Author Archives: Reuters News Agency

As Americans navigate conflicting COVID-19 mask advice, ‘everyone is confused’

By Joseph Ax and Tim Reid

PRINCETON, N.J./SANTA MONICA, Calif. (Reuters) – A COVID-19 surge ignited in parts of the United States by the highly contagious Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy has led to new mask mandates and deep confusion among some people about which guidance to follow.

In Los Angeles County, leaders have reinstated an indoor mask mandate, even for the fully vaccinated. Officials in Houston and New Orleans also raised coronavirus alert levels this week and told people to mask up.

In Florida, however, Governor Ron DeSantis said on Thursday children will not be required to wear masks in school there this fall, arguing that “we need our kids to breathe.” Hours later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters: “If I were a parent in Florida, that would be greatly concerning to me.”

“Everyone is confused about what they should be doing,” said Daniel Blacksheare, a 20-year-old in Santa Monica, California, who said he was infected twice last year. “I don’t understand why we have to suddenly wear a mask again.”

The county sheriff in Los Angeles County said his department will not enforce the measure.

The conflicting advice from officials at city, county, state and federal levels of government comes as hospital officials in the harder-hit states with lower vaccination rates are sounding the alarm about their systems being overwhelmed.

The seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases in the United States is up 53% over the previous week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday. The Delta variant makes up more than 80% of the new cases across the country.

Much of the guidance falls along the same political lines as earlier in the pandemic. Leaders in heavily Republican states generally eschew masks, and Democrats insist upon them.

Schools are a particular tension point nationwide. Children under age 12 are still not eligible for coronavirus vaccines, and many parents consider masks as the best remaining defense.

Yet as some areas return to the classroom in just a few weeks, there are wide divisions over whether children should be wearing masks in schools.

The American Academy of Pediatrics this week released updated recommendations for schools that included mask wearing for everyone over the age of 2, regardless of vaccination status. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that unvaccinated children should wear masks in schools.

But the CDC on Thursday said it is not changing its mask guidance for schools, including that masks are only required for those over age 2 who have not been vaccinated. The CDC in May relaxed its guidance so that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most public spaces.

In Princeton, New Jersey, Ximena Skovron said she finds the dust-ups over masks and what the guidance actually is to be perplexing.

“I’m vaccinated, and the rules seem to change,” she said. “But it’s also inconsistent. You’ve got two grocery stores in town: one requires masks, one doesn’t.”

Skovron said she does not think states should reimpose mask mandates.

“Vaccines are readily available. The ability to protect yourself is there,” she said. “If you refuse, you should assume the risk instead of imposing on the rest of society.”

Her 6-year-old daughter will enter first grade this fall, and Skovron said she hopes the school does not require masks, citing the extremely low rate of serious COVID-19 incidence among small children.

“It just seems like such overkill for children to wear masks,” she said.

But Melissa Riccobono, 44, of Lawrenceville, New Jersey, said she is pro-mask and thinks there should be mandates when and where necessary.

“If you’re choosing not to vaccinate, that’s your choice, and I’m fine with that – but it’s not your choice whether to wear a mask,” she said.

(Reporting by Tim Reid in Santa Monica, California, and Joseph Ax in Princeton, New Jersey; Additional reporting by Brad Brooks in Lubbock, Texas, and Carl O’Donnell in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Grant McCool)

United States buys 200 million more doses of Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine

(Reuters) -Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech said on Friday the U.S. government has purchased 200 million additional doses of their COVID-19 vaccine to help with pediatric vaccination as well as possible booster shots – if they are needed.

A Biden administration official with knowledge of the contract said that as part of the agreement, Pfizer will provide the United States with 65 million doses intended for children under 12, including doses available immediately after the vaccine is authorized for that age group.

The U.S. government also has the option to buy an updated version of the vaccine targeting new variants of the virus.

The deal comes as the Delta variant of the coronavirus sweeps across the country and drives up infections, contributing to the debate over whether or not Americans will need a booster dose this fall.

