AP News in Brief at 6:04 p.m. EDT
White House aiming for Trump pivot from virus to economy
WASHINGTON (AP) — After two months of frantic response to the coronavirus, the White House is planning to shift President Donald Trump’s public focus to the burgeoning efforts aimed at easing the economic devastation caused by the pandemic.
Days after he publicly mused that scientists should explore the injection of toxic disinfectants as a potential virus cure, Trump has now rejected the utility of his daily task force briefings, where he has time and again clashed with scientific experts. Trump’s aides are aiming to move the president onto more familiar — and safer, they hope — ground: talking up the economy, in tighter controlled settings.
It’s a political imperative as allies have seen an erosion in support for the president. What had been his greatest asset in the reelection campaign, his ability to blanket news headlines with freewheeling performances, has become a daily liability. At the same time, new Republican Party polling shows Trump’s path to a second term depends on the public’s perception of how quickly the economic rebounds from the state-by-state shutdowns meant to slow the spread of the virus.
Some states have started to ease closure orders, and Trump is expected to begin to highlight his administration's work in helping businesses and employees. Aides said the president would hold more frequent roundtables with CEOs, business owners and beneficiaries of the trillions of dollars in federal aid already approved by Congress, and begin to outline what he hopes to see in a future recovery package.
Trump last left the White House grounds a month ago, and plans are being drawn up for a limited schedule of travel within the next few weeks, aide said. It would be a symbolic show that the nation is beginning to reopen.
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Many failures combined to unleash death on Italy's Lombardy
ROME (AP) — As Italy prepares to emerge from the West’s first and most extensive coronavirus lockdown, it is increasingly clear that something went terribly wrong in Lombardy, the hardest-hit region in Europe’s hardest-hit country.
Italy had the bad luck of being the first Western nation to be slammed by the outbreak, and its official total of 26,600 fatalities lags behind only the U.S. in the global death toll. Italy's first homegrown case was recorded Feb. 21, at a time when the World Health Organization was still insisting the virus was “containable” and not nearly as infectious as the flu.
But there is also evidence that demographics and health care deficiencies collided with political and business interests to expose the 10 million people in the northern Italian region of Lombardy to COVID-19 in ways unseen anywhere else, particularly the most vulnerable in nursing homes.
Virologists and epidemiologists say what went wrong there will be studied for years, given how the outbreak overwhelmed a medical system long considered one of Europe’s best, while in the neighboring Veneto region, the impact was significantly more controlled.
Prosecutors, meanwhile, are deciding whether to lay any criminal blame for the hundreds of dead in nursing homes, many of whom don’t even figure into Lombardy’s official death toll of 13,325, half of Italy’s total.
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Spain lets children play as US states move at various speeds
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Spain let children go outside and play Sunday for the first time in six weeks as European countries methodically worked to ease their lockdowns and reopen their economies, while in the United States, governors moved at differing speeds, some more aggressive, others more cautious.
Elsewhere around the world, China's state-run media said that hospitals in Wuhan, the original epicenter of the disaster, no longer have any COVID-19 patients, after a crisis in which the city recorded nearly 3,900 deaths. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson planned to be back at his desk Monday at 10 Downing St. after a bout with the coronavirus that put him in intensive care.
While governors in states like hard-hit New York and Michigan are keeping stay-at-home restrictions in place until at least mid-May, their counterparts in places such as Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska are allowing certain businesses to reopen. And churches in Montana began holding in-person services again Sunday.
The official death toll from the virus topped 200,000 worldwide, with over 2.9 million confirmed infections, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University, though the real figures are believed to be much higher, in part because of inadequate testing and differences in counting the dead.
Italy, Britain, Spain and France accounted for more than 20,000 deaths each, the U.S. for about 55,000.
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Satellite imagery finds likely Kim train amid health rumors
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A train likely belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been parked at his compound on the country’s east coast since last week, satellite imagery showed, amid speculation about his health that has been caused, in part, by a long period out of the public eye.
The satellite photos released by 38 North, a website specializing in North Korea studies, don’t say anything about Kim's potential health problems, and they echo South Korean government intelligence that Kim is staying outside of the capital, Pyongyang. Seoul has also repeatedly indicated that there have been no unusual signs that could indicate health problems for Kim.
That hasn't stopped growing unconfirmed rumors and media reports about Kim’s health that have emerged since he missed the April 15 commemoration of the 108th birthday of his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung.
Kim Jong Un is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea, and he hadn’t missed the April 15 event, one of the year's most important for the North, since assuming power after his father Kim Jong Il’s death in late 2011.
Kim's health is of crucial importance because of worries that the serious illness or death of a leader venerated with near godlike passion by millions of North Koreans could cause instability in the impoverished, nuclear-armed country.
