Archives for May 2021

BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) — About a year into mask mandates, nasal swabs and remote classes, the atmosphere turned tense at the University of Vermont as the school cracked down on rules for social distancing and face coverings amid a spike in student COVID-19 cases.

Students were handed hundreds of citations for violations like standing in another student’s doorway or walking maskless to a hallway restroom, igniting a student-led petition that blasted “strict and inhumane living conditions.”

“You start to feel suffocated like I’m afraid to leave my room,” freshman Patrick Welsh said in an interview on campus.

Even as restrictions relax across much of the United States, colleges and universities have taken new steps to police campus life as the virus spreads through students who are among the last adults to get access to vaccines. Administrators say they’ve needed to act urgently to avoid risking an early end to the semester or sending infected students home and spreading COVID-19.

In recent weeks, the University of Michigan punished hundreds of students for missing mandatory virus testing by deactivating their access cards to nonresidential buildings, and Cornell University announced that students would lose access to campus Wi-Fi, course materials and facilities for missing virus tests. The University of Chicago locked down residence halls for seven days and shifted classes online after finding more than 50 cases in a matter of days.

The measures come as administrators assess whether in-person commencement ceremonies are feasible, how to get students vaccinated and whether to make the shots a requirement. The onset of warm weather and eased restrictions outside campus gates pose additional challenges.

After recording 200 cases in the first two weeks of April, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University eliminated in-person dining and banned visitors from campus housing. While the state’s governor has lifted an outdoor mask mandate and doubled mass gathering limits to allow 100 people indoors and 200 people outdoors, the university has worked with law enforcement to try to shut down off-campus events billed as “Aggie-Fest” celebrations that target students, said Todd Simmons, associate vice chancellor for university relations.

“What we’re trying to prevail on students is two things. First, let’s not get commencement canceled with some sort of last-minute major surge in COVID infections, and secondly do not take a chance on taking a COVID infection home,” Simmons said.

The historically Black university also has been pushing students to get vaccinated on campus, he said, bringing in speakers to address vaccine hesitancy.

At the University of Vermont, just under 100 students tested positive for the virus during the fall semester. But the numbers surged in the spring, with more than 680 students infected so far this semester. Gary Derr, vice president for operations and public safety, said the fall semester got off to a smoother start because it was warm enough for students to socialize outside.

“We came back in the spring and we were stuck indoors,” he said. Like many campuses, there was no spring break to look forward to; the university didn’t want students bringing the virus back with them.

UVM students agree to a pledge that they will abide by school rules for preventing the spread of the coronavirus and violations can lead to fines, probation or suspension for repeated offenses. This spring, six students have been suspended and 23, some of whom had faced full suspension, are banished from campus, allowed only to join classes remotely, after the school agreed to review the cases.

As tulips and daffodils bloom on campus, signs tell students to keep up the practices like social distancing and mask wearing. At the COVID-19 testing center, where students are tested twice a week, banners say, “IT’S UP TO US” and “THANKS FOR DOING YOUR PART.”

The warmer weather has made it easier to see friends and classmates on campus, students said, but fears of being penalized have taken a toll.

“If I go anywhere on campus and I mess up, like I’m sitting too close to someone or my mask is below my nose, I could get fined or I could get suspended. It makes you afraid and it’s terrible for mental health,” said Welsh, of Hopkinton, Massachusetts. “And I think the UVM administration is not really recognizing that; they’re just trying to look good.”

When hundreds of young people crowded onto a Burlington beach the second weekend in April, student Gary Sinclair of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, saw it as a kind of revolt against the crackdown.

“We were working really hard to make sure the school stays open so that those guys can make money,” Sinclair said, “but I think North Beach was a huge, almost a statement to the UVM administration that, ‘You know what? If you’re going to try to intimidate us with fear and fines, kicking us out, stuff like that, then we’re all going to go to the beach and you’re not going to kick all of us out.’”

In late April, Derr announced infection rates at UVM had fallen enough to allow multihousehold gatherings of UVM students living on- and off-campus.

Nicole Hardy said students haven’t lost sight of the virus but have become desensitized as time has passed.

