Archives for April 2021

Turkish lockdown to slow virus before Champions League final

NYON, Switzerland (AP) — The Champions League final in Istanbul on May 29 should not be affected by a near three-week lockdown in Turkey to curb COVID-19 cases, UEFA said on Thursday.

Turkey has imposed a “full lockdown” from Thursday evening which ends on May 17 after the holy month of Ramadan ends and the Eid holiday is celebrated.

The government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also aims to slow infection rates ahead of the summer tourism season that Turkey’s economy relies on.

UEFA hopes fans traveling from outside Turkey will be among “a limited number of spectators” attending European soccer’s showpiece game at the 76,000-seat Atatürk Olympic Stadium.

Turkish authorities have “assured that the temporary lockdown which is in force until 17 May should not have any impact on the match,” UEFA said in a statement.

Istanbul is hosting the Champions League final one year after it was originally scheduled. The 2020 final was moved to Lisbon as part of an August mini-tournament in the Portuguese capital from the quarterfinals.

Turkey’s death toll from COVID-19 during the pandemic was nearing 40,000 on Thursday. The highest daily number of 362 deaths was recorded last week on April 21.

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China launches main part of its 1st permanent space station

BEIJING (AP) — China on Thursday launched the main module of its first permanent space station that will host astronauts long term, the latest success for a program that has realized a number of its growing ambitions in recent years.

The Tianhe, or “Heavenly Harmony,” module blasted into space atop a Long March 5B rocket from the Wenchang Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan, marking another major advance for the country’s space exploration.

The launch begins the first of 11 missions necessary to complete, supply and crew the station by the end of next year.

China’s space program has also recently brought back the first new lunar samples in more than 40 years and expects to land a probe and rover on the surface of Mars later next month.

Minutes after the launch, the fairing opened to expose the Tianhe atop the core stage of the rocket, with the characters for “China Manned Space” emblazoned on its exterior. Soon after, it separated from the rocket, which will orbit for about a week before falling to Earth, and minutes after that, opened its solar arrays to provide a steady energy source.

The space program is a source of huge national pride, and Premier Li Keqiang and other top civilian and military leaders watched the launch live from the control center in Beijing. A message of congratulations from state leader and head of the ruling Communist Party Xi Jinping was also read to staff at the Wenchang Launch Center.

The launch furthers the “three-step” strategy of building up China’s manned space program and marks “an important leading project for constructing a powerful country in science and technology and aerospace,” Xi’s message said.

The core module is the section of the station where astronauts will live for up to six months at a time. Another 10 launches will send up two more modules where crews will conduct experiments, four cargo supply shipments and four missions with crews.

At least 12 astronauts are training to fly to and live in the station, including veterans of previous flights, newcomers and women, with the first crewed mission, Shenzhou-12, expected to be launched by June.

When completed by late 2022, the T-shaped Chinese Space Station is expected to weigh about 66 tons, considerably smaller than the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and will weigh about 450 tons when completed.

Tianhe will have a docking port and will also be able to connect with a powerful Chinese space satellite. Theoretically, it could be expanded to as many as six modules. The station is designed to operate for at least 10 years.

Tianhe is about the size of the American Skylab space station of the 1970s and the former Soviet/Russian Mir, which operated for more than 14 years after launching in 1986.

The core module will provide living space for as many as six astronauts during crew changeovers, while its other two modules, Wentian, or “Quest for the Heavens,” and Mengtian, or “Dreaming of the Heavens,” will provide room for conducting scientific experiments including in medicine and the properties of the outer space environment.

China began working on a space station project in 1992, just as its space ambitions were taking shape. The need to go it alone became more urgent after was excluded from the International Space Station largely due to U.S. objections over the Chinese program’s secretive nature and close military ties.

After years of successful rocket and commercial satellite launches, China put its first astronaut into space in October 2003, becoming only the third country to independently do so after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

Along with more crewed missions, China launched a pair of experimental, single-module space stations — Tiangong-1, which means “Heavenly Palace-1,” and its successor, Tiangong-2. The first burned up after contact was lost and its orbit decayed, while the second was successfully taken out of orbit in 2018.

