Just as the coronavirus outbreak has boxed in society, it’s also squeezed high-flying tech companies reliant on people’s freedom to move around and get together.Since the beginning of March, for instance, Uber shares have lost a quarter of their value. Rival Lyft is down 28 percent. Over the same period, the S&P 500 has fallen just 10 percent, even with wild swings along the way. The picture is even less clear for other, still-private “unicorn” companies once valued at more than $1 billion, such as Airbnb and WeWork.“What market pressure will mean for all companies is survival of the fittest,” said Allen Adamson, co-founder of the marketing firm Metaforce and a business professor at New York University. “If you are going into this storm in a bad shape, it’s not going to be pretty.”Just few weeks ago, Airbnb was poised to cash in on a soaring stock market with its highly anticipated public offering. But with the market now reeling and few people looking to anywhere but home, Airbnb is reportedly racking up millions of dollars in losses while fending off a backlash from hosts who rely on its service to survive.FILE – An Uber sticker is seen on a car in Lafayette, Louisiana, U.S.on Feb. 16, 2020.Hosts were furious when the company told guests they could cancel their stays without penalties. Last week, Airbnb agreed to pay hosts $250 million to make up for some of the money lost to cancellations.AirDNA, a data firm that helps property owners set rental rates, says the impact on U.S. Airbnb hosts has been mixed. In New York City, bookings dropped 66 percent in March, but in outer suburbs they were up as people fled the city. Bookings in Westhampton Beach, N.Y., jumped sixfold. Similarly, bookings in the city of Chicago fell 11 percent last month, but in St. Joseph, Michigan — a lakeside community within driving distance — they were up by a factor of four.Cary Gillenwater, who has an attached guest suite in Amsterdam listed on Airbnb, said 20 guests have canceled reservations between March and June, costing him nearly $11,000. He had hoped for compensation from the company but was told that only reservations canceled through Airbnb that specifically mentioned the coronavirus would qualify. Several of his would-be guests contacted him directly to cancel; he refunded their money but may be out of luck when it comes to reimbursement. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.The company got a lifeline of sorts on Monday, when two private equity firms — Silver Lake and Sixth Street Partners — invested $1 billion in debt and equity in the company. The firms said they expect Airbnb to emerge from the crisis in a stronger position.The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday, however, that the company will pay interest of more than 10 percent on those loans and that it has made a “verbal commitment” to reduce fixed costs and to bring in supplemental management — terms that often mean layoffs and other cost-cutting. Airbnb didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the Journal report.FILE – Supporters of Airbnb stand during a rally at City Hall in New York in 2015.Uber, meanwhile, is trying to reassure jittery investors than its aggressive expansion plans for ride-hailing remain on track. Like its rival Lyft, it has seen ride demand hit a wall as states ratchet up stay-at-home orders. Both companies are trying to conserve cash so they can weather the pandemic’s fallout, in part by emphasizing deliveries of food and other goods.Even in its worst-case scenario — an 80 percent decline in ridership through 2020 — the company said it would end the year with $4 billion in cash. That would still mean burning through almost $7 billion this year, which could create problems for Uber’s larger ambitions such as self-driving cars and air taxis.Analysts, however, remain largely bullish. “We believe both Uber and Lyft will come out the other side still well placed to capture growth and opportunity,” said Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives.Drivers are another story. San Diegan Christopher Chandler, who’s been driving for both companies for two years, said he’s lost more than 80 percent of his income since riders all but vanished. “I’m going to have to make some hard choices about what bills I won’t pay this month,” said Chandler, who has switched to deliveries that don’t come close to covering his former ride income.Other lesser-known companies, however, have benefited from the pandemic. Zoom, the video conferencing provider, has seen its stock soar to new highs in recent weeks; shares have nearly quadrupled compared to their IPO price just 11 months ago.FILE – Blue Apron CEO Matthew B. Salzberg, center, poses with employees in front of the New York Stock Exchange before the company’s IPO in New York, U.S., in 2017.Not so long ago, the meal-kit maker Blue Apron was threatened with delisting from the New York Stock Exchange after its shares fell below the exchange minimum of $1. Since the beginning of March, however, company shares have more than tripled after it reported a sharp increase in consumer demand fueled by stay-at-home orders.CB Insights lists more than 450 startups worldwide valued at $1 billion or more. While it can be hard to paint these unicorns with a broad brush because of their variety of business models and leadership styles, co-founder and CEO Anand Sanwal said that what COVID-19 is doing to the economy will be “tough for any company to weather, startup or not.”Sanwal said he’s already seeing a decline in early-stage seed investments that help launch new tech startups. But he said investors who have poured big sums into unicorn startups will likely try to do what they can to help keep them healthy, at the very least by grooming them for sale rather than standing by as they collapse.“Investors are going to make some hard decisions about whether this is a temporary downturn, or a company that doesn’t have a shot,” he said.
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Month: April 2020
You’re about to meet the virtual Corona Community Chorus — a group based in New York City. Each Sunday, the chorus members gather online to unite voices forced into isolation in the global effort to curb the coronavirus outbreak. VOA correspondent Mariama Diallo reports on its founder — an author and Harvard Divinity School graduate.
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American ballet dancer Julie Kent was a principal dancer with the American Ballet Theatre from 1993 to 2015. Her farewell role was as Juliet, and in 2016 Kent was named the artistic director of The Washington Ballet. Karina Bafradzhian spoke with Kent about what it takes to be a ballerina — on and beyond the stage.
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Scientists studying data from a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite say they have observed a strong reduction in ozone concentrations over the Arctic, creating what they are calling a “mini-hole” in the ozone layer.The ozone layer is a natural, protective layer of gas in the stratosphere that shields life from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet radiation, often associated with skin cancer and cataracts, as well as other environmental issues.The “ozone hole” most often referenced is over Antarctica, forming each year. But observations scientists made at the German Aerospace Center in the last week indicate ozone depletion over northern polar regions as well.The scientists refer to the Arctic depletion zone as a “mini-hole” because it has a maximum extension of less than a million square kilometers, which is tiny compared with the 20 million- to 25 million-square-kilometer hole that forms over the Antarctic.ESA released an animation using data from its satellite showing daily ozone levels over the Arctic from March 9 to April 1. Scientists say unusual atmospheric conditions, including freezing temperatures in the stratosphere, led ozone levels to drop in the region.
