World girds for months of trouble as virus pushes west

BANGKOK (AP) — Nations around the world girded for months of disruptions from the new virus Thursday as its unrelenting spread brought ballooning infections, economic fallout and sweeping containment measures.

“Countries should be preparing for sustained community transmission,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, leader of the World Health Organization, said of the 2-month-old virus outbreak. “Our message to all countries is: This is not a one-way street. We can push this virus back. Your actions now will determine the course of the outbreak in your country.”

In places around the globe, a split was developing. China has been issuing daily reports of new infections that are drastically down from their highs, factories there are gradually reopening and there is a growing sense that normalcy might not be that far off. Meanwhile, countries elsewhere are seeing escalating caseloads and a litany of cancellations, closures, travel bans and supply shortages.

There are about 17 times as many new infections outside China as in it, WHO said, with widening outbreaks in South Korea, Italy and Iran responsible for a majority.

“We are seeing this rapid escalation around the world,” said Dr. Leana Wen, a public health professor at George Washington University in the United States. “At this point I believe things will get much worse before they get better.”

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U.S. virus death toll hits 11; feds investigate nursing home

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal authorities announced an investigation of the Seattle-area nursing home at the center of an outbreak of the new coronavirus as the U.S. death toll climbed to 11, including the first fatality outside Washington state.

Officials in California's Placer County, near Sacramento, said Wednesday an elderly person who tested positive after returning from a San Francisco-to-Mexico cruise had died. The victim had underlying health problems, authorities said. California Gov. Gavin Newsom late Wednesday declared a statewide emergency due to coronavirus. Washington and Florida had already declared emergencies, and Hawaii also joined them Wednesday.

Washington also announced another death, bringing its total to 10. Most of those who died were residents of Life Care Center, a nursing home in Kirkland, a suburb east of Seattle. At least 39 cases have been reported in the Seattle area, where researchers say the virus may have been circulating undetected for weeks. Vice President Mike Pence was expected to meet with Washington Gov. Jay Inslee near Olympia on Thursday.

Seema Verma, head of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the agency is sending inspectors to Life Care along with experts from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to figure out what happened and determine whether the nursing home followed guidelines for preventing infections.

Last April, the state fined Life Care $67,000 over infection-control deficiencies following two flu outbreaks that affected 17 patients and staff. An unannounced follow-up inspection in June determined that Life Care had corrected the problems, Verma said.

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Science Says: How risky is that virus? Your mind may mislead

NEW YORK (AP) — Anna Alexander, a property manager in Virginia Beach, Virginia, started the day Monday thinking that she might avoid shaking hands because of the coronavirus outbreak. Then somebody stuck out a hand to shake.

She took it.

“I'm a business person,” Alexander, 65, explained. “But if somebody else does it next time, I might try to be careful because of the coronavirus.”

As the viral infections spread across the globe, everybody has to make a decision: How worried should I be about getting infected, and what should I do about it?

Those decisions can have wide impacts. “Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” tweeted U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome M. Adams on Feb. 29. He explained masks aren't effective in protecting the general public “but if healthcare providers can't get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"

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How winning turned Biden into a confident candidate

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Joe Biden strode confidently to the podium, shutters clicking, a bank of cameras beaming to a national audience.

“Those of you who have been knocked down, those of you who have been knocked out, this is your campaign,” Biden said Wednesday. “We welcome all of those who want to join us. We’re building a movement.”

The former vice president has found his stride and his voice as he becomes a front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Gone is the sometimes mumbling, almost wistful 77-year-old, standing before small Iowa crowds full of voters lamenting the state of the union. “What in God’s name is happening?” he’d ask, after deviating from anything approaching prepared remarks.

Instead, there’s a confident candidate, jabbing at Bernie Sanders, his chief rival for the Democratic nomination, yet reserving his biggest swings for the Republican president he hopes to topple in the fall. “If we give this man another four years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally change the character of this nation,” Biden said Wednesday.

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Russian, Turkish presidents meet as Syria violence continues

MOSCOW (AP) — The Turkish and Russian presidents are set to hold talks in Moscow aimed at ending hostilities in northwestern Syria involving their forces along with proxies that threaten to pit Turkey against Russia in a direct military conflict

So far, President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have managed to coordinate their interests in Syria even though Moscow has backed Syrian President Bashar Assad while Ankara has supported its foes throughout Syria's nine-year war. Both Russia and Turkey appear eager to avoid a showdown, but the sharply conflicting interests in Idlib province make it difficult to negotiate a mutually acceptable compromise.

A Russia-backed Syrian offensive to regain control over Idlib — the last opposition-controlled region in the country — has pushed nearly a million Syrians toward Turkey. Erdogan responded by opening Turkey's gateway to Europe in an apparent bid to coerce the West to offer more support to Ankara.

Erdogan has sent thousands of troops into Idlib to repel the Syrian army, and clashes on the ground and in the air that have left dozens dead on both sides. Russia, which has helped Assad reclaim most of the country’s territory, has signaled it wouldn't sit idle to see Turkey rout his troops.

After Turkey had downed several Syrian jets, Moscow warned Ankara that its aircraft would be unsafe if they enter Syrian airspace — a veiled threat to engage Russian military assets in Syria.

