Now British PM, brash Boris Johnson faces Brexit conundrum

July 24, 2019

LONDON (AP) — Boris Johnson took over as Britain's prime minister Wednesday, vowing to break the impasse that defeated his predecessor by leading the country out of the European Union and silencing "the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters" who believe it can't be done.

But the brash Brexit champion faces the same problems that flummoxed Theresa May during her three years in office: heading a government without a parliamentary majority and with most lawmakers opposed to leaving the EU without a divorce deal.

Johnson has just 99 days to make good on his promise to deliver Brexit by Oct. 31 after what he called "three years of unfounded self-doubt." He optimistically pledged to get "a new deal, a better deal" with the EU than the one secured by May, which was repeatedly rejected by Britain's Parliament.

"The people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts," he said, standing outside the shiny black door of 10 Downing St. Trying to avoid the political divisions that plagued May, Johnson swept out many of her ministers to make way for his own team, dominated by loyal Brexiteers. He appointed Sajid Javid to the key role of Treasury chief, named staunch Brexit supporter Dominic Raab as foreign secretary and made Priti Patel the new home secretary, or interior minister. Michael Gove, who ran the 2016 campaign to leave the EU alongside Johnson, also got a Cabinet job.

Over half of May's Cabinet is gone, including ex-Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Johnson's defeated rival for the Tory leadership, who said he had turned down the chance to stay in government in a different job.

In his first speech as prime minister, Johnson unleashed a scattershot spray of promises — from more police on the streets to ending a ban on genetically modified crops to faster internet access. To the many critics of the polarizing politician who find the phrase "Prime Minister Boris Johnson" jarring, it was typical of a verbal vim that is not always wedded to hard facts .

For the 55-year-old Johnson, walking into the Downing Street residence was the culmination of a life's ambition. The flamboyant, Latin-spouting former London mayor and foreign secretary helped lead the 2016 campaign to get Britain out of the EU and is now the darling of Brexit backers who feel frustrated that, three years later, the country is still in the bloc.

Judging by his words on Wednesday, Johnson's approach to the EU will be a mix of charm and threats. He vowed to keep relations with the EU "as warm and as close and as affectionate as possible" and promised the 3 million EU nationals in Britain "absolute certainty" that they can stay. May made the same promise, but it still is not enshrined in law.

In the next breath, Johnson said Britain might be forced to leave with no deal if "Brussels refuses any further to negotiate" — trying to pin the blame for any future failure on the bloc. That's not an approach likely to win the trust and confidence of EU leaders.

The EU is adamant it will not renegotiate the agreement struck with May on the terms of Britain's departure and the framework of future relations. Without it, Britain faces a chaotic Brexit that economists warn would disrupt trade by imposing tariffs and customs checks between Britain and the bloc, send the value of the pound plummeting and plunge the U.K. into recession.

Chief EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said "we are ready to listen and to work with" Johnson, but he did not budge on the bloc's refusal to alter the deal. "A no-deal Brexit will never be, never, the choice of the EU. But we are prepared," he said in Brussels before Johnson spoke.

Johnson's political opponents accused him of offering little more than hot air. "Rhetoric and reality are two different things," said Labor Party Brexit spokesman Keir Starmer. Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon tweeted that Johnson's speech was "rambling, blame-shifting and, to put it mildly, somewhat divorced from reality."

Wednesday's carefully choreographed political drama unfolded with May attending the weekly Prime Minister's Questions period in the House of Commons for the last time . The usually boisterous session was subdued, with Conservative colleagues praising May's sense of duty and opposition leaders offering best wishes.

As she left the chamber, May received a standing ovation from Conservative lawmakers, many of whom helped bring her down by rejecting her Brexit deal. Later, she stood in Downing Street alongside her husband Philip and said it had been "the greatest honor" to serve as prime minister. She then went to Buckingham Palace to tender her resignation to Queen Elizabeth II.

Moments after her Jaguar left the palace, Johnson swept in to see the queen and be appointed the 14th prime minister of her 67-year reign. Her first was Winston Churchill, who is idolized by Johnson. There was a brief hiccup in the smooth handover when Greenpeace climate-change protesters blocked Johnson's car by forming a human chain on the road outside the palace. They were quickly moved aside by his police escort. Later, hundreds of people demonstrated in central London against Johnson's support for Brexit and past offensive remarks about Muslims, women and others.

If he is to succeed, Johnson must win over the many Britons opposed to Brexit and resistant to his blustering charisma. In a sign he hopes to move beyond the largely white, male and affluent Conservative members who chose him as their leader, Johnson's office said his government would be a "Cabinet for modern Britain" with more women and a record number of ministers from ethnic minorities.

His administration is also set to include some pro-EU politicians, but most will be strong Brexit supporters. One of his senior advisers is set to be Dominic Cummings, lead strategist for the 2016 referendum.

A contentious figure, Cummings was found to be in contempt of Parliament earlier this year for refusing to give evidence to a committee of lawmakers investigating "fake news." British lawmakers are due to start a six-week summer break on Friday. When they return in September, Johnson looks set for a fight with lawmakers, a majority of whom oppose leaving the EU without a deal.

That has led to speculation he could call a snap election in hopes of gaining a majority in Parliament for his plans. Political commentator Matthew Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker, said Johnson was about to find out whether the skills that have brought him to power would work in government.

"However far excitement, energy, positivity can take you ... they will take Boris Johnson that far," he said. "But there is a limit."

Theresa May leaves with head held high but dogged by Brexit

July 24, 2019

LONDON (AP) — Theresa May has plenty of options now that she's no longer a resident of 10 Downing Street. She could opt for the highly paid speaker circuit, become a consultant to an investment bank, or take a high profile PR position — like former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, who signed up with Facebook for his post-politics career.

But May is not cashing in — for now. Ever modest and dutiful, the former prime minister simply plans to take a backseat role in Parliament, one of 650 members of the House of Commons, representing her longtime district as she has for more than two decades.

After the heartbreak of trying to wrench Britain out of the European Union — an effort that produced a still unbroken impasse that dominated her three year premiership — May seems to crave a bit of normalcy.

"I am about to leave Downing Street but I am proud to continue as the member of Parliament for Maidenhead. I will continue to do all I can to serve the national interest," she said, walking away from the heights of power with her head held high and her husband Philip at her side.

While the Brexit project she touted on her arrival remains in tatters, May cited her role as Britain's second female prime minister as a positive record for women. "I hope that every young girl who has seen a woman prime minister now knows for sure that there are no limits to what they can achieve," she said in her final Downing Street address.

An hour earlier, she told members of Parliament that a future female prime minister — or perhaps more than one — could be in their midst. May's final months were painful as Parliament repeatedly rejected the Brexit divorce deal with the EU that was the cornerstone of her administration. She finally accepted that her Conservative Party was hopelessly divided on the issue, and succumbed to pressure to step down.

May has promised her "full support" for successor Boris Johnson, who now inherits the Brexit stalemate with an Oct. 31 deadline for Britain's departure fast approaching. But many expect her to use her parliamentary vote — and her influence — to try to prevent Britain from leaving the EU without a deal, which Johnson says he's willing to do if necessary.

Former Conservative Party legislator Matthew Parris said he does not expect May to stay out of the fray even though her role is much reduced. "When it comes to votes in the House of Commons she has set her face against a no-deal Brexit," he said. "Her refusal to contemplate a no-deal Brexit was what in the end destroyed her. And I don't think she's going to change her mind now about a no-deal Brexit. And if it looks as if we're heading that way. Expect to hear more from Theresa May."

Renata Brito in London contributed to this report.

Biden looks to placate Sanders by letting him keep delegates

April 18, 2020

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seeking to avoid the bitter feelings that marred the 2016 Democratic convention, Joe Biden’s campaign is angling to allow Bernie Sanders to keep some of the delegates he would otherwise forfeit by dropping out of the presidential race.

Under a strict application of party rules, Sanders should lose about a third of the delegates he’s won in primaries and caucuses as the process moves ahead and states select the actual people who will attend the Democratic National Convention. The rules say those delegates should be Biden supporters, as he is the only candidate still actively seeking the party’s nomination.

Quiet talks between the two campaigns center on allowing Sanders to keep some of his delegates, essentially a goodwill gesture from a presumptive nominee seeking to court Sanders' progressive supporters and unite the party. It is not yet settled how many.

“We feel strongly that it is in the best interest of the party to ensure that the Sanders campaign receives statewide delegates to reflect the work that they have done to contribute to the movement that will beat Donald Trump this fall,” said a Biden official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss private negotiations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. “We are in discussion with them now on how to best accomplish that.”

Sanders’ campaign declined to comment on the talks. “Nothing to add from us,” said Sanders spokesman Mike Casca. In some ways, the delegate count is a moot point. While he has yet to formally win the 1,991 delegates needed to claim the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the party convention, Biden is the Democrat’s presumptive nominee. All of his rivals — including Sanders — have endorsed him after ending their own campaigns.

But with the nomination essentially decided, who has how many delegates takes on a new meaning. In 2016, rowdy Sanders supporters booed some speakers and any mention of nominee Hillary Clinton at the party’s Philadelphia convention. The disruptions were so embarrassing to the party that Sanders pleaded with his supporters not to stage protests on the floor.

By claiming the delegates that ought to belong to him under party rules, Biden could cut down on the number of Sanders’ backers — some of whom have been slow to embrace the former vice president — who could stage a replay of that divide. Instead, he’s decided to try to attract Sanders’ supporters rather than silence them.

