Tag Archives: United States

U.S. government plans to end week with third execution after 17-year hiatus

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – A week that marked the return of capital punishment by the U.S. government after a 17-year hiatus was due to end on Friday with a third planned execution of a federal prisoner.

If President Donald Trump’s administration faces no legal obstacle in putting Dustin Lee Honken, a convicted murderer, to death by lethal injection at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT), it will have completed as many executions in a few days as happened in the preceding 57 years.

Lawyers for the condemned men have amassed legal challenges, which include arguments that the U.S. Department of Justice’s new one-drug lethal-injection protocol breaches a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishments.

These arguments have been rejected twice this week in overnight rulings by a 5-4 majority in the Supreme Court.

Dustin Honken was a dealer in illegal methamphetamine when he and his girlfriend murdered five people in Iowa in 1993, including two girls aged 10 and 6. He was convicted in 2004.

He is one of several inmates on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, who have said the new one-drug protocol, which replaces a three-drug protocol the government last used in 2003, would cause an unnecessarily painful death.

The litigation will continue in the U.S. District Court in Washington with the surviving inmates. Since last year, Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the cases, has ordered injunctions on three occasions delaying the scheduled executions to allow the legal challenges to play out. All three were overruled by the Supreme Court.

Two other men convicted of murdering children were executed in Terre Haute earlier this week: Daniel Lee on Tuesday, and Wesley Purkey on Thursday.

Families of the killers’ victims have been divided, reflecting broader public disagreement over capital punishment, which has been abolished by most other countries. Relatives of Lee’s victims pleaded for Trump to scrap Lee’s execution. The father of the 16-year-old girl murdered by Purkey told reporters that Purkey’s death brought some resolution to his grief.

Cassandra Stubbs, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Capital Punishment Project, called it “a truly dark period for our country.” She joined the condemned men’s lawyers in criticizing higher courts in what they called a rush to short-circuit their legal rights.

While the Supreme Court’s conservative majority wrote that it had established that lethal injection was a constitutional method, some of the liberal justices complained new problems raised by the changed protocol were being dismissed too hastily.

“I remain convinced of the importance of reconsidering the constitutionality of the death penalty itself,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion on Thursday.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. aircraft carriers return to South China Sea amid rising tensions

By James Pearson

HANOI (Reuters) – For the second time in two weeks, the United States has deployed two aircraft carriers to the South China Sea, the U.S. Navy said on Friday, as China and the United States accuse each other of stoking tensions in the region.

The USS Nimitz and USS Ronald Reagan carried out operations and military exercises in the contested waterway between July 4 and July 6, and returned to the region on Friday, according to a U.S. Navy statement.

“Nimitz and Reagan Carrier Strike Groups are operating in the South China Sea, wherever international law allows, to reinforce our commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, a rules based international order, and to our allies and partners in the region,” Rear Admiral Jim Kirk, commander of the Nimitz, said in the statement.

The presence of the carriers was not in response to political or world events, the statement added, but relations between Washington and Beijing are currently strained over everything from the new coronavirus to trade to Hong Kong.

Heated rhetoric has been on the rise in the region, where Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam challenge China’s claim to about 90% of the sea.

China held military drills in the sea earlier this month, drawing strong condemnation from both Vietnam and the Philippines, at the same time as the two carriers first crossed the waterway for what the U.S. Navy said were pre-planned exercises.

The U.S. Navy says its carriers have long carried out exercises in the Western Pacific, including in the South China Sea, which extends for some 1,500 km (900 miles). At one point recently, the United States had three carriers in the region.

About $3 trillion of trade passes through the South China Sea each year. The United States accuses China of trying to intimidate Asian neighbors who might want to exploit its extensive oil and gas reserves.

(Reporting by James Pearson; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Over 1 million: India joins U.S., Brazil in grim coronavirus club

By Zeba Siddiqui

MUMBAI (Reuters) – India on Friday became the third country in the world to record more than one million cases of the new coronavirus, behind only the United States and Brazil, as infections spread further into the countryside and smaller towns.

Given India’s population of around 1.3 billion, experts say, one million is relatively low – but the number will rise significantly in the coming months as testing increases, further straining a healthcare system already pushed to the brink.

The pandemic has surged in the country in recent weeks as it spread beyond the biggest cities, pushing India past Russia as the third-most-infected country last week.