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India is considering plans to seal off coronavirus hotspots in Delhi, Mumbai and parts of the south while easing restrictions elsewhere as a way out of a three-week lockdown that has caused deep economic distress, officials said on Wednesday.
The sweeping clampdown in the country of 1.3 billion people to prevent an epidemic of COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus, ends on April 14 and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to decide this week whether to extend it.
He told a conference of political leaders on Wednesday that several state governments had asked for an extension of the lockdown to cope with the outbreak. But he also said that India was facing serious economic challenges, according to a statement issued by his office.
Scenes of poor migrant workers and their families walking long distances on empty highways to their homes in the countryside after losing their jobs have increased pressure on Modi to reopen parts of Asia’s third largest economy.
More than 80% of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India, the world’s second most populous country, have been traced to 62 districts representing less than 10% of India’s landmass, according to government data.
These are concentrated in the western state of Maharashtra, home to financial capital Mumbai, the capital Delhi and the southern states of Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala.
Many parts of the country have not reported a single case.
Such a skewed geographical spread strengthens the case for a more targeted approach under which the affected area and its neighboring district would be cordoned off, health officials said.
“To manage coronavirus, we are working on a cluster containment strategy,” said Health Ministry joint secretary Lav Agarwal, leading the effort to tackle the outbreak.
“Bhilwara Model”
He said such measures were already in place in east Delhi, in Agra, site of the famed Taj Mahal monument, and in the textile town of Bhilwara in the western state of Rajasthan which has become a test case for a more targeted fight against COVID-19.
Under the “Bhilwara model,” which was adopted last month soon after about 30 people tested positive in the first big wave of infections, the town and its surrounding villages were sealed off with a virtual curfew in place.
People were not allowed even to step out of their homes to get essential stocks or medicines, instead they were asked to call helpline numbers for delivery of staples to their homes.
“It is a lockdown, within a lockdown,” said district information officer Gouri Kant.
The government of Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, said 15 districts which had each recorded six or more cases of COVID-19 would be cordoned off beginning Wednesday night as it steps up the fight to stem the infections.
“There will be no movement in these areas and government will ensure the supply of essentials,” additional chief secretary Awanish Awasthy said.
The Delhi state government said late on Wednesday it was making it compulsory for people to wear masks if they step out of their homes, and 20 areas in the city would be cordoned off.
So far, India has registered 5,274 COVID-19 infections of whom 149 have died, government data showed on Wednesday.
The small numbers, in comparison to large countries such as the United States, Italy and China, have prompted questions from Modi’s critics about whether India has gone too far in shutting down its economy, throwing millions of those who depend on pay by the day out of work and onto the brink of poverty.
However, health experts say India needs to ramp up testing for infections to help ensure it has a grasp on how widespread the coronavirus is, and that a lockdown alone is no solution.
India’s Supreme Court said on Wednesday COVID-19 tests should be conducted free at all government and private laboratories. So far, only government labs were conducting free tests, while the private labs had been allowed to charge a fixed rate of 4,500 Indian rupees.
“The private hospitals including laboratories have an important role to play … by extending philanthropic services in the hour of national crisis,” the court said, ruling on a public interest litigation.
It was not immediately clear how and if the government would reimburse private sector’s costs.
A senior government official, aware of internal discussions on the lockdown, said parts of the country that had not reported a single case of the coronavirus and where people were not in quarantine could lift the curbs.
“There are proposals that are on the table, if there is a partial lifting it will be done on the basis of safety assessment,” the official said.
But it was unlikely that schools, colleges, rail travel and religious gatherings would be allowed anywhere in the country, the official said. Following are government figures on the spread of the coronavirus in South Asia:
South Asia:
* India has 5,274 cases, including 149 deaths
* Pakistan has 4,072 cases, including 58 deaths
* Afghanistan has 444 cases, including 14 deaths
* Sri Lanka has 189 cases, including 7 deaths
* Bangladesh has 218 cases, including 20 deaths
* Maldives has 19 cases and no deaths
* Nepal has nine cases and no deaths
* Bhutan has five cases and no deaths
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A renowned Somali musician and oud player, Mohamud Ismail Hussein, commonly known as Hudeydi, died on Tuesday night in London, as a result of complications of COVID-19.The 92-year-old musician had been popular among Somalis in the Horn of Africa and around the world since the 1950s, when he started performing in theaters and at concerts throughout the region.“He was a musician, poet and songwriter in his nearly six-decade-long career. I cannot sum up his rich music history,” said veteran Somali artist Abdi Dhuh. “I can say he immensely contributed to the Somali arts scene.”He becomes the second high-profile Somali claimed by COVID-19 in London. A week ago, former Somali prime minister Nur Hassan Hussein died of coronavirus at a London hospital.Hudeydi was born in 1928 in Berbera, North West Somalia. In a recent interview with VOA Somalia’s Qubanaha TV show, he said that he started playing oud, when he was 18 years old. “If there’s an oud lying near me, I couldn’t resist it but grab and play it,” he said.
He made a name for himself in Somalia during the 1950s and 1960s, performing in Somalia’s theaters.Another Somali artist, Mohamed Hassan Barrow, said “Hudeydi was a Somali music and national icon, patriot, and I remember him with the love songs he wrote and how he played oud.” Somali artist Fadum Ali Nakruma, who performed some of the songs Hudeydi wrote, described him as a “father” for many Somali artists.“He was like a father for us, and we remember his love for oud playing. We really [will miss] a legend,” she said.Hudeydi moved to Britain in 1974, where he continued to create music and perform. In 2018, the International Somali Awards honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award in London.Seynab Abukar contributed to this report.