For his part, Sanders wants as many delegates as possible to help shape the party’s platform and get Biden and the Democratic Party to embrace his democratic socialist agenda. It is not unusual for rival presidential campaigns to negotiate over delegates once the nominating contest is over. In 2008, Clinton and Barack Obama fought over how to divvy up delegates from disputed primaries in Michigan and Florida. Clinton won both states. However, the states had violated party rules by holding their primaries too early in the calendar and were therefore to be stripped of all their delegates.

Clinton’s supporters were furious over the outcome, which saw Obama getting delegates from both states even though he wasn’t even on the ballot in Michigan. But at the national convention that summer, it was Clinton who made the motion during the roll call vote to nominate Obama by acclimation.

Democratic candidates win convention delegates based on their share of the vote in the party’s primaries and caucuses. To date, Biden leads Sanders 1,293 to 937. Nearly two-thirds of delegates are won based on results in individual congressional districts and they stay with the candidates all the way to the convention.

It’s the other third of delegates — won based on statewide results — that are at issue. To keep these delegates, candidates must still be running for president when the people who will serve as convention delegates are selected, usually at state party conventions, according to the party’s delegate selection rules.

Those rules say Biden should get 346 delegates won by Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Mike Bloomberg, Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar. Sanders’ delegate count would fall to 628. Most states have yet to select the people who will attend the convention as delegates, and The Associated Press has not yet updated its delegate count to reflect the shift in delegates from Biden to Sanders that should take place under party rules. But some states, including Colorado, have updated their delegate counts based on those rules.

Sanders won the Colorado primary on March 3 and took the most delegates from the state. But after he quit the race, the state party announced that Biden — the only candidate left — will end up with the most delegates from Colorado.

Biden will take 34 delegates from Colorado to the Milwaukee convention, including all those awarded statewide. Sanders, meanwhile, will get 16, with Bloomberg getting nine and Warren eight.

Associated Press writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.

Stephen Ohlemacher is The AP’s Election Decision Editor.

Biden, DNC ink fundraising deal as he widens party influence

April 24, 2020

Additionally, longtime Democratic power player Mary Beth Cahill will take over management of the DNC, replacing Seema Nanda as chief executive officer under party chairman Tom Perez. Cahill, who managed John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, already has been a quiet force during Perez's tenure, leading Democrats' primary debate process and helping plan the summer convention, among other tasks.

DNC officials and Biden campaign aides confirmed the arrangements Friday. “Our goal is to ensure that we put Joe Biden in the best position possible to beat Donald Trump, and this joint fundraising agreement allows us to do just that,” Cahill said in a statement Friday. “The DNC has built an organization that has proven it can win up and down the ballot, and that is exactly what we will do in November.”

Democrats have lagged Republicans in fundraising throughout the 2020 presidential cycle, with President Donald Trump having spent months raising huge sums for his reelection campaign and the party. The Republican National Committee ended the first quarter of 2020 with almost $250 million stockpiled, between four and five times as much as Biden and the national Democrats.

That gap could put increasing pressure on the kinds of donors who can max out to the party and the nominee under the new agreement. The fundraising partnership is a routine pact between a nominee and the national party, but it's gotten Democrats in trouble before. Ahead of the 2016 election, the party entered into a deal with candidate Hillary Clinton well before she secured the nomination. When details emerged, it became a touchstone for Bernie Sanders' supporters, who alleged that party leaders stacked the deck for the former secretary of state against the insurgent Sanders campaign.

Perez deliberately held off on such a deal this year to help bolster his claims of an impartial process as Sanders again found himself as the last rival standing against the eventual presumptive nominee. In fact, former candidate Kamala Harris, a California senator and potential vice presidential pick, launched a joint DNC agreement earlier this month, while the party was still in talks with the Biden campaign after Sanders ended his bid.

Biden's deal does not yet include state parties, but DNC officials said those negotiations are ongoing. The idea is that the money from top donors can be distributed among Biden’s campaign, national party operations such as boosting the voter file that candidates use to contact potential supporters, and state parties' coordinated campaigns that are designed to turn out Democratic voters for the entire ticket.

Nominees typically take over operations of the national party, even if indirectly. Biden's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, is a former top DNC staffer. And Cahill, given her experience with Kerry in 2004, is familiar with the dynamics between a nominee and the party.

O'Malley Dillon called Cahill's experience “invaluable” and said she's “thrilled to have her as a partner.” Biden's campaign has been mostly circumspect about his involvement in the party, especially when it comes to planning the nominating convention.

Perez said Thursday he expects an in-person convention, but Biden and party officials have left open the possibility that some or all of the proceedings will be virtual. Biden's campaign and Sanders' representatives also continue to negotiate over various policy ideas and the distribution of 4,700 or so convention delegates. Those private talks are intended to stave off the kind of public disputes that marred the run-up to the 2016 convention and hampered Clinton's fall campaign because of bitterness among some Sanders supporters.

NKorea silence on Kim's health raises succession speculation

April 22, 2020

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — With North Korea saying nothing so far about outside media reports that leader Kim Jong Un may be unwell, there’s renewed worry about who’s next in line to run a nuclear-armed country that’s been ruled by the same family for seven decades.

Questions about Kim’s health flared after he skipped an April 15 commemoration of the 108th birthday of his grandfather, North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. It’s North Korea’s most important event, and Kim, 36, hadn’t missed it since inheriting power from his father in late 2011.

North Korea’s state media on Wednesday said Kim sent a message thanking Syria's president for conveying greetings on his grandfather's birthday, but didn’t report any other activities, while rival South Korea repeated that no unusual developments had been detected in the North.

Kim has been out of the public eye for extended periods in the past, and North Korea’s secretive nature allows few outsiders to assert confidently whether he might be unwell, let alone incapacitated. Still, questions about the North’s political future are likely to grow if he fails to attend upcoming public events.

Kim is the third generation of his family to rule North Korea, and a strong personality cult has been built around him, his father and grandfather. The family’s mythical “Paektu” bloodline, named after the highest peak on the Korean Peninsula, is said to give only direct family members the right to rule the nation.

That makes Kim’s younger sister, senior ruling party official Kim Yo Jong, the most likely candidate to step in if her brother is gravely ill, incapacitated or dies. But some experts say a collective leadership, which could end the family’s dynastic rule, could also be possible.

“Among the North’s power elite, Kim Yo Jong has the highest chance to inherit power, and I think that possibility is more than 90%,” said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at the private Sejong Institute in South Korea. “North Korea is like a dynasty, and we can view the Paektu descent as royal blood so it’s unlikely for anyone to raise any issue over Kim Yo Jong taking power.”

Believed to be in her early 30s, Kim Yo Jong is in charge of North Korea’s propaganda affairs, and earlier this month was made an alternate member of the powerful Politburo. She has frequently appeared with her brother at public activities, standing out among elderly male officials. She accompanied Kim Jong Un on his high-stakes summits with U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders in recent years. Her proximity to him during those summits led many outsiders to believe she’s essentially North Korea’s No. 2 official.

“I think the basic assumption would be that maybe it would be someone in the family” to replace Kim Jong Un, U.S. national security adviser Robert O’Brien told reporters Tuesday. “But again, it’s too early to talk about that because we just don’t know, you know, what condition Chairman Kim is in and we’ll have to see how it plays out.”

The fact that North Korea is an extremely patriarchal society has led some to wonder if Kim Yo Jong would only serve as a temporary figurehead and then be replaced by a collective leadership similar to ones established after the deaths of other Communist dictators.

“North Korean politics and the three hereditary power transfers have been male-centered. I wonder whether she can really overcome bloody socialist power struggles and exercise her power,” said Nam Sung-wook, a professor at Korea University in South Korea.

A collective leadership would likely be headed by Choe Ryong Hae, North Korea’s ceremonial head of state who officially ranks No. 2 in the country’s current power hierarchy, Nam said. But Choe is still not a Kim family member, and that could raise questions about his legitimacy and put North Korea into deeper political chaos, according to other observers.

Other Kim family members who might take over include Kim Pyong Il, the 65-year-old half-brother of Kim Jong Il who reportedly returned home in November after decades in Europe as a diplomat. Kim Pyong Il’s age “could make him a reasonable front man for collective leadership by the State Affairs Commission and regent for the preferred next generation successor,” said Leif-Eric Easley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul. “However, elite power dynamics and danger of instability might make this an unlikely option.”

North Korea fires barrage of missiles from ground and air

April 14, 2020

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A barrage of North Korean missiles fired from both the ground and fighter jets splashed down on the waters off the country's east coast on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, a major show of force on the eve of a key state anniversary in the North and parliamentary elections in the rival South.

The back-to-back launches were the most high-profile among a series of weapons tests that North Korea has conducted recently amid stalled nuclear talks and outside worries about a possible coronavirus outbreak in the country.

North Korean troops based in the eastern coastal city of Munchon first launched several projectiles — presumed to be cruise missiles — on Tuesday morning, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.

The weapons flew more than 150 kilometers (93 miles) off the North’s east coast, a South Korean defense official said. If confirmed, it would be the North’s first cruise missile launch since June 2017, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, citing department rules.

Later Tuesday, North Korea launched several Sukhoi-class fighter jets that fired an unspecified number of air-to-surface missiles toward the North’s eastern waters, the defense official said. The official said North Korea has recently appeared to be resuming its military drills that it had scaled back due to concerns about the cornovirus pandemic. He said other North Korean fighter jets also flew on patrol near the border with China on Tuesday.

In recent weeks, North Korea has test-launched a variety of missiles and other weapons amid deadlocked nuclear negotiations with the United States. Tuesday’s launches came a day before North Korea marks the 108th birthday of North Korea’s late founder, Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of current leader Kim Jong Un. They also came a day ahead of South Korean parliamentary elections.