The Tiangong-2 crew stayed aboard for 33 days.

While NASA must get permission from a reluctant Congress to engage in contact with the Chinese space program, other countries have been far less reluctant. European nations and the United Nations are expected to cooperate on experiments to be done on the completed Chinese station.

The launch comes as China is also forging ahead with crewless missions, particularly in lunar exploration, and it has landed a rover on the little-explored far side of the moon. In December, its Chang’e 5 probe returned lunar rocks to Earth for the first time since the U.S. missions of the 1970s.

Meanwhile, a Chinese probe carrying a rover is due to set down on Mars sometime around the middle of next month, making China only the second country to successfully accomplish that after the U.S.

The Tianwen-1 space probe has been orbiting the red planet since February while collecting data. Its Zhurong rover will be looking for evidence of life.

Another Chinese program aims to collect soil from an asteroid, a key focus of Japan’s space program.

China plans another mission in 2024 to bring back lunar samples and has said it wants to land people on the moon and possibly build a scientific base there. No timeline has been proposed for such projects. A highly secretive space plane is also reportedly under development.

China has proceeded in a more measured, cautious manner than the U.S. and Soviet Union during the height of the space race.

One recent setback came when a Long March 5 rocket failed in 2017 during development of the Long March 5B variant used to put Tianhe into orbit, but that caused only a brief delay.

VIRUS DIARY: From red carpets to empty streets, and back

LOS ANGELES (AP) — On the last normal night in Hollywood, there was one couple wearing masks. It was novel enough that I shot a photo of them. I had no idea they would soon be all of us.

It was March 9, 2020, and the premiere of Disney’s live-action “Mulan” brought a packed red carpet to the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, where as an entertainment photographer for The Associated Press, I had shot the Oscars four weeks earlier. Stars posed up close with big clusters of fans for a crush of dozens of photographers.

A year has passed. Nothing like it has happened since.

Two nights later, Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, two people I’d shot often, announced they had been diagnosed with the coronavirus, giving a familiar face to the growing pandemic. The entertainment industry, along with most of the U.S., would shut down within days.

I was worried not just about doing my job, but whether I’d even keep it. I was an absurdity: an entertainment photographer in a time with no entertainment.

Yet in its place, history was happening. And what photographer doesn’t dream of capturing that?

So for weeks I wandered through formerly crowded streets, shooting the eerie emptiness of Rodeo Drive, and a Hollywood Boulevard that was suddenly stark and desolate.

As spring turned to summer, some forms of entertainment began emerging. I shot amateur violinists and pianists playing for neighbors from their yards. I shot drive-in movie premieres, drive-in concerts, drive-in charity galas.

I found that the work was sometimes better despite the grim circumstances. Instead of having to shoot in a jostling mosh pit of 40 or 50 photographers, I could move freely and take pictures from any angle with no one yelling in my ears or using my shoulder as a tripod.

The celebrity portraits were fewer, but better. I shot in new and natural spaces, freed from the soulless-and-sanitized hotel rooms I was usually forced into. I shot singer Jason Mraz at his laid back pad where he grows coffee beans. I shot actor Ciara Bravo on a bike path with colorful murals.

At the Emmy Awards in September, I had to stand outside and shoot the cars of the few in-person attendees. I got Tracee Ellis Ross of “black-ish” having her nose swabbed in a moment-defining image.

At the Billboard Music Awards in October I was finally back inside the Dolby Theatre, trying to capture the surreal scene of En Vogue belting out “Free Your Mind” to an audience of no one.

At the Grammy Awards in March, I got to shoot a small crowd that included Beyoncé and Taylor Swift, their faces unmistakable even in masks.

This year’s Academy Awards came around as vaccination numbers were growing, cases were waning, and things were starting to feel normal. Yet it would be by far the strangest, scariest day of my professional life. The pandemic prompted the Oscars to allow just the AP to shoot arrivals and winners to share with the rest of the media. That meant that I, and I alone, was shooting photos for most of the news outlets on Earth.

