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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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British Health Secretary Matt Hancock announced Tuesday that two separate British research teams are making significant progress on a COVID-19 vaccine, with one them planning to run trials on people on Thursday.At a news briefing in London, Hancock said researchers at both the Imperial College of London and Oxford University had are moving into the trial stage with their potential vaccines.He said the Oxford team, which has been working closely with Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) was prepared to begin conducting clinical trials on people this week. He said the government is allocating about $25 million to fund their effort.He said the government is also allocating more than $27 million to Imperial College to fund phase two of its clinical trials, and for it to start a phase three trial.Hancock said normally it would take years to get to this stage of vaccine development. He said Britain will invest heavily in manufacturing capability so that, in event one of the vaccines is proven effective, they can quickly make it available. 
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As Europe counts the human and economic costs of the coronavirus lockdowns, Hungary appears to have gotten off lightly. It has nearly 2,100 reported cases and 213 deaths so far, compared to tens of thousands in the worst-hit countries. Nevertheless, economists predict the country’s GDP will shrink by close to 10 percent. As Henry Ridgwell reports, many workers are having to adapt quickly to the dramatically changing labor market in the nation of nearly 10 million people. Gabor Ancsin and Justin Spike in Budapest also contributed to this report.
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Britain is marking Queen Elizabeth II’s 94th birthday with silence Tuesday, as the nation in lockdown amid the COVID-19 pandemic forgoes the usual gun salutes and ringing of bells. With thousands dead amid the outbreak, the monarch decided that the celebratory display of military firepower would not be appropriate. Nor will there be a celebratory peal of bells at Westminster Abbey, as the church where the queen was married and crowned is currently closed. The royal family took to social media to share images of Elizabeth as she marks the occasion — but in keeping with social distancing rules, there will be no visits. The queen will mark the day with her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, 98, at Windsor Castle in Berkshire.  
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Spain, with one of the highest death tolls from coronavirus, enacted strict social-distancing measures in mid-March. But with the number of infections and deaths now slowing, the prime minister, Pedro Sanchez, has announced the kingdom is cautiously moving to relax those measures.  In this report narrated by Jonathan Spier, Alfonso Beato in Barcelona says Spaniards are anxiously awaiting a return – even if it is a slow one – to normal life.
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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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Several countries in Europe and Asia are gradually easing their coronavirus lockdowns this week. From extensive testing to strict social distancing, these countries took aggressive measures before cautiously lifting some restrictions. On Monday, South Korea lifted closure advisories on high-risk venues such as churches, bars and sporting facilities. The number of new infections had dropped to a single digit the day before.“We have the room to consider balancing infection control and economic activities,” said South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun, while announcing eased rules on social distancing Sunday. Dr. Kent Calder, director of the Center for East Asian Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told VOA that East Asian countries including Korea, Taiwan and Singapore employed rigorous contact tracing to contain the virus successfully. “Contact tracing, including digital techniques, is especially important. … Tracking infected individuals so that society generally can operate more freely,” Calder said.  He added widespread testing should support the tracing efforts. South Korea has, to date, tested more than 500,000 people, among the highest number in the world per capita. People walk to a shopping center as many smaller stores are allowed to open in Essen, Germany, April 20, 2020. Europe’s biggest economy, starts reopening some of its stores and factories after weeks of lockdown.Testing and treatment capacity Some German retailers began reopening on Monday, along with car dealerships and bicycle shops and bookstores. Under the agreement Chancellor Angela Merkel reached with state leaders, retailers with shops up to 800 square meters are allowed to open this week.  Like South Korea, Germany quickly rolled out widespread testing at the outset of the outbreak and captured asymptomatic infections.  Dr. Wenhui Mao, a researcher at Duke Global Health Institute, told VOA sufficient testing capacity is essential before easing the lockdown. She explained that suspected cases must be tested as much as possible before reopening to make sure infected patients are receiving proper care or self-quarantined before recovery.  On top of widespread testing, Germany was also able to keep fatalities low thanks to its universal health care system. The medical journal Lancet put Germany in 18th place in the world in access to quality health care. Germany leads other countries in terms of the number of beds in intensive care units with 22,000 beds, and with 10,000 of them still free. A woman shops as the farmers markets open in Prague, Czech Republic, April 20, 2020.First lockdowns in Europe Several countries among the first in Europe to implement lockdowns are reopening this week with precautionary measures.  The Czech Republic moved quickly to impose restrictions on travel and large events and closed businesses after declaring a state of emergency March 12.It also ordered everyone to cover their faces. After strict containment measures, the government allowed hardware stores and bike stores to reopen.Other stores and restaurants will be allowed to open gradually over the next two months. Students are also returning to schools in phases from Monday.One month after declaring a state of emergency, Spain allowed manufacturing and construction work to resume Monday with about 4 million workers estimated to have returned to work. Police handed out masks at transit hubs to returning workers.After five weeks of closures, hairdressers and other small businesses in Denmark reopened Monday, following the reopening of elementary schools last week. Austria and Norway also eased lockdowns. Spike in infections Singapore was able to suppress cases without lockdown measures because of its aggressive testing and quarantining. But a second wave has hit hard, with cases growing from 266 to more than 8,000 since March 17, according to the Johns Hopkins University.Experts say government testing missed clusters of infections that grew rapidly. Singapore since announced a “circuit breaker,” a package of strict restrictions to stem the spread of the virus. Experts fear easing of such restrictions carries the risk of starting a second wave.The Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security noted in its recent report on phased reopening during the COVID-19 pandemic, that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to reopening. It advised policymakers to consider testing and health care capacities, careful risk-assessments, and weigh the risks and benefits sector by sector.Mao, the Duke University researcher, said “even for regions that ease lockdown, covering mouth and nose, keeping social distancing, having good hand hygiene is still encouraged.” 
