MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico has not suspended its temporary farm worker program in Canada, but will stop sending workers to farms that have registered a coronavirus outbreak and that do not have proper worker protections, Mexico’s labor ministry said on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Daina Beth Solomon, Editing by Franklin Paul)

Copyright 2020 Thomson Reuters.

An inexpensive and widely available steroid is the first drug to show evidence of saving lives in patients severely sick with the coronavirus.

Doses of dexamethasone reduced deaths by a third in ventilated patients and a fifth in patients receiving just oxygen, according to a trial across hospitals in the U.K.

The results suggest that one death would be prevented for about every eight ventilated patients treated or roughly 25 patients who need oxygen alone, according to the findings published Tuesday.

The researchers behind the trial said it shows that the steroid should be immediately used for patients with severe cases of the virus.

“Dexamethasone is the first drug to be shown to improve survival in COVID-19,” Peter Horby, one of the chief investigators for the trial, said in a statement. “This is an extremely welcome result. The survival benefit is clear and large in those patients who are sick enough to require oxygen treatment, so dexamethasone should now become standard of care in these patients. Dexamethasone is inexpensive, on the shelf, and can be used immediately to save lives worldwide.”

No treatments or vaccines have been approved for use against the coronavirus, which has infected more than 8 million people and killed nearly 438,000.

In the U.S., researchers behind a widely cited model increased their death projections for the country. The news comes as many states see rises in their case numbers and hospitalizations after beginning to reopen.

The new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington predicts more than 200,000 deaths in the U.S. from the virus by Oct. 1. That’s up from its estimate of nearly 170,000 fatalities last week.

By PAT EATON-ROBB, Associated Press

MANCHESTER, Conn. (AP) — Scattered among the banners reading “Black Lives Matter” and “No Justice, No Peace” at Connecticut rallies against police brutality have been signs calling for “Justice for Jay.”

Jose “Jay” Soto was a 27-year-old Hispanic man shot to death by a SWAT team on April 2 as he left his mother’s home in Manchester following a standoff that began when he refused to surrender to a parole officer. His family says he was not carrying a weapon and was putting his hands in the air when he was shot.

Amid the protests spurred by the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Soto’s family and activists have called for more attention to his case and accountability for the officers involved.

Soto was acting erratically and had threatened to shoot anyone who tried to take him out of his house, authorities said.

Soto’s stepfather, Anthony Vazquez, said the family told police there was no gun in the house. He said that they offered to talk to Soto and take him out to police but that the officers refused. The family told authorities he had mental illnesses, including post-traumatic stress disorder.

“He’s not a murderer. He’s not bin Laden. He’s just a confused boy. That’s all,” Vazquez said. “Do you think this would have happened if he was white?”

At the time, Soto was supposed to have been living in a halfway house while on parole for a 2013 robbery. He was listed by the Department of Correction as an parole absconder in October 2019. His family said he was at home isolating with them during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The standoff, which lasted several hours, began after a parole officer went to the house in Manchester and called the Capitol Region Emergency Services Team when Soto did not come out and made threats, police said.

A video from a police cruiser shows the door swinging open but did not capture the shooting. The four officers who fired shots at Soto have been placed on administrative leave while the shooting is being investigated.

In April, the prosecutor investigating the shooting, Tolland State’s Attorney Matthew Gedansky, issued a statement saying the preliminary investigation indicated that Soto “manifested an intent to emerge from the residence in a manner which rejected the negotiator’s advice to surrender peacefully.”

Bishop John Selders, founding pastor of the Amistad United Church of Christ and leader of the social justice group Moral Monday CT, said Soto’s death is part of a pattern that has seen Latinos killed by police.

“It’s important to me in a Connecticut context that people understand that black and brown folk are at risk equally,” said Selders, whose group is affiliated with the national Black Lives Matter network. “White supremacy is the overall problem, with its action arm, racism. We all get caught in that net.”

Selders and other clerics are in the second week of a fast on the grounds of Connecticut’s Capitol, demanding the governor call lawmakers into a special session to overhaul the state’s criminal justice system, putting more money into social and mental health services.

Each day, they mention Soto in their prayers, along with others killed by police. One of the issues Moral Mondays wants to see addressed is the amount of time it takes to investigate such shootings.

Investigations in Connecticut have taken months or years to complete before authorities decide whether charges are warranted.