Authorities imposed fresh lockdowns and designated new containment zones in several states this week, including the largely rural Bihar state in the east and the southern tech hub Bengaluru, where cases have spiked.

But officials have struggled to enforce the lockdowns and keep people indoors.

India recorded 34,956 new infections on Friday, taking the total to 1,003,832, with 25,602 deaths from COVID-19, federal health ministry data showed. That compares to 3.6 million cases in the United States and 2 million in Brazil – countries with less than a third of India’s population.

Epidemiologists say India is still likely months from hitting its peak.

“In the coming months, we are bound to see more and more cases, and that is the natural progression of any pandemic,” said Giridhar Babu, epidemiologist at the nonprofit Public Health Foundation of India.

“As we move forward, the goal has to be lower mortality,” he said. “A critical challenge states will face is how to rationally allocate hospital beds.”

The last four months of the pandemic sweeping India have exposed severe gaps in the country’s healthcare system, which is one of the most poorly funded and has for years lacked enough doctors or hospital beds.

The Indian government has defended a strict lockdown it imposed in March to contain the virus spread, saying it helped keep death rates low and allowed time to beef up the healthcare infrastructure. But public health experts say shortages remain and could hit hard in the coming months.

“As a public health measure, I don’t think the lockdown had much impact. It just delayed the virus spread,” said Dr. Kapil Yadav, assistant professor of community medicine at New Delhi’s premier All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

The million cases so far recorded likely left out many asymptomatic ones, he said. “It’s a gross underestimate.”

Rahul Gandhi, leader of the opposition Congress party, urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to take concrete steps to contain the pandemic, tweeting that the number of infections will double to two million by August 10 at this pace.

Millions of migrant workers, left stranded in the cities by the lockdown in March, took long journeys home on foot, some dying on the way while others left without work or wages.

Several states including Bihar, to which many of the migrants returned, have witnessed a surge in cases in recent weeks as the lockdown has been eased to salvage a sagging economy.

Babu predicts India will not see a sharp peak and decline.

“The surges are shifting from one place to another, so we cannot say there will be one peak for the whole country. In India, it’s going to be a sustained plateau for some time and then it will go down.”

(Reporting by Zeba Siddiqui in Mumbai; Additional reporting by Chandini Monnappa, Derek Francis and Abhirup Roy; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani and William Mallard)

Kids, safety and schools: A pandemic debate plays out in California county

By Sharon Bernstein

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) – In Sutter County in California’s bucolic Sacramento Valley, coronavirus cases are rising, but Mike Ziegenmeyer wants his kids back in the classroom.

Unlike big-city school districts that plan to offer only remote learning this fall as COVID-19 rages through the state, several school districts in this agricultural region – once part of the 19th century gold rush – intend to accommodate that wish.

“I want my kids in school,” said Ziegenmeyer, a county supervisor and political conservative. “I think they need the social interaction.”

Ziegenmeyer, at least for now, will get his wish. The tiny Brittan School District where his three children attend class plans to bring students back to the classroom.

But opposition by some other parents in the county shows how Sutter County is a microcosm of a debate raging across California and the United States of whether it is safe to reopen schools amid a resurgent wave of coronavirus cases.

Cases started rising sharply in Sutter, as elsewhere in California, at the beginning of June and have continued to climb, increasing from about 75 cases to nearly 700. At least 17 people from Sutter, with a population of 97,000 and just a few hospital beds, were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of July 16, and 378 are currently ill, county data show.

Like so many of the controversies related to the pandemic, the school issue has become increasingly politicized. Republican President Donald Trump has been urging a return to regular school schedules, while many Democrats advocate a more cautious approach, such as continuing with the virtual lessons widely introduced when the spreading pandemic forced a sudden shutdown of schools in the spring.

Ziegenmeyer resents what he says is a heavy-handed approach by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who early this week put the brakes on the reopening of California’s economy as he reversed orders that had allowed many businesses to open their doors again. On Friday Newsom will release new guidelines on reopening schools.

Ziegenmeyer is also concerned parents will suffer economic harm if they can’t work because children are home from school.

HYBRID MODEL

In California, many large urban districts, including Los Angeles, San Diego and Sacramento, have said they will begin the academic year with remote instruction. But plans vary from county to county, and from one school district to another.

The board of the Yuba City Unified School District, Sutter’s county seat and its largest municipality with 67,000 residents, voted last week to reopen with traditional instruction, five days per week.