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Hungary’s ambassador to Washington has stepped down and returned to Budapest on short notice to take charge of a beefed up messaging operation in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party.The party, Fidesz, announced last week that it was launching an Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019.The announcement brought an end to several days of speculation in Washington, where friends and acquaintances of Szabo had been puzzling over the Hungarian envoy’s departure from the U.S. capital with less than 48 hours’ public notice. For many in the diplomatic community, the first word of Szabo’s plans came in an April 11 email inviting recipients to listen in on an online virtual concert to mark the occasion. Szabo was in an airplane on his way home less than two days later. “After almost three years as the Ambassador of Hungary to the US, I am leaving office next week to take over an exciting new responsibility in Budapest in the private sector,” wrote Szabo, who holds a degree as a doctor of medicine. Given that Szabo had worked for 20 years in the global pharmaceutical industry, including over a dozen years at U.S.-based Eli Lilly, some had assumed that he was returning to that sector to engage in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “It is always sad to see an esteemed colleague go, but Laszlo had a life ‘outside’ diplomacy … This might just be the right moment for him to return to the private sector – I wish him best of luck for all future endeavors,” said Austria’s ambassador to the United States, Martin Weiss, before learning of the KESMA appointment. He told VOA he had always “enjoyed working with” Szabo. Some members of the D.C. diplomatic community, when told of the departed envoy’s new responsibilities, suggested that KESMA is not quite “the private sector as most of us understand it.” KESMA is described as “a government-funded foundation” by Hungary Today, which says the media holding company known as Mediaworks “consists of almost 500 media outlets” including a leading national daily as well as “almost all the regional daily news sources in the country.”  The same report acknowledges that the KESMA foundation “has drawn much controversy” since its founding in late 2018. At the time of its formation, Prime Minister Orban declared the consolidation of pro-Fidesz media outlets as a matter of “national strategic importance in the public interest.” But critics say Orban has created a virtual media monopoly, reducing the space for media outlets critical of the current government.   More recently, Orban has been criticized for using the coronavirus crisis to push through parliament legislation entitling him to rule by degree for an indefinite period. The legislation, approved late last month, also provides stiff jail terms for spreading what the government deems to be false information.  Budapest has yet to announce who will succeed Szabó to represent Hungary in Washington. For the time being, an embassy spokesperson told VOA that a chargé d’affaires is at the helm, and “all embassy staff is working full-time.” No matter whom Budapest selects, some in the Washington policy community warn that the next ambassador can expect his or her efforts to be greeted with the same skepticism and reluctance to engage that Szabo might have experienced. “It’s not engagement with the embassy or ambassador that’s the issue per se, but rather engaging with the Orban government,” one analyst told VOA. The idea behind limiting contact, the analyst said, “is to not give the Hungarian government a platform for its undemocratic, nationalist positions.”  Szabo and his staff worked diligently during his three-year tenure to combat that image, including with regular emails to the news media. Yet, a similar protocol may exist in some U.S. government agencies. According to a former Pentagon official, “the policy [at Pentagon] was to refrain from engaging above the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] level.”   Nevertheless, the United States and Hungary have increased collaboration on some levels. One year ago, the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement covering such areas as infrastructure improvements and missile defense cooperation.”  
