Greeted by relieved parents, pet dogs, flares and a cloud of orange smoke, a group of 25 Dutch high school students with very little sailing experience ended a trans-Atlantic voyage Sunday that was forced on them by coronavirus restrictions.The children, ages 14 to 17, watched over by 12 experienced crew members and three teachers, were on an educational cruise of the Caribbean when the pandemic forced them to radically change their plans for returning home in March.That gave one of the young sailors, 17-year-old Floor Hurkmans, one of the biggest lessons of her impromptu adventure.“Being flexible, because everything is changing all the time,” she said as she set foot on dry land again. “The arrival time changed like 100 times. Being flexible is really important.”Instead of flying back from Cuba as originally planned, the crew and students stocked up on supplies and warm clothes and set sail for the northern Dutch port of Harlingen, a five-week voyage of nearly 7,000 kilometers (4,350 miles), on board the 60-meter (200-foot) top sail schooner Wylde Swan.As they arrived home, the students hung up a self-made banner saying “Bucket List” with ticks in boxes for Atlantic Ocean crossing, mid-ocean swim and surviving the Bermuda triangle.The teens hugged and chanted each other’s names as they walked off the ship and into the arms of their families, who drove their cars alongside the yacht one by one to adhere to social distancing rules imposed to rein in the spread of the virus that forced the students into their long trip home.Aukje Wakkerman is the last to disembark from the Wylde Swan schooner carrying 25 Dutch teens who sailed home from the Caribbean across the Atlantic when coronavirus lockdowns prevented them flying arrived at the port of Harlingen, April 26, 2020.For Hurkmans, the impossibility of any kind of social distancing took some getting used to.“At home you just have some moments for yourself, but here you have to be social all the time to everyone because you’re sleeping with them, you’re eating with them you’re just doing everything with them so you can’t really just relax,” she said.Her mother, Renee Scholtemeijer, said she expects her daughter to miss life on the open sea once she encounters coronavirus containment measures in the Netherlands.“I think that after two days she’ll want to go back on the boat, because life is very boring back at home,” she said. “There’s nothing to do, she can’t visit friends, so it’s very boring.”The twin-masted Wylde Swan glided into Harlingen harbor late morning Sunday, its sails neatly stowed. Onlookers gathered on a sea wall to watch the arrival set off flares and a smoke grenade that sent an orange cloud drifting over the glassy water.Masterskip, the company that organized the cruise, runs five educational voyages for about 150 students in all each year. Crossing the Atlantic is nothing new for the Wylde Swan, which has made the trip about 20 times.The company’s director, Christophe Meijer, said the students were monitored for the coronavirus in March to ensure nobody was infected.He said he was pleased the students had adapted to life on board and kept up their education on the long voyage.“The children learned a lot about adaptivity, also about media attention, but also their normal school work,” he said. “So they are actually far ahead now of their Dutch school colleagues. They have made us very proud.”
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The Russian Agriculture Ministry announced Sunday that it was suspending its export of most grains until July 1, seemingly ignoring warnings from international organizations who are asking countries not to disrupt global food supply chains during the current COVID-19 pandemic.The ministry said the Russian cutoff affected shipments of wheat, corn, rye, barley and meslin, which is a mixture of wheat and rye.It made no mention of the crisis from the coronavirus that has infected 185 countries or regions around the world and infected nearly 3 million people since emerging in central China in December 2019.The supplies from Russia, the world’s largest wheat exporter, will continue to fellow members of the Moscow-led Eurasian Economic Union (EES), which includes other post-Soviet states Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.Leaders of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) warned in a joint statement in late March that “as countries move to enact measures aiming to halt the accelerating COVID-19 pandemic, care must be taken to minimize potential impacts on the food supply or unintended consequences on global trade and food security.”George Eustice, British secretary of state for environment, food and rural affairs, said Sunday there was “no serious disruption” to international flows of food, although he acknowledged that there had been “isolated cases” of trade being disrupted, for example goods from India.The Russian Agriculture Ministry announced the move Sunday by saying a quota set earlier this month for exports through June had been “fully exhausted.”Moscow had said the quota was introduced to safeguard its national supplies and market.The World Food Program (WFP) said in early April that while “disruptions are so far minimal” from the COVID-19 crisis, food supply “adequate,” and markets “relatively stable,” panics or other behavior changes could create major problems.But spokeswoman Elizabeth Byrs said accompanying the release of a WFP report that “we may soon expect to see disruptions in food-supply chains.”Kazakhstan has seen protests over wheat and flour supplies and said recently that it might abolish quotas on wheat and flour exports.A Reuters report said less than 1 million tons of a 7 million-ton quota for April-June remained by Saturday, owing to a deluge of orders for later exports.It quoted analysts suggesting that while the quota might be formally exhausted, grain exports so far in April were probably around 4 million and 3 million tons more might be spoken for but would probably ship out in May and June.Russia exported more than 35 million tons of wheat and 43 million tons of all grains in 2018-19, RIA Novosti reported.
