A riot broke out on Friday at the Villa Devoto prison in Buenos Aires, Argentina, as inmates protested hygiene conditions and other shortcomings there amid the coronavirus outbreak.Some were seen on the roof of the prison, holding handmade knives and spears. Some displayed a flag saying “Freedom” in Spanish.According to authorities, prison officials have tried to establish a dialogue with the inmates.In the recent weeks, Argentina has experienced an increase in prison protests.More than 1,000 inmates from eight penitentiary facilities in the Buenos Aires province are on a hunger strike demanding the option of house arrest.The highest Argentine criminal court recommended several days ago that lower courts grant those convicted of minor crimes alternative confinement options.   
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Cases of the new coronavirus are overwhelming hospitals, morgues and cemeteries across Brazil as Latin America’s largest nation veers closer to becoming one of the world’s pandemic hot spots.Medical officials in Rio de Janeiro and at least four other major cities have warned that their hospital systems are on the verge of collapse, or are already too overwhelmed to take any more patients.Health experts expect the number of infections in the country of 211 million people will be much higher than what has been reported because of insufficient, delayed testing.Meanwhile, President Jair Bolsonaro has shown no sign of wavering from his insistence that COVID-19 is a relatively minor disease and that broad social-distancing measures are not needed to stop it. He has said only Brazilians at high risk should be isolated.In Manaus, the biggest city in the Amazon, officials said a cemetery has been forced to dig mass graves because there have been so many deaths. Workers have been burying 100 corpses a day — triple the pre-virus average of burials.Ytalo Rodrigues, a 20-year-old driver for a funerary service provider in Manaus, said he had retrieved one body after another for more than 36 hours, without a break. There were so many deaths, his employer had to add a second hearse, Rodrigues said.Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro speaks during a news conference at the Planalto Presidential Palace in Brasilia, Brazil, April 24, 2020.So far, the health ministry has confirmed nearly 53,000 COVID-19 cases and more than 3,600 deaths. By official counts, the country had its worst day yet on Thursday, with about 3,700 new cases and more than 400 deaths, and Friday was nearly as grim.Experts warned that paltry testing means the true number of infections is far greater. And because it can take a long time for tests to be processed, the current numbers actually reflect deaths that happened one or two weeks ago, said Domingos Alves, adjunct professor of social medicine at the University of Sao Paulo, who is involved in the project.”We are looking at a photo of the past,” Alves said in an interview last week. “The number of cases in Brazil is, therefore, probably even greater than what we are predicting.”Scientists from the University of Sao Paulo, University of Brasilia and other institutions say the true number of people infected with the virus as of this week is probably as much as 587,000 to 1.1 million people.The health ministry said in a report earlier this month that it has the capacity to test 6,700 people per day — a far cry from the roughly 40,000 it will need when the virus peaks.”We should do many more tests than we’re doing, but the laboratory here is working at full steam,” said Keny Colares, an infectious disease specialist at the Hospital Sao Jose in northeastern Ceara state who has been advising state officials on the pandemic response.Meanwhile, health care workers can barely handle the cases they have.In Rio state, all but one of seven public hospitals equipped to treat COVID-19 are full and can only accept new patients once others have either recovered or died, according to the press office of the health secretariat. The sole facility with vacancy is located a two-hour drive from the capital’s center.Residents watch water utility workers from CEDAE disinfecting the Vidigal favela in an effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, April 24, 2020.At the mouth of the Amazon, the city of Belem’s intensive care beds are all occupied, according to online media outlet G1. As the number of cases rises in the capital of Para state, its health secretary said this week that at least 200 medical staff had been infected, and it is actively seeking to hire more doctors, G1 reported.On Saturday, the city of Rio plans to open its first field hospital, with 200 beds, half reserved for intensive care. Another hospital erected beside the historic Maracana football stadium will offer 400 beds starting next month.In Ceara’s capital, Fortaleza, state officials said Friday that intensive care units for COVID-19 patients were 92 percent full, after reaching capacity a week ago. Health experts and officials are particularly worried about the virus spreading into the poorest neighborhoods, or favelas, where people depend on public health care.Edenir Bessa, a 65-year-old retiree from Rio’s working-class Mangueira favela, sought medical attention on April 20; she was turned away from two full urgent care units before gaining admission to a third located 40 kilometers away.Hours later, she was transferred by ambulance almost all the way back, to the Ronaldo Gazzola hospital, according to her son, Rodrigo Bessa. Still, she died overnight, and he had to enter the hospital to identify her body.”I saw a lot of bodies also suspected of (having) COVID-19 in the hospital’s basement,” said Bessa, a nurse at a hospital in another state.The hospital released Edenir’s body with a diagnosis of suspected COVID-19, meaning that her death — like so many others — doesn’t figure into the government’s official tally. A small group of family members gathered for her burial on Wednesday, wearing face masks.”People need to believe that this is serious, that it kills,” Bessa said.Bolsonaro has continued to dismiss health officials’ dire predictions about the virus’s spread in the country. Last week, the president fired a health minister who had supported tough anti-virus measures and replaced him with an advocate for reopening the economy.Bolsonaro’s stance largely echoes that of his counterpart and ally U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been stressing the need to put people back to work as unemployment figures reach Depression-era levels. Unlike Bolsonaro, however, Trump has moderated his skepticism about the virus.The fight to reopen business “is a risk that I run,” Bolsonaro said at the swearing-in of his newly appointed health minister, Nelson Teich. If the pandemic escalates, Bolsonaro said, “it lands on my lap.”  
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Police officials in Canada Friday revealed more details about last weekend’s shooting rampage in rural Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead, the worst mass killing in the nation’s history. At a news briefing Friday in Dartmouth, near Halifax, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Superintendent Darren Campbell said the shooting rampage started on the evening of Saturday, April 18, with an assault by the suspect — identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman — on his girlfriend.Campbell said the woman managed to escape Wortman and survived by hiding overnight in the woods. He suggested her escape may have set off the events that followed, thought he is not discounting the possibility Wortman may have planned some of the murders that followed. Campbell said police found 13 deceased victims in the rural community of Portapique, where the suspect lived part time. There were several homes on fire, including the suspect’s, when police arrived in the community. Campbell said the suspect had a pistol and several long-barreled guns. They found several dead in and outside homes. Campbell said at about 6:30 a.m. Sunday, Wortman’s girlfriend emerged from hiding in the woods, called 911 and gave police detailed information about the suspect, including that he was driving a mock police car and was in police uniform. More than an hour later, police started receiving 911 calls more than 35 miles away. Campbell said the suspect killed three people he knew and set the house on fire.  After shooting and killing a number of other people over the next several hours, including a female police officer, the suspect was shot to death at 11:26 on April 19, about 13 hours after the attacks began.Police have said Wortman carried out much of the attack disguised as a police officer in a vehicle marked to seem like a patrol car. Campbell said he had a few cars that police believe were former police vehicles.  His home was destroyed by fire. Residents who knew him say Wortman, who owned a denture practice in Dartmouth, lived part time in Portapique. His Atlantic Denture Clinic had been closed the past month because of the coronavirus pandemic. 
 
