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NFL Chief medical officer says plans to go forward with season may be premature Page 22

LIFESTYLE & BOOKS Feel the flow: Public urged not to flushinappropriate itemsPage 13

VIRUS OUTBREAK Lawmakers call for Pentagon probe into Capt. Crozier’s firingPage 4

Online: Get the latest news on the virus outbreak » stripes.com/coronavirus

BY CARA ANNA

Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG — Both the Islamic State group and al-Qaida see the corona-virus as a threat, but some of their fighters also see the upheaval from the pandemic as an opportunity to win over more sup-porters and strike harder than before.

Messages from the Islamic extrem-ist groups show concern about the virus mixed with bravado, asserting that it is punishment for non-Muslims while also urging followers to repent and take care of themselves.

Al-Qaida suggested in a statement Tues-day that non-Muslims use their time in quarantine to learn about Islam. But in a

sharp commentary in its al-Naba newslet-ter in mid-March, IS urged followers to show no mercy and launch attacks in this time of crisis.

In a commentary Tuesday, the Interna-tional Crisis Group warned that the pan-demic threatens the global solidarity that is key to fighting extremists, “allowing the jihadists to better prepare spectacular ter-

ror attacks.”Though analysts said it was too soon to

say which attacks can be blamed on mili-tants exploiting the coronavirus, Islamicextremists in late March carried out theirdeadliest assault yet against the military of Chad, a significant contributor to Africa’s

SEE CHAOS ON PAGE 3

Extremists see opportunity in global virus chaos

Army basic combat training graduates have their temperaturestaken upon arrival at Fort Lee, Va., on Tuesday after beingtransported using sterilized buses from Fort Jackson, S.C.U.S. ARMY / AP

Fillingthe ranks

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Military recruiters face uniquestruggle as enlistment stations close

Page 4

PAGE 2 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

T O D A YIN STRIPES

American Roundup ..... 18Books ...................12-13Comics/Crossword ...... 14Lifestyle ...............11, 13Music ....................15-16 Opinion ..................... 19 Sports ...................21-24

BUSINESS/WEATHER

WEATHER OUTLOOK

Bahrain75/72

Baghdad80/53

Doha89/68

KuwaitCity

85/67

Riyadh99/66

Djibouti87/76

Kandahar78/51

Kabul58/46

SUNDAY IN THE MIDDLE EAST MONDAY IN THE PACIFIC

Misawa43/37

Guam81/78

Tokyo57/39

Okinawa67/64

Sasebo56/44

Iwakuni52/45

Seoul55/31

Osan54/32 Busan

56/39

The weather is provided by the American Forces Network Weather Center,

2nd Weather Squadron at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.

Mildenhall/Lakenheath

62/37

Ramstein60/39

Stuttgart62/38

Lajes,Azores60/57

Rota66/42

Morón70/47 Sigonella

62/44

Naples62/46

Aviano/Vicenza61/42

Pápa59/38

Souda Bay60/57

SUNDAY IN EUROPE

Brussels64/41

Zagan55/39

Drawsko Pomorskie

53/32

Military ratesEuro costs (April 6)............................... $1.05Dollar buys (April 6) .........................€0.9029British pound (April 6) ......................... $1.21Japanese yen (April 6) .......................105.00South Korean won (April 6) ...........1,198.00

Commercial ratesBahrain (Dinar) ....................................0.3770 British pound .....................................$1.2260Canada (Dollar) ................................... 1.4130China (Yuan) ........................................7.0898Denmark (Krone) ................................6.9232 Egypt (Pound) ....................................15.7504Euro ........................................ $1.0789/0.9269Hong Kong (Dollar) ............................. 7.7540 Hungary (Forint) .................................338.98Israel (Shekel) .....................................3.6371Japan (Yen) ...........................................108.47Kuwait (Dinar) .................................... 0.3113Norway (Krone) .................................10.4790Philippines (Peso).................................50.80Poland (Zloty) ......................................... 4.24 Saudi Arabia (Riyal) ........................... 3.7615 Singapore (Dollar) ..............................1.4385 South Korea (Won) ...........................1237.26

Switzerland (Franc)............................0.9786Thailand (Baht) .....................................32.99 Turkey (Lira) ........................................6.7006 (Military exchange rates are those available to customers at military banking facilities in the country of issuance for Japan, South Korea, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. For nonlocal currency exchange rates (i.e., purchasing British pounds in Germany), check with your local military banking facility. Commercial rates are interbank rates provided for reference when buying currency. All figures are foreign currencies to one dollar, except for the British pound, which is represented in dollars-to-pound, and the euro, which is dollars-to-euro.)

EXCHANGE RATES

INTEREST RATESPrime rate ................................................ 3.25Discount rate .......................................... 0.25Federal funds market rate ................... 0.063-month bill ............................................. 0.0930-year bond ........................................... 1.27

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The stock market’s first reaction to Friday’s stunningly bad jobs report was to take it in stride. But Wall Street slid through the day as investors looked ahead to the likelihood that even worse numbers are on the way.

Stocks initially held steady after the government said U.S. employers cut 701,000 more jobs than they added last month, the first drop in nearly a decade. Many businesses have slammed to a halt amid attempts to slow the spread of the coronavi-rus outbreak, and investors were fully expecting to see such abysmal numbers. But the market headed lower as the day progressed and, as has become typ-ical in recent Fridays, investors looked to get out of

stocks ahead of the weekend, which could be filled with even more bad news. The losses accelerated after New York’s governor announced the biggest daily jump yet for deaths caused by the coronavirus in the country’s hardest-hit state.

“It was interesting to see that the initial reaction to the jobs number wasn’t more significant,” said Lindsey Bell, chief investment strategist at Ally In-vest. “As that sunk in, you started to see the market start to sell off after realizing that these numbers are going to get a lot uglier.”

The S&P 500 fell 38.25 points, or 1.5%, to 2,488.65. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 360.91 points, or 1.7%, to 21,052.53, and the Nasdaq was down 114.23, or 1.5%, to 7,373.08.

Stocks drop as coronavirus crunches job market

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 3

FROM FRONT PAGE

growing counterterrorism ef-forts, killing at least 92 soldiers near the border with Nigeria and Niger.

In Egypt, two military officials reported a spike in ISIS attacks in March in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

While Syria and Iraq have seen no uptick in attacks by ISIS since the virus spread there, the pan-demic has prompted the U.S.-led coalition to halt training activi-ties in Iraq amid a planned pull-out from several bases.

There are signs elsewhere that the U.S., British and other mili-taries are pulling back because of the virus, leaving a possible open-ing for the extremists.

That’s a danger in Africa’s hot spots of the Sahel, the Lake Chad region and Somalia, where the U.S. military already worried al-lies in recent months by contem-plating cuts to focus on threats from China and Russia.

“Any state that was interested in pulling back in Africa will take the opportunity to do so,” said Clionadh Raleigh, executive director of the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, which tracks extremists’ activi-ties worldwide. “That will be un-believably bad.”

A U.S. Africa Command spokes-woman, Lt. Christina Gibson, told The Associated Press that “while the size and scope of some AF-RICOM activities have been ad-justed to ensure the safety and

protection of forces — both U.S. and partner nation — our com-mitment to Africa endures.” She did not give details but said about 5,200 forces are on the continent.

The British army mission in Kenya, which provides coun-terterrorism training and other skills, this week announced that all army families are returning to the U.K. because of the virus.

But France’s largest overseas military mission, Barkhane in West Africa’s sprawling Sahel re-gion south of the Sahara Desert, is keeping its 5,100 troops there, the French Defense Ministry said.

Four French soldiers with Barkhane have tested positive for the coronavirus, a spokesman said Thursday, adding that op-erations have not been affected. They were the first in the mission to be infected.

African military units, already stretched thin and under attack, are likely to take protective mea-sures as the virus threatens their ranks.

In Nigeria, which has struggled against the Boko Haram extrem-ist group and an assertive ISIS-linked offshoot, the military has called for suspending much of its activities including large gather-ings and training.

A leaked memo signed by Nige-rian army’s policy chief says its vehicles might have to be used for mass burials or transferring the sick to hospitals.

While security forces are tar-gets, under-guarded prisons could be too, said Laith Alkhouri, a counterterrorism adviser who researches extremists in West

Africa. Both ISIS and al-Qaida-linked fighters have turned the Sahel into Africa’s most urgent extremism crisis, and even have engaged in some unprecedented cooperation.

Their fighters are likely to ex-ploit the pandemic by accusing governments of mismanaging the crisis to try to win popular sup-port, he said.

Some extremist groups are showing signs that, like the rest of the world, they are trying to understand the coronavirus and

respond.In Somalia, the al-Qaida-linked

al-Shabab held a rare five-day meeting of its leaders in March that discussed the virus. In a communique, the group recog-nized its “emergency threat” to the world, including Muslims.

An al-Shabab spokesman later told the AP it was too soon to com-ment on whether the group would heed a U.N. plea to halt attacks, which have continued, or whether it would allow health workers ac-cess to areas it controls.

In Afghanistan, the Taliban have gone even further, putting out videos on disinfection and photos of its fighters handing outface masks and soap. It also hasoffered security guarantees toany aid group assisting victimsof the virus or helping to stop itsspread.

Taliban spokesman ZabihullahMujahed told the AP that “if, God forbid, the outbreak happens inan area where we control the situ-ation, then we can stop fighting inthat area.”

Sunday, April 5, 2020

BY CHAD GARLAND

Stars and Stripes

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq transferred its compound at Taqaddam Air Base to government security forces on Saturday, as international forces battling Islamic State continue to shrink their presence in the country.

The coalition handed over some $3.5 million in materials, including tents, blast walls and gym and dining facility equip-ment, as part of the transfer, Operation Inherent Resolve said in a statement. In

March, the military alliance began con-solidating troops onto larger bases, closing compounds at Qaim, Qayara Airfield West, K1 and in Mosul.

“This wouldn’t be possible without the [Iraqi security forces’] proven capability to bring the fight to ISIS,” said Brig. Gen. Vincent Barker, Inherent Resolve’s sus-tainment director. Using an Arabic acro-nym for ISIS, he added: “The Coalition will continue to support our partners against the evils of Daesh.”

Primarily operated by Marines, Taqa-ddam had hosted U.S., Italian, Canadian

and Spanish contingents that trained Iraqi forces since 2015. Marines also staffed an operations center there to assist govern-ment forces in the ISIS fight, mainly in Anbar province, including the 2016 cap-ture of Ramadi and Fallujah from the ter-rorist group.

About 500 troops and other personnel, including U.S. Air Force and Army units, will withdraw in the coming days, Inher-ent Resolve said.

The base transfers have been long-planned, and while the coalition has been pulling forces from the country since the

Iraqi government paused military trainingto focus on battling the coronavirus pan-demic, the withdrawals are unrelated to the virus or recent attacks on Iraqi baseshosting U.S. and other troops, the coalitionsaid.

The Marines had wished the base fare-well late last month with a cake during a meeting with Iraqi military officials, pho-tos showed.

“Thank you and good luck,” said a mes-sage written on the cake in frosting.garland.chad@stripes.comTwitter: @chadgarland

Forces pull out of Iraq’s Taqaddam Air BaseWAR ON TERRORISM

Chaos: As militaries retreat, extremists could see opening

FARAH ABDI WARSAMEH/AP

Hundreds of newly trained al-Shabab fighters perform military exercises in the Lafofe area south of Mogadishu, Somalia, in February 2011.

Associated Press

UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that war-ring parties in 11 countries have responded positively to his ap-peal for a global cease-fire to tackle the coronavirus pandemic, but turning words into peace is enormously difficult and fight-ing has escalated in major con-

flicts including Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan.

He called on all governments, groups and people with influence “to urge and pressure combat-ants around the world to put down their arms,” saying the need is urgent because “the COVID-19 storm” is now coming to all con-flict areas.

Guterres told a briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York that

his appeal 10 days ago was root-ed in the recognition that “there should be only one fight in our world today: our shared battle against COVID-19.”

The U.N. chief said the appeal is “resonating” across the world, citing a growing number of en-dorsements for the cease-fire from 70 countries, civil society, religious leaders including Pope Francis, and more than 1 million

people in an online petition orga-nized by Avaaz.

He said parties to conflicts in Cameroon, the Central Afri-can Republic, Colombia, Libya, Myanmar, the Philippines, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen have also expressed their acceptance.

But Guterres said: “There are enormous difficulties to imple-mentation as conflicts have fes-

tered for years, distrust is deep,with many spoilers and many suspicions.”

He also warned that “terror-ist or extremist groups may takeprofit from the uncertainty cre-ated by the spread of the pandem-ic.” The secretary-general saidthat “in many of the most criticalsituations, we have seen no let-upin fighting — and some conflictshave even intensified.”

UN chief says global cease-fire appeal backed by parties in 11 nations

PAGE 4 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

BY COREY DICKSTEIN

Stars and Stripes

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers on Friday called on the Penta-gon’s inspector general to inves-tigate the Navy’s decision to fire the commander of a coronavirus-stricken aircraft carrier after his letter demanding help was leaked to the news media.

In a letter to the inspector gen-eral, Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., wrote they were “disturbed” by acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly’s decision late Thursday to relieve Capt. Brett Crozier of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt. Modly said in a hastily called Pentagon news briefing that he had lost trust and confidence in Crozier’s ability to command be-cause his scathing four-page let-ter seeking approval to remove most of the nearly 5,000 crew members aboard the ship was too widely distributed. By Friday, 137 Roosevelt sailors tested posi-tive for the coronavirus.

“Secretary Modly’s personnel action looks like retaliation and sends the message that the Navy does not want commanders to speak out to protect personnel,” wrote Lieu and Gallego, who are military veterans. “We request an investigation into whether the action by Secretary Modly was appropriate or legal.”

At least 17 Democratic senators signed on to a similar but sepa-rate letter Friday demanding an

IG probe into Crozier’s firing, just two days after the captain’s letter to Navy higher-ups leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle, the Re-uters news agency reported.

Modly on Thursday told re-porters that Crozier had failed to address his concerns properly through his chain of command by distributing his letter to as many as 30 people, including some out-side that chain, via a “non-secure unclassified email.”

“I could reach no other conclu-sion that Capt. Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with the [coronavirus] breakout on the ship to overwhelm his abil-ity to act professionally, when act-ing professionally was what was needed most at the time,” Modly told reporters Thursday.

Modly did not accuse Crozier of leaking the letter himself, which he said Wednesday would be the trigger for a decision to relieve the captain of command.

The acting Navy secretary said the decision to relieve Crozier of command was his alone. He even praised the captain as an “incred-ible man.”

“I have no doubt in my mind that Capt. Crozier did what he thought was in the best interest of the safety and well-being of his crew,” Modly said. “Unfor-tunately, it did the opposite. It unnecessarily raised the alarm of the families of our sailors and Marines with no plans to address those concerns.”

Crozier left the Roosevelt,

docked off the coast of Guam, Friday morning with scores of his sailors cheering him as he walked alone from the ship that he had commanded since Novem-ber, videos posted Friday to vari-ous social media sites showed.

“That’s how you send out one of the greatest captains you ever had,” said a person on one of the videos, who then used an acro-nym for greatest of all time. “The GOAT, the man for the people.”

Crozier is expected to be reas-signed within the Navy and keep his current rank, Pentagon offi-cials said Friday.

The military’s top general in an appearance Friday on Fox News defended Modly’s decision to re-lieve Crozier of command.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Modly was justified in his decision because the military relies on keeping critical infor-mation confined to the chain of command.

“I don’t have all the facts, but I trust Secretary Modly and his

judgment, and I’m going to sup-port him, obviously, because he is the responsible, accountable official to the American people,” Milley said. “He thought [Cro-zier] operated with poor judg-ment in a time of crisis … And when [Modly] loses trust and confidence in a ship’s captain, then that’s it. It’s target down.”

Defense Secretary Mark Esper also supported the decision, Jona-than Hoffman, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman said late Friday. Hoffman declined any additional comment on Crozier’s removal.

Milley said the military was working Friday to remove sail-ors from the Roosevelt. Officials have said they plan to remove all but about 1,000 sailors from the ship to self-isolate for two weeks in hotel rooms and Navy facilities on Guam to ensure the coronavi-rus cannot be spread further.

Modly said Wednesday about 1,000 sailors were needed aboard the Roosevelt to conduct criti-cal missions including secur-ing weapons, munitions and the

ship’s nuclear reactor. In his let-ter, Crozier had sought to reduce the number of sailors aboard theship even more to stem the “ongo-ing and accelerating” outbreak.

Like several other Democrats,former Vice President Joe Bidenblasted the Navy’s decision.

“Navy leadership sent a chill-ing message about speaking truth to power,” the front runner for theDemocratic presidential nomina-tion tweeted Friday. “The poorjudgment here belongs to theTrump administration, not a cou-rageous officer trying to protecthis sailors.”

President Donald Trump wasasked late Thursday wheth-er Modly’s decision could beviewed as punishment for an of-ficer speaking out to protect his troops.

