Under lockdown, many Australians and New Zealanders stood outside their homes to remember the Anzacs, and other servicemen and women.
 
Marches and parades that would usually attract large crowds were canceled because of the COVID-19 outbreak.A national service in Canberra was attended by a handful of political leaders and military veterans.  
 
Returned Service Nurse, Wing Commander Sharon Bown, spoke of her great-uncle, who landed at Gallipoli 105 years ago.
 
“In this time of crisis, let us realize the innate capacity within each of us to do the same.  To unite and protect the more vulnerable among us. To realize that the qualities for which we honor the Anzacs live on in each of us; endurance, courage, ingenuity, good humor, mateship and devotion to duty, to each other, to Australia — lest we forget,” Bown said.
 
In New Zealand, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern spoke of her hopes for the future.  
 
“We honor the Anzac commitment and we reflect on our enduring hopes for peace and a world that does not ask for the sacrifice of war, but instead asks for a commitment to empathy, kindness and to our shared humanity.  May we remember that as we stand together this Anzac Day,” Ardern said.
 
Anzac Day commemorates the disastrous landing by the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli in Turkey on April 25, 1915. To many, the courage of those troops under devastating enemy fire helped to forge the identities of both former British colonies.
 
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A U.S. federal judge has ordered the release of migrant children who have been detained at the Mexico border, after ruling Friday the Trump administration was again violating an agreement to release them within 20 days.
 
The Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law has been challenging the Trump administration’s child detention policies on behalf of plaintiffs who contend the coronavirus pandemic has triggered more delays in the release of the migrant children.
 
The center’s argument against the administration is being made under a 1997 pact known as the Flores agreement, which generally requires minors who have been detained in non-licensed facilities at the U.S.-Mexico border to be released within the 20-day period.
 
The plaintiffs maintain the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) stopped releasing children to their parents or other guardians in California, Washington state and New York to avoid getting involved with the states’ lockdown rules, which have been imposed to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
 
They also allege the administration stopped the release process for some children because their parents or guardians could not easily arrange to be fingerprinted as required for background checks.
 
The plaintiffs argued the delays could expose the children to the coronavirus if it spreads in detention facilities. They cited a non-profit detention center in Texas where a 14-day quarantine order was put into effect.
 
In addition, the plaintiffs accused the government of releasing a teenager who turned 18 while in “quarantine” to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) instead of sending him to family placement program where arrangements had been made to accommodate him.
 
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee, who oversees the case, did not agree with all of the allegations but once more ordered the administration to “expedite the release of the children.”
 
Gee concluded that “ORR and ICE shall continue to make every effort to promptly and safely release” the detained children who are represented by the plaintiffs.
 
In a separate ruling last month, Gee described the immigration detention centers as “hotbeds of contagion.”
 