It's unusual for North Korea to launch cruise missiles. Most of the weapons it had tested recently were ballistic missiles or long-range artillery shells. Some experts say North Korean cruise missiles target U.S. naval assets that would be be reinforced in the event of an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula.

All the recently tested missiles were short-range and didn’t pose a direct threat to the U.S. mainland. A test of a missile capable of reaching the U.S. homeland would end North Korea’s self-imposed moratorium on major weapons tests and likely completely derail nuclear diplomacy with the United States.

Some experts say North Korea likely used the latest weapons launches to bolster its striking capability against South Korea, which has been introducing U.S.-made stealth F-35 jets and other sophisticated conventional weapons systems in recent years. Others say the latest weapons tests were also aimed at shoring up internal unity in the face of U.S.-led sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.

North Korea has repeatedly said there has been no coronavirus outbreak on its soil. But many foreign experts are skeptical of that claim and have warned that a coronavirus outbreak in the North could become a humanitarian disaster because of the country’s chronic lack of medical supplies and fragile health care infrastructure.

US, UK condemn Hong Kong arrests of democracy advocates

April 20, 2020

HONG KONG (AP) — The United States condemned the arrests of at least 14 veteran pro-democracy activists in Hong Kong on charges of joining massive anti-government protests last year, saying the police action jeopardizes a high degree of autonomy guaranteed the southern Chinese city.

Among those arrested Saturday were 81-year-old activist and former lawmaker Martin Lee and democracy advocates Albert Ho, Lee Cheuk-yan and Au Nok-hin. Police also arrested media tycoon Jimmy Lai, who founded the local newspaper Apple Daily.

The sweeping crackdown amid a coronavirus pandemic is based on charges of unlawful assembly stemming from huge rallies against proposed China extradition legislation that exposed deep divisions between democracy-minded Hong Kongers and the Communist Party-ruled central government in Beijing.

The bill — which would have allowed the residents of the semi-autonomous Chinese territory to be sent to mainland to stand trial — has been withdrawn, but the protests continued for more than seven months, centered around demands for voting rights and an independent inquiry into police conduct.

While the protests began peacefully, they increasingly descended into violence after demonstrators became frustrated with the government’s response. They feel that Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam has ignored their demands and used the police to suppress them.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement condemned the arrests. “Beijing and its representatives in Hong Kong continue to take actions inconsistent with commitments made under the Sino-British Joint Declaration that include transparency, the rule of law, and guarantees that Hong Kong will continue to ‘enjoy a high degree of autonomy,'" Pompeo said. He was referring to the 1997 handover of the former British colony to China, which promised the city would enjoy political freedoms not afforded mainland China.

Attorney General William Barr also weighed in with a statement saying these events show how "antithetical the values of the Chinese Communist Party are to those we share in Western liberal democracies. These actions — along with its malign influence activity and industrial espionage here in the United States — demonstrate once again that the Chinese Communist Party cannot be trusted.”

Britain's Foreign Office also criticized the arrests, saying “the right to peaceful protest is fundamental to Hong Kong’s way of life and as such is protected in both the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law.”

Beijing has accused the U.S. and other Western countries of instigating the protests and insists they're China's internal affairs. The Office of the Commissioner of the Chinese Foreign Ministry in Hong Kong said police were enforcing the law against those suspected of organizing and participating in unauthorized assemblies, and foreign countries have no right to interfere, China's official Xinhua News Agency reported.

“It is completely wrong that the U.K. Foreign Office spokesperson has distorted the truth by painting unauthorized assemblies as ‘peaceful protests,' in a bid to whitewash, condone and exonerate the anti-China troublemakers in Hong Kong," the statement said.

Lai, Lee Cheuk-yan and Yeung Sum — a former lawmaker from the Democratic Party who was also arrested — were charged in February over their involvement in a rally on Aug. 31 last year. The Hong Kong authorities had denied permission for most of the rallies and police increasingly used tear gas and pepper spray against demonstrators, arresting hundreds.

The League of Social Democrats wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday that its leaders were among those arrested, including chairman Raphael Wong. They were accused of participating in two unauthorized protests on Aug. 18 and Oct. 1 last year.

Israel's Netanyahu notches key wins in a deal with his rival

April 21, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s embattled prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has notched two critical victories in this week’s power-sharing agreement with his chief rival: He can stay in office throughout his upcoming corruption trial, and he can press forward with a potentially explosive plan to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu and former military chief Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White Party, announced their “national emergency government” late Monday, ending 16 months of political paralysis and narrowly averting an unprecedented fourth national election in just over a year.

The emergency government’s stated mission is to steer the country through the coronavirus crisis, which has killed over 180 Israelis and put a quarter of the country out of work. But after a bruising period of prolonged political stalemate, both men also appear to have been driven toward each other by their deepest survival instincts.

Netanyahu and Gantz agreed to rotate 18-month terms as prime minister, and they have evenly divided key government ministries and parliamentary committees. In effect, each side will be able to veto the other's actions.

Commentator Sima Kadmon said the coronavirus crisis served as the pretext for the unlikely alliance. "The real goal was Netanyahu’s effort to buy time,” she wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily. An early test for the alliance will be an issue close to Netanyahu's heart: the annexation of large parts of the West Bank. Such a move would destroy any lingering hopes of establishing an independent Palestinian state and draw widespread international condemnation.

Netanyahu and his pro-settler base see an opportunity under the friendly administration of President Donald Trump who seeks re-election in November. Although their government is to focus on coronavirus issues for its first six months, Netanyahu persuaded Gantz to allow him to raise annexation plans in the Cabinet from July 1.

Netanyahu could still face some obstacles. The deal says any move would require U.S. support and need to take into account the opinions of key allies. Gantz has given annexation only lukewarm support. But the vague language of their deal allows Netanyahu to present the proposal to parliament — where he appears to have majority support for the idea — even without Gantz's backing.

Palestinian official Saeb Erekat called the coalition agreement a threat to regional peace and security. “It is an international responsibility to hold the new Israeli government accountable,” he said.

The coalition deal has also come under heavy criticism in Israel. Through three bitter election campaigns in the past year, Gantz portrayed himself as the antithesis to Netanyahu and repeatedly vowed never to sit in a government with a prime minister suspected of serious crimes. After the most recent election last month, Gantz even began pushing legislation in parliament to ban the indicted Netanyahu from remaining as prime minister.

Yet with the clock ticking, and his fragile alliance unraveling, Gantz accepted Netanyahu’s invitation last month to form a government together. The sudden announcement angered many of his supporters and broke up the Blue and White alliance, leaving him with only a shrunken version of the party. A fourth election would likely have sent Gantz into political irrelevance.

Speaking in parliament Tuesday, Gantz vowed to uphold the rule of law. “I took upon myself the mission to safeguard the democracy because I believe it is the most significant source of strength as a society,” he said.

Netanyahu also defended the deal as best for the nation. Yet for all of his talk in recent weeks about the coronavirus and national unity, leaks from the coalition negotiations indicated he was also motivated by his own personal survival as he prepares to go on trial.

Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals. He denies the charges and says he is the victim of a hostile media and aggressive prosecution. Yair Lapid, who withdrew his Yesh Atid party from Blue and White last month and will likely be the next opposition leader, said Tuesday that he apologized to those he persuaded to vote for Gantz.

“There hasn’t been a fraud like this since the state was established,” said Lapid. “You don’t fight corruption from within. If you’re in, you’re part of it.” While Israeli law requires public officials to resign if charged with a crime, that does not apply to sitting prime ministers.

Although Netanyahu is supposed to step aside next year under the deal, it creates a new position of “designated prime minister” that would permit him to remain in office while on trial. Netanyahu has been desperate to stay as prime minister. As the case against him has gained steam, the office has provided him a high-profile stage to lash out against his opponents and rally his base. And last month, his hand-picked justice minister managed to delay Netanyahu’s trial until late May.

Although Netanyahu will not be able to prevent the trial, he nonetheless will be able to continue to use his office as a bully pulpit throughout the proceedings. Several nonprofit advocacy groups filed challenges to the coalition deal, asking the Supreme Court to ban an indicted politician, such as Netanyahu, from being allowed to form a new government. If the court rules in favor of the challenge, the deal could unravel and the country could still be plunged into new elections.

Yohanan Plesner, a former lawmaker who is now president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said the coalition agreement ends a difficult stalemate but offers little hope. He said the government would likely make progress on consensus issues, like rescuing the economy and passing a budget.

But in other areas, including annexation, “I very much expect it to be very difficult,” he said. “It will be mainly a government of mutual vetoes and paralysis.”

Netanyahu, rival report 'meaningful progress' in unity talks

April 14, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his chief rival said early Tuesday they had made “meaningful progress” in their efforts to form a joint government to confront the coronavirus crisis, agreeing to continue talks this week after a midnight deadline expired.

The late-night announcement provided a glimmer of hope that the sides could end the country's prolonged political paralysis and avoid a fourth election in just over a year. In a joint statement, Netanyahu's Likud party and challenger Benny Gantz's Blue and White said they had asked the country's figurehead president for more time “with the aim of completing negotiations to form a national emergency government.”

President Reuven Rivlin, whose duties include overseeing coalition negotiations, agreed to the request to extend negotiations until midnight Wednesday. It said there was an "understanding that they are very close to reaching an agreement."

The sides said they would resume negotiations early Tuesday. Ahead of the deadline, Gantz had urged Netanyahu to seal a deal or risk dragging the country into an unwanted election at a time of national crisis.

“Netanyahu, this is our moment of truth. It’s either an emergency national government or, heaven forbid, expensive and unnecessary fourth elections during a crisis. History will not forgive either of us if we run away,” he said in a nationally televised address.