“I don’t agree with that at all,”Trump responded. “Not at all.Not even a little bit.”

dickstein.corey@stripes.comTwitter: @CDicksteinDC

BY ROSE L. THAYER

Stars and Stripes

Military health insurance is just out of reach for the National Guard troops acti-vated on federal status to help combat the coronavirus pandemic because their de-ployment orders do not extend long enough for them to receive medical coverage, ac-cording to five senators and the National Guard Association.

Despite gaining approval for troops to deploy on federal orders that provide states with funding and troops with ben-efits through a status known as Title 32, President Donald Trump’s directive limits the approval to 30 days, Sen. Tammy Duck-worth, D-Ill., wrote in a letter to President Donald Trump on Friday. That limit falls just short of the amount of time needed for a service member and their family to gain Tricare health insurance, which requires more than 30 days of active duty.

“We respectfully request that you revise your memorandum to authorize Title 32 deployments for longer than 30 consecu-tive days, preferably through completion

of response and recovery to this national emergency, or at least a minimum of 180 days. This simple change will provide peace of mind for our troops and a steady state to enable our governors to continue to respond to this crisis,” wrote Duckworth, a retired lieutenant colonel of the Illinois National Guard.

Duckworth’s letter is also signed by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Jeanne Sha-heen, D-N.H., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V.

John Goheen, spokesman for the Na-tional Guard Association, which has also sounded the alarm about troops’ lack of health coverage, said he is hopeful a solu-tion could come soon.

“We know the White House has heard our concerns,” he said. “We are hopeful that this will change very soon.”

In total, nearly 18,500 National Guard members are activated in some capacity in all U.S. states and territories in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to the National Guard Bureau. Many of these service members are working missions that put them in close contact with the virus, such as administering tests at coro-

navirus screening and testing sites, man-ning field hospitals and distributing meals in hard-hit communities.

“They’re out in the public and in an envi-ronment where the likelihood of exposure [to coronavirus] is pretty high,” said re-tired Brig. Gen. J. Roy Robinson, president of the National Guard Association.

To then deny them access to health in-surance would be “absolutely inexcus-able,” he said.

The 25 states and territories with ap-proved federal status are California, Con-necticut, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Guam, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the National Guard Bureau and the White House.

In states without the federal approval, troops remain on state active duty, which only leaves them the option of workers’ compensation, should they become ill or injured while working during the corona-

virus pandemic.Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., wrote a let-

ter to Trump on Wednesday requesting he fix the gap in health insurance.

“Day by day, increasing numbers of ourNational Guard are asked to support thenational effort to address this crisis. Many of our guardsmen and women have lost their jobs during this unprecedented situa-tion,” Daines wrote. “During this time, we should do all we can to support the men andwomen being asked to assist our nation’sresponse to this pandemic and ensure thatthey are put on orders long enough to make them eligible for Tricare.”

Other federal benefits such as accessmilitary hospital facilities, federal work-er’s compensation, death gratuity, GI Bill accrual and retirement points for servicedo not have the same time-of-service re-quirement, Robinson said.

“It’s really not a hard fix,” he said. “Youcan’t help but be in awe of what the Nation-al Guard is doing.”Thayer.rose@stripes.comTwitter: @Rose_Lori

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Lawmakers urge probe into firingof ship’s captain

Guardsmen still lack military health care despite funding

KAYLIANNA GENIER/U.S. Navy

Capt. Brett Crozier, then-commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt addresses the crew, March 3. Crozier was relieved of command after his letter that warned sailors could die from the coronavirus outbreak aboard the carrier was leaked to the media.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 5Sunday, April 5, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Security officials: Leader of ISIS in Afghanistan arrested

Military recruiting difficult as offices close BY LOLITA C. BALDOR

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Marine Gunnery Sgt. Kevin Meyer does his best recruiting face-to-face. He can look people in the eye, read their body language and get insight into whether they would make a good Marine.

But coronavirus quarantines have shut down most recruiting stations. So Meyer and other re-cruiters have turned increasingly to social media. And that has its drawbacks.

“They usually won’t run away if you’re talking to them in person,” said Meyer, noting that if they are online or on the phone, they can just hang up. “They just stop re-sponding, and the conversation just ends without a conclusion.”

As the coronavirus pandemic worsens and the country turns increasingly to the military for help, America’s armed services are struggling to get new recruits as families and communities hun-ker down. Recruiters scrounging for recruits online are often find-ing people too consumed with their own financial and health care worries to consider a mili-tary commitment right now.

The services, as a result, could fall thousands short of their en-listment goals if the widespread lockdowns drag on, forcing them to pressure current troops to stay on in order to maintain military readiness.

“This is going to have some-what of a corrosive effect on our ability to have the numbers of people that we really need,” said Maj. Gen. Lenny Richoux, direc-tor for personnel for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “The concern, it is growing.”

He said the military is watching this day-to-day and knows that it could take “a very long time” to rebuild the force.

To entice prospects, recruiters are shifting to a softer sell, talk-ing more broadly about service to the nation in difficult times. And they’re hoping to get a recruiting surge during the peak summer months.

They may also benefit from the exposure the military has gotten as Navy hospital ships, Army field hospitals and National Guard troops roll into communi-ties to provide aid and health care

during the crisis. And the mili-tary could be a popular option for those facing lingering unemploy-ment because of the pandemic.

But shutting recruiting sta-tions is a problem. And the lack of in-person contact with recruits hits the Marine Corps particu-larly hard. The Corps has long excelled in what it calls the knee-cap-to-kneecap sales pitch that keeps new Marines linked with their recruiters as they head to boot camp.

“The heart of our recruiting effort is sending handpicked Ma-rine sergeants and staff sergeants out there to go recruit their own image,” said Maj. Gen. James Bierman, commander of Marine

Corps Recruiting Command. “And we’re never more comfort-able than we are when we’re sit-ting down face-to-face with a young man or woman.”

Bierman said he’s reached about 40% of his roughly 37,000-recruit goal this year.

The key problem is that the 4,000 Marine recruiters now can’t get into high schools to meet students and woo recruits, said Meyer, who’s in charge of recruit-ing at a Seattle substation.

Army leaders who struggled in recent years to get recruits had already moved to social media, e-sports tournaments and other on-line recruiting over the past year. So they had a bit of an advantage.

“We were well ahead of glide path when this thing hit, which is good because it gave us some maneuver room,” said Maj. Gen. Frank Muth, head of Army Re-cruiting Command. He said some recruiting stations had gotten double or triple the number of re-cruit leads compared to the previ-ous year.

Now, he said, they’re chang-ing their pitch, posting informa-tion on sites like Instagram and YouTube that focus on what the Army can do.

“Let’s go in softer,” he said he told recruiters. “Start a dialog. It’s a call to service, a call to the nation. Your nation needs you now. More of that. And then let them come to us.”

Bierman agreed, saying he doesn’t want Marine recruiters “trying to force a meeting or try to force a sale while families are dealing with really, really, tough, challenging circumstances.”

Muth, whose enlistment goal for the year is 69,000, and Bier-man said they’ll need to transi-

tion back to regular recruitingas soon as possible, but they don’tknow when.

Still, recruiters said they’veseen some successes — even somefueled by the virus outbreak.

Army Staff Sgt. Bradley Mar-tin, a recruiter in Tampa, said hespoke to a young man who, like many, got laid off because of the pandemic’s economic impact.

“He was sitting around think-ing about his future and said hewanted to do something to besuccessful,” said Martin, whospoke to the prospect throughFaceTime about Army careers and the tuition reimbursementprogram. “We ended up having a great conversation.”

Meyer said he had two success-ful online interviews. One was referred by a Marine recruit whohad signed up earlier this year,and another was referred by hisown mother.

“They want to be Marines,”Meyer said. “The challenge iswhat happens next.”

Most military movementstalled when the Defense Depart-ment froze nonessential moves several weeks ago. But the Armyand Marine Corps have contin-ued to send recruits to initial orfollow-on training.

New Marines are still going to boot camp on the West Coast, butnot to Parris Island, S. C. , wherethere have been several cases of the virus at the base. Thosefinishing boot camp are imme-diately going to their follow-on in-fantry training at Camp Lejeune,N. C. , or Camp Pendleton, Calif. ,without getting the usual 10-daybreak at home.

Just last week, the Army char-tered 32 buses to carry 812 newsoldiers from Fort Jackson, SouthCarolina, where they had finished basic combat training, to Fort Lee,Virginia, to start quartermasterand logistics training. A similar caravan will take medic traineesfrom Oklahoma to Texas.

Maj. Gen. Lonnie Hibbard,commanding general of theArmy Center for Initial MilitaryTraining, said people ask why theArmy is still recruiting and train-ing during a pandemic.

“We have to,” he said, add-ing it can be done with minimalrisk to health and safety. “It’s our responsibility to America rightnow.”

U.S. ARMY/AP

Recent Army basic combat training graduates have their temperatures taken as they arrive at Fort Lee, Va., on March 31, after being transported using sterilized buses from Fort Jackson, S.C.

BY PHILLIP WALTER WELLMAN Stars and Stripes

KABUL, Afghanistan — The head of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate has been arrested along with 19 other militants, Afghan officials said Saturday.

Abdullah Orakzai, who goes by Aslam Farooqi, was detained by forces from the National Direc-torate of Security, the country’s main intelligence agency said in

a statement. It was unclear where the ar-

rests took place. Farooqi and the others were detained on Friday, NDS spokesman Haris Jebran told Stars and Stripes, but he de-clining to provide further details.

U.S. airstrikes and raids have targeted the terrorist group’s re-gional affiliate, known as ISIS-Khorasan Province, since 2016. ISIS had declared the group’s for-mation early the previous year.

Last April, Farooqi replaced

the group’s former leader, known by the nom de guerre Abu Omar Khorasani, the United Nations said in a report in July. ISIS re-portedly demoted Khorasani over “poor performance” and opera-tional failures in late 2018 in east-ern Nangarhar province.

Farooqi’s arrest is the latest setback for ISIS-K, which saw roughly 300 of its fighters surren-der to government forces in the final months of 2019.

Sustained American airstrikes,

security forces operations and fighting between ISIS-K and the Taliban led to the surrenders, the U.S. military said January in a report describing the group’s stronghold in Nangarhar as “dismantled.”

Still, the group continues to claim high-profile attacks throughout the country, such as when gunmen stormed a Sikh temple in Kabul’s old town on March 25, killing over two dozen people.

That attack came less than a week after an ISIS-K fighterfired mortars at Bagram Airfield, the largest American base in thecountry and a hub for the U.S.-ledcoalition. The mortars were shotdown without causing injuries ordamage to the base, the coalition and local officials said.

Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report. wellman.philip@stripes.comTwitter: @pwwellman

‘ This is going to have somewhat of a corrosive effect on our ability to have the numbers of people that we really need. ’

Maj. Gen. Lenny Richouxdirector for personnel for the Joint Chiefs of Staff

PAGE 6 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — In a shift, the top leaders in Congress made it clear Friday there will be an-other coronavirus rescue package amid the stark need for federal resources to fight the pandemic and economic crisis.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Nancy Pelo-si, after days of publicly jousting over what’s next, began to outline fresh priorities signaling a potential thaw to the sniping and opportunity for renewed bipartisan ground.

“There will be a next measure,” McConnell said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The Kentucky Republican said health care must be at the “top of the list.”

McConnell said Congress should focus on correcting any shortcomings in the just-passed $2.2 trillion aid bill and rely on health care experts for solutions to “wipe out” the virus.

It’s the clearest outline yet from the GOP leader after days of slow-walking the push for more aid. McConnell said the new pack-age “should be more a targeted response to what we got wrong and what we didn’t do enough for — and at the top of the list there would have to be the health care part of it.”

Also striking a new approach, Pelosi said Friday that the next coronavirus aid bill should build on the bipartisan relief bills that Congress has passed so far rather than include broader Democratic agenda items, such as infrastruc-ture and rural broadband access.

That’s a noteworthy pivot for the California Democrat, who earlier has pressed goals such as a large public works measure and the restoration of a deduction for state and local tax payments.

“While I’m very much in favor of doing some things we need to do to meet the needs — clean water, more broadband, the rest of that — that may have to be for a bill beyond that right now,” she said

during an appearance on CNBC. The leaders’ remarks came as new evidence arrived of the grav-ity of the economic crisis caused by the outbreak. The latest batch of unemployment figures showed that a record, almost decade-long streak of U.S. job growth ended last month.

At the same time, the crisis is hitting closer to home. A 400-bed field hospital is being set up at the University of Kentucky’s Lexing-ton campus, officials said Friday. A day earlier the state’s governor announced plans to set up a 2,000-bed field hospital at the state fair-grounds in Louisville.

The two leaders have argued for days on television and in inter-views, an almost instantaneous fraying of the rare bipartisanship struck last week on the unprec-edented aid package, the largest in U.S. history.

McConnell acknowledged that he and Pelosi have “a little dif-ferent point of view” about the timing of the next package. Mc-Connell maintained he is “not in favor of rushing” into the next phase until they take stock of how the just-passed bill is working and what corrections are needed.

But the focus on health care has potential broad appeal as the crisis afflicts communities of all sizes and in all corners of the country, with sick patients seeking treatment at increasingly overrun hospitals and emergency rooms.

“We’ve got to wipe this out and we’ve got to wipe it out in warp speed,” McConnell said. “And so I would put that at the top of the list of places we need to look and see what could we have done bet-ter in the previous bill, the $2.2 trillion.”

It would be the fourth corona-virus aid bill from Congress.

He added: “We can’t sustain ec-onomically this happening again. We’ve got to solve the health part of it, which means not only treat-ment but vaccines.”

Pelosi told reporters at the Cap-itol that she spoke with McCon-nell on Friday. “We need a fourth bipartisan bill,” Pelosi said.

Pelosi said a $350 billion pro-gram to help keep small busi-nesses afloat should be extended, as well as unemployment insur-ance for the jobless and a direct payment to most Americans.

Congress signals more aid is likely

Associated Press

The Supreme Court on Fri-day announced it is postponing arguments scheduled for April because of the coronavirus, but the court didn’t rule out hearing some arguments within months.

The announcement means a total of 20 arguments scheduled

for March and April, including fights over subpoenas for Presi-dent Donald Trump’s financial re-cords, have now been postponed. The court said in a statement that it would consider rescheduling some cases before the end of the term “if circumstances permit in light of public health and safety

guidance at that time.”The court typically stops hear-

ing arguments in April but contin-ues to issue opinions in May and June before taking a break for the summer. The court resumes hearing arguments in October. The court did not say when a de-cision would be made about which

cases might be rescheduled or ex-actly when they might be heard. “The Court will consider a range of scheduling options and other alternatives if arguments cannot be held in the Courtroom before the end of the Term,” the state-ment said.

That seemed to leave open the

possibility the court could heararguments via audio or video link,the first time that would happen. The court’s announcement follows Trump’s decision to extend social distancing guidelines through the end of April, which included thetwo-week span in which the courtwas to hear arguments.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Friday abruptly changed its description of the Stra-tegic National Stockpile and put forward a narrower vision of the role the federal government’s reposi-tory of life-saving medicines and equipment should play in supplying states’ needs.

The change comes as the White House already is facing growing anger and worry from governors over federal assistance to fight the coronavirus outbreak. But it conforms with President Donald Trump’s insistence that the stockpile is only a short-term backup for states, not a commitment to ensure supplies get quickly to those who need them most during an emergency, the latest front in a concerted White House effort to try to put the onus for battling the crisis on the states, with Washington meant to play more of a supporting role.

Trump angrily defended the approach in his Fri-day news conference, his early sunny demeanor darkening as he was pressed on expected death rates and his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s comments suggesting the national stockpile is not intended for states. He sparred with reporters and insisted his administration was “doing our best for New York,” the pandemic’s epicenter, even as Governor Andrew Cuomo warns the state is in danger of not having enough ventilators to help patients stricken with coronavirus in a matter of days.

The alteration of the language describing the stockpile was reflected on government websites on Friday, a day after Kushner, a White House senior adviser who has taken a larger role in the corona-virus response, offered a new argument about the supplies.

After saying that states should use their own

stockpiles first, Kushner on Thursday said, “And thenotion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile. It’s not supposed to be states’ stock-piles that they then use.”

And asked what Kushner meant by “our stock-pile,” Trump snapped at a reporter, “You know whatour means: United States of America … our. Our. Itmeans the United States of America.”

Trump on Friday touted the number of supplies itwas sending to the states, including 8.1 million masksto New York. The president also directed FEMA to prevent export of the N95 masks under the DefenseProduction Act. In new guidance, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged Americansto wear masks in crowded areas, particularly in hot spots, but Trump immediately said that he would not personally follow the recommendation.

Until Friday, the federal Health and Human Ser-vices website had described the stockpile as “thenation’s largest supply of life-saving pharmaceuti-cals and medical supplies for use in a public health emergency severe enough to cause local supplies torun out.

“When state, local, tribal, and territorial respond-ers request federal assistance to support their re-sponse efforts, the stockpile ensures that the rightmedicines and supplies get to those who need themmost during an emergency.”

But the changed version available Friday morn-ing said the stockpile’s “role is to supplement stateand local supplies during public health emergen-cies. Many states have products stockpiled, as well.The supplies, medicines, and devices for life-sav-ing care contained in the stockpile can be used as ashort-term stopgap buffer when the immediate sup-ply of adequate amounts of these materials may notbe immediately available.”