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The worldwide number of COVID-19 cases continues to climb, bringing misery and pain to all echelons of society.The global count of cases has reached more than 2.8 million people, and more than 197,000 people have died.There have been a growing number of coronavirus cases aboard an Italian cruise ship docked in Japan with a crew but no passengers.  The Costa Atlantica had been headed to China for repairs but was diverted to Nagasaki earlier this year.Crew members were told to stay aboard the ship but media reports say some of them were spotted in Nagasaki.Local officials say at least 91 crew members, many of them asymptomatic, have tested positive for the virus. One has been hospitalized.In Europe, Spain has more than 219,000 coronavirus cases and more than 22,500 deaths, followed by Italy with more than 192,000 cases and almost 26,000 deaths.A nurse wearing a face mask writes down a telephone message from a deceased patient’s family member, to be put in the victim’s coffin, in Corsica on April 23, 2020.Several European countries have seen a decrease in new cases and are preparing to gradually reopen businesses and ease restrictions.The number of U.S. infections is creeping up to a million with more than 905,000 cases and nearly 52,000 deaths. Despite the rising tally, several states took steps Friday to reopen their economies, with Georgia and Oklahoma allowing salons, spas and barbershops to reopen. Some business owners said it was too early to open and doing so could spark a new surge in coronavirus infections, despite facing financial collapse if they do not.The U.S. Congressional Budget Office says the economic hardship caused by the coronavirus in the United States will last through next year, as the pandemic wreaks havoc on the financial health of countries around the world.The nonpartisan agency said the U.S. budget deficit will grow from $1 trillion to $3.7 trillion this year and said the unemployment rate would rise from 3.5 percent in February to 16 percent in September. It predicted that unemployment would fall after that time but would remain in double digits through 2021.The report puts pressure on the U.S. government as it tries to balance the concerns over the growing federal deficit with the approval of stimulus money meant to combat the outbreak’s economic effects.A woman wears a face mask to protect herself from COVID-19 as she walks past a painting in Hong Kong, April 25, 2020.On Friday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $484 billion relief package to extend additional support for small business loans and to help hospitals expand COVID-19 testing. The money is part of more than $3 trillion the U.S. government has spent to boost the economy.Earlier Friday, the G-20 called on “all countries, international organizations, the private sector, philanthropic institutions, and individuals” to contribute to its funding efforts to fight COVID-19, setting an $8 billion goal.An international forum for the governments and central bank governors of 19 nations and the European Union said Friday the G-20 already has raised $1.9 billion. Saudi Arabia, the current holder of the G-20 presidency, contributed $500 million.With no proven remedy for the coronavirus, health officials worldwide are recommending protective measures such as hygiene, social distancing and wearing masks and gloves. But people in many places are growing tired of restrictions, even as the number of cases grows.The coronavirus has had a devastating effect on the global economy, but the International Monetary Fund and other organizations warn that developing countries will be the worst hit.The United Nations food agency projects that some 265 million people could experience acute hunger this year, twice as many as last year. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on governments to ensure health care is available to all people and that economic aid packages help those most affected.   
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When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the United States in mid-March, visits to doctors’ offices dropped precipitously as people stayed home to protect themselves from the virus.But the stay-at-home order has spurred people to seek medical help in another way – talking to a doctor over the phone, email or video, according to a new study.Now, 30% of all outpatient visits are televisits, up from less than 1% in early March, FILE – A patient sits in the living room of her apartment in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Jan. 14, 2019, during a telemedicine video conference with her doctor.Waiting for the telemedicine revolutionCommunicating electronically with a doctor isn’t new. With some specialties such as dermatology and mental health, phone or video appointments are common.In many U.S. rural communities, which have seen a decline in the number of hospitals and doctors, telemedicine has been a lifeline.But when it comes to primary care, doctors, patients and regulators alike have mostly stuck with how medical care has been delivered forever: in-person meetings.Some doctors say a lot can be accomplished over video.“Looking at a rash, looking at a spot on an arm, that’s perfect for telehealth, because we have the video capabilities,” said Dr. Edward Lee, an internal medicine physician and chief information officer at the Permanente Federation, a consortium of eight medical groups that deliver care to Kaiser Permanente’s 12.2 million patients and members.FILE – A telemedicine hub, run by Avera Health, is seen in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, June 22, 2015.“If I needed to do an injection, if I need to do a minor procedure, I’m not going to be able to do that over video or a phone,” he said. “And so, in those situations where there are urgent needs, we would bring the patient in to see us.”
Mehrotra, the Harvard professor, says doctors and patients are embracing telemedicine now, out of necessity, but are also realizing its limits.“Given what I’ve heard from clinicians who’ve tried it, I have to think this will accelerate growth in the post-pandemic period,” he said. “But I’m also hearing from a lot of doctors, ‘It’s cool, but I like in-person visits. I can’t do the tests, I can’t do the full exam.’”Paying the same for video and in-person visits