“We know that prosecutors are capable of making decisions and filing charges quickly, because they do it all the time against regular people,” said Kelly McConney Moore, the policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut. “Their failure to do so against police when they commit acts of violence confirms that state’s attorneys in Connecticut are complicit in a system designed to shield police from accountability.”

Chief State’s Attorney Richard Colangelo Jr. said there are new policies to speed up that process and require that a report be issued within 120 days of the completion of the police investigation. It’s not clear when that investigation will be finished.

Colangelo said he would support a prosecutorial unit dedicated to the investigation of such shootings but not an independent board to oversee the probes. Prosecutors, he said, have the expertise to properly examine and weigh evidence.

“I’m looking at the facts as the investigation uncovers them, applying it to the law and making a determination if I can prove a charge beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said. “I’ve prosecuted police throughout my career. I’ve found that while we play on the same field, we don’t get dressed in the same locker room.”

This story has been corrected to show that it was a parole officer, not a probation officer, who went to the home of Soto’s family.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By TODD RICHMOND, Associated Press

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul was poised Tuesday to ask lawmakers to approve four more legal settlements under Wisconsin‘s lame-duck laws.

Kaul was scheduled to present potential settlements to the Legislature’s Republican-controlled Joint Finance Committee that would resolve cases involving agricultural pollution, landfill violations, a petroleum spill and deceptive housing practices. The deals would generate a combined $635,000 for the state.

The GOP-controlled Legislature passed laws during a lame duck session in December 2018, just before Kaul took office, designed to weaken him and Democratic Gov. Tony Evers. The laws require Kaul to get permission from the Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee before settling lawsuits.

The restrictions have been a bone of contention between the attorney general and committee Republicans. For months Kaul refused to share any information on settlements with the panel, citing litigants’ confidentiality. The impasse broke last year when Kaul began presenting case details to the committee with litigants’ consent. The committee approved the first settlement under the lame-duck laws in October, a deal that resolved a case against a Milwaukee mini-mart accused of selling synthetic cannabinoids.

Kaul and Republicans have yet to devise a protocol for discussing confidential litigation. State Department of Justice spokeswoman Gillian Drummond said the litigants in the four cases up for consideration Tuesday have agreed to release settlement terms publicly.

The first case involves Valley Beau Farms in Chippewa County. The DOJ sued the farm in May 2019, accusing it of allowing manure runoffs on three occasions and operating unsafe manure storage facilities. The farm and its owner have agreed to pay $15,000 to settle.

The second case involves violations at an Iron County landfill, including failure to close the landfill after waste disposal ended, operating the landfill without a certified operator, failure to conduct groundwater monitoring three times between 2016 and 2018 and failure to pay inspect fees since 2014. United Landfills of America Inc. and landfill operator Marko Ruppe have agreed to pay $20,000 to settle.

In the third case, property owner Frank Gribble has agreed to pay $100,000 to settle a 2015 lawsuit accusing him of filing to clean up a petroleum spill in Dane County. He also has agreed to clean up contamination. DOJ officials say the settlement must be reached as soon as possible to minimize environmental damage.

The last case centers on a 2017 lawsuit the state filed in Milwaukee County against Vision Property Management alleging false and deceptive business practices designed to induce people to rent or buy uninhabitable properties. The company has agreed to pay $500,000 to resolve the matter.

Follow Todd Richmond on Twitter at https://twitter.com/trichmond1

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Latest on the effects of the coronavirus outbreak on sports around the world:

The Russian anti-doping agency says it is resuming the testing of athletes after a break of nearly three months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The agency says its staff has been equipped with protective equipment and will have to test negative for the virus before working with any athletes.

It has also offered athletes advice on how to register their status if they have to isolate themselves because they have been diagnosed with the coronavirus.

The agency initially suspended testing on March 27 for one week but that was extended because of Russian government measures to prevent the spread of the virus.

More AP sports: https://apnews.com/apf-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By KONSTANTIN TESTORIDES, Associated Press

SKOPJE, North Macedonia (AP) — North Macedonia’s president has declared an eight-day state of emergency ahead of an early national election after the country’s main political leaders agreed the vote will be held on July 15.

President Stevo Pendarovski issued the decree late Monday and it came into force immediately. His office said the decision will allow authorities make the necessary preparations to ensure public health is protected during the campaign and voting amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The early election had initially been planned for April but was delayed after the virus first appeared in North Macedonia in late February. Parliament was dissolved in February and a caretaker government was sworn in to prepare for the early election.