Supreme Court postpones arguments scheduled for April

Trump administration tries to narrow stockpile’s role for states

ALEX BRANDON/AP

President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus at the White House on Friday in Washington, as Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens.

McConnell

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 7Sunday, April 5, 2020

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Damaged, old supplies given to some states

Face coverings recommended; Trump says he won’t wear one

Calif. officials losing patience with residents violating stay-at-home law

BY KIM CHANDLER

Associated Press

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Some states and cities that have been shipped masks, gloves, ventila-tors and other essential equip-ment from the nation’s medical stockpile to fight the coronavirus have gotten an unwelcome sur-prise: the material is unusable.

Nearly 6,000 medical masks sent to Alabama had dry rot and a 2010 expiration date. More than 150 ventilators sent to Los An-geles were broken and had to be repaired. In Oregon, it was masks with faulty elastic that could cause the straps to snap, exposing medical workers to the disease.

“Several of the shipments we have received from the strate-gic national stockpile contained (personal protective equipment) well past expiration dates and, while we are being told much of the expired equipment is capable of being used for COVID-19 re-sponse, they would not be suit-able for use in surgical settings,” Charles Boyle, a spokesman for Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, said in an email.

He said some of the equip-ment had been purchased during the H1N1 outbreak more than a decade ago and that the masks with the fragile elastic had been among products previously re-called by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state did not distribute them to medical workers.

A shortage of protective gear has imperiled doctors, nurses and

other front-line medical workers.Life-saving ventilators have beenin short supply as more and morestates experience outbreaks of the COVID-19 disease .

Numerous governors havecomplained about delays in get-ting equipment from the StrategicNational Stockpile or receivingamounts of gear far below what they had requested. That frustra-tion is compounded when equip-ment arrives, but can’t be used.

Dr. Don Williamson, presidentof the Alabama Hospital Asso-ciation and the former top public health official in the state, saidhe received multiple emails fromhospitals about stockpile ship-ments of N95 masks in which therubber bands that hold the masktight around the user’s face haddry rot. They couldn’t be used un-less the bands were replaced.

Montgomery County receivednearly 6,000 medical masks of adifferent type that had dry rot, ashipment that was replaced abouta week later.

“It’s really alarming because those masks are desperately needed,” said U.S. Sen. DougJones of Alabama. “When our na-tional stockpile is not monitored enough to know that you’ve got expired masks and rotted masks out there and not replenished, that is a real problem.”

Sen. Cory Gardner of Coloradoon Friday requested a probe into the management of the supply and distribution of ventilatorsfrom the national stockpile.

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced new federal guidelines Friday recom-mending that Americans wear face coverings when in public to help fight the spread of the new coronavirus. The president im-mediately said he had no intention of following that advice himself, saying, “I’m choosing not to do it.”

The new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages people, especially in areas hit hard by the spread of the coronavirus, to use rudimentary coverings like T-shirts, bandannas and non-medi-cal masks to cover their faces while outdoors.

The president exempted him-self from his administration’s own guidelines, saying he could not envision himself covering his

face while sitting in the Oval Of-fice greeting world leaders.

“It’s a recommendation, they recommend it,” Trump said. “I just don’t want to wear one myself.”

The new guidance, announced as states are bracing for critical shortfalls like those that other parts of the world have experi-enced, raises concern that it could cause a sudden run on masks.

Trump and other administra-tion officials sought to minimize any burden by stressing the rec-ommendations did not amount to requirements and that a variety of homemade coverings were ac-ceptable. Federal officials said that surgical masks and N95 res-pirator masks should be left for those on the front lines of fighting the spread of the infection.

Friday’s announcement capped an evolution in guidance from

the White House that officials acknowledged has at times been inconsistent and confusing, with the administration insisting over the last month that masks were not necessary or even helpful.

“I want to unpack the evolu-tion of our guidance on masks be-cause it has been confusing to the American people,” Surgeon Gen-eral Jerome Adams said Friday.

Adams said that although and he other public health experts initially believed wearing a mask would not have a substantial im-pact on curbing the spread, the latest evidence makes clear that people who don’t show any symp-toms can nonetheless pass on the virus.

“We’re looking at the data, we’re evolving our recommenda-tions, and new recommendations will come as the evidence dic-tates,” Adams said.

BY ROBERT JABLON

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — As 40 mil-lion Californians spend another weekend in the shadow of the coronavirus outbreak, there are signs officials are beginning to lose patience with those who vio-late stay-at-home and social dis-tancing orders designed to slow the spread of the infection.

Officials had said they want to rely on social pressure to make sure people don’t gather in large groups, stay at least 6 feet apart and only leave home to pro-cure essentials such as food or medicine.

But San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore used stronger language when reminding people that state and local distancing measures aren’t just recommendations and that scofflaws could face misde-

meanor charges carrying up to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.

“The days of trying to get volun-tary compliance are over,” Gore said Thursday. “The message is going to go out to all of public safety here in the county that we will start issuing citations.”

Many beaches, parks and hik-ing trails around the state and most beach parking lots have been closed because they attract-ed large crowds.

On Thursday, a paddleboarder near the Malibu pier was taken into custody and cited for a mis-demeanor after he allegedly ig-nored lifeguards’ orders to leave the water, authorities said.

“Stay home, shred later,” urged a message on the website of the Surfrider Foundation, a conser-vation group based in Southern California.

Mel Thoman told the Orange County Register that he’s stopped body surfing at the Wedge, a pop-ular, often-crowded surfing spot in Newport Beach.

“I’d love to be out there,” she said. “It’s a health issue and it’s a serious one. I don’t think people get that.”

The Santa Cruz County Sher-iff’s Office on Friday formed a special team of deputies to en-force the stay-at-home order at county beaches and parks.

In San Francisco, an 86-year-old man was cited for violating the safe-distancing order while leafleting.

There have been some 12,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 virus infections in California and some 280 deaths, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Reported cases con-tinue to surge, in part because

more people are being tested. Virus safety requirements have

slowly tightened in recent weeks.Beginning Saturday, it became

mandatory in San Diego Coun-ty for those who work with the general public at essential busi-nesses such as grocery stores and gas stations to wear non-medical cloth face coverings.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Gar-cetti said a similar order may be issued soon in his area.

In the meantime, LA is crack-ing down on so-called nonessen-tial businesses that remain open in defiance of the city’s stay-at-home orders.

The mayor’s office said more than two dozen businesses have been referred to the city attorney for possible prosecution.

“We will find you, we will come after you,” Garcetti said.

Meanwhile, Sunday is Palm

Sunday, the beginning of HolyWeek for Christians, and manychurches will be streaming ser-vices online rather than holdingpublic services.

But some churches were beingblamed for failing to practice safedistancing.

Cross Culture Christian Centerin Lodi, in California’s agricul-tural Central Valley, sent the citya “cease and desist” letter after police entered the church last week during a service attended by about 30 people and the church intended to continue its services,attorney Dean Broyles of the Na-tional Center for Law & Policytold the Sacramento Bee.

Officers have posted a “notice of public nuisance” on the church’smain entrance, city spokesmanJeff Hood told the Bee.

CHRIS CARLSON/AP

Kristiane Kinoshita, a nurse at UCI Medical Center ties cloth around her face in Orange, Calif., on Friday . The Trump administration has recommended the use of face coverings while President Donald Trump has said he won’t be wearing one.

PAGE 8 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

Associated Press

ROME — Air raid sirens sound-ed across China and flags flew at half staff in tribute Saturday to victims of the coronavirus pan-demic, including the health care “martyrs” who have died fighting to save others.

With the highest number of in-fections in Europe and their hos-pitals overwhelmed, Spain and Italy struggled to protect medical staff on the front lines of the out-break, while 17 medics in Egypt’s main cancer hospital tested posi-tive for the virus.

As the number of infections has grown to more than 1.1 million worldwide, health care systems are straining under the surge of patients and lack of medical equipment like ventilators as well as protective masks and gloves, giving rise to growing concerns about the exposure of hospital personnel.

Italy and Spain, with combined deaths of more than 25,000 and nearly a quarter-million infec-tions, have reported a high per-centage of infections among health care workers.

Carlo Palermo, head of Italy’s hospital doctors’ union, fought tears as he told reporters in Rome of the physical risks and psycho-logical trauma the outbreak is causing, noting reports that two nurses had committed suicide.

“It’s a indescribable condition of stress. Unbearable,” he said. “I can understand those who look death in the eye every day, who are on the front lines, who work with someone who maybe is in-fected, then a few days later you see him in the ICU or die.”

The number of people infected in the U.S. has now exceeded a

quarter-million, with the death toll climbing past 7,000. New York state alone accounts for more than 2,900 dead, an increase of over 560 in just one day. Most of the dead are in New York City, where hospitals are swamped with patients.

World Health Organization di-rector-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned African leaders of an “imminent surge” in coronavirus cases on the con-tinent, urging them to open hu-manitarian corridors to allow the delivery of badly needed medical supplies.

More than half of Africa’s 54 countries have closed air, land

and sea borders to prevent the virus’ spread but that has delayed aid shipments. Virus cases in Af-rica are now over 7,700, and the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned some nations will have more than 10,000 cases by the end of April.

Eleven Russian military planes carrying disinfection experts landed in Serbia on Saturday, which Serbian Defense Minis-ter Aleksandar Vulin said shows “that we are not alone.”

The transport followed last month’s deployment of a similar Russian coronavirus task force to Italy and the delivery of medi-

cal supplies to the United States. Russian officials have angrily re-jected claims that the Kremlin is seeking political gain by provid-ing aid to other countries.

Russia has reported a relative-ly few 4,700 cases and 43 deaths, and its southern neighbor Georgia said Saturday it has registered its first death from the virus, among 156 confirmed cases of infection.

In China, where the coronavi-rus was first detected in Decem-ber, authorities have cautiously lifted restrictions amid dropping numbers of infections. On Sat-urday it reported just one new confirmed case in the epicenter of Wuhan and 18 others among

people arriving from abroad.There were four new deaths for an official total of 3,326.

In the nationwide tribute to thevictims, the government singledout the more than 3,000 healthcare workers who contracted COVID-19 and the 14 reportedto have died from the disease. Among them was doctor Li Wen-liang, who was threatened with punishment by police after pub-licizing news of the outbreak but has since been listed among thenational “martyrs.”

As the outbreak spreads inEgypt, the Arab world’s mostpopulous country, the news that17 health care worker tested posi-tive for the virus at the NationalCancer Institute raised fears ofwhat the virus might do to the country’s hospital system.

Maggie Mousa, an anesthesiol-ogist at the institute, tweeted that one of her close friends was in-fected. She accused top officials of negligence for not imposing re-strictions after the first case wasdetected more than a week ago.

“They refused to take any mea-sures to protect her and isolatethe institute,” she said.

Spain’s Health Ministry report-ed 18,324 infected health workers as of Saturday, representing 15%of the total number of infections in the country. To help boost its ranks of health workers, Spain’sgovernment said that it had hired 356 foreign health workers living in Spain. It has also hired medicaland nursing students to help.

In Italy, more than 11,000 med-ical personnel have been infected— just under 10% of the officialtotal — and some 73 doctors havedied, according to the NationalInstitutes of Health and the asso-ciation of doctors.

Associated Press

ROME — San Marino needed medical masks. Badly.

The tiny republic, wedged next to two of Italy’s hardest-hit prov-inces in the COVID-19 outbreak, had already registered 11 deaths by March 17 — a sizeable number in a country of just 33,000 and a harbinger of worse to come. So authorities sent off a bank trans-fer to a supplier in Lugano, Swit-zerland, to pay for a half-million masks, to be shared with Italian neighbors.

Next day, the truck returned empty. The company was refus-ing to provide the masks.

Said Dr. Gabriele Rinaldi, di-rector of San Marino’s Health Authority: “It was a very bitter lesson.”

It’s not clear whether the mask supplier, who was not identi-fied, refused to deliver because another customer offered more. But what is clear is that the oft-proclaimed solidarity among na-tions waging battle against the pandemic has been tested — if not shattered — by national and

corporate self-interest.A health official in France’s

hard-hit eastern region said U.S. officials swooped in at a Chinese airport to spirit away a plane-load of masks that France had ordered.

“On the tarmac, the Ameri-cans arrive, take out cash and pay three or four times more for our orders, so we really have to fight,” Dr. Jean Rottner, an emer-gency room doctor in Mulhouse , France, told RTL radio.

The U.S. Embassy in Paris on Friday insisted that no one from the federal government bought masks destined for France. Pres-ident Donald Trump has sug-gested, however, that states get their own medical equipment to fight the virus, setting off a mad scramble among state officials.

A similar squabble followed a shipment of masks aimed for Ber-lin police.

On Friday, Berlin’s top security official, Andreas Geisel, accused the United States of using “Wild West methods” after a delivery of hundreds of thousands of face

masks destined for Berlin po-lice was diverted to the U.S. en route from China. German media reported this happened as the masks were being transferred between planes in Thailand.

The U.S. embassy in Berlin didn’t immediately comment.

France, meanwhile, has laid claim to supplies within its bor-ders. In Lyon, inside the main southern European distribution facility of the Swedish medical supply company Molnlycke, were millions of masks that France was reluctant to let go for export.

“We recognize that France has imposed an export ban for face masks and this ban was just ex-tended,” said Jenny Johansson, the company’s global manager for corporate communications. She declined to comment on re-ports that France ultimately al-lowed a million masks apiece to go to Spain and Italy.

“However, this is not only about France,” she said. “We see government restrictions across most countries in which we are active.”

VIRUS OUTBREAK

Risk to medical staff on front line grows

CARITAS AMBROSIANA/AP

An operator wearing a face mask to protect himself against the spread of COVID-19 stacks boxes of medical supplies from the Chinese charity Jinde Charities at the Italian charity Caritas Ambrosiana logistic center in Burago, in the province of Monza Brianza, northern Italy, Wednesday .

NG HAN GUAN/AP

A woman holds a floral bouquet as people gather outside of a park where an official memorial was held for victims of the coronavirus in Wuhan in central China’s Hubei Province on Saturday .

International solidarity tested in fight to obtain masks

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 9Sunday, April 5, 2020

Associated Press

NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would order the redistribution of criti-cally needed ventilators. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio called for a national enlistment program for doctors and nurses. And the coronavirus outbreak picked up speed with more deaths and more hospitalizations.

Cuomo said Friday he will sign an order to redistribute hundreds of ventilators to hos-pitals overwhelmed with coro-navirus patients amid a surge in outbreak-related deaths and hospitalizations.

New York state tallied its big-gest daily jump yet in deaths — up 562 to 2,935. Almost 15,000 people were hospitalized.

“You have more deaths, you have more people coming into hospitals than any other night,” a weary sounding Cuomo told a state Capitol news briefing.

As of Friday evening, New York City on its own tallied 1,867 deaths.

New York City hospitals are filling up with COVID-19 pa-tients, and officials fear they will soon run out of breathing ma-chines for intensive care patients. Cuomo said his executive order will allow the state to redeploy excess ventilators and protective equipment from hospitals and other institutions. He said there could be several hundred excess ventilators.

“I’m not going to let people die because we didn’t redistribute ventilators,” Cuomo said.

The governor wants upstate hospitals to loan 20% of their unused ventilators to struggling downstate hospitals. National Guard members will pick up ven-tilators across the state and in-stitutions that give up equipment will get it back or be reimbursed, he said.

Arizona SEDONA — The Coconino

National Forest is closing popu-lar hiking trails and day-sites in the scenic red-rocks area of Se-dona in north-central Arizona because of large numbers of hik-ers and a failure to practice social distancing.

Sites to be closed this week-end until further notice include the Bell Road, Cathedral Rock and Courthouse Vista trail-heads, forest officials announced Thursday.

The announcement said the closures were made in coordina-tion with Sedona and Verde Val-ley officials concerned about the possible impact on local health and emergency services.

“We realize these popular desti-nations in Sedona are places peo-ple rejuvenate by getting outside and experiencing the beauty this area has to offer,” said Red Rock District Ranger Amy Tinderholt.

“However, the unfortunate real-ity at these locations during this pandemic has been continued high use, causing crowds to form and people lining up just to hike or get to the end of the trail.

Colorado DENVER — Colorado Gov.

Jared Polis urged all residents Friday to wear cloth masks each time they leave home, another measure to stem the spread of the coronavirus as the state’s death toll from the pandemic surpassed 100.

Briefly donning a multicolored mask during a news conference, Polis cited the widespread use of masks in virus containment strategies effectively employed in South Korea and Taiwan. He called for wearing a homemade mask, fashioned of cloth, or a scarf when running essential er-rands permitted under the state’s shelter-in-place order.

To those immediately scoffing at the idea in online posts, Polis said that “you’re only prolonging this for the rest of us and you’re costing the lives of your fellow Coloradans.”

Illinois SPRINGFIELD — Illinois

has barred all activities at state parks, fish and wildlife areas, recreational areas and historic sites in another move to stem the spread of the coronavirus.