It also follows the government’s move in June to buy 200 million more doses of Moderna Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The purchase brings the total number of doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be supplied to the United States to 500 million, of which roughly 208 million doses have already been delivered, as of Thursday’s data from the government.

“These additional doses will help the U.S. government ensure broad vaccine access into next year,” Pfizer Chief Executive Officer Albert Bourla said in a statement.

Pfizer last year signed a deal with the U.S. government for 100 million doses of the vaccine for nearly $2 billion, with an option to buy 500 million more doses.

A majority of the new doses will be supplied by the end of the year, and the remaining 90 million will be delivered by April 30, the companies said.

Pfizer and BioNTech have designed a new version of their vaccine targeting the Delta variant, which they plan to test in the coming weeks, but have said the current vaccine could also provide protection against the variant.

Pfizer earlier this month said the companies plan to seek authorization from U.S. and European regulators for a booster dose of their COVID-19 vaccine.

The U.S. government has said Americans who have been fully vaccinated do not need a booster COVID-19 shot at this time.

Advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday considered evidence suggesting that a booster dose of COVID-19 vaccines could increase protection among people with compromised immune systems.

CDC scientists told advisers that boosters for the immunocompromised would need to wait for regulatory action from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration – either full approval of vaccines or amendments to their current emergency use authorizations – before the CDC could make a recommendation.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru and Michael Erman in New Jersey; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Maju Samuel and Dan Grebler)

White House sees YouTube, Facebook as ‘Judge, Jury & Executioner’ on vaccine misinformation

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The White House has YouTube, not just Facebook, on its list of social media platforms officials say are responsible for an alarming spread of misinformation about COVID vaccines and are not doing enough to stop it, sources familiar with the administration’s thinking said.

The criticism comes just a week after President Joe Biden called Facebook and other social media companies “killers” for failing to slow the spread of misinformation about vaccines. He has since softened his tone.

A senior administration official said one of the key problems is “inconsistent enforcement.” YouTube – a unit of Alphabet Inc’s Google – and Facebook get to decide what qualifies as misinformation on their platforms. But the results have left the White House unhappy.

“Facebook and YouTube… are the judge, the jury and the executioner when it comes to what is going on in their platforms,” an administration official said, describing their approach to COVID misinformation. “They get to grade their own homework.”

Some of the main pieces of vaccine misinformation the Biden administration is fighting include that the COVID-19 vaccines are ineffective, false claims that they carry microchips and that they hurt women’s fertility, the official said.

Social media companies have come under fire recently from Biden, his press secretary, Jen Psaki, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who have all said the spread of lies about vaccines is making it harder to fight the pandemic and save lives.

A recent report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which has also been highlighted by the White House, showed 12 anti-vaccine accounts are spreading nearly two-thirds of anti-vaccine misinformation online. Six of those accounts are still posting on YouTube.

“We would like to see more done by everybody” to limit the spread of inaccurate information from those accounts, the official said.

The fight against vaccine misinformation has become a top priority for the Biden administration at a time when the pace of vaccinations has slowed considerably despite the risk posed by the Delta variant, with people in many parts of the country hostile to being vaccinated.

The requests to Facebook and YouTube come after the White House reached out to Facebook, Twitter and Google in February about clamping down on COVID misinformation, seeking their help to stop it from going viral, another senior administration official said then.

“Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla in the room when it comes to vaccine misinformation… but Google has a lot to answer for and somehow manages to get away with it always because people forget they own YouTube,” said Imran Ahmed, CCDH founder and chief executive.

YouTube spokeswoman Elena Hernandez said that since March 2020, the company has removed over 900,000 videos containing COVID-19 misinformation and terminated YouTube channels of people identified in the CCDH report. She said the company’s policies are based on the content of the video, rather than the speaker.

“If any remaining channels mentioned in the report violate our policies, we will take action, including permanent terminations,” she said.

On Monday, YouTube also said it will add more credible health information and as well as tabs for viewers to click on.

The senior administration official cited four issues on which the administration has asked Facebook to provide specific data, but the company has been reticent to comply.