Policy decisions are also driving the adoption of telemedicine. Until the pandemic, government agencies and insurers paid less than half their normal amount for telemedicine visits. Now they have increased the pay for a televisit so it is on par with an in-person one, according to Kaiser Health News.Federal regulators have also paused enforcing patient privacy rules, so that doctors can use popular applications like Skype, FaceTime and Whatsapp, according to Consumer Reports. The alternative for hospitals and doctors is finding a telemedicine firm that provides secure video calls, a process that can be time consuming.Mehrotra questions whether widespread adoption of telemedicine, post-pandemic, is the right course for U.S. health care.But one place where telemedicine might make huge strides, he said, is in rural parts of developing countries, places where access to health care can be difficult.“Telemedicine has great potential in that context,” he said. “It can be life-saving.” 
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An attack on civilians at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo killed at least 18 people, including 12 rangers.The rangers were killed “while coming to help a civilian vehicle which had come under fire by the assailants,” the park management said in a statement. “Others were injured, including some who are fighting for their lives.”Virunga is a UNESCO World Heritage site with an area about 7,800 square kilometers over the borders of DRC, Rwanda and Uganda.It is Africa’s oldest and most biologically diverse protected habitat.The park with a large population of famous mountain gorillas has been a scene of rising instability and violence for at least two decades.At least 176 of its rangers have been killed in the last 20 years in attacks by rebel groups, militias and poachers.There has been no claim of responsibility by any person or group for Friday’s attack.
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The Ethiopian community in the Washington, D.C., area is mourning the loss of a woman who died from coronavirus shortly after giving birth, without seeing her newborn.Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, was eight months pregnant when she began experiencing symptoms including fever, shortness of breath and loss of sense of smell. On March 25 she was hospitalized, and her son was born one month early via emergency cesarean section. On April 21 she died due to complications from the virus. Her son is healthy and does not have the disease.On Friday at the Wilkes Street Cemetery Complex in Virginia, mourners wore masks and stood at a safe distance from one another.  Her husband, Yilma Asfaw, collapsed on the casket, crying out in Amharic. “You didn’t see the boy you were looking for. You left your four children, and what would I do for them?” Despite his distress, his friends and family were unable to comfort him due to the distancing restrictions.Her 17-year-old daughter, Mihret Yilma, said the loss is impossible to process. “I didn’t just lose one person. I lost three. I lost my mother, my sister and my friend. We were very close. She left without saying goodbye,” she told VOA, speaking a mix of Amharic and English.  “She taught me the meaning of strength and faith. We are safe because of her prayer night and day.”The daughter has been thrust into the role of mother, mixing milk formula to feed the baby and taking care of the newborn for three weeks. She said she takes solace in her new responsibility.“The newborn baby reminds me of my mother,” she said. “I feel like I am finding my mother through my siblings. From now on, they are all I’ve got. Mom used to say when I have my own children that I wouldn’t need a babysitter and that she would raise my children.”Wogene Debele of Takoma Park, Maryland, was eight months pregnant when she fell ill. She died from coronavirus shortly after giving birth. Here, her family mourns at her graveside.Yilma, 50, and Wegene, 43, won the Diversity Visa Lottery to come to the United States 10 years ago, bringing their daughter Mihret and son Naol Yilma, now 10. They had their third child, another son, Asher Yilma, after arriving in the U.S. The father is a school bus driver for Montgomery County, Maryland.The Washington, D.C., area is home to the largest population of people of Ethiopian descent in the U.S., with an estimated 100,000 living in the region.“This family is going to need us in the future. They’re going to need our support and our assistance, like so many families in our community,” Takoma Park Mayor Kate Stewart told local television station WUSA9.Etsegenet Bekele is a neighbor and had known Wegene since she came to the U.S. She lived on the third floor and Wegene on the eighth. “This is so painful for a new mother. I have no words. It is so painful,” she said. “She was a good person for everyone, but she would die for her children more than anything. She is a soldier for children.”She said to mourn in such circumstances is painful, as people are keeping distance and can’t console each other. “You can’t get over it even after crying and everything is done from a distance. In our culture to be buried like this is deeply painful.”Yilma said he still can’t accept the loss of the woman he has loved since they were both children.“We have been together for 25 years,” he said. “She was my childhood friend; she was my childhood partner. She was my adviser, my lead, I don’t even know what to say. She loved her children. She was the kind of person who welcomed people with open arms. My sorrow is deep and bitter,” he told VOA.This story originated in the Africa Division with reporting contributions from VOA Amharic Service’s Tsion Girma. 