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John Prine, an American singer and songwriter whose blend of folk and country earned him a devoted legion of fans and reverence from music greats such as Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen over a five-decade career, died Tuesday at age 73 from complications of the novel coronavirus. Prine was admitted for the disease late last month at a hospital in the southeastern city of Nashville, Tennessee. He had survived two separate bouts of cancer, the first in 1998, and the second as recently as 2013. The Kentucky-born Prine was working as a postman by day and singing in Chicago clubs at night when he was discovered by singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson in 1970. Kristofferson was instrumental in securing Prine a record deal with Atlantic Records, releasing an album that contained such songs as “Angel from Montgomery,” about a middle-aged housewife dreaming of a better life, and “Sam Stone,” about a drug-addicted Vietnam war veteran, that would eventually become folk-country standards. Although mainstream success eluded him, Prine’s songs were covered by a cross-section of blues, country and folk singers including Johnny Cash and Bonnie Raitt, who scored a major hit with her version of “Angel from Montgomery” in 1974. His work earned him two Grammy Awards and scores of other honors, including membership in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Prine is the latest figure of the U.S. arts community to die from COVID-19. They include Ellis Marsalis, the father of jazz luminaries Wynton, Branford, Jason and Delfayo, and a respected musician and educator in his own right; jazz guitarist Bucky Pizzarelli; jazz trumpeter Wallace Roney; rock singer-songwriter Adam Schlesinger; country singer Joe Diffie; and playwright Terrence McNally, whose groundbreaking plays such as “Love! Valour! Compassion!” focused on the lives of gay men.
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering changing its guidelines for self-isolation to make it easier for those who have been exposed to someone with the coronavirus to return to work if they are asymptomatic.
The public health agency, in conjunction with the White House coronavirus task force, is considering an announcement as soon as Wednesday, Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday.
Under the proposed guidance, people who are exposed to someone infected would be allowed back on the job if they are asymptomatic, test their temperature twice a day and wear a face mask, said a person familiar with the proposal under consideration. The person described the proposal on the condition of anonymity because the draft had not been finalized.
The new policy is aimed in particular at workers in critical jobs. But it also comes as the Trump administration is eyeing what it calls a “stabilization” in infection rates and looks toward rolling back some of the restrictive social distancing guidelines and restarting the nation’s stalled economy.
The proposed guidance would follow recommendations made by the CDC that eased self-isolation requirements for front-line medical workers who were exposed to the virus. Under CDC guidance, medical workers who have been exposed to the virus without protective equipment but who have no symptoms can return to work with a mask and temperature checks after 14 days.
Pence on Tuesday said the White House is focusing on the “point of need” for the current situation but also is operating on another track to consider future recommendations for the public.
“Some of the best minds here at the White House are beginning to think about what recommendations will look like that we give to businesses, that we give to states, but it will all, I promise you, be informed on putting the health and well-being of the American people first,” Pence said.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, and death.
In fashioning the recommendations, the administration appeared to be trying to balance political concerns about wanting to preserve as much normalcy as possible with public health concerns that some infections are being spread by people who seem to be healthy.
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Just weeks ago, cities and even states across the U.S. were busy banning straws, limiting takeout containers and mandating that shoppers bring reusable bags or pay a small fee as the movement to eliminate single-use plastics took hold in mainstream America. What a difference a pandemic makes. In a matter of days, hard-won bans to reduce the use of plastics — and particularly plastic shopping sacks — across the U.S. have come under fire amid worries about the virus clinging to reusable bags, cups and straws. Governors in Massachusetts and Illinois have banned or strongly discouraged the use of reusable grocery bags. Oregon suspended its brand-new ban on plastic bags this week, and cities from Bellingham, Washington, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, have announced a hiatus on plastic bag bans as the coronavirus rages. Add to that a rise in takeout and a ban on reusable cups and straws at the few coffee stores that remain open, and environmentalists worry COVID-19 could set back their efforts to tackle plastic pollution for years. “People are scared for their lives, their livelihood, the economy, feeding their loved ones, so the environment is taking a back seat,” said Glen Quadros, owner of the Great American Diner & Bar in Seattle. Quadros has laid off 15 employees and seen a 60% decline in business since Seattle all but shut down to slow the pandemic. For now, he’s using biodegradable containers for takeout and delivery, but those products cost up to three times more than plastic — and they’re getting hard to find because of the surge in takeout, he said. “The problem is, we don’t know what’s in store,” Quadros said. “Everyone is in the same situation.” In this March 29, 2020, photo, a sign posted at an entrance to a 365 Whole Foods store advises customers not to use their own bags while shopping in Lake Oswego, Ore.The plastics industry has seized the moment and is lobbying hard to overturn bans on single-use plastics by arguing disposable plastics are the safest option amid the crisis. California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, New York, Oregon and Vermont have statewide bans on plastic bags, and Oregon and California have laws limiting the use of plastic straws. New York’s statewide plastic bag ban is on hold because of a lawsuit. The Plastics Industry Association recently sent a letter to Alex Azar, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and asked him to speak out against plastic bag bans because they put consumers and workers at risk. And the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance is doubling down on its opposition to plastic bag bans under a preexisting campaign titled Bag the Ban. Grocery worker unions, too, have joined the chorus. The union that represents Oregon supermarket workers is lobbying for a ban on reusable bags, and a Chicago union called for an “end to the disease-transmitting bag tax.” Critics argue people with reusable bags don’t regularly wash them. “If those bags coming into the store are contaminated with anything, they get put on the conveyor belt, the counter, and you’re putting yourself in a bad spot,” said Matt Seaholm, executive director of the American Recyclable Plastic Bag Alliance. “It’s an unnecessary risk.” A study by the U.S. National Institutes of Health found the novel coronavirus can remain on plastics and stainless steel for up to three days, and on cardboard for up to one day. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it appears possible for a person to get COVID-19 by touching a surface that has the virus on it and then touching their mouth, nose or eyes — but it’s not thought that’s the main way the virus spreads. More studies are needed to fully assess the dangers posed by reusable bags, which are mostly made of fabric, said Dr. Jennifer Vines, lead health officer for the Portland metropolitan area. “It’s not clear that a virus that you can find on a surface — whether it’s cloth or something else — is viable and can actually make you sick,” she said. For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough that clear up in two to three weeks. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia and death. Some stores such as Trader Joe’s and Target are letting customers use their own bags if they sack their groceries themselves, while others are banning them. In Oregon, temporary rules now allow disposable “T-shirt” plastic bags with no fee to customers. Many stores ran out of paper bags amid a run on groceries, accelerating the move to ease plastic restrictions, said Joe Gilliam, president of the Northwest Grocery Association, which represents 1,000 retail locations in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. “There are some stores out there that are saying, ‘For the time being, please don’t bring those in.’ Other stores are allowing them, but … right now we’re asking that only freshly laundered ones come in,” he said. Environmental groups, well aware of the nation’s current priorities, were at first unusually silent on moves to temporarily roll back plastic bag bans. But they responded forcefully after the plastics industry asserted bag bans could worsen the pandemic’s toll. “The fear-driven gains the industry was able to win this month are likely to be extremely short-lived,” said John Hocevar, of Greenpeace USA. “The movement away from throwaway plastic is the kind of awakening that is not going to be that easy for the plastic industry to stop.” In the meantime, some consumers are getting taken by surprise. Paul McNamara, who has used his own bags for a decade, said he was stopped at the entrance of his regular market in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, after the state enacted a temporary ban on reusable shopping sacks. His ratty bags have corners reinforced with duct tape from years of use; he instead left with his groceries in plastic bags. “My question would be, will it become permanent?” McNamara said. “I’m fine with the restrictions on reusable plastics. It makes a lot of sense, and that’s the way to go for the environment. But if it’s a public health issue, we’ve got to figure out some way to deal with it.”