These include how much vaccine misinformation exists on its platform, who is seeing the inaccurate claims, what the company is doing to reach out to them and how does Facebook know the steps it is taking are working.

The official said the answers Facebook has given are not “good enough.” Facebook spokesman Kevin McAlister said the company has removed over 18 million pieces of COVID-19 misinformation since the start of the pandemic and that its own data shows that for people in the United States using the platform, vaccine hesitancy has declined by 50% since January and vaccine acceptance is high.

In a separate blog post last Saturday, Facebook called on the administration to stop “finger-pointing,” laying out the steps it had taken to encourage users to get vaccinated.

But the administration official said the blog post did not have any metrics of success. The Biden administration’s broad concern is that the platforms are “either lying to us and hiding the ball, or they’re not taking it seriously and there isn’t a deep analysis of what’s going on in their platforms,” the official said. “That calls any solutions they have into question.”

(Reporting by Nandita Bose; Editing by Chris Sanders and Dan Grebler)

China bars for-profit tutoring in core school subjects -document

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China is barring tutoring for profit in core school subjects to ease financial pressures on families that have contributed to low birth rates, news that sent shockwaves through its vast private education sector and share prices plunging.

The policy change, which also restricts foreign investment in a sector that had become essential to success in Chinese school exams, was contained in a government document widely circulated on Friday and verified by sources.

The move threatens to decimate China’s $120 billion private tutoring industry and triggered a heavy selloff in shares of tutoring firms traded in Hong Kong and New York including New Oriental Education & Technology Group and Koolearn Technology Holding Ltd.

All institutions offering tutoring on the school curriculum will be registered as non-profit organizations, and no new licenses will be granted, according to the document, which says it was distributed by China’s State Council, or cabinet, to local governments and is dated July 19.

More than 75% of students aged from around 6 to 18 in China attended after-school tutoring classes in 2016, according to the most recent figures from the Chinese Society of Education, and anecdotal evidence suggests that percentage has risen.

China International Capital Corp said the rules are “tougher than market expectations, and we expect material impact on future business and capital market activities.”

The pressure for children to succeed in an increasingly competitive society has given rise to the term Jiwa, or “chicken baby”, which refers to children pumped with extracurricular classes and energy-boosting “chicken blood” by anxious parents.

Existing online tutoring firms will be subject to extra scrutiny and after-school tutoring prohibited during weekends, public holidays and school vacations, the document said. China’s State Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Curriculum-based tutoring institutions would be barred from raising money through listings or other capital-related activities, while listed companies would be banned from investing in such institutions, according to the document.

China’s for-profit education sector has been under scrutiny as part of Beijing’s push to ease pressure on school children and reduce a cost burden on parents that has contributed to a drop in birth rates. In May, China said it would allow couples to have up to three children, from two previously.

The policy aims to reduce burdens on students and family finances “effectively” within one year and “significantly” within three, the document said.

Three sources told Reuters last month that the crackdown is being driven from the top. In June the official Xinhua news agency quoted President Xi Jinping as saying schools, rather than tutoring firms, should be responsible for student learning.

FOREIGN INVESTMENT RESTRICTIONS

The new policy would also bar foreign investors from investing in China’s curriculum-based tutoring businesses through mergers and acquisitions, franchises, or variable interest entity (VIEs) arrangements, according to the document. VIEs are a commonly used structure to circumvent rules restricting foreign investment in certain industries.

Those which have already violated the rules must make corrective measures, it added.

“The worst case in our scenario analysis could imply 70%+ K12 revenue plunge for leaders,” Citi wrote, referring to kindergarten to grade 12.

New Oriental’s Hong Kong-traded shares slumped as much as 50.4% to their lowest since its listing late last year. Scholar Education Group and Koolearn Technology Holding Ltd both tumbled nearly 30% in Hong Kong.

“The regulations have not been published, and the Company has not received official notification of the regulations,” New Oriental, whose U.S.-listed shares slumped about 60%, said in a statement late on Friday.

TAL Education and Gaotu Techedu, whose U.S. listed shares also tumbled roughly 60% in response to the news, made similar statements about waiting for details.

