Guardian investigation finds workers stranded on at least 50 ships with Covid-19 outbreaks, limited medical equipment, some without pay, and no end in sight

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While most cruise ship passengers have now made it back to land, another crisis has been growing – with no safe haven in sight.

Around the world, more than 100,000 crew workers are still trapped on cruise ships, at least 50 of which have Covid-19 infections, a Guardian investigation has found. They are shut out of ports and banned from air travel that would allow them to return to their homes.

From the Galapagos to Dubai crew have been left marooned amid squabbles over who is responsible for their welfare

• Revealed: 100,000 crew never made it off cruise ships amid coronavirus crisis
  

The Apex was nearly finished. A brand new cruise ship for the Celebrity Cruises line, it was a towering, 117,000-ton vessel with luxuries like a “resort deck” featuring martini-glass-shaped jacuzzis and a movable platform cantilevered off the side – known as “the Magic Carpet” – to be used as an outdoor restaurant. As the builders put the finishing touches to it, the company held parties for crew and contractors, even as the rest of the world was shutting down to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

Alexandra Nedeltcheva was one of the waiters. Though she avoided the parties, she served the contractors and crew at one of the ship’s restaurants. She says she contracted Covid-19 before the Apex even left port.

Waverley council in Sydney’s eastern suburbs has reopened Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama beaches to swimmers and surfers between 7am and 5pm on weekdays. The beaches were closed as Australia’s coronavirus restrictions came into force. They are to remain closed on weekends, and only the water is ‘open’, with sunbathing, walking and jogging on the beach not allowed

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Australian researcher and reef guide Jacinta Shackleton is now one of the few people to have ever seen the rare and endangered ornate eagle ray. Shackleton was conducting research near Lady Elliot Island on the Great Barrier Reef when she saw the ray, something she said was an 'unforgettable and emotional experience'. With little more than 50 sightings recorded worldwide, divers have dubbed the ray ’the unicorn of the sea’

Major pork plant closed after hundreds of workers contract coronavirus, while speeding up of poultry production lines raises concerns over standards

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The US government is accelerating controversial regulatory rollbacks to speed up production at meat plants, as companies express growing alarm at the impact of Covid-19 on their operations.

Last week Smithfield shut down one of the largest pork plants in the country after hundreds of employees contracted the coronavirus. The plant in South Dakota – whose output represents 4–5% of US pork production – is reported to be the largest single-source coronavirus hotspot in the US, with more than 600 cases. In response, the company said it was “critical” for the meat industry to “continue to operate unabated”.

Now it has emerged that as a wave of plants announce closures, US meat plants are being granted permission to increase the speed of their production lines. This comes despite warnings that the waivers for higher speeds on slaughter and processing lines will compromise food safety.

Third of workers at factory in Tipperary test positive, while McDonald’s supplier forced to temporarily halt production

An outbreak of Covid-19 among workers in a meat factory in Tipperary has raised fears that the virus is spreading through abattoirs and meat-processing plants in Ireland.

Sinn Féin’s spokesperson on agriculture, Brian Stanley, told the Irish parliament last night that 120 workers at the Rosderra Meats plant in Roscrea had tested positive for the virus. He also said that of 350 workers at the plant, up to 140 were off sick last week. Rosderra is the largest pork-processing company in Ireland.

Once a step away from extinction, their survival was a rare success story. But groundbreaking gorilla conservation is now in peril

• Ecotourism collapse threatens communities and wildlife

As he clambers down the forested ravine, soil slipping beneath his boots, Dr Fred Nizeyimana knows they are close. “I can smell them,” he says, just before the mountain gorillas come into view high in the canopy, plucking leaves and chomping on the vegetation. An adult female slides down a tree, a flash of black fur and elongated limb. More follow, with infants and juveniles in tow. A grunting silverback descends to join its family, the branches buckling beneath approximately 180kg (400lb) of iconic primate.

What’s needed after Covid-19 is a bigger, smarter state, with more devolved decisions, a greener economy and a stronger safety net

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The words are straining to come out. Boris Johnson hero worships Winston Churchill so it is obvious how the prime minister will pitch this week’s announcement of the plan to get Britain out of lockdown.

In late 1942, victory in the north African desert had suggested that the tide of the war might have turned but Churchill was cautious. “Now this is not the end,” he said in a speech at London’s Mansion House. “It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”

The pandemic reminds me of a different invisible enemy. Once again, coordinated action is the only effective response

Deja vu. In recent days I’ve had that sense more than once. Every time I come home, remove my mask and wash my hands, I start thinking whether it is safe to keep on wearing the clothes that I had on outside. What if they are contaminated by the virus? Well, I can change clothes, but what if the particles have already jumped somewhere else, and are now in my home? Some would call it paranoia. I call it deja vu. I recognise those thoughts and remember the feelings.