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At the construction site in Tel Aviv, Jamal Salman and the other Palestinian workers wore gloves and masks, and their employer provided apartments for them to stay overnight.But his wife, alarmed by the news about the coronavirus outbreak in Israel, called him every night from the West Bank, begging him to come home. He came back early this week.Now he sits alone in his basement all day, quarantined from his wife and five children and wondering how he’ll make ends meet. In Tel Aviv he earned $1,500 a month, enough to support his family. Now he’s unemployed.”Coronavirus is like an all-out war,” he said. “Everyone is suffering.”The coronavirus outbreak poses a dilemma for tens of thousands of Palestinian laborers working inside Israel who are now barred from traveling back and forth. They can stay in Israel, where wages are much higher but the outbreak is more severe, or they can return home to quarantine and unemployment in the West Bank.
Authorities on both sides are wrestling with similar trade-offs as they confront a virus that blithely ignores the barriers erected over the course of the decades-old conflict.Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority imposed sweeping lockdowns in mid-March, largely sealing off the occupied West Bank and heavily restricting travel within the territory.
But the laborers were allowed to remain in Israel, where many work in construction and agriculture — sectors deemed essential to the economy.Palestinians can earn much higher wages in Israel than in the West Bank, where economic development has been hindered by more than a half-century of Israeli military rule. Many support extended families, and their income is vital to the local economy.Israel and the Palestinian Authority initially agreed that the workers could remain in Israel for up to two months as long as they didn’t travel back and forth.It was left to Israeli employers to provide living facilities for the workers, some of whom were largely left to fend for themselves. The Associated Press spoke to workers last month who left their construction site after several days of living in close quarters, with little if any protective equipment.Many have chosen to go back to the West Bank, including thousands who returned ahead of the Passover holiday in Israel, when work grinds to a halt. Palestinian Labor Minister Nasri Abu Jaish told local media that 8,000 workers came back on Tuesday alone. Their return to the West Bank poses a risk, both to public health and to the Palestinian economy.
The Palestinian Authority, which has reported around 250 cases and one fatality, says 73% of the infections have been linked to workers returning from Israel, which is battling a much larger outbreak. Israel has more than 9,200 confirmed cases, including at least 65 fatalities.Last week, Israel sent around 250 Palestinian workers back to the West Bank after a virus outbreak at a chicken slaughterhouse near Jerusalem, where nine workers tested positive.”With the borders closed, and no tourists or travelers, the only remaining source for coronavirus infections is Israel, where the outbreak is huge,” said Dr. Kamal al-Shakhra, an official in the Palestinian Health Ministry.The Palestinian Authority is stopping workers after they cross through Israeli checkpoints and taking their temperatures. Those with fever or other symptoms are taken to hospitals while the rest are ordered into 14-day home quarantine.All workers are barred from returning to Israel, and security forces posted at the entrances to towns and villages are confiscating work permits.”We cannot test all the workers returning from Israel because we have limited capabilities,” said Dr. Ali Abed Rabu, another Health Ministry official. Labs in Ramallah and Bethlehem can only process around 600 tests per day, he said.Gerald Rockenschaub, the head of the World Health Organization for the Palestinian territories, praised the Palestinian Authority’s response to the pandemic. But he acknowledged that screening and quarantining the returning workers was “easier said than done,” especially since many are unregistered.A major outbreak in the West Bank would overwhelm the local health system. West Bank hospitals have around 213 intensive care unit beds with ventilators, according to the WHO. That’s for a population of around 2.5 million.The situation in Gaza, which has been under an Israeli and Egyptian blockade since the Palestinian militant group Hamas seized power there in 2007, is even more dire.The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, who recover within a few weeks. But it is highly contagious and can be spread by those who appear healthy. It can cause severe illness and death in some patients, particularly the sick and elderly.Mohammed Falah, a 24-year-old day laborer from the West Bank, returned from Israel on Tuesday after working on a construction site in Tel Aviv for the last three weeks.”If I had more work, I would have stayed,” said Falah, who is engaged and hopes to get married this summer. He makes around $70 a day in Israel, twice the going rate in the West Bank.
“I’m building a home myself. I cannot afford to stay in with no income,” he said.After he passed through the Israeli checkpoint, Palestinian medics sprayed him down with disinfectant from head to toe. “They even disinfected my shoes,” he said.After taking his temperature and finding no sign of fever, they ordered him to go into home quarantine for 14 days.”I will definitely follow the instructions,” he said. “I have parents and brothers and sisters, and I want to protect them.”
