International students wonder if U.S. business school worth it in coronavirus era

Humeyra Pamuk
Jan Wolfe

By Humeyra Pamuk and Jan Wolfe

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - This summer, dozens of incoming students at New York's Columbia Business School had planned to sail around the coast of Croatia for a week to get to know each other. Instead, they are chatting online and playing icebreaker games on Zoom.

With the coronavirus still spreading, social gatherings like the sailing trip organized by students are on hold, and there is a good chance that when school starts in September, many classes and events will be held online.

Columbia and other elite U.S. business schools like Harvard Business School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania have said they will likely move to a "hybrid" model of virtual and in-person learning.

It is a far cry from the typical MBA experience which features close contact with fellow students, in-person networking events, trips overseas and lunch sessions with CEOs. The changes have some students reconsidering the value of a degree that can cost upwards of $100,000 a year in tuition, housing, and other fees.

International students, who make up roughly 35 percent of the student body at most elite U.S. business schools, are particularly unsure about the decision.

"The virtual environment might take away a chunk of the MBA experience," said a 27-year-old student from China who was admitted to Wharton and is considering whether to defer for a year.

"That's what a lot of people including myself are thinking through now," said the student, who declined to be identified because of concerns about his visa status and employment prospects.

The United States has been hard hit by the coronavirus outbreak, with more than 1.7 million cases and over 100,000 deaths. Higher education has been upended with most schools sending students home in the spring and moving classes online.

The U.S. hosts over a million international students at its higher education institutions, according to the State Department data. International candidates account for 36 percent of people who enroll in full-time U.S. MBA programs, according to Graduate Management Admission Council, an association of business schools.

If institutions do not resume in-person learning, enrollment, particularly among international students, is likely to take a hit, according to a GMAC survey.

Only 43 percent of the international MBA candidates surveyed said they planned to enroll if programs begin online. Forty-eight percent of them indicated they would defer in that scenario.

Half a dozen international students who have been accepted to the Class of 2022 at U.S. business schools told Reuters they have lots of doubts: Will online classes be fulfilling? What happens to on-campus recruitment events? Even if daily life resumes, will the job market take years to recover?

"The most important part of the MBA is recruiting and even that is going to be virtual," said a second Chinese student admitted to Columbia Business School, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "I don't need people to teach me basic accounting. I already know all that."

He said he still plans to attend as it was too late to change his plans.

TRAVEL OBSTACLES

For international students who press ahead with the MBA, another challenge may be getting to the United States.

Most air travel has been restricted, and the State Department in March suspended routine visa services worldwide.

The department said it is engaging with U.S. schools to help international students navigate the visa process, but it declined to provide specifics.

With so much uncertainty, business schools are taking unusual steps to accommodate students.

Harvard is allowing students to defer for a year and Wharton has said it will grant a deferral to international students who cannot start the program on time because of a visa issue.

Columbia told students in May that it would not allow deferrals, but advised students who cannot matriculate for a particular reason to contact the admissions team.

Some students, facing visa delays, travel restrictions and the increased cost and hassle of flying, intend to start the semester online.

"I plan to stay at my home in Beijing and take the courses remotely," a third Chinese student admitted to Columbia said.

Sanjeev Khagram, the dean of the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, said he is telling international students that "virtual teams" are the future, so adjusting to online interaction has its upsides.

"Being effective in this virtual world actually gives them a competitive advantage," Khagram said.

Meanwhile, the sailing trip for incoming Columbia students is on hold indefinitely.

"Although this spring/summer isn't unfolding how we hoped it would, our class is developing a unique bond over this shared once in a generation experience," the organizers said on the event's website.

(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk and Jan Wolfe; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Alistair Bell)

Go-go bars gone as coronavirus hits Bangkok's sex district

Jiraporn Kuhakan, Matthew Tostevin


MAY 29, 2020 

BANGKOK (Reuters) - The black leather party masks that performers May and Som wear for their fetish shows in Bangkok are definitely not the sort to stop the coronavirus.


An 18+ sign is seen inside the Patpong museum at the nightlife and sex trade district, during the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak in Bangkok, Thailand, May 26, 2020. REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha

Behind closed doors, they practise for the day when health restrictions are lifted and tourists return, but they have no idea when and worry that the city’s infamous Patpong red-light district could be very different by then.

“This kind of place will be the last to reopen,” said May 31. Like Som, she goes only by her Thai nickname.

“Even when it does reopen, customers will be worried about their safety,” she said at the BarBar club on Patpong’s Soi 2 street. BarBar and other clubs such as “Bada Bing” and “Fresh Boys” are shuttered and the nights are largely silent.

Thailand shut bars and clubs in mid-March as coronavirus cases surged. It halted international passenger flights, stopping the tourism that had made Bangkok the world’s most visited city for four years.

Patpong went dark.


But residents say the decline had already begun for a red-light district that flourished in the 1970s as a rest stop for U.S. forces in Indochina.

“This COVID-19 is an accelerant of change,” said Michael Ernst, an Austrian 25-year veteran of the district and former bar owner who opened the Patpong Museum weeks before the new coronavirus reached Thailand.

“The go-go bar and its very one-dimensional concept of a stage and ladies dancing on it with a number. I think that’s already over, they just don’t know that yet.”
SHIFT

The number of go-go bars in Patpong district has waned in recent years as business has moved to other parts of Bangkok or online and as sex tourism has become a smaller part of the overall tourism industry for Thailand.

For decades, tourism figures were skewed towards men. But the growing importance of Chinese visitors in particular changed that. In 2018, more than 53 percent of tourists were women.