That is because I first experienced them more than 30 years ago, in May 1986, on a trip to Kyiv, then the capital of Soviet Ukraine. It was a few weeks after the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, and I was in the city – about 100km from the disaster area – on a business trip. We already knew that there was radiation in the air. Water trucks were spraying the streets, foreign students were leaving the city, and overseas broadcasters like the BBC were telling us to stay inside. But our own government was sending confusing and distressing messages: there is absolutely no danger, but make sure you keep children inside, and pregnant women too. Oh, and close your windows when you are at home.

Most Europeans support a universal basic income, yet young people doubt democracy’s capacity to deliver change

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The coronavirus crisis seems to be encouraging belief in radical change. An astonishing 71% of Europeans are now in favour of introducing a universal basic income, according to an opinion poll designed by my research team at Oxford university and published today. In Britain, the figure is 68%. Less encouraging, at least to anyone who believes in liberal democracy, is another startling finding in the survey: no less than 53% of young Europeans place more confidence in authoritarian states than in democracies to tackle the climate crisis. The poll was conducted by eupinions in March, as most of Europe was locking down against the virus, but the questions had been formulated earlier. It would be fascinating now to ask Europeans which political system they think has proved better at combating a pandemic, as the United States and China, the world’s leading democracy and the world’s leading dictatorship, spray viral accusations at each other.

Those two contrasting but equally striking survey results show how high the stakes will be as we emerge from the immediate medical emergency, and face the subsequent economic pandemic and its political fallout. What kind of historical moment will this turn out to be, for Europe and the world? It could lead us to the best of times. It could lead us to the worst of times.

After all we have already endured in 2020 we should know that stopping an emergency is far better than responding to one

In just a few short months, many more people in Australia have faced greater adversity in 2020 than in the decade since we emerged from the global financial crisis.

The bushfires that affected the health of millions, claimed lives and livelihoods, blighted our landscape and destroyed communities were unprecedented in size and intensity. Now the acute shock of the Covid-19 pandemic has also taken lives and left many more living in fear, while throwing hundreds of thousands out of paid work, shattering businesses and leaving us facing an unstable new world.

The Guardian’s editor-in-chief explains why support from our readers is crucial in enabling us to produce fearless, independent reporting that addresses the climate emergency

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At the Guardian we believe the climate crisis is the most urgent issue of our times. And we know that Guardian readers are equally passionate about the need for governments, businesses and individuals to take immediate action to avoid a catastrophe for humanity and for the natural world.

Today the Guardian is making a pledge to our readers that we will play our part, both in our journalism and in our own organisation, to address the climate emergency. We hope this underlines to you the Guardian’s deep commitment to quality environmental journalism, rooted in scientific fact.

If you’re gardening more than usual, try not to disturb the legless lizard, which can mate for up to 10 hours at a time in May

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Under a small, sun-baked mat, a curled metallic-gold slow worm lies basking in the heat, the dark stripe running down its body revealing its youth. Sensing attention, it begins to wriggle away, revealing a companion, which speeds rapidly into the grasses in the opposite direction.

After a winter of social distancing, slow worms – a type of legless lizard that grows up to half a metre long and is often mistaken for a snake – have been venturing out of hibernation to enjoy warming their cold-blooded bodies in the spring sun.

Social distancing rules will ‘kill cities’, experts warn – and the future of mass transit hangs in the balance

This is the second feature in our Life after lockdown series, which looks at how Covid-19 could change Australia for good

Before the pandemic struck, Sara Blazey made the same three-hour commute to work, three days a week, for the better part of 12 years. The 63-year-old family lawyer from the Blue Mountains works for a domestic violence legal advice hotline in Parramatta and it used to be that she would wake at 7am, drive seven minutes to Hazelbrook station and from there catch the 7.17am train to Parramatta before making the same one-and-a-half hour trip home in the evening.

With the pandemic, all that would change. Domestic violence support services such as the one Blazey worked for were declared “essential” services, meaning they could keep operating despite restrictions. To ensure they could do so safely, the organisation did what some commentators long thought impossible and began to transition its employees into working from home.

Only government action will preserve the clearer, bluer skies gifted to us by the coronavirus lockdown

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Many of us will have noticed differences in traffic noise and air pollution during the lockdown. Startling images have come from India where, for the first time in a generation, the Himalayas have been visible more than a hundred miles away. Something similar happened in the UK in 1921 when coal shortages during a miner’s strike led to newspaper reports of distant landmarks being visible as never before. In the UK we too have been able to look up at clearer blue skies, less impeded by air pollution and not crisscrossed by aircraft contrails. This helped Germany to break a solar power record.

In Beijing, air pollution controls for the 2014 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting also brought a return to blue skies. The term “APEC blue” emerged in Chinese social media and was nominated as Beijing’s top environmental phrase for the year. Later it took on a tinge of sadness, to mean something wonderful, but brief. One woman posted about love on social media, “He’s not that into you – it’s just an APEC blue!”