Colleen Callahan, director of the Illinois Department of Natu-ral Resources, said in a statement that hunters and anglers aren’t allowed to receive refunds on state-issued permits or permit transfers due to administrative guidelines under the state wild-life code.

“We understand the problems these laws create for our sports-men and sportswomen and are reviewing all possible solutions,” Callahan said.

With proper state authoriza-tion, people can still hunt and fish on privately-owned open proper-ties as Illinois continues issuing restrictions to curb the virus that causes COVID-19, the Journal-Star reported Thursday.

Maine AUGUSTA — Maine’s gover-

nor issued an executive order on Friday requiring travelers to the state to self-quarantine for 14 days to lessen the chance of transmitting coronavirus.

Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat, said the order applies to all trav-elers to Maine regardless of their state of residency. The order also calls on visitors not to come to the state if they are experiencing symptoms of the virus.

The order suspends lodging op-erations such as hotels and motels starting on Sunday at noon. The order also states that lodging can

be provided for vulnerable popu-lations, such as people who are at risk of domestic violence, Mills’s office said.

The order lasts until at least April 30.

The virus has spread to 15 of the 16 counties in the state, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Nirav Shah said Friday. All told, nine people have died and more than 400 peo-ple have tested positive for the virus in Maine, officials said.

Nevada RENO — State and federal of-

ficials are finalizing details of Ne-vada National Guard’s role in the statewide response to the coro-navirus, but they’re emphasizing the mission won’t include martial law.

Brig. Gen. Mike Hanifan, the guard commander, used social media to dispel a rumor that Gov. Steve Sisolak’s activation of the Guard this week means soldiers will enforce civilian laws.

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” he said. “Martial law is defined as law administered by military force. The governor has not handed over law enforcement duties or powers to the Nevada National Guard.”

Sisolak activated the Guard on Wednesday for logistical plan-ning and delivery of medical sup-plies ahead of an expected spike in patients with the respiratory illness.

Duties also likely will include security at testing sites, manag-ing food banks and disinfecting public spaces. Guardsmen also could assist in medical screening, help provide security of federal property and run traffic-control points, Hanifan said.

At least 43 people have died and more than 1,500 have been diag-nosed with COVID-19 in Nevada.

PennsylvaniaHARRISBURG — Pennsylva-

nia will stop paying about 9,000

state workers whose offices have been closed as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, officials said Friday.

Paid leave for state employees whose work locations are closed and who are unable to work re-motely will end April 10, accord-ing to Gov. Tom Wolf’s Office of Administration.

About 5,700 of the impacted workers are employed by the state Department of Transportation. About 900 work for the Depart-ment of Labor & Industry, about 850 work for the Department of Revenue, and the remainder are scattered across other agencies.

State workers can use paid va-cation days, sick leave or compen-satory time to continue to receive a paycheck. Otherwise, they will be eligible to apply for unemploy-ment, officials said.

South Carolina COLUMBIA — Gov. Henry

McMaster has directed South Carolina’s health department to begin publicly disclosing con-firmed COVID-19 cases by ZIP code, a level of information speci-ficity the agency had previously said was not necessary in efforts to temper the outbreak.

Also on Friday, Greenville City Council passed a $100 fine for any essential business still open that does not try to enforce social distancing in its store.

In a tweet, McMaster said the order was effective Friday, not-ing that he also wanted the state Department of Health and Envi-ronmental Control to begin pro-viding “the estimated number of residents who are likely infected and untested” in the same ZIP code.

“Providing this non-identifying information violates no state or federal privacy laws and is in the public’s interest,” McMaster said. “It is my hope this disclosure will reinforce to South Carolinians the seriousness and dire neces-sity of staying home to prevent

the spread of #covid19.”

Virginia RICHMOND — Virginia Gov.

Ralph Northam is instituting a hiring freeze of state employeesand is telling agency heads tolook for ways to cut budgets in re-sponse to the coronavirus.

Northam chief of staff ClarkMercer told agency heads in aThursday memo obtained by TheAssociated Press that a recession is coming and the state revenueswill be far below “even our mostpessimistic forecast” from lastyear.

On top of that, Mercer said,the state is having to spend heav-ily on fighting the virus, includ-ing buying medical supplies andon efforts to help vulnerablepopulations.

“All of this will cost the com-monwealth extraordinary sums,” Mercer wrote.

Northam’s actions are notsurprising.

The coronavirus is pounding state governments around thecountry with a financial one-twopunch, costing them millions to try to contain the disease just asbusinesses are shutting down and tax revenue is collapsing.

Wisconsin MADISON — A federal appeals

court refused Friday to block ex-tended absentee voting deadlinesfor Wisconsin’s presidential pri-mary, allowing voters to continue turning in ballots for six days be-yond Tuesday’s election.

U.S. District Judge WilliamConley on Thursday ordered ab-sentee voting deadlines extendedfrom Election Day on Tuesday to April 13, in effect extending the election by six days. Republicans asked the 7th U.S. Circuit Courtof Appeals to stay that decisionwhile they pursue an appeal.

The court refused to grant the stay in a four-page order Friday evening. The order didn’t offerany justification or explanation.

VIRUS OUTBREAK ROUNDUP

New York governor orders redistribution of ventilators to overwhelmed hospitals

GERALD HERBERT/AP

Cindy Morris, left, and Swarnamala Ratnayaka prepare RNA for testing for the new coronavirus at the molecular pathology lab at Tulane University School of Medicine in New Orleans, on Thursday . The test is identical to the PCR test being used by the Centers for Disease Control to ease the testing crisis and stop the spread of COVID-19, which has hit the New Orleans area especially hard.

PAGE 10 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S •

BY MARY CLARE JALONICK AND DEB RIECHMANN

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday abrupt-ly fired the inspector general of the intelligence community, side-lining an independent watchdog who played a pivotal role in his impeachment even as his White House struggled with the deepen-ing coronavirus pandemic.

Trump informed the Senate intelligence committee late Fri-day of his decision to fire Michael Atkinson, ac-cording to a let-ter obtained by The Associated Press. Atkin-son handled the whistleblower complaint that triggered Trump’s im-peachment last year.

Atkinson’s firing, which is part of a shake-up of the intelli-gence community under Trump, thrusts the president’s impeach-ment back into the spotlight as his administration deals with the deadly spread of the coronavirus. As Trump was removing Atkin-son, the number of U.S. deaths due to the virus topped 7,000.

Trump said in the letter that it is “vital” that he has confidence in the appointees serving as in-spectors general, and “that is no longer the case with regard to this inspector general.”

He did not elaborate, except to say that “it is extremely impor-tant that we promote the econo-my, efficiency and effectiveness of federal programs and activi-ties,” and that inspectors general are critical to those goals.

Atkinson was the first to inform Congress about an anonymous whistleblower complaint last year that described Trump’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate Demo-crat Joe Biden and his son. That complaint prompted a House in-vestigation that ultimately result-ed in Trump’s impeachment.

In letters to lawmakers in Au-gust and September, Atkinson said he believed the complaint was “urgent” and “credible.” But the acting Director of National Intelligence at the time, Joseph Maguire, said he did not believe it met the definition of “urgent,” and tried to withhold the com-plaint from Congress.

The complaint was eventually released after a firestorm, and it revealed that Trump had asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a July call to inves-tigate Democrats. The House launched an inquiry in Septem-ber and three months later voted

to impeach Trump. The Republi-can-led Senate acquitted Trump in February.

Trump said in the letter to the Senate that Atkinson would be re-moved from office in 30 days, the required amount of time he must wait after informing Congress. He wrote that he would nominate an individual “who has my full confidence” at a later date.

According to two congressio-nal officials, Atkinson has been placed on administrative leave, meaning he will not serve out the 30 days. One of the officials said Atkinson was only informed of his removal on Friday night. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because Atkinson’s administrative leave has not been announced.

Democrats reacted swiftly to Atkinson’s removal. The top Democrat on the Senate intelli-gence panel, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, said it was “unconscio-nable” that Trump would fire Atkinson in the midst of the coro-navirus pandemic.

“We should all be deeply dis-turbed by ongoing attempts to politicize the nation’s intelligence agencies,” Warner said.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., who led the House impeachment inquiry, said “the president’s dead of night decision puts our country and national security at even greater risk.”

Michael Horowitz, Chair of the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency and the inspector general at the De-partment of Justice, criticized the removal of Atkinson and defend-ed his handling of the Ukraine case.

“Inspector General Atkinson is known throughout the Inspector General community for his in-tegrity, professionalism and com-mitment to the rule of law and independent oversight,” Horowitz said.

Tom Monheim, a career intel-ligence professional, will become the acting inspector general for the intelligence community, ac-cording to an intelligence official who was not authorized to discuss personnel changes and spoke only on the condition of anonymity. Monheim is currently the general counsel of the National Geospa-tial-Intelligence Agency.

Atkinson’s firing is part of a larger shake-up in the intelli-gence community , which Trump has always viewed with skepti-cism. Atkinson is at least the seventh intelligence official to be fired, ousted or moved aside since last summer.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

NATION

President firesinspector generalfor intel agencies

BY ALEXANDRA JAFFE

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Joe Biden said Friday that he will announce a committee to oversee his vice presidential selection process and is already thinking about whom he’d choose to join his Cabinet.

Biden, who holds a significant lead in delegates over Sen. Bernie Sanders in the Democratic presi-dential primary race but has yet to officially clinch the nomination, also said he’s spoken to Sanders to let him know he’d be proceeding with the vice presidential vet-ting process. Biden, a former vice president himself, has previously committed to choosing a woman as his running mate.

Calling Sanders a “friend,” Biden said, “I don’t want him to think I’m being presumptuous” by choosing a running mate. But he added that the vice presiden-tial vetting process “takes time,” so he has to begin this month.

Biden’s comments came in response to a question during a virtual fundraiser about whether he’d be willing to release his full proposed Cabinet at the same time he announces his vice presi-dential pick. Biden didn’t answer the question directly, but did in-dicate that there are a number of people who have been helping his campaign with whom he’s dis-cussed whether they’d be “will-ing to come into a government if

I get elected.”He did, however, suggest he’s

been thinking deeply about themakeup of his potential Cabinet.There are a number of “younger, really qualified people” that Bidensaid he believes could be futureleaders of the party if given moreprominent roles. He also sug-gested he’d prioritize diversity inchoosing his Cabinet secretaries, and he wants the lineup to “looklike the country.”

“Men, women, gay, straight, across the board, black, white,Asian, it really matters that itlook like the country because ev-eryone brings a slightly differentperspective,” he said.

PAUL SANCYA/AP

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally at Renaissance High School in Detroit on March 9.

Atkinson

BY ERIC TUCKERAssociated Press

WASHINGTON — The chief judge of a secretive national secu-rity court demanded Friday that the FBI provide him with details about some of its investigations after the Justice Department in-spector general identified prob-lems with more than two dozen wiretap applications.

The order from Judge James Boasberg signals growing con-cerns from the court that au-thorizes FBI surveillance about whether the bureau is providing inaccurate information when it applies to eavesdrop on suspect-ed spies and terrorists. Those problems were highlighted in an earlier inspector general report about the FBI’s Russia investi-gation, then amplified by a new

audit this week that suggested far more pervasive problems in the bureau’s use of its surveillance powers.

The scrutiny from the court, which relies on truthful informa-tion from the Justice Department in issuing warrants, could prompt additional changes in how the FBI conducts surveillance and also fuel concerns from lawmak-ers who last month permitted certain tools to at least temporar-ily expire.

The latest review found prob-lems in 29 surveillance appli-cations, from October 2014 to September 2019, that Inspector General Michael Horowitz’s of-fice reviewed. Those problems included factual statements in applications that were not cor-roborated by any supporting documentation.

In a four-page order Friday,Boasberg directed the FBI to pro-vide him with the names of the targets for each of the 29 appli-cations. He also asked the FBI to evaluate whether the applications contained “material misstate-ments or omissions” and whetherthose misstatements make any ofthe applications that were grant-ed by the court invalid.

The FBI responded with astatement Friday that said itwould continue working with theForeign Intelligence SurveillanceCourt to ensure that its powersare used correctly.

It also noted that the applica-tions the inspector general re-viewed were filed before FBIDirector Chris Wray announced dozens of corrective steps after the conclusion of the Russia in-vestigation report.

Biden starts process of vetting for vice presidential candidate

Judge orders FBI to provide more details on old wiretap applications

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 11Sunday, April 5, 2020

BY DANIELA GALARZA

Special to The Washington Post

For close to 17 years, Robert Plaut bought a cup of prepared oatmeal from a local deli, his work cafete-ria or Starbucks for breakfast. “I

didn’t think too much about it until last week,” says Plaut, 41. But like a lot of peo-ple — forced to work from home to help slow the spread of COVID-19, the corona-virus disease infecting thousands across the globe — the ViacomCBS employee went grocery shopping in his Queens neighborhood last week. Among the items in his cart? A cardboard canister of Quaker Oats. “I know oatmeal is boiled in water, and I read the package and fi gured it out. But then I realized ... I needed to learn how to make lunch and dinner.”

Plaut’s case is an extreme one. With restaurants closed across more than two dozen states — though takeout and delivery are still available in many places — employment uncertainty and grocery store shelves periodically barren, a grow-ing number of people are watching online tutorials, FaceTiming parents and asking experts on Instagram and Twitter for help in an end-of-days-like scramble to learn how to cook.

Basic cooking is a skill many people pick up as a kid, in college or as a young adult. But with an estimated 40% decline in home economics classes, both parents working in 60% of American families and so many options for ready-made meals in urban areas, from grocer steam tables to fast food to delivery apps, some people fell through the cracks.

“I picked up very basic stuff, like I can make spaghetti or tacos, but I’m scared of burning rice,” says Amy Myers, 29, a developer based in Chicago. “My mom is a single mom and worked full-time, so she didn’t have time to do a lot of cooking. We

ate a lot of takeout.”Until recently, she worked in an offi ce

where meals and snacks were free. Now, she’s feeling more pressure to learn how to cook. Fortunately, she lives with room-mates who also fi nd themselves at home. “I’m learning a lot of pantry cooking. I’m learning how to roast veggies on a sheet pan and how to combine spices,” Myers says. “It’s a whole new world, but it’s be-coming easier to understand.”

Around 45% of adults age 18 to 24 and 64% age 25 to 34 rate themselves as good or somewhat good at cooking, according to a 2015 survey from research fi rm NDP Group. But until recently, learning how to cook, or learning how to cook better, as an adult was considered an aspirational skill akin to learning how to ski — could be nice, might be fun, but would be daunting and could come with potentially expensive start-up costs.

Food bloggers, recipe writers and chefs are ready to help. On Instagram, Adri-anna Guevara Adarme of the blog A Cozy Kitchen regularly hosts cooking tutorials for dishes she has featured on her blog. She has just under 250,000 followers. “Usually, I’d see around 15,000 people fol-lowing along, clicking through,” Adarme says. “Now, the number of viewers is up 25% and my DMs are insane. Everyone has a question, wants to know what they can substitute, where to get a certain ingredient online.”

Delish, the social-fi rst publication that

Hearst unveiled in 2015, is among the fi rst publications to launch an Instagram Live cooking series with parents and kids — for parents and kids. Because not only are many parents working from home, but their kids are home from school as well. Hosted by editorial director Jo Saltz and her children, the channel “will feature kid-friendly recipes ... pizza waffl es and puppy chow,” according to a statement.

After a podcast about coffee and a diet book, the third-best-seller on Amazon’s list of books on food and cooking recently was a paperback by Bonnie Ohara called Bread Baking for Beginners that’s also available instantly on Amazon’s Kindle digital reader. In sixth place was an In-stant Pot cookbook, seventh was the Easy Dinner Cookbook and 10th was Alison Roman’s “Nothing Fancy.”

Dozens of recipe writers and cookbook authors, including Roman, Benjamina Ebuehi (“The New Way to Cake”), Colu Henry (“Back Pocket Pasta”), Jet Tila (“101 Asian Dishes You Need to Cook Before You Die”), Julia Turshen (“Small Victories”) and Ben Mims (“Sweet & Southern”) are answering questions from readers and fans on Twitter and Instagram about specifi c recipes and ingredient substitutions. Around once a day, Roman has tweeted a call for ques-tions. A recent one, at 11 a.m. on March 19, solicited more than 100 questions and comments within a couple of hours.

Those less experienced in the kitchen

are turning to other sources, such as online cooking classes, YouTube and meal-kit services. Rouxbe, an online culinary school that started in 2005 and counts chef Marcus Samuelsson among its spokespeople, says it is experiencing “double-digit growth.” Uploads of videos related to sourdough bread hit an all-time high this year, according to Veronica Navarrete, head of global communications at YouTube, and average daily views of videos with “Cook With Me” in the title “more than doubled in the fi rst two weeks of March 2020 compared to the same time last year,” Navarrete says. Average daily views of videos with “meal prep” in the title also increased more than 55% in the fi rst two weeks of March compared to the same time period in 2019.

Popular cooking channels include Binging with Babish, Emmymadeinjapan, Cheap Lazy Vegan, Terri-Ann’s Kitchen and Honeysuckle, all of which have seen a bump in subscribers and viewers.