Netanyahu invited Gantz to his official residence for last-ditch negotiations that stretched past midnight. Israel last month held its third straight election in less than a year, after the previous two ended inconclusively. While the March 2 vote also ended with no clear winner, Gantz was endorsed by a slight majority of lawmakers, prompting Rivlin to give him the chance to form a government.

With his parliamentary majority, Gantz began moving ahead with legislation that would have disqualified Netanyahu, who has been indicted on corruption charges, from serving as prime minister in the future.

But as the coronavirus crisis worsened, Gantz made an about-face and accepted an offer from Netanyahu to pursue a joint government to deal with the pandemic. Gantz's decision drew heavy criticism from his supporters and caused his Blue and White alliance to crumble.

The sides appeared to be close to a rotation deal in which Netanyahu and Gantz would each serve terms as prime minister. But last week, negotiations stalled, reportedly over a demand by Netanyahu, who faces an impending corruption trial, to have more influence over judicial appointments.

If their extended negotiations fail, Israel's Knesset, or parliament, will have three weeks to select a candidate from prime minister from its ranks. If that too fails, Israel will head to extraordinary fourth polls in just over a year.

With the country led by a caretaker government and hobbled by legislative paralysis since the first election was called in late 2018, a fourth vote would extend the political crisis at a time when the country is dealing with its coronavirus outbreak.

Israel has reported over 11,500 cases and at least 116 deaths from the outbreak, which has paralyzed the economy and driven unemployment to record highs. Throughout three bitter campaigns, Gantz said he would never sit in a government led by Netanyahu as long as he faces corruption charges. But Gantz said the gravity of the coronavirus crisis had convinced him to change his position.

Each of the three elections has been a referendum on Netanyahu, who has portrayed himself as the consummate statesman while trying to play down the charges against him. Charged with accepting bribes, breach of trust and fraud, he has claimed to be a victim of a liberal media and judicial system out to get him.

The coronavirus crisis has provided the long-serving leader with a lifeline. He has helmed the country's response, positioning himself as a capable, tested leader who has worked his international connections to steer Israel through the crisis. While Netanyahu came up short in previous rounds, that polished image could boost his fortunes in a fourth election.

Despite the heavy cost, Israel appears to be weathering the crisis better than many countries. If Gantz cannot clinch a deal this week, he does not have the backing of a majority of legislators. His public support is expected to dwindle in a fourth election, leaving the once formidable challenger to Netanyahu desperate to finalize a deal.

Netanyahu is backed by 59 lawmakers, leaving him two seats short of a majority in the 120-seat Knesset. If he cannot reach a deal with Gantz, he might try to lure defectors from other parties to secure a majority and avert elections.

Netanyahu gains strength as coalition deadline nears

April 12, 2020

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s president on Sunday rejected a request to extend coalition talks between the country’s two most powerful political parties — appearing to give a boost to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and pushing the nation toward an unprecedented fourth consecutive election in just over a year.

The decision by President Reuven Rivlin capped a stunning turnaround in fortunes of Netanyahu, who just a month ago was fighting for his political survival as he prepared to go on trial for corruption charges. His challenger, Blue and White party leader Benny Gantz, now faces an uphill struggle as he races to salvage a power-sharing deal with Netanyahu.

Rivlin last month gave Gantz the task of forming a new government, after a narrow majority of lawmakers endorsed him as prime minister in the wake of March 2 elections. With his parliamentary majority, Gantz began work on legislation that would have prevented Netanyahu from serving as prime minister in the future.

But in an abrupt about-face, Gantz accepted an invitation from Netanyahu to form an “national emergency” government to confront what was then a burgeoning coronavirus outbreak. Gantz froze the anti-Netanyahu legislation and accepted the post of parliament speaker as he began talks on a rotation agreement in which both men would serve as prime minister. The turnabout prompted Gantz's main partner — the secular and middle-class Yesh Atid party — to bolt, causing his Blue and White alliance to disintegrate and leaving it at less than half its original strength.

In the meantime, unity talks with Netanyahu stalled, reportedly over issues that have little to do with the pandemic. Israeli media have reported that Netanyahu insisted on pushing ahead with his plans to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and demanded more influence over judicial appointments.

Claiming he was close to a deal, Gantz on Saturday asked Rivlin, who is responsible for choosing a prime minister-designate after elections, for a two-week extension. But on Sunday, Rivlin rejected the request, citing the “current circumstances.” He said he was giving both Gantz and Netanyahu until the original deadline, at midnight Monday, to reach a deal, and would consider giving them extra time only if both said they were close to agreement.

The looming deadline, along with the coronavirus crisis, has placed Netanyahu in a much stronger position. Citing restrictions on large gatherings due to health concerns, Netanyahu’s hand-picked justice minister last month all but shuttered the national court system, delaying the prime minister’s corruption trial until May and perhaps longer.

While Gantz now appears desperate for a deal, Netanyahu is riding a wave of popularity thanks to his handling of the coronavirus crisis. Israel has reported nearly 11,000 cases and over 100 dead, but appears to be weathering the crisis better than most countries.

This popularity could give Netanyahu the upper hand in last-minute negotiations with Gantz, or position him well for a future election. Late Sunday, the two rivals issued a joint statement saying they would not be giving any more media interviews “in an effort to advance negotiations toward forming a national unity government.”

If they fail, a new election isn’t guaranteed. Rivlin said he would first give the Knesset, or parliament, three weeks to endorse another candidate as prime minister. Netanyahu is likely to use that time to try to lure members from the other side or to reach a deal with a weakened Blue and White. After recruiting a defector from the opposing camp on Sunday, he has the backing of 59 lawmakers, two short of a majority. Gantz might also try to revive the anti-Netanyahu legislation, although it was unclear if he could do so.

Without a coalition deal, the country could be headed to elections — albeit with a much stronger Netanyahu and a much weaker opposition in place. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said elections are still not a sure thing, but the odds are “dramatically increased.”

He said it was possible Netanyahu had tricked Gantz, a former military chief but a political novice, into dismantling the opposition, or perhaps Netanyahu sensed the new circumstances gave him a chance to seek re-election from a position of strength.

“It looks like Netanyahu backed off, or he never intended to go for that deal and it was just a trick in order to erode Gantz’s mandate,” Plesner said.

Islamophobia after large cluster affects India's virus fight

April 25, 2020

NEW DELHI (AP) — India's government is blaming an Islamic missionary meeting for a surge in coronavirus cases, triggering a wave of violence, business boycotts and hate speech toward Muslims that experts warn could worsen the pandemic in the world's second-most populous country.

The stigma faced by India's Muslims, poorer and with less access to health care than other groups, is making health workers' battle against the virus even tougher, according to veterans of other epidemics. India has about 24,500 confirmed coronavirus cases — about one in five of which have been linked to the missionary meeting — and 775 deaths, and the outbreak may not peak until June.

“Not only is the (Muslim) community at a higher risk of being infected, but they will also be at a high risk of spreading the virus,” said Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global health expert. "It becomes a cycle that will continue.”

About 8,000 people in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation met for three days in March at the group's compound in the crowded Nizamuddin area of New Delhi, shortly before the Indian government banned large gatherings. The compound stayed open, later giving shelter to people stranded in a 21-day lockdown imposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 24, according to the group’s spokesman, Mujeeb ur Rehman.

On the second day of the lockdown, a government raid on the compound discovered the largest virus cluster in India. Police filed a case against some of the group’s leaders for violating the ban, a charge the group denies. Officials said Tuesday they have arrested 29 people, including 16 foreigners, who participated in the missionary meeting.

India’s communal fault lines, still stressed by deadly riots over a new naturalization law that excludes Muslims, were split wide open by the allegations against Jamaat. Politicians in Modi’s ruling Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party were quoted on TV and in newspapers describing the Jamaat incident as “corona terrorism.”

False news targeting Muslims began to circulate, including video clips purportedly showing congregation members spitting on authorities. The clips were quickly proven to be fake, yet by April 1, the hashtag “CoronaJihad” was trending on Twitter in India.

Lav Aggarwal, joint secretary of India’s health ministry, repeatedly called out the congregation by name in daily news briefings. On April 5, he said the number of virus cases was doubling in just 4.1 days, and would have been a slower 7.4 days “if the additional ... cases due to the Tablighi Jamaat meeting would not have arisen.”

That same day, Dilshad Mohammad took his life. Panic, blame and stigma were spreading across India when the 37-year-old chicken peddler was shunned by his neighbors in Bangarh, a village in the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh, for giving two members of the Jamaat congregation a ride to their village on his scooter. Neighbors accused him of deliberately trying to infect them with the virus, which causes the COVID-19 disease.

Karthikeyan Gokulachandran, the district police superintendent, blamed his suicide on stigma. In Rajasthan state, a pregnant Muslim woman was turned away from a public hospital because of her religion, resulting in the death of her 7-month-old fetus, said Vishvendra Singh, the state’s tourism minister.

In Uttarakhand, Hindu youths forced Muslim fruit vendors to stop selling. Shots were fired at a mosque in Gurugram, a suburb of New Delhi, and a Muslim family in the neighboring state of Haryana was attacked by neighbors who accused them of not turning off their lights on April 9, the night Modi had asked the country to extinguish household lights for 15 minutes in a show of national unity.

Doctors who studied previous epidemics warn that stigma and blame for a contagious disease weaken trust in marginalized communities, threatening decades-long efforts against illnesses such as polio and tuberculosis by making people less likely to seek treatment.

Stigma in general is adding to India's coronavirus death toll, said Dr. Randeep Guleria, head of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi and among the architects of the country's response.

