Health News

France tackles virus variants as it readies for tourists

French health authorities are racing to contain scattered cases of the more contagious delta virus variant, as France prepares to reopen its borders to vaccinated visitors and celebrates plunging COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates.

Health Minister Olivier Veran said Sunday that France has multiple clusters of the variant, first identified in India and believed to be fueling a rise in infections in neighboring Britain, notably in the southwest Landes region. Speaking on BFM television, Veran said the variant hadn’t spread widely into the community and that health investigators are working to track cases.

Overall, he insisted, “the epidemic situation continues to strongly improve around the country,” but said the government isn’t preparing to lift mask requirements anytime soon. With growing numbers of people packing into Paris’ sidewalk cafes, parks and riverside quays, Veran warned that it’s too early for people to let down their guard, notably until more are fully vaccinated.

The French public health agency’s latest weekly epidemiological report shows a sustained drop in virus infections, hospitalization rates and deaths even after France started reopening schools, stores, and restaurants last month. More than half the adult population has had at least one vaccine dose, and 23% are fully vaccinated.

Emboldened by signs the virus is receding, one of the world’s most-visited countries is reopening borders to vaccinated travelers from the U.S. and much of the world starting Wednesday.

The delta variant is now dominant in Britain, and its spread has prompted France and some other countries to impose new restrictions on visitors from the U.K.. Britain’s public health agency said early evidence suggests there may be an increased risk of hospital admission from the delta variant.

The French health agency reported cases of the delta variant in multiple French regions, most linked to people arriving from India. While case numbers remain low, the agency said, “the multiplication of episodes … augments the risk of local transmission of this variant.”

France has registered more virus cases than any country in Europe and among the world’s highest virus-related death tolls, at more than 109,000 lives lost.

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The Latest: Sri Lanka receives 1M doses of Sinopharm vaccine

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lanka has received one million doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccines amid the island nation’s recent surge in infections and COVID-19 vaccine shortage.

Sunday’s is the largest consignment of vaccines to be received by Sri Lanka on a single occasion.

State Minister of Pharmaceutical Production, Supply and Regulation Channa Jayasumana said the latest consignment was purchased by the State Pharmaceutical Corporation and that will be mainly used to provide second doses.

Sri Lanka began administering first doses on May 8. Authorities plan to start giving the second dose June 8.

Sri Lanka’s vaccine shortage comes after the producer in neighboring India failed to provide the promised Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine stocks. Last month, Sri Lanka decided to buy 14 million doses of Sinopharm in a bid to resolve the vaccine crisis. Sri Lanka had previously received a total of 1.1 million doses of Sinopharm vaccine, donated by China in two batches in March and May.

The current vaccination program is focused on Sri Lanka’s Western province, which includes the capital of Colombo and its suburbs from where the majority of the country’s coronavirus cases have been detected.

Sri Lanka has seen a sharp increase of positive cases and deaths since April because of celebrations during the traditional new year festival.

Sri Lanka’s total number of positive cases have reached 202,357 with 1,696 fatalities.

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‘Conjuring 3’ tops ‘A Quiet Place 2’ as moviegoing returns

The domestic box office is getting back to normal, with moderate wins and sizable second weekend drops. After its triumphant first weekend, “A Quiet Place Part II” fell 59% at the North American box office leaving room for the third movie in the “Conjuring” franchise to take first place. Warner Bros.’ “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It” earned an estimated $24 million, according to studio estimates Sunday, making it the biggest R-rated opening of the pandemic. Paramount’s “A Quiet Place” sequel meanwhile earned $19.5 million in ticket sales, bringing its domestic total to $88.6 million.

“You normally don’t see two horror movies at the top of the chart. But it was a solid weekend for both movies,” said Paul Dergarabedian, the senior media analyst for Comscore. “The movie theaters are coming back and Memorial Day was no flash in the pan … It feels like summer again.”

“The Conjuring 3” has Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga returning as paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Although there’s a whole extended universe set around these films that have thus far grossed over $1.8 billion, this is the first “Conjuring” since 2016, and the first to be helmed by someone other than James Wan (Michael Graves directed). With an additional $26.8 million from international territories, globally, the R-rated pic has grossed over $57.1 million.

“It’s a terrific result,” said Jeff Goldstein, the head of domestic distribution for Warner Bros. “We’re continuing to see a ramp up of return to life outside of our homes. It was never going to be a light switch.”

In a pre-pandemic world, “The Conjuring 3” might have been considered a bit disappointing—the previous installments both opened around $40 million. But, as Goldstein noted, the third films in a horror franchise often take a hit. It has another caveat too: The film is also currently streaming free for subscribers on HBO Max. Warner Media did not say how many people watched it on streaming over the weekend or how many new customers signed up for the service.