The move, which was against the superintendent’s recommendation, stunned parents and teachers expecting either remote learning or a hybrid model, under which children attend small classes for part of the week, with strict social distancing. The teachers union began tense negotiations on Thursday over the plan.

“It is my hope that they will change their minds,” said Dina Luetgens, president of the Yuba City Teachers Association, which wants a hybrid model under which only half the district’s students would be on campus at a time.

In-person instruction, even under such a model, would require careful planning and protective gear for teachers as well as students, she said. Without that, teachers and children would be safer studying remotely from home, she said.

The school district did not respond to requests for comment. But Superintendent Doreen Osumi told the local Appeal-Democrat newspaper the district would have to implement social distancing guidelines and require children to wear face coverings. Parents who do not wish to send their children back to school will be allowed to choose a remote learning plan, although it was not immediately clear how it would be organized.

Sutter County is no stranger to not following the crowd. In May, Sutter, neighboring Yuba and Modoc counties defied state restrictions aimed at controlling the coronavirus spread and allowed restaurants, retail stores and fitness centers to reopen even though it was prohibited by state guidelines.

The guidelines Newsom is expected to release on Friday could upend plans to reopen school campuses. But even if reopening continues, Leslie Gundy says she will not send her two children back to school in Yuba City.

“We are in no way prepared to do that,” said Gundy, whose husband is a teacher in the district. “There’s been too little communication about their plan and how they are going to keep my children safe – and our teachers safe.”

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Leslie Adler)

Fauci bullish on prospects for U.S. vaccine, not worried about China winning race

By Julie Steenhuysen

(Reuters) – The leading U.S. expert on infectious diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, predicted on Wednesday the country will meet its goal of a coronavirus vaccine by year’s end and was unmoved by the prospect that China would get there first.

While there are no guarantees, “I feel good about the projected timetable,” Fauci told Reuters in an interview.

His comments follow promising early stage data for the Moderna Inc’s coronavirus vaccine, released on Tuesday, that was developed with scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci directs.

Many experts see a safe and effective vaccine as the only way out of the pandemic that has infected millions and killed more than 575,000 people worldwide.

Fauci said Moderna’s results were especially promising because the vaccine appeared to offer the type of protection seen in a natural infection.

In vaccine development, “one of the things that you hope for is that your vaccine induces a response that’s comparable to a natural infection, because theoretically, the best vaccine you could possibly ever get is a natural infection.”

Moderna’s candidate, which is set to enter the last stage of testing on July 27, is just one of more than a hundred vaccines in development globally, but only one of a few contenders that have earned millions of dollars in backing from Operation Warp Speed, the White House program that aims to deliver more than 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine by January.

Fauci, who has become a popular and trusted figure during the coronavirus outbreak, came under criticism from President Donald Trump and some of his Republican allies as Fauci cautioned against reopening the U.S. economy too soon.

Asked how he copes with the attacks on his character and allegiance to the president, Fauci told Reuters, “I don’t let it bother me. What we’re doing with vaccines, what we’re doing with therapeutics, what we’re doing with clinical trials is the real substance,” Fauci said.

VACCINE RACE

As U.S. states have begun to reopen businesses and coronavirus infections have soared, some White House officials have pointed fingers at China, where the virus first emerged late last year.

Fauci was unmoved by the prospect that China could cross the finish line first. Although he said he hopes China succeeds, he does not think they will win the vaccine race, at least not by much.

“I think everybody’s sort of on the same track.” If they do get there, he said, “They’re not going to get it particularly sooner than we get it. That’s for sure.”

Ultimately, he hopes multiple successful candidates prevail. “I don’t worry about anybody getting there first.”

Even if a vaccine succeeds in provoking an immune response, Fauci said it is still not clear how long that protection will last.

“These are questions that don’t have answers right now, because we’re only six months into the outbreak.” He said it may take a year before that immunity question is answered.

A recent Reuters poll found that a quarter of Americans are hesitant about taking a vaccine, voicing concern that the record pace of development could compromise safety. Fauci said he is aware of such concerns.

“It’s understandable, but unjustified,” he said. “We’re not compromising safety; we’re not compromising scientific integrity.”

Fauci said the normal development process of waiting for a vaccine to be proven effective before manufacturing begins wastes precious time.

“If the vaccine doesn’t work, the only thing you’ve lost is money.”