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Brazil’s health minister confirmed 407 new coronavirus deaths Thursday, the country’s largest single-day increase since the virus struck the South American country.The majority of the deaths were in Sao Paulo, the epicenter of the pandemic in the country, where Mayor Bruno Covas warned the greatest hardship is yet to come.The virus casualties in Brazil come as President Jair Bolsonaro has started advocating to move away from social isolation measures that still are being supported by most governors and mayors to contain the virus.Meanwhile, Brazil’s new health minister, Nelson Teich, is casting doubts about the way governors are using data to impose self-isolation measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus, urging a standard model to analyze information.”If you produce ‘alarming’ numbers and people treat a mathematics model as the truth, you will worsen the scare and expectations of the society,” Teich said Thursday.Teich appeared to be echoing the sentiments of Bolsonaro, who fired the previous health minister partly over his support of the governors’ stay-at-home measures that Bolsonaro said are harming the economy.Teich said next week he’ll unveil the administration’s model for handling the outbreak.Brazil has reported more than 43,000 infections and upward of 3,300 deaths.So far, nearly 50,000 people have tested positive for the disease in Brazil.   
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Canada pledged new money on Thursday to develop and eventually mass-produce vaccines in its fight against the coronavirus, while the western province of Saskatchewan unveiled its plan to gradually restart its economy. Canada’s 10 provinces have closed non-essential businesses and urged people to stay at home since mid-March to slow the spread of COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the new coronavirus. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters that Ottawa would spend C$1.1 billion ($782 million) to bolster vaccine research, clinical trials and national testing.”Once we’ve developed a vaccine, whether it be in Canada or elsewhere around the world, we’re going to need to produce it,” Trudeau said.Global scrambleNoting there had been a competitive global scramble to obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) amid the pandemic, “part of the investment we’re making … is to establish the capacity of developing vaccines and mass-producing vaccines here in Canada.” Canada’s total coronavirus deaths rose to 2,028 on Thursday, up 8% from a day earlier, official data showed.Some provinces have seen daily case numbers dwindle.Saskatchewan plans a phased approach to reopening, starting on May 4 with medical services such as dentists and chiropractors. Golf courses reopen on May 15.Second phaseThe second phase, starting on May 19, allows retail stores and services such as hairdressers and massage therapy to open. Broader restrictions, such as at seniors homes, and limits on gatherings to 10 people, remain in place. Testing and contact tracing will increase.”We have to find middle ground that continues to keep our case numbers low … while allowing Saskatchewan people to get back to work,” Premier Scott Moe said. The province has not set dates for subsequent phases to reopen restaurants, theaters, pools and casinos. The timing will depend on the spread of the coronavirus during the first two phases, Moe said.On Wednesday, there were only 61 active cases and five hospitalizations in the province, which is about 70% below the Canadian average, he said. Ontario — the most populous province — extended its shutdown until at least May 6. Quebec has prolonged its closures until early May.Similar guidelinesAsked about Saskatchewan’s plan, Trudeau said Ottawa was coordinating with provinces so that decisions are made using similar guidelines.”Different provinces are in very different postures related to COVID-19 and will be taking decisions appropriate for them,” Trudeau told reporters.In the United States, some businesses prepared to reopen in Georgia and a few other states for the first time in a month. Their plans have drawn criticism from health experts who warn that a premature easing of stay-at-home guidelines could trigger a surge in cases. 
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Opposition lawmakers in Venezuela quietly agreed to pay themselves $5,000 a month when they approved special $100 bonuses for doctors and nurses battling the coronavirus — a large payout for a nation where most workers are scraping by on a couple dollars a month, according to people involved in the process.The payout, which has not been previously reported, was contained in legislation passed last week by the National Assembly setting up an $80 million “Liberation Fund” made up of Venezuelan assets seized by the Trump administration as part of its sanctions campaign to remove socialist leader Nicolas Maduro.The legislation was touted as a hallmark achievement for Juan Guaido, the 36-year-old congressional leader recognized as Venezuela’s rightful president by the U.S. and nearly 60 other nations, but who has struggled to exert real power. For this first time since invoking the constitution to proclaim himself acting president, he would have access to some of the billions of dollars in Venezuelan assets frozen abroad.  But the details have been shrouded in secrecy. The text of the new measure — which implements a general law passed in February creating the fund — hasn’t been made public. And the official announcement makes no mention of salaries, saying only that 17% of the $80 million in recovered assets will be set aside for “the defense and strengthening of the national legislative power and the social protection of its members.” Neither Guaido or anybody else in the opposition has publicly offered an explanation.FILE – Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido speaks to journalists during a regional counterterrorism meeting at the police academy in Bogota, Colombia, Jan. 20, 2020.Two lawmakers and three Guaido aides confirmed the salary plan and acknowledged that the optics were potentially bad, coming as many Venezuelans are struggling to cope with an economic crisis that has reduced the minimum wage to barely $2 per month. The five spoke on the condition of anonymity so as not to be seen airing details of what they described as a fierce, monthslong debate that threatened to split the anti-Maduro coalition.The two lawmakers even refused to call it a salary, preferring to view the fixed monthly payment as a stipend partially compensating them for legislative work that has gone unpaid since Maduro cut off funding to the legislature after it fell to the opposition by a landslide in 2015. They said some lawmakers will surely refuse to collect the money, even though many struggle to make ends meet while living in exile or traveling to Caracas for parliamentary debates.They point out that spread out over the full five-year legislative session, the payments amount to $1,000 a month — far less than what lawmakers earn elsewhere in Latin America. They must also cover any office expenses or staff costs.Guaido did not immediately comment on the controversy when contacted by The Associated Press. But since the legislation passed, he has frequently promoted his plan to hand out $100 bonuses to an estimated 60,000 doctors and nurses fighting the coronavirus pandemic in a country where most hospitals lack running water, electricity and basic supplies.“The dictatorship has billions of our dollars sequestered but we, with less than 0.01% of what they have, can do a lot more,” Guaido said while announcing his plan.Second-largest budget itemThe $13.6 million in funding for the National Assembly is the second-largest item in the “Special Law for the Venezuelan Liberation Fund and Attention to Vital Risks” after a 45% outlay on social spending to ease the humanitarian crisis. That includes the three monthly bonuses of $100 each for “health care heroes,” payment of which will be made via digital wallets in a system managed with the Organization of American States.  Another 11% is earmarked for diplomatic envoys in the countries that recognize Guaido as interim president. There’s also money to strengthen the opposition’s communications outreach and judicial cooperation abroad.The money comes from an estimated $11.6 billion in frozen Venezuelan assets abroad, much of it proceeds from oil sales and the earnings of Houston-based CITGO, a subsidiary of state oil giant PDVSA, that the Trump administration took away from Maduro but until now had refused to hand over to Guaido.  Francisco Rodriguez, a Venezuelan economist who used to work in the National Assembly, said that he welcomes good pay for elected officials working in the public’s interest. But he said the opposition and the U.S. efforts would be better spent assisting Venezuelans devastated by the country’s collapse, including the estimated 5 million migrants who have fled their homes in recent years and have no savings to fall back on amid the coronavirus pandemic.  “It’s deeply disturbing that legislators would be willing to approve a generous compensation package for themselves without having yet found the time to discuss how they can use the funds at their disposal to help Venezuelans now living on the verge of starvation,” said Rodriguez.  FILE – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro delivers his annual state of the nation speech during a special session of the National Constituent Assembly, in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 14, 2020.Led by Guaido, Venezuela’s opposition lawmakers have faced repeated physical attacks, threats and arrests by Maduro’s security forces. Since January, they’ve been blocked from even entering the federal legislative palace after a dissident faction of lawmakers — who the opposition alleges were bribed by Maduro — claimed leadership of the congress with the support of the ruling party.  Precisely to root out corruption and avoid future defections from Guaido’s slim majority, opposition leaders considered it important to start paying an honest wage, according to the five people. Payments, which are retroactive to January, will also be made to substitute lawmakers, who often fill in for the large number of elected representatives forced into exile.But members of Maduro’s party will not receive any payments. That’s because many have been sanctioned in the U.S. for trampling on Venezuela’s democracy. The Trump administration must still issue a special license giving a five-member commission appointed by Guaido access to the funds, which are sitting in an account at the New York Federal Reserve after the Trump administration seized a $342 million payout from a gold-for-loans deal in 2015 that Maduro defaulted on with the Bank of England.
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Haitian authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into a February fire at an orphanage operated by a U.S.-based church near Port-au-Prince, where 13 children and two adults died.Authorities suspect the fire was started by candles used during frequent power failures.The Associated Press reported that at one point the Haitian orphanages run by the Church of Bible Understanding, were stripped of accreditation by Haitian officials over compliance with safety and health criteria and three years ago both of the church’s  homes in Haiti failed inspections but stayed open.The AP said an attorney for the church said the church, the orphanage operators and the Haitian government should all bear some responsibility.The operational problems and reported poor condition of the homes is glaring because of the revenue wealth and property assets of the church. 
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Brazil’s new health minister is casting doubts about how governors use data in imposing self-isolation measures to fight the spread of the coronavirus, saying there needs to be a standard model of analyzing information.On Wednesday, in his first public statements since taking the job six days ago, Nelson Teich said “if you produce ‘alarming’ numbers and people treat a mathematics model as the truth, you will worsen the scare and expectations of the society.”Teich appears to be echoing the sentiments of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who fired the previous health minister partly over his support of the governors’ stay-at-home measures that he said were bad for the economy.Teich says he will unveil the administration’s model for handling the outbreak next week. He said Brazil is looking at ways of backing away from social isolation practices, although media reports say the virus has not peaked in the country.Brazil has reported more than 46,000 infections and more than 2,900 deaths.     
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FURCY, HAITI – About an hour’s drive from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, residents of Furcy, a cool, lush, agricultural community high up in the mountains, say they are used to dealing with illnesses common to cooler climates. Their community is located more than 1,000 meters above sea level and average temperatures there during the month of April are around 20 degrees Celsius. Comparatively, in the capital, the average temperature is near 30 degrees Celsius.   The residents say they are now using their herbal cold and flu remedies in their homemade plan to deal with the coronavirus. They had to come up with a plan of action they say, because the government has ignored them.  This woman, who is holding her baby tells VOA the locals are used to cool weather illnesses and have their own herbal concoctions to treat them. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)“The symptoms caused by coronavirus are things we are used to dealing with up here,” a woman wearing a hoodie and a wool hat told VOA Creole. “We’re used to the flu, headaches, sore throats; they are all familiar to us. We do take precautions of course, but we can say we own this type of illness because we live in a cold climate.”“I know what to make for my children to protect them from illness,” a woman cradling a baby on her hip said. “Back in the day, the old people used to give their children medicine before medicating themselves.”  
 Remedies to fight flu symptoms
Favorite local remedies to fight flu-like symptoms include a concoction made with cat tail plants, various leaves and ginger root.
 This woman tells VOA locals usually follow the elders’ example and treat their children before they treat themselves when they are sick. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)“There’s bitter ginger and there’s sweet ginger. To calm a cough, we have our own remedies, so we don’t need to go see a doctor,” the woman with the baby said.  
 
