AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT
As economies stagger, pressures grow to ease virus lockdowns
The world's economic pain was on full display Thursday as Europe and the United States were releasing more figures showing the devastating impact on jobs and companies of lockdown measures designed to battle the coronavirus pandemic.
In Europe, where over 132,000 people with the virus have died, the fear of renewed infection spikes that could again overwhelm hospital emergency wards was tempering hopes that economies on life-support will regain their vigor as workers return to factories, shops and offices.
Figures released Thursday showed that France's economy shrank by an eye-popping 5.8% in the first quarter, the biggest quarterly drop since 1949 and mainly due to its strict stay-home measures in place since March 17.
Spain says its economy shrunk 5.2% in the first quarter of this year as the coronavirus pandemic hit. Italy's government debt rating was cut to just above junk bond status, with the Fitch ratings agency expecting the Italian economy to shrink 8% this year. Germany is projecting a 6.3% drop in GDP this year.
And a new report from the Paris-based International Energy Agency projected an unprecedented plunge this year in the global demand for energy that will be equivalent to losing the entire energy demand of India, the world’s third largest energy consumer.
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Grim count: US virus toll passes Trump's 60,000 marker
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump likes to talk about the most, the best, the thing that nobody has ever seen.
Now he is trying to make a virtue of a lower number, arguing that the efforts of his administration have warded off a far greater death toll than otherwise would have been seen.
But the reported U.S. death toll on Wednesday crept past 60,000, a figure that Trump in recent weeks had suggested might be the total death count. He had cited the estimate as a sign of relative success after the White House previously warned the U.S. could suffer 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.
Trump also has repeatedly used the outer band of any estimate — the potential that 2.2 million Americans could have died had there been no interventions — to try to make his case most powerfully.
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is certain to keep growing from here.
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Before the virus: Looking back on some last 'normal' moments
The coronavirus scare has done something to time.
The days, weeks, and now the months, have blurred and stretched as talk of reopening the world has taken over for millions waiting and wondering at home.
There are few of life's usual rhythms. And like so many cataclysms before this one, memories are settling in of the old times, for better or worse.
What was normal then and isn't now? Here's what a few around the world had to say about their last “normal” moment before the pandemic took hold:
NEW YORK: A `CHEERS' MOMENT
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As virus cases surge, Brazil starts to worry its neighbors
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — Brazil’s virtually uncontrolled surge of COVID-19 cases is spawning fear that construction workers, truck drivers and tourists from Latin America's biggest nation will spread the disease to neighboring countries that are doing a better job of controlling the coronavirus.
Brazil, a continent-sized country that shares borders with nearly every other nation in South America, has reported more than 70,000 cases and more than 5,000 deaths, according to government figures and a tally by Johns Hopkins University — far more than any of its neighbors. The true number of deaths and infections is believed to be much higher because of limited testing.
The country’s borders remain open, there are virtually no quarantines or curfews and President Jair Bolsonaro continues to scoff at the seriousness of the disease.
The country of 211 million people surpassed China — where the virus began — in the official number of COVID-19 deaths this week, prompting Bolsonaro to say: “So what?"
“I am sorry,’’ the far-right president told journalists. “What do you want me to do?”
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Outsiders consider possibility of chaos in North Korea
TOKYO (AP) — North Korea’s collapse has been predicted — wrongly— for decades.
Some said it would happen after fighting ended in the Korean War in 1953. Others thought it would be during a 1990s famine or when national founder Kim Il Sung died in 1994. And when the death of his son, Kim Jong Il, thrust a little-known 20-something into power in 2011 some felt the end was near.
It's no surprise then that recent rumors that leader Kim Jong Un is seriously ill have led to similar hand-wringing.
South Korea believes that Kim is alive and in control, and most analysts agree that even if he weren't, Kim’s powerful sister, Kim Yo Jong, would likely take control, possibly with the help of select officials.
Many experts say North Korea would weather the transition just as it has every other upheaval.
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SEALs tried to locate US citizen taken by Afghan militants
WASHINGTON (AP) — In the days following the capture of an American contractor in Afghanistan earlier this year, Navy commandos raided a village and detained suspected members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network while the U.S. intelligence community tried to track the cellphones of the man and his captors, The Associated Press has learned.
While the circumstances surrounding the abduction remain unclear, the previously unreported operation described by multiple American officials over the past month shed new light on early efforts to locate Mark R. Frerichs, a contractor from Illinois whose disappearance has been shrouded in mystery and whose case has been the subject of minimal public discussion by the U.S. government.
The new details emerge as violence and political infighting in Kabul threaten to scuttle a Taliban peace deal with the U.S. Last month, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo voiced frustrations after a failed attempt to mediate a power struggle between Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and political rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah. The Trump administration said it would cut $1 billion in aid to Afghanistan.
