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HONG KONG (AP) — No one attended an annual candlelight vigil inside Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on Friday, but hundreds gathered on streets outside to remember China’s deadly crackdown in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1989 as Hong Kong police cordoned off much of the park to prevent gatherings.

Police arrested an organizer of the vigil earlier in the day and warned people not to attend the banned event as authorities mute China’s last pro-democracy voices.

For decades, Hong Kong has been one of just two cities in China allowed to mark the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

In 1989, hundreds of thousands of protesters gathered in the square calling for democracy, less censorship and greater freedom of speech.

On June 4 that year, China’s military converged on the square with orders to clear it out, opening fire and arresting protesters. Estimates of the number of people killed range from hundreds to several thousand.

China’s official verdict is that the largely peaceful protests aimed to topple the ruling Communist Party and plunge the country into chaos. China has censored any mention of the event online.

Each June 4, thousands have gathered in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park to mourn the victims of the crackdown, lighting candles and singing songs in remembrance.

This year, however, Hong Kong authorities banned the vigil for the second consecutive year, citing social distancing restrictions and public health risks from the coronavirus pandemic.

Despite the ban and a heavy police presence, hundreds of people still turned up Friday night to walk along the outside of the park. Many turned on their cellphone flashlights or lit candles.

Vigils have also been held each year in Macao, although authorities have also banned them for the last two years, citing the pandemic.

Critics say authorities are using the pandemic as an excuse to silence pro-democracy voices in Hong Kong as Beijing tightens its control over the semi-autonomous city following months of anti-government protests in 2019.

Last year, thousands gathered in Victoria Park despite the ban and police warnings. Weeks later, police arrested over 20 activists who took part in the vigil.

Organizers urged residents to mark June 4 in private this year by lighting a candle wherever they are.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — Hiring in the United States picked up in May yet was slowed again by the struggles of many companies to find enough workers to keep up with the economy’s swift recovery from the pandemic recession.

U.S. employers added 559,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday, an improvement from April’s sluggish increase of 278,000. Yet the gain fell well short of employers’ need for labor. The unemployment rate fell to 5.8% from 6.1%.

The speed of the rebound, fueled by substantial federal aid and rising vaccinations, has created a disconnect between businesses and the unemployed: While companies are rushing to add workers immediately, many of the unemployed are still holding back. Some of the jobless are likely seeking better positions than they had before the pandemic triggered widespread layoffs. Or they still lack affordable child care.

Others still worry about contracting COVID-19 or have decided to retire early. And a temporary $300-a-week federal unemployment benefit, on top of regular state jobless aid, has likely led many unemployed Americans to take time to consider their options.

That mismatch between employers and job seekers resulted in the sharp slowdown in hiring in April, when businesses added far fewer jobs than economists had forecast and many fewer than had been hired in March. The disconnect eased somewhat in May. But economists say it will likely persist until early fall, when schools reopen, COVID-19 fades further and federal unemployment benefits end.

“There is a gap between the economy and labor market,” said Nela Richardson, chief economist at the payroll processing firm ADP. May’s job gains, she said, are “more lackluster than one would expect given the strong state of economic growth.”

The May jobs report offered a number of signs that companies are trying harder to find workers. They’re offering more money, for one thing. Average hourly pay jumped for a second straight month, especially in the leisure and hospitality industry, which includes restaurants, bars, hotels and amusement parks. Hourly wages for all workers in that industry, except managers, were 6.4% higher in May compared with pre-pandemic levels — a substantial gain.

And the number of unemployed who say their jobs are permanently lost declined in May by the most in five months. That’s an encouraging sign that companies are going beyond just recalling workers they had laid off in the pandemic.

Yet many of those jobs are still low-paying and not appealing to many Americans — people like Marcellus Rowe, who has been unemployed since he lost his $16-an-hour job at the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Agency in November 2019.

Rowe, 29, says the only jobs he sees being advertised for someone like him pay scarcely more than $9 or $10 for work in restaurants and small shops. That isn’t enough to cover his $1,000 monthly rent.