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John Prine, the ingenious singer-songwriter who explored the heartbreaks, indignities and absurdities of everyday life in “Angel from Montgomery,” “Sam Stone,” “Hello in There” and scores of other indelible tunes, died Tuesday at the age of 73. His family announced his death from complications from the coronavirus. Winner of a lifetime achievement Grammy earlier this year, Prine was a virtuoso of the soul, if not the body. He sang his conversational lyrics in a voice roughened by a hard-luck life, particularly after throat cancer left him with a disfigured jaw. He joked that he fumbled so often on the guitar, taught to him as a teenager by his older brother, that people thought he was inventing a new style. But his open-heartedness, eye for detail and sharp and surreal humor brought him the highest admiration from critics, from such peers as Bob Dylan and Kris Kristofferson, and from such younger stars as Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves, who named a song after him. In 2017, Rolling Stone proclaimed him “The Mark Twain of American songwriting.”
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New analysis of data collected by the U.S. space agency’s Cassini spacecraft may have solved what has been a mystery to scientists for years: What keeps the upper layers of Saturn so warm?The warmth of Saturn and other gas giants in the solar system has puzzled scientists because the planets are too far from the sun for it to be the source of the heat that has been found in their atmospheres.But the authors of a report published this week in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy used NASA’s Cassini probe data to make the most detailed examination yet of Saturn’s temperatures and atmospheric density.They discovered auroras – similar to Earth’s northern lights – active at the planet’s north and south poles. The researchers believe the auroras, electrical currents triggered by interactions between solar winds and charged particles in the atmosphere, are what’s providing the heat.This complete picture of how heat circulates in Saturn’s atmosphere allows scientists to better understand how these auroral electric currents drive winds and distribute energy around the planet, and why the upper atmosphere is twice as hot as temperatures expected from the sun’s heat alone.The Cassini space probe, managed by NASA, was an orbiter that observed Saturn for more than 13 years. In September 2017 it exhausted its fuel supply and was plunged into the planet, in part to protect Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, which Cassini discovered might hold conditions suitable for life.
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In the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, one sign that social distancing measures may be working is that people’s temperatures — a symptom of the virus — are dropping in some cities in the U.S., according to a smart thermometer company. The data could give health officials an early look into how the virus is progressing. Michelle Quinn takes a look.
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Habbo Hotel, a hit online networking game more than a decade ago, is drawing back hundreds of thousand of players as locked-down millennials look to rediscover a childhood favorite, its Finnish maker said. “Our traffic has tripled over the past month. The exact user number growth figure is 213% since February 25,” game maker Sulake’s Chief Executive Valtteri Karu told Reuters, adding that this included hundreds of thousands of new and returning users. Launched 20 years ago, Habbo Hotel gained a strong following among children and teenagers before it was eclipsed by social media sites such as Facebook by 2010. With a layout reminiscent of classic video games, Habbo Hotel consists of rooms that players can decorate and where they can meet other players to chat or play games. They can also join virtual parties in search of new acquaintances. One returning user is Pilvi Pitkaranta, a 23-year-old University of Tampere student who was an active player with her classmates about 10 years ago. With all student events canceled because of the coronavirus, Pitkaranta decided to organize a virtual party at Habbo Hotel. About 30 of her fellow students joined the party at the end of March. “I thought it was a fun idea to organize a party there, also out of nostalgia,” Pitkaranta said. “Some people are finding it very distressing that they have to be home alone and are finding it hard to get things done when stuck indoors.” Habbo Hotel has versions in nine languages, attracting most users in the Americas and Europe, Sulake’s Karu said. “As the world has shut down, the more users have come along,” he added. The game’s Finnish maker is jointly owned by private Dutch advertising group Azerion and Finnish telecoms operator Elisa. It remains to be seen if Habbo’s renewed popularity will last only as long as the virus. As welcome a diversion as Habbo may be, Pitkaranta and her fellow students are looking forward to when they can enjoy some real-life partying, she said.
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The lockdown that served as a model for countries battling the coronavirus around the world is set to end after 11 weeks: Chinese authorities are moving to allow residents of Wuhan to once again travel in and out of the sprawling city where the pandemic began.
Just after midnight Wednesday, the city’s 11 million residents will be permitted to leave without special authorization as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.
Restrictions in the city where most of China’s more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths were reported have been gradually relaxed in recent weeks as the number of new cases steadily declined. The latest government figures reported Tuesday listed no new cases.
While there are questions about the veracity of China’s count, the unprecedented lockdown of Wuhan and its surrounding province of Hubei have been successful enough that countries around the world adopted similar measures.
During the 76-day lockdown, Wuhan residents had been allowed out of their homes only to buy food or attend to other tasks deemed absolutely necessary. Some were allowed to leave the city, but only if they had paperwork showing they were not a health risk and a letter attesting to where they were going and why. Even then, authorities could turn them back on a technicality such as missing a stamp, preventing thousands from returning to their jobs outside the city.
Residents of other parts of Hubei were allowed to leave the province starting about three weeks ago, as long as they could provide a clean bill of health.
Prevention measures such as wearing masks, temperature checks and limiting access to residential communities will remain in place in Wuhan, which is the capital of Hubei.
In an editorial, the ruling Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily warned against celebrating too soon.
“This day that people have long been looking forward to and it is right to be excited. However, this day does not mark the final victory,” the paper said. “At this moment, we still need to remind ourselves that as Wuhan is unblocked, we can be pleased, but we must not relax.”
In anticipation of the lockdown’s lifting, SWAT teams and staff in white hazmat suits patrolled outside the city’s Hankou railway station, while guards attended a security briefing under the marble arches of its entrance.
Tickets for trains out of Wuhan to cities across China already were advertised on electronic billboards, with the first train leaving for Beijing at 6:25 a.m. A line designated for passengers headed to the capital already was roped off, while loudspeakers blared announcements about pandemic control measures, such as keeping safe distances and wearing masks.
Wuhan is a major center for heavy industry, particularly autos, and while many major plants have restarted production, the small and medium-sized businesses that provide the most employment are still hurting from both a lack of workers and demand. Measures are being instituted to get them back on their feet, including 20 billion yuan ($2.8 billion) in preferential loans, according to the city government.