Residents told VOA they are wary of consulting a doctor when they have flu-like symptoms.   
“You know it’s a saga to get the doctor to come all the way up here,” a man wearing a patchwork face mask said. “By the time they get their protective gear, instruments and drive up here, we could die.”
 
Instead, he said, they have decided to take a pragmatic approach.  
 Furcy residents use these sunflower leaves to make tea, which they say alieves flu and cold symptoms. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)“We have these leaves over here,” he said pointing to a green leafy plant. “These are sunflower leaves, but to us they are also medicine. They are really bitter, but when we have a cold or the flu, we boil these leaves. We also use it to get rid of fever.”  
 
The man said the locals have various other herbal remedies in their arsenal that are quite effective. He also said they consume limes and bitter oranges, two fruits loaded with Vitamin C, which can boost the immune system.  
 Fact or fake? Pierre Hugues Saint-Jean is president of Haiti’s National Pharmacist Association. He’s shown here in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on April 3, 2020.VOA Creole asked Pierre Hugues Saint-Jean, president of Haiti’s National Association of Pharmacists, if there’s any validity to the traditional remedies being touted by people in rural communities.“There actually has been a debate about the virtues of certain plants. Some people say ginger, others say limes, some people are talking about aloe,” Saint-Jean said. “Just because it’s a plant doesn’t mean it has no scientific validity. But you have to study the plant, isolate the active substances contained in the plant and then conduct (scientific) studies.”Saint-Jean said this kind of in-depth study can determine what preventive attributes the plant may hold that perhaps later could be used to treat illnesses.
 Living in isolationFurcy, a lush, cool agricultural community is located 38 kilometers from Haiti’s capital, Port au Prince. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)Although Furcy is only 38 kilometers southeast of the capital, the road to get there is steep and winding, so not many people venture there. 
“We don’t go down to Port-au-Prince, so if we need something, someone has to bring it to us,” the man wearing the patchwork face mask told VOA. “No one has come to inform us about the virus or tell us what we should and shouldn’t do. We learned all about it while listening to the radio.”  
Another man, who was not wearing a face mask, agreed.  
 
“We just listen to the radio and follow the advice,” he said. Asked why he chose not to wear a face covering, the man said it’s because he finds it difficult to breathe when he has it on. This man is not wearing a mask even though he knows he should. He says it takes getting used to and he finds it harder to breathe when he has it on. (Photo: Matiado Vilme / VOA)“I have to get used to it,” he said. “I know it will protect me.”Residents whom VOA interviewed knew that keeping hands clean is also key to staying healthy. So, they found a way to make that happen.  
 
“Since we live on a mountain, we take many precautions,” said a woman whose baby was wearing a light blue wool hat. “We wash our hands often; if we are going out, we always have a bottle of vinegar in our pocket (that we use as a disinfectant) because way up here, it’s hard to find alcohol but we can easily find vinegar,” she told VOA Creole. 
The woman said she stays home most days and doesn’t have contact with many people.  Haiti currently has 58 confirmed cases of the coronavirus, according to the Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the global outbreak. Of those 58, four people have died and there have been no recoveries.
 
Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe announced this week that a lockdown that began in March has been extended until May 19.
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The COVID-19 pandemic could have been a fraught moment for U.S.-Mexico relations — two leaders from opposite ends of the political spectrum facing the largest crisis ever confronted by either administration.
Instead, presidents Donald Trump and Andrés Manuel López Obrador are carrying on like old pals.
The men appear so chummy that the Mexican president, who has not traveled outside his country since taking office nearly 18 months ago, is talking about visiting his U.S. counterpart. It’s almost enough to forget that less than a year ago Trump threatened to put crippling tariffs on Mexican exports.
As a candidate, Trump said Mexicans crossing the border brought drugs, crime and “tremendous infectious disease” to the U.S. After taking office, he continued to promise to build a border wall and make Mexico pay for it.
But this month Trump called López Obrador “a very good friend” and praised his “tremendous intelligence.” His Mexican counterpart described their relationship as a “friendship” and said Trump had spoken to him with a lot of “fondness.”
The two have consistently denied observers any fireworks, and their common ground in the virus crisis appears to be an eagerness to reactivate their economies, which is sometimes at odds with warnings from health advisers.
The warmth between them recently yielded some benefit to Mexico. To complete an agreement among oil-producing nations to reduce production, Trump offered to make a deeper cut to U.S. production, because López Obrador said Mexico could not afford to.
Then on Friday, Trump appeared to grant a favor to López Obrador. The Mexican president said Trump called him and said that Mexico would get 1,000 ventilators by the end of the month with the option to buy more.
“It’s a new gesture of solidarity with Mexico,” López Obrador wrote on Twitter. “I proposed the possibility of meeting in June or July to personally express our appreciation.”
Earlier that day, López Obrador had said at his daily news conference that Trump “has been respectful of the people and government of Mexico.”
“There isn’t the belittling of Mexicans like there had been before, there isn’t with the same intensity,” he added.
On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security reached agreement with Mexico and Canada to continue restricting nonessential travel at U.S. borders for another month. Later, in a tweet, Trump said he was temporarily suspending immigration to the U.S. to curb the virus, though with all the other immigration restrictions, it was not immediately clear who would be affected.
“It’s very clear that there’s a high degree of affinity, a surprising degree of affinity, between Trump and López Obrador,” who is willing “to cater to Trump in order to not only prevent Trump from dumping on Mexico, but also because López Obrador recognizes that he can get help and support where he needs it,” said David Shirk, a political science professor at the University of San Diego.
Last year, Mexico signed a new regional free-trade agreement with the U.S. and Canada, which had been a Trump priority. López Obrador, who rails against the neoliberal legacy of his predecessors — privatizing state-owned businesses, weakening unions — almost daily, went along with it.
When the number of asylum seekers showing up at the U.S.-Mexico border began last year to overwhelm the U.S. capacity to process them, Mexico averted Trump’s tariff threat by deploying its newly minted National Guard, which stopped mostly Central American immigrants headed north. The Mexican government also let the U.S. expand a controversial program to make asylum seekers wait in Mexico while their cases were processed in the U.S.
The result was that Mexico became the de facto executor of U.S. immigration policy in the region.
López Obrador “has shown an incredible penchant for appeasement” of Trump, said Tony Payan, director of the Center for the United States and Mexico at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy. “He’s up against a wall. He has no choice. Picking a fight with Washington today would absolutely and completely poison the waters more than they’re already poisoned. He’s got no other choice but to cooperate with Mr. Trump. And I think Mr. Trump knows it.”
Under the health emergency, the U.S. government has completely closed its southern border to asylum seekers and in many cases is quickly returning Mexicans and Central Americans back to Mexico.
López Obrador has effectively chosen an economic benefit over the welfare of migrants and Mexican border towns, Shirk said. “It says to me that this is a president who is absolutely focused on one thing and that is trying to stimulate a moribund Mexican economy.”
In Mexico, López Obrador’s hardened position on immigration has not appeared to hurt him with his base, said Ivonne Acuña Murillo, a political science professor at Mexico City’s Iberoamerican University. She sees the real threat to his administration in the pandemic and what she says is an organized opposition campaign against his handling of the situation.
“I believe that if we are not in a political crisis, we could enter one,” Acuña said. “There is clearly an orchestrated strategy to hit the president’s popularity.” López Obrador frequently refers to his “adversaries,” a group that by his definition includes opposition politicians, the country’s largest media outlets and most anyone who criticizes his policies. He accuses them of trying to take advantage of the pandemic to damage him.
As for López Obrador’s recent coziness with Trump, Acuña also thinks he has little choice.
“During the campaign, (López Obrador) said if he tweets, I’m also going to tweet,” Acuña said. “That’s campaign talk. But it’s not the same being a candidate as being president … because the United States is still the empire. And politically speaking, Trump is still the most powerful politician in the world.”
 