“I’m going to continue to look for suitable work,’’ Rowe said. “I know it’s going to come eventually. What I cannot do is settle for an unsuitable job that pays low wages.’’

He’s been getting by on unemployment benefits, boosted by the $300-a-week federal supplement. But Georgia is eliminating the federal benefit on June 26. Nearly half the states — all led by Republican governors — will cut off the extra aid starting this month. Many businesses have blamed the federal benefit for discouraging some of the jobless from taking work.

“It’s really going to be a hardship,’’ Rowe said, noting that he’s already dropped cable television service to save money.

Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said Friday that the complaints from businesses about the federal jobless aid is “a distraction” and noted that the number of people applying for unemployment aid is falling steadily.

Eric Winograd, an economist at AllianceBernstein, an investment management firm, said there are still about 7 million people not searching for work — and so aren’t counted as unemployed — but who say in government surveys that they want a job. That’s about 50% higher than before the pandemic.

“That is compelling evidence that there is a large pool of workers who will return to work when they feel that it is safe or when they are able to sort out child care,” Winograd said.

For now, many large chains, including Amazon, Walmart, Costco, and Chipotle, have raised starting pay to try to attract more applicants. And the average work week remained elevated last week, which suggests that businesses, struggling to hire, are working their current staffs for longer hours.

Some smaller companies have also boosted pay and taken other steps to fill jobs, but are still looking for more workers. National Church Residences, a provider of senior living centers based in Columbus, Ohio, with 340 locations around the country, steadily raised its minimum wage to $14.50 an hour over several years before the pandemic.

Danielle Willis, senior vice president of human resources at the company, said those increases have helped attract staff. The company also provides health care and a 5% matching payment into a retirement plan for its full-time employees, including nurse aides, property managers and maintenance workers. Yet the 2,700-person company still has 300 positions open nationwide.

Nationally last month, the bulk of the job growth was at hotels, restaurant and bars, which gained 220,000 positions. Retailers lost jobs for a second straight month. And despite a hot housing market, the construction industry shed 20,000 jobs, its second straight month of cuts, likely reflecting supply shortages and soaring costs for building materials.

The economy expanded last quarter at a robust 6.4% annual rate, and economists envision growth in the current quarter reaching a sizzling pace of 9% or more. All that growth, driven by higher spending, has raised inflation fears. But for now, it has mainly propelled demand for labor.

Though the economy still has 7.6 million fewer jobs than it did before the pandemic struck, job postings in late May were nearly 26% above pre-pandemic levels, according to the employment website Indeed. Government data shows that posted jobs have reached their highest level on record dating back to 2000.

Consumers are opening their wallets. In April, they increased their spending after a huge gain in March that was fueled by the distribution of $1,400 stimulus checks. With more Americans feeling comfortable about staying in hotels and visiting entertainment venues, spending on services jumped.

Becky Frankiewicz, president of the temporary staffing firm Manpower Group’s North American division, said many of the firm’s clients are raising pay and benefits to try to attract more applicants. Some of these companies, particularly in manufacturing and warehousing, are also trying other tactics, like paying their workers weekly or even daily, rather than every two weeks. Manpower is also encouraging its clients to make job offers the same day as an interview rather than waiting.

About 60% of Manpower’s temporary placements are leaving their jobs before a temporary assignment ends, Frankiewicz said, mostly because they are receiving better offers.

“People have options,” she said. “Companies have to offer speed in cash, speed to hire and a lot of flexibility in how they work.”

For now, though, there are signs that many of the unemployed remain cautious about seeking jobs.

On Thursday, Tony Sarsam, CEO of SpartanNash, a grocery distributor and retailer, said on a conference call with investors that the company took part last month in a job fair with 60 companies that had 500 jobs to fill.

“Only four candidates showed up,” Sarsam said.

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AP Writers Paul Wiseman in Washington and Anne D’Innocenzio in New York contributed to this report.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Some researchers believe COVID-19 has derailed the fight against HIV, siphoning away health workers and other resources and setting back a U.S. campaign to decimate the AIDS epidemic by 2030.