Until Monday, the leader of the governing Social Democrats, Zoran Zaev, and the conservative opposition had failed to agree on a new date despite repeated efforts. Zaev reached the agreement Monday with opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski, head of the conservative VMRO_DPMNE party.

The tiny Balkan country is grappling with another spike of infections after lockdown restrictions were relaxed last month. Health authorities have announced 103 new confirmed cases Monday and five deaths, bringing the total number of cases to 4,157 and the death toll to 193 in this country of around 2 million people.

“These elections will be unusual in a way that there will be no ordinary election campaign,” Parliament speaker Talat Xhaferi said in a statement. He said all citizens must adhere “in the most disciplined way” to health authorities’ recommendations.

Politics in North Macedonia has been rocked for years by successive scandals, allegations of corruption and by a heated dispute over an agreement with southern neighbor Greece that saw the country change its name last year from Macedonia. In return, Greece, which has a northern province named Macedonia, dropped its objections to the country’s accession to NATO.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LONDON (AP) — The fighter pilot that died after crashing off the coast of northern England has been identified as 1st Lt. Kenneth Allen, the U.S. Air Force said Tuesday.

Allen, assistant chief of weapons and tactics for the 493rd Fighter Squadron, died in a routine training accident that took place at at 9:40 a.m. Monday. The cause of the F-15C Eagle crash is under investigation.

Allen had been based with the 48th Fighter Wing at the Royal Air Force’s Lakenheath base since February of this year.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of Lt. Allen, and mourn with his family and his fellow Reapers in the 493rd Fighter Squadron,” said Col. Will Marshall, 48th Fighter Wing commander. “The tremendous outpouring of love and support from our communities has been a ray of light in this time of darkness.’’

Allen is survived by his wife and his parents. His age and hometown were not immediately available.

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

LONDON (Reuters) – About 64,500 more people than usual have died in the United Kingdom during this year’s coronavirus pandemic, an expert from the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

“Across the UK about 52,000 deaths have mentioned COVID with 64,500 ‘excess’ deaths,” ONS head of health analysis Nick Stripe tweeted.

Epidemiologists say excess mortality – deaths from all causes that exceed the five-year average for the time of year – is the best way of gauging the number who have died from a disease outbreak because it is internationally comparable.

(Reporting by Sarah Young, editing by Elizabeth Piper)

Copyright 2020 Thomson Reuters.

By KELVIN CHAN, AP Business Writer

LONDON (AP) — Yadeen Rashid was flying high in February. He’d just earned stellar grades in his latest semester at Virginia Tech university, where he’s in his third year double majoring in economics and political science. And he’d just landed a summer internship at a data analysis company.

Then the pandemic hit, triggering lockdown restrictions and pushing the U.S. economy into recession. Many companies canceled their internships programs and rescinded job offers – including NTT Data, where Rashid was set to intern.

“I was really upset, not just because finding an internship is hard, but because I actually was very excited to work with them very specifically,” said Rashid, 21. He said he bears no ill-will to the company and is looking for other internship opportunities. “But, you know, as time goes on, it gets a little less optimistic.”

Rashid’s experience shows how the global coronavirus crisis, which has already thrown much of the business world into turmoil, is also disrupting summer internships, an important stepping stone to working life for many university students and recent graduates.

Half of all internship openings in the U.S. have been cut since the pandemic outbreak, and 64% of those in the U.K., according to research by Glassdoor, the career website. Hundreds of companies, including AirBnb, Fedex, Gap and Walt Disney Co., have scrapped their summer programs, according to an online database.

Companies use summer internships as a pipeline for recruiting graduates while young people benefit from exposure to real working life. They can serve as a source of income or a graduation requirement.

More than one in every six young workers globally have stopped working during the pandemic, the International Labor Organization said last month. The U.N. labor agency added that the pandemic’s long-term fallout could lead to a “lock-down generation” scarred throughout their working lives.

Some companies are making their internships virtual — mirroring the work-from-home trend that’s swept office life during the pandemic.

E-commerce giant Amazon is hiring more than 8,000 interns for its summer program, which it’s turning into “a virtual model.”

Global consulting firm EY said more than half of its 15,000 internships this year will be in virtual formats. Interns will be assigned a “peer counsellor,” someone who joined the company in the past two years, as well as a more senior “reporting counsellor” who will both regularly check in on them, said Trent Henry, EY’s global-vice chair of talent.