For those that already feel confi dent in the kitchen, it’s a time to specialize in a skill they were simply curious about in the past, but which now seems like more of a necessity.

“I know how to cook. I learned by watching my mom cook. I used to work in restaurants,” says Jack Reed, 35, a software engineer based in Denver. “But I always shied away from bread baking. It seemed hard, and I could never get it right.” He has been reading a few blogs and watching a lot of YouTube. This week-end Reed made focaccia. “It seemed like an easier bread to make, and it turned out really well.”

He’s off to a good start and excited about his next loaf. “I’m hoping to try to bake some sourdough,” Reed says. “If I get it right, I’m going to keep baking breadto maybe help out the neighborhood where I’m at, since everything is closed.”

LIFESTYLE

iStock

New home cooks are turning to online tutorials during coronavirus pandemic

With restaurants closed across more than two dozen states and grocery store shelves periodically barren, a growing number of people are watching online tutorials for help to learn how to cook.

PAGE 12 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

BOOKS

BY MATT SOERGEL

The Florida Times-Union

After her father’s death, Sherie Zahn found a small, crumbling, Army-issued footlocker among his belongings. Inside there was treasure: letters Tony Zahn had sent home during World War II, packed with details

of his Army life, from training in America to combat in the Philippines.

His family had saved them all, 256 letters written over 38 months. Most were lighthearted, detailed and chatty, beginning with the cheery salutation: “Dear Folks.”

In those he talked about train rides across the United States and seeing Indians and cowboys, the blue Pa-cifi c, muggy Missouri and muddy Tennessee. He talked about USO shows, movies he saw, the good chow he ate and the occasional sighting of good-looking young women. He enclosed his own photos and some deft sketches, including one of a nurse who was “the cutest little blonde a lonely soldier could ask for.”

Even after he made it to combat, Zahn — writing under the keen eye of censors — kept the tone light. And one point he noted that while Japanese Zero fi ghter planes made frequent bombing runs, they were just as often shot down: “Zeros are a dime a dozen and any villager without at least one in his backyard is a social outcast.”

Later letters, mostly ones he sent to just his father, as if to spare his mother from the horrors of war, were darker, even troubled.

At times he was angry at his father who, after read-ing all the breezy letters, concluded that his son had “not yet experienced war.”

“I have not experienced war!” Tony Zahn wrote back. “God, man — what do you take this for, a Ladies’ Aid Clambake? And what do you think I’ve been doing all this time so that you may sit at your desk and write let-ters like that?

“I’ve had bombs land so close that they showered me with debris. When the tracers were cutting the grass I’ve been so close to the mud that I’ve had to spit out quantities of it. I know what it is to see the place you’ve just quitted go up in a crescendo of fl ame ... I know what it is to sit up all night with your fi nger on the trigger, waiting for an airborne attack — waiting and waiting for God-knows-what. Waiting!”

The letters gave Sherie Zahn great insight into the life of her father, who rarely if ever spoke of his war-time experiences, although he often had a tall stack of WWII Pacifi c Theater books by his chair.

“He was immersed in it,” she said. “It was like he never left.”

Tony Zahn’s private letters to his father show that

he grew disil-lusioned with American civil-ians who, he be-lieved, had little understanding of what the war was really like.

“You probably think I am mad even as I think that you are mad,” he wrote. “It is just that we are living in two separate worlds as far removed from each other as the earth and the sun. Your world will never understand mine and mine

will never understand yours. The best thing that we can do is to drop the whole matter and indulge one another’s whims of fancy.”

Sherie Zahn, 70, has collected her father’s letters, supplemented by some of his diary entries, in a 274-page book called “Tony’s War” (Gatekeeper Press). She released it this year to mark the 75th anniversary of the war’s end. All proceeds, she said, are going to veterans groups.

Her father was raised in an upper-middle-class fam-ily in New York. He was well-educated, a classically trained pianist, a sailor, an artist and photographer. He was a voracious reader who kept up his New Yorker magazine subscription during the war and found great meaning in the works of Somerset Maugham.

Yet his life after war — a life of poverty and drink-ing, leading to an early death — fell far short of that promise.

Through his letters, his daughter began to under-stand why.

“I suspect it’s survivor’s guilt,” she said. “Who was he to be a success, when all these people had no chance? I really think he had survivor’s guilt, and his life was an apology for still being alive.”

Her father was part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the largest naval battle of the war, then was part of the American force that, led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, took Leyte Island from the determined Japanese oc-cupiers.

After the war, he lived a year with his parents and plowed through the nest egg of money he’d accumulat-

ed in the Army. Though his earlier letters had men-tioned possible careers as a photographer or musician, higher education or entrepreneurship, he eventually took an entry-level job as a telephone company switch-man.

He kept it for 38 years, refusing promotion or other opportunities.

He got married, had a daughter and a son, began drinking more and taking prescribed sedatives. The marriage ended after just four years.

Zahn moved into a room at a YMCA, where he was likely the only tenant with a tuxedo. That was a hold-over from his life as a concert pianist, and he’d put it on to crash high-society weddings, eating and drinking and having a good time.

By the late 1970s, Zahn returned to Fort Ord, Calif., where he had gone through training. It wasn’t the same, so he wandered south, stopping for a night at a hotel piano bar north of Santa Barbara.

He decided he liked that nightspot just fi ne, so he stayed another night there. And another. And another.

He got a room at a nearby Motel 6 and lived there for six years, drinking and smoking in taverns during the day, at the piano bar at night.

Zahn was just 63 when he died. “Cirrhosis or emphy-sema, take your pick,” the doctor said.

In her epilogue to the book, Sherie Zahn said he was a good father. When his children visited, he took them on outings throughout New York, and at home he taught them how to develop fi lm, cook, sew and set up model trains. He read to them from “Alice in Wonderland,” which he’d had during training. And he took them to his favorite taverns, where his friends bought them Shirley Temples.

“He really limited his own life after the war,” she said. “He really became unproductive, but he really didn’t want that for his kids. He always said you can be anything you want to be.”

She, for example, got a doctorate in infectious disease epidemiology and a degree in tropical medicine. She worked for the federal and various state governments, traveled to 121 countries and all seven continents.

Her father often talked of traveling again, but he had too little money to go on such journeys.

Reading his letters home, Sherie Zahn saw his lost opportunities but fi nally understood why he lived the life he led.

In the book’s epilogue, she wrote, “I believe that he forsook a life of accomplishment and prosperity, ig-nored his skills and talents, and marginalized his living conditions because so many of his army buddies never had a chance to live beyond their youth and achieve their potentials.

“In that sense, Tony’s life became an apology for hav-ing survived WWII. Rest in peace, Dad.”

‘ I believe that he forsook a life of accomplishment and prosperity, ignored his skills and talents, and marginalized his living conditions because so many of his army buddies never had a chance to live beyond their youth and achieve their potentials. ’

Sherie Zahnepilogue to her father’s letters in “Tony’s War”

Daughter of WWII veterancollected his letters, diaries

Sherie Zahn found this footlocker filled with

her father ’s World War II letters (an excerpt

of one is shown below) and compiled th em into “Tony’s War.”

Sherie Zahn

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 13Sunday, April 5, 2020

LIFESTYLE & BOOKS

The Poop DiariesAbby Ross

Yes, plumbers have encoun-tered snakes, rats, weapons and drugs while on duty, but according to the plumbers who fi ll 10 chap-ters of Abby Ross’ book, “The Poop Diaries,” they wouldn’t trade their jumpsuits for any other career.

Ross, a Chicago resident, of-fers a behind-the-scenes look at

plumbers’ service calls, so readers can get a fi rsthand account of some

of the more memorable ones. What unfolds in the 200-plus-page book are tales that are “disgusting, hilarious, or scary.” But don’t be fooled, as Ross says in her introduction. This book is about poop — but so much more.

“At fi rst I pictured the book to be pure humor, but as I interviewed these people, I realized that there was so much more depth to their experiences than just the sex toys and poop,” Ross said.

It was when Ross met her plumber, Jon, on a cold night in Chicago that she got the idea to write about this particular fi eld of contractors.“My toilet clogged on a Wednesday night,”

Ross said. “I called a plumber around 8-9 p.m. Jon came over and fi xed the clog within 20 minutes. He obviously knew his stuff. I asked if he could tell me his fi ve greatest hits, his best service calls, and he was so hilarious. I really enjoyed his stories and thought: I want to write a book about you.”

Ross broadened her scope and talked with plumbers who grew up in Green Bay, Wis ., who make their home in Edmonton, Canada,

and who work in Oakland, Calif .Not to give too many spoilers, but the stories from Carissa and Jac, women

plumbers, are not to be missed. Carissa was installing a urinal in a bar when

a customer approached her for a date. Jac fi xed a restaurant’s toilet pro bono and offered her advice and card to an employee to give to the business’ owner. When asked why the owner didn’t call her, the employee’s response was: “I showed him your card. When he

saw you were a woman, he did not believe anything you said.”

“Their perspective adds so much to the book,” Ross said. “I think that

with the #MeToo movement, women’s rights have come a long way. Unfortu-

nately in plumbing, it’s just not there yet.”Ross said that’s unfortunate, given that

there is a shortage of plumbers, according to numerous trades publications and learning institutions. She hopes her book encourages people to go into the trades.

“A lot of people think plumbers are blue-collar workers who have plumber’s cracks and don’t make a lot of money — that is so far from the truth,” Ross said.

She said that many of the plumbers she in-terviewed have second homes and boats, lives they created after attending a trade school or doing an apprenticeship instead of going to college.

Kelly Castrogiovanni, president and owner of Terry Plumbing in the greater Chicago area, said becoming a licensed plumber takes fi ve years of learning and training, but once

the license is in hand, plumbers will always be able to fi nd a job because they are always needed.“It is a hard sell because there’s a lot of heavy

lifting. People think they don’t want to be knee-deep in a sewer line,” she said. “But you get out of school making

$100,000 instead of getting out of college owing over $100,000.”— Darcel Rockett/Chicago Tribune

BY DARCEL ROCKETT � Chicago Tribune

Coronavirus have you worried about

toilet paper? Public urged not to fl ush

inappropriate items

Plumbingproblems

The photos from supermarkets of aisles emptied of paper products get no less jarring as the coronavirus continues to

have an impact. People reportedly are asking other shoppers before they park at a store if toilet paper is available.

But carts full of toilet paper lead one to ponder just how much damage we can do to our toilets during self-quarantine. (Bidets are becoming popular.) According to Patrick Sullivan, a 24-year plumbing veteran with Wheeling, Ill.-based Taylor Plumbing Inc., it’s a lot of damage if common sense isn’t used.

Baby wipes? Those don’t go in the toilet.

As for Kleenex? That, too, is a no-go.

Paper towels? Nope.“Baby wipes, even though some of

them say they’re biodegradable, they really aren’t,” Sullivan said. “Those are one of the No. 1 causes of a backup in plumb-ing systems — baby wipes and paper towels. Paper towels are pretty tough. They’re designed to absorb spills, but they’re not designed like toilet paper, which is supposed to break down as soon as it hits water. They have a tendency to clump up, and that causes problems.”

Craig Campeglia, a retired Chicago plumber and former president of the Plumbers Contractors Asso-ciation, agrees. A plumber featured in the book “The Poop Diaries,” he said a friend saw a lady buying eight packages of paper napkins, guessing the intent would be for the toilet. But dinner napkins do not break up in water the way toilet paper does.

“It will fl ow for a little while, and then it will stop fl owing, and being that it’s wet, it has weight to it,” he said. “Then it dries and gets hard, and as you fl ush more stuff down the toilet, it acts as a dam. It will plug, then we’ve got to come into the building with a rod and rod it out, and people don’t realize that.”

Campeglia said an industry friend sent him a picture of a guy with a gold shirt, gold chains and a gold wristband citing: “This will be the plumbers in the next couple of weeks rodding sewers.”

Sullivan hasn’t seen an uptick in plumb-ing calls since self-distancing became a mandate in the Chicagoland area, but he thinks that’s because people also don’t want those from the outside coming into their space unless it’s a true emergency.

“If it’s not spraying everywhere, people are put-ting it off until we get an all clear or things change a little bit,” he said.

“This is a crazy time,” Campeglia said. “I don’t know why people are hoarding toilet paper. But I do know the only thing that should go down a toilet is sh_, pi_ and toilet paper. Anything else, put it in a bag, seal it up and toss it in the garbage. That’s what it’s for.”

iStock

PAGE 14 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

CROSSWORD AND COMICS

“Gunston Street” is drawn by Basil Zaviski. Email him at gunstonstreet@yahoo.com, and visit gunstonstreet.com.

GUNSTON STREET RESULTS FOR ABOVE PUZZLE

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 15Sunday, April 5, 2020

MUSICPearl Jam, from left: Mike McCready, Matt Cameron,

Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament and Stone GossardDanny Clinch

Classicchange-up

otherwise hopeful record. Its heavy political themes were foreshadowed by the melting-ice-cap cover image, the photo taken by acclaimed nature photog-rapher Paul Nicklen in the Arctic Ocean. With its drifting psychedelic intro, “Seven O’Clock” feels like a paean to fl ickering opti-mism, a cool-headed call to action in the face of political doublespeak and rising sea levels. Written and recorded before the COVID-19 pan-demic disrupted everyday life (and Pearl Jam’s tour plans), the global health cri-sis only amplifi es the period of existential dread in which the band’s most topical album in years arrives.

Whether a product of added time or fresh studio blood with Seattle’s Josh Evans taking over producer duties from frequent Pearl Jam collaborator Brendan O’Brien, the quintet seemed eager to experiment on its 11th studio album. But

Pearl JamGigaton (Monkeywrench/Republic)

BY MICHAEL RIETMULDER

The Seattle Times

Pearl Jam and its grunge-era breth-ren are offi cially classic rock. It’s

been an entire generation since Eddie Vedder and the boys were hailed as the voice of theirs. Nine-ties teens can now tell their children of a distant time when musicians with guitars roamed the MTV airwaves currently occupied by “Teen Mom OG” and “Jersey Shore Family Vacation.”

On March 27, Pearl Jam broke the longest album drought of its career with the release of “Gigaton” — the Seattle juggernauts’ fi rst studio effort since 2013’s “Lightning Bolt.” And it’s hardly a tired spinoff.

At this stage in their career, the legends have evolved into a cult-favorite live band, their shake-’em-up set lists earning them a rabid following akin to jam bands like Phish. Caravan-ning fans will pack arenas and stadiums regardless of the ’90s rock heroes’ present-day studio habits,

yet “Gigaton” is the work of a band unafraid to shake things up on record, too — just not as drastically as fans might have thought.

In January, dancey curve-ball “Dance of the Clairvoy-ants” became a certifi ed talker when it was released as the lead single. With Vedder barking like a dis-gruntled David Byrne over a digitally steeped drum beat and funky post-punk guitar barbs, the synth-splashed bop sounds nothing like any-thing the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers had conjured in their 30 years.

While somewhat polar-izing, it’s the most exciting and unexpected track the band has unleashed this century, perking the ears of some who’d tuned out ages ago and rankling a few die-hards. This sort of split is always a sign of creative health from a veteran band with nothing to prove. Down the road — when bands are able to hit the road again after coronavirus isolation — “Dance” is likely to slide

into Pearl Jam’s variegated set lists as well as the Roll-ing Stones’ disco-charged one-off “Miss You” has dur-ing recent gigs. Considering how well Pearl Jam pulled off the Talking Heads-evok-ing head-turner, it’s almost a shame these creative winds didn’t blow the band even further outside its comfort zone. It might also be worth noting that “Dance” is the only song all fi ve members share writing credits on.

The outlier’s closest sibling is probably the marching “Quick Escape,” which feels like a sci-fi warning from a future with unmitigated climate change. Featuring another round of mechanical post-punk guitars, the churning track with a shout-along chorus is punctuated by a supernova of a solo from a peak-form Mike McCready. Through-out “Gigaton,” the cel-ebrated axeman unleashes torrents of stadium-slaying guitar heroics with the re-straint of a quarantined kid hitting the park for the fi rst time in weeks.

Lyrically, “Quick Escape” is the bleakest point of an

despite some stylistic dalli-ances, much of “Gigaton” is tried-and-true Pearl Jam. Midtempo rawk bruisers arrive with varying spice levels, with classic rock-in-debted “Never Destination” serving as a highlight. Ved-der comes out charging like a younger Springsteen with Whovian power and swag-ger. We half expected friend of the band Pete Townshend to come windmilling in after the fi rst chorus. Meanwhile, “Comes Then Goes” is a classic Vedder acoustic ballad as savory as any. Instead of feeling cliche, his “the kids are all right” lyric comes off as a knowing wink to the past and future from a 50-something rock star with half a lifetime’s wisdom to draw from.

“Gigaton” might not ap-peal to anyone who hasn’t kept up with grunge gods, but it rivals the more cohe-sive “Backspacer” as a late-career high-water mark.

If the kids are all right, so are their MTV-generation parents who refuse to settle for a reboot.

Pearl Jam releases its most striking album in 20 years

PAGE 16 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

MUSIC REVIEWS

Soccer MommyColor Theory (Loma Vista)

Sophie Allison is a young star with an old soul.