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There are over 70 million people worldwide who have been driven from their homes by war and unrest, up to 10 million are packed into refugee camps and informal settlements, and almost none have been tested for the coronavirus.
While the relative isolation of many camps may have slowed the virus’ spread, none is hermetically sealed. Without testing, as the world has seen repeatedly, the virus can spread unchecked until people start showing symptoms. That could have catastrophic results among the world’s refugees: There will be few if any intensive care beds or ventilators for them. There might not even be gloves or masks.
“Testing is in short supply even in New York and Norway, but it is nonexistent in most of the countries in the (global) south for the people we try to help,” Jan Egeland, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told The Associated Press.
His group recently conducted a review of all 30 countries where it operates and found virtually no testing before people became sick.
In Syria’s war-ravaged Idlib province, only one small health facility is equipped to receive suspected coronavirus cases. In the world’s largest refugee camp, in Bangladesh, aid workers are racing to build isolation facilities. In two sprawling camps in Kenya, Somalis who survived decades of famine and war fear the worst is yet to come.
“If it’s killing people daily in America, then what do you think will happen to us?” asked Mariam Abdi, a vegetable vendor in Kenya’s Dadaab camp, where 217,000 people live in endless rows of tents. “We will all perish.”
Western countries, which by then may have contained their own outbreaks, will have to reckon with the fact that if the virus finds refuge among the world’s most vulnerable, it could return anytime.
Some refugee camps have been around so long they have apartment blocks and paved roads. Others are little more than clusters of tents or abandoned buildings. In many, cramped conditions and poor infrastructure can make it impossible to practice social distancing and frequent hand-washing.  
There are no official figures for the number of refugees who live in camps, but Egeland estimates they make up 10% to 15% of all refugees and displaced people, a population the U.N. estimates at over 70 million.
Refugees have already tested positive in Italy, Germany, Iran, Australia and Greece, where authorities said Tuesday that 150 people living in a quarantined hotel for asylum-seekers had contracted the coronavirus, and none displayed symptoms of COVID-19.
Most people who become infected experience mild to moderate symptoms. But the virus can cause severe illness and lead to death, particularly among older people and those with underlying health problems. It is highly contagious and can be spread by those who appear healthy.A ‘MIRACLE’ THAT NO CASES HAVE BEEN FOUND
The coronavirus has already appeared in Syria, where the decade-long civil war has displaced more than half of the population of 23 million. At least 350 health facilities have been bombed, mostly by the government. More than 900 medical staff have been killed and countless more have fled.
No cases have been reported yet in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, the last bastion of opposition to President Bashar Assad and where heavy fighting forced nearly a million people to flee their homes earlier this year.
Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian physician based in Chicago who heads MedGlobal, an international health NGO, calls that a “miracle.”
He notes that the entire province, which is home to 4 million people, has 98 ventilators, compared to 230 in the Advocate Christ Medical Center, where he is a critical care specialist. An outbreak would be “catastrophic,” he said.
The World Health Organization has sent 5,900 testing kits to Idlib, where they are being carefully rationed. Authorities have carried out around 200 tests so far, all of which came back negative.  
In Jordan, the two largest camps for Syrian refugees have been sealed since last month. In Zaatari, which has about 80,000 residents, the Jordanian government conducted 150 random tests, all of which came back negative, said Dominik Bartsch, the head of U.N. refugee agency in Jordan. Residents of Azraq, home to about 40,000, will be tested soon.
“We don’t need the camp managers to tell us how serious the virus is. We see it in the news and read about it,” said an anxious Massoud Ali, 35, who fled Syria for a camp in neighboring Iraq in October.  Becoming ‘Invisible’
Refugees living outside camps are also uniquely vulnerable.
Nearly 5 million Venezuelans have fled economic chaos, crossing by foot and bus into neighboring Colombia and other countries.
Many live in crowded apartments in Bogota, which has the bulk of Colombia’s coronavirus cases, and work as street vendors — jobs now prohibited. During the capital city’s lockdown, many have been evicted from rentals and fined for being on the streets as they struggle to put food on the table.
“All of a sudden, they’ve become invisible, locked away behind closed doors,” said Marianne Manjivar, International Rescue Committee director for Colombia and Venezuela.’No doctors can save us’
There’s been little if any testing in Cox’s Bazar, in southern Bangladesh, where more than a million members of Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority are packed into the world’s largest refugee camp.  
Kate White, the emergency medical coordinator for Doctors Without Borders, said there is “very limited testing capacity” in Bangladesh, with most of it in the capital, Dhaka, some 250 miles (400 kilometers) away.
While cases have been reported in the district, none have been detected inside the camp. There, refugees still gather in large groups to collect aid, and humanitarian workers are preparing for the worst.  
The U.N. refugee agency is building isolation and treatment centers that can house 150-200 patients. It is also distributing soap and talking about how to prevent the virus’ spread, but a government ban on cellphone and internet services in the camps has hindered those efforts.
Sakina Khatun, who lives with her husband and seven children in a small bamboo and tarp hut, said “the virus will kill everything it touches” if it enters the camps. “No doctors can save us then.”  ‘It will certainly come back’
There’s a similar sense of foreboding in conflict zones across Africa.
Burkina Faso is grappling with one of the world’s fastest growing displacement crises, with 800,000 people having fled attacks by jihadis in recent months.  
“We ran away from the terrorists and came here, but now there’s the coronavirus, and we don’t know what will happen,” said Boureima Gassambe.  
He and around 600 others have settled in an abandoned school on the outskirts of the capital, Ouagadougou. Twenty to 30 people stay in each room.  
Aguirata Maiga says soap is so expensive for her — 40 cents a bar — that she has to choose between washing her children’s hands and their clothes.  
Burkina Faso’s fragile health system has only 60 intensive care beds and a handful of ventilators, for a population of around 20 million people.
In Kenya’s crowded Kakuma refugee camp, more than 190,000 Somali refugees live in tents and rely on 19 wells.  
“That’s more than 10,000 people getting water from the same borehole,” said Kurt Tjossem of the International Rescue Committee.
There are also shortages of protective equipment, drugs and trained health workers.
There is no coronavirus testing at Kakuma or at the Dadaab camp, said the IRC’s Kenya health coordinator, John Kiogora. There are no intensive care units or ventilators, either.
The situation is even more dire inside Somalia, where more than 2.2 million people live in camps for the internally displaced. They have been uprooted by cycles of drought and the ever-present threat of al-Shabab, an al-Qaida-linked extremist group.
The camps have no testing facilities or equipment to treat those who contract the virus, according to Yuko Tomita, an officer with the U.N. migration agency. Somalia has just 46 intensive care beds nationwide.
In South Sudan, more than 180,000 people still live in crowded U.N.-run camps after a five-year civil war that left the health system reliant on NGOs for almost all services.  
“The reality is, if the virus presents itself, we have no choice,” said Charles Franzen, director of humanitarian and disaster response for World Relief. “Are we in a position to offer much in response other than having people just go home?”
Egeland, of the Norwegian Refugee Council, says vulnerabilities among refugee populations put the whole world at risk.
“If the pandemic survives in Venezuela or in Honduras or any other of the more vulnerable countries … it is a permanent risk for the United States,” he said. “If the coronavirus is spread from Europe, via Turkey, to Idlib, and gains a stronghold there, it will certainly come back to Europe.”
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Haiti’s main international airport, Toussaint Louverture, is currently closed to all non-local flights, but American carrier JetBlue landed over the weekend to fly American citizens and U.S. residents out. They had been stuck in Haiti after the government closed the airport March 16 in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus. The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince announced the flight, which was approved by Haitian and American aviation officials, on Twitter. “Event: Jet Blue Airways has been authorized to operate a flight from Port-au-Prince to Fort Lauderdale, FL Saturday, April 18.”  the tweet said. American citizens who wish to return to the United States should plan to do so immediately. The U.S. Embassy is not aware of any flights from Haiti to the United States after April 18 or if any flights will be authorized in the future. https://t.co/VapDcUERif(2/2)— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) April 17, 2020A subsequent tweet posted in Creole advised American citizens who wanted to return to the United States to book their tickets as soon as possible. The embassy said it was not aware of any authorized flights after April 18.  
 
About 100 passengers boarded the flight to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on Saturday.   
 
“We’re not afraid. We know what to do, we know how to protect ourselves,” a male passenger wearing a black face mask told VOA in Creole. “We know we have to keep our shoes outside, wash our hands, (wash) the clothes we are wearing, and wear a face mask.” This passenger, who was wearing a mask, said he is not afraid of catching the coronavirus. (VOA Creole/Yves Manuel)“Everything I own is in the United States,” said another passenger, wearing a white T-shirt and a black scarf around his neck.  Some passengers told VOA they decided to fly out of Haiti not out of fear of catching COVID-19, but rather because they had important matters that needed their attention. Others told VOA their families had asked them to return to the States.  
 
“It’s not that serious,” a male passenger wearing a light blue face mask and a bright yellow T-shirt told VOA. “My family misses me, and my work called me to say they’d like me to return, so I had to fly out today.”  
 
Other passengers said they no longer feel safe in Haiti because the factories have reopened, and they fear that will increase the spread of coronavirus in the capital.  
 
“At first there were two cases (of coronavirus) now there are 40 cases,” said a female passenger wearing a blue face mask and plastic gloves on her hands.  
 
American pastor Jeff Brown, 56, was in Haiti doing missionary work, he said, and added he hopes to return soon.  “I think Haiti has been very lucky with the virus because up to now there haven’t been many cases,” he said. “I’m afraid to go to the United States.”American pastor Jeff Brown says he looks forward to returning to Haiti soon. (VOA Creole/Yves Manuel)As of April 20, Haiti has a total of 57 coronavirus cases according to a statement released by the Ministry of Public Health. Of the 57 people infected, three have died and there have been no recoveries so far.  
 