One benefit of a traditional internship — networking — is harder to do virtually but companies are trying to make up for that. Amazon is providing mentoring and weekly “fireside” chats via remote video conferencing.

U.S. air conditioner maker Lennox’s 54 summer interns can join lunchtime talks with senior executives by video conference. The company still wants to treat them to a good lunch so it’s considering sending them gift cards to buy food, said recruiter Lexie Williams.

Those who have done virtual internships say it’s a way to learn remote working skills that are more important now that COVID-19 has changed how people work.

Recent graduate Sahar Shabani, 22, did a three-month remote internship with a development charity based in Thailand from her parents’ home in South London.

Shabani applied in February through Queen Mary University of London, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in politics and international relations. She checked in by phone every day with her supervisor, who assigned her to research and write reports about topics like corporate social responsibility and then give video presentations on them using Zoom.

“Whether it was in person or not, you still gained those skills or valuable experience,” she said. “It’s a new way of experiencing work.”

Catarina Silva, 22, is doing a part-time virtual internship with an Asia-based social enterprise through Aston University in Birmingham, England, as part of her master’s degree. Silva, who returned to her parents’ home in Porto, Portugal, spends her mornings working on her dissertation and afternoons building a donor database and working on strategy for the foundation.

She says she’s getting used to the unstructured nature of working from home.

“That means, for example, night owls could work after midnight, she said. “There are a lot of people in my generation that like that flexibility.”

Silva, who has already lined up a job after graduation with the consultancy Accenture, said she’d like to work in an office, “but at the same time, you will always have to know how to work remotely.”

She has done two previous in-person summer internships, at a bank and a fashion chain in Portugal, and acknowledges that interning remotely makes it harder to network.

“It’s good when you go to the office and meet people and have lunch with them, so you build human connections,” Silva said. “With a virtual internship that’s more difficult.”

Universities with work placement or study abroad programs have scrambled to replace them with remote options, said Edward Holroyd-Pearce, president of Virtual Internships, a British firm that helped arrange Silva’s and Shabani’s programs and specializes in Asia.

“We’ve seen a huge demand because of coronavirus,” said Pearce. The number of students his company has placed has jumped 10-tenfold this year, with inquiries coming from the U.S., Britain, Australia, the Middle East and many other countries, he said.

Still, the remote option doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Tobias Bidstrup, a third-year international business student at Copenhagen University, was offered an internship at Procter & Gamble’s London offices this summer. But after the pandemic hit Europe, the company offered to let interns to do it virtually or defer it for a year. Bidstrup, 21, chose to wait.

“Starting at a new company, doing the internship and you’re meeting people and being introduced to new tasks and also getting to know how the culture is at a company — I think that’s really difficult to do virtually compared to doing it in person at the office,” he said.

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

By FRANK JORDANS, Associated Press

BERLIN (AP) — Germany launched a coronavirus tracing app Tuesday that officials say is so secure even government ministers can use it.

Smartphone apps have been touted as a high-tech tool in the effort to track down potential COVID-19 infections. Experts say finding new cases quickly is key to clamping down on fresh clusters, especially as countries slowly emerge from lockdowns and try to avoid a second wave of infections and deaths.

But governments in privacy-conscious Europe have run into legal and cultural hurdles trying to reconcile the need for effective tracing with the continent’s strict data privacy standards.

Germany, where a person’s right to their own data even after death is rooted in the constitution and even protects the privacy of convicted criminals, has proved a particular challenge.

The German government insists users will have full control over their data. There is no requirement to download the app. It’s up to the user to confirm their test results and trigger the process of informing possible contacts that they might in turn have been exposed.

A poll this month published by public broadcaster ARD found that slightly more Germans — 42% — said they would use the tracing app than the 39% who said they wouldn’t. The rest either said they didn’t have a smartphone or hadn’t made up their mind.

The telephone poll of 1,005 had a margin of error of up to 3 percentage points.

Klaudia Kruczkiewicz, on her way to Berlin’s Friedrichstrasse train station, said using a smartphone to scan her surroundings felt “a bit creepy,” but wouldn’t rule out signing up.

“First I’d need to see how it works,” she said. “But otherwise, at the moment, I’m keeping my distance. I always wear a mask. I don’t need this app.”

Follow AP pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak

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