In 2017, she dropped out of New York University and moved back home to Nashville after her deceptively calm, arresting songs earned her a record deal with the Fat Possum label.

The next year, her “Clean” debut as Soccer Mommy imme-diately established her as one of the leading songwriters of her generation, starting with the lead single “Your Dog” that thrilling-ly turned the tables on Iggy Pop’s “I Wanna Be Your Dog.”

With her “Color Theory” follow-up to that impressive entrance, Allison is shooting still higher. Teaming again with producer Gabe Wax, who’s worked with the War On Drugs, among others, she’s structured the album in three color-coded parts. Blue represents depres-sion; yellow, physical and mental illness; gray, darkness and loss.

The colors are muted on the album — the cover art is packaged to look like a vintage cassette — and so are the ar-rangements, which are more polished, reflecting a growing comfort level in the recording studio.

The smooth surfaces can’t hide what’s roiling underneath, how-ever. She’s unforgiving, gazing in the mirror in “Royal Screw Up.” “Nightswimming,” which borrows a title from an R.E.M. song, captures the distance that technology can create for two people otherwise alone: “The bruises show / Standing in the living room talking, as you’re staring at your phone.”

“Yellow Is The Color Of Her Eyes” is a seven-minute heart-breaker about her mother’s can-cer. It’s ultimately inconsolable — “Loving you is not enough/ You’ll still be in the ground when it’s done” — and a powerful cen-terpiece to the album.

— Dan DeLucaThe Philadelphia Inquirer

Niall HoranHeartbreak Weather (Capitol Records)

An anxious-looking Niall Horan appears on the cover of his sophomore solo album. He’s standing on a chair in the middle of a street with a nasty-looking thunderstorm brewing behind him. It’s a fi ttingly awkward image for what turns out is an awkward album.

“Heartbreak Weather” is an overall bright collection from the former One Directioner, but one that doesn’t top his 2017 debut, the nifty “Flicker.” If he was more folky on the last one, here he’s veered back into pop, mak-ing 14 perfectly fi ne tracks, if not volcanic ones.

The half dozen best songs — like the Ed Sheeran-like “No Judgement,” the ’80s-ish title track and the addictive “New Angel” — are diluted by too many that make little impres-sion, especially the softer, quieter songs “Black and White,” “Dear Patience,” “Put a Little Love On Me,” “Still” and “San Francisco.”

The sultry, rocking “Nice to Meet Ya” was a dynamite fi rst single, but its cocky Brit-pop sound isn’t followed through for the rest of “Heartbreak Weather.” Horan’s music doesn’t always reach out and grab you by the throat, so a few listens are often required to release their understated beauty. But more spins don’t always help this time.

Horan has once again writ-ten on every track and tapped some top producers — including Greg Kurstin, Teddy Geiger, Julian Bunetta and Scott Harris — for an album in which every song is about a lover or a former one. Horan really only has two speeds on “Heartbreak Weather” — frisky or brokenhearted. “Let’s skip all the small talk and go straight up to your room,” he sings in one song. On another, he’s down and haunted: “I try to run, but you’re everywhere I go.”

“Heartbreak Weather” is in no way a disaster like the one approaching Horan on the album cover. It’s just not an improve-ment on his debut effort. Not to worry, the storm will pass. Also, pro tip: Avoid wearing white pants in a squall.

— Mark KennedyAssociated Press

Grandstand Media

Aubrie Sellers opens “Far From Home” with the title song, a slow, ethereal number with folk underpin-nings that exudes an old-as-the-hills vibe. Then, just as you’re lulled, she tears into “My Love Will Not

Change,” a raw, thumping rocker with attitude as sharp-edged as the music (and a guest vocal by Steve Earle). In other words, Sellers, the daughter of country/Americana star Lee Ann Womack, picks up where she left off on 2016’s excellent “New City Blues.”

Brash and beguiling, urban and rural, she works the extremes and makes them seem of a piece. The whiplash effect can be thrilling: the slow, gentle “Worried Mind” segueing into the feisty, roots-rocking “Drag You Down,” the almost industrial thrash of “Glad” (“I’m glad that you broke this heart of mine”) giving way to the openhearted yearning of “Haven’t Even Kissed Me Yet.” All in all, it’s an audacious, yet seemingly ef-fortless achievement that should have Sellers, in the words of one song title, “Going Places.”

— Nick CristianoThe Philadelphia Inquirer

Maruhska Media

Aubrie SellersFar From Home (Soundly Music)

EMI

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 17Sunday, April 5, 2020

BY EMMA JAYNE WILLIAMS

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Dodge expands the high-performance Charger lineup for 2020 by adding a Wide-body exterior to America’s only four-door muscle car.

The Charger SRT Hellcat with the best-in-class supercharged 6.2-liter Hemi V-8 engine is now a Widebody, with new inte-grated fender flares adding 3.5 inches of body width, with room for new 20-inch wheels with wider, stickier tires. The trim is also available for the Scat Pack.

Charger is offered in seven models with a range of engines (3.6-liter V-6 to 6.2-liter supercharged Hemi V-8): SXT, $29,895 (AWD adds $3,700); GT, $31,895; R/T, $36,395; Scat Pack, $39,995 (Widebody, $45,995); and SRT Hellcat Widebody, $71,745. Prices include $2,100 gas guzzler tax.

For 2020, a wide array of newly designed wheels/wheel finishes, new and updated packages and equipment groups, fresh premium interior materials, three new ex-terior colors and new badges offer custom-ers more options than ever.

The new Widebody package includes exclusive performance front fascia with “mail slot” grille (most direct route for cool air to the radiator), sculpted perfor-mance hood with three heat extractors, SRT Widebody spoiler, six-piston Brembo performance front brakes and four-piston Brembo rear brakes, Widebody competi-tion suspension with Bilstein three-mode adaptive damping, 20-by-11-inch wheels (“Warp Speed” deep dish design with low-gloss granite finish on my Charger SRT) and a flat-bottom steering wheel.

New side sills connect the front and rear fascias to strengthen the integrated design. The new rear spoiler creates aerodynamic balance with the new front-end design.

Distinctive new two-piece SRT Hellcat fender badges in Satin Chrome leave no doubt what you are looking at.

My tester had three-season Pirelli per-formance tires (improve on-track perfor-mance) for $895.

With the 6.2-liter Hemi V-8 producing up to 707-horsepower and 650 foot-pounds of torque, running up to 196 mph, the Char-ger SRT Hellcat is the fastest, most-power-ful mass-produced sedan in the world.

The new SRT-tuned three-mode adap-tive damping competition suspension, along with wider tires, provides more grip for improved performance on the street, strip, or road course, making it the best-handling production Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat ever. Hellcat comes with two keys, a black one that limits the horsepower to

“only” 500, or a red one, which allows the full 707 horsepower to come alive.

An efficient TorqueFlite eight-speed au-tomatic transmission is standard, optimiz-ing fuel economy and enabling maximum performance with ultra-fast shifting and rev-matching.

Two-piece 15.4-inch Brembro brake ro-tors improve stopping power, heat man-agement and longevity. New electric power steering offers better feel and can be cali-brated via SRT Performance Pages for op-timum steering effort for various driving conditions.

The Performance Pages app provides tools for the driver to become familiar with the vehicle’s performance, with access to real-time information such as timers, G-force, gauges and engine performance. Data can be loaded onto a USB stick or SD card and shared via Performance Pages Plus onto the web.

Standard SRT Drive Modes are pre-configured for Sport, Track and Default, controlling shift speeds, steering, paddle shifter, traction and suspension. SRT Hell-cat Widebody also has controls aimed more toward the exhilarating drive: Launch Con-trol to manage tire slip on takeoff for con-sistent straight-line acceleration; Launch Assist to mitigate driveline-damaging wheel hop at launch by modifying engine torque to regain full grip; and Line Lock to allow for a “burnout” by engaging the front brakes and leaving the rear brakes free.

SRT Hellcat Widebody also features Torque Reserve to balance engine rpm and torque and generate a reserve of torque upon acceleration from a standstill and Race Cooldown to keep cooling the super-charger air cooler after the engine is shut off using the intercooler pump and radiator fan.

The HEMI V-8 has a standard electroni-cally controlled active exhaust system, de-

livering the signature Dodge muscle-car sound — roar, if you will.

A Power Convenience Group upgradedthe front seats with power adjustmentsincluding four-way lumbar and a powertilt-telescopic steering wheel. Red brake calipers ($595) peeked through the stun-ning black wheels.

For $1,595, a Harmon Kardon audio group added 19 GreenEdge speakers anda GreenEdge amplifier with SurroundSound. A Navigation and Travel Group($995) upgraded the standard Uconnect4C Nav 8.8-inch display with SiriusXMTravel Plus and Travel Link (five-yearsubscriptions). Apple CarPlay and AndroidAuto are standard.

Charger offers more than 80 safety and security features, including Full-speedForward Collision Warning-Plus, Adaptive Cruise Control-Plus with Full Stop and Lane Departure Warning with Lane KeepAssist.

My Hellcat had a 12-volt outlet in a smallbin under the center stack, a movable traywith coin holder slots, a 12-volt outlet, two USBs and an auxiliary port in the medi-um bin under the front armrest. The rearseats were heated, and passengers had twoUSBs. The generous trunk had a hiddencompartment under the floor.

Hellcat’s ride was sporty, even a littlerough, but fun — especially when the roar of the engine attracted attention. The seat-ing (four occupants) was firm but comfort-able, with sport bolstering in the front.

I didn’t test the racing aspects of myHellcat, since I live in a rural communitywith no track available. I managed 16 mpgdriving around the community and four-lane state roads. No EPA numbers wereavailable at this time.

SHIFTING GEARS

Hellcat gets Widebody treatment for 2020

2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody

PHOTOS BY FCA US LLC/TNS

2020 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat Widebody

Base price: $71,745Price as tested: $76,815Powertrain: Supercharged 6.2-liter V-8 Power/torque: 707 horsepower/650 foot-poundsEPA fuel economy rating: TBDCargo capacity: 16.5 cubic feetCurb weight: 4,586 pounds

TNS

PAGE 18 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

hit a 7-Eleven and escaped in a vehicle in which there were two other people wearing hooded sweatshirts and white surgical masks.

Detectives and the depart-ment’s Special Enforcement Team served a search warrant at a house and arrested Marcus Taylor, 18, and a 16-year-old boy.

Bullets enter home, wound 2 girls on couch

OH COLUMBUS — Gun-fire outside an Ohio

home sent bullets into the resi-dence and wounded two young girls sitting on a couch in their living room, police said.

Columbus police said the gun-fire reported outside a home on the city’s south side sent rounds into the residence and struck the 8- and 11-year-old girls in their arms.

The victims were taken to Na-tionwide Children’s Hospital, where they were reported in sta-ble condition and expected to sur-vive their injuries, police said.

The reason for the gunfire wasn’t immediately known, and no arrests were immediately reported.

Police: Man intentionally coughed on customers

NM SANTA FE — A Santa Fe man is fac-

ing charges after police said he entered a store and intentionally coughed on several people.

The Santa Fe New Mexican re-

ported Edward Babcock was ar-rested last week following reports he was coughing on customers at a Big Lots store in Santa Fe.

According to a criminal com-plaint, Babcock, 40, coughed on a woman and her 10-year-old daughter after telling the woman, “It’s on, it’s on.”

Police said the victims all felt Babcock was exposing them to COVID-19.

Babcock was arrested and re-leased. He was charged with two counts of assault.

Woman on phone with 911 shoots intruder

FL DELTONA — A Flor-ida woman was on the

phone with 911 when she shot and wounded an intruder, authorities said.

Joseph Roberts, 32, was shot in the arm after breaking into a Del-tona home, according to a Volu-sia County Sheriff’s Office news release. He faces four counts of burglary of an occupied dwell-ing and four counts of criminal mischief.

Roberts had shattered a front

window and climbed into the house occupied by a 42-year-old mother, her three teenage chil-dren and three of their friends, officials said.

The woman fired one shot, hitting Roberts, and escaped to the backyard with the children. Deputies found Roberts wound-ed inside the house. He was air-lifted to a Sanford hospital with injuries that weren’t considered life-threatening.

Robber caught on bridge between 2 states

IA COUNCIL BLUFFS — An 18-year-old rob-

bery suspect who fled from Iowa officers by running west across a pedestrian bridge over the Mis-souri River was captured on the Nebraska side, authorities said.

Police said in a news release that an armed man robbed a con-venience store just a few blocks from the entrance to the Bob Ker-rey Pedestrian Bridge. Officers learned when they arrived at the store that a female was accompa-nying the robber. A few minutes

later police were tipped that the two were spotted going onto the3,000-foot-long bridge.

The female was caught on theIowa side of the river, police said. The man was captured by Omahaofficers on the Nebraska side.

Fraud charges dropped against 82-year-old

VA PORTSMOUTH — AVirginia judge dis-

missed felony charges against an82-year-old preacher accused ofdefrauding a woman of more than$50,000 in a fake sweepstakesscheme.

The four counts of obtainingmoney under false pretenses against Frederick Shmidt weredropped after medical evalua-tions found worsening dementia left him “severely impaired,”according to Powhatan DeputyCommonwealth’s Attorney Rob-ert Cerullo.

The 87-year-old victim in thecase also developed dementia,raising questions about her abil-ity to testify in court, Cerullo toldThe Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The victim was told she won a $2.5 million cash prize and a new car, and sent money for taxes and fees to Shmidt in checks ad-dressed to his Powhatan homein 2018, The Times-Dispatch re-ported, citing court documents.Shmidt was accused of then tak-ing some of the money beforepassing the rest of the earningson to others in Jamaica.

AMERICAN ROUNDUP

The number of years an Oregon man was sentenced to for punching a lawyer while in court. Ryan Wayne Perkins, 32, pleaded guilty to assault, escape, distributing a controlled substance — methamphet-amine — attempted unlawful use of a vehicle, and robbery. Perkins was in court after he stole a rental van while using a forged driver’s

license, KPTV reported. The district attorney’s office said during jury polling, Per-kins stood up, ran past his attorney, and punched a Multnomah County Deputy District Attorney in the head several times.

Dentist arrested for arson after office fire

WA SEATTLE — A Bel-levue dentist was ac-

cused of using lighter fluid and accelerant to set fires in his exam and X-ray rooms after being evicted from his office for failing to pay rent, King County prosecu-tors said.

Mohammad “Matt” Rafie, 53, was arrested at the scene and charged with first-degree arson in connection with the fire at his Bellgrove Medical Park office, the Seattle Times reported .

Bellevue Fire Department be-lieves the fire was intentionally set after discovering three indi-vidual fires inside the office and the smell of accelerants.

Man arrested after standoff in hotel

TN CHATTANOOGA — A man wanted in Georgia

on felony terroristic threat charg-es was arrested in Tennessee after barricading himself inside a hotel room, authorities said.

East Ridge police were called to a Super 8 Hotel in response to a man refusing to leave his room after the check-out time, The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.

Police said Jim Sanford Hunt-er, 64, was in the room and told authorities he was armed and would hurt the officers if they came through the door.

Police checked Hunter’s re-cord and realized he had felony warrants out for his arrest on ter-roristic threat charges in Gordon County, G a.

The East Ridge SWAT team was called in along with a negotia-tor and after three hours, Hunter left the room and was taken into custody.

Video of student in blackface will be probed

NY PITTSFORD — A video showing a Naza-

reth College student in black-face will be investigated by the student conduct hearing board to determine what action will be taken, school officials said.

President Daan Braveman sent a letter to students, staff, and fac-ulty in which he called the video “offensive” and “troubling.”

The school does not need “fur-ther divisions created by intol-erance, ignorance, or racism” during the coronavirus health crisis, Braveman wrote in a statement .

Robbers wore surgical masks in 2 heists

CA REDLANDS — Two people were arrested

in connection with Southern California robberies in which a gunman and others in a getaway vehicle wore surgical masks, po-lice said.

A gas station was robbed at gunpoint by a person wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a white surgical mask, the Redlands Po-lice Department said in a press release.

A robber in the same clothing

THE CENSUS

One step at a time

5

KATHY WILLENS/AP

From wire reports

Alla Kirichenko performs leg lifts for exercise with her face mask lowered and weights on her ankles beneath the parachute jump at Coney Island in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The Trump administration announced new federal guidelines Friday recommending that Americans wear face coverings when in public to help fight the spread of the new coronavirus.

Sunday, April 5, 2020 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 19

OPINIONMax D. Lederer Jr., Publisher

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BY MICHAEL BESCHLOSS

Special to The Washington Post

Against the challenge of the coro-navirus, President Donald Trump has said that he thinks of himself as a “wartime president.”

This is hardly the first time a president has used this metaphor, inexact as it may be. Richard Nixon asked Congress in 1971 to declare “war on cancer.” Lyndon John-son in 1964 declared that his administra-tion “here and now declares unconditional war on poverty in America.” Poignantly, neither of those efforts came close to suc-ceeding, but the language signaled a presi-dent aiming to mobilize the full resources of American society to conquer the problem.