Washington has urged Kabul to release Taliban prisoners, which is part of the peace agreement, arguing the detainees were at risk of spreading the coronavirus.
But there are no public indications Frerichs, a Navy veteran, has been part of negotiations between the U.S. and Taliban leadership, or that his release is part of any peace deal.
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Police called after NYC funeral home puts bodies in trucks
NEW YORK (AP) — Police were called to a Brooklyn neighborhood Wednesday after a funeral home overwhelmed by the coronavirus resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks, and a passerby complained about the smell, officials said.
Investigators who responded to a 911 call found that the home had rented four trucks to hold about 50 corpses, according to a law enforcement official. No criminal charges were brought and the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
The Andrew T. Cleckley Funeral Home was cited for failing to control the odors. The home was able to obtain a larger, refrigerated truck later in the day, the official said.
Workers suited up in protective gear could be seen in the afternoon transferring bodies into the refrigerated truck.
A person who answered the phone at the funeral home hung up without speaking. Subsequent calls went to voicemail, which was full.
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Many Japanese defy appeals to stay home to curb virus
TOKYO (AP) — Under Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency, people have been asked to stay home. Many are not. Some still have to commute to their jobs despite risks of infection, while others continue to dine out, picnic in parks and crowd into grocery stores with scant regard for social distancing.
On Wednesday, the first day of the “Golden Week” holidays that run through May 5, Tokyo's leafy Shiba Park was packed with families with small children, day camping in tents.
The lure of heading out for Golden Week holidays is testing the public's will to unite against a common enemy as health workers warn rising coronavirus cases are overwhelming the medical system in some places. Experts say a sense of urgency is missing, thanks to mixed messaging from the government and a lack of incentives to stay home.
In distant, tropical Okinawa, locals have resorted to posting social media appeals to tourists not to visit, “to protect our grannies and grandpas.”
“Please cancel your trip to Okinawa and wait until we can welcome you,” Okinawa's governor Denny Tamaki tweeted. “Unfortunately Okinawa can provide no hospitality and our medical systems, including on remote islands, are in a state of emergency.”
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Europe's employment aid keeps jobs from vanishing -- for now
PARIS (AP) — Christian Etchebest's Parisian bistro is a shadow of its usual bustling self. Five lunch specials sit in neat paper bags on the bar awaiting takeout customers — a tiny fraction of his normal midday business before the coronavirus.
A skeleton staff rotates in daily at La Cantine du Troquet near the banks of the Seine River, just blocks from the Eiffel Tower. One day they packaged a streamlined version of his Basque menu: sausages with a celery and beetroot remoulade, mashed potatoes and a dessert of strawberries with lemon sauce.
Yet Etchebest isn't facing bankruptcy — not yet anyway — thanks to a French government program that lets him put staff on reduced hours and makes up most of their lost salary, on the condition they are not fired. That is giving him a chance to keep his team together, awaiting the day when restrictions are lifted and sit-down meals are again allowed at this restaurant and his six others across Paris.
Similar programs are keeping hard-hit businesses across Europe afloat, preventing millions of workers from losing their jobs and income for now, and thousands of bosses from seeing their trained staff scatter. Some 11.3 million workers in France are getting up to 84% of net salary. The government estimates the cost at 24 billion euros ($26 billion), with half of all private sector employees expected to take part.
In Germany, some 3 million workers are being supported, with the government paying up to 60% of their net salary if they are temporarily put on shorter or zero hours. Those with children get 67%, and many companies such as Volkswagen add more.
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AP PHOTOS: Images of Ramadan during the coronavirus pandemic
Ramadan is usually a time of togetherness, with Muslims filling mosques for hours of prayer and sharing large, lavish meals with friends and neighbors after days of dawn-to-dusk fasting.
But as Associated Press images show, the coronavirus has forced Muslims around the world — from Indonesia, India and Gaza City to Seattle and South Africa — to alter the way in which they are marking the holiest month on the Islamic calendar.
This year, many are confined to their homes, travel is heavily restricted and public venues including parks, malls and even mosques are shuttered.
Ahmad Kamel, his wife, Nadia Chaouch, and their 2-year-old son Yusuf are staying at home in Seattle. An AP photographer recently captured them in front of a computer in their living room watching the nightly Taraweeh prayer livestreamed from a nearly empty mosque. If it weren’t for COVID-19, they would be at the mosque, then sharing festive, fast-ending meals with friends and neighbors.
Outside the Imam Ahmed Raza Jaame Masjid mosque in Springs, southwest of Johannesburg, three women waiting to receive Ramadan candies recently sat in socially distanced chairs, the correct spacing marked by painted white lines. South Africa is under a strict five-week lockdown in an effort to fight the pandemic.