American citizens and residents who remain in Haiti are stuck for now.  The U.S. Embassy announced on its Twitter account Monday that Haitian-owned Sunrise Airways is operating flights from Cape Haitian in the north, to the capital, Port-au-Prince, but that currently “there are no confirmed commercial flights from Haiti to the United States.” For U.S. citizens who wish to travel to Port-au-Prince from Cap Haitien: Sunrise Airways is currently operating flights. There are currently no confirmed commercial flights from Haiti to the United States. https://t.co/lb3cKZWkCzpic.twitter.com/mhRtwq1iDg— U.S. Embassy Haiti (@USEmbassyHaiti) April 20, 2020 
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Canadian police said Tuesday they believe there are at least 22 victims after a gunman wearing a police uniform shot people in their homes and set fires in a rampage across rural communities in Nova Scotia over the weekend. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said they have recovered remains from some of the destroyed homes. Earlier, authorities had said at least 18 people were killed in the 12-hour attack.  Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and later died on Sunday. Authorities did not provide further details or give a motive for the killings.  The dead include a 17-year-old as well as a police officer, a police news release said. All the other victims were adults and included both men and women. There were 16 crime scenes in five different communities in northern and central Nova Scotia, it said. “Some of the victims were known to Gabriel Wortman and were targeted while others were not known to him,” the police statement said.  Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers stand in line for a procession as a hearse carrying the body of Constable Heidi Stevenson passes by, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, April 20, 2020.Authorities also confirmed Wortman was wearing an authentic police uniform and one of the cars he used “was a very real look-alike RCMP vehicle.” “This is an unprecedented incident that has resulted in incredible loss and heartbreak for countless families and loved ones. So many lives will be forever touched,” the police statement said.  In an earlier news release, authorities had said they believed there were 23 victims, but Royal Canadian Mounted Police spokesman Daniel Brien later clarified the death toll included 22 victims and the gunman.Authorities said Wortman made his car look like a Royal Canadian Mounted Police cruiser, allowing him to travel easily within a 30-mile (50-kilometer) area.Police warningsAs the attack ensued, police warned residents in Portapique to lock their doors and stay in their basements. The town, like all of Canada, had been adhering to government advice to remain at home because of the coronavirus pandemic, and most of the victims were inside homes when the attack began. But no wider warning was issued, and questions emerged about why a public emergency alert was not sent province-wide through a system recently used to advise people to maintain social distancing. Police provided Twitter updates, but no alert that would have automatically popped up on cellphones. “There should have been some provincial alert,” said David Matthews, who said he heard a gunshot while walking with his wife Sunday. Shortly after they returned home, their phone started ringing with warnings from friends that there was an active shooter in the neighborhood.  Several bodies were later found inside and outside one house on Portapique Beach Road, police said. Bodies were also found at other locations in Nova Scotia and authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly as he drove around.Suspect’s historyAuthorities said Wortman did not have a police record, but information later emerged of at least one run-in with the law. Nova Scotia court records confirm he was ordered to receive counseling for anger management after pleading guilty to assaulting a man in the Halifax area on Oct. 29, 2001. The guilty plea came on Oct. 7, 2002, as his trial was about to begin. He was placed on probation for nine months, fined $50 and told to stay away from the man, and also prohibited from owning or possessing a weapon, ammunition or explosive substances. Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commissioner Brenda Lucki said police were still determining what weapons were used in the attacks. Cheryl Maloney, who lives near where one victim, 54-year-old Gina Goulet, was killed, believes she was likely saved by a warning message Sunday morning from her son that read, “Don’t leave your house. This guy is at the end of your road and he’s dressed like a cop.” “I really could have used that provincial warning, as I walk here all the time and I’ve been in the yard all week,” she said. 
 
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Sixteen migrants from several countries have tested positive for coronavirus in Mexico’s northern border state of Tamaulipas, the state government said Monday.
The state’s announcement came the same day that the U.S. government said it will continue to quickly expel migrants it encounters along the border for at least another month in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Under the U.S. policy change spurred by the virus, the U.S. government has sent some 10,000 Mexicans and Central Americans back to Mexico, according to data from the U.S.Border Patrol.
The situation led Tamaulipas to ask the administration of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to not accept anymore Central Americans delivered back across the border to Mexico from the United States. Tamaulipas undersecretary for legal and governmental affairs Gloria Elena Garza Jimenez said the agreement between the two countries had no legal foundation.
Fifteen of the infected migrants from Honduras, Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba and Cameroon were staying at a migrant shelter in the city of Nuevo Laredo, across the border from Laredo, Texas. They are in isolation.
The Nazareth migrants shelter in Nuevo Laredo said three of the infected migrants were minors. Of the 15, three were hospitalized but were released back to the shelter. More tests have been done at the shelter but no other cases have been confirmed.
The Tamaulipas state government said a migrant deported from Houston, Texas had entered the same shelter without knowing that he had coronavirus. Migrants now make up about 10% of the state’s 193 coronavirus cases, causing frustration in Tamaulipas.
“The state government, foreseeing the situation of multiple contagions of COVID-19 among the migrant population, has asked the federal government through official channels to transfer out of Tamaulipas the migrants who are stranded on the border,” the state said in a statement.
Hundreds of migrants remain in Nuevo Laredo and in the Tamaulipas border city of Matamoros, an estimated 2,000 people live in a squalid tent camp, waiting for their court hearings a short distance away in Brownsville, Texas.  
The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says that more than 100 migrants at 25 detention centers have tested positive for COVID-19. Guatemala claims that 44 migrants deported from the U.S. tested positive.
Dr. Joseph McCormick, a physician and public health expert in Brownsville, Texas, across the border from Tamaulipas, said it’s important to track where infected migrants have been.
“We know the virus is out there in all the smallest communities in our area,” said the former CDC epidemiologist and current director of The Hispanic Health Research Center (HHRC) on the Brownsville campus of the UTHealth School of Public Health.  
“Sending people off to these vulnerable countries is going to make whatever the situation is there, which we probably don’t know much about, much worse,” he said. “And eventually it will come back to bite us because people who may be headed to the border who are not infected may get infected and may come back and re-infect our country. For every person who is apprehended and sent back there are probably 10 who get across the border and get somewhere. This is not a smart process.”
Mexico’s federal government has so far officially recognized only one case of coronavirus infection in a migrant, at the church-run shelter in Nuevo Laredo. The federal National Immigration Institute did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Catholic-run shelter is expected to release the results of further tests on the migrants.
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Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness is clamping down on the hours people can move about freely as the country tries to contain the coronavirus. Holness said the new curfew will run from 6:00pm until 6:00am beginning Wednesday and last for two weeks. The prime minister has set a 5pm closing time for grocery stores and pharmacies. Licensed public transportation providers will be allowed to operate between 5am to 7pm instead of 6am to 6pm.  He also ordered business process outsourcing (BPO) operations to close for 14 days starting Wednesday at midnight. The Jamaican leader’s new measures to curtail the spread of the virus also makes it mandatory that Jamaicans wear a mask in public spaces. The announcement comes as Jamaica’s COVID-19 tally increased to 223. So far, Jamaica has reported five deaths. 
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Brazil’s new health minister said the government will more than double the country’s capability for coronavirus testing and devise a plan to end social isolation, which Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro said is bad for the economy.  Nelson Teich’s video taped comments released Monday night comes after several governors and mayors said they were looking into imposing stricter isolation measures to curb the spread of the new coronavirus.      President Bolsonaro replaced Luiz Henrique Mandetta with Teich last week after he clashed with Mandetta over self isolation policies, which Bolsonaro is seeking to end this week.  Bolsanaro could be facing a legal challenge by exiting self isolation measures after the country’s top court ruled governors and mayors can decide on social isolation measures regardless of the federal government’s position.     So far, Brazil has confirmed more than 40,700 COVID-19 cases with 2,587 deaths. 
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Tons of covid-related medical supplies are arriving in Argentina from China. A second plane of masks, protective suits, and chemicals used for coronavirus tests purchased from Beijing arrived in Argentina Monday, with more supplies expected to follow.  Argentina is boosting its inventory to combat the virus as the country’s month long- lockdown comes to an end on Sunday. The imported supplies are flowing into Argentina just as the country’s Ministry of Productive Development issued a disposition to change the tariff codes, making it easier for supplies needed by medical professionals and the public to fight the virus to enter the country. Argentina is hoping by simplifying guidelines for importing certain products that its less likely to face shortages. Argentina has reported more than 2,900 coronavirus cases and 142 deaths linked to the disease.  
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the death toll in Sunday’s 12-hour shooting rampage across the province of Nova Scotia, already the worst of its kind in Canada’s history, has risen to 18.Trudeau spoke to the nation Monday, one day after a gunman disguised as a police officer went on a 12-hour rampage shooting people in their homes, setting fires and killing at least 18 people, including a 23-year veteran policewoman.In his comments, Trudeau said, “Such a tragedy should have never occurred. Violence of any kind has no place in Canada.”Police say the incident began overnight Saturday in the rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax. They say they responded to a house where gunshots were reported and found bodies inside and outside the house.Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau comments on the shooting in Nova Scotia during a news conference, April 20, 2020, in Ottawa.Bodies were also found at several other locations within a 50-kilometer area from that neighborhood. Authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Several houses in the area were set on fire.Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Chris Leather told a news conference Monday that police expect to find more victims.Police teams were spread out at 16 locations across central and northern Nova Scotia, he said. Some of the victims knew Wortman, and some didn’t, he added.”We’re relatively confident we’ve identified all the crime scenes,” Leather said. “We have had five structure fires, most of those being residences, and we believe there may be victims still within the remains of those homes which burnt to the ground.”Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police. No motive for the killings was given.Trudeau noted how close-knit the small province of Nova Scotia is.”The vast majority of Nova Scotians will have a direct link with one or more of the victims. The entire province and country is grieving right now as we come to grips with something that is unimaginable,” Trudeau told a news conference.”The pandemic will prevent us from mourning together in person, but a vigil will be held virtually to celebrate the lives of the victims,” Trudeau added, saying it would take place Friday night through a Facebook group.The Associated Press contributed to this report. 
 