“It is actually causing increasing morbidity and mortality. Because of the stigma that is happening, many patients who have COVID-19 or who have flu-like symptoms are not coming forward," he said. Muslims were already at a disadvantage when the coronavirus entered India.

India’s 200 million Muslims account for 14% of the population and are the largest minority group in the Hindu-majority nation and also the poorest, surviving on an average of 32.6 rupees ($0.43) per day, a 2013 government survey found.

Muslims also have less access to health care. About 40% of villages with large Muslims populations don’t have medical facilities, a government report in 2006 said. The government in Maharahstra -- the state with the biggest concentration of coronavirus cases -- said Muslim-majority areas had a “paucity of health facilities” in a 2013 report. It said the “threat of communal riots” forced Muslims to “live together in slums and ghettos” where social distancing is often impossible.

In deeply polarized India, some Modi critics have suggested that the government singled out the Jamaat congregation for strategic reasons. The “vilification of Muslims was done to hide the government’s mismanagement in dealing with the virus and their callousness,” said Professor Tanweer Fazal, a sociologist at the University of Hyderabad.

Aggarwal, the health ministry spokesman, declined to respond. On Sunday, Modi tweeted that the coronavirus does not discriminate based on race, religion or creed. “Our response and conduct thereafter should attach primacy to unity and brotherhood. We are in this together,” he said.

His remarks came hours after the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's human rights body condemned the “unrelenting vicious Islamophobic campaign in India maligning Muslims for spread of COVID-19.”

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

US states begin easing lockdowns as virus weakens in Asia

April 25, 2020

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The U.S. states of Georgia, Oklahoma and Alaska began loosening lockdown orders on their pandemic-wounded businesses, even as the confirmed U.S. death toll from the coronavirus soared past 50,000 and despite warnings from health experts that such steps may be coming too early.

The news came as the outbreak appeared to continue to subside in much of Asia. In China, where the virus was first detected late last year, authorities on Saturday reported no new deaths for the 10th straight day, along with just 12 new cases, 11 of them brought from overseas and one local transmission in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang bordering Russia, according to the National Health Commission.

Just 838 people remain hospitalized in China with COVID-19 while another 1,000 are undergoing isolation and monitoring for being either suspected cases or having tested positive for the virus while showing no symptoms. China has reported a total of 4,632 deaths among 82,816 cases.

South Korea reported 10 fresh cases, the eighth day in a row its daily jump came below 20. There were no new deaths for the second straight day. India announced the easing of a stringent lockdown for 1.3 billion people with the reopening of neighborhood and standalone shops. India has reported more than 24,500 cases and 775 deaths. Last week, it allowed resumption of manufacturing and farming activities in rural areas as millions of daily wage earners were left without work.

In France, the government is leaving families to decide whether to keep children at home or send them back to class when the nationwide lockdown, in place since March 17, starts to be lifted on May 11.

As in many countries, the tourism industry in France has been ravaged by the pandemic and a French hotel executive predicted his business will remain “catastrophic” for the rest of this year. “Zero percent (occupancy) in April, probably in May and probably in June,” Serge Cachan, president of the Astotel chain of Paris hotels, told The Associated Press. With estimated losses this year of 60-70%, Cachan said he is counting on government help to survive.

Belgium announced that after May 3, hospitals will progressively open to some non-essential tasks and textile shops also will be allowed to reopen as the country begins relaxing safeguards. Denmark has reopened schools for the youngest grads, while in Spain, parents face the decision of whether to let kids get their first fresh air in weeks when the country on Sunday starts to ease the total ban on letting them outside.

Britain was still holding off on changes to its lockdown as the coronavirus-related death toll in hospitals fast approaches 20,000. It's the fourth highest in Europe, behind Italy, Spain and France, each of which has reported more than 20,000 deaths.

In the U.S., Republican governors in Georgia and Oklahoma allowed salons, spas and barbershops to reopen, while Alaska opened the way for restaurants to resume dine-in service and retail shops and other businesses to open their doors, all with limitations. Some Alaska municipalities chose to maintain stricter rules.

Though limited in scope, and subject to social-distancing restrictions, the reopenings marked a symbolic milestone in the debate raging in the United States and beyond as to how quickly political leaders should lift economically devestating lockdown orders.

During a White House press briefing Friday, President Donald Trump spoke optimistically of the economy but also asked people to continue social distancing and using face coverings. The same day, Trump signed a $484 billion bill to aid employers and hospitals under stress from the pandemic. Over the past five weeks, roughly 26 million people have filed for jobless aid, or about 1 in 6 U.S. workers.

Trump also said his widely criticized comments suggesting people can ingest or inject disinfectant to fight COVID-19 was an attempt at sarcasm. The coronavirus has killed more than 190,000 people worldwide, including — as of Friday — more than 50,000 in the United States, according to a tally compiled by John Hopkins University from government figures. The actual death toll is believed to be far higher.

Amy Pembrook and her husband, Mike, reopened their hair salon in the northwest Oklahoma town of Fairview after it had been shuttered for about a month. “We’re super excited about going back, but we have caught a little flak from people who say it’s too early,” Amy Pembrook said. “We just said we can live in fear for a long time or we can trust that everything is going to be OK.”

Without a tried-and-tested action plan for how to pull countries out of coronavirus lockdown, the world is seeing a patchwork of approaches. Schools reopen in one country, stay closed in others; face masks are mandatory in some places, a recommendation elsewhere.

Meanwhile, testing continues to lag across the United States. To date, according to data compiled by the COVID Tracking Project, just under 4.7 million people have been tested in the country of 330 million. Researchers at Harvard University have estimated a minimum of 500,000 daily tests are needed, and possibly much more, in order to safely reopen the economy.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis said his administration plans to let pharmacists administer virus tests to reach a broader range of people, including those with no symptoms who believe they may have been exposed.

In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer lengthened her stay-at-home order through May 15, while lifting restrictions so some businesses can reopen and the public can participate in outdoor activities such as golf and motorized boating. Michigan has nearly 3,000 deaths related to COVID-19, behind only New York and New Jersey.

New York reported its lowest number of daily COVID-19 deaths in weeks on Friday. The state recorded 422 deaths as of the day before — the fewest since March 31, when it recorded 391 deaths. More than 16,000 people have died in the state from the outbreak.

Crary reported from New York. Associated Press journalists from around the world contributed to this report.

Virus pushes US unemployment toward highest since Depression

April 24, 2020

NEW YORK (AP) — Unemployment in the U.S. is swelling to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s, with 1 in 6 American workers thrown out of a job by the coronavirus, according to new data released Thursday. In response to the deepening economic crisis, the House passed a nearly $500 billion spending package to help buckled businesses and hospitals.

More than 4.4 million laid-off Americans applied for unemployment benefits last week, the government reported. In all, roughly 26 million people — the population of the 10 biggest U.S. cities combined — have now filed for jobless aid in five weeks, an epic collapse that has raised the stakes in the debate over how and when to ease the shutdowns of factories and other businesses.

In the hardest-hit corner of the U.S., evidence emerged that perhaps 2.7 million New York state residents have been infected by the virus — 10 times the number confirmed by lab tests. A small, preliminary statewide survey of around 3,000 people found that nearly 14% had antibodies showing they had been infected, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said. Just in New York City, with a population of 8.6 million, Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot said as many as 1 million may have been infected.

In Washington, many House lawmakers wore face masks and bandannas — and some sat in the otherwise vacant visitors gallery to stay away from others — as they debated the latest spending package. A near-unanimous vote sent it to President Donald Trump in the evening.

Anchoring the bill is the administration’s $250 billion request to replenish a fund to help small- and medium-size businesses with payroll, rent and other expenses. Trump said the bill “will help small businesses to keep millions of workers on the payroll.”

Abroad, there was mixed news about the epidemic. Some countries, including Greece, Bangladesh and Malaysia, announced extensions of their lockdowns. Vietnam, New Zealand and Croatia were among those moving to end or ease such measures.

In Africa, COVID-19 cases surged 43% in the past week to 26,000, according to John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures underscored a recent warning from the World Health Organization that the virus could kill more than 300,000 people in Africa and push 30 million into desperate poverty.

Brazil's health ministry confirmed 407 deaths due to the outbreak in the last 24 hours, a daily high for the country. Huge lines have formed at food banks from El Paso, Texas, to the Paris suburbs, and food shortages are hitting Africa especially hard.

At a virtual summit, European Union leaders agreed to set up a massive recovery fund to help rebuild the 27-nation bloc’s ravaged economies. While no figure was put on the plan, officials said 1-1.5 trillion euros ($1.1-1.6 trillion) would be needed.

The coronavirus has killed nearly 190,000 people worldwide, including more than 100,000 in Europe and about 47,000 in the United States, according to a tally compiled by John Hopkins University from official government figures. The true numbers are almost certainly far higher.

In the U.S., the economic consequences of the shutdowns have sparked angry rallies in state capitals by protesters demanding that businesses reopen, and Trump has expressed impatience over the restrictions.

Some governors have begun easing up despite warnings from health authorities that it may be too soon to do so without sparking a second wave of infections. In Georgia, gyms, hair salons and bowling alleys can reopen Friday. Texas has reopened its state parks.

Few Americans count on Trump as a reliable source of information on the outbreak, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. About 23% said they have high levels of trust in what he tells the public, while 21% said they trust him a moderate amount.

On the economic front, few experts foresee a downturn as severe as the Depression, when unemployment remained above 14% from 1931 to 1940, peaking at 25%. But unemployment is considered likely to remain elevated well into next year and probably beyond, and will surely top the 10% peak of the 2008-09 recession.

Janet Simon, laid off as a waitress at an IHOP restaurant in Miami, said she has just $200 in her name and is getting panic attacks because of uncertainty over how she will care for her three children. Simon, 33, filed for unemployment a month ago, and her application is still listed as “pending.”

