Archives for April 2021

NEW YORK (AP) — Amid mounting anger over allegations of bullying, Broadway and Hollywood producer Scott Rudin broke his silence Saturday, saying he is “profoundly sorry” and will step back from his theater work.

“After a period of reflection, I’ve made the decision to step back from active participation on our Broadway productions, effective immediately. My roles will be filled by others from the Broadway community and in a number of cases, from the roster of participants already in place on those shows,” Rudin said in a statement.

The move comes more than a week after The Hollywood Reporter’s cover story on Rudin contained accounts of the producing heavyweight throwing glass bowls, staples and baked potatoes at former employees. In his statement Saturday he did not deny the allegations.

“Much has been written about my history of troubling interactions with colleagues, and I am profoundly sorry for the pain my behavior caused to individuals, directly and indirectly. I am now taking steps that I should have taken years ago to address this behavior,” he said.

The revelations in The Hollywood Reporter also prompted the performers’ unions SAG-AFTRA, Actors Equity and the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 to come together condemn illegal harassment and harassment that creates a toxic work environment for entertainment employees.

The revelations also prompted Tony Award-winner Karen Olivo to pull out of returning to “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” once it reopens. There are also plans for a protest March on Broadway on Wednesday, with stops at both Rudin’s office as well as the Winter Garden Theatre, where Rudin is producing the Broadway revival of “The Music Man.” There’s also a campaign to persuade Actors’ Equity Association to add Rudin to a Do Not Work list.

In addition to “The Music Man,” Rudin’s current slate of Broadway shows includes “The Book of Mormon,” “To Kill a Mockingbird” and a revival of “West Side Story.” It was unclear if Rudin would also step back from producing films, which includes the upcoming “The Humans” and “The Tragedy of Macbeth.”

In his statement, Rudin mentioned the upcoming reopening of Broadway after the pandemic shuttered theaters for more than a year. He said he did not want to “interrupt” the work ahead.

“My passionate hope and expectation is that Broadway will reopen successfully very soon, and that the many talented artists associated with it will once again begin to thrive and share their artistry with the world. I do not want any controversy associated with me to interrupt Broadway’s well deserved return, or specifically, the return of the 1,500 people working on these shows.”

But Actors’ Equity Association, which represents more than 51,000 professional actors and stage managers in live theater, wasn’t satisfied by Rudin just stepping back.

“We hope that Scott Rudin will also release his staff from any nondisclosure agreements they may have signed as a condition of employment,” the organization said. “This is an important step in creating truly safe and harassment-free theatrical workplaces on Broadway and beyond.”

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Mark Kennedy is at http://twitter.com/KennedyTwits

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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — The global death toll from the coronavirus topped a staggering 3 million people Saturday amid repeated setbacks in the worldwide vaccination campaign and a deepening crisis in places such as Brazil, India and France.

The number of lives lost, as compiled by Johns Hopkins University, is about equal to the population of Kyiv, Ukraine; Caracas, Venezuela; or metropolitan Lisbon, Portugal. It is bigger than Chicago (2.7 million) and equivalent to Philadelphia and Dallas combined.

And the true number is believed to be significantly higher because of possible government concealment and the many cases overlooked in the early stages of the outbreak that began in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019.

When the world back in January passed the bleak threshold of 2 million deaths, immunization drives had just started in Europe and the United States. Today, they are underway in more than 190 countries, though progress in bringing the virus under control varies widely.

While the campaigns in the U.S. and Britain have hit their stride and people and businesses there are beginning to contemplate life after the pandemic, other places, mostly poorer countries but some rich ones as well, are lagging behind in putting shots in arms and have imposed new lockdowns and other restrictions as virus cases soar.

Worldwide, deaths are on the rise again, running at around 12,000 per day on average, and new cases are climbing too, eclipsing 700,000 a day.

“This is not the situation we want to be in 16 months into a pandemic, where we have proven control measures,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, one of the World Health Organization’s leaders on COVID-19.

In Brazil, where deaths are running at about 3,000 per day, accounting for one-quarter of the lives lost worldwide in recent weeks, the crisis has been likened to a “raging inferno” by one WHO official. A more contagious variant of the virus has been rampaging across the country.

As cases surge, hospitals are running out of critical sedatives. As a result, there have been reports of some doctors diluting what supplies remain and even tying patients to their beds while breathing tubes are pushed down their throats.

The slow vaccine rollout has crushed Brazilians’ pride in their own history of carrying out huge immunization campaigns that were the envy of the developing world.