It has become more normal than not for films to embrace a hybrid day-and-date release strategy, with the major studios using their biggest titles to drive potential subscribers to their streaming services. “A Quiet Place Part II” had the rare distinction of being exclusively in theaters, but even so it will be a shorter stint than usual before it hits Paramount+.

The Walt Disney Co.’s “Cruella,” which opened in theaters last weekend, was also made available to rent on Disney+ for $29.99. The Emma Stone and Emma Thompson pic added $11.2 million from 3,922 theaters this weekend to take third place. Disney also did not say how much it earned from streaming rentals, but the company did note the drop from last weekend was only 48%. Globally, “Cruella” has earned $87.1 million thus far.

The animated family film “Spirit Untamed” also opened wide theatrically this weekend in 3,211 theaters to an estimated $6.2 million. The DreamWorks Animation film features the voices of Isabela Merced, Eiza González, Julianne Moore, Marsai Martin and Jake Gyllenhaal.

Most family films have gone straight to streaming over the past year and many big studios are opting to continue with the strategy for the near future. Disney and Pixar’s “Luca” is skipping theaters and going straight to Disney+, where it will be free for subscribers on June 16. DreamWorks Animation’s “Boss Baby” sequel is also debuting on Peacock Kids and in theaters on July 2.

The North American theatrical landscape is still a bit hobbled by the pandemic. Most Canadian theaters remain closed and around 27% of U.S. locations are still shuttered too. Many chains have also said vaccinated customers can now go mask free in theaters.

Hollywood titles have also started performing better than they have been internationally during the pandemic over the past few weekends. In particular, Universal’s latest in the “Fast & Furious” franchise, “F9,” continued to pick up speed prior to its U.S. debut on June 25. This weekend “F9,” which has already grossed $256 million from eight territories, became one of only 19 U.S. movies to have earned more than $200 million in China.

And although release strategies continue to differ company by company in unprecedented ways, Dergarabedian said the numbers are promising for the theatrical business even with the at-home viewing options.

“Over the past two weeks, the industry has been able to test out theatrical only (“A Quiet Place Part II”), a day and date with a (pay) subscription model (“Cruella”) and a day and date that’s part of a subscription (“The Conjuring 3″). The numbers have been solid,” Dergarabedian said. “As long as we keep getting solid movies released, we’re going to see the box office ramp up week after week.”

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Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Comscore. Where available, the latest international numbers for Friday through Sunday are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” $24 million.

2. “A Quiet Place Part II,” $19.5 million.

3. “Cruella,” $11.2 million.

4. “Spirit Untamed,” $6.2 million.

5. “Raya and the Last Dragon,” $1.3 million.

6. “Wrath of Man,” $1.3 million.

7. “Spiral,” $890,000.

8. “Godzilla vs. Kong,” $463,000.

9. “Demon Slayer the Movie: Mugen Train,” $450,000.

10. “Dream Horse,” $230,053.

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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/ldbahr

Haitians in Mexico see bleak choices as they seek protection

CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico (AP) — Adrián is trying to settle in to his third new city since 2016, when his wife was raped and mother was killed in Haiti. He will go anywhere but home.

“Why do they send us back to Haiti?” he said outside a cheap Mexican hotel blocks from the border with El Paso, Texas, where he was living with his wife and about 20 other Haitians last month. “We don’t have anything there. There’s no security. … I need a solution to not be sent back to my country.”

Haitians rejoiced when U.S. Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas announced last month an 18-month extension of protections for Haitians living in the United States, citing “serious security concerns, social unrest, an increase in human rights abuses, crippling poverty, and lack of basic resources, which are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The reprieve benefits an estimated 100,000 people who came after a devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti and are eligible for Temporary Protected Status, which gives a temporary haven to people fleeing countries struggling with civil strife or natural disasters.

Mayorkas noted that it doesn’t apply to Haitians outside the U.S. and said those who enter the country may be flown home. To qualify, Haitians must have been in the United States on May 21.

The Biden administration has dismayed some pro-immigration allies by sharply increasing repatriation flights to Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. The government chartered 14 flights in February and 10 in March, more than any other destination, before tapering off to six flights in April, according to Witness at the Border, an advocacy group that tracks U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement flights.

Removals have continued despite Haiti’s political and humanitarian crises cited by U.S. officials in their decision to extend Temporary Protected Status. Kidnappings have become commonplace. UNICEF expects child malnutrition to double this year as an indirect consequence of the pandemic in a country where 1.1 million are already going hungry.