One of the hallmarks of our system is that leadership in crisis must not only come from a president but also all reaches of society — in recent weeks, we have seen sparks of initiative from Congress, gover-nors, the heroes of the emergency room and the research lab. From wartime presi-dential leadership we can learn as much from the mistakes as the accomplishments. The history of U.S. wartime presidents of-fers seven lessons not only for Trump but also for leaders of all kinds:� Level with the public. James K. Polk

in 1846 fabricated a reason to wage war against Mexico and lied to Congress and Americans about his intention to use that conflict to acquire almost 1 million square miles of new territory. When the 1918 flu broke out among U.S. soldiers, Woodrow Wilson disgracefully concealed the dan-ger, kept sending troops to Europe and never gave a single speech about the pan-demic that claimed 675,000 American lives and tens of millions abroad. At the start of major U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1965, Johnson concealed from the public his dread that the war might grind on for a

decade, kill many and never be won.� Work to unite the country against

the common enemy. War should not be a time for partisanship, yet James Madison waged the War of 1812 on the flimsy basis of a narrow congressional majority. Harry Truman never bothered to ask Congress for a war declaration against Korea. By con-trast, after Pearl Harbor, Franklin Roos-evelt, who had just won a third term from an electorate bitterly split over whether to fight Adolf Hitler or stay out, managed to make the World War II fight for freedom into the cause of almost every American.� Show empathy for the warriors, the

scared and the suffering. Madison and Abraham Lincoln braved gunfire to visit scenes of battle. After the Spanish-Ameri-can War, William McKinley went to Long Island, N.Y., to visit quarantined soldiers who had caught yellow fever while fighting in Cuba. Told that the mounting casualties of the Civil War required a new cemetery, Lincoln demanded that it be located near his summer cottage. He wished to make sure that he saw the burials and grieving families, so that the horrible, hourly deci-sions he was making about life and death would never become too abstract.� Build confidence in your plan for

victory. Today FDR is remembered as perhaps the most successful war presi-dent . But in early 1942, many Americans thought of him as the commander in chief who had made serious mistakes that cul-minated in the Japanese surprise attack. Thus, he spoke often in public and went on radio to explain the Allied blueprint to win the war. Before he spoke, the White House would ask Americans to buy world maps and globes so that they could follow along.

After the Soviets sneaked missiles into Cuba, John Kennedy knew he was facing not only a world crisis but also big domes-tic political trouble. He had assured Amer-

icans that there would be no such missilesin Cuba and made errors that had encour-aged Nikita Khrushchev to put them there.But his TV speech revealing the presenceof the missiles and his blockade plan to get them out was so shrewd and effective thatto this day he is remembered not for hismistakes but for his mastery.� Warn of impending bad news as soon

as you know about it. In 1942, two monthsafter the attack on Pearl Harbor, FDR told Americans, “The news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better, and the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder.” Kennedy cautioned his TV audience that the Cubanmissile crisis could last for months.� Trust wise, experienced experts. Lin-

coln fired Gen. George McClellan and fi-nally promoted Ulysses Grant, to whomhe gave considerable decision-making au-thority. Roosevelt prided himself on whathe had learned as Wilson’s assistant sec-retary of the Navy, but he let Gen. Dwight Eisenhower run the D-Day invasion.� Stay focused and avoid mission creep.

Madison let the 1812 war grow from acampaign to stop British harassment ofU.S. ships into an effort to seize Canada. Polk’s Mexican War, ostensibly in response to a border skirmish, stretched almost 800 miles to Mexico City. LBJ inflated his ef-fort to defend South Vietnam into a cross-roads of the Cold War that threateneddirect conflict with Russia and China.

A military confrontation is not the samething as fighting a pandemic. No crisis in history ever provides an exact precedentfor a challenge that a president is deal-ing with in real time. But as Truman said, those in positions of authority must alwaysbe students of history. “Every leader,” as he put it, “must be a reader.”Michael Beschloss is the author, most recently, of “Presidents of War.”

BY JOHN R. BALMES

Special to The Washington Post

As a physician and scientist who knows a lot about respiratory per-sonal protective gear, I have been outraged about the severe short-

ages of the proper N95 masks that health care workers on the front lines of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic should be wearing.

Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists and others — especially those older than 50 — who are caring for patients who have or may have COVID-19 must be protected from becoming infected themselves. Not only do we need to keep the health care workforce on the job to treat the rest of the population, there is a moral imperative to provide a safe workplace, especially in the context of a deadly viral pandemic.

And what do we find in cities like New York, New Orleans and Detroit where the pandemic is raging? We see severe short-ages of the N95 masks in emergency rooms and hospitals. Even surgical masks, which provide some protection, are in short sup-ply at many health care facilities. Desper-ate health care workers have resorted to unvalidated measures to find alternative methods of protecting themselves.

Many members of the public have re-sponded to the urgent need of respiratory personal protective equipment for health care workers by sewing cloth masks. While this response is truly heartwarming, most cloth masks provide little actual protec-tion from coronavirus infection and may give health care providers a false sense of security when working around potentially infected patients.

High rates of both infection and death

from COVID-19 have been reported in China and Italy. In China, more than 3,000 health care workers have been infected out of 81,000 total cases, including Li Wen-liang, who died after being the first physi-cian to try to alert the Chinese government about the risk of the outbreak in Wuhan.

At least 5,000 health care workers have been infected in Italy out of over 92,000 total cases as of this writing. The risk of death due to COVID-19 increases with age, with individuals aged 50 to 59 at three times the risk and those aged 60 to 69 at 10 times the risk of those between ages 30 and 49.

In the United States, there are more than 500,000 physicians older than 50, rep-resenting just over half of the nation’s en-tire physician workforce. The average age of nurses in the United States is 51. A 48-year-old emergency department nurse in New York City died of COVID-19 on March 24, and emergency department physicians have been reported to have developed se-vere COVID-19 requiring intensive care in Washington state and New Jersey.

It is tragic that a country as wealthy as the United States cannot provide proper PPE to its health care workforce during a deadly viral pandemic. There is little excuse for inadequate stockpiling of N95 masks and other PPE like surgical masks and gowns. The coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan was not the first viral epidemic of recent years — the severe acute respira-tory syndrome coronavirus outbreak was in 2003, the Middle East respiratory syn-drome outbreak started in 2012, and there have been periodic avian flu outbreaks. Why weren’t we better prepared?

Badly designed lines of authority in the federal government have failed to provide

proper protection for health care workersand a disorganized and poorly coordinatedresponse has left states and cities fight-ing to outbid each other for purchases ofdesperately needed PPE for their healthcare workers (and ventilators for their patients).

And even with an ineffective federal pan-demic response team in place before the Wuhan outbreak, there was still sufficient time to prepare for spread of the virus to the United States. The severity of the coro-navirus outbreak in China was recognizedby the World Health Organization and U.S.intelligence agencies in fall 2019.

Yet what was President Donald Trump’sresponse as late as February? It was “when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goesaway,” “just like the flu,” “a foreign virus,”and most incongruously, “The Coronavi-rus is very much under control in the USA. … Stock Market starting to look very goodto me! ”

Let me tell you, Mr. President, as a phy-sician who takes care of patients at a pub-lic safety-net hospital, you never had the COVID-19 pandemic under control. You were worried more about the stock marketthan the pandemic. It was a public health emergency that you failed to take seriouslyuntil it was too late and wide communityspread is the result. Lives have been lost all over this country because of your fail-ure to take seriously what your publichealth and intelligence experts were try-ing to tell you.John R. Balmes, professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and profes-sor at the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley, is a pulmonary and critical care specialist who cares for patients at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.

What Trump can learn from wartime presidents

N95 mask shortages are a fatal governmental lapse

PAGE 20 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 21Sunday, April 5, 2020

Go to the American Forces Network website for the most up-to-date TV schedules.myafn.net

Sports on AFN

Deals

Pro soccer

Pro basketball

SCOREBOARD/VIRUS OUTBREAK

Friday’s transactionsFOOTBALL

National Football LeagueCHICAGO BEARS — Signed LB Barkevi-

ous Mingo to a one-year contract. Re-signed LB Isaiah Irving to a one-year contract.

DETROIT LIONS — Agreed to terms with CB Darryl Roberts.

LAS VEGAS RAIDERS — Signed Damari-ous Randall to a one-year contract.

SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS — Signed WR Travis Benjamin and OL Tom Compton to one-year contracts.

TAMPA BAY BUCCANEERS — Re-signed QB Blaine Gabbert.

BASEBALLMajor League Baseball

SEATTLE MARINERS — Released RHP Cody Anderson.

COLLEGEFORDHAM — Announced the retire-

ment of AD Dave Roach effective June 30.

BY DOUG FEINBERG

Associated Press

NEW YORK — The WNBA season will not start on time next month because of the coronavi-rus pandemic, and when it begins is unclear.

The league announced Friday it will delay the season for an in-definite period. Training camps were to open on April 26 and the regular season on May 15.

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement Fri-day the league will “use this time to conduct scenario-planning re-garding new start dates and inno-vative formats.”

“Our guiding principle will continue to be the health and safety of the players, fans and employees,” Engelbert said.

The WNBA, which was set to being its 24th season and is the longest running professional women’s sports league, will still hold a virtual draft April 17.

Every other major sports league has been put on hold be-cause of the virus. Engelbert told the AP last week that the WNBA could begin its season before the NBA or other sports leagues resume.

“A league of our size and scale is smaller than other big leagues,” she said. “We might be able to tip this season off before some other leagues since we only have 12 teams and 144 players.”

The postponement of the 2020

Olympics gives the WNBA flex-ibility with its schedule. The league was set to go on a month-long break in July to allow playersto participate in the Tokyo Games which have been postponed for aseason.

“We were already scenarioplanning around what our sea-son would look like if we playedgames during our month hiatus,”she said. “We have an advantagehere to use that time. We’re al-ready looking at arena availabil-ity and how to get broadcasts ofour game in that period.”

Engelbert said that whenever the WNBA does start, it will fol-low a strict protocol regarding the health and well-being of play-ers, coaches and fans.

Two WNBA cities are major hotspots for the virus: New York and Seattle. One of the the Storm’shomes for the season, the Angel of the Winds Arena, is being used as a coronavirus isolation site.

Seattle Storm CEO and general manager Alisha Valavanis backedthe commissioner’s ruling.

“We are grateful for the front line workers who are coura-geously combating COVID-19,”Valavanis said. “Our league mustdo its part to keep our communi-ties safe. These decisions are partof something much more conse-quential than sports. We look for-ward to coming together to enjoyStorm basketball games when itssafe for us to gather. ”

BY DOUG FERGUSON

Associated Press

The U.S. Women’s Open in Houston is now scheduled for two weeks before Christmas. The LPGA Tour pushed back the re-sumption of its schedule until the middle of June and found slots for three tournaments that have been postponed.

Commissioner Mike Whan keeps looking at a dwindling num-ber of dates on the calendar and trying to figure out how it will fall into place, missing one key piece of information brought on by the spread of the new coronavirus.

“Not knowing when our restart button gets pushed,” Whan said Friday.

That was delayed by a month with a chain of events that began with the U.S. Women’s Open an-nouncing it would move from June 4-7 at Champions Golf Club to Dec. 10-13, the latest a major championship has ever been played. The 1929 PGA Cham-pionship ended on Dec. 7 in Los Angeles.

The last time an official LPGA Tour event was played entirely in December was the LPGA Tour Championship in 2010. And there could be more.

It’s not as simple as finding open dates and filling them with tournaments. Whan said if a major — the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship outside Phil-adelphia is next up and still on the schedule for June 25-28 — that would take priority. Of the four events cleared from the schedule Friday, only the Pure Silk Cham-pionship at Kingsmill in Virginia will not be rescheduled, instead

returning in 2021.The Women’s Open is the sec-

ond LPGA major to be resched-ule. The ANA Inspiration in the California desert was to be played this week and now is set for Sept. 10-13

Mike Davis, the CEO of the USGA, said the move couldn’t have happened without collabo-ration with the LPGA Tour and Fox Sports, its broadcast partner, which has NFL games during December.

“Our priority remains ensuring the safety of all involved with the U.S. Women’s Open, while still providing the world’s best players the opportunity to compete this year,” Davis said.

But it will require some adjustments.

The U.S. Women’s Open was to play all 72 holes on the Cypress Creek course at Champions .

Because of limited daylight in December, and with the USGA wanting to have a full field for its premier women’s event, the open-ing two rounds would be played on Cypress Creek and the Jack-rabbit course.

As for the LPGA Tour, the next event on the schedule now is the Walmart NW Arkansas Champi-onship on June 19-21, the week before the Women’s PGA at Aron-imink. Still unknown is whether that’s feasible, especially with perhaps the most global sports league that has prominent mem-bers stretched around the world. Whan said even if it were healthy to resume, with or without fans, he would not want to start un-less at least 75% of his players were willing or able to travel to compete.

BY STEVE DOUGLAS

Associated Press

The English Premier League was suspended indefinitely on Friday following a meeting of its 20 clubs, who discussed financial painkiller measures including asking players to take a substan-tial pay cut during the coronavi-rus outbreak.

Having previously given a ten-tative — and improbable — re-turn date of April 30, the world’s richest league said the season would not be resuming at the start of May and “will only return when it is safe and appropriate to do so,” and only with the full sup-port of government and medical guidance.

Teams have nine or 10 games left to play in the Premier League, with Liverpool — the leader by 25 points — still needing two more wins to clinch its first title since 1990. The FA Cup is at the quar-terfinal stage.

“There is a combined objective for all remaining domestic league and cup matches to be played,” the league said, “enabling us to maintain the integrity of each competition.”

UEFA, in a letter signed by the European Club Associationand the European Leagues, hasurged members not to aban-don their competitions. Halting leagues without approval fromUEFA could see teams blockedfrom qualifying for the Champi-ons League and Europa Leagueas they are determined basedon final positions in domestic standings.

The meeting, which was held by video conference, came atthe end of a week when PremierLeague players came under growing pressure to forego someof their salaries to help protect the jobs of club staff. Tottenham and Newcastle are among thoseto have furloughed non-playing staff during soccer’s shutdownand, on Thursday, British healthsecretary Matt Hancock called on Premier League players to “takea pay cut and play their part.”

The league said clubs agreedto consult players over a wage de-duction or deferral of 30% “in theface of substantial and continuinglosses,” adding there would be meeting on Saturday between theplayers’ union, the league, play-ers, and club representatives.

MLS glanceEASTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GAAtlanta 2 0 0 6 4 2Montreal 1 0 1 4 4 3New York 1 0 1 4 4 3Toronto FC 1 0 1 4 3 2Columbus 1 0 1 4 2 1D.C. United 1 1 0 3 3 3Chicago 0 1 1 1 2 3New England 0 1 1 1 2 3Orlando City 0 1 1 1 1 2Philadelphia 0 1 1 1 3 5Cincinnati 0 2 0 0 3 5Inter Miami CF 0 2 0 0 1 3New York City FC 0 2 0 0 0 2

WESTERN CONFERENCE W L T Pts GF GASporting KC 2 0 0 6 7 1Minnesota United 2 0 0 6 8 3Colorado 2 0 0 6 4 2FC Dallas 1 0 1 4 4 2Los Angeles FC 1 0 1 4 4 3Seattle 1 0 1 4 3 2Portland 1 1 0 3 2 3Vancouver 1 1 0 3 2 3Real Salt Lake 0 0 2 2 1 1LA Galaxy 0 1 1 1 1 2San Jose 0 1 1 1 4 7Houston 0 1 1 1 1 5Nashville SC 0 2 0 0 1 3

Note: Three points for victory, one point for tie.

All games postponed until May 10.

WNBA postpones start of season

English Premier Leaguesuspended indefinitely

US Women’s Openshifted to December

NBA glanceEastern Conference

Atlantic Division W L Pct GBToronto 46 18 .719 —Boston 43 21 .672 3Philadelphia 39 26 .600 7½Brooklyn 30 34 .469 16New York 21 45 .318 26

Southeast DivisionMiami 41 24 .631 —Orlando 30 35 .462 11Washington 24 40 .375 16½Charlotte 23 42 .354 18Atlanta 20 47 .299 22

Central DivisionMilwaukee 53 12 .815 —Indiana 39 26 .600 14Chicago 22 43 .338 31Detroit 20 46 .303 33½Cleveland 19 46 .292 34

Western ConferenceSouthwest Division

W L Pct GBHouston 40 24 .625 —Dallas 40 27 .597 1½Memphis 32 33 .492 8½New Orleans 28 36 .438 12San Antonio 27 36 .429 12½

Northwest DivisionDenver 43 22 .662 —Utah 41 23 .641 1½Oklahoma City 40 24 .625 2½Portland 29 37 .439 14½Minnesota 19 45 .297 23½

Pacific DivisionL.A. Lakers 49 14 .778 —L.A. Clippers 44 20 .688 5½Sacramento 28 36 .438 21½Phoenix 26 39 .400 24Golden State 15 50 .231 35

All games postponed at least until mid-May.

MICHAEL WOODS/AP

Sung Hyun Park holds up the trophy after winning lasy year’s LPGA Walmart NW Arkansas Championship tournament in Rogers, Ark. That event is the next one still on the LPGA Tour schedule.