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Oklahoma governor becomes first U.S. state governor to test positive for coronavirus

(Reuters) – Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt announced on Wednesday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, believed to be the first governor of a U.S. state to do so.

“I got tested yesterday for COVID-19 and the results came back positive,” Stitt said in a video conference call with reporters. “I feel fine, really, I mean you might say I’m asymptomatic or just slightly kind of a little bit achy.”

Stitt was one of the guests at President Donald Trump’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma on June 20.

The first-term Republican governor said he had worked with contact tracers on when his symptoms developed and they believed he would not have been contagious before Saturday.

Oklahoma is among a number of U.S. sunbelt states suffering a surge in COVID-19. On Wednesday, it reported a daily record increase in positive cases for the second day in a row, rising by 1,075 to over 22,000.

Stitt, 47, encourages Oklahomans to wear masks but rarely wears one in public and has not issued a statewide mask mandate.

He said he would be isolating away from his family and working from home until it was safe to “get back to normal.”

(Reporting by Karen Pierog in Chicago and Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico, Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Rosalba O’Brien)

U.S. judge blocks second federal execution in 17 years

By Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – A federal judge in Washington blocked what would be the second federal execution in 17 years early on Wednesday, hours before it was due to take place, though her orders may yet be reversed as the U.S. Department of Justice challenges them in higher courts.

The Justice Department had planned to execute Wesley Purkey, who had been convicted of raping and murdering a 16-year-old girl, at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) despite objections by Purkey’s lawyers that he has dementia and no longer understands his punishment.

Early on Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington issued two injunctions to allow various legal challenges by some of the 61 inmates on federal death row to continue.

One of the injunctions also prevents the federal government from executing two other men convicted of murdering children: Dustin Honken is scheduled to be put to death on Friday and Keith Nelson on Aug. 28.

In issuing the broader injunction, Chutkan said the condemned men were likely to prevail in their argument that the Justice Department’s use of pentobarbital in lethal injections breaches the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which governs drug safety.

The Justice Department has argued that drug-safety laws do not apply when a drug is intended for use in an execution.

It is the third time Chutkan has issued an injunction delaying executions in the litigation over the legality of the Justice Department’s new one-drug protocol, which replaces the previous three-drug protocol it last used in 2003.

The first injunction was overturned by an appeals court in April.

The second, issued on Monday ahead of the scheduled execution of Daniel Lee, a convicted murderer and one of the plaintiffs in the litigation challenging the new execution protocol, was overturned by the Supreme Court at about 2 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Tuesday. Lee was executed a few hours later, the first federal execution in 17 years.

In the second injunction issued on Wednesday, which applies only to Purkey, Chutkan agreed with Purkey’s lawyers that his mental illness, including Alzheimer’s disease, means he no longer understands why he is being executed and should be afforded a so-called “competency hearing.”

The Supreme Court has previously ruled it is “abhorrent” and unconstitutional to execute someone whose mental illness prevents them from comprehending their punishment.

The Justice Department is appealing the injunctions.

Purkey, 68, was convicted in 2003 in Missouri. He dumped his victim’s dismembered and burned remains in a septic pond.

(Reporting by Shubham Kalia in Bengaluru and Jonathan Allen in New York; editing by John Stonestreet and Timothy Heritage)

China vows retaliation after Trump ends preferential status for Hong Kong

By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday ordered an end to Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law to punish China for what he called “oppressive actions” against the former British colony, prompting Beijing to warn of retaliatory sanctions.

Citing China’s decision to enact a new national security law for Hong Kong, Trump signed an executive order that he said would end the preferential economic treatment for the city.

“No special privileges, no special economic treatment and no export of sensitive technologies,” he told a news conference.

Acting on a Tuesday deadline, he also signed a bill approved by the U.S. Congress to penalize banks doing business with Chinese officials who implement the new security law.

“Today I signed legislation, and an executive order to hold China accountable for its aggressive actions against the people of Hong Kong, Trump said.

“Hong Kong will now be treated the same as mainland China,” he added.

Under the executive order, U.S. property would be blocked of any person determined to be responsible for or complicit in “actions or policies that undermine democratic processes or institutions in Hong Kong,” according to the text of the document released by the White House.

It also directs officials to “revoke license exceptions for exports to Hong Kong,” and includes revoking special treatment for Hong Kong passport holders.

China’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday Beijing will impose retaliatory sanctions against U.S. individuals and entities in response to the law targeting banks, though the statement released through state media did not reference the executive order.