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Turkey vows justice for migrant killed at border with Greece

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has vowed to seek justice for a migrant it says was killed on the border with Greece after Greek authorities fired tear gas and stun grenades to push back dozens of people attempting to cross over. Greece had denied that anyone was killed in the clashes.

Thousands of migrants have arrived at the Pazarkule border gate — near the Greek border village of Kastanies — in the past week after Turkey declared its previously guarded gateways to Europe open, triggering clashes with Greek border guards.

On Wednesday, one person was killed and five others were wounded after Greek police and border guards opened fired on the migrants making a push to cross the border, Turkish authorities said. The Greek government, however, rejected the assertion as "fake news."

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said Turkey was determined to carry the migrant's death to the European Court of Human Rights.

"Our Foreign Ministry will make it an international issue," he told Turkish broadcaster CNN-Turk in an interview a day before he traveled to the border area.

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China-made phones, tablets tainted by coerced Uighur labor

NANCHANG, China (AP) — In a lively Muslim quarter of Nanchang city, a sprawling Chinese factory turns out computer screens, cameras and fingerprint scanners for a supplier to international tech giants such as Apple and Lenovo. Throughout the neighborhood, women in headscarves stroll through the streets, and Arabic signs advertise halal supermarkets and noodle shops.

Yet the mostly Muslim ethnic Uighurs who labor in the factory are isolated within a walled compound that is fortified with security cameras and guards at the entrance. Their forays out are limited to rare chaperoned trips, they are not allowed to worship or cover their heads, and they must attend special classes in the evenings, according to former and current workers and shopkeepers in the area.

The connection between OFILM, the supplier that owns the Nanchang factory, and the tech giants is the latest sign that companies outside China are benefiting from coercive labor practices imposed on the Uighurs, a Turkic ethnic group, and other minorities.

Over the past four years, the Chinese government has detained more than a million people from the far west Xinjiang region, most of them Uighurs, in internment camps and prisons where they go through forced ideological and behavioral re-education. China has long suspected the Uighurs of harboring separatist tendencies because of their distinct culture, language and religion.

When detainees “graduate” from the camps, documents show, many are sent to work in factories. A dozen Uighurs and Kazakhs told the AP they knew people who were sent by the state to work in factories in China’s east, known as inner China — some from the camps, some plucked from their families, some from vocational schools. Most were sent by force, although in a few cases it wasn’t clear if they consented.

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Amid tornado devastation, surviving homes beacons of hope

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — In the early hours of Tuesday morning, Darrell Jennings walked out his front door and heard screaming.

A tornado had just torn through his quiet Tennessee neighborhood, and the house next door, along with numerous others, had been leveled to its foundations.

Except for a few broken windows, however, the Jennings' house was still standing. It quickly became a shelter for those who were suddenly left with nothing. The next-door neighbors, who had miraculously survived, straggled over. Others joined them.

“It's like we were a beacon,” Amy Jennings said an interview Wednesday. “We had a house full of muddy people in their pajamas. A lot of little babies were screaming. Our teenage kids were amazing. They went into action. They held those kids and got them calm.”

The monstrous tornado tore a 2-mile-long (3.2-kilometer-long) path through the county early Tuesday, killing 18 people, including five children under 13. Another 88 were injured, some of them critically. Crews were still sifting through debris on Wednesday and county officials warned that the death toll could still rise.

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Iran says virus deaths reach 107 amid 3,513 confirmed cases

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran will set up checkpoints to limit travel between major cities and urged citizens on Thursday to reduce their use of paper money to fight a spreading outbreak of the new coronavirus, which has killed at least 107 people across the Islamic Republic.

The announcement in Iran came as Palestinian authorities said the storied Nativity Church in the biblical city of Bethlehem, built atop the spot where Christians believe Jesus was born, will close indefinitely later in the day over coronavirus fears.

These mark the latest disruptions of life across the Mideast from the new virus, which has seen over 3,740 confirmed cases.

Iran's Health Minister Saeed Namaki announced his country's new restrictions at a televised press conference. He added that schools and universities will remain closed through Nowruz, the Persian New Year, on March 20.

He said people should stay in their vehicles at gas stations and allow attendants to fill their gas tanks to avoid the spread of the virus.

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Dogs, cats can't pass on coronavirus, but can test positive

HONG KONG (AP) — Pet cats and dogs cannot pass the new coronavirus on to humans, but they can test positive for low levels of the pathogen if they catch it from their owners.

That's the conclusion of Hong Kong's Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department after a dog in quarantine tested weakly positive for the virus Feb. 27, Feb. 28 and March 2, using the canine's nasal and oral cavity samples.

A unidentified spokesman for the department was quoted in a news release as saying. “There is currently no evidence that pet animals can be a source of infection of COVID-19 or that they become sick."

Scientists suspect the virus known as SARS-CoV-2 that causes the disease originated in bats before passing it on to another species, possibly a small wild mammal, that passed it on to humans. However, experts from the School of Public Health of The University of Hong Kong, the College of Veterinary Medicine and Life Sciences of the City University of Hong Kong and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) have unanimously agreed that the dog has a low-level of infection and it is “likely to be a case of human-to-animal transmission."

The dog, and another also in quarantine which has tested negative for the virus, will be tested again before being released. The department suggested any pets, including dogs and cats, from households where someone has tested positive for the virus should be put into quarantine.