Taking cues from President Jair Bolsonaro, who has likened the virus to little more than a flu, his Health Ministry for months bet big on a single vaccine, ignoring other producers. When bottlenecks emerged, it was too late to get large quantities in time.

Watching so many patients suffer and die alone at her Rio de Janeiro hospital impelled nurse Lidiane Melo to take desperate measures.

In the early days of the pandemic, as sufferers were calling out for comfort that she was too busy to provide, Melo filled two rubber gloves with warm water, knotted them shut, and sandwiched them around a patient’s hand to simulate a loving touch.

Some have christened the practice the “hand of God,” and it is now the searing image of a nation roiled by a medical emergency with no end in sight.

“Patients can’t receive visitors. Sadly, there’s no way. So it’s a way to provide psychological support, to be there together with the patient holding their hand,” Melo said. She added: “And this year it’s worse, the seriousness of patients is 1,000 times greater.”

This situation is similarly dire in India, where cases spiked in February after weeks of steady decline, taking authorities by surprise. In a surge driven by variants of the virus, India saw over 180,000 new infections in one 24-hour span during the past week, bringing the total number of cases to over 13.9 million.

Problems that India had overcome last year are coming back to haunt health officials. Only 178 ventilators were free Wednesday afternoon in New Delhi, a city of 29 million, where 13,000 new infections were reported the previous day.

The challenges facing India reverberate beyond its borders since the country is the biggest supplier of shots to COVAX, the U.N.-sponsored program to distribute vaccines to poorer parts of the world. Last month, India said it would suspend vaccine exports until the virus’s spread inside the country slows.

The WHO recently described the supply situation as precarious. Up to 60 countries might not receive any more shots until June, by one estimate. To date, COVAX has delivered about 40 million doses to more than 100 countries, enough to cover barely 0.25% of the world’s population.

Globally, about 87% of the 700 million doses dispensed have been given out in rich countries. While 1 in 4 people in wealthy nations have received a vaccine, in poor countries the figure is 1 in more than 500.

In recent days, the U.S. and some European countries put the use of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine on hold while authorities investigate extremely rare but dangerous blood clots. AstraZeneca’s vaccine has likewise been hit with delays and restrictions because of a clotting scare.

Another concern: Poorer countries are relying on vaccines made by China and Russia, which some scientists believe provide less protection than those made by Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca.

Last week, the director of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged the country’s vaccines offer low protection and said officials are considering mixing them with other shots to improve their effectiveness.

In the U.S., where over 560,000 lives have been lost, accounting for more than 1 in 6 of the world’s COVID-19 deaths, hospitalizations and deaths have dropped, businesses are reopening, and life is beginning to return to something approaching normalcy in several states. The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to 576,000, a post-COVID-19 low.

But progress has been patchy, and new hot spots — most notably Michigan — have flared up in recent weeks. Still, deaths in the U.S. are down to about 700 per day on average, plummeting from a mid-January peak of about 3,400.

In Europe, countries are feeling the brunt of a more contagious variant that first ravaged Britain and has pushed the continent’s COVID-19-related death toll beyond 1 million.

Close to 6,000 gravely ill patients are being treated in French critical care units, numbers not seen since the first wave a year ago.

Dr. Marc Leone, head of intensive care at the North Hospital in Marseille, said exhausted front-line staff members who were feted as heroes at the start of the pandemic now feel alone and are clinging to hope that renewed school closings and other restrictions will help curb the virus in the coming weeks.

“There’s exhaustion, more bad tempers. You have to tread carefully because there are a lot of conflicts,” he said. “We’ll give everything we have to get through these 15 days as best we can.”

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Goodman reported from Miami and Cheng reported from London. AP Writers John Leicester in Paris and Aniruddha Ghosal in New Delhi contributed to this report.

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BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — As an underclassman, defensive end Mustafa Johnson always enjoyed rubbernecking at the University of Colorado’s annual pro day.

He’d cheer on his older teammates as they were getting sized up by NFL scouts in preparation for that year’s draft — and he’d envision getting everyone’s encouragement when it was his turn.

The pandemic rendered that long-awaited capstone to his college career a much different experience than he’d imagined.

Campus and county COVID-19 restrictions meant that no teammates could watch Johnson and Will Sherman, the only other Buffaloes prospect who participated in Colorado’s scaled-down pro day last month.

“We didn’t have our teammates there saying, ‘You got this! Keep pushing!’” Johnson lamented.