“I still see people going into quarantine every week, and I still know there are people that are getting sick. … So it’s like there’s still a lingering concern,” she said. “But I would say overwhelmingly people are prioritizing socializing right now.”

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Thompson reported from Buffalo, N.Y.

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In 2020, election officials tried to make voting easier and safer amid a global pandemic. Next time, they might get fined or face criminal charges.

Republicans are creating a new slate of punishments for the county officials who run elections, arguing they overstepped their authority when they expanded voter access during the coronavirus pandemic.

The new penalties, part of a nationwide Republican campaign to roll back access to the ballot, already have become law in Iowa, Georgia and Florida, and are making their way through statehouses in Texas and elsewhere. The GOP push comes after a presidential contest that saw record turnout and no widespread problems.

Election officials have responded with warnings of a chilling effect on those responsible for administering the vote and counting ballots, raising fears they could be penalized for minor mistakes, get caught up in partisan fights or even leave their jobs.

In Iowa, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds drew heavy criticism for signing a broad voting bill in March that shortens hours at polling places, narrows the early voting period and imposes new restrictions on mail and absentee ballots. The law also bans sending unsolicited absentee ballot applications to voters, as some officials did before the 2020 election.

One provision is especially worrisome to Linn County Auditor Joel Miller: a fine of up to $10,000 for a “technical infraction” of election rules. Miller says the penalty could be imposed for unintentional mistakes like opening a polling place a few minutes late, and raises concerns about partisan enforcement.

“It’s a lot of moving parts and a lot of variables and people make mistakes, and now I’m liable for all those mistakes,” he told The Associated Press. “The process could be likewise corrupted by the secretary of state arbitrarily administering the law in a very uneven manner, depending on whether you’re a Democratic county or a Republican county.”

Looming fines also could dissuade people from taking jobs as election workers or make staffers hesitant to help voters, especially in smaller counties that can’t afford to risk the costly penalties, said Travis Weipert, Democratic auditor of Johnson County, Iowa.

“It’s literally becoming, when you look at the laws, the haves and the have-nots,” he said. “The counties that can pay to still continue what they do are going to do it, and the counties that can’t are going to be restricting voting.”

A similar bill signed into law Thursday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, could lead to $25,000 fines for election supervisors if a ballot drop box is accessible outside of early voting hours or is left unsupervised.

There have been more than 350 restrictive voting bills filed in 47 states this year, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a public policy group that advocates for voter access. Many seek to place new rules around mail and early voting, methods used without issue in 2020, with some tacking on new penalties for election administrators.

There is universal agreement among experts that there was no widespread fraud or problems that compromised the results of the 2020 election. Still, it’s not unusual for lawmakers to reassess voting regulations after an election. The GOP push this year, based on President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims of a stolen election, has garnered intense scrutiny, including from big names in the business community who argue the legislation is discriminatory.

In 2020, election officials in Harris County, Texas, which includes the Democratic stronghold of Houston and is one of the most racially diverse in the nation, went further than anywhere else in the state to create new ways to vote. They opened 24-hour polling places and implemented drive-thru voting. They also tried to mail all voters unsolicited absentee ballot applications but were blocked by the Texas Supreme Court.

The county, where nearly half of the 5 million residents are Latino and 20% are Black, saw a record 1.7 million votes last year. Between 10,000 and 15,000 people cast ballots at 24-hour centers during times when polling places are normally closed. More than half of the roughly 127,000 people who voted at drive-thru centers were Black, Latino or Asian.

In response, Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature have pushed proposals to ban 24-hour and drive-thru voting centers, and make it a crime to send voters unsolicited absentee ballot materials.

“If you got rid of every election administrator you don’t like in your state, the desire for drive-thru voting, for mail ballot voting, for expanded hours is still there. We already made it happen,” said Isabel Longoria, the election administrator of Harris County. “So you can either get with the times and proudly support these modern initiatives or you can be the person who stood in the way.”

Georgia also has been in the spotlight over voting restrictions passed by the GOP-dominated Legislature and signed into law by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in March.

The law includes limits on where ballot drop boxes can be placed and accessed. It also allows the Legislature to select the chair of the state election board, who has the power to intervene in county election offices and install a temporary superintendent, as well as hire and fire personnel, including election directors and poll officers.