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Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the death toll in Sunday’s 12-hour shooting rampage across the province of Nova Scotia, already the worst of its kind in Canada’s history, has risen to 18.Trudeau spoke to the nation Monday, one day after a gunman disguised as a police officer went on a 12-hour rampage shooting people in their homes, setting fires and killing at least 18 people, including a 23-year-veteran policewoman.In his comments, Trudeau said, “Such a tragedy should have never occurred. Violence of any kind has no place in Canada.”Police say the incident began overnight Saturday in the rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax. They say they responded to a house where gunshots were reported and found bodies inside and outside the house.Bodies were also found at several other locations within a 50-kilometer area from that neighborhood.  Authorities believe the shooter may have targeted his first victims but then began attacking randomly. Several houses in the area were set on fire.Officials said the suspect, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was shot and killed by police. No motive for the killings was given. 
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Police in Canada are searching for clues as to what motivated a gunman to go on a 12-hour rampage across the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that killed 16 people, the deadliest such attack in the country’s history.The gunman, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, was disguised during at least part of the time as a police officer and traveling in vehicle made to look like a police cruiser. He shot people in their homes and set fires before police shot and killed him early Sunday.Police say they were first called late Saturday to a scene at a home in the small, rural town of Portapique, about 100 kilometers north of Halifax, where gunshots were reported. They found several bodies inside and outside the house, which police say is where the rampage started.Among those killed was Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Constable Heidi Stevenson, a 23-year police veteran.From his twitter account, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decribed the attack as “senseless”, saying “Canadians across the country are mourning” with those who lost loved ones. 
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The global health crisis is taking a nasty political turn with tensions worsening between governments locked down to keep the coronavirus at bay and people yearning to restart stalled economies and forestall fears of a depression.Protesters worrying about their livelihoods and bucking infringements on their freedom took to the streets in some places. A few countries were acting to ease restrictions, but most of the world remains unified in insisting it’s much too early to take more aggressive steps.In the United States, there was clear evidence of the mounting pressure. The Trump administration says parts of the country are ready to begin a gradual return to normalcy. Yet some state leaders say their response to the pandemic is hindered by a woefully inadequate federal response.  Washington state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee, even accused President Donald Trump of encouraging insubordination and “illegal activity” by goading on protesters who flouted shelter-in-place rules.”To have an American president to encourage people to violate the law, I can’t remember any time during my time in America where we have seen such a thing,” Inslee told ABC’s “This Week.” He said it was “dangerous because it can inspire people to ignore things that actually can save their lives.”Trump supporters in several states ignored social distancing and stay-at-home orders, gathering to demand that governors lift controls on public activity. The largest protest drew thousands to Lansing, Mich., on Wednesday, and others have featured hundreds each in several states. The president has invoked their rallying cry, calling on several states with Democratic governors to “LIBERATE.”With the arc of infection different in every nation and across U.S. states, proposals have differed for coping with the virus that has killed more than 165,000.Restrictions have begun to ease in some places, including Germany, which is still enforcing social distancing rules but on Monday intended to begin allowing some small stores, like those selling furniture and baby goods, to reopen.  Authorities in Spain, which had some of Europe’s strictest restrictions and a virus death toll only exceeded by the U.S. and Italy, said children will be allowed to leave their homes beginning April 27. Albania planned to let its mining and oil industries reopen Monday, along with hundreds of businesses including small retailers, food and fish factories, farmers and fishing boats.The death toll in the U.S. climbed past 41,000 with more than 746,000 confirmed infections, while the global case count has passed 2.38 million, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University of national health reports. The European Center for Disease Control said the continent now has more than 1 million confirmed cases and almost 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus.The actual extent of the pandemic is likely to be significantly higher due to mild infections that are missed, limited testing, problems counting the dead and some nations’ desires to underplay the extent of their outbreaks.The International Monetary Fund expects the global economy to contract 3% this year. That’s a far bigger loss than 2009’s 0.1% after the global financial crisis. Still, many governments are resisting pressures to abruptly relax lockdowns.”We must not let down our guard until the last confirmed patient is recovered,” South Korea’s President Moon Jae-in said Sunday.In Britain, which reported 596 more coronavirus-related hospital deaths on Sunday, officials also said they’re not ready to ease efforts to curb the virus’s spread. U.K. minister Michael Gove told the BBC that pubs and restaurants “will be among the last” to leave the lockdown, which is now in place until May 7.  France’s health agency urged the public to stick to social distancing measures that have been extended until at least May 11 and Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said people could be required to wear masks on public transportation, and suggested no one plan faraway summer vacations even after that.The streets are empty in the shopping district in downtown Washington, DC, April 4, 2020. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet)Trump is pushing to begin easing the U.S. lockdown in some states even before his own May 1 deadline, a plan that health experts and governors from both parties say will require a dramatic increase in testing capacity nationwide. But Pence insisted in television interviews Sunday that the country has “sufficient testing today” for states to begin reopening their economies as part of the initial phases of guidelines that the White House released last week.  The Trump administration has repeatedly blamed state leaders for delays, but governors from both parties have been begging the federal government for help securing in-demand testing supplies such as swabs and chemicals known as reagents. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio made a direct appeal to Washington: “We really need help … to take our capacity up,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”  California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, said his state can’t begin lifting restrictions until it is able to test more people daily. “Right now, we’re not even close as a nation, let alone as a state, to where we should be on testing,” he said.  