Nonetheless, Patpong’s nightlife district employed thousands of people, mostly young women. Most are now among the 2 million Thais the state planning agency believes may be made unemployed this year because of the impact of the virus.

BarBar is still paying some workers. But the manager of at least one go-go bar on Soi 2 just abandoned the lease.

Patpong had never known it as bad, said 70-year-old Pratoomporn Somritsuk, who for 35 years has run the Old Other Office drinking den.

“A lot of ladies here working in nightlife are mostly from a poor family or upcountry,” she said. “They have no chance to go work in a company.”

The lockdown has meant the whole sex industry has collapsed. Online escort service Smooci said activity in Bangkok fell to 10 percent in April.

Thailand has now begun to lift some movement restrictions with infections at over 3,000 and deaths nearly 60, but neither rising rapidly. There is talk of tourism resuming.

But a health ministry spokesman said that nightlife venues would be among the last to reopen.


“In the new normal, Patpong will have to adapt a lot. It may end up looking different, but this change will be for the better,” Rungruang Kitpati said.

Social distancing and the sex industry are hard to make compatible, however.

“I can provide alcohol gel or temperature checks,” said 38-year-old Jittra Nawamawat, one of BarBar’s founders. “But staying one metre apart is impossible.”


Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat and Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Kay Johnson and Raju Gopalakrishnan

With a gay protagonist, Pixar short ‘Out’ makes history


CANADIAN, EH

By JAKE COYLE
This image released by Pixar Animation Studios shows a scene from the animated short film "Out," featuring a gay protagonist, the first in Pixar's 25-year history. (Pixar Animation Studios via AP)

This undated image released by Pixar Animation Studios shows Steven Clay Hunter, director of the Pixar Animation short "Out." (Pixar Animation Studios via AP)

NEW YORK (AP) — In Steven Clay Hunter’s 23 years as an animator at Pixar, he has drawn a seven-armed octopus, a Canadian daredevil and a wheezing toy penguin. But there were scenes he never expected to animate until he began working on his short, “Out.”

Hunter wrote and directed the nine-minute Pixar film, which recently debuted on Disney+. It’s about a man named Greg who, while packing up to move, temporarily switches bodies with his dog, Jim. While frantically trying to hide evidence of his boyfriend, Manuel, Greg discovers the courage to reveal his sexual orientation to his parents.


Greg, who’s loosely based on Hunter, is Pixar’s first LGBTQ protagonist. And while “Out” includes some more typically Pixar material (a pair of rainbow animals, a cameo from Wheezy of “Toy Story”), it features images never seen before in the 25 years of the studio, or in the longer history of Disney. Like when Greg and his boyfriend, Manuel, hug each other.

“The first time I drew Greg and Manuel holding each other in the bedroom, I was bawling my face off,” says Hunter. “All this emotion came welling up because I realized I had been in animation for decades and I had never drawn that in my career. It just hit me.”

“Out” is a small movie on a streaming service, not one of Pixar’s global blockbusters. But it has already had an outsized impact and been celebrated as a milestone for inclusion in family entertainment. GLAAD called it “a huge step forward for the Walt Disney Company.”

“‘Out’ represents the best of Disney and Pixar’s legacy as a place for heartwarming stories about finding one’s own inner strength in the face of life’s challenges,” said Jeremy Blacklow, GLAAD’s director of entertainment media.

From his home in Oakland, California, Hunter, a 51-year-old animator making his directorial debut, has humbly taken in the warm responses. He managed to meet his producer, Max Sachar, for a celebratory, socially distanced glass of rose last weekend. But he’s been reluctant to talk about such a personal film.

“I felt like this was something I had to do,” said Hunter in one of his first interviews. “I didn’t come out until I was 27 and I’m 51 now, and I feel like I’m still dealing with it. You can’t hide who you are for half of your life and then not carry that baggage around. You’ve got to process it somehow. I got lucky enough to process it in the making of this movie.”


It’s part joke, part truth that “Out” is labeled “based on a true story.” The first shot is of a magical dog and cat jumping through a rainbow. Hunter has had a dog named Jim but, naturally, hasn’t experienced a canine “Freaky Friday.” But the central story is autobiographical.

“The relationship of Manuel and Greg is something I went through,” he says. “I wasn’t out to my family and I was in a relationship but they didn’t know about him. It took a toll on our relationship and we ended up breaking up because of that. And that break-up led to me coming out to my family, over the phone in a conference room at Pixar.”

Hunter first came up with the idea of a coming-out film five years ago. But it was the Pixar SparkShorts program, which is meant to discover new voices and experiment with different techniques, that presented Hunter with an opportunity. After working on the Spark short “Purl,” he pitched “Out.” It was greenlit and finished by December.

“It was cool that he was telling this coming out story but he was doing so while coming out as a filmmaker,” says Sachar. “It was really wonderful for everyone to be a part of and witness.”

LGBTQ characters have been increasingly appearing in Disney films but often do so fleetingly. Gaston’s sidekick LeFou (Josh Gad) was suggested to be gay in 2017’s live-action “Beauty and the Beast.” Pixar’s “Onward,” released earlier this year, featured what many consider Disney’s first outwardly gay animated character: a police officer voiced by Lena Waithe who refers to her girlfriend. Some Middle East nations banned the film.

“Out,” finally, is far more straightforward. It includes, for example, a tender kiss between Manuel and Greg. To animate it, Hunter approached Wendell Lee, the only other gay animator still at Pixar from Hunter’s early days with the company.