“Hong Kong affairs are purely China’s internal affairs and no foreign country has the right to interfere,” the ministry said.

Critics of the security law fear it will crush the wide-ranging freedoms promised to Hong Kong when it returned to Chinese rule in 1997, while supporters say it will bring stability to the city after a year of sometimes violent anti-government protests.

The security law punishes what Beijing broadly defines as subversion, secession, terrorism and collusion with foreign forces with up to life in prison.

U.S. relations with China have already been strained over the global coronavirus pandemic, China’s military buildup in the South China Sea, its treatment of Uighur Muslims and massive trade surpluses.

Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic has raised doubts about whether he can win re-election on Nov. 3 amid a surge of new infections. He has attempted to deflect blame onto China.

“Make no mistake. We hold China fully responsible for concealing the virus and unleashing it upon the world. They could have stopped it, they should have stopped it. It would have been very easy to do at the source, when it happened,” he said.

Asked if he planned to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping, Trump said: “I have no plans to speak to him.”

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORD?

Analysts say that completely ending Hong Kong’s special treatment could prove self-defeating for the United States.

Hong Kong was the source of the largest bilateral U.S. goods trade surplus last year, at $26.1 billion, U.S. Census Bureau data shows.

According to the State Department, 85,000 U.S. citizens lived in Hong Kong in 2018 and more than 1,300 U.S. companies operate there, including nearly every major U.S. financial firm.

The territory is a major destination for U.S. legal and accounting services.

The United States began eliminating Hong Kong’s special status under U.S. law in late June, halting defense exports and restricting the territory’s access to high-technology products as China prepared to enact the security legislation.

In May, Trump responded to China’s plans for the security law by saying he was initiating a process to eliminate the special economic treatment that has allowed Hong Kong to remain a global financial center.

He stopped short then of calling for an immediate end to privileges, but said the moves would affect the full range of U.S. agreements with Hong Kong, from an extradition treaty to export controls on dual-use technologies.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the administration was also preparing sanctions against Chinese officials and entities involved in the Hong Kong crackdown, including further U.S. travel bans and possible Treasury sanctions.

The timing remained unclear. The White House has previously threatened such sanctions but so far has only imposed restrictions on visas for an unspecified number of unnamed Chinese officials.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by David Brunnstrom, Alexandra Alper, Patricia Zengerle, Eric Beech, Makini Brice and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)

Three states in U.S. South report record rises in COVID-19 deaths

By Lisa Shumaker

(Reuters) – Alabama, Florida and North Carolina reported record daily increases in COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday, a trio of grim milestones that follows the first nationwide increase in fatalities since mid-April as some U.S. states rushed to reopen.

The number of new cases reported daily began rising about six weeks ago, especially in southern and western states such as Arizona, California, Florida and Texas, which have been quick to lift restrictions meant to control the spread of the virus.

New coronavirus cases rose in 46 of 50 U.S. states last week over the previous week, according to a Reuters analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project. So far in July, 28 states have reported record daily increases in new cases.

With more than 3.3 million cases, the United States ranks first in the world in cases per capita along with Peru. With more than 135,000 deaths, the United States ranks seventh in fatalities per capita among the 20 countries with the most cases.

Florida on Tuesday reported 133 new COVID-19 deaths, raising the state’s death toll to more than 4,500. Its previous record increase was 120 on July 9. Alabama reported a record increase of 40 deaths and North Carolina 35 deaths, bringing each state’s total to over 1,100.

The rising cases and deaths have left educators from California to Wisconsin opting for online learning rather than a return to classrooms when the school year begins in a few weeks.

Schools from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Fort Bend County, Texas, joined California’s two largest school districts, Los Angeles and San Diego, in announcing plans to keep teachers and students from the close contact that classrooms demand.

The decision puts the districts at odds with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds or remove tax-exempt status if they refuse to reopen classrooms, even though most schools are financed by state and local taxes.

Trump’s campaign views the reopening of classrooms, enabling parents to get back to work, as a key to economic recovery and a boost to his re-election chances on Nov. 3.

New York state plans to reopen its schools in areas where the daily infection rate is below 5% of all COVID tests. The state has averaged an infection rate of about 1% for several weeks and is one of only four states where cases fell last week, according to a Reuters analysis. New York City, where social distancing and mask wearing are widely practiced, recently reported no new COVID deaths in a 24-hour period for the first time since March.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Tuesday added Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin to the state’s quarantine list. Travelers arriving in New York from a total of 22 U.S. states are now required to quarantine for 14 days.

