China struggles with COVID infections after controls ease
BEIJING — A rash of COVID-19 cases in schools and businesses were reported Friday in areas across China after the ruling Communist Party loosened anti-virus rules as it tries to reverse a deepening economic slump.
While official data showed a fall in new cases, they no longer cover large parts of the population after the government on Wednesday ended mandatory testing for many people. That was part of dramatic changes aimed at gradually emerging from “zero COVID” restrictions that have confined millions of people to their homes and sparked protests and demands for President Xi Jinping to resign.
“There’s very few people coming in because there’s so many cases,” said Gang Xueping, a waitress in a Beijing restaurant. “The country’s just opened up. The first one or two months is definitely going to be serious. Nobody’s used to this yet.”
In other cities, social media users said coworkers or classmates were ill and some businesses had closed due to a lack of staff. It wasn’t clear from those accounts, many of which couldn’t be independently confirmed, how far above the official figure the total case numbers might be.
“I’m really speechless. Half of the company’s people are out sick, but they still won’t let us all stay home,” said a post signed Tunnel Mouth on the popular Sina Weibo platform. The user gave no name and didn’t respond to questions sent through the account, which said the user was in Beijing.
The reports echo the experience of the United States, Europe and other countries that have struggled with outbreaks while trying to restore business activity. But they are a jarring change for China, where “zero COVID,” which aims to isolate every case, disrupted daily life and depressed economic activity but kept infection rates low.
MOSCOW — Russian President Vladimir Putin said
Friday that more U.S.-Russian prisoner exchanges are possible if Moscow and Washington find a compromise.
Putin spoke a day after Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was swapped for WNBA star and two-time Olympian Brittney Griner.
Asked after a summit in Kyrgyzstan whether other prisoners could be swapped, Putin replied that “everything is possible,” noting that “compromises have been found” that cleared the way for Thursday’s exchange of Griner for Bout.
“We aren’t refusing to continue this work in the future,” the Russian leader said, making his first comments about the closely watched trade.
Despite negotiating for Griner’s release, the most high-profile American jailed abroad, the U.S. failed to win freedom for another American, Paul Whelan. The Michigan corporate security executive has been imprisoned in Russia since December 2018 on espionage charges that his family and the U.S. government have said are baseless.
WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Donald Trump were in court
Friday for sealed arguments as part of the ongoing investigation into the presence of classified information at the former president’s Florida estate.
The proceedings were taking place before U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, the chief judge of the federal court in the District of Columbia. Defense lawyers were seen entering the courtroom around 2 p.m. and left more than an hour later without addressing reporters.
A lawyer for The Associated Press and other news organizations had submitted a letter earlier Friday requesting media access to the hearing, but despite that, it took place entirely behind closed doors.
Court spokeswoman Lisa Klem said in a statement that the hearing concerned “an ongoing and sealed grand jury matter” that remains under seal.
It was not immediately clear what the outcome of the proceedings was. The Washington Post, relying on anonymous sources, reported on Thursday that the Justice Department had earlier asked Howell to hold Trump’s office in contempt for failure to fully comply with a May subpoena that sought the return of classified documents in his possession.
DENVER — A California woman who warned a judge
last year about the danger posed by the suspect in the Colorado Springs gay nightclub shooting said Friday that the deaths could have been prevented if earlier charges against the suspect weren’t dismissed.
Jeanie Streltzoff — a relative of alleged shooter Anderson Lee Aldrich — urged Colorado Judge Robin Chittum in a letter last November to incarcerate the suspect following a 2021 standoff with SWAT teams that uncovered a stockpile of more than 100 pounds of explosive material, firearms and ammunition.
Aldrich should have been in prison at the time of the shooting and prevented from obtaining weapons, she told The Associated Press on Friday.
“Five people died,” Streltzoff said, hushing the final word. “Someone should have done something.”
Streltzoff blamed Aldrich’s grandmother and mother for dodging subpoenas that would have forced them to testify in the bomb threat case. But documents unsealed Thursday also raised questions about whether authorities were aggressive enough in their pursuit of a conviction or could have sought different charges when it became clear Aldrich’s mother, Laura Voepel, and grandparents Jonathan and Pamela Pullen wouldn’t testify.
PARIS — France will make condoms free in pharmacies
for anyone up to age 25 in the new year, President Emmanuel Macron announced Friday.
The move comes as the government says sexually transmitted diseases are on the rise among young people, and as this year’s exceptional inflation is cutting especially deeply into the budgets of France’s poorest.
Girls and women 25 and under already can get free birth control in France as part of government efforts to ensure that young people of all incomes can prevent unwanted pregnancy. Existing measures don’t apply to men, however, or specifically address access for transgender or nonbinary people.
Macron had said Thursday that condoms would be free in pharmacies for anyone 18-25 starting Jan. 1. But after a French TV presenter and others challenged him on social networks Friday over why the condom measure did not include minors, the president agreed to expand the program.
“Let’s do it,” Macron said in a selfie video that he shot from the sidelines of a summit in Spain. He later tweeted: “A lot of minors also have sex ... they need to protect themselves too.”
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s first female president appeared
in a military ceremony on national television on Friday in her first official event as head of state, an attempt to cement her hold on power and buck the national trend of early presidential departures.
In an indication of continued political rancor, some politicians already were calling for early elections, and more protests were planned.
Dina Boluarte was elevated from vice president to replace ousted leftist Pedro Castillo as the country’s leader Wednesday. She has said she should be allowed to hold the office for the remaining 3 1/2 years of his term.
Boularte addressed members of the armed forces during a ceremony marking a historic battle. Boularte, flanked by the leaders of the judiciary and Congress, sat among lawmakers who had tried to remove Castillo from office.
“Our nation is strong and secure thanks to the armed forces, the navy, the air force, and the army of Peru,” Boularte said before hundreds of members of the armed forces in Peru’s capital. “They give us the guarantee that we live in order, respecting the constitution, the rule of law, the balance of powers.”