Fulton County, which includes most of the Democratic stronghold of Atlanta, is one potential target, given frequent Republican criticism over long voting lines, problems processing absentee ballots and other issues. Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, has said the county has been “failing its voters for at least 25 years.”

In response, Fulton County Chairman Robb Pitts issued a statement that said the county “has been unfairly targeted by those with a grudge against us.”

“While Fulton County is the clear target, all 159 of Georgia’s counties will be impacted, and I urge those counties’ leaders to examine the bill, stand up and speak out — because tomorrow it could be them,” he said.

The new penalties have at least some election officials talking about getting into different lines of work. Miller, the Linn County auditor, said some have been joking about switching career paths.

“Well, there’s been a couple of county treasurer jobs that became open recently,” Miller said with a laugh, “and my peers were openly discussing whether or not they should apply to be appointed as treasurers because, you know, treasurers never get in trouble.”

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Izaguirre reported from Lindenhurst, New York.

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Associated Press coverage of voting rights receives support in part from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The anticipation for the U.S. jobs report for April, released Friday morning, was high.

Most experts agreed that after a yearlong pandemic, tens of millions of layoffs and widespread disease and death, a likely second straight month of nearly 1 million added jobs would send a clear signal: The economy was bounding back toward full health after a devastating recession.

Instead, the report was a clunker. To nearly everyone’s surprise, employers added a comparatively paltry 266,000 jobs, down drastically from a gain of 770,000 in March, which itself was revised down from an initially much higher figure of 916,000.

Once the shock wore off, economists grappled with a host of questions, starting with: What happened last month — and why? What did the tepid hiring gain say about the state of the job market and the economy? And is there really a labor shortage?

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Q. SO WHY WAS THE JOB GAIN SO LOW?

A. The broadest explanation is that any time an economy has to recover from a severe shock, it isn’t likely to proceed smoothly. But the pandemic may be causing a broader reshaping of the economy as companies, workers and customers adapt to a new normal. Month-to-month job gains will be choppy. In fact, the swiftness and strength of the recovery so far are themselves part of the cause.

Consumer confidence has surged, and many companies report soaring demand as Americans unleash pent-up desires to travel, eat out, and shop. Sales of new cars and homes are still rising. Yet because the economy is rebounding faster than almost anyone thought it would, many companies were caught flat-footed. Surging consumer demand has caused widespread shortages of parts and raw materials, including lumber, semiconductor chips and even chicken wings.

Now, workers themselves can be added to the list of shortages. Companies are advertising more jobs than they were before the pandemic, when the unemployment rate was a 50-year low of 3.5%. So they clearly want to add workers. Yet hiring stumbled in April because many employers couldn’t attract as many as they needed.

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Q. WHY AREN’T EMPLOYERS ABLE TO HIRE MORE EASILY?

A. Several things: Nearly 3 million people avoided looking for a job in April because they feared becoming infected by the coronavirus, according to a government survey. About 2 million women have stopped looking for work since the pandemic, likely because of disruptions in schooling and child care. In April, all the net job growth went to men; women as a group lost jobs. In addition, construction companies and factories have been left short of parts because of clogged supply chains and have had to slow production. Hiring weakened in both sectors in April.

And some businesses complain that a $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit, provided in President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion rescue package, has meant that many unemployed people can receive more income from unemployment aid than from their former jobs.

Jan Riggins, who manages two Express staffing offices in Fort Worth, Texas, said that some job seekers have turned down offers that paid less than they were receiving from benefits. She said health concerns are also a factor, noting that the open jobs that allow working from home, such as taking customer service calls, have been quickly filled.

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Q. WILL ALL THESE ISSUES CONTINUE TO HOLD DOWN HIRING IN THE COMING MONTHS?

A. It’s possible. But most economists say they think April’s slowdown will prove temporary. Daniel Zhao, senior economist at Glassdoor, an employment website, notes that Google searches for jobs had declined from mid-March and only rebounded in late April — after the government had compiled the jobs data for last month.

The average workweek rose last month, evidence that companies are asking their employees to work more and will likely need to add workers soon.