China blocked people from leaving or entering Wuhan starting Jan. 23 in a surprise middle-of-the-night announcement and expanded the lockdown to most of the province in succeeding days. Train service and flights were canceled and checkpoints were set up on roads into the central province.
The drastic steps came as the coronavirus began spreading to the rest of China and overseas during the Lunar New Year holiday in late January, when many Chinese travel.
The exact source of the virus remains under investigation, though it is thought to be linked to an outdoor food market in the city.
In preparation for the end of the lockdown, Party Secretary Wang Zhonglin, the city’s highest-ranking official, inspected the city’s airport and train stations Monday to ensure they were ready. The city must “enforce prevention while opening up, maintain safety and orderliness and the assurance of stability,” Wang said.
Mission one: to make sure the epidemic doesn’t resurge, he said.
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Pakistan’s military promised Tuesday that dozens of doctors who were briefly jailed for protesting a lack of protective equipment needed to treat the growing number of coronavirus cases will get the equipment they need.
The 47 doctors protested in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, on Monday, when they were detained. They were released later the same day, according to provincial spokesman Liaquat Shahwani.
An army statement on Tuesday said the “emergency supplies of medical equipment, including PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) are being dispatched to Quetta.”
However, some of the doctors said they were mistreated by police and that some of their colleagues were beaten. The physicians declined to give their names, fearing reprisals.
Two doctors have died after contracting the new virus in Pakistan, which has recorded 4,004 cases and 54 deaths. Many of the cases have been traced to pilgrims returning from neighboring Iran. Pakistani authorities have imposed a countrywide lockdown until April 14.
In Iran, authorities struggling to battle the virus announced Tuesday they would expand testing to asymptomatic people, but didn’t say how many test kits they have available or provide other details.
Iran’s Health Minister Saeed Namaki said that with active screening of such cases, there are expectations the virus and COVID-19, the illness it causes, can be brought under control by mid-May.
“With this step, we will go after people without symptoms,” said Namaki, adding this would require a large number of tests. He didn’t elaborate. The health ministry said searching for asymptomatic cases would be combined with restrictions on both city and intercity travel and quarantine.
Iran is facing the worst outbreak in the region. Iran’s state TV said Tuesday the new coronavirus has killed another 133 people, pushing the country’s death toll to 3,872 amid 62,589 confirmed cases.
The health ministry’s spokesman, Kianoush Jahanpour, said 27,039 people have recovered so far while 3,987 remain in critical condition.
There are nearly 109,000 confirmed cases across the Middle East, with more than 4,600 fatalities.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi on Tuesday sought to reassure Egyptians a day after officials reported 149 new cases, the country’s highest one-day tally since the pandemic began.
El-Sissi’s government has imposed a night-time curfew, suspended international air travel and closed schools and universities to curb the virus’ spread. Egypt has more than 1,320 confirmed cases and 85 deaths.
“So far, the situation is under control,” he said in televised comments. “The goal is to minimize the damage caused by the pandemic.” El-Sissi said he’s opposed to a complete lockdown.
El-Sissi said the military has set up four field hospitals in different parts of the country with more than 500 beds to help treat virus patients.
For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death.
At a retirement home ravaged by the coronavirus in the southern Israeli city of Beersheba, another resident died, the eighth so far there. Dozens of the home’s resident’s have been infected and relatives have been staging angry protests outside the premises in recent days.
Overall, more than 9,000 have been infected in Israel and 60 have died, the vast majority elderly and many in assisted living facilities.
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When Philippine health workers end their daily hospital shifts, they trade the risks of COVID-19 for the risks that they could have bleach thrown in their faces or be chased from public areas. Many workers report they are being evicted from homes, refused rides on buses, and kicked out of restaurants as their fellow citizens worry about coming into contact with them and contracting the ailment caused by the coronavirus.Critics say the disregard goes all the way to the top, with President Rodrigo Duterte saying these health professionals are “lucky” to die for the nation, even as he condemns the discrimination.The Department of Health has said it would investigate the treatment of health workers. And the capital city of Manila has approved an ordinance outlawing discrimination against workers and COVID-19 patients. The recently approved ordinance calls for a fine of nearly $100 and six months in prison.“We are receiving reports of our health care workers around the country being attacked physically, including being thrown bleach and splashed with chlorine,” the department said in a statement. “Additionally, there are reports of health care workers being refused access to basic services such as public transport and laundry, blocked and fined at checkpoints and evicted from their homes.”In February, the Philippines became the first nation to report a death from COVID-19 outside of China, where it first emerged. Since then, the virus has spread to infect 3,764 people in the Southeast Asian nation, leading to nearly 180 deaths at last report and threatening to overwhelm the health care system.FILE – Hospital workers wearing protective masks prepare to sleep on pews at a funeral chapel that serves as a temporarily shelter for them amid the coronavirus spread, in Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines, April 1, 2020.As in the Philippines, health workers have been infected or killed while fighting the virus in nations from France to Vietnam to Pakistan. In the United States, they complain of being dismissed for protesting their hospitals’ hygiene policies; in China, one of the earlier deaths was of a doctor who tried to warn of the coming emergency.The Philippines faces a lack of gloves, surgical masks and coveralls which the government is moving to source now for workers. Local health care workers have tried to improvise, such as by making facial coverings for themselves.“Nothing will happen for us if we always wait for supplies or donations from abroad,” Senator Imee Marcos said.Marcos called on the Department of Health, along with the Department of Trade and Industry, to expedite the approval process for businesses that have made proposals to supply personal protective equipment, or PPE.On Monday, Duterte approved an order that gives health workers an extra 25% in pay, including for part-time and casually employed workers.He also warned citizens last week not to harass health care workers and said police would intervene if they witnessed such discrimination. “These acts cannot be tolerated,” the Department of Health said. It also sought to assure the public that it should not worry about becoming infected from workers, saying, “As medical professionals, our health care workers are taking extra precautions to ensure infection prevention and control.”