“I’m doing everything to keep my family safe, my children safe, but everything else around me is falling apart,” Simon said. “But they see it, no matter how much I try to hide my despair." Corey Williams, 31, was laid off from his warehouse job in Michigan a month ago and saw his rent, insurance and other bills pile up while he anxiously awaited his unemployment benefits. That finally happened on Wednesday, and he quickly paid $1,700 in bills.

“It was getting pretty tight, pretty tight,” he said. “It was definitely stressful for the last few days.” While the health crisis has eased in places like Italy, Spain and France, experts say it is far from over, and the threat of new outbreaks looms large.

“The question is not whether there will be a second wave,” said Dr. Hans Kluge, the head of the WHO’s Europe office. “The question is whether we will take into account the biggest lessons so far.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticized some German states for moving too briskly in trying to reopen their economies. Germany has been praised for its approach to the pandemic and has a much lower reported death toll than other large European countries.

“We’re not living in the final phase of the pandemic, but still at the beginning,” Merkel warned. “It would be a shame if premature hope ultimately punishes us all.” Governments are bearing that risk in mind with the onset of Ramadan, the holy month of daytime fasting, overnight festivities and communal prayer that begins for the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims with this week's new moon. Many Muslim leaders have closed mosques or banned collective evening prayer to ward off infections.

The virus has already disrupted Christianity’s Holy Week, Passover, the Muslim hajj pilgrimage and other major religious events. Authorities in the capital of Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority nation, extended restrictions to cover all of Ramadan. Turkey banned communal eating during the holiday.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan bowed to the country’s clerics, refusing to close mosques despite doctors' warnings that such gatherings could further spread the virus in a country with a fragile health care system.

Garcia Cano reported from Washington, and Charlton from Paris. Associated Press reporters from around the world contributed.

Staff count emotional cost as virus savages UK nursing homes

April 24, 2020

SELSTON, England (AP) — Lucy Dawson is haunted by a sense of powerlessness. The nurse has equipment to treat the residents of the nursing home where she works when they become sick with the coronavirus — but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

“We’ve got fluids, or we’ve got oxygen on the go. You know, you name it, we’ve got it,” said the nurse at Wren Hall, a small home for elderly people with dementia in the central England village of Selston.

But still, “it’s bereavement after bereavement,” said Dawson, who has worked at the home for two decades. “We’re losing people that we’ve loved and looked after for years.” The coronavirus pandemic is taking a huge emotional and physical toll on staff in Britain’s nursing homes, who often feel like they're toiling on a forgotten front line.

The virus is sweeping like a scythe through Britain’s 20,000 care homes and has left thousands of elderly people sick and dead. At Wren Hall, 12 of 54 residents died in three weeks after contracting COVID-19.

“To be putting your heart and soul into nursing somebody to sustain life, it’s just a massive devastation when ...,” Dawson trailed off. “I’ve just got no words.” It’s a tragedy being repeated across the U.K. and around the world. While the coronavirus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most who contract it, it can result in severe illness in some, especially older people.

Britain’s official tally of almost 19,000 coronavirus-related deaths — including at least 15 nursing home workers — counts only those who died in hospitals. Official statistics show over 1,000 more virus-related deaths in homes in England and Wales up to April 10. In Scotland, which keeps separate records, a third of virus deaths have been in homes for the elderly. It is likely that all of these counts are underestimates. The World Health Organization says up to half of COVID-19 deaths in Europe may be in nursing homes.

Each death is felt painfully at Wren Hall, a homey, close-knit place bedecked with cheerful signs — “Happiness is not a destination, it is a way of life” — where many residents and staff have lived for years.

“There’s some people in this building who I see more than my actual family,” said nursing associate Damian Mann, who has worked at the home for 11 years. He said the outbreak had left him feeling “helpless.”

“You start to question yourself, I think, as a professional,” he said. “You come in every day and someone is dying every day that you’re here. It’s not normal for that to happen ... in this setting. So we look back and we think, is there anything we could have done?”

That frustration is compounded by physical barriers — masks, gloves and plastic aprons — and by the need to keep families away from sick relatives. In such extreme circumstances, even a kind act can elicit pain. Care assistant Pat Cornell made cards with residents’ photos to send to family members unable to visit in person.

“The sad part is, I sent one on Friday, and the lady died on the Saturday,” Cornell said. She’s haunted by the thought that the bereaved family will be upset all over again when they get the card. The emotional strain is intensified by a feeling among many staff — often poorly paid — that they have been overlooked. When the government offered health care workers tests for the virus, nursing home staff were not included. Homes for the elderly were also low down the pecking order for personal protective equipment, as authorities scrambled to meet the demand from hospitals.

“It was like we were the forgotten people, the people in the care homes and the staff in the care homes,” said Sally Bentley, who has worked at Wren Hall for nine years. “Like we’re expendable, really, I suppose.”

Wren Hall’s owner-manager, Anita Astle, went on TV earlier this month in desperation, seeking more protective gear. She found that suppliers had hiked their prices as much as sixfold. Since then, the home has received donations from local people and businesses, but Astle says some items, especially gowns, are still scarce.

She said the role nursing homes are playing in the pandemic has not been fully recognized. “People with and without COVID-19 are being discharged from hospitals to care homes to free up (hospital) beds,” she said. “We are being asked to do things in care homes that we’ve never been asked to do before, (like) verification of death.”

The British government, stung by criticism of its handling of the outbreak, has announced that nursing home staff, along with health care workers, can now be tested for the virus at drive-thru centers and mobile sites. But Astle says so far she has not managed to get anyone tested — even though more than half of Wren Hall’s 142 staff have showed symptoms at some point.

For now, the staff are coping as best they can. They are encouraged that some residents who have been sick in the home’s “red zone” are recovering and leaving isolation. “We’ve all cried,” Cornell said. “We’ve all had — even though we shouldn’t — we’ve all had hugs, we’ve all talked about it to each other.”

But Mann worries about the lingering toll. “The impact that it’s having on the team, even though they’re soldiering on through," he said, “The long-term effects of it are going to be massive.”

Lawless reported from London.

Preparation, quick action aid Germany, SKorea virus fight

April 23, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — Derided by many economists for years for insisting on a balanced budget and criticized for a health care system seen as bloated and overly expensive, Germany has found itself well equipped now to weather the coronavirus pandemic.

Already applauded for early actions such as social-distancing regulations and aggressive testing seen as helping keep the death toll comparatively low, Europe’s largest economy has had the financial flexibility to launch a massive rescue plan to help businesses and keep workers paid.

As the country moves to relax some restrictions this week, Chancellor Angela Merkel is pointing to the example of South Korea, which relied on its experience fighting a different coronavirus five years ago to combat COVID-19, as the way forward.

Meantime in the U.S., some protesters have taken to the streets — supported by President Donald Trump's tweets — to demand an end to virus-related shutdowns to help the faltering economy, which has caused tens of millions to lose their jobs, even if it could lead to an increase in deaths as the health care system struggles.

“This is a crisis which, on the one hand, has probably hit the U.S. where it is most vulnerable, namely health care,” said Carsten Brzeski, ING bank’s chief Eurozone economist. “While at the same time it has hit the German economy where it’s the strongest.”

Brzeski was among those who argued for Germany to spend more to stimulate the economy as growth ground toward stagnation, but concedes now the country is in a fortunate position. For years, balanced budget proponents argued it was prudent during good economic times to bring Germany’s house in order to be prepared for a crisis. So in announcing a 1 trillion euro ($1.1 trillion) rescue plan for the country’s 83 million people last month, Finance Minister Olaf Scholz was able to assure there was more money available, if needed.

And while Italy and Spain were faced at the height of the crisis with having to decide whether to allocate precious ICU beds to elderly patients with the most urgent need or to younger patients with the greatest chance of survival, Germany has never had a shortage and has even taken in patients from other European countries.

“They had the means, but then they also had the political will, and also the very good analytical insights to use the means,” Brzeski, said, noting Merkel was a scientist before entering politics. “I can’t imagine any government better than Angela Merkel’s to deal with this.”

Germany is now taking baby steps to ease restrictions, allowing smaller shops to reopen this week while sticking to strict social-distancing guidelines and requiring face masks on public transport and in stores. The effect will be analyzed after two weeks to see whether infections have again started to significantly climb.

“We must not overwhelm our health care system,” Merkel said, warning restrictions could be snapped back. “The best path is one that is careful, and not taken light-heartedly.” The far-right Alternative for Germany party has criticized Merkel’s go-slow approach as “ruining our country,” but the chancellor’s popularity has been steadily rising and Germans overwhelmingly see her government’s crisis management positively.

Opening her Berlin toy store Wednesday for the first time in over a month, Galina Hooge said she had already received government aid and the process was “surprisingly quick and uncomplicated.” She said it only covered the store’s rent and bills, but she felt relatively secure thanks to Germany’s universal health insurance and strong social safety net.

“The main thing is that everyone stays healthy and the situation doesn’t become like America,” she said, referring to the large number of cases and deaths in the United States. Besides help for small businesses, Germany's aid package is designed to keep the unemployment rate down and allow workers to return quickly when possible. While Washington is sending out one-time stimulus checks to Americans, the German government plan pays at least 60% of the salary of employees who are on reduced or no hours.

As restrictions are eased, Merkel has pointed to South Korea as an example of how Germany will have to improve measures to “get ahead” of the pandemic with more testing and tracking of cases to slow the infection rate.

Experts say one reason South Korea has managed to avoid lockdowns or business bans was because of its aggressive testing and contact-tracing program that draws from its experience of fighting a different coronavirus — MERS or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome -- in 2015.