AP photographers are accustomed to major pressure, but this was another level. What if I had a bad day? What if the camera broke? I brought a backup.

The sun kept vanishing behind clouds and reappearing at LA’s Union Station, this year’s special Oscars location, and I had to fight to get the right light.

In the hours before the show, I shot nonstop. I had to get wide shots and full-length dress shots, head shots and detail shots — not forgetting to zoom in on the jewelry. The real-time eyes of my AP editing team were indispensable.

And the result, thank God, was a photographer’s dream. Halle Berry had a magenta dress that she kept lifting and shape-shifting. Carey Mulligan had a spectacular flowing-gold gown that looked great on camera.

As I sat at home on Monday, looking at media outlets’ slideshows that said “Chris Pizzello” under almost every image, text messages started flowing in from the photographers who would usually be my competition. They were congratulating me.

It was very gratifying. And I hope I never get to do it again.

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Virus Diary, an occasional feature, showcases the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of Associated Press journalists around the world. Chris Pizzello is an AP photographer based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Instagram at http://www.instagram.com/cpizzello/ and on Twitter at http://twitter.com/chrispizzello

Nokia profit soars on buoyant sales for 5G technology

HELSINKI (AP) — Wireless network maker Nokia on Thursday reported substantially improved, better than expected first-quarter profit on buoyant sales of its new generation 5G equipment.

The company based in Espoo, Finland, reported net profit of 375 million euros ($454 million) for the January-March period, up from 33 million euros a year earlier. Sales were up 3%, to 5.1 billion euros.

CEO Pekka Lundmark said the figures “delivered a robust start to the year” for Nokia, which is seeking to become a global leader in 5G technology in a tight race with Nordic competitor Ericsson, China’s Huawei and South Korea’s Samsung, among others.

“Today’s results demonstrate that we are on track to deliver on our three-phased plan to achieve sustainable, profitable growth and technology leadership as announced,” Lundmark said in a statement.

Nokia said the company’s operations were driven in the quarter by strong growth in sales for 5G networks and equipment, particularly in the U.S and Chinese markets.

Under the leadership of Lundmark, who took over the company’s top job last year, Nokia has revamped its business strategy. He has said that Nokia aims to become the world leader in 5G – the new generation of broadband technology – even if it means sacrificing short-term profitability.

Jobless claims drop 13,000 to 553,000 as economy heals

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits dropped by 13,000 last week to 553,000, the lowest level since the pandemic hit last March and another sign the economy is recovering from the coronavirus recession.

The Labor Department reported Thursday that jobless claims were down from 566,000 a week earlier. They have fallen sharply over the past year but remain well above the 230,000 weekly figure typical before the pandemic struck the economy in March 2020.

The four-week moving average, which smooths out weekly gyrations, fell 44,000 to 611,750.

Nearly 3.7 million people were receiving traditional state unemployment benefits the week of April 17. Including federal program designed to ease economic pain from the health crisis, 16.6 million were receiving some type of jobless aid the week of April 10.

“Layoffs are elevated but are gradually easing, consistent with an economy that is reopening,” said Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics. “We expect further declines in filings as businesses move closer towards normal capacity which will boost job growth over coming months.”

Unemployment claims are a proxy for layoffs, and economists have long viewed them as an early indicator of where the job market and the economy are headed. But the figures have become less reliable in recent months as states struggle to clear backlogs of applications and suspected fraud muddies the actual volume of claims.

The job market has been bounding back in recent months. Employers added an impressive 916,000 jobs in March, and the Labor Department is expected to report next week that they hired another 875,000 in April, according to a survey from the data firm FactSet. The unemployment rate has dropped to 6% from a peak of 14.8% in April 2020. Before the pandemic, unemployment was just 3.5% in February 2020.

Employers are beginning to complain that they can’t find workers — despite an elevated unemployment rate. Americans may be reluctant to return to work because they still fear contracting the virus or because they need to care for children who haven’t returned to school. Another factor could be a federal supplemental unemployment benefit of $300 a week, on top of state aid, that means some low-income workers can earn more from jobless benefits than they did from their old jobs.

Archives for April 2021

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