Saturday marks the 40th anniversary of the first report that brought AIDS to the attention of the public. For a time, the battle against HIV — the virus that causes AIDS — was going well. But experts believe the U.S. could soon see its first increase in infections in years. Internationally, recent strides could also be undone because of COVID-19’s interruption of HIV testing and care.

“COVID was a huge setback,” said Jeffrey Crowley, a former director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy who is now at Georgetown University.

COVID-19 has killed nearly 600,000 Americans in 16 months, approaching the 700,000 Americans that AIDS killed over 40 years.

Before COVID-19, health officials were celebrating how new medicines and other developments had gradually tamed HIV, prompting then-President Donald Trump to announce in 2019 a campaign to “eliminate” the U.S. epidemic by 2030.

But now, U.S. health officials are gathering data on exactly how much COVID-19 affected HIV infections and deaths, including how well testing, prevention and treatment kept up in the pandemic.

There are signs of a backslide.

Samuel Jenness, an Emory University researcher, used Atlanta-area data and statistical modeling to project major increases in some sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.

At the least, COVID-19 halted recent declines in new HIV infections, Jenness said. “At the worst, it potentially brought us an increase of cases for at least the next couple of years,” he added.

Limited data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests there were large drop-offs in HIV testing and other services.

The CDC looked at data from a lab that handles about a quarter of the nation’s HIV tests, comparing the numbers from March 13 through September 30 last year with the same period the year before. The agency found there were 670,000 fewer HIV screening tests, and about 4,900 fewer HIV diagnoses than normal.

There also was a 21% national decline in prescriptions for pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP. a kind of medicine people at risk for HIV take to prevent them from getting the virus through sex or injection drug use.

Why the declines?

Most U.S. health departments and community organizations had to scale back HIV testing, the first step in putting people with the virus on medicine that can keep them from spreading it. Also, health department workers who did the contact tracing to stop HIV outbreaks were shifted to COVID-19.

Even where HIV clinics were open, some people did not want to come in because of fear of catching the coronavirus.

There may be another reason: less sex.

Surveys suggest that at least during the initial months of the pandemic, many adults at higher risk for HIV infection had sex on fewer occasions and with fewer sexual partners.

But there also are signs that many people resumed their normal levels of sexual activity by summer, said Jenness, whose research focused on gay and bisexual men — a group that for years has had the highest HIV infection rates.

“People’s sexual behavior changed for only three months,” but prevention, testing and care disruptions are still going on, he said.

What does that mean for the national goals?

Data released this week showed the number of new infections declining for years, dropping to about 35,000 in 2019.

After Trump made his announcement in 2019, federal health officials clarified that the actual goal was a huge reduction in new infections over the next 10 years — down to fewer than 3,000 a year.

But Jenness and his fellow researchers predicted that the Atlanta area alone will see about 900 more HIV cases than normal over the next five years among gay and bisexual men.

Another bad omen: Drug overdoses are still rising, and shared needles are one way people spread HIV, noted Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the CDC’s director.

Recent surges in HIV infections in West Virginia have been tied to intravenous drug use, part of an ongoing shift in how the virus is spreading there. In 2014, 1 in 8 West Virginia HIV cases was attributed to injected drugs. By 2019, nearly 2 out of 3 were, according to state health department data.

All of this suggests that the 90% reduction goal will not be met, several experts said, though health officials have not yet abandoned that objective.

“We’re still working towards that goal,” said Kevin Delaney, a CDC HIV/AIDS researcher. “If we are missing millions of HIV screening tests from 2020, there will need to be an investment made to make those up. But the targets have not been changed.”

Walensky, a noted HIV researcher before she became CDC director, said it will be difficult.

“Do I think it’s doable? Absolutely,” she said. “Do I think we have the resources now to do it? I don’t think so yet.”

Worldwide, officials say there were about 38 million people with HIV/AIDS in 2019. An estimated 1.7 million people contracted HIV in 2019, a 23% decline in new HIV infections since 2010.