Johnson and Sherman were left to cheer on each other as NFL personnel scrutinized their every move.

“In the past, you have a crowd there. But today it was just me and Mustafa and a bunch of scouts,” Sherman said. “So, to have someone else over there cheering me on, it was definitely big. I appreciated that. I was doing the same for him.

“We helped each other out on this weird COVID pro day.”

At least they had each other.

Forty-five miles up Interstate 25, Colorado State wide receiver Warren Jackson was the only participant at the Rams’ pro day, a fact he insisted didn’t take away from the experience.

“I’ve been dreaming about this moment since I was a little kid running around the house with a helmet, hitting the couch,” Jackson said after two dozen scouts watched his solo act.

“It was a really good turnout for one guy,” Jackson said. “I’m grateful they all showed up and I got to put on a show for them.”

Pro days took on added significance this spring with the NFL scouting combine scrapped and team visits prohibited because of the coronavirus.

“It definitely would have been cool to go out to Indy, get that weeklong experience of what the combine is like, just watching that as a kid all the time,” Sherman said.

The combine allowed teams to get timely medical reports and allowed for uniform testing and timing of prospects, who could see how they stacked up against their peers in their draft class and even historically.

That wasn’t the case this year.

Teams had to send scouts, coaches and general managers across the country for any of the 103 college pro days that replaced this year’s combine in Indianapolis. Teams also weren’t allowed private film sessions, workouts, or dinners with prospects. That left Zoom calls and all-star games, and ratcheted up the pressure on pro days.

“Not being able to actually meet or see them in person until you get here, yeah, it’s nerve-racking,” Oklahoma State receiver Tylan Wallace said at his pro day.

“I would say there was a little bit more pressure on us because this was our only interview for the job,” said Auburn receiver Anthony Schwartz.

Pro days past often served as a mulligan for a poor showing at the combine.

“So, with pro day being the one shot for everything this year, I feel like it just added a lot of pressure for everybody,” said Oklahoma edge rusher Ronnie Perkins.

Dozens of prospects such as Colorado State’s Jackson also had something extra to prove after opting out of the 2020 season because of COVID-19. Unless they played in the Senior Bowl, their pro days marked their only chance to knock off the rust from their long layoffs, show off their re-sculpted bodies from their pre-draft training — some of which was started last fall — and prove they are still passionate about football.

“The next time I have an opportunity to step between those lines,” said Oregon offensive tackle and opt out Penei Sewell, “I’m going to make the most of it and I’m coming with everything I have.”

What everyone seemed to miss from the combine were the head-to-head comparisons during position drills and the uniform 40-yard dash at Lucas Oil Stadium.

“I do not know how I ran today,” Georgia Tech defensive back Jaytlin Askew said. “Nobody told me anything.”

“I don’t have any numbers, I apologize,” said Northwestern linebacker Paddy Fisher. “I was trying to find some after we finished our position drills but all the scouts had left.”

Arkansas cornerback Jerry Jacobs swore he ran a 4.38.

“Everybody got a different time, though,” he said. “Some scouts got 4.4. Some scouts had me at 4.5. … But honestly, I know my speed and I know what I can do.”

Do NFL teams, though?

There was even some uncertainty in the weight room.

“I wish I had somebody counting for me,” Auburn linebacker K.J. Britt said after getting 24 reps on the 225-pound bench press.

Wisconsin O-lineman Cole Van Lanen didn’t mind the combine cancellation — “I got an extra two weeks of training” — nor was he bothered by the Badgers’ pro day restrictions.

“I would have loved to be here with my family and my agents, the people who support me, and experience this with them,” Van Lanen said.

“But you’ve got to make the most of it. It’s just like a game. You don’t realize the crowd that’s there. You’re there to perform. You block everything out and you perform, and that’s kind of what this was, too.”

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More AP NFL coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL and https://twitter.com/AP_NFL

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TORONTO — New pandemic restrictions imposed by Canada’s most populous province immediately ran into opposition on Saturday as police departments insisted they wouldn’t use new powers to randomly stop motorists and health experts complained the rules focus on outdoor activities rather than more dangerous indoor settings.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government announced Friday it was giving police authority to require anyone not at home to explain why they’re out and provide their address. Tickets can be written.

But at least a dozen forces throughout Ontario, including in the capital of Toronto, said there will be no random stops of people or cars.