And the number of first-time applications for unemployment aid has dropped steadily in the past month, a sign that layoffs are slowing. More people are returning to the job market to look for work again: About 750,000 people have rejoined the workforce in the past two months. All of that should help employers fill more jobs.

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Q. ARE UNEMPLOYED PEOPLE REALLY AVOIDING JOBS FOR THE EXTRA $300 A WEEK IN FEDERAL JOBLESS AID?

This is a contentious question. One academic research paper has found that for every 10% increase in unemployment benefits, job applications decline by nearly 4%. Yet last spring, when the federal jobless benefit was $600 — twice as large — nearly 7.7 million people returned to work.

Many of the unemployed say the extra benefit does help them take more time to seek better jobs than they had before the downturn. That impulse can create a problem for business owners and executives, who often want to hire immediately. To them, the surge in customer demand emerging from the pandemic represents an opportunity to win new clients or increase market share.

On Friday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed the effect of the additional jobless aid on the willingness of the unemployed to seek work. She said at a news conference that in states that provide higher unemployment payments, the data shows the unemployed are actually more likely to find work than in states that provide lower benefits.

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Q. IF COMPANIES CAN’T FIND MORE WORKERS, WHY NOT OFFER HIGHER PAY?

A. There are signs that more employers are doing just that. Friday’s jobs report showed that average hourly pay rose 0.7% in April to $30.17. For a single month, that’s a solid gain. Walmart, Amazon and Costco have all broadly raised their hourly wages in recent months. Still, not all companies are willing to do so. Not yet anyway.

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Q. ARE OTHER FACTORS HOLDING DOWN JOB GROWTH?

A. Many small businesses closed in the pandemic, particularly in downtowns that emptied out as white-collar workers fled to work from home. Kristen Broady, an economist at the Brookings Institution, noted that some of those companies have announced that they will continue to allow their employees to work from home, at least for part of the week. That trend will likely hurt downtown coffee shops, dry cleaners, gyms, and restaurants.

“When you think about those people,” Broady said, “their work circumstances may never go back to pre-COVID.”

And Caren Merrick, CEO of VA Ready, a Virginia-based job training program, said that many employers appear too picky about whom they hire.

Her organization trains laid-off workers, most from the restaurant and hotel industries, for jobs in health care, manufacturing, and information technology. Some of the trainees who earn certifications are told by employers that they lack experience. Those companies could do more to find workers, she said, such as creating apprenticeships or dropping requirements for college degrees.

“Some companies have barriers themselves that prevent them from hiring the people that they need,” Merrick said. “They need to make a greater effort.”

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DARLINGTON, S.C. (AP) — Kevin Harvick is hoping his winless start to the season will end at Darlington Raceway — just like last year.

Harvick hadn’t taken the checkered flag in 2020 until winning at the “Lady in Black” last May 17 in NASCAR’s return to racing after more than two months away because of the pandemic.

Eight more victories followed, including a win at the Southern 500 on the old country track last Labor Day weekend.

Once again, Harvick comes to Darlington without a victory, looking to jumpstart another season at the Goodyear 400 on Sunday.

“It’s been a lot of fun to have been able to win there a few times now,” said Harvick, a three-time Darlington champion.

The last two wins there were particularly significant for Harvick. His 50th career NASCAR Cup Series came at Darlington last May, without fans, in the sport’s return to racing from a COVID-19 suspension.

Four months later, Harvick won the Southern 500 in front of about 7,000 spectators and soaked in the cheers from grateful fans happy to see live racing.

“Winning the Southern 500 and being able to go back to Victory Lane and celebrate in front of some fans was different from the first time of dead silence,” Harvick recalled.

These days, Harvick is ready for to win again. He’s had eight top-10 finishes, including his best placing of the year — second to Kyle Busch a week ago at Kansas.

Harvick savored his Darlington victory a year ago because of the its significance amid a pandemic.

“It was, ‘OK, you can’t race anymore, and you don’t know when you’re going to race again.’ Being able to go back to the racetrack and go back to Victory Lane and get back to work was pretty much a relief,” Harvick said.

That showed the rest of the year as Harvick zoomed through the NASCAR schedule, winning twice at Michigan and succeeding on short tracks like Bristol and big tracks like Indianapolis.