Shares of other U.S.-listed Chinese education companies, including China Online Education Group, Zhangmen Education Inc and 17 Education & Technology Group Inc also plunged.

Education stocks also saw a sell-off in mainland China, with an index tracking the sector dropping nearly 5%.

The rules threaten the listing ambitions of numerous venture capital-backed education firms, including Alibaba-backed Zuoyebang, and online education platforms Yuanfudao and Classin, both backed by Tencent.

A broad crackdown on China’s massive internet sector has already rattled investors and saw Beijing launch a data-related cybersecurity investigation into ride-hailing giant Didi Global Inc just two days after it raised $4.4 billion in a New York initial public offering.

(Reporting by Samuel Shen in Shanghai, Tony Munroe in Beijing, Julie Zhu in Hong Kong and Tom Westbrook in Singapore; Editing by William Maclean, Andrea Ricci and Philippa Fletcher)

At least 112 dead in India as rains trigger floods, landslides

By Rajendra Jadhav

MUMBAI (Reuters) -At least 112 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages.

Parts of India’s west coast received up to 594 mm (23 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow.

“Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers,” Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Maharashtra’s state government, told journalists.

“Dams and rivers are overflowing. We are forced to release water from dams, and, accordingly, we are moving people residing near the river banks to safer places.”

The navy and army were helping with rescue operations in coastal areas, he added.

At least 38 people were killed in Taliye, 180 km (about 110 miles) southeast of the financial capital Mumbai, when a landslide flattened most of the small village, state government officials said.

In nine other landslides in other parts of Maharashtra 59 people died and another 15 were killed in accidents linked to the heavy rainfall, they said.

A few dozen people were also feared to have been trapped in landslides in Satara and Raigad districts, said a state government official who asked not to be named.

“Rescue operations are going on at various places in Satara, Raigad and Ratnagiri. Due to heavy rainfall and flooded rivers, we are struggling to move rescue machinery quickly,” he said.

Thousands of trucks were stuck on a national highway linking Mumbai with the southern technology hub of Bengaluru, with the road submerged in some places, another Maharashtra government official said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of villages and towns were without electricity and drinking water, he said.

Rivers were also overflowing in the neighboring southern states of Karnataka and Telangana where authorities were monitoring the situation, government officials there said.

Seasonal monsoon rains from June to September cause deaths and mass displacement across South Asia every year, but they also deliver more than 70% of India’s rainfall and are crucial for farmers.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Joe Bavier and Giles Elgood)

What you need to know about the coronavirus right now

(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:

Sydney’s outbreak throws spotlight on vaccine rollout

Australia’s New South Wales state on Friday reported its biggest daily rise in new COVID-19 cases this year, prompting a tighter lockdown in Sydney and a request for additional vaccine doses that was rebuffed by other state leaders.

Australia reported another record day for vaccination with almost 200,000 doses delivered in one day. Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who on Thursday apologized for the slow pace of inoculation, said the latest data signaled the country’s vaccination rollout had turned a corner.

New Zealand will pause its quarantine-free travel arrangement with Australia for at least eight weeks starting Friday night, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said.

Philippines to bar travel from Malaysia, Thailand

The Philippines will suspend travel from Malaysia and Thailand, as well as tighten restrictions in the Manila area, in a bid to prevent the spread of the contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus, the presidential spokesperson said on Friday.

The travel restriction will take effect from Sunday and run to the end of July.

Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City extends lockdown

Vietnam will extend a strict lockdown in Ho Chi Minh City until Aug. 1, state media reported on Friday.

After successfully containing the virus for much of the pandemic, Vietnam has been facing a complicated outbreak of the virus, with southern business hub Ho Chi Minh City and surrounding provinces accounting for most new infections.

Banking and securities services in the city will be reduced to minimal levels, while unnecessary construction projects will be suspended.

Taiwan to ease restrictions as cases drop

Taiwan will ease its COVID-19 restrictions next week, the government said on Friday, as rapidly falling case numbers give authorities confidence to further lower the alert level.