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The United Nations says persistent and serious long-term consequences remain more than 30 years after the explosion and fire at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine.The world body is marking International Chernobyl Disaster Remembrance Day on April 26, the 34th anniversary of the accident that spread a radioactive cloud over large parts of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.The anniversary is being marked after fires recently burned in the 30-kilometer exclusion zone around the plant, raising concerns about the potential release of radioactive particles into the air.In this photo taken from the roof of Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant on April 10, 2020, a forest fire is seen burning near the plant inside the exclusion zone.The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in December 2016 designating April 26 as a day to recognize the consequences of the accident. Its statement says that while progress has been made, “there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done in the affected region.”The United Nations says the completion of a confinement structure over the reactor most heavily damaged in the accident was a major milestone of 2019.It noted that the project received more than $2 billion in funding from 45 donor nations through funds managed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The scope of the project in terms of international cooperation is one of the largest ever seen in the field of nuclear safety, the U.N. said.A woman wearing a protective mask lights a candle at a memorial, dedicated to firefighters and workers who died after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, during a night service in Slavutych, Ukraine, April 26, 2020.The U.N.’s involvement in Chernobyl recovery efforts dates back to a resolution passed in 1990. U.N. agencies continue to work closely with the governments of Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine to provide development assistance to the communities affected by the disaster.The U.N.’s statement on Chernobyl remembrance day does not mention the fires that have burned in the exclusion zone. The largest among several blazes was extinguished last week. Smaller fires continue to burn in the zone, the authority that administrates it said on April 24.Video showing plumes of smoke billowing from the charred landscape earlier this month alarmed environmental activists, who said the burning of contaminated trees and other vegetation could disperse radioactive particles.The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on April 24 that the increase in levels of radiation measured in the country was very small and posed “no risk to human health.”The Vienna-based IAEA, which acts as the U.N. nuclear watchdog, said it was basing its assessment on data provided by Ukraine.There have been “some minor increases in radiation,” the IAEA said, adding the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine found the concentration of radioactive materials in the air remained below Ukraine’s radiation safety norms. 
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The itch to dance, to break out of coronavirus lockdown and bust a few moves in the fresh air, out on the street, has proved too strong for some to resist in Paris after weeks of staying home.Video of Parisians dancing in the street this weekend, some wearing face masks, triggered buzz and criticism on social networks and an apology Sunday from the out-of-work theater technician who blasted the music from his balcony.Nathan Sebbagh has been thanking medics and trying to keep people’s spirits up with half-hour hip-shaking musical selections on Saturday evenings.But his goodwill gesture, which he dubs @discobalcons in his Instagram postings, this weekend became a victim of its own success.Police knocked at his door and gave him a talking to after a small but frisky crowd gathered and danced under the balcony of his apartment in Montmartre.”There were a lot of people. The square was quite full. Some people were far too close,” Sebbagh acknowledged somewhat sheepishly in a phone interview Sunday.The police “said that music on balconies is a very good idea but not like this, it’s too dangerous,” he said.Among his musical offerings on Saturday was “Let me Dance” by Egyptian-born songbird Dalida. She lived in Montmartre before her death in 1987 and a square is named in her honor.Video posted by a journalist showed police vehicles rolling up as the song played and people danced. The images provoked hostile comments on social media, with critics arguing that such behavior during France’s lockdown in place since March 17 risked spreading the virus.Paris police tweeted, with “be responsible” and “stay home” hashtags, that the dancers didn’t respect social distancing rules.Sebbagh said it wasn’t his intention to draw a crowd. The 19-year-old said he carted the loudspeakers over from the now closed theater where he worked before the lockdown solely to add a bit of musical zest to the stay-home lives of his neighbors.“I was missing human contact and music,” he said.He said he wholeheartedly supports medical staff battling the pandemic and that he was sorry if he upset them.“It’s true, people are cracking up. But we are in a very complicated and particular situation,” he said. “The aim is to come out alive.” 