Following that outbreak, which killed 36 people and sickened around 200, South Korea rewrote its infectious disease law to allow health authorities quick access to a broad range of personal information to fight infectious diseases.

Amid criticism from privacy advocates, authorities have fully exercised such powers during the COVID-19 pandemic, aggressively tracing virus carriers' contacts with tools such as smartphone GPS tracking, credit card records and surveillance video. People's movements before they were diagnosed are published on websites and relayed via smartphone alerts to inform others whether they have crossed paths with a carrier.

The government is also using smartphone tracking apps to monitor the tens of thousands of people placed under self-quarantine at home and plans to use electronic wristbands on people who defy quarantine orders.

South Korea on Wednesday reported 11 new cases of the coronavirus, the 21st day in a row that the daily jump in infections came below 100. The approach has meant South Korea has managed to slow the spread of the virus without imposing massive lockdowns or banning nonessential businesses, so there has never been any debate over “reopening” its economy.

In the U.S., there has been growing impatience over virus-related shutdowns that have led tens of millions to lose their jobs, and the U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved nearly $500 billion in new aid for businesses, hospitals and testing, on top of a $2.2 trillion package passed last month in the country of some 328 million.

Trump’s administration has issued guidelines advising relaxation of restrictions only after prerequisites, like a two-week downward trajectory of cases, are met. Trump himself, however, has grumbled “our country wasn’t meant to be shut down” and has tweeted support for anti-shutdown protests, and some states are moving ahead with plans to begin reopening as early as this week.

The U.S. has registered more than 825,000 infections and 45,000 deaths so far, including some 15,000 fatalities in New York City alone. Often at odds with Trump, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has warned against relaxing restrictions too early and risking a new spike in infections, no matter how badly the economy is faring.

“We’re not going to accept a premise that human life is disposable,” Cuomo said. “And we’re not going to put a dollar figure on human life.” Germany has registered some 150,000 infections, not far behind the worst-hit European countries of Italy, with more than 180,000 cases, and Spain with about 205,000. But where around 5,000 people have died in Germany, Spain’s toll is nearly 22,000 and Italy’s has passed 25,000.

At the height of the crisis in Spain and Italy the sheer numbers overwhelmed their health care systems, and painful decisions had to be made on who to treat. Domenico Arcuri, Italy’s extraordinary commissioner for the COVID-19 crisis, told reporters Tuesday that for the first time during the pandemic the nation now has more respirators than patients in ICU beds, and lamented the “anguish” officials faced deciding who to treat in the early weeks.

“Each night, we had to decide where to send these instruments, which, in the end, save lives,” he said. “I’ll keep that with me for all my life, and I wouldn’t wish anyone else to experience” the dilemma of choosing which hospital received them.

With the numbers of new infections now stabilizing, Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte confirmed Tuesday that Italy can start reopening on May 4, but he doused any hopes of a total loosening of some of the strictest lockdown measures in a Western democracy.

Spain, which has turned hotels into makeshift hospitals and converted a Madrid skating rink into a morgue, has not yet announced plans on relaxing restrictions, with Health Minister Salvador Illa saying it will hinge on advances made in treatment and vaccines to “ensure there’s no second wave.”

Spain is “still in a difficult place, with some hard weeks ahead,” he said Tuesday. In announcing a tentative easing of restrictions in the Netherlands, allowing elementary schools to reopen with reduced class sizes starting May 11, Prime Minister Mark Rutte said he had faced “devil’s dilemmas” in trying to decide how to move forward.

The Netherlands was projected to have a budget surplus of 3.4 billion euros in 2020, however, and Rutte said the government could afford to take a cautious approach as he ordered bars and restaurants to remain closed until at least May 19.

“Thanks to the government’s good financial position, it can offer first aid to companies, independent business owners and affected sectors,” his government said.

Frank Jordans in Berlin, Kim Tong-hyung in Seoul, South Korea, and reporters around the world contributed.

EU agrees budget, recovery plan needed to beat virus impact

April 23, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — European Union leaders agreed Thursday to revamp the EU's long-term budget and set up a massive recovery fund to tackle the impact of the coronavirus and help rebuild the 27-nation bloc's ravaged economies, but deep differences remain over the best way to achieve those goals.

With more than 100,000 Europeans known to have died from the virus, according to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and business only slowly starting to open in some countries, the urgent need for funds in hard-hit countries like Italy and Spain has never been starker.

“This pandemic is putting our societies under serious strain. The well-being of each EU member state depends on the well-being of the whole of the EU. We are all in this together,” European Council President Charles Michel told reporters after chairing the leaders' video-conference summit.

The uneven impact of the virus on countries with very different budgetary means has eroded trust, with Italy and Spain notably lacking confidence that relatively wealthier northern EU partners like Austria, the Netherlands or Germany — who have suffered less from the disease — are willing to take swift, sweeping measures backed by real economic firepower.

But the leaders did agree to task the European Commission with revamping the EU's next seven-year budget — due to enter force on Jan. 1 but still the subject of much disagreement — and devise a massive recovery plan. While no figure was put on that plan, officials believe that 1-1.5 trillion euros ($1.1-1.6 trillion) would be needed.

“There is only one instrument that can deliver this magnitude of task behind the recovery and that is the European budget clearly linked to the recovery fund," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. "The budget is time tested. Everybody knows it. It is trusted by all member states.”

Northern European countries, like the Netherlands and Germany, generally remain reluctant to share too much debt out of fear of having to foot the bill for others, and debate raged Thursday over what form some of the funding should take, either grants or loans.

Von der Leyen said that the budget “investment should be front loaded in the first years and of course it is necessary to find the right balance between grants and loans." When asked what amount of money might be found with some adjustments, she said: “we’re not talking about billion, we’re talking about trillion.”

Even before these new funds are agreed, the EU’s institutions and member countries combined have mobilized around 3.3 trillion euros ($3.6 trillion) for overburdened health services, suffering small businesses, embattled airlines or wage support for people unable to work.

Despite knowing that the revamp will cost her country more money, German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed the plan, saying “of course this means Germany must calculate with higher contributions for the next budget ... but that’s right and good.” In normal times, the seven-year budget totals around 1% of EU gross national income, or just over 1 trillion euros.

French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed that the summit found “a consensus on a fast response and a strong one.” “It is true that there are disagreements on the mechanism,” Macron said, and he insisted that the EU “will need real economic budgetary transfers, not simply only loans, but transfers to the worst affected regions and sectors."

Even Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte, under huge domestic pressure, welcomed the progress. ‘’The recovery fund will finance all the countries hardest hit, Italy but not only. It is an urgent and necessary instrument," Conte told Italians in a video address during dinner-hour newscasts. “It was unthinkable until now. It is a new instrument that makes us more solid, more coordinated and more efficient."

During their talks, the leaders also endorsed a separate 540-billion-euro ($587 billion) rescue package drawn up by euro area finance ministers which would help pay lost wages, keep companies afloat and fund health care systems. They agreed that it should start operating from June 1.

Earlier, after addressing the leaders online, European Parliament President David Sassoli noted the economic damage the virus has done as Europe faces perhaps its deepest recession in a century. “We are extremely concerned because we can see a downward spiral, and we are going to need every instrument available,” he said.

Referring to the massive U.S. aid package in 1948 that helped Europe rebuild after World War II, Sassoli said that “we’ve all called for this new Marshall Plan for Europe, but with a major difference of course. The funds will not be coming from abroad this time, but rather from European countries and economies.”

Even after this summit, much work remains to be done and little time to do it. The EU has been split over the budget for more than a year, with major contributors like Germany and the Netherlands reluctant to fill the estimated 75-billion-euro spending gap left by Britain’s departure from the EU.

Colleen Barry in Milan, and David Rising and Frank Jordans in Berlin contributed to this report.

UK criticized for slow testing, lack of protective gear

April 22, 2020

LONDON (AP) — The British government came under sustained criticism Wednesday for being slow in ramping up its testing for coronavirus and for failing to deliver enough personal protective equipment to front-line medical workers in hospitals and nursing homes.

The political uproar came as a delayed Royal Air Force plane carrying an uncertain amount of medical protective equipment finally arrived Wednesday at Brize Norton in central England. Britain has seen 18,100 people die in hospitals after contracting the virus, with potentially thousands more virus-related deaths of people at home or in elderly care homes.

Keir Starmer, the new leader of the opposition Labour Party, told lawmakers Wednesday that a “pattern is emerging” in which the Conservative government has been too slow in putting the country into a virus lockdown, in testing people for the virus and in getting critical protective gear for medical workers.

He spoke in the first partially-online Prime Minister’s Questions session in the House of Commons as U.K. lawmakers tried to balance between doing their jobs and still social distancing. Labour lawmaker Barry Sheerman went further, slamming the government's handling of the pandemic as “shambolic.”

The questions are coming as Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the country's most high-profile COVID-19 patient, convalesces at his country retreat following his week-long stay in a hospital. Johnson has been away from the front-line of the crisis for nearly four weeks after he first tested positive.

“You can’t have a void of decision-making," former Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair told ITV television. Blair said he “completely” sympathizes with Johnson's plight but said hugely important decisions have to be “taken now,'' including ramping up testing so Britain can safely exit its coronavirus lockdown, which is scheduled to end on May 7.

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, who has been sitting in for Johnson over the past few weeks, said the government still aims to conduct 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of this month — even though it is only handling about 20,000 tests a day now.

“With a project like this, it does require an exponential increase in the final days and the final week,” Raab told a slimmed-down chamber, where only 50 of the House's 650 lawmakers were able to attend and up to 120 could participate via video.