Taiwan imposed restrictions on gatherings, including closing entertainment venues and limiting restaurants to take-out service, in mid-May following a spike in domestic cases after months of no or few cases apart from imported ones.

While some of those curbs were eased this month, the so-called level 3 alert has been in force and is due to end on July 26.

Pfizer says U.S. govt buying 200 mln more doses

Pfizer and German partner BioNTech said on Friday the U.S. government had purchased 200 million additional doses of their COVID-19 vaccine and had the option to buy an updated version of the vaccine targeting new variants of the virus.

The announcement brings the total number of the doses to be supplied to the United States to 500 million, out of which roughly 208 million doses have already been delivered.

A longer gap between doses of Pfizer’s vaccine leads to higher overall antibody levels than a shorter gap, a British study found on Friday, but there is a sharp drop in antibody levels after the first dose.

Sinopharm’s shot offers weaker protection among elderly

Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine was less effective in offering protection against the disease among the elderly, according to the results of a Hungarian study.

The study of 450 participants who had received two doses of the vaccine showed measurable antibody levels were present in about 90% of people under the age of 50, but the protection reduced as age increased.

(Compiled by Linda Noakes; Editing by Joe Bavier)

After the flood, Germany battles to clear mountains of trash

By Andi Kranz and Leon Kuegeler

BAD NEUENAHR, Germany (Reuters) – Germany’s most devastating floods in 60 years have created mountains of trash, from broken fridges to wrecked cars, piled up on roadsides and in makeshift dumps. Disposing of it could take weeks and local leaders have appealed for help.

Amid the stench and fear of disease, the country that pioneered modern waste management is struggling to cope with the tens of thousands of tonnes of wreckage strewn across the towns and villages of its western Rhinelands after the heaviest 24-hour deluge on record.

The flooding claimed at least 180 lives.

A week on, much of the trash has been heaped into piles so that streets are passable or carted off to makeshift dumps.

For resident Hans-Peter Bleken in Bad Neuenahr, a wine-growing hub in Rhineland-Palatinate that was one of the towns worst hit, a clean-up operation led by the fire brigade and army has been a “brilliant help”.

“The next big problem is going to be the huge piles of household rubbish,” he told Reuters, saying the stench from rotting food waste was everywhere.

“We have beaten corona but if we now get the bacteria, the rats and more viruses then that will be our problem.”

Germany pioneered modern waste management in the 1970s, introducing the concept of separating rubbish to go for recycling, incineration or into landfill.

Yet the sheer amount of trash is far more than the waste-management industry can cope with. Construction firms and farmers are helping to shift wreckage, but with storage facilities full up, temporary dumps are having to be found.

“The greatest challenge is the huge amounts of bulky waste,” said Anna Ephan, a spokesperson for Remondis, the largest private waste management company in Germany. “The amounts are inconceivable.”

EXPORTING TRASH

In Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia, governor Armin Laschet told a news conference on Thursday: “It won’t be possible to dispose of all the waste locally. We need wider help.”

Laschet is the conservative candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel at a general election in September. A poll this week for Spiegel magazine found 60% of Germans considered Laschet to be a poor crisis manager.

The cathedral city of Cologne, the state’s largest city with a population of more than a million, has issued an appeal on Facebook for help to clear “unimaginable quantities” of trash.

“The districts and households affected need urgent support to quickly cope with this task, as our existing infrastructure is already exhausted,” read the appeal, which included a hotline number for helpers to call.

Most of the rubbish will have to be incinerated, but with municipal and commercial facilities running more or less flat out before the flood catastrophe, there is scant spare capacity.

“This is coming on top of all the rubbish that we already process – and it’s unexpected,” said Bernhard Schodrowski of the BDE waste-management industry association.

There are huge challenges to safely store the rubbish to minimize the risk of disease, said Schodrowski, while many companies in the sector are also battling to restore supplies of clean water and repair sewage systems.

“We’re hopeful but it will be a question of weeks before we are able to master this challenge,” said Schodrowski.