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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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COVID-19 came late to Turkey, compared to its European neighbors, but the reality of the threat is increasingly impacting life — and with it fears that we are in it for the long term.Turks are accustomed to living through turbulence and, invariably adapt quickly to change. Dramatic change soon becomes the norm, and life moves on — a habit I too have picked up after decades living in Istanbul.There is no compulsory curfew for people over 20 and under 65. But outside life has more or less come to an end, other than the welcome shopping trip or a quick stroll. Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline. Embed” />CopyWalking around once-bustling streets and formerly busy restaurants, I try to remind myself how it once was. It seems now a forgotten time, as this has become the new reality.The web savviness of the country’s food providers is facilitating its transition into this new reality. Whether it’s supermarkets or far-away organic farmers, all send welcome food packages, ordered online and swiftly delivered by the country’s extensive courier services. Deliveries are made within days or a week at the latest. This is a stark contrast from the experiences of my friends across Europe, who say two weeks’ delivery time is “good” for anything ordered online.Sending food by courier is nothing new, here. My Turkish wife’s parents, like so many others, often send local delicacies from their home on the Black Sea.Life goes on for my son Mir, with his fencing classes online as he has spent weeks locked down at home, as all people under twenty are forbidden to leave home. (Courtesy D. Jones)My 12-year-old son Mir has been the quickest among us to adapt to life at home. Online classes start at 10 am, ending at 4 pm. For him, homeschooling means no longer rising with the dawn chorus to catch his school bus. Instead, a more leisurely rise at 9 am has become the order of the day. That, I have to say, is welcomed by all the family.Mir also says doing classes in pajamas is much more fun, although the school is now insisting that all children must wear uniforms at least one day a week. “Why, why, why?” Mir demands, and all I say is, “It is what it is.”Mir plays with his friends online with the shoot-em-up Fortnite. I am now used to hearing him screaming to his friends, with a mixture of reprimands and congratulations.Even his fencing classes continue online, with Mir waving his wooden sword as directed and with relentless training — another new norm for home.Turkey has a well-developed and relatively inexpensive internet along with widespread smartphone use, something which is undoubtedly helping the country get through the epidemic.But the smooth transition into social isolation hit a wall earlier this month with the chaotic imposition of a weekend curfew in all of Turkey’s main cities.The curfew, announced only two hours before it was imposed at midnight, provoked chaos. For us, we discovered too late that we had no salt or milk at home, as our local grocer, or “bakkal” as it is called in Turkish, was shut.Across Istanbul, images of people queuing to buy food, desperately trying to beat the midnight deadline, circulated on social media. The experience appears to have instilled a deep unease in the country. Since that weekend of chaos, Istanbul feels far more foreboding. Online deliveries from supermarkets appear to be no longer working. Numerous attempts to order are met with the message “delivery time unavailable.” The online service seems overwhelmed by demand as people seem now to be stocking up for a future with more prolonged curfews. I recently interviewed a man who told me with exasperation that a quick trip to the supermarket had ended up lasting three hours. “I went early thinking it would be empty, but it was packed, I never saw anything like it,” he said.
Ramadan starts later this month, and there is gossip that a full-scale lockdown could be enforced in Turkey’s main cities for the four weeks of fasting.The Health Ministry daily briefing exudes confidence that everything is under control, despite Turkey rapidly moving up the world league table of infections.The government claims that within weeks, the virus will be tamed and the country can start to return to normal. But at the same time, emergency hospitals are being built in Turkey’s principal cities.For now, returning to normal, when Istanbul streets are full and the vibrancy of the city rings with a deafening cacophony, still seems far away. Now there is silence, and I am looking at my small terrace and asking myself, should I dig up some of my flowers and plants and start growing potatoes and other vegetables and fruits?But first, I need to dash to the shops before another weekend curfew.