Adrián, who spoke on condition that his last name not be published to protect his wife’s identity, is among legions of Haitians who fled the Caribbean nation sometime after the 2010 earthquake. Many initially escaped to South America. He went to Chile, while others went to Brazil.

As construction jobs for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro ended and Brazil descended into political turmoil, many Haitians crossed 10 countries by plane, boat, bus and foot to get to San Diego, where U.S. authorities let them in on humanitarian grounds. But then-President Barack Obama shifted course and began deporting Haitian arrivals in 2016. Many then started calling Mexico home.

Haitian restaurants opened in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, serving mangoes and mashed plantains. Factories that export to the U.S. recruited Haitians, who also wait tables and worship at congregations that have added services in Creole.

In recent months, some Haitians have moved from Tijuana to Ciudad Juarez, another large border city with jobs at export-driven factories. They’re driven by job prospects, hopes of less racial discrimination and a temptation to cross what they perceive to be less-guarded stretches of border.

The shift was evident Feb. 3 when U.S. authorities expelled dozens of Haitians to Ciudad Juarez, an apparent violation of pandemic-related powers that deny a right to seek asylum. Under the public health rules, only people from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador can quickly be sent back to Mexico.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has acknowledged the Haitian expulsions but not explained why they were done.

“They are in transit,” said Nicole Phillips, legal director of Haitian Bridge Alliance, an advocacy group. “It’s very much a transitory population. They may start out in Tijuana and shift eastward. Other times they start east and shift to Tijuana.”

Adrián, 34, said he saw racial discrimination in Chile and Tijuana, where he worked in data entry for a company that assembled neck braces and other medical devices. He said he saw Mexicans getting paid more than twice as much for the same work.

He lost his job when his temporary work visa expired and heard that Ciudad Juarez had work. A straight shot by bus, he decided to take another chance on a new life.

During his first week in Ciudad Juarez last month, Adrián asked downtown merchants to let him sell items on the streets, which are still half-empty amid COVID-19. No one let him. Factories are known to hire foreigners, but he no longer had a work permit.

Adrián wants to settle in Ciudad Juarez and save money, saying he may try to get to the U.S. one day. For now, he fears being sent back Haiti too much to risk applying for asylum or enter the country illegally.

A scar on the back of his head is from being pistol-whipped by an attacker in 2016, he says, and one on his left hand is from being tied up. He said his mother was targeted at her home and killed because she refused to participate in rallies for the Tet Kale party, whose presidential candidate, Jovenel Moïse, won the 2016 election.

Adrián believes the men who killed her and assaulted his wife worked for party bosses. He recognized one and went to the police, but nothing came of it.

Haiti has long been wracked by poverty and violence. In April, then-Prime Minister Joseph Jouthe resigned amid a spike in killings.

Other Haitians staying at the hotel with Adrián also had left Tijuana. Some said they would stay and try to find work; others said they wanted to go to the United States.

Some people who have been sent back to Haiti simply save for another attempt to cross into the U.S.

“I’ve been back in Haiti over nine months now. I’m struggling to stay alive,” said a mechanic in Port-au-Prince who was caught by border agents in South Texas. “Soon as I crossed into the U.S., police picked us up, and the guide was nowhere to be found.”

The 27-year-old man spoke on the condition of anonymity because he plans on crossing the border again. He said his training as a mechanic hasn’t gotten him work in Haiti, though he plied his trade from Chile to Guatemala on his journey to the U.S.

Jean-Piere, another Haitian migrant who was trained as a mechanical engineer and spoke on condition that his last name not be published for safety reasons, spent two years in Tijuana. After moving to Ciudad Juarez and failing to find a job, he said he wants to go to the United States. He carries a folder with documents for an eventual asylum case.

He said his father died due to “political problems” stemming from his work for Haiti’s governing party.

“I can’t go back to my country,” Jean-Piere said.

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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego and Evens Sanon in Port-au-Prince contributed to this report.

States rebound from bleak forecasts to pass record budgets

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Just a year ago, the financial future looked bleak for state governments as governors and lawmakers scrambled to cut spending amid the coronavirus recession that was projected to pummel revenue.

They laid off state workers, threatened big cuts to schools and warned about canceling or scaling back building projects, among other steps.

Today, many of those same states are flush with cash, and lawmakers are passing budgets with record spending. Money is pouring into schools, social programs and infrastructure. At the same time, many states are socking away billions of dollars in savings.

“It’s definitely safe to say that states are in a much better fiscal situation than they anticipated,” said Erica MacKellar, a fiscal analyst with the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Spending plans for the budget year that begins July 1 are up 10% or more in states spanning from Florida and Maryland to Colorado, Utah and Washington.