(Additional reporting by Anneli Palmen in Duesseldorf, Writing and additional reporting by Douglas Busvine; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

From ‘congratulations’ to ‘fully canceled’: California cafe owners hit roadblock

By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) – After more than a year of heavy losses at their two cafes in the San Francisco Bay Area, Amy and Chris Hillyard were relieved to get word in May that they’d been approved for a $381,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The money was from a fund earmarked by Congress for restaurants hurt by the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, like the Hillyards’ Farley’s SF and Farley’s East operations.

Equal to their losses last year, it would let the couple pay back debt, hire new employees, expand opening hours, replace a broken freezer, buy tables and chairs for outdoor dining, and do all the other things Chris Hillyard says need to get done “to get back to normal and be ready for normal, come September,” when more workers might be expected to return to nearby office buildings.

Then, last month, the Hillyards learned they won’t get the money after all.

“We are back in a holding pattern” Chris Hillyard said. “It’s not a very fun place to be.”

Even after roughly $800 billion in aid from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and nearly $30 billion more earmarked for hard-hit restaurants this year, small U.S. businesses face an uncertain outlook.

Many enterprises that were thriving before the pandemic are still hobbled.

At the same time, a widely predicted wave of bankruptcies has not materialized, with commercial bankruptcies in 2020 at their lowest level in five years and year-to-date filings lower still, according to data provider Epiq AACER.

Complicating the picture are regional discrepancies.

Some 35% of San Francisco Bay Area establishments like those of the Hillyards still report a large negative impact from the pandemic and more than 41% think it will take more than another six months to return to normal, a U.S. Census Bureau survey from mid-July shows. Meanwhile, in Atlanta, only 21% and 31%, respectively, of respondents reported the same concerns.

That suggests a genuine national recovery may be some ways off.

“The problem is for the economy, the pandemic has gone on longer than we thought, and it looks like different industries and different geographies have been affected very differently,” said Karen Dynan, an economics professor at Harvard University. “It’s just another reason that we are not going to see the economy go back to full employment overnight.”

NOT BACK TO NORMAL

Reuters has been following the Hillyards and their cafe business since March 2020, when they laid off their entire staff after California shut down all “non-essential” businesses. They reopened six weeks later with a PPP loan, got through the summer with help from donors like Golden State Warriors basketball star Stephen Curry, and pulled through the winter viral surge and renewed government curbs on business with a second PPP loan.

But despite the state’s decision to end all pandemic-era restrictions in mid-June, Farley’s in San Francisco is making only 70% of its pre-pandemic sales. Farley’s East in Oakland – the bigger operation of the two – is at just 40%, and any hope for improvement depends on how businesses manage their employees’ return to offices.

“I think the service sector that supported the downtown work community is one we should be worried about it,” Dynan said, because many businesses will likely allow at least some remote work in the post-pandemic period. “Breakfast places, lunch shops, dry cleaners, pharmacies downtown – they are just not going to see demand that’s as robust.”

The Hillyards have spent the $520,000 in federal aid they received, most of it on payroll for their 20 employees.

The latest grant the Hillyards were counting on was part of the $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden in March, which included $28.6 billion for restaurants that lost money during the pandemic.

By the time the restaurant fund had run out, the owners of 278,000 restaurants had applied. Some 101,000 got grants ranging from as large as $10 million to as small as $1,000, critical support for one of the sectors hardest hit by the pandemic.

The Hillyards were relieved to be among them.

“Congratulations,” the May 18 email from the SBA read. “Your SBA Restaurant Revitalization Fund application has been approved.” It continued, “The SBA will now process the funding of this award directly to your Bank account within 3-7 business days from this notification.”

Weeks went by. The Hillyards made inquiries. “Be assured the award funds are reserved for those applications that have been fully approved and will be sent,” one SBA portal response reviewed by Reuters said.

On June 23, Chris Hillyard received another email from the SBA. “We regret to inform you that, due to recent court rulings, the SBA will not be able to disburse your Restaurant Revitalization Fund award,” it read.