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A silver lining of the current pandemic is that rescue dogs are finding foster homes at higher than normal rates right now, according to the Humane Rescue Alliance, an animal welfare organization in Washington, DC.More people have also reached out about adopting than was the case pre-coronavirus, says Ashley Valm, director of adoptions at the organization’s two shelters. Lucky dog Just ask Tom Drescher and his wife, Becky Nolin, who, after browsing online for a few months, finally settled on a terrier Pitbull mix named Goldie. “My wife and I had been talking for quite a while about the idea of adopting a dog,” Drescher told VOA during an interview via Zoom. With both now working from home, they decided it was a perfect time to make the move. “We kept coming back to Goldie’s profile because the photos were charming and there was a streamed video of her and we decided that it would make sense for us to get over to the Humane Rescue Alliance shelter,” said Drescher. WATCH:Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
A dog waiting to find its forever home in its kennel at a Washington-area shelter operated by the Humane Rescue Alliance. (Courtesy Humane Rescue Alliance)Valm said while the shelters are doing everything they can to prepare for more animals, she hopes people will use this opportunity to help ease that burden. “I think right now a lot of people are struggling with anxiety, uncertainty, maybe an adjustment in their routine, workload, working from home — there’s a lot to be focused on,” she said. “And adopting an animal – or taking an animal into your home as a foster – can provide some relief just in the form of having something positive to focus on.” Tom Drescher couldn’t agree more. “I think for all of us, there’s a lot of uncertainty about how our lives look now, and that continues to be true in lots of ways,” he said. “But having Goldie around and as a companion, it’s given us something to do that feels really rewarding.” Drescher added, “If you’re wondering whether or not it will in fact provide the boost of enjoyment and entertainment and love in your life, for us it definitely does and it’s definitely worth it.”
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Taiwan’s cabinet has told government agencies to stop using Zoom Video Communications Inc’s conferencing app, the latest blow to the company as it battles criticism of its booming platform over privacy and security.Zoom’s daily users ballooned to more than 200 million in March, as coronavirus-induced shutdowns forced employees to work from home and schools switched to the company’s free app for conducting and coordinating online classes.However, the company is facing a backlash from users worried about the lack of end-to-end encryption of meeting sessions and “zoombombing,” where uninvited guests crash into meetings.If government agencies must hold video conferencing, they “should not use products with security concerns, like Zoom,” Taiwan’s cabinet said in a statement on Tuesday. It did not elaborate on what the security concerns were.The island’s education ministry later said it was banning the use of Zoom in schools.Zoom did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Taiwan would be the first government formally advising against use of Zoom, although some U.S. schools districts are looking at putting limits on its use after an FBI warning last month.Zoom Chief Executive Officer Eric Yuan last week apologized a-message-to-our-users to users, saying the company had fallen short of the community’s privacy and security expectations, and was taking steps to fix the issues.Zoom competes with Microsoft’s Teams, Cisco’s Webex and Google’s Hangouts.Taiwan’s cabinet said domestically-made conferencing apps were preferred, but if needed products from Google and Microsoft could also be considered.Zoom’s shares dipped 1% in premarket trading on the Nasdaq. They have lost nearly a third of their market value since touching record highs late March.
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For the billions of Christians around the world it is Holy Week, the seven days spanning from Palm Sunday to Easter. Along with one third of the world under lockdown to try to stop the COVID virus, Christians in the Holy Land are preparing for a very different kind of holiday. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem.
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Ceri Weber had just begun to defend her dissertation when the chaos began: Echoes and voices interrupted her. Someone parroted her words. Then Britney Spears music came on, and someone told Weber to shut up. Someone threatened to rape her. Hackers had targeted the meeting on the video conference platform Zoom while Weber was completing the final step of her doctoral degree at Duke University. The harassment lasted 10 minutes — the result of an increasingly common form of cyber attack known as “Zoom bombing.” As tens of millions of people turn to video conferencing to stay connected during the coronavirus pandemic, many have reported uninvited guests who make threats, interject racist, anti-gay or anti-Semitic messages, or show pornographic images. The attacks have drawn the attention of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. “It seemed like someone was just being silly,” but then the intrusions “started to get more serious and threatening,” Weber recalled. “I was really in the zone and kept presenting.” She said she was more concerned about others in the chat who could have been scared. She was interrupted despite having selected “mute all” in the settings for the meeting she conducted from her home in Durham, North Carolina. A Massachusetts high school reported that someone interrupted a virtual class on Zoom, yelled profanity and revealed the teacher’s home address. Another school in that state reported a person who accessed a meeting and showed swastika tattoos, according to the FBI. The agency’s field office in Boston recommended that users of video-teleconference platforms prioritize their security by ensuring that hosts have sole control over screen-sharing features and meeting invitations. In New York, Attorney General Letitia James sent a letter to Zoom with questions about how users’ privacy and security are being protected. In a separate later, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut sought information about how the company handles users’ personal data and guards against security threats and abuse. Zoom has referred to trolls as “party crashers,” which some critics have taken as a sign the company is downplaying the attacks. In a statement issued last week, the company told The Associated Press it takes the security of meetings seriously and encourages users to report any incidents directly to Zoom. The company suggested that people hosting large, public meetings confirm that they are the only ones who can share their screen and use features like mute controls. “For those hosting private meetings, password protections are on by default, and we recommend that users keep those protections on to prevent uninvited users from joining,” the company said. Zoom recently updated the default screen-sharing settings for education users so that teachers are by default the only ones who can share content. Despite the update, Nevada’s Clark County School District, which includes all public schools in Las Vegas, and the New York City Department of Education, which is responsible for the largest school district in the U.S., have told teachers to stop using Zoom. Zoom-bombing was always a threat given how the video conferencing app was configured — geared more toward user-friendliness than privacy, said Justin Brookman, director of privacy and technology policy at Consumer Reports. When shelter-at-home mandates suddenly converted Zoom into a lifeline for tens of millions of families, it became a juicy target for mischief, he said. For years, “the usability issues outweighed the potential security issues because society was less reliant on them. Obviously, that has changed dramatically over the last month,” Brookman added. Some Zoom-bombers have been able to randomly guess meeting IDs and crash conferences not configured to