PAGE 22 • S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • Sunday, April 5, 2020

NFL

BY BARRY WILNER

Associated Press

Days after the NFL revealed its hopes of conduct-ing a normal regular season and playoffs, its chief medical officer warns that nothing is a certainty during the coronavirus pandemic.

Dr. Allen Sills, a neurosurgeon who has been with the NFL since 2017, says he and other league and team medical personnel have been in constant communication with health officials throughout the country, looking at the same data they are using to make public recommendations. The NFL also has consulted with the other major sports leagues and the players’ union.

“We are not doing this in isolation,” Sills says. “I think the NFL is in the same place every element of society is. The hope is that soon much more wide-spread testing is available, which will be an es-sential part of restarting activities. You follow the science.”

The NFL has done that in its revisions to the draft in three weeks, which will be conducted remotely with no public events. It also has temporarily barred teams from using their facilities, meeting in person with free agents and draft prospects.

Beyond the draft, the league must decide on al-lowing offseason workouts and minicamps that usu-ally occur in the spring. And then on conducting training camps and the preseason.

None of that is assured.“We have got to get a much better handle on the

actual spread of this virus and how many new cases there are,” Sills explains. “How it is transmitted and how we can mitigate it. We have to get to the point that when someone is tested as positive to the virus, that does not mean an immediate quarantine. If that is the case, you can’t think about opening up a team sport.

“Like all other parts of society, we’re trying to lis-ten to the best advice we can. It’s hard to project what

will happen in a month, three months or six months No one knows. We have to do that which is not only in the best interest of the players, but league and team personnel and our fans. That is what is happening. All of our league executives have been in very regu-lar contact with me. Every meeting starts with an update on the current medical situation.”

Recognizing the stress accompanying the pan-demic, the NFL and the players’ union sent a letter to the 32 clubs and each player this week with sug-gestions on dealing with mental anguish. Among the items it addresses are loneliness; establishing a routine and sticking with it; and staying in touch with peers and loved ones while practicing social distancing.

Sills emphasizes the importance of remaining physically and mentally sharp.

“I have had regular calls with members of our medical staff and trainers and coaches and front of-fice personnel,” he says. “A lot of dialogue and ques-tions back and forth. It is a situation where we and the players association are working hand in hand to make sure we are serving our whole NFL environ-ment as best we can.

“That’s not only about this disease but around mental health; we recognize this is a big stress for everyone. Imagine if someone had a pre-existing condition that cannot be treated. These are incred-ibly difficult times for people with those challenges. We have a lot of resources in these areas.”

Along with his NFL duties, Sills is a professor of neurological surgery, orthopaedic surgery and rehabilitation, and the founder of the Vanderbilt Sports Concussion Center. He’s been in contact with the NCAA, schools and conferences about their ap-proaches to the coronavirus as well.

The message is the same on all fronts.“Follow the recommendations from public health

officials and infectious disease experts,” he says. “We all must do that.”

BY DAVE SKRETTA

Associated Press

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Andy Reid is like most people these days. The Kansas City Chiefs coach is hunkered down in his basement, trying to avoid going out in public as he works from a makeshift office consisting of a computer, an iPad and an old side table.

The difference, though: He’s trying to build a team that can de-fend a Super Bowl title.

It’s hard enough when things are normal — only seven fran-chises have won back-to-back championships. But it’s even more difficult when the offseason has been thrown into turmoil because of the coronavirus pandemic, af-fecting everything from free agency to the NFL draft to team workouts that should have begun this month, but will not.

“Well, we stay as current as we can through information from the league,” Reid said on a conference call with local reporters Thursday. “We’re approaching it like we’re having a season, and I think it’s two-fold because it can be a real positive energy giver back to the country at a time of maybe need for that. At the same time, we’re very sensitive to what’s going on.”

Reid has the same feeling about the upcoming NFL draft, which will take place without fans later this month amid the nationwide lockdown. It could be a pleas-ant distraction during abnor-mal times, but it will also take place as many people are dealing with crippling health and finan-cial problems that are far more important.

In the meantime, Reid and Chiefs general manager Brett Veach to keep plugging away on their roster.

With very little room under the salary cap, the Chiefs have been largely quiet in free agency. They signed veteran offensive lineman Mike Remmers to provide depth across the board; brought in

journeyman cornerback Antonio Hamilton to compete for a start-ing role; and signed XFL quar-terback Jordan Ta’amu to add another voice in that room.

Along with placing the fran-chise tag on Pro Bowl defensive tackle Chris Jones, that is just about all the Chiefs have done.

The salary cap is the biggest reason. But the coronavirus is an-other factor.

With the Chiefs unsure when they will be allowed back in their facility, and the NFL uncertain when or if practices will be al-lowed this summer, the value of players who already know the sys-tem grows exponentially. That is why franchising Jones was a wise move despite the hefty financial hit, and why the Chiefs brought back wide receiver Demarcus Robinson.

“Absolutely. As many guys as you can keep, you’d love to do that,” Reid said. “The other part is Veach has to sit there and jug-gle the salary cap and do all that. But logic tells you, as many guys as you can keep that are familiar with what you’re doing, either side of the ball or special teams-wise, you’d like to do that. But there’s a whole lot of variables that go into it, and that’s something Brett and his crew, they do all that stuff.”

To be sure, the Chiefs still have plenty of holes on the roster. They hope they can fill some of those holes through the draft, even though it will take place without the benefit of bringing anybody in for workouts, and with only digital meetings for face-to-face interviews.

“We’re making it work,” Reid said. “I’m glad I coached at San Francisco State because we had to work through a lot of things there. It was Division II, non-scholar-ship. Not everything was easy there. To film practice we had a guy climb up a ladder. We had guys picking up rocks on a dirt field to have practice. Those ex-periences help when everything isn’t quite perfect.”

BY ANDREW SELIGMAN

Associated Press

The Chicago Bears declared the quarterback competition between Mitchell Trubisky and new-comer Nick Foles an open one on Friday.

General manager Ryan Pace made that clear during a conference call, saying both players are “embracing” the battle that will play out whenever offseason workouts begin.

Coach Matt Nagy stressed that Trubisky will be the first quarterback on the field whenever practic-es begin, But he planned to give Trubisky and Foles equal time with the starters. He also said both will play in the preseason as part of the evaluation.

“It’s going to be equal and we as coaches need to make sure we do the right thing in regard to equal reps, and make sure they’re playing with similar or the same players on offense and going against the same players on defense,” Nagy said. “There will be some juggling that we’ll have to do. It might be a little different at times on how we do it and how we get to it. But I can promise you this: It’s going to be completely fair, it’s going to be extremely competitive in a good way. It’s going to be a healthy competitiveness.”

Pace largely staked his reputation to Trubisky when he traded up a spot with San Francisco to draft him with the No. 2 overall pick in 2017. And the results have been mixed.

Trubisky was selected to replace Jared Goff in the Pro Bowl after his second season. But instead of tak-ing another big step forward last year, he struggled as the Bears stumbled to an 8-8 record and missed the playoffs after winning the NFC North at 12-4 in 2018.

Pace said after the season the Bears remained

committed to Trubisky as their starter, though they weren’t ruling out bringing in a veteran to push him. They did just that when they acquired Foles from Jacksonville last month.

On Friday, the Bears indicated he’s more than an insurance policy if Trubisky struggles or gets injured.

“Mitch is a competitor,” Pace said. “I think when you’re built that way, competition brings out the best in you. Matt and I had that discussion with him, and you could feel that in him right away - kind of that, ’OK, hey, let’s go, what’s best for the team and this is gonna bring out the best in all of us.’ I think the key word is just that he embraced the competition.”

Pace wouldn’t answer if the Bears will pick up Trubisky’s fifth-year option for the 2021 season. The deadline is in May, though it would be a surprise if they exercised it considering he is now in a fight for the starting job.

Foles said he called Trubisky because he thought it was important to introduce himself. He wanted to “get started on the right foot.”

“Trust me, I get the situation,” Foles said. “Mitch has been there for a couple years, Mitch has been the quarterback, and I’m respectful to that situation.”

Foles took 2018 Super Bowl MVP honors with Philadelphia. He led the Eagles past Chicago in the wild-card game at Soldier Field the next year. He’s familiar with the Bears’ system and worked with Nagy under Andy Reid when they were with the Eagles and Kansas City.

Foles also has something to prove, coming off an injury-riddled season in Jacksonville in which he lost his starting job to rookie Gardner Minshew. To make the trade to Chicago happen, he said he had to agree to a “crazy restructure” of the four-year, $88 million contract he signed just over a year ago.

League medical officer warns nothing is assured

Bears declare open QB competition

Chiefs’ Reid plotsSuper Bowl defense from his basement

MICHAEL CONROY/AP

Chiefs coach Andy Reid is hunkered down in his basement, working from a makeshift office consisting of a computer, an iPad and an old side table, trying to build a team that can defend a Super Bowl title.

• S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S • PAGE 23Sunday, April 5, 2020

BY TIM BOOTH

Associated Press

SEATTLE — Even with major leaguers likely to receive some semblance of another spring training to get ready, teams are going to have to be creative with how they handle starting pitchers whenever baseball returns.

The last thing anyone wants is arm problems to arise almost im-mediately after baseball restarts — whenever that ends up being because of coronavirus outbreak.

“Possibly having a six-man ro-tation or something along those lines. Maybe a piggyback situa-tion for us just those first couple outings,” Seattle left-hander Marco Gonzales said during a conference call last week.

Gonzales was slated to be the Mariners’ starter on opening day.

“Maybe we go three or four in-nings for the starters. And that’s who this affects most really is starting pitchers. Maybe we have a piggyback situation or some-thing along those lines. Like I said, those are things we need to get creative with,” he said.

No one knows when baseball will start again after being de-railed by the COVID-19 virus pandemic. Players want to play as many games as possible — even into November and December possibly — without risking their health.

For pitchers, and specifically starters, the unknowns can be unnerving. After weeks in Arizo-na and Florida of building up arm strength pointed toward the start of the regular season, they’re back into offseason mode trying not to lose all that was gained during spring training.

“I think that as starting pitch-ers — I’m speaking for myself and probably a bunch of other guys on the team — we’re doing everything we can to maintain kind of where we were, getting our up-and-downs and our pitch counts and all of that,” Chicago White Sox All-Star Lucas Giolito said.

“Despite limited resources, we’re able to pick up a ball and throw it and change intensities and measure it out,” he said. “I think when it does come time for us to play again, we’ve already been communicating pretty much on a weekly basis with our coaching staff and training staff and everything like that. We’ll just kind of pick it up and kind of gauge where guys are at and make decisions from there.”

Gonzales said he’s viewing this stretch as though it’s the Decem-ber portion of his offseason throw-ing program. He’s been trying to find empty fields near his home in Seattle to go throw on occasion with a teammate, but it’s mostly been limited to just long toss.

Still, between the limited

throwing and having a home gym in his basement, Gonzales estimated between three to four weeks of build-up would probably be needed to get ready for the start of a season.

Gonzales stressed that teams should be allowed to carry extra players to help ease the burden.

“I’m trying to stay at a point where I can easily ramp up in three to four weeks,” Gonzales said. “That’s different for every-

one, so I hope everyone is staying diligent about that because it is going to be important to start on time when we do start.”

While starters likely need more time to replenish their arm strength, Minnesota’s Taylor Rogers said relievers shouldn’t have much trouble getting them-selves prepared.

But he also didn’t envy the un-certainty starters are facing.

“If this goes six, eight weeks

of nothing, do you expect your starters to be throwing 50-pitchbullpens for eight weeks?” Rog-ers recently said. “That’s kind ofa lot on the arm for nothing, ba-sically. I think the starters are in the toughest spot right now, with not knowing the date, and they obviously take the longest to get ready.”AP Sports Writers Andrew Seligman in Chicago and Dave Campbell in Minneapolis contributed to this story.

MLB

Pitching, post-virus, may have to get creative

ARMANDO L. SANCHEZ, CHICAGO TRIBUNE/AP

White Sox pitchers, from left, Michael Kopech, Carlos Rodon, Lucas Giolito and Bernardo Flores Jr., run on the field at Camelback Ranch stadium in Phoenix on Feb. 20. Teams may have to be creative with pitchers once the season begins because of a lack of preparation due to the coronavirus outbreak.

Piggybacking starters, six-man rotations may be possible solutions

Choo giving $1K each to Rangers’ minor leaguers

Associated Press

Rangers veteran Shin-Soo Choo is help-ing out financially strapped minor league players with the season on hold, giving $1,000 each to 191 of them who are in the Texas organization.

Choo said Wednesday that he remem-bers the financial struggles when he was in the minors. The 37-year-old outfielder-designated hitter hopes the gifts will help ease those worries for the current minor leaguers, most he has never met, allowing them to stay focused on baseball .

“I’ve done it before, minor leagues, seven years,” said Choo, who was 18 when he left South Korea to join the Seattle Mariners organization before the 2001 season. “I know right now the minor league system is better than 15-20 years ago, but still tough. Everything’s very difficult, especially money-wise.”

Choo is one of a few major league players helping . Colorado Rockies infielder Daniel Murphy gifted $100,000 on Wednesday to a fund operated by More Than Baseball, a nonprofit support group for minor league players. St. Louis pitcher Adam Wainwright gave $250,000 to that group last week, and his donation was earmarked specifically for Cardinals minor league players.

FROM BACK PAGE

I have all the time in the world and can’t do anything. So it’s kind of weird.

Me and my wife were talking about this the other day: People have sort of settled into what we’re calling “The Quarantine Routine.”

The first week, nobody really knew how long it was going to last. It was like, “OK, we can do this. It’s going to be a little while, but we can get through it.” And then, all of a sudden, it was like, “Uh, it’s been two weeks — and it’s going to be a lot longer.”

Some reality sets in.Once you get past that, and you realize

it’s for the better good for everyone to stay home, you adapt.

We wake up, we have breakfast and then we try and do some sort of school stuff in the morning.

Our girls are 6 and 3. One’s in preschool; one’s in kindergarten. So we’re not doing any heavy lifting, education-wise, over here. We’re trying to stimulate their brains a little bit and keep them away from the iPad or cartoons.

We try to get them outside. We ride bikes a lot near our neighborhood in the D.C. area. Then we come back in, eat some lunch and go from there.

Each day presents new challenges. You

can only do so many science experiments and so many kids’ workbooks and thingslike that.

In a positive way, it’s the most I’ve beenable to be around my family in forever— since I’ve had kids. It’s been cool to bearound them and see them on a day-to-day basis, which I usually don’t get to do.

With my oldest daughter, we’ve beenreading “Charlie and the Chocolate Facto-ry” every night — whether it’s one chapteror three or four chapters. Just finished it. She would read the first part of the chap-ter and I would read the second part. Now we’re going to watch the movie together.

And it’s cool to see kids learn to do some-thing and be proud of it and then really goafter it. From the time she just started tolearn to read, she’s been wanting to read, and so it was so great to see her so excited about finishing what she calls the “first chapter book” she’s ever read. It’s 150pages or whatever it was.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have beenable to do that with her if it wasn’t forthis.

Obviously we want to be playing base-ball, but if we’re going to be in this situa-tion, being able to experience somethinglike that with my kids, that I normally don’tget to do, is pretty special.

Diary: Nats’ Zimmerman getting used to life’s ‘Quarantine Routine’

DANIEL A. VARELA, MIAMI HERALD/TNS

Nationals first baseman Ryan Zimmerman celebrates with teammates after hitting his second home run of the day during a games against the Miami Marlins last April. With baseball on hold because of the coronavirus pandemic, Zimmerman is spending this April with his family.

S T A R S A N D S T R I P E S Sunday, April 5, 2020

SPORTSMLB

‘Follow the science’League’s chief medical offi cer warns

season still in jeopardy » Page 22

As the sports world pauses to join the rest of the world in fighting the coronavirus pandemic, you will see fewer sports stories in Stars and Stripes. We look forward to resuming our normal coverage when the leagues and governing bodies determine it is safe for athletes and fans to return to competition.

With baseball on hold due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Nationals’ Ryan Zimmerman — seen with daughter Mackenzie before a game in Washington on June 16, 2019 — has more opportunity to spend time around his children than ever before.

NICK WASS/AP

Dear diary: The Washington Nationals’Ryan Zimmerman reflects on

settling into life without baseball

BY RYAN ZIMMERMAN

Associated Press

Been trying to read some books.

Been trying to not watch as much TV.And trying to kind of go to sleep at a de-

cent hour. We never get to do that.In 20-plus years, I haven’t had this time

of the year to myself — and now I’m locked up and I can’t go do anything because of what’s going on with the virus.

Everyone says this is what it’s like when you retire from the game: You have all this time, you have the spring and summer, and you get to do everything. Now

SEE DIARY ON PAGE 23

Special feature

Ryan Zimmerman is a two-time All-Star infielder who has played 15 years in the majors, all with the Washington Nationals. He holds most of the team’s career hitting records, and his two homers and seven RBIs last postseason helped the Nationals win their first World Series championship. With baseball on hold because of the coro-navirus pandemic, Zimmerman occasion-ally will offer his thoughts — as told to AP sports writer Howard Fendrich — while waiting for the 2020 season to begin.