A legal group founded by Stephen Miller and Mark Meadows, who held senior positions in former President Donald Trump’s White House, had sued the SBA in Texas, arguing that the Biden administration’s efforts to prioritize applicants on the basis of race and gender was unconstitutional.

On June 11, the court barred the SBA from handing out any more of the funds to priority applicants like Farley’s, which is majority woman-owned because of Amy Hillyard’s larger share in the business.

“In coming days … you will see the status of your application in SBA’s portal change to ‘fully canceled,'” the June 23 email said. Some 2,964 other restaurant owners got similar notices, SBA said. A spokesperson for the SBA said the agency was “frustrated” with the outcome and remains committed to helping disadvantaged businesses.

The Independent Restaurant Coalition, a U.S. trade group which lobbied to get the grant program into the pandemic relief bill in the first place, is now trying to convince Congress to replenish the program’s funds.

To the Hillyards, that’s cold comfort, even as the economy as a whole, despite the rising tide of COVID-19 infections, surges back to life. Their cafes continue to lose money each month.

“Everything is going back to normal – but our business is not back to normal, and it’s going to take us a lot longer to get there,” Chris Hillyard said.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)

U.S. Justice Department to launch new crackdown on firearms trafficking

By Sarah N. Lynch

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department this week is formally launching a new effort to crack down on firearms trafficking, in a strategy that involves the creation of five strike forces that will partner with local law enforcement to disrupt criminals selling guns used in crimes.

The strike forces, which were first announced in June, will be concentrated in “significant gun trafficking corridors” including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

As part of the launch, Attorney General Merrick Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco will pay a visit to the Washington D.C.-based headquarters of the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on Thursday, after which Garland will travel to Chicago to meet with federal and local law enforcement.

“All too often, guns found at crime scenes come from hundreds or even thousands of miles away. We are redoubling our efforts as ATF works with law enforcement to track the movement of illegal firearms used in violent crimes,” Garland said in a statement.

Justice Department officials said in a call with reporters late on Wednesday that the plan entails a “long-term coordinated, multi-jurisdictional strategy” to disrupt trafficking patterns.

One department official said the new strategy differed from prior efforts to step up the prosecution of firearms offenses, noting it establishes “cross-jurisdictional coordination” between the areas that supply the illegal firearms and those where the guns are used to commit crimes.

“This new approach that links law enforcement and prosecutors and locations where violence is occurring with the law enforcement and prosecutors in the jurisdictions where the firearms originate broadens our focus to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated response in both of those areas,” the official added.

The Justice Department also said that federal law enforcement is stepping up efforts in other ways as well.

For instance, the U.S. Marshals Service recently conducted a sweep with state and local authorities to pick up fugitives wanted for state crimes such as murder, aggravated assault and rape.

Since May 31, more than 700 fugitives have been arrested, 361 of whom were wanted for murder, the official said.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Peter Cooney and Steve Orlofsky)

Former UN rights boss to head probe into Israel, Hamas alleged crimes

GENEVA (Reuters) – Former United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay will head an international commission of inquiry into alleged crimes committed during the latest conflict between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, the U.N.’s Human Rights Council said in a statement on Thursday.

The council agreed in late May to launch the investigation with a broad mandate to probe all alleged violations, not just in Gaza and the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but also in Israel during hostilities that were halted by a May 21 ceasefire.

At least 250 Palestinians and 13 people in Israel were killed in the fierce fighting, which saw Gaza militants fire rockets towards Israeli cities and Israel carry out air strikes across the coastal enclave.

Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the council at the time that deadly Israeli strikes on Gaza might constitute war crimes and that Hamas had violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets into Israel.

Israel rejected the resolution adopted by the Geneva forum at an emergency special session and said it would not cooperate.

Pillay, a former South African judge who served as U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008-2014, will lead the three-person panel also composed of Indian expert Miloon Kothari and Australian expert Chris Sidoti, said the statement issued by the Human Rights Council. The investigators, who have been tasked with trying to identify those responsible for violations with a view to ensure they are held accountable, are due to present their first report in June 2022.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)