keep out interlopers, he said. In other cases, inexperienced users have exposed meeting IDs online, including U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who tweeted a screenshot of a Zoom Cabinet meeting that showed the ID and everyone’s screen name. Brookman said Zoom can do more to boost privacy protections for a massive user base that now ranges from elementary school children to senior citizens discussing their wills with attorneys. “A lot of people, including us, are critical of how they enable hosts to surveil users to make sure they are paying attention to the screen, or reading DMs or recording the call when it’s not entirely clear,” Brookman said. A mother in Georgia told a local TV station that her son was “embarrassed and a little hysterical” after someone hacked into his online class and showed pornography to the children and teacher. The Rev. Jason Wells was holding a publicly advertised forum recently on Zoom when a troll entered and used the chat box to post a racial slur so many times that it made the feature unusable for other participants. “I would not say this was a random vandal hoping to interrupt somebody,” said Wells, who is executive director of the New Hampshire Council of Churches in Concord and co-chair of a state chapter of the Poor People’s Campaign, part of a movement pioneered by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. The intruder was eventually removed and blocked. As the Rev. Laura Everett delivered a sermon via Zoom for Boston’s First Baptist Church, a user who had seen the church service advertised entered the video conferencing session and shouted homophobic and racist slurs. Everett said she had tweeted the link to the sermon because she wanted “the doors of the church to be open to every weary soul who is looking for a word of comfort.” “This was, for all intents and purposes, a house of worship that was violated,” she said. “Zoom and every other business bears the primary responsibility for users’ safety.” In Oakland, California, Malachi Garza reported an attack on a Zoom conference she hosted for roughly 200 participants, including formerly incarcerated people who have experience with solitary confinement and are struggling with the pandemic’s stay-home orders. The conference organized by the philanthropic Solidare Network was interrupted by racist, anti-transgender language, and pornographic images were flashed on a shared screen. Zoom needs to “tell the truth and call this what it really is,” Garza said. “It’s racial terror, not party crashers.”
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A Nigerian court has ordered actress Funke Akindele-Bello to perform community service after she pleaded guilty to violating a lockdown restriction by hosting a birthday party for her husband while publicly promoting a ‘Stay Home’ campaign. Following their arrest, the couple appeared in court on Monday on charges of breaking the Lagos State Infectious Disease 2020 regulation and were ordered to pay a fine and perform 14 days of community service. The couple’s defense began to unravel on Saturday when the husband, AbdulRasheed Bello, posted a video of the party on his social media account. pic.twitter.com/WSqvTBbFwU— funke Akindele Bello (@funkeakindele) April 5, 2020His wife was criticized for disregarding the measure she had encouraged the public to follow after Nigeria banned social and public gatherings for more than 20 people in three cities to slow the spread of the coronavirus last month. So far, Nigeria’s Center for Disease and Control has recorded more than 200 cases of the coronavirus and five people have died from the disease.
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People around the world, trapped in their homes amid a health crisis, have something to look forward to this week when the full moon appears as a supermoon for the second of three times this year and in its most spectacular form. A phenomenon known as the Super Pink Moon will make an appearance over a couple of nights this week. It will be the biggest and brightest on Tuesday, but its appearance on Monday and Wednesday will also be worth viewing. Housebound people are more likely than usual to want to step out into their yards or poke their heads out of their windows to watch this so-called supermoon and develop a new appreciation for the natural world or renew an old one. A full moon appears approximately once a month. When the moon gets closest to the Earth in its orbit, it appears bigger and brighter than usual and is called a supermoon. A supermoon can look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a regular monthly full moon. Most years have 12 full moons, but this year will have 13, three of them supermoons. The April supermoon follows the one of March 9 and precedes the one coming on May 7. In the United States, the April supermoon is also known as the Pink Supermoon, a name given it by Native Americans because it comes out around the time the moss pink wildflower is in bloom. April’s full moon promises to be the most spectacular full moon of this year because it will be closest to the Earth while in its “full” phase. The distance between the two on April 7 will be 356,906 kilometers. The timing for the April supermoon varies in different parts of the world. On the U.S. West Coast, this year’s Super Pink Moon appears about 7:30 p.m. on April 7, and in Sydney, Australia, at 12:30 p.m. on April 8. But the best time to watch it anywhere is after sunset, when the sky darkens and the moon rises over the eastern horizon. Experts say there is no need to look for its peak at 100% illumination because the moon is then so white and bright that you cannot look at it for more than a few seconds. Those who do not have an east-facing view can wait for the moonset on April 8. It is expected to be as spectacular as the moonrise. The year 2020 will also have a rare blue moon. A blue moon is the second full moon in the same month – something that happens only every 2½ or three years. English-language speakers are familiar with the phrase “once in a blue moon,” referring to something that happens rarely. This year’s blue moon will fall on Halloween, October 31, something that happens once in two decades, so that makes it even more special. Moongazers will have plenty to watch in 2020 and under the current circumstances, watching night sky events could gain more attention among people who have had little interest in them before.
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Tuesday is World Health Day, which is being commemorated as the world faces one of the biggest international health threats of the past century. The head of the World Health Organization, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a virtual news conference Monday in Geneva that the organization is paying tribute to the contribution of health care workers who have been at the forefront of treating patients with the coronavirus. He said Worth Health Day, which is celebrated each year on the World Health Organization’s founding day, is usually one of the group’s biggest days of the year, but this year the day is being overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 Worth Health Day was “supposed to be the main event in our assembly in May. Unfortunately, we are in this situation,” Tedros said. He said the organization would still release a planned report on Tuesday focusing on the state of nursing around the world, saying the document “highlights gaps and makes recommendations for all countries.” “One of the lessons I hope the world learns from COVID-19 is that we must invest in health workers – not only to protect lives, but also to protect livelihoods,” Tedros said. The WHO director said that while the focus of the report is on nurses, “we will celebrate all health workers – midwives, pharmacists, doctors, you name it,” on World Health Day.” “The world is now seeing … the central role that health workers play,” he said. In previous years, groups around the world have held health and fitness events to commemorate World Heath Day. This year, much of the world’s population is under recommendations or orders to stay inside to try to limit the spread of the coronavirus.
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