“I just went to him and said, ‘You’ve got to animate this.’ And he was like, ‘Heck yeah,’” says Hunter. “I said: I want a kiss. I don’t want a peck.”

Hunter recently watched “Out” with his family, who live in Canada, over Zoom. It was a moment of connection that he hopes plays out similarly for others during quarantine. For young and old, gay and straight, “Out” is about being proud of who you are, whoever you are.

Reflecting on the film’s significance, Hunter on Thursday noted the passing of playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer. “Out,” not coincidentally, came out on Harvey Milk Day.

“We’re just an extension of that. We’re moving toward more visibility. It doesn’t mean we’re taking over. We’re just trying to tell our stories like everyone else,” says Hunter. “And we’re not going anywhere. We’re here to stay.”

___

Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP

Debate over $600 in jobless aid to intensify as claims rise
THERE SHOULD BE NO DEBATE, THE BOSS SHOULD PAY BETTER , THEN YOU WOULD GO BACK TO WORK

ANY MONEY WE DO MAKE WE SPEND UNLIKE THE PENNY PINCHING 1%

#FIGHTFOR15, UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME $2000 MONTHLY, PAID CHILD CARE, WAGES FOR HOUSEWORK

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER

FILE - In this Thursday, April 2, 2020 file photo a sign explains the closure of a shop in the Pike Place Market in Seattle. As the coronavirus outbreak has caused record number of people to seek unemployment benefits Washington state officials said Thursday that impostors have used the stolen information of tens of thousands of people to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in unemployment benefits. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson,File)


WASHINGTON (AP) — A debate in Congress over whether to extend $600 a week in federally provided benefits to the unemployed looks sure to intensify with the number of people receiving the aid now topping 30 million — one in five workers.

The money, included in a government relief package enacted in March, is set to expire July 31. Yet with the unemployment rate widely expected to still be in the mid-teens by then, members of both parties will face pressure to compromise on some form of renewed benefits for the jobless.

Democrats have proposed keeping the $600-a-week payments through January in a $3 trillion relief package that the House approved this month along party lines. Senate Republicans oppose that measure. They have expressed concern that the federal payments — which come on top of whatever unemployment aid a state provides — would discourage laid-off people from returning to jobs that pay less than their combined state and federal unemployment aid now does.


So far there are no formal negotiations on another relief package. But analysts say the need to address the fate of the $600 weekly benefits could force a resolution of the issue this summer.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, and Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, are promoting a plan that would provide $450 a week for laid-off workers who return to their jobs, as a “back to work” bonus. This payment would also expire by July 31, though.
Larry Kudlow, the top White House economic adviser, said earlier this week that the proposal is “something we’re looking at very carefully.”

Separately, Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., vice chair of the Joint Economic Committee, has proposed reducing the $600 benefit to $300 in stages by the end of the year. This plan, Beyer suggested in an interview, would sharply reduce the number of people who are receiving more money from jobless aid than they would from working.“If you solve that problem, there’s a good chance of extending unemployment,” Beyer said.

Typically, state unemployment aid replaces only about one-third to one-half a laid-off worker’s pay to encourage the recipients to seek new work. The $600 in federal benefits was added as a way to replace all of an average worker’s lost income. But because those who have lost jobs since the virus hit are disproportionately low-wage workers, most of them are receiving more in unemployment aid than they did from their old jobs, economists estimate.

Shannon Conway, director of operations at R&L Hospitality Group in Richmond, which owns five restaurants and a catering company, said she and other restaurant operators have encountered reluctance from some of their laid-off workers to return.

That’s partly because of the $600-a-week in federal unemployment aid, she said. But another factor is the uncertainty about what the restaurant business will look like in the coming weeks and months, Conway added. It’s unlikely that servers will earn anything close to what they used to, she said.

“Recalling staff is definitely an issue,” Conway said. “Why would they give up a sure thing when they know we don’t know what’s going to happen through these early stages of reopening? I can’t guarantee them their same shifts.”

Madelyn Figgers, 26, lost her job as a server in March at one of the restaurants Conway operates, Lunch and Supper. Figgers said the extra $600 in unemployment benefits has allowed her to keep up with all her bills and rent.

“I don’t think I would be able to stay afloat without the $600,” she said.

Figgers acknowledged that the extra money would make her hesitant to return to her old job, particularly if it was for fewer hours than she had before. But she also knows that legally she is required to accept an offer for work, or risk losing all her benefits.

So far, Figgers hasn’t been asked to return. But she doubts that the restaurant industry will return to what it was, when she could earn $300 in tips on a busy weekend night. She is considering leaving the industry and is looking for administrative jobs that she could do from home.

Research by University of Chicago economist Peter Ganong and two of his colleagues has found that, because of the extra $600, two-thirds of laid-off workers are receiving benefits that exceed the paychecks they previously earned from working. One-fifth could receive at least twice their previous pay.

Ganong says that such large payments could delay some laid-off workers from switching to new careers that might be more in demand in the future.

But he also thinks that Congress should keep an enhanced benefit in place because more jobless aid is crucial in the midst of a deep recession. Jobless benefits enable recipients to pay for necessities and cover more bills, including, crucially, their rent or a mortgage, Ganong said.

He proposes replacing the flat $600-a-week payments with a percentage increase to each recipient’s benefit check, with the goal of matching the worker’s previous earnings but not going much higher. Congress did not initially take this route, in part because of doubts that states’ antiquated unemployment systems could handle such a change, but that could be addressed by the end of July, Ganong said.

Andrew Stettner, senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said that unemployment benefit payments are on track to top $70 billion in May, a significant stimulus for the economy.