In Oklahoma, pandemic uncertainties last year prompted lawmakers to trim $1.3 billion from their anticipated general revenue. That resulted in across-the-board cuts for public education and most state services.

This year, the new budget is up nearly 18%. That includes money to reduce class sizes in kindergarten and first grade, funding for a new children’s behavioral health center and new incentives for businesses to make movies in Oklahoma. The Republican-led Legislature even set aside money to cut individual and corporate income tax rates and expand tax credits for a school choice program.

“Last year: shaky foundation. This year: solid foundation,” said Republican state Sen. Roger Thompson, chairman of the chamber’s budget-writing committee.

Many states experienced a similar turnaround. Fiscal analysts cite a variety of reasons.

The federal government poured billions of dollars into state coffers through a series of pandemic relief packages. Federal aid also sent billions more to U.S. households and businesses that, in turn, pumped money into the economy.

State finances also fared better than feared. Consumer spending rebounded to shore up sales tax revenue, and state income taxes were bolstered by a strong stock market and high-wage earners who kept working remotely while others were laid off.

The result is that states now face “a very promising fiscal and economic outlook over the next couple of years,” said Justin Theal, a state fiscal research officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts.

A recent Pew report found that after an initial sharp plunge in tax revenue, 29 states recovered to take in as much or more during the peak pandemic period of March 2020 through February 2021 than they did during the same 12 months before the pandemic began.

Idaho, Utah, Colorado and South Carolina posted some of the biggest revenue gains along with South Dakota, which was one of the few states never to shut down. The Pew report also noted modest revenue gains for some states that imposed more aggressive coronavirus precautions on their economy, including California, Massachusetts and New York.

The $212 billion budget enacted earlier this year in New York is up almost 10% over the previous one. Federal COVID-19 relief provided the bulk of that growth. But state spending alone still is up by 3.8% in the new budget, according to Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration.

New York’s bigger budget includes a mixture of ongoing and one-time spending, including a $1.4 billion boost in basic aid for schools and a $1.3 billion plan to overhaul Penn Station.

Florida’s record $101.5 billion budget is up roughly 11%, with bonuses for teachers, police and firefighters, and new construction projects at schools and colleges. Lawmakers decided they had money to spare, expanding sales tax breaks for school and hurricane supplies and creating a new tax-free week to buy museum and concert tickets and recreational gear for camping, fishing and surfing.

Florida is among several states that amplified their 2021-22 budgets with at least part of their share of a $195 billion state aid package from the recent American Rescue Plan Act signed by President Joe Biden.

Shortly after that plan passed, Moody’s Investors Service upgraded the outlook for states from negative to stable, citing stronger state finances and continued federal aid. It said the new federal aid equaled nearly 16% of states’ own revenue for the 2019 fiscal year.

Many Republicans in Congress had criticized the Biden relief plan as excessive, especially in the amount of money going to state governments. Many states already had been seeing better-than-expected tax revenue even before the plan was signed into law in March.

Some states, such as Colorado, are waiting until later to decide how to use the latest COVID-19 relief funds because they have until the end of 2024 to spend it.

Even without the latest federal aid, Colorado’s budget for the fiscal year starting July 1 is up more than 12% from the previous one, which had been pared back because of pandemic concerns.

Sen. Bob Rankin, a Republican member of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, said he is concerned about how that additional $3.8 billion of federal aid will be spent.

“I’m afraid that we are spending money and making commitments that we will not be able to sustain once that one-time federal money goes away,” Rankin said.

In many states, lawmakers are devoting federal COVID-19 relief money to one-time purposes, such as additional aid to workers, expanded access to high-speed internet or replenishing depleted unemployment trust funds.

Missouri is among the states that has yet to decide what to do with the latest federal aid. The general revenue portion of its budget has rebounded from a fiscal 2021 cut to exceed pre-pandemic levels. And Missouri is on pace to shatter a record set in 1998 for its largest end-of-year cash balance.

“Revenues have performed much, much better than I would have ever anticipated during a pandemic,” said state Budget Director Dan Haug.

He said he thinks Missouri would have been able to weather the pandemic without this year’s Biden relief package.

Lawmakers in Maryland used words like “stunning” and “unique” to describe how federal aid helped reshape their budget situation. The state’s record $52.4 billion budget for its new fiscal year provides bonuses to state workers, boosts payments to the poor, builds parks and playgrounds in every county, and still sets aside about $2 billion for savings.

“After spending almost the entire part of last year in sleepless nights trying to figure out what in the world we were going to do, to find yourselves in that position was pretty amazing,” said Democratic state Sen. Guy Guzzone, chairman of the Senate Budget and Taxation Committee.

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