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A Russian court has ordered a delay in the trial of journalist Svetlana Prokopyeva, who faces terrorism-related charges for publishing an online commentary that linked a suicide bombing with the country’s political climate. The Pskov court on April 20 ordered the trial postponed due to the coronavirus epidemic now sweeping through Russia, “until the normalization of the sanitary and epidemiologic situation in the country.” Prokopyeva, a freelance contributor to RFE/RL’s Russian Service, called the decision “correct, because what we need is an open trial accessible to all.” Her lawyer, Vitaly Cherkasov, said it was impossible to say exactly when the trial may start due to the coronavirus restrictions imposed by the government. The charges of “justifying terrorism” stem from a November 2018 commentary published by the Pskov affiliate of Ekho Moskvy radio in which she discussed a bombing outside the Federal Security Service offices in the northern city of Arkhangelsk. Russian media reported that the suspected bomber, who died in the explosion, had posted statements on social media accusing the security service of falsifying criminal cases. In her commentary, Prokopyeva linked the teenager’s statements to the political climate under President Vladimir Putin. She suggested that political activism in the country was severely restricted, leading people to despair. Prokopyeva has described the case against her as an attempt to “murder the freedom of speech” in Russia. If found guilty, she faces up to seven years in prison. The case has drawn criticism from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and media rights groups like Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and the European Federation of Journalists. RFE/RL President Jamie Fly called the charges “a cynical effort to silence an independent journalist.” 
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Turkish authorities blocked Saudi and United Arab Emirates news websites on Sunday, days after the sites of Turkey’s state broadcaster and news agency were blocked in Saudi Arabia. The apparently reciprocal moves come four weeks after Turkish prosecutors indicted 20 Saudis over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, a killing that soured relations between Ankara and Riyadh. Internet users in Turkey trying to access the sites of Saudi news agency SPA, the UAE’s WAM news agency and more than a dozen other sites saw a message saying that they were blocked under a law governing internet publications in Turkey. A spokesman at Turkey’s Justice Ministry declined to comment on the actions and Saudi Arabia’s government media office did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Turkish website of the U.K.-based Independent newspaper, which is operated by a Saudi company, was one of the sites to blocked on Sunday, in a move that its editor said reflected political tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey. “We believe the tensions between Saudi Arabia and Turkey reflected on us,” editor Nevzat Cicek told Reuters. Sunday’s decision appeared to be “retaliation against Saudi Arabia,” he said. Saudi Arabia had blocked access to several Turkish media websites a week earlier, including state broadcaster TRT and the state-owned Anadolu agency. Residents in the United Arab Emirates, a close ally of Saudi Arabia, said the Turkish websites were accessible on Sunday. FILE – In this Oct. 10, 2018 photo, people hold signs during a protest at the Embassy of Saudi Arabia about the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, in Washington.Tensions between Turkey and Saudi Arabia escalated sharply after Saudi agents killed Khashoggi, a critic of Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. Last month Istanbul prosecutors indicted one of the prince’s close aides and a former deputy head of Saudi general intelligence on charges of instigating Khashoggi’s killing, as well as 18 men it said carried out the operation. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said the killing was ordered at the “highest levels” of the Saudi government. Prince Mohammed has denied ordering the killing but said he bore ultimate responsibility as the kingdom’s de facto leader. 
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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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Berthe Badehi, who hid from the Nazis as a child during World War II, has become one of the many Holocaust survivors confined in their homes to evade the coronavirus. “It’s not easy, but we do it to stay alive,” the 88-year-old said of her current self-isolation at home in Israel. “One thing I learnt during the war was how to take care of myself.” Movement and travel restrictions in place to contain the pandemic have forced this week’s Holocaust Remembrance Day — Yom HaShoah in Hebrew — to be exclusively digital for the first time. In a normal year, symbolic events are organized at various locations, notably with survivors at the sites in Europe where the Nazis built concentration and extermination camps. This year, testimonials from survivors will be streamed online and featured in a pre-recorded ceremony to be broadcast in Israel by Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial center, when Yom HaShoah begins on Monday evening. The limitations on organizing events this year served as a reminder that in the not-too-distant future ceremonies with survivors will no longer be possible because the last of them will have passed away. “We have talked a lot about what happens when survivors are not here,” said Stephen Smith, who heads the Shoah Foundation at the University of Southern California. This week’s scaled-back commemorations, “made us realize what the future might be like,” Smith told AFP. “It is a test of our resolve…” “Maybe it is an opportunity to say… we won’t get 10,000 people at Auschwitz, but maybe we can get a