But COVID-19 interfered with testing and other health services globally, too. In Africa, one of the continents hardest hit by AIDS, experts noted interruptions in programs that check pregnant women for HIV and that provide male circumcision to reduce their risk of infection.

UNAIDS, the United Nations effort to stem HIV and AIDS, previously set goals to get certain proportions of infected people diagnosed and treated by 2020. This week, the organization said dozens of countries have hit the goals — “evidence that the targets were not just aspirational but achievable.” The agency has set even more ambitious goals for 2025.

But it will be difficult for the whole world to hit such targets, said Dr. Kevin De Cock, a Kenya-based global health expert.

“I’m not persuaded it’s judicious to talk about the end of AIDS,” De Cock said. “Internationally, I think we’ve made tremendous progress. (But) we are not on track to meet the goals that organizations like UNAIDS have declared.”

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The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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SAN DIEGO (AP) — The Biden administration has quietly tasked six humanitarian groups with recommending which migrants should be allowed into the United States to pursue asylum as it faces mounting pressure to lift public health rules that have barred people from seeking protection.

The consortium of groups is determining who is most vulnerable out of those waiting in Mexico to get into the U.S., and the criteria they are using has not been made public. It comes as large numbers of migrants are crossing the southern border and the government has been rapidly expelling them from the country under a public health order instituted by former President Donald Trump and kept in place by President Joe Biden during the coronavirus pandemic.

Several members of the consortium revealed details about the new system to The Associated Press. The government is aiming to admit up to 250 asylum-seekers a day who are referred by the groups, agreeing to that system only until July 31. By then, the consortium hopes the Biden administration will have lifted the public health rules, though the government has not committed to that.

So far, nearly 800 asylum-seekers have been let into the country since May 3, and members of the consortium say there is already more demand than they can meet.

The groups have not been publicly identified except for the International Rescue Committee, a global relief organization. The others are London-based Save the Children; two U.S.-based organizations, HIAS and Kids in Need of Defense; and two Mexico-based organizations, Asylum Access and the Institute for Women in Migration, according to two people with direct knowledge who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was not intended for public release.

Asylum Access, which provides services to people seeing asylum in Mexico, characterized its role as minimal.

The effort started at the border in El Paso, Texas, and is expanding to Nogales, Arizona.

A similar but separate system led by the American Civil Liberties Union began in late March and allows 35 families a day into the United States at places along the border. It has no end date.

The twin tracks are described by participating organizations as an imperfect transition from so-called Title 42 authority, named for a section of an obscure 1944 public health law that Trump used in March 2020 to effectively end asylum at the Mexican border. With COVID-19 vaccination rates rising, Biden is finding it difficult to justify the expulsions on public health grounds and faces demands to end it from the U.N. refugee agency and members of his own party and administration.

The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it’s in “close coordination with international and non-governmental organizations in Mexico” to identify vulnerable people and that it has the final say on who gets in. The agency described its work with the groups as fluid and said it hasn’t identified them to avoid giving them exposure.

Some consortium members are concerned that their offices in Mexico could be mobbed by asylum-seekers, overwhelming their tiny staffs and exposing them to potential threats and physical attacks from extortionists and other criminals.

Critics of the new selection processes say too much power is vested in a small number of organizations and that the efforts are secretive without a clear explanation of how the groups were chosen. Critics also say there are no assurances that the most vulnerable or deserving migrants will be chosen to seek asylum.

The consortium was formed after the U.S. government asked the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees’ office in Mexico for the names of organizations with deep experience and capacity in Mexico, said Sibylla Brodzinsky, a U.N. office spokeswoman.

“We’ve had long relationships with them and they’re trusted partners,” she said.

The groups say they are merely streamlining the process but that the vulnerable migrants’ cases can come from anywhere.

In Nogales, Arizona, the International Rescue Committee is working with local organizations and using a program that connects to migrants via social media and smartphones to find those “facing extreme life-threatening situations,” said Raymundo Tamayo, the group’s director in Mexico. It plans to refer up to 600 people a month to U.S. officials.