The government has faced acute criticism over the lack of protective gear f or front-line workers, a topic highlighted by the confusion surrounding the flight from Istanbul over the past three days. The plane, which landed in the middle of the night Wednesday, had protective gear on board, including surgical gowns —- but it's unclear how much. Two other British planes are on stand-by to pick up further medical supplies from Turkey.

Raab told lawmakers 69 workers in the National Health Service have died after testing positive for COVID-19. Health Secretary Matt Hancock later said 15 social care workers have also died. Hancock insisted the government has been following the best scientific advice ever since the coronavirus first emerged. He claimed the government was ahead of its testing plan but will widen opportunities for testing over the coming days with drive-through centers and mobile units.

“This is one area we’ve had our foot on the gas,” Hancock said, adding that the government believes the U.K. epidemic is at its peak. Scientists said Tuesday that Britain experienced its peak of deaths on April 8. The nation hit its highest reported daily virus toll in hospitals two days later, at 980 dead.

Danica Kirka in London contributed to this story.

Many wary of virus reopenings as partisan divide grows in US

April 22, 2020

BERLIN (AP) — One of the grimmest symbols of the coronavirus outbreak — a morgue set up in a Madrid skating rink — closed on Wednesday as stores and other businesses reopened in places across Europe, while the U.S. was beset with increasingly partisan disagreements over how and when to restart its economy.

As some governors in the U.S. — largely Republican ones — moved to reopen an ever-wider variety of businesses, others took a more cautious approach and came under mounting pressure from protesters complaining that their livelihoods are being destroyed and their freedom of movement is being infringed on.

With the crisis easing but far from over in Europe, small shops in Berlin reopened, and restrictions were also relaxed in Denmark and Austria. In France, long lines formed outside the few McDonald’s drive-thrus that started serving customers again.

Still, many employees and customers were uneasy, suggesting that a return to normal is a long way off. “Of course I’m happy that I can open again and we can keep our heads above water,” said Galina Hooge, who opened her small Berlin toy store for the first time in over a month. But she worried that some Germans still aren’t taking the outbreak seriously.

“Relaxing the rules doesn’t mean that everything is over. It’s not over by a long stretch,” she said. German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said “very careful steps” must be taken to keep the virus from making a resurgence. “What we want to avoid is falling back into the exponential spread of the virus that we had in the first phase of the pandemic,” he said.

Across the Atlantic in Savannah, Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp announced that gyms and salons can reopen this week, gym owner Mark Lebos said it would be professional negligence to do so right now. “We are not going to be a vector of death and suffering,” he said.

The outbreak has infected over 2.5 million people and killed about 180,000 around the world, including more than 45,000 in the U.S., according to a tally compiled by Johns Hopkins University from official government figures, though the true numbers are believed to be far higher.

Although some hot spots like Italy, Spain and New York have seen a drop in daily death tolls and new hospitalizations, other areas are facing a resurgence of the coronavirus. Singapore, once a model of virus tracking and prevention, saw an explosion of new cases and announced it would extend its lockdown into June.

In California, health officials said two people with coronavirus died in the state weeks before the first reported U.S. death from the disease on Feb. 29 in Washington state. The finding shows that COVID-19 had been circulating in the U.S. earlier than was previously thought.

The economic fallout from the crisis mounted as oil prices suffered an epic collapse and U.S. stocks registered their worst loss in weeks Tuesday on Wall Street. The U.S. Senate approved nearly $500 billion in coronavirus aid for businesses, hospitals and testing. The bill goes next to the House.

In North Carolina, where Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper is keeping in place his stay-home order for at least another week, hundreds marched around the executive mansion on Tuesday. At the Missouri Capitol, several hundred with the same demands waved the American flag and chanted “USA! USA!”

And in Wisconsin, GOP legislative leaders asked the state Supreme Court to block an extension of the Democratic governor’s stay-home order. Spain, one of the world's worst-hit countries, planned to allow children out of their homes next week for the first time in nearly six weeks.

“I am aware of the tremendous effort that the confinement has demanded of our smallest ones and their families,” Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said. The country’s death toll reached nearly 22,000, behind only the United States and Italy, after 435 more deaths were reported Wednesday. But the numbers reflected a plateauing of the outbreak.

In another hopeful sign, a large makeshift morgue at an ice rink closed, with all the bodies having been removed by Wednesday. The temporary morgue in Madrid’s Palacio de Hielo held a total of 1,145 bodies of coronavirus victims during its four weeks in operation.

“We were not able to save their lives, but let it be known that our armed forces have not left them alone for one minute,” Spain’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles said. India partially eased one of the world's strictest lockdowns this week, but health officials fear a surge in cases. Starting in May, the country is planning to use wristbands fitted with an app to track people's movements and body temperature.

The technology is aimed at easing the vast manpower needed to track the virus among the country's 1.3 billion people.

Becatoros reported from Athens, Greece. AP journalists worldwide contributed to this report.

Virus cancels events worldwide; opinions on reopening mixed

April 22, 2020

ATLANTA (AP) — Spain called off the Running of the Bulls in July, the U.S. scrapped the national spelling bee in June and Germany canceled Oktoberfest five months away, making it clear Tuesday that the effort to beat back the coronavirus and return to normal could be a long and dispiriting process.

Amid growing impatience over the shutdowns that have thrown tens of millions out of work, European countries continued to reopen in stages, while in the U.S., one state after another — mostly ones led by Republican governors — began taking steps to get back to business.

Business owners in the U.S. who got the go-ahead weighed whether to reopen, and some hesitated, in a sign that commerce won't necessarily bounce back right away. Mark Lebos, owner of Strong Gym in Savannah, Georgia, where Gov. Brian Kemp announced that gyms and salons can reopen this week, said it would be professional negligence to do so right now.

“We are not going to be a vector of death and suffering,” he said. With deaths and infections still rising around the world, the push to reopen has set off warnings from health authorities that the crisis that has killed well over 170,000 people globally — including more than 45,000 in the U.S. — is far from over and that relaxing the stay-at-home orders too quickly could enable the virus to come surging back.

The economic damage mounted as oil prices suffered an epic collapse and stocks registered their worst loss in weeks on Wall Street. The crisis hit home at Trump ’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, which laid off 153 workers, including bartenders, cooks, dishwashers and housekeepers.

The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved nearly $500 billion in coronavirus aid for businesses, hospitals and testing after a deal was reached between Congress and the White House. Trump urged House members to quickly pass the measure.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said during the daily White House briefing Tuesday that while some big businesses obtained access to government loans under an earlier aid package, its intent was to help mostly companies with 10 or fewer workers. He and the president said bigger businesses should return those funds.

Trump also said he will stop issuing certain immigration green cards for 60 days to limit competition for jobs and “protect American workers” already suffering in an economy devastated by the pandemic.

In Europe, meanwhile, Denmark, Austria, Spain and Germany began allowing some people back to work, including hairdressers, dentists and construction workers, and some stores were cleared to reopen or will soon get the OK.

But in an indication that it will be a long time before life returns to normal, Spain canceled its Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, the more than 400-year-old event made world-famous by Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel “The Sun Also Rises.” It was also called off during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s.

The Scripps National Spelling Bee in the U.S. was canceled. The competition has been held since 1925 and was last scrubbed in 1945, during World War II. Germany called off the centuries-old Oktoberfest beer festival in Munich, which draws about 6 million visitors each year. It was previously canceled during the two world wars; during a period of hyperinflation in Germany in 1923; and twice because of cholera outbreaks in the 1800s.

“We agreed that the risk is simply too high,” Bavarian governor Markus Soeder said. In Italy, Premier Giuseppe Conte confirmed that businesses can start reopening on May 4 but dashed any hopes of a full end to the country's strict lockdown any time soon, saying: "A decision of that kind would be irresponsible.’’

In the U.S., some states, including Tennessee, West Virginia and Colorado, announced plans this week to begin reopening in stages in the coming days. Sunbathers quickly flocked to the sand after some South Carolina beaches reopened with the governor's backing.

Political tensions were high. Some sheriffs in Washington state, Michigan and Wisconsin said they won’t enforce stay-at-home orders. Angry protesters demanding the lifting of restrictions marched in Alabama, North Carolina and Missouri with signs like “Enough is enough.” And Wisconsin Republicans asked the state’s high court to block an extension of the stay-at-home order there.

During an online ceremony Tuesday to donate masks, ventilators and other desperately needed medical supplies to hard-hit New York City, Chinese Consul-General Huang Ping indirectly appealed to Trump to tone down his recent rhetoric against the Asian country where the virus first emerged.

After weeks of elaborate praise of Chinese President Xi Jinping's response to the pandemic, Trump has turned to blaming China and halting U.S. contributions to the World Health Organization, accusing it of parroting misinformation from Beijing.

“This is not the time for finger-pointing,"Huang said. “This is the time for solidarity, collaboration, cooperation and mutual support.” Trump, meanwhile, said he had a “very productive" meeting with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo at the White House on Tuesday during which they discussed how they could work to expand screening “with the goal of doubling testing” in New York in the next few weeks.

The meeting marks a sharp shift in rhetoric between the two politicians. Days earlier, Trump had called on Cuomo to work harder to secure testing material for his state, while Cuomo pushed back that the president should turn off his television and get back to work.

Numerous governors and local leaders have said that before they can relax social distancing restrictions, they need help from Washington in expanding testing to help keep the virus in check. “If some of these reopenings are done the wrong way, it’s going to affect all of us,” New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on CNN.

De Blasio said Tuesday that New York City will honor health care workers and first responders with a ticker tape parade — once it’s safe to hold large gatherings again.

Long reported from Washington. AP journalists worldwide contributed to this report.