Florida still plans for its schools to resume in-person learning in August. The state recorded over 9,000 new cases on Tuesday, down from 12,000 on Monday and a record increase of 15,000 on Sunday.

Teachers in Loudoun County, Virginia, protested outside school headquarters on Monday with one woman fully enclosed in a white lab suit and face shield holding a sign that said, “Our new school uniform.” To keep physically distant, the teachers honked their car horns in unison, according to a video.

Faculty members were protesting against a school board plan for hybrid instruction that would include two days of in-person teaching, according to local media.

(Reporting by Maria Caspani and Gabriella Borter in New York; Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Howard Goller)

California shuts down businesses, schools as coronavirus outbreak grows

By Sharon Bernstein and Dan Whitcomb

SACRAMENTO (Reuters) – California’s governor on Monday clamped new restrictions on businesses as coronavirus cases and hospitalizations soared, and the state’s two largest school districts, in Los Angeles and San Diego, said children would be made to stay home in August.

Governor Gavin Newsom ordered bars closed and restaurants, movie theaters, zoos and museums across the nation’s most populous state to cease indoor operations. Gyms, churches and hair salons must close in the 30 hardest-hit counties.

“It’s incumbent upon all of us to recognize soberly that COVID-19 is not going away any time soon, until there is a vaccine and/or an effective therapy,” Newsom said at a news briefing.

The governor called the move critical to stemming a surge in COVID-19 cases that have strained hospitals in several of California’s rural counties.

The public school districts for Los Angeles and San Diego, which instruct a combined 706,000 students and employ 88,000 people, said in a joint statement they would teach only online when school resumes in August, citing “vague and contradictory” science and government guidelines.

The districts said countries that have safely reopened schools have done so only after establishing declining infection rates and on-demand coronavirus testing.

“California has neither,” the statement said, adding, “The sky-rocketing infection rates of the past few weeks make it clear the pandemic is not under control.”

The union representing Los Angeles teachers applauded the strategy in a separate statement released shortly after the school shutdowns were announced.

“In the face of the alarming spike in COVID cases, the lack of necessary funding from the government to open schools safely and the outsized threat of death faced by working-class communities of color, there really is no other choice that doesn’t put thousands of lives at risk,” United Teachers Los Angeles said.

Brenda Del Hierro, who has two children in Los Angeles schools, said resuming traditional instruction was important but the hazards had to be considered. “For their social and emotional well being they need to go back to school. But at the end of the day there is too much of a risk,” she said.

DISTRICTS CLASH WITH TRUMP

The decision to cancel in-person classes puts the districts at odds with U.S. President Donald Trump, who has said he might withhold federal funding or remove tax-exempt status from school systems that refuse to reopen. Most education funding comes from state and local governments.

Administration officials have said data does not suggest attending school would be dangerous for children because their infection rates are far lower than the population at large.

In response to the California districts’ announcement, the White House reiterated that the ideal scenario is for students to go to school. “Hopefully Los Angeles and San Diego can get there soon as well, as that is what is best for children.” spokesman Judd Deer said.

Newsom, who has said during the pandemic that it was up to local school districts to determine how best to educate their students, cheered the announcements by Los Angeles and San Diego.

But Republicans criticized the governor for failing to issue statewide guidelines for schools during the health crisis.

“While he continues to blame Californians for his failure in leadership, his demands to close our small businesses and lack of direction on opening schools will further harm California’s school children and the small businesses that fuel our economy,” Jessica Millan Patterson, chairwoman of the California Republican Party, said in a written statement.

California, along with Florida, Arizona and Texas have emerged as the new U.S. epicenters of the pandemic. Infections have risen rapidly in about 40 of the 50 states over the last two weeks, according to a Reuters analysis.

Despite nearly 28,000 new COVID-19 cases in the last two days in Florida, Disney World in Orlando welcomed the public on Saturday for the first time since March with guests required to wear masks, undergo temperature checks and keep physically apart.

(Reporting by Sharon Bernstein in Sacramento, Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles, Steve Gorman in Eureka, California, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Lisa Lambert and Doina Chiacu in Washington, and Nathan Layne in Wilton, Connecticut; Writing by Lisa Shumaker and Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Howard Goller, Bill Tarrant and Cynthia Osterman)