“We are all going through a horrific year of COVID-19 and all associated with it together. The (department) will NOT be randomly stopping vehicles for no reason during the pandemic or afterwards,” Halton Police Chief Steve Tanner tweeted.

The new rules limit outdoor gatherings to those in the same household and close playgrounds and golf courses. The decisions sparked widespread criticism in a province already on lockdown. Restaurants and gyms are closed as is in-class schooling. Most nonessential workers are working from home.

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THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:

— The worldwide death toll from COVID-19 has passed a staggering 3 million

— Canada’s largest province limits outdoor gatherings amid wave of infections

— Clammers keep digging through the pandemic, but find fewer shellfish

— Rule to extend mask mandate angers many in Oregon

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Follow all of AP’s pandemic coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-pandemic and https://apnews.com/hub/coronavirus-vaccine

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HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:

ISLAMABAD — Authorities in Pakistan have decided to start vaccinating people aged 50 to 59 next week, hours after the country reported over 100 fatalities in a single day for the fifth consecutive day.

Saturday’s figures bring Pakistan’s death toll from the pandemic to 16,094, out of more than 750,000 total confirmed cases in the country of some 233 million people.

Federal authorities said 4,149 patients were in critical care hospital units.

Pakistan has largely relied on donated or imported Chinese vaccines, which had been offered only to health workers and elderly people. But they have not responded in overwhelming numbers to the vaccination campaign, prompting officials to offer the vaccines to a younger cohort.

Pakistan hopes to receive 15 million COVID-19 vaccine doses through the UN-backed COVAX program by next month.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that will determine who is eligible to receive more than $530 million in federal virus relief funding set aside for tribes more than a year ago.

More than a dozen Native American tribes sued the U.S. Treasury Department to keep the money out of the hands of Alaska Native corporations, which provide services to Alaska Natives but do not have a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

The question raised in the case set for oral arguments Monday is whether the corporations are tribes for purposes of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, which defines “tribes” under a 1975 law meant to strengthen their abilities to govern themselves.

The case has practical impacts. Native Americans have been disproportionately sickened and killed by the pandemic — despite extreme precautions that included curfews, roadblocks, universal testing and business closures — and historically have had limited financial resources. About $530 million of the $8 billion set aside for tribes hasn’t been distributed.

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HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe has begun releasing about 3,000 prisoners under a presidential amnesty aimed at easing congestion to reduce the threat of COVID-19 in the country’s overcrowded jails.

About 400 prisoners were released from Chikurubi prison and other jails in the capital, Harare, on Saturday with more coming from other prisons countrywide.

Zimbabwe’s prisons have a capacity of 17,000 prisoners but held about 22,000 before the amnesty declared by President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Those to be released had been convicted of nonviolent crimes.

The amnesty “will go a long way” to reduce expenditure and the threat of the spread of the virus in prisons, said Alvord Gapare, the commander for prisons in Harare. He said prisons in the capital had recorded 173 confirmed infections and one death.

Zimbabwe has recorded 37,534 cases of COVID-19, including 1,551 deaths by Apr. 17, according to the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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LAS CRUCES, N.M. — A high school in New Mexico has returned to remote learning as the school district investigates an off-campus “secret prom.”

Officials said Friday that the event in Las Cruces violated state mandates intended to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

A school district statement said a complaint submitted to the governor’s office alleged that hundreds of Mayfield High School students may have attended the unsanctioned prom held April 10. A district spokeswoman said students who attended could face repercussions ranging from academic suspensions to being barred from attending school events such as graduation.

The district said Mayfield would be on remote learning through April 26.

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RICHMOND, Va. — The first cases of the so-called Brazil COVID-19 variant have been identified in two samples from residents of Virginia, state health officials said Friday.

In a news release, the Virginia Department of Health said one case involving the P.1 variant was identified in an adult resident of the Northwest Region who had a history of domestic travel during the exposure period. The second case was identified in an adult resident of the Eastern Region with no history of travel, the department said.

According to the department, neither case had a record of COVID-19 vaccination prior to the onset of the illness.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The number of new COVID-19 cases is ticking up again in New Mexico as the death toll reaches another milestone.

State health officials reported Friday that four more people have succumbed to the virus, pushing the total to 4,001 since the pandemic began last year.

While the death rate has declined dramatically since peaking in December, state officials continue to push for people to get vaccinated, saying doing so will lessen the chances of severe illness or death.

With 1,550 confirmed cases being reported over the past week, the seven-day average for new daily cases remains above the state’s target.

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