Trump pushed back in a tweet before his scheduled Sunday evening briefing at the White House. “I am right on testing. Governors must be able to step up and get the job done. We will be with you ALL THE WAY!” he wrote.Economic concerns that have increasingly collided with measures to protect public health are now popping up throughout the U.S.  Business leaders in Louisiana have slammed New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell for imposing restrictions that they say have unfairly shuttered economic activity outside the city. A full-page ad in Baton Rouge’s “The Advocate” newspaper on Sunday urged an easing of lockdowns, even as the New Orleans Times-Picayune featured nearly nine pages of obituaries in a city hard-hit by the virus.States including Texas and Indiana have announced plans to allow some retail and other activity to resume and some restrictions were either lifted or set to be on beaches in Florida and South Carolina. But in New York, where the daily coronavirus death toll hit its lowest point in more than two weeks on Sunday, officials warn that New York City and the rest of the hard-hit state aren’t ready to ease shutdowns of schools, businesses and gatherings.  Geopolitical and religious tensions stretching back centuries have further complicated the global response to the virus. But Jordan’s King Abdullah II said the outbreak has made “partners” out of “our enemies of yesterday, or those that were not friendly countries yesterday — whether we like it or not.””I think the quicker we as leaders and politicians figure that out, the quicker we can bring this under control,” he told CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
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Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro on Sunday again attended a public rally and attacked lockdown measures meant to fight the coronavirus, as supporters of the right-wing leader joined political motorcades around the country.Brazil has more cases of the new coronavirus than any other country in Latin America. On Sunday, confirmed cases rose to 38,654 with 2,462 deaths.Bolsonaro, who was not wearing a face mask, addressed a crowd of a few hundred in Brasilia, many of them wearing Brazil’s yellow-and-green soccer jersey.His brief address, which was punctuated by the president coughing, touched on talking points that have become his usual rallying cry.He called those in attendance “patriots” and said they were helping defend individual freedoms that he said are under threat by lockdowns imposed by authorities at the state level.”Everyone in Brazil needs to understand that they are subject to the will of the people,” Bolsonaro said.Protesters in Brasilia chanted slogans against the country’s Supreme Court, which has upheld state-organized lockdowns, and against Congress, whose opposition lawmakers have also defended quarantines.Some of the protesters also called for a return to authoritarian measures used during Brazil’s last military regime, known as AI-5.In Sao Paulo, Brazil’s richest and most populous state, Bolsonaro supporters have been demanding that governor Joao Doria resign because he has been a staunch supporter of shelter-in-place measures. 
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Police in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on Sunday arrested a 51-year-old gunman suspected of shooting several people, whose conditions were not specified.The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said the shootings occurred in the small Atlantic coastal town of Portapique, about 130 km north (80 miles) of the provincial capital Halifax.”Gabriel Wortman, suspect in active shooter investigation, is now in custody,” the force said in a tweet. It gave no details and did not say whether the victims were injured or killed.Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking to reporters in Ottawa, deplored what he called “a terrible situation.”One local resident said she had come across two burning police vehicles while out driving on Sunday morning.”There was one officer we could see on scene and then all of a sudden, he went running toward one of the burning vehicles,” Darcy Sack told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.”We heard gunshots,” she said, adding that one police officer looked to have been injured.Portapique residents said the incident started late on Saturday night when police urged everyone to stay indoors. Police said Wortman was 51 years old.Police were due to give a news conference at 5 p.m. EST (2100 GMT).Police initially said Wortman was driving what appeared to be a police car and was wearing a uniform but later reported he was at the wheel of a Chevrolet sports utility vehicle.Mass shootings are relatively rare in Canada, which has tighter gun control laws than the United States.The worst incident in recent years occurred in January 2017, when a man shot dead six people at an Islamic cultural center in Quebec City.In August 2018, a man in the province of New Brunswick, which borders Nova Scotia, shot dead four people, including two police officers, in an apartment complex. In June 2014, in the same province, a man shot dead three police.
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The top U.S. military commander for Latin America said Friday that the Trump administration isn’t looking to use military force to remove Nicolas Maduro even as it expands counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean. Adm. Craig Faller, head of U.S. Southern Command, said in an interview that the recent decision to double anti-narcotics assets in Latin America was months in the making and not directly tied to Maduro’s indictment in New York on charges of leading a narcoterrorist conspiracy that sent 250 metric tons of cocaine a year to the U.S. Faller said economic and diplomatic pressure — not the use of military force — remain the U.S.’ preferred tools for removing Maduro from power. “This is not a shift in U.S. government policy,” said Faller, who nonetheless celebrated that enhanced interdiction efforts would hurt Maduro’s finances and staying power. “It’s not an indication of some sort of new militarization in the Caribbean.”  The deployment announced this month is one of the largest U.S. military operations in the region since the 1989 invasion of Panama to remove Gen. Manuel Noriega from power and bring him to the U.S. to face drug charges.It involves assets like Navy warships, AWACS surveillance aircraft and on-ground special forces seldom seen before in the region. Faller said the coronavirus did force some in the Pentagon to rethink the timing of the deployment out of concern for the safety of service members.While controls to protect the workforce have been enhanced, it was determined that over the long term, the U.S. is positioned to take advantage of the disruption in narcotics supply chains caused by the virus as drug cartels scramble to source precursor chemical and other inputs. “We thrive in uncertainty and are going to try and capitalize on that,” said Faller.  He cited two “quick wins” since the start of the deployment — a 1.7 metric ton seizure in the Pacific Ocean near Costa Rica last week and another 2.1 ton interdiction a few days ago.  He said growing instability in Venezuela is leading to an “uptick” in piracy in the Caribbean, although he didn’t cite any statistics or evidence to back the assertion. He said the recent sinking of a Venezuelan naval ship after it allegedly rammed an Antarctic-hardened cruise ship without passengers near Curacao was indicative of the readiness of Maduro’s armed forces.  “It was a bad day for them,” he said. “Their lack of seamanship and lack of integrity is indicative of how it all played out.”  
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