“The job market has not made a big comeback, and the enhanced unemployment aid is one of the most important fiscal boosts that the federal government can provide to families and the economy,” he said.

___

AP staff writers Sarah Rankin in Richmond and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed to this report.

Shots fired during Denver protest of Minneapolis man’s death

By THOMAS PEIPERT

1 of 22
Denver Police Department officers clear a man who fell to the street after they used tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse a protest outside the State Capitol over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died in police custody in Minneapolis, late Thursday, May 28, 2020, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)


DENVER (AP) — Protesters swarmed Denver on Thursday, blocking traffic and smashing vehicles while running from gunfire and police tear gas after a demonstration against the death of a black man in Minneapolis police custody turned violent.

Hundreds of demonstrators stood in the downtown streets and chanted as darkness fell outside the Colorado State Capitol, where protesters spray-painted graffiti and broke car windows. In other areas of downtown Denver, police in riot gear fired gas canisters, used rubber bullets and walked in a phalanx through the streets to drive protesters away. The protest briefly spilled over onto Interstate 25, blocking all lanes of traffic until police used tear gas to disperse the crowd.




The protests continued into the night, despite Denver Mayor Michael Hancock pleading for calm.

“I certainly understand everyone’s frustration and sense of pain and disgust following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis,” he said in a video posted on Twitter. “But I want to plead to everyone. Let’s demonstrate, but let’s demonstrate peacefully. Leave the weapons home.”

Earlier in the protest, gunfire outside the state Capitol sent people running for cover. Gary Cutler, a spokesman for the Colorado State Patrol, said the shots were fired in a park across the street. Most of the protesters already had left the area and were marching downtown.

Cutler said the Capitol building was locked down, and everyone inside was safe. No injuries have been reported from the shots.

State Rep. Leslie Herod, who was protesting at the Capitol, tweeted, “We just got shot at.” She later said, “We will not be deterred by this unspeakable act of violence.”

Police spokesman Kurt Barnes said it’s unclear if the protesters were being targeted, and no one has been arrested.

About six or seven shots were fired, he said.

Several hundred protesters had gathered to call for justice following the death of Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis on Monday after an officer knelt on his neck for almost eight minutes. In footage recorded by a bystander, Floyd pleaded that he couldn’t breathe.

Some among the Denver protesters carried signs reading “Black Lives Matter” and chanted, “Hey, hey. Ho, ho. Racist police got to go.”

Aerial footage showed several protesters smashing the windows out of at least two vehicles parked outside the Capitol, and others spray-painted graffiti on the Capitol steps.

A cellphone video shot by protester Anabel Escobar, 29, showed a man on the hood of an SUV making its way through the crowd in front of the Capitol. The video showed the driver speeding up and then apparently trying to run the man over after he fell off the hood. The vehicle sped away as other protesters chased it. It was unclear if the man on the hood was injured.


Gov. Jared Polis said Thursday night he was “absolutely shocked” by the video.

“Coloradans are better than this,” he said. “I share the immense anguish we all feel about the unjust murder of George Floyd. But let me be clear, senseless violence will never be healed by more violence.”

As the protest started, The Denver Police Department tweeted a message from Chief Paul Pazen sending condolences to Floyd’s family and saying the city’s officers do not use the tactics employed by the Minneapolis officers.

He called that type of force “inexcusable.”

Four Minneapolis police officers have been fired, and the mayor has called for the officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck to be criminally charged.

The death has led to violent protests in Minneapolis and demonstrations in other cities, including Los Angeles.

7 shot at Louisville protest over fatal police shooting

In a photo provided by Jada W., protesters gather Thursday, May 28, 2020, in downtown Louisville, Ky., against the police shooting of Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police in her home in March. At least seven people were shot during the protest. (Jada W. via AP)
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — At least seven people were in Louisville as protesters turned out to demand justice for Breonna Taylor, a black woman fatally shot by police in her home in March.

Louisville Metro Police confirmed in a statement early Friday that there were at least seven shooting victims, at least one of whom is in critical condition. The statement said there were “some arrests,” but police didn’t provide a number.

“No officers discharged their service weapons,” police spokesman Sgt. Lamont Washington wrote in an email to The Associated Press. Washington said that all seven were civilians.

Around 500 to 600 demonstrators marched through the Kentucky city’s downtown streets on Thursday night, the Courier Journal reported. The protests stretched for more than six hours, ending in the early hours of Friday as rain poured down.

“Understandably, emotions are high,” Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer tweeted just before midnight, sharing a Facebook post asking for peace that he said was written on behalf of Taylor’s mother. “As Breonna’s mother says let’s be peaceful as we work toward truth and justice.”

Taylor, a 26-year-old emergency medical tech, was shot eight times on March 13 after Louisville narcotics detectives knocked down the front door. No drugs were found in the home.

Attention on Taylor’s death has intensified after her family sued the police department earlier this month. The case has attracted national headlines alongside the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia neighborhood in February.

Thursday’s demonstration came as protesters across the country — from Los Angeles to Memphis, Tennessee, to New York to Minneapolis itself — have demonstrated against the death of a black man, George Floyd, in Minneapolis police custody.

Around 12:20 a.m., Fischer tweeted a video that he said was a message from Taylor’s family.

“Louisville, thank you so much for saying Breonna’s name tonight. We are not going to stop until we get justice,” a woman says in the video. “But we should stop tonight before people get hurt. Please go home, be safe and be ready to keep fighting.”Meanwhile, live video from downtown Louisville around 12:30 a.m. showed some protesters behind makeshift wooden barricades, which appeared to be made out of picnic tables spray-painted with the words “You can’t kill us all.” A small fire inside a trash can was visible in the middle of the street.

