In Brief: May 7, 2020

‘If this thing boomerangs’: Second wave of infections feared

WASHINGTON — As Europe and the U.S. loosen their lockdowns against the coronavirus, health experts are expressing growing dread over what they say is an all-but-certain second wave of deaths and infections that could force governments to clamp back down.

“We’re risking a backslide that will be intolerable,” said Dr. Ian Lipkin of Columbia University’s Center for Infection and Immunity.

Elsewhere around the world, German authorities began drawing up plans in case of a resurgence of the virus. Experts in Italy urged intensified efforts to identify new victims and trace their contacts. And France, which hasn’t yet eased its lockdown, has already worked up a “reconfinement plan” in the event of a new wave.

“There will be a second wave, but the problem is to which extent. Is it a small wave or a big wave? It’s too early to say,” said Olivier Schwartz, head of the virus unit at France’s Pasteur Institute.

In the U.S., with about half of the states easing their shutdowns to get their economies restarted and cellphone data showing that people are becoming restless and increasingly leaving home, public health authorities are worried.

Trump: COVID-19 task force not dismantling, just refocusing

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Wednesday reversed course on plans to wind down his COVID-19 task force, attempting to balance his enthusiasm for “reopening” the country with rising infection rates in parts of the nation.

The indecision on the fate of the expert panel was emblematic of an administration — and a country — struggling with competing priorities of averting more death and more economic suffering. Trump appears focused on persuading Americans to accept the price of some lives lost as restrictions are eased, concerned about skyrocketing unemployment and intent on encouraging an economic rebound ahead of the November election.

Democrats criticized Trump’s reopening strategy Wednesday, saying more federal support for testing and contact tracing is needed. While the daily number of new deaths in the New York area has declined markedly in recent weeks, deaths have essentially plateaued in the rest of the U.S.

One day after the administration suggested that its work would be done around Memorial Day, Trump said the White House task force of public health professionals and senior government officials would continue after all, indefinitely, with its focus shifting toward rebooting the economy and the development of a vaccine.

“I thought we could wind it down sooner,” Trump said, adding, “I had no idea how popular the task force is.”

From wire sources

April jobs data to show epic losses and soaring unemployment

WASHINGTON — The economic catastrophe caused by the viral outbreak likely sent the U.S. unemployment rate in April to its highest level since the Great Depression and caused a record-shattering loss of jobs.

With the economy paralyzed by business closures, the unemployment rate likely jumped to at least 16% — from just 4.4% in March — and employers cut a stunning 21 million or more jobs in April, economists have forecast, according to data provider FactSet. If so, it would mean that nearly all the job growth in the 11 years since the Great Recession had vanished in a single month.

Yet even those breathtaking figures won’t fully capture the magnitude of the damage the coronavirus has inflicted on the job market.

Many people still employed have had their hours reduced. Others have suffered pay cuts. Some who’ve lost jobs won’t have been able to look for work amid widespread shutdowns and won’t even be counted as unemployed. A broader measure — the proportion of adults with jobs — could plunge to a record low.

“What we’re talking about here is pretty stunning,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton. “The shock is unique because the cause is unique. It’s such a different animal from anything that we’ve ever seen.”

Georgia family demands arrests 2 months after son shot dead

SAVANNAH, Ga. — The parents of a black man slain in a pursuit by two white men armed with guns called for immediate arrests Wednesday as they faced the prospect of waiting a month or longer before a Georgia grand jury could consider bringing charges.

A swelling outcry over the Feb. 23 shooting of Ahmaud Arbery intensified after a cellphone video that lawyers for his family say shows the killing surfaced online Tuesday. Following the video’s release, a large crowd of demonstrators marched in the neighborhood where Arbery was killed, and the state opened its own investigation, which the governor and attorney general pledged to support. The men who pursued Arbery told police they suspected he had committed a recent burglary.

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper Jones, told reporters Wednesday she believes her 25-year-old son “was just out for his daily jog” in a neighborhood outside the port city of Brunswick. She hasn’t watched the video.

“I saw my son come into the world,” Jones said. “And seeing him leave the world, it’s not something that I’ll want to see ever.”