million people (watching) online,” he added, referring to the Nazi concentration and extermination camp in Poland. ‘Attacking the Memory’ For survivors like Badehi, any comparison between COVID-19 isolation and Nazi-era confinement in ghettos and camps is inappropriate. “In France, during the war, we lived in fear, we hid our identity and we lost contact with our parents…” “Today, we may be locked inside, but we have contact with our children and grandchildren through the phone and internet,” added Badehi, who volunteered at Yad Vashem until it closed due to the virus. Dov Landau, a 91-year-old Auschwitz survivor, said it was “indecent” to make comparisons between the two eras. “Today we are neither hungry nor thirsty. Men, women and children are unlikely to be burned alive. Sure, I’m bored… but it’s nothing serious,” he told AFP. He regularly travelled from Israel to Auschwitz to speak to school groups, but those trips came to a stop because of the pandemic. Beyond cancellation of educational events, COVID-19 has posed a particularly grave threat to Holocaust survivors, given their age. The virus “is absolutely attacking the memory of the Holocaust because it is attacking the elderly,” Smith said, adding that he is aware of several survivors who have died from coronavirus-related complications. “It is also attacking our ability to (collect) these stories,” he said. ‘Sense of Urgency’The Shoah Foundation has developed an augmented reality application to document the journey across Europe endured by many Holocaust survivors. One survivor whose experience was scheduled to be documented this year was Eva Schloss, whose mother married Anne Frank’s father Otto after the war. Schloss “has an amazing story,” Smith said. “Very, very similar to Anne Frank, the only difference is that she survived.” “She was literally in the kitchen watching Otto prepare the diary for publication,” he said. Because of the pandemic, the foundation had to cancel plans to collect material with Schloss in Vienna, Amsterdam and Auschwitz. The foundation is partnering on the augmented reality project with The March of the Living, the prominent educational program that brings young people to the sites of concentration camps. Eli Rubenstein, a Toronto-based rabbi who heads March of the Living Canada, said he has spoken to many survivors who insisted they will be available to give testimonials next year. “They are very strong people, full of optimism,” he told AFP. But, he added, the delay forced by the pandemic “gives us a new sense of urgency.” 
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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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Some 180 migrants rescued at sea will be held in isolation on an Italian ferry off the coast of Sicily, the coast guard said Sunday.Italy has refused to take in saved migrants due to the coronavirus epidemic, saying the outbreak, which has killed over 23,000 people, meant it could no longer be considered a port of safety.Thirty-four people pulled to safety by Spanish NGO rescue vessel Aita Mari were being transferred Sunday to the Rubattino ferry, which is anchored outside the port of Palermo and staffed by 22 Red Cross volunteers.They join 146 migrants who were transferred to the ferry on Friday from the The Alan Kurdi rescue vessel, run by the German NGO Sea Eye.     They will be tested for the virus and redistributed among EU countries once the 14-day isolation period is up, according to Italian media reports.The 180-metre long Tirrenia ferry can carry 1,471 passengers, and has 289 cabins, a medical center, restaurant, bars, and a children’s play area.
 
It was not clear whether the migrants would be confined to individual cabins.                
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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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Passengers on a luxury liner’s around-the-world cruise, begun before the globe was gripped by the coronavirus pandemic, are finally approaching the end of their odyssey after 15 weeks at sea. The ship, the Costa Deliziosa, was heading Sunday toward a port in Spain before ending its journey in Italy — both countries devastated by the coronavirus outbreak. Costa Crociere, an Italian cruise company, said that the Deliziosa, which set sail from Venice in early January with 1,831 passengers, had no cases of COVID-19 aboard.  The Deliziosa, a nearly 300-meter (1,000-foot) vessel, will disembark 168 Spanish passengers on Monday at Barcelona’s port. Then the Deliziosa will head to its final destination, Genoa, Italy, where it is expected to let off the remaining passengers, Italians and those of other nationalities, on Wednesday.  A company spokesman said a passenger left the ship earlier in the week in Marsala, Sicily, for health issues and had a COVID-19 test, which was negative. Being on the liner for weeks during the pandemic “was not surreal, it was incredible,” said passenger Carlos Paya’, who lives in Valencia, Spain, and is sailing with his wife. He added that they have family members in Spain.  “The news that was arriving from home was causing us all a lot of worry and grief,” he told The Associated Press by text message Saturday evening. “For us it was a stroke of good luck to be where we were.”  “From Perth [Australia] given the growth of the pandemic, and of course for those of us who have children in Spain, we would have preferred to return,” he added. “Other passengers, on the other hand, given their old age, wanted to stay on board knowing that the boat was safe and secure.” French authorities had rebuffed a request by Costa for permission to disembark several hundred passengers from France and nearby countries at Marseilles. “The health situation on board the ships, with 1,814 guests and 898 members of the crew, doesn’t present any problem for public health and no case of COVID-19,” Costa’s statement said.  