Police in body armor and face shields held batons and lined up around Louisville City Hall. They appeared to fire rubber bullets and deploy tear gas canisters, fogging the air and inducing coughs among the remaining members of the crowd. Protesters were shown filming police with their cellphones.

Kentuckians are still under social distancing mandates driven by the coronavirus pandemic. Many protesters wore masks.

Chants early Friday included “No justice, no peace” and “Whose streets? Our streets.”

Hello and welcome: robot waiters to the rescue amid virus

By ALEKSANDAR FURTULA and RAF CASERT

1 of 7
Leah Hu, left, and her brother Leon demonstrate the use of robots for serving purposes or for dirty dishes collection, as part of a tryout of measures to respect social distancing and help curb the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus, at the family's Royal Palace restaurant in Renesse, south-western Netherlands, Wednesday, May 27, 2020. (AP Photo/Peter Dejong)


RENESSE, Netherlands (AP) — You can always count on a robot for perfect timing.

When Shaosong Hu saw robotic waiters serving food in China last fall, he knew exactly what he wanted for his oriental restaurant in the Dutch beachside town of Renesse. He just didn’t have a clue how useful they would prove.

The coronavirus pandemic has turned a whimsical idea into perhaps a window into a dystopian future where a human touch may make people cringe with fear, and a waiter clearing the table sends a customer tense with stress — only to be relieved by a soothing brush with plastic.


“They came in just ahead of that time,” said Hu’s daughter Leah, who also works at the restaurant, the Royal Palace.

Now, his two shiny white-and-red robots glide across the dining area’s floor where, once the restaurant reopens, they will be serving Chinese and Indonesian specialties like Babi Pangang and Char Siu at 15.5 euros ($17) each.

“Hello and welcome” the robots say — in a voice best described as pre-programmed.

Their duties will include greeting customers, serving drinks and dishes and returning used glasses and crockery. It’s unclear whether diners will be expected to tip.

One thing the robots will certainly do is see that social distancing rules are respected. “We will use them to make sure the 1.5 meters (5 feet) we need during the corona crisis sticks,” Leah Hu said.

“I’ve had negative reactions,” she said, “such as saying it makes it impersonal.” But it may prove just what customers crave when Dutch restaurants are allowed to reopen on Monday as lockdown restrictions are further eased.

In a stab at quasi-human panache, one robot wears a chiffon scarf around its neck. And the hunt is on to give the two human names, with a competition already underway on Instagram. “We don’t have a favorite yet. But the suggestion of Ro and Bot is out. We want to give them a normal name,” said Leah Hu.



Dutch restaurants have been hard hit by the crisis and have been closed for over two months. As of Monday, they will be allowed to reopen but with a maximum of 30 customers. That will force some layout adaptations in the Royal Palace where the robots’ programmed floorplan may have to be changed at the last moment.

And in the southern Zeeland province, the Hus don’t want to hear any complaints about the robots robbing young people of a job. They say it’s hard enough anyway to find staff in a rural region without any major city close by.
“They help us with the work we do,” said Leah Hu. “We are often busy and cleaning tables and the robots give us an extra hand.” It also frees up the human staff for some more personal contact.

“We are not disappearing. We are still here. They will always need people in this industry,” she said.

Adapting to the robots, even your own, remains a challenge. “For us, it is still trying to see what works,” she said.

___

Casert reported from Brussels

Police across US speak out against Minneapolis custody death

This tweet posted by Chief David Roddy of the Chattanooga, Tenn., Police Department is seen Thursday, May 28, 2020. Law enforcement officials nationwide have rushed to condemn the actions of Minneapolis officers in the death of a black man in custody, a wave of harsh criticism experts say is unprecedented. (Chattanooga Police Department via AP)

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Murder.Brutality. Reprehensible.Indefensible. Police nationwide, in unequivocal and unprecedented language, have condemned the actions of Minneapolis police in the custody death of a handcuffed black man who cried for help as an officer knelt on his neck, pinning him to the pavement for at least eight minutes.

But some civil rights advocates say their denunciations are empty words without meaningful reform behind them.

Authorities say George Floyd was detained Monday because he matched the description of someone who tried to pay with a counterfeit bill at a convenience store, and the 46-year-old resisted arrest. A bystander’s disturbing video shows Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, kneeling on Floyd’s neck, even as Floyd begs for air and slowly stops talking and moving.

“There is no need to see more video,” Chattanooga, Tennessee, Police Chief David Roddy tweeted Wednesday. “There no need to wait to see how ‘it plays out’. There is no need to put a knee on someone’s neck for NINE minutes. There IS a need to DO something. If you wear a badge and you don’t have an issue with this ... turn it in.”
The reaction from some law enforcement stands in stark contrast to their muted response or support for police after other in-custody fatalities. Sheriffs and police chiefs have strongly criticized the Minneapolis officer on social media and praised the city’s police chief for his quick dismissal of four officers at the scene. Some even called for them to be criminally charged.

“I am deeply disturbed by the video of Mr. Floyd being murdered in the street with other officers there letting it go on,” Polk County, Georgia, Sheriff Johnny Moats wrote on Facebook. “I can assure everyone, me or any of my deputies will never treat anyone like that as long as I’m Sheriff. This kind of brutality is terrible and it needs to stop. All Officers involved need to be arrested and charged immediately. Praying for the family.”