No arrests have been made or charges filed in coastal Glynn County more than two months after the killing. An outside prosecutor in charge of the case said he wants a grand jury to decide whether criminal charges are warranted. That won’t happen until at least mid-June, since Georgia courts remain largely closed because of the coronavirus.

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Sources: US investigating ex-Green Beret for Venezuela raid

MIAMI — A former Green Beret who has claimed responsibility for an ill-fated military incursion into Venezuela is under federal investigation for arms trafficking, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials.

The investigation into Jordan Goudreau is in its initial stages and it’s unclear if it will result in charges, according to a U.S. law enforcement official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The probe stems from a frenzy of contradictory comments Goudreau has made since a small cadre of volunteer combatants he was advising on Sunday launched an impossible raid aimed at overthrowing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Members of the U.S. Congress are also asking the State Department about its knowledge of Goudreau’s plans and raised concerns that he possibly violated arms trafficking rules.

An AP investigation published prior to the failed raid places Goudreau at the center of a plot hatched with a rebellious former Venezuelan Army Gen., Cliver Alcalá, to secretly train dozens of Venezuelan military deserters in secret camps in Colombia to carry out a swift operation against Maduro. The U.S. has offered a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest or conviction. He was indicted by the Trump administration in March on narcoterrorist charges.

The men were being readied for combat at three rudimentary camps in Colombia with the help of Goudreau and his Florida-based company, Silvercorp USA, multiple Maduro opponents and aspiring freedom fighters told the AP. But the plot seemed doomed from the start because it lacked the support of the Trump administration and was infiltrated by Maduro’s vast, Cuban-trained intelligence network, the AP found.

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SUPREME COURT NOTEBOOK: Chatty Thomas breaks with precedent

WASHINGTON — A Supreme Court justice gets it in his mind to ask a question, and pretty soon, he’s got questions for everyone. And so the next question: Will Clarence Thomas ever stop talking?

Before this week, the intervals between Thomas’ questions during high court arguments were measured in years. He once went 10 years, from 2006 to 2016, without asking even one.

Now he’s been an active questioner for three straight days. He’ll have the chance to continue his streak next week in six arguments over three days.

It might be the setting, the court’s first arguments by telephone, because of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I must say, as a former clerk, I’m delighted that a silver lining of the new format in this difficult time is that the public can see the extraordinary combination of preparation, thoughtfulness, and grace the Justice brings to every case,” Elizabeth Papez, partner in a big Washington, D.C., law firm said in an email.

Astronomers find closest black hole to Earth, hints of more

Meet your new but shy galactic neighbor: A black hole left over from the death of a fleeting young star.

European astronomers have found the closest black hole to Earth yet, so near that the two stars dancing with it can be seen by the naked eye.

Of course, close is relative on the galactic scale. This black hole is about 1,000 light-years away and each light-year is 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion kilometers). But in terms of the cosmos and even the galaxy, it is in our neighborhood, said European Southern Observatory astronomer Thomas Rivinius, who led the study published Wednesday in the journal Astronomy &Astrophysics.

The previous closest black hole is probably about three times further, about 3,200 light-years, he said.

The discovery of a closer black hole, which is in the constellation Telescopium in the Southern Hemisphere, hints that there are more of these out there. Astronomers theorize there are between 100 million to 1 billion of these small but dense objects in the Milky Way.

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AP PHOTOS: Animals at closed zoo depend on helping hands

MEDAN, Indonesia — The sound of the sea eagle breaks the silence between the iron cages at Medan Zoo in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. It has been more than a month since the zoo closed and restricted visitors as part of efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The number of people visiting the 260 animals has dropped from 3,000 a day since the outbreak started in January to 300 until it finally closed. With no income to buy food for the animals, the management appealed for outside help.

The response came through the delivery of fruits, vegetables and meat. Papayas, bananas, water spinach, cucumbers and other vegetables are unloaded every day from donation trucks.

Children drop coins in a donation box. Within two weeks, assistance came not only from Medan but other cities and as far as Singapore.

Other Indonesian zoos offered food, and money was being transferred into the Medan Zoo account.