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The senior Department of Homeland Security official who was thrust into the spotlight by President Donald Trump to describe the effects of temperature on COVID-19 has been the subject of misconduct allegations for his previous government work.A Department of Energy Inspector General investigation was still pending Friday based on evidence submitted by a whistleblower that William Bryan abused his government position with energy consulting work in Ukraine.It’s unclear if Trump was aware of that investigation when he called on Bryan at his daily briefing Thursday to explain DHS research that prompted a presidential riff on the potential to cure the virus with disinfectant and kill it with sunlight.Bryan has been acting undersecretary for the DHS Science and Technology Directorate since May 2017. Before that, he was president of ValueBridge International’s Energy Group, a consulting firm in Virginia, following previous work with the Department of Energy.Trump nominated him to be the undersecretary of the directorate, which is charged with developing technology for the components of DHS. But days after his Senate hearing in August, a government whistleblower and his attorneys received a letter from the Office of the Special Counsel that information they provided about Bryan showed a “substantial likelihood of wrongdoing.”The letter, first reported by The Hill newspaper in September, said the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative agency, had referred the matter to the Department of Energy Office of Inspector General, which opened an investigation.The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, said the IG would conduct an investigation to see if his allegations could be substantiated and would inform Congress and the president.Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security, speaks about the coronavirus April 23, 2020, in Washington, D.C.The allegations against Bryan, which were reported by The New York Times in October 2018, center around his time as a senior adviser in the Office of International Affairs in 2016. He was designated a “special government employee,” which allowed him to do limited private sector work.The whistleblower, Robert Ivy, alleged that Bryan used his DOE position to develop his business interests with ValueBridge, including by providing money to foreign officials with the goal of influencing their actions and improperly sharing proprietary information.The allegations reference players who featured prominently in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.The complaint, which was also obtained by AP, describes Bryan’s dealings with Rinat Akhmetov, the Ukrainian energy oligarch who hired Paul Manafort as an adviser years before Manafort became chairman of Trump’s presidential campaign. According to the complaint, Bryan denied ever interacting with Manafort, who was convicted in Mueller’s Russia investigation related to Manafort’s work in Ukraine — though they did stay at the same Hyatt Hotel in Kyiv on one occasion recounted by the whistleblower.It says Bryan, as the head of an international Energy Department team that traveled to Ukraine with the goal of stabilizing the country’s energy security, aligned himself with Ahkmetov, became manipulated by the oligarch and his lieutenants and cashed in “personally on the cowboy capitalism that has driven so much of the former Soviet Union.”FILE – The Department of Energy is seen in Washington, D.C., May 1, 2015.Ivy, a former DOE official who now works in the private sector, and his attorney said Friday that they provided information to the IG investigation but have not received any notice of a conclusion. Both expressed surprise that Bryan, who has a military background but is not a scientist, was called upon by the Trump to discuss the research.”Bill Bryan should not be in that position in the first place,” said John Tye, Ivy’s attorney and the founder and CEO of Whistleblower Aid. “The U.S. government found a substantial likelihood of wrongdoing by him on both the corruption and security violation matters.”The Department of Energy referred questions about the investigation, which remains open, to its Inspector General’s office, which did not respond to a request for information. DHS also did not respond to questions or make Bryan available for an interview.Bryan presides over an organization that has had its budget cut by the Trump administration, despite the prominent role the president gave it during his briefing to discuss how work done at an agency lab in Maryland showed the virus breaking down when exposed to light and humidity.Under the final year of President Barack Obama, the agency had a budget of $841 million, more than half of which was for research and development. The Trump administration cut that to around $583 million in its first budget to fund other priorities. It proposed restoring some of that this year and raising it to $643 million. 
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Pamela Austin, a recruiter at Adventist Health Bakersfield in California, made seven job offers to foreign nurses in February and just finished a first round of interviews with 12 more candidates. They are from all over the world, including the United Kingdom, the Philippines, Australia and Malaysia.The international candidates fill the private hospital’s critical need for experienced nurses who can work in emergency rooms and intensive care units, Austin said — jobs that can’t be met only with U.S. nurses, many of whom are recent graduates.That need could go unfilled, however, if U.S. President Donald Trump extends a 60-day hold on green cards he ordered in the name of protecting American jobs amid the coronavirus outbreak.”It would be a huge setback,” Austin said. “Those are holes I don’t have people to fill.”Trump says the measure is necessary at a time when unemployment has climbed to levels last seen during the Great Depression.A car drives on a highway parallel to a border fence between the United States and Mexico in El Paso, Texas, April 22, 2020.Critics have dismissed the move as the president’s veiled attempt to achieve cuts to legal immigration that he previously suggested but couldn’t persuade Congress or the courts to accept — and to distract voters from his handling of the pandemic.But immigrant advocates and political opponents are not the only ones who oppose the measure: Hardliners from Trump’s base say it doesn’t go far enough to limit immigration.The order “is designed to satisfy powerful business interests that value a steady flow of cheap foreign labor,” Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, wrote in a letter to the president Thursday.The Center for Immigration Studies, another hardline group, said the 60-day pause “will provide little relief to Americans” and criticized an exemption for foreigners who agree to invest at least $900,000 in the U.S.The