Typically, police call for patience and calm in the wake of a use of force. They are reluctant to weigh in on episodes involving another agency, often citing ongoing investigations or due process.

“Not going hide behind ‘not being there,’” tweeted San Jose Police, California, Chief Eddie Garcia. ”I’d be one of the first to condemn anyone had I seen similar happen to one of my brother/ sister officers. What I saw happen to George Floyd disturbed me and is not consistent with the goal of our mission. The act of one, impacts us all.”

But Gloria Browne-Marshall, a civil rights attorney and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said she wouldn’t be a “cheerleader” for a “handful” of chiefs who harshly decried the officers’ behavior.

“Any minute progress is seen as miraculous because so little has been done for so long,” she said. “It’s nothing close to progress or what outrage would be taking place if it was a white man as the victim of this assault.”

Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter in Los Angeles, said she wasn’t “particularly moved” by the relatively few police who voiced outrage.

Abdullah said the three other officers who witnessed Chauvin’s actions and did not intervene contributed to a long-standing system of police racism and oppression against people of color.

“We’ve got to remember that it was not just Officer Chauvin who was sitting on George Floyd’s neck,” she said.

Abdullah and hundreds of others protested what she called Floyd’s lynching on Wednesday night. Some blocked lanes of a freeway and shattered windows of California Highway Patrol cruisers.

Minneapolis is bracing for more violence after days of civil unrest, with burned buildings, looted stores and angry graffiti demanding justice. The governor on Thursday called in the National Guard. On Thursday night, protesters torched a Minneapolis police station that the department was forced to abandon.

The heads of the Los Angeles and Chicago departments — both of which have been rocked before by police brutality scandals — addressed Floyd’s death and its potential effect on race relations between law enforcement and communities of color.

Even the New York Police Department weighed in. Eric Garner died in the city in 2014 after he was placed in a chokehold by police and uttered the same words Floyd did: “I can’t breathe.”

It took city officials five years to fire the officer, and no criminal or federal charges were brought.

“What we saw in Minnesota was deeply disturbing. It was wrong,” NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea wrote Thursday. “We must take a stand and address it. We must come together, condemn these actions and reinforce who we are as members of the NYPD. This is not acceptable ANYWHERE.”

Before he was commissioner, Shea spearheaded the NYPD’s shift to community policing that moved away from a more confrontational style favored by other commissioners after Garner’s death.

Harris County, Texas, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, who also spoke out online, told The Associated Press that law enforcement agencies keep promising reforms in the wake of fatalities, but they are “not delivering it on a consistent basis.”

“When bad things happen in our profession, we need to be able to call it like it is,” he said. “We keep thinking that the last one will be the last one, and then another one surfaces.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity emerges as critic of Minneapolis police

By DAVID BAUDERyesterday

FILE - In this July 26, 2018 file photo, Fox News talk show host Sean Hannity speaks during a taping of his show in New York. Hannity has emerged as a surprise critic of Minneapolis police for their actions in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity has emerged as an unexpected critic of the Minneapolis police for their actions in the Memorial Day death of George Floyd.

Hannity spent more than 15 minutes on his Fox show Wednesday replaying video of a Minneapolis officer who knelt on the neck of the 46-year-old Floyd, who had been taken into custody on suspicion of passing a counterfeit bill

“The tape, to me, is devastating,” Hannity said on his radio show Thursday. “I watch it, I get angrier every time.”

His coverage stood out among Fox’s prime-time opinion hosts, where colleagues Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham focused on violent protests that erupted in Minneapolis following Floyd’s death. They were also unusual for Hannity, who describes himself as “a big supporter of law enforcement.”

Hannity, for example, supported a New York grand jury that declined to indict a New York police officer in the 2014 chokehold death of Eric Garner who, like Floyd, was caught on video saying “I can’t breathe.” He was a prominent defender of George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch captain who shot Florida teen Trayvon Martin in 2012.

Yet Hannity, who says he trains in the martial arts, decried the “breathtaking” lack of training by the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck and the lack of action to stop him by other officers.

“We believe in the presumption of innocence,” Hannity said. “But I can also say, looking at the videotape, the videotape doesn’t lie. And putting somebody’s knee on somebody else’s neck is extraordinarily hurtful and dangerous.”

Two of Hannity’s regular guests who comment on law enforcement matters, Dan Bongino and former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, were even stronger in their condemnation of the Minneapolis police.

“This was an abuse of use and force,” Kerik said. “It was ... a killing of someone that should not have died.”

The time spent on the story by Hannity, whose regular audience of three to four million people each night lean reliably right, was notable.

Carlson, by contrast, didn’t show the Floyd video but aired a report by Mike Tobin showing angry demonstrators. Carlson condemned CNN for calling people throwing rocks “protesters” instead of “rioters.”

“Democracy cannot exist when people are rioting,” Carlson said.

Ingraham showed a few seconds of the Floyd video on a corner of the screen before introducing another live report by Tobin. She noted that an auto parts store where a fire was set was part of the same chain set ablaze following demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri.

“We don’t need any more chaos,” she said. “We need answers and we need justice.”

THIRD WORLD USA

'Water is life': COVID-19 exposes chronic crisis in Navajo Nation

AFP / Mark RALSTON

Members of the Larson family who have no running water in their home, collect water from a distribution point in the Navajo Nation town of Thoreau

Amanda Larson pulls up at a water station a few miles from her home in the Navajo Nation and her three children get to work filling up large bottles lying on the bed of her pickup truck.