That success hasn’t carried over. Harvick said this month he understands that winning in bunches one season provides no guarentees.

“Last year, everything went our way,” he said. “This year it hasn’t really gone our way.”

He believes that can change at Darlington.

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Things to watch at the Goodyear 400 at Darlington Raceway:

STILL SEARCHING: Points leader Denny Hamlin and defending series champion Chase Elliott are also without victories in 2021.

Hamlin has three wins at Darlington, including the second of two May races in NASCAR’s return to action. The Joe Gibbs Racing driver has struggled the last two starts, ending 32nd at Talladega and 12th at Kansas.

“Obviously, the last couple of weeks haven’t gone the way we’ve wanted them to, but Darlington is a place where we can bounce back and maybe even get into Victory Lane,” he said.

Elliott has finished second at the Daytona 500 and Martinsville. He’s also posted a 38th at Atlanta and a 24th at Talladega two weeks ago.

“We definitely can be better, but I was pleased with our speed last year” at Darlington, Elliott said. “We had some really good runs and were certainly solid, so we have something good to build off of.”

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THROWING IT BACK

NASCAR once more celebrates its past at its oldest superspeedway with its throwback weekend. The festivities at Darlington started in 2015 and have grown in popularity.

Spectators, competitors and teams often dress up in vintage clothing while cars are adorned with paint schemes of the past.

The event shifted this year to May from it’s Labor Day spot when Darlington was given two race weekends on the NASCAR schedule.

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HI, MOM

The Goodyear 400 will be run on Mother’s Day, a rarity for NASCAR, which had run only seven times before in its 73-year history on the day honoring mom.

The last time came in 2007 at Darlington when Jeff Gordon won a race delayed from its scheduled Saturday night start.

Expect lots of honoring of moms, both in the pits and in the stands, and the role they’ve played in helping their racing children.

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ODDS AND ENDS

Kyle Larson, driving the No. 5 Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports, is the 4-1 favorite to take the Goodyear 400. Denny Hamlin, the winless points leader this season, is right behind Larson at 5-1. Kevin Harvick and Martin Truex Jr. are next at 7-1 while last week’s winner at Kansas, Kyle Busch, is 8-1. … Truex is the only multiple winner in the Cup Series this season. … Busch’s older brother, Kurt, has the distinction of finishing second at Darlington to Ricky Craven in 2003 by 0.002 seconds, the closest margin in NASCAR history. … Darlington will allow some fans into the pits for Sunday’s race, although health restrictions will still be in place.

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More AP auto racing: https://apnews.com/hub/auto-racing and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports

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BERLIN (AP) — Europeans can look forward to traveling this summer, if coronavirus cases keep declining further on the continent, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Saturday.

While the European Union is developing a vaccine certificate valid throughout the 27-nation bloc, summer vacations abroad should be possible again even for people who haven’t had their shots against the coronavirus, she said.

“If you look at the low incidence (of COVID-19) that some of our European partner countries already have,…then I’m very hopeful that we can also generally afford to do what was possible last summer, too,” Merkel said.

She cited the sharp drop in COVID-19 cases in Portugal in recent months after the country imposed a drastic lockdown.

Portugal had one of the highest infection rates worldwide in January, but by Friday the seven-day rolling average of daily new cases stood at 3.3 per 100,000 inhabitants – about a quarter of the rate in the United States.

Merkel said that Germany also appears to have broken its most recent outbreak.

“Step by step, more will be possible in Germany, too, wherever the incidence drops, and that will hopefully be the case for all of Europe,” she said.

Merkel spoke to reporters in Berlin, from where she took part remotely in a two-day EU summit that discussed, among other issues, the effort to develop a “green certificate” that would facilitate travel across the region this summer. Even if case numbers drop, some countries will likely impose restrictions – such as mandatory testing and quarantine – for travelers who can’t prove they’ve been vaccinated or recovered from infection.

EU leaders discussed the technical requirements for such a certificate, which would record a person’s vaccine status, and outstanding questions about how to treat people who received vaccines that weren’t approved for use in the bloc.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said Saturday that the certificate was on track to be launched in June.

So far, about 30% of adults in the EU have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine.

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