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What you need to know today about the virus outbreak
Shrieks of joy ring out on the streets of Spain as children are allowed to leave their homes briefly for the first time in six weeks. The country has the second-highest number of confirmed infections behind the United States.
As Italy prepares to emerge from the West’s first and most extensive coronavirus lockdown, it is increasingly clear that something went terribly wrong in Lombardy, the hardest-hit region in Europe’s hardest-hit country.
The billions of dollars in coronavirus relief targeted at small businesses may not prevent many of them from ending up in bankruptcy court.
Church services are resuming in certain states, including Montana, where a general stay-at-home order is expiring.
With limited supplies of coronavirus tests available, the Pentagon is focusing first on testing those performing duties deemed most vital to national security.
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A flood of business bankruptcies likely in coming months
NEW YORK (AP) — The billions of dollars in coronavirus relief targeted at small businesses may not prevent many of them from ending up in bankruptcy court.
Business filings under Chapter 11 of the federal bankruptcy law rose sharply in March, and attorneys who work with struggling companies are seeing signs that more owners are contemplating the possibility of bankruptcy.
Companies forced to close or curtail business due to government attempts to stop the virus's spread have mounting debts and uncertain prospects for returning to normal operations. Even those owners receiving emergency loans and grants aren't sure that help will be enough.
The most vulnerable companies include the thousands of restaurants and retailers that shut down, many of them more than a month ago. Some restaurants have managed to bring in a bit of revenue by serving meals for takeout and delivery, but even they are struggling financially. Small and independent retailers, including those with online stores. are similarly at risk; clothing retailers have the added problem of winter inventory that they are unlikely to sell with spring here and summer approaching.
Independent oil companies whose revenue was slammed by the collapse in energy prices also are strapped, as are other companies that were already burdened with high debt levels before the virus struck.
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Coronavirus sweeps through Iowa firefighter's family
IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — His mother first fell sick a month ago with an illness she believes she caught at the Iowa egg factory where she works.
His younger sister, 22, was next — a new mother who was soon on a ventilator fighting for her life. Then the coronavirus came for his father, Jose Gabriel Martinez, 58, who died Tuesday in the same hospital where he lived his final days near his unknowing daughter.
After a month of caring for his virus-stricken family, firefighter Omar Martinez is now planning a funeral for his father, who was a factory worker known for giving his all to provide for his family. He's hoping for the recovery of his sister Evelyn, who is alert after being taken off a ventilator Thursday. He's dreading having to tell her the news about their dad.
Omar, 29, said he's grateful that his mother has recovered and that he, two siblings and his 2-year-old niece have stayed healthy. He's also touched by the support they've received from neighbors in West Liberty, a heavily Hispanic city of 3,800 where his family settled after immigrating from Mexico in the 1990s.
He wants people to know how easily the virus can spread if they infect others and how quickly that can devastate a family.
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Muted and vacant, Las Vegas struggles to survive shutdown
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Slot machines are powered down, casinos boarded up and barricaded.
Sidewalks are largely deserted and electronic marquees that once flashed neon calls for nightclubs, magic shows and topless revues instead beam somber messages of safety.
The famous fountains of the Bellagio casino, where water choreographed to lights and music shoots hundreds of feet in the air, are still. Throngs of visitors who made it tough to maneuver on sidewalks have been replaced by the occasional jogger or skateboarder.
On the always busy, always noisy, never sleeping Las Vegas strip, you can now hear birds chirping.
“It’s crazy,” said Chris Morehouse, a 70-year-old Elvis impersonator who spent a recent afternoon sipping Miller High Life and posing with a few locals who took advantage of the eerie silence to take photos at the neon-bedecked welcome sign on the Las Vegas Strip. “It’s like the end of the world.”
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Dutch students complete Atlantic crossing forced by virus
HARLINGEN, Netherlands (AP) — Greeted by relieved parents, pet dogs, flares and a cloud of orange smoke, a group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.
The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.
That gave one of the young sailors, 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans, one of the biggest lessons of her impromptu adventure.
“Being flexible, because everything is changing all the time,” she said as she set foot on dry land again. “The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important.”
Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan.
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Mayor imposes curfew, then entertains fellow bored residents
HONOLULU (AP) — When a curfew goes into effect each night for one county in Hawaii, the mayor gets bored -- and posts videos on social media.
And his constituents? They’re entertained.
“Our Mayor is bettah than yours!!” one woman commented, responding to Kauai Mayor Derek Kawakami’s stiff but earnest version of the Renegade to the rap song “Lottery,” one of the most popular dances on social media.
In other videos, posted to his personal Facebook and Instagram accounts, he creates a mask out of a T-shirt and makes ice cream.
Even before Gov. David Ige issued a statewide stay-at-home order to curb the spread of the coronavirus, Kawakami set a 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. curfew for his county, which includes the islands of Kauai and Niihau.