The 66 gallons will be used by her family for drinking, washing clothes and bathing -- before the next trip out in two or three days to repeat the back-breaking task.

"It's embarrassing, it's degrading, it's heartbreaking for my kids because they can't jump into a shower like everybody else and just wash," the 35-year-old preschool teacher tells AFP after returning to her prefabricated home in Thoreau, which lies in the southeast corner of this sovereign territory, the United States' largest Native American reservation.

"This is how we get ready for school, this is how my husband and I are getting ready for work, in these two totes," she says, pointing to large plastic containers placed inside the bathtub.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Washing your hands is easy, and it's one of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of germs," advice it has relentlessly emphasized over the course of the coronavirus pandemic.

AFP / Mark RALSTON

Amanda Larson who has no running water at her home, carries water for her son Gary Jr. to have a bath in the COVID-19 affected Navajo Nation town of Thoreau


That's just not possible for an estimated 30 to 40 percent of the Nation's 178,000 residents, who don't have access to running water or sanitation.

This is seen as a major reason behind the surge in COVID-19 cases within the territory, with nearly 5,000 confirmed infections and 160 deaths -- one of the highest per capita fatality rates in the country.

- Two million Americans without water -

AFP / Mark RALSTON

"Water is life," say the Navajo, who prefer to call themselves "Dine" and their land "Dinetah"

"Water is life," say the Navajo, who prefer to call themselves "Dine" and their land "Dinetah."

These three words are spray painted on walls throughout a geographically diverse territory that stretches 27,400 square miles (about the size of Scotland) across Arizona, Utah and New Mexico, a land of arid deserts with striking sandstone formations that give way to high plateaus and alpine forests.

It's a sentiment also reflected in place names: Sweetwater, Many Farms Lake, Willow Spring.

But these names often no longer reflect reality.

Rising temperatures and declining rainfall led to a decrease in the area's surface water by an estimated 98 percent over the 20th century, according to a report by water nonprofit DigDeep.

Chronic neglect by the government is another aspect to this story, says George McGraw, who founded DigDeep in 2012 to help communities in Sub-Saharan Africa but who has since shifted his focus to America.

Starting in the mid-19th century, the US began heavily investing in water and sanitation systems -- but an estimated two million of America's 330 million people remain unconnected to this day.

"There are these gigantic swaths of the country, mostly black, brown, indigenous and rural, that were bypassed when it came to the major federal infrastructural investment that was made to service the rest of the country," he told AFP.

Native Americans are the hardest hit group: 58 out of every 1,000 households lack complete plumbing, compared to three out of every 1,000 among whites.

The Navajo signed a treaty with the US government in 1868, four years after they were forced from their homeland in a mass deportation called the Long Walk of the Navajo.

In exchange for giving up their resistance to the colonizers, as well as vast tracts of land, they were promised basic necessities such as education and healthcare in perpetuity.

AFP / Mark RALSTON

Navajo Indians riding their horses, arrive to collect water and supplies from a distribution point, as the coronavirus spreads through the Navajo Nation


A 1908 Supreme Court judgement emphasized that the creation of reservations also included an implicit right to water sufficient to fulfill the territories' purpose -- but left open the thorny question of how much that was, an ambiguity that has prevented enforcement.

By contrast, southwestern states built hundreds of dams in the following decades, creating plentiful supply for their residents, often at the expense of Indian reservations.

- Sugary drinks drive diabetes -

AFP / Mark RALSTON

A dog with an empty water bowl outside his home near the Navajo Nation town of Fort Defiance in Arizona

Apart from the ability to wash your hands, a lack of water has several secondary effects, explained Dr Loretta Christensen, the chief medical officer for the area for the Indian Health Service (IHS).

"The ability to shelter in place to self-isolate, quarantine, is dependent on having very rudimentary things available to you such as water, food and the products necessary to both disinfect your house and to wash your hands and have really good hygiene," she said.

"So I think it has a huge impact on the general health of the population, but certainly in a time when you're fighting a very potent microbe I think it's even much more intensified."

AFP / Mark R

Navajo Indians line up in their vehicles to collect water and supplies from a distribution pointALSTON

Water access also dovetails into another important public health challenge for the Navajo -- a high rate of diabetes, which has been shown to worsen the disease progression of the COVID-19 illness by supercharging an abnormal immune response that ravages the lungs.

Sugary beverages are often more readily available than clean water, driving up Type-2 diabetes rates among Navajo to two to four times that among whites.

Scarce water supplies also drive overcrowding, with multiple families forced to live in the same space to share a shower.

- Uranium contaminated wells -

AFP / Mark RALSTON

Nikishia Anthony, 25, lives with her boyfriend and his family in White Clay, a green, wooded settlement in the center of the Nation, some 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) above sea level

Nikishia Anthony, 25, lives with her boyfriend and his family in White Clay, a green, wooded settlement in the center of the Nation, some 7,500 feet (2,300 meters) above sea level.

The area is remote and accessible only by dirt paths that require four wheel drive vehicles.

On a hot spring day, she receives a delivery organized by the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health, one of several groups active in the area, which is also providing families hand washing stations that were first developed for use in Africa.

She says she'll use the water to wash bottles and feed formula milk to her baby Xavier, born last week.

During the region's harsh winter, Anthony's family uses snow to wash their clothes and dishes.

Otherwise, they depend on windmill-pumped water from a well about a mile away. But it takes time to draw water from the ground, and ever since the pandemic wait times have grown longer as multiple families use them.

While windmills dot the landscape, there are other good reasons to avoid them: many are polluted with microbes, or even radiation -- the result of contamination from some 521 abandoned uranium mines.