City leaders publish ‘statement of principles’ putting climate action at centre of recovery plans

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Mayors from many of the world’s leading cities have warned there can be no return to “business as usual” in the aftermath of the coronavirus crisis if humanity is to escape catastrophic climate breakdown.

City leaders representing more than 750 million people have published a “statement of principles”, which commits them to putting greater equality and climate resilience at the heart of their recovery plans.

'Avengers: Endgame' tops 'Star Wars,' breaks previous pre-sale record originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com"Avengers: Endgame" tickets went on sale Tuesday and just like Thanos' famous snap, they were gone just like that. But way more than half.Fandango is reporting that "Endgame" has broken its pre-sale records, topping the previous holder, "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."(MORE: New 'Avengers: Endgame' trailer features Captain Marvel, the battle to beat Thanos)Guess the force is strong with Earth's mightiest heroes. ...

Mike 'The Situation' Sorrentino Is 'Having the Time of His Life' in Prison

But Davis does see a path forward: empathy and becoming educated on one another’s experiences.

Los avistamientos del avispón asiático gigante han provocado temores de que el insecto se establezca en Estados Unidos y extermine a las poblaciones de abejas.

Whatever effect warm weather has on the coronavirus, it won’t be enough to safely drop social restrictions.

President Trump on Thursday did not directly address reports that Attorney General William Barr’s assessment of special counsel Robert Mueller’s...

President Donald Trump gleefully tweeted “WELCOME BACK JOE!” alongside a doctored video of a fake Joe Biden grabbing the shoulders...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Monday called for ousted Secret Service Director Randolph “Tex” Alles to testify before...

To public health specialists, it’s a disturbing trend that could lead to people ignoring government warnings.

The White House confirmed that both President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have tested negative for coronavirus.

Millions more coronavirus tests will be needed to safely reopen the country, the chairman of the Senate HELP Committee said at a hearing Thursday.

The co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation cited a lack of national coordination.

The speaker isn’t yet negotiating with Republicans or the White House on the next aid bill.

Using data from the COVID Tracking Project, we’re following how each state is responding to COVID-19.

“Returning these funds will allow truly small businesses ... to obtain the emergency loans they need to avoid layoffs," they write.

Countries scramble to fill the plates of the most vulnerable.

Join POLITICO for a series of virtual briefings and audio teleconferences to learn the latest updates on coronavirus and its impacts.

The California governor, who previously endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris, had yet to formally throw his support behind Biden.

CORONAVIRUS can linger in the eyes for weeks and cause a host of problems especially for those who wear contact lenses. How can you protect your eyes during this difficult time and what are the symptoms to spot?

CORONAVIRUS has been raging in the UK for months now yet symptoms remain a mystery for many people. The NHS cites coughing as a main warning sign but how can you tell a regular cough from a COVID-19 one?

The state's African Americans face some of the country’s worst pollution — and some of its most severe COVID-19 outcomes. The two may well be linked.

We all want a conclusion to the COVID-19 saga. Will we get an end to the story of climate?

For this Colorado retirement community, living near a fracking site has been a nightmare. Now they can’t even leave.

Pipelines and pandemics are perils to Indigenous nations right now. Here’s how they plan to fight back.

Did you miss our live chat? Watch the whole thing here.

After all, astral projection would definitely qualify as the lightest carbon footprint travel option.

Social distancing has made my world smaller. Maybe that's a good thing.

My kids are asking when the coronavirus will end. Here’s how I’m responding.

Roy Horn, who thrilled Las Vegas crowds as part of the big-cats-and-magic act Siegfried & Roy until a tiger attack ended his career in 2003, died today of coronavirus at Mountain View Hospital in Las Vegas. He was 75. Horn’s publicist said on April 28 that the magician had tested positive for COVID-19. “Today, the […]

Actor Nick Cordero’s wife, Amanda Kloots, has once again posted on her husband’s condition as he battles the COVID-19 virus. Cordero has had horrible complications since being hospitalized more than a month ago. His struggle has been memorialized by Kloots on Instagram, and she has again updated his health status. Kloots shared in an Instagram […]

UFC 249 has faced close scrutiny as the biggest sporting event to be held amid the coronavirus pandemic. Now UFC’s decision to proceed with the event raises further questions as one of the scheduled fighters, Ronaldo “Jacare” Souza, has been pulled from the card after testing positive for the virus, along with two members of […]

UPDATE, 10:31 PM: Joe Biden finally received an official endorsement from Gavin Newsom tonight, but the California Governor was the recipient of some high praise from the former Vice-President and the Democrats’ presumptive nominee for his executive electoral move against coronavirus earlier Friday. “Gavin, you’ve done one helluva job, and thank you for your support […]

Marco Bellocchio’s mafia movie The Traitor topped last night’s David di Donatello Awards, Italy’s national film awards, scooping six prizes including Best Film. The movie also won Director for Bellocchio, Screenplay, Actor for Pierfrancesco Favino, Supporting Actor for Luigi Lo Cascio, and Best Editing. It premiered at Cannes last year before going on to gross […]