While people infected with the coronavirus often experience mild or moderate symptoms, possible complications like pneumonia can put their lives at risk. The Deliziosa was originally due to return to Venice on April 26. After the U.N. World Health Organization pandemic alert in March, the ship, which had just made a port call in Fremantle, western Australia, made only technical and refueling stops, before the journey back toward the Mediterranean, which took it through the Suez Canal, according to the company. Passenger Jean-Pierre Escarras, from Marseilles, shot a video of their cabin that their daughters shared on social networks, in which he says: “This is our place of confinement. We are lucky to have a window.”  The couple said that after a stop in Sydney, the ship’s activities were “reduced or sometimes canceled. We haven’t been able to get out on land since March 14 — that’s 34 days.” The passengers said that ports in Oman, along the Suez Canal, as well as in the Seychelles and Indian Ocean ports, refused to let the ship dock. The Spanish passenger, Paya’ praised the captain and crew.  Costa said the passengers were confined to their cabins only for the period until the ship heard back that the ill guest who got off in Sicily had tested negative. It didn’t say how long that period lasted. The company said, because the ship is Italian-flagged, it followed Italian precautionary measures used in the pandemic, including safety distancing between guests such as managing the numbers of who could enter food areas at any one time, and transmitting entertainment to cabin TV sets.  A French woman whose in-laws are aboard the Costa Deliziosa garnered about 100 signatures on an online petition to urge the French government to intervene to get them home. But French authorities barred the Deliziosa from disembarking more than 1,000 passengers before its final destination in Italy. The regional administration for Bouches-du-Rhone in southern France cited a nationwide ban on allowing foreign cruise ships to dock, as part of France’s virus-related confinement measures. Italy has also barred foreign cruise ships as it battles the virus outbreak. The French administration has granted exemptions to six other cruise ships in recent weeks to allow French passengers to get off, but refused this time, saying the previous stops overstretched local police and health authorities already mobilized to fight France’s severe virus crisis. Last month, two other Costa cruise ships pulled into Italian ports, including one that earlier had aboard passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 before being disembarked in France. It was unclear if or where the passengers who were due to finally step aboard land after weeks of sailing aboard the Deliziosa would be quarantined as a precaution. 
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Orthodox Christians observed the Easter holiday amid extraordinary coronavirus-related restrictions on services that forced many parishioners to watch services on TV or online. Church leaders have struggled to figure out how to observe the April 19 holiday — the holiest day in the Orthodox calendar — while avoiding spreading the coronavirus. Some local parishes have defied orders from public health officials and church leaders and vowed to allow people to attend services in person. In Russia and Ukraine, two of the biggest Orthodox denominations, priests in St. Petersburg and Kyiv held services beginning late on April 18 that were televised and shown online. Police deployed outside churches in Ukraine to ensure that anyone who came remained outside and observed regulations calling for social distancing and a ban on large gatherings. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Ukrainians to celebrate from home. Most church leaders complied and agreed to broadcast their services. One exception was the famed Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery, where police regulated entry to the church to one worshipper at a time. The complex was placed under quarantine after more than 90 of its monks were identified as infected with the coronavirus. At least two have died. The monastery is controlled by a rival Orthodox denomination in Ukraine that is loyal to the Russian church in Moscow. The Russian Orthodox Church ordered churches to close their doors to large groups during the week leading up to the holiday. Patriarch Kirill led the Russian church’s main service on April 18 at Moscow’s Christ the Savior Cathedral. In an Easter sermon, he said Orthodox Christians should not despair in difficult circumstances and should not panic. President Vladimir Putin, who has regularly attended the nighttime rituals in the past, did not attend this year. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin stayed at his suburban presidential residence and lit a candle at a chapel on the property. The most contentious debate over Orthodox Easter occurred in Georgia, where church leaders and the government agreed to allow parishioners to attend dusk-to-dawn Easter vigil services. The agreement meant worshippers were allowed to attend overnight services in large cathedrals despite a curfew, but they were required to maintain a distance of 2 meters. Those who attend small churches had to remain outside. Dozens went to the main cathedral in Tbilisi, where Catholicos-Patriarch Ilia II said that the virus had caused fear among many people. In Bulgaria, the government urged people not to attend services but didn’t ban them. Hundreds flocked to outdoor services late on April 18, but many opted to watch on television. “In the current situation, we must be better and more humble,” Prime Minister Boyko Borisov wrote in Facebook. “Let’s do everything we can to be proud of our decisions and actions in years to come.” Easter for the world’s 300 million Orthodox Christian is celebrated about a week after Roman Catholic and Protestant Christians observe the holiday.     
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