They are still used to water livestock, however, and these will eventually be eaten.

According to DigDeep's report, "Gastric cancer rates doubled in the 1990s in some areas where uranium mining occurred."

- Waiting lists -

AFP / Mark RALSTON

Members of the Larson family who have no running water, sit outside their home in the Navajo Nation town of Thoreau


While Anthony lives in a remote area, being close to a water line isn't always enough to guarantee a connection.

Larson, the teacher, lives 250 yards (meters) from a main line and says she's been on a three-year waiting list with the IHS to get her home connected.

Last year, DigDeep installed a 1,200 gallon tank under her home that gets refilled once a month and is used to provide water to the kitchen area.

That, she said, has made a "big difference" because "I can just kind of get a normal breakfast boiling and normal dinner going."

Still, between the water station fill-ups every three days and the monthly top up of her kitchen tank, the family consumes just 3,200 gallons (12,000 liters) of water, about a third what the average American family goes through.

Water groups like DigDeep are carrying out experiments with atmospheric water extraction, as well as exploring methods to decontaminate ground water at lower costs -- but these technologies remain in their infancy.

Given the tough terrain, the IHS places the current cost of outstanding sanitation projects on the Navajo reservation at $520 million.

The Nation's President Jonathan Nez has vowed to use some of the $600 million the territory has so far received in coronavirus stimulus funding to address the problem.

But the Nation would still need to reach final settlements with two of the three states it spans (Utah and Arizona) on how much water it can divert from the Colorado River, the San Juan River and their tributaries.

Even so, Larson said she was hopeful, and was actively calling up the IHS and her local political representatives to try to push her case.

"The main issue in the Navajo Nation is running water, and they need to address that right away," she said.

THIRD WORLD USA
Great Plains Indian reservations report 17% spike in COVID-19 cases

To date, Native American reservations in Iowa, Nebraska and North and South Dakota have reported 38,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. Photo by Sarah Silbiger/UPI | License Photo

May 28 (UPI) -- American Indian tribal reservations in the Great Plains region of the United States have seen a 17 percent uptick in confirmed COVID-19 cases in the past week, researchers said.

The data is "shining a light" on disparities in overall health and access to care in these communities, Dr. Donald Warne, an expert in Indian health issues said Thursday

The tribes, including Warne's own Pine Ridge, S.D.-based Oglala Lakota, now join the Navajo nation in New Mexico and Arizona and dozens of other American Indian and Alaska Native communities impacted by the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2.

"We are seeing exponential growth in cases in the Northern Plains tribes, and they need resources," Warne, Indians Into Medicine program director at the University of North Dakota, told reporters on a conference call hosted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

RELATED High diabetes rates put Native Americans at greater risk for heart disease, AHA says

"Most reservations don't have hospitals, and those that do don't have intensive-care units or ventilators," he said.

To date, reservations in Iowa, Nebraska and North and South Dakota have reported 38,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, according to the Great Plains Tribal Epidemiology Center. There are 5.2 million people who identify as American Indian or Alaska Natives nationally, based on 2010 U.S. Census data.

American Indians and Alaska Natives account for less than 2 percent of total population of the United States, Warne said. And, current case figures are likely underestimates because 70 percent of American Indians live in urban areas and 78 percent reside outside of sovereign tribal nations, he said.

More than 4,700 people have been infected with the new coronavirus in the Navajo nation in New Mexico and Arizona, according to the Navajo Department of Health. Many of these cases have been traced "back to one large gathering," Warne said.

As a result, most tribes in the Great Plains region have cancelled large gatherings, including annual "sun dances," he said, adding, "So, the outbreak is having an impact on cultural practices."

Testing issues have complicated efforts to combat the virus on many reservations, Warne noted.

RELATED Doctors Without Borders sends teams to New Mexico to assist Native Americans

Nationally, clinicians have performed nearly 15.8 million COVID-19 tests, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, fewer than 340,000 Great Plains tribal members have been screened for the virus so far, the Great Plains Tribal Epidemiology Center reports.

Among those who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 on reservations in the region, 742 have died.

Higher rates of Type 2 diabetes, heart disease, cancer and tobacco use -- as well as poverty, inadequate housing and limited access to healthcare -- among reservation residents "puts our people at greater risk for bad outcomes" from the disease, Warne said.

"Every day, remote reservation communities face shortages of food, water and healthcare, and COVID-19 has magnified that reality," Joshua Arce, president and CEO of Partnership With Native Americans, said in a statement.

Thursday's call was part of a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation initiative entitled "Health Equity in Real Time with COVID-19: COVID-19's Impact on American Indians, from Sovereign Tribal Nations to 'Invisible' Urban Communities."

The challenge reservations face in combating the virus is both a "policy issue and social justice issue," Warne told reporters.

Although historical treaties tribes signed with the U.S. government led to the establishment of the Indian Health Service, which provides care to 2.2 million recognized tribal members, Warne said the program is underfunded.

In 2013, for example, the health service spent an average of $2,849 per person on healthcare, compared to the $7,717 per person paid out nationally, according to the National Congress on American Indians.

Expenditures for Indian Health Service beneficiaries are lower than those for the U.S. prison population, Warne said. As a result, many tribes "don't have the necessary infrastructure for lab testing or contract tracing for COVID-19," he said.

"Some tribes are doing better than others in terms of response to the outbreak, but those are generally the ones with more resources," Warne said.

"American Indians are dying of neglect, and we need non-Indian advocates to recognize that there is an indigenous health crisis in the United States."