proclamation, signed Wednesday, excludes temporary nonimmigrant visas for hundreds of thousands of workers a year, including farm workers, software engineers and others in fields deemed to have labor shortages. It doesn’t apply to green-card applicants already in the United States.Many families will be barred from immigrating as long as the freeze lasts — more than 200,000 people at last year’s levels. Spouses of U.S. citizens and their children under 21 are exempt, but parents, adult children, grandchildren, adult siblings and other relatives aren’t.Carl Shusterman, a Los Angeles immigration attorney who advises hospitals, said he had hoped Trump’s proclamation would provide a blanket exemption for nurses, who often arrive on green cards. Instead, it only exempts health care workers whose work is deemed essential to recovering from the COVID-19 outbreak.”Embassies and consulates make the decisions,” he said. “They don’t have any special expertise in COVID-19, like none of us do.”Houston immigration attorney Raed Gonzalez said he doesn’t expect the suspension to have much of an effect — at least in the short term — because embassies and consulates had already halted routine visa processing last month in response to the pandemic.”This is more of a show from the administration than anything else,” he said.But other immigrant advocates predict profound changes if the measure becomes permanent.This undated image from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service shows the front of a sample ‘green card,’ formally known as a Permanent Resident Card.Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless, a company that advises families and individuals on green cards, estimates 358,000 applicants a year would be unable to get permanent residency if the order were extended.He said the casualties would include roughly 50,000 diversity visas each year for countries that send fewer people to the U.S., and that the measure would have a big impact on immigrants from Asia, Central America and eastern Europe.Rand says Trump is using the pandemic to achieve changes to the immigration system that he couldn’t get past Congress or the courts. He called the 60-day halt a “double fig leaf” to make the measure more palatable.”I don’t think it takes much guesswork that President Donald Trump is going to use his discretion to extend it 60 days from now and again and again and again,” Rand said.The edict has similarities to legislation Trump tried unsuccessfully to pass in 2017 that would slash legal immigration, largely through family-based visas that the president has referred to derisively as “chain migration.”Last month, the administration effectively suspended asylum by rapidly expelling anyone who enters the country along borders with Mexico and Canada. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week extended the policy through May 20 on public health grounds.Trump told reporters that he may extend the most recent order or modify it next week, in two months or “as we go along” to be “made tougher or made less tough.””We don’t want to hurt our businesses, and we don’t want to hurt our farmers,” he said Wednesday. “Very important.”Joe Biden, Trump’s presumed Democratic rival in November’s election, echoed those who called the measure an attempt to divert attention from the president’s handling of the pandemic.”Rather than execute a swift and aggressive effort to ramp up testing, Donald Trump is tweeting incendiary rhetoric about immigrants in the hopes that he can distract everyone from the core truth: He’s moved too slowly to contain this virus, and we are all paying the price for it,” Biden said Tuesday.Matt Hill, a campaign spokesman, said Thursday that Biden would not maintain the policy if elected. 
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President Donald Trump said Friday that he wouldn’t approve a $10 billion loan for the U.S. Postal Service unless the agency raised charges for Amazon and other big shippers to four to five times current rates.”The Postal Service is a joke because they’re handing out packages for Amazon and other internet companies and every time they bring a package, they lose money on it,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.The president was responding to a question about reports his administration plans to force major changes in postal operations as the price for approving a $10 billion loan that was included in the government’s $2 trillion economic rescue package.Under the rescue package legislation, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin must approve the loan before the Postal Service can receive the money. Officials at the Postal Service had no immediate reaction to Trump’s comments.Trump said the changes the administration would insist on would make it a “whole new ballgame” at the Postal Service. He said the Postal Service did not want to make the changes because they did not want to offend Amazon and other companies.Looking at Mnuchin, who was with him in the Oval Office, the president said, “If they don’t raise the price of the service they give … I’m not signing anything and I’m not authorizing you to do anything.”‘Postal reform program’Mnuchin told reporters that he had Treasury officials working with the Postal Service on the terms of the loan if postal officials decided they need more money.”We are going to post certain criteria for [a] postal reform program as part of the loan,” Mnuchin said. He said the Postal Service board already was searching for a new postmaster general to run the agency and undertaking reforms of operations.The Washington Post, which first reported the administration’s push for changes at the Postal Service, quoted unnamed officials as saying that senior Postal Service officials had been told the administration wanted to use the $10 billion loan as leverage to influence how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances.Trump has complained for years that the Postal Service is being exploited by Amazon and other shippers and that that is why the agency is losing so much money.
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VOA Connect Episode 119 – As the world continues to contend with social distancing, we meet people trying to stay connected – through music, yoga and more.  
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