Special consideration is being given to asylum-seekers who have been in Mexico a long time, are in need of acute medical attention or who have disabilities, are members of the LGBTQ community or are non-Spanish speakers, though each case is being weighed on its unique circumstances, Tamayo said.

ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt said advocacy groups are in “a very difficult position because they need to essentially rank the desperation” of people, but he insisted it was temporary. The government, he said, “cannot farm out the asylum system.”

The most vulnerable migrants may be too scared or uninformed to bring attention to themselves, said Margaret Cargioli, managing attorney for Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a Los Angeles-based group that got involved with the ACLU-led effort after “more organizations became aware of it.” She called the approach a “Band-Aid” while the health rules remain in place.

Migration experts not involved in the process have questioned why the government has not been more transparent.

“It has been murky,” said Jessica Bolter, an analyst at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute who believes the administration is quietly trying to be humane without encouraging more people to come, a balancing act she doubts will succeed.

“Setting out clear and accurate information about how and who might get in might lead to fewer migrants making the trip, so there’s not this game of chance that kind of seems to be in place right now,” Bolter said.

U.S. border authorities recorded the highest number of encounters with migrants in more than 20 years in April, though many were repeat crossers who had previously been expelled from the country. The number of children crossing the border alone also is hovering at all-time highs.

Against that backdrop, some advocates are seeing the makings of the “humane” asylum system that Biden promised during his campaign. Details have been elusive, with administration officials saying they need time.

Susana Coreas, who fled El Salvador, was among those identified as vulnerable and allowed into the United States last month. Coreas spent more than a year in Ciudad Juarez waiting to apply for asylum but was barred by the public health order.

She and other transgender women refurbished an abandoned hotel to have a safe place to stay after they felt uncomfortable at a number of shelters in the rough Mexican city and got help from the International Rescue Committee.

But they continued to have problems. One transgender woman had a knife pointed at her. Another had a gun pulled on her.

“There was so much anxiety,” Coreas said. “I now feel at peace.”

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Norway and two other non-EU European nations on Friday have reached a trade deal with Britain following the country’s departure from the bloc last year.

Britain is Norway’s largest trading partner outside the bloc. The deal also covers Iceland and Liechtenstein.

In Oslo, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg called the deal “ambitious and comprehensive.”

“When Norway is speeding up on its way out of the pandemic, then good export agreements are important,” she said.

Talks between Britain and Norway have been going on since 2020. Negotiators had to tackle sticky issues including the import to Norway of agricultural goods such as meat and cheese, and exports of fish to Britain, Norwegian media said.

The three nations’ membership in the European Economic Area grants them access to the EU’s vast common market, and most goods are exempt from duties. However, obstacle-free trading across the North Sea ended when Britain left the bloc’s economic rules at the end of 2020.

“Although it is not as good as the EEA agreement, this is the most comprehensive free trade agreement ever,” Solberg told a press conference.

Britain said total trade with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein was worth 21.6 billion pounds ($30.5 billion) in 2020. Solberg said Norway’s exports to Britain are worth close to 200 billion kroner ($24 billion).

Britain said British farmers will benefit from lower tariffs and more duty-free access for goods like cheese, pork and poultry. They also stressed that reduced import tariffs on shrimps, prawns and haddock will lower costs for British fish processing.

Also, it will support 18,000 jobs in Scotland and northern England by creating new opportunities for the British fish-processing industry, London said.

Britain’s International Trade Secretary Liz Truss called the deal “a major boost for our trade with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein,” while International Trade Minister Ranil Jayawardena said it “shows that the United Kingdom will continue to be a trade partner of choice.”

However, the deal contains some barriers as Britain had completely free trade with the three countries when it was a member of the EU.

Solberg said that at least two issues remain. “One is that (the deal) is not dynamic. That means that when rules are changed, they don’t follow everywhere.”

“The second is the veterinary rules at the border, which have not been fully cleaned up,” she said.

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Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

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