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As Italy prepares to emerge from the West’s first and most extensive coronavirus lockdown, it is increasingly clear that something went terribly wrong in Lombardy, the hardest-hit region in Europe’s hardest-hit country. Italy had the bad luck of being the first Western nation to be slammed by the outbreak, and its total of 26,000 fatalities lags behind only the U.S. in the global death toll. Italy’s first homegrown case was recorded Feb. 21, at a time when the World Health Organization was still insisting the virus was “containable” and not nearly as infectious as the flu.But there’s also evidence that demographics and health care deficiencies combined with political and business interests to expose Lombardy’s 10 million people in ways unseen anywhere else, particularly the most vulnerable in nursing homes.Virologists and epidemiologists say what went wrong there will be studied for years, given how the outbreak overwhelmed a medical system considered one of Europe’s best. In neighboring Veneto, the impact was significantly more controlled.Prosecutors are deciding whether to lay any criminal blame for the hundreds of dead in nursing homes, many of whom aren’t even counted in Lombardy’s official death toll of 13,269.By contrast, Lombardy’s front-line doctors and nurses are being hailed as heroes for risking their lives to treat the sick under extraordinary levels of stress, exhaustion, isolation and fear.Even after Italy registered its first homegrown case, doctors didn’t understand the unusual way COVID-19 could present itself, with some patients experiencing a rapid decline in their ability to breathe.“This was clinical information we didn’t have,” said Dr. Maurizio Marvisi, a pneumologist at the San Camillo private clinic in hard-hit Cremona.Death notices are seen on a board along an empty road in Alzano Lombardo, near Bergamo, the heart of the hardest-hit province in Italy’s region of Lombardy, March 17, 2020.Because Lombardy’s intensive care units were filling up within days of Italy’s first cases, many primary care physicians tried to treat and monitor their patients at home, even putting them on supplemental oxygen. That strategy proved deadly, since many people died at home or soon after being hospitalized, having waited too long to call an ambulance.Italy was forced to rely on home care in part because of its low ICU capacity: After years of budget cuts, Italy went into the emergency with 8.6 ICU beds per 100,000 people, below the average of 15.9 within the developed countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.As a result, Italy’s primary care physicians became the front-line filter of COVID-19 patients, an army of mostly self-employed general practitioners who work outside the public hospital system.Since only those showing strong symptoms were being tested because Lombardy’s labs couldn’t process any more, these family doctors didn’t know if they themselves were positive, much less their patients.The doctors also had no guidelines on when to admit the sick or refer them to specialists and didn’t have the same access to protective equipment as hospitals.Some 20,000 Italian medical personnel have been infected and 150 doctors have died. Two days after Italy registered its first case in the Lombardy province of Lodi, sparking a quarantine in 10 towns, another positive case was registered more than an hour’s drive away in Alzano in the province of Bergamo.By March 2, the Superior Institute of Health recommended Alzano and nearby Nembro be sealed off like the Lodi towns.But political authorities never implemented that recommendation, allowing the infection to spread for a second week until all of Lombardy was locked down March 7.Asked why he didn’t seal off Bergamo province sooner, Premier Giuseppe Conte argued that Lombardy’s regional government could have done so on its own. Lombardy’s governor, Attilio Fontana, said if there was a mistake, “it was made by both. I don’t think that there was blame in this situation.’’Lombardy has one-sixth of Italy’s 60 million people and is the most densely populated region, home to the business capital in Milan and the country’s industrial heartland. Lombardy also has more people over 65 than any other region, as well as 20% of Italy’s nursing homes, a demographic time bomb for COVID-19 infections.“Clearly, with the benefit of hindsight, we should have done a total shutdown in Lombardy, everyone at home and no one moves,” said Andrea Crisanti, a microbiologist and virologist advising Veneto’s regional government. But he acknowledged how hard that was, given Lombardy’s outsize role in Italy’s economy.“Probably for political reasons, it wasn’t done,” he told reporters.Unions and mayors of some of Lombardy’s hardest-hit cities now say the country’s main industrial lobby group, Confindustria, put enormous pressure on authorities to resist production shutdowns, claiming the economic cost would be too great in a region responsible for 21% of Italy’s GDP.On Feb. 28, a week into Italy’s outbreak and well after more than 100 cases had been registered in Bergamo, the province’s branch of Confindustria launched a social media campaign aimed at reassuring skittish investors. It insisted the outbreak was no worse than elsewhere and that production in provincial steel mills and other industries were unaffected.Even after the national government locked down all of Lombardy March 7, it allowed factories to stay open, sparking strikes from workers worried that their health was being sacrificed.“It was a huge error. They should have taken the example where the first cluster was found,” said Giambattista Morali of the metalworkers’ union in the Bergamo town of Dalmine.While the regional government focused on finding new ICU beds, its testing capacity lagged and Lombardy’s nursing homes were left to fend for themselves.Of particular attention to Milan prosecutors investigating deaths in care facilities was the March 8 decision by the regional government to allow recovering COVID-19 patients to be housed in nursing homes to free up hospital beds.Another regional decree March 30 told nursing home directors to not hospitalize sick residents over 75 if they had other health problems and avoid further risking their health during transport. 
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Italians on Saturday celebrated the 75th anniversary of Liberation Day — and the end of World War II fascist rule — under a national lockdown.Stranded at home, they went out on their balconies waving flags, singing, clapping and cheering. Among them were elderly Italians who participated in the resistance movement in the 1940s against German occupation and fascist forces.Rome’s residents sang “Bella Ciao,” a well-known folk song connected with the resistance movement.Every year tens of thousands of people take to the streets of Italy’s main cities, including Rome, Milan and Bologna, to mark the day.This year was different, though, as all events were canceled because of the coronavirus outbreak.  
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