In brief

US gig workers and self-employed face delays in jobless aid

WASHINGTON — After Rich Cruse saw about $3,000 in income for his photography business quickly disappear to the coronavirus, he tried to apply for unemployment benefits in California. But like many states, his isn’t yet accepting claims from the self-employed like him.

That’s left Cruse, 58, earning just meager pay driving for Uber Eats near San Diego. And he worries about the health risks.

“I wear a mask and am practically eating hand sanitizer,” he said. “It’s not what I am supposed to be doing.”

Even as nearly 17 million Americans have sought unemployment benefits in the past three weeks — a record high, by far — millions of people appear to be falling through the cracks. They can’t get through jammed phone systems or finish their applications on overloaded websites. Or they’re confused about whether or how to apply.

And now there is a whole new category of people — gig workers, independent contractors and self-employed people like Cruse. The federal government’s $2.2 trillion economic relief package for the first time extended unemployment aid to cover those workers when they lose their jobs. Yet most states have yet to update their systems to process these applications.

16.8M Americans out of work; Easter celebrations move online

NEW YORK — A staggering 16.8 million Americans lost their jobs in just three weeks, a measure of how fast the coronavirus has brought world economies to their knees. Meanwhile, religious leaders worldwide Thursday urged people to celebrate Good Friday and Easter from the safety of their homes.

In other developments, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved out of intensive care at the London hospital where he is being treated for the virus. The 55-year-old had taken a turn for the worse early in the week as his country descended into its biggest crisis since World War II.

Governments warned that the hard-won gains against the scourge must not be jeopardized by relaxing social distancing over the weekend. Across Europe, where Easter is one of the busiest travel times, authorities set up roadblocks and otherwise discouraged family gatherings.

A spike in deaths in Britain and New York and surges of reported new infections in Japan and in India’s congested cities made it clear the battle is far from over.

New York state reported a record-breaking number of dead for a third straight day, 799. More than 7,000 people have died in the state, accounting for almost half the U.S. death toll of more than 16,000.

Pandemic has set the number of air travelers back decades

The number of Americans getting on airplanes has sunk to a level not seen in more than 60 years as people shelter in their homes to avoid catching or spreading the new coronavirus.

The Transportation Security Administration screened 94,931 people on Wednesday, a drop of 96% from a year ago and the second straight day under 100,000.

The official tally of people who passed through TSA checkpoints exaggerates the number of travelers – if that is possible – because it includes some airline crew members and people still working at shops inside airport security perimeters.

Historical daily numbers only go back so far, but the nation last averaged fewer than 100,000 passengers a day in 1954, according to figures from trade group Airlines for America. It was the dawn of the jet age. The de Havilland Comet, the first commercial jetliner, was just a few years old, and Boeing was running test flights with the jet that would become the iconic 707.

As air travel became safer and more affordable, the passenger numbers grew nearly every year until 2001. There was no commercial air travel in the U.S. for several days after the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, and people were slow to get back on planes — U.S. passenger traffic didn’t grow again until 2003.

Seeing sickness and death, paramedic fears the toll it takes

NEW YORK — Travis Kessel never imagined his work could hurt this much.

The FDNY paramedic became hooked on helping people as a volunteer fireman in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy in 2012, scrapping plans to study law in college and instead pursuing a career in emergency services.

It’s given him a life — and a wife — he loves. She’s an emergency room nurse and they met a few years ago when he brought a patient to the hospital where she worked in Queens.

Now, he worries about the toll it’s taking on both of them and their colleagues, who are seeing sickness and death like never before.

“It really is an incredibly rewarding job and it’s just, right now the stress of it and everything going on, it just eats away at you,” Kessel said. “It eats you up a little bit every day.”

No halt to culture wars during coronavirus outbreak

WASHINGTON — A partisan fight over voting in Wisconsin was the first issue linked to the coronavirus to make it to the Supreme Court. Efforts to limit abortion during the pandemic could eventually land in the justices’ hands. Disputes over guns and religious freedom also are popping up around the country.

The virus outbreak has put much of American life on hold, but the combatants in the nation’s culture wars aren’t taking a cease-fire.

And in a country deeply divided over politics, some liberals are accusing conservatives of using this crisis to advance long-held goals, especially in the areas of access to abortion and the ballot box. Conservatives have complained about restrictions on church services and gun shops.

“We see the right as being very opportunistic to advance their agenda,” said Marge Baker, executive vice president of the liberal People for the American Way.

Tim Schmidt, founder and president of the gun-rights U.S. Concealed Carry Association, called restrictions on gun sales “a knee-jerk response to something we don’t quite understand. I hope and pray it doesn’t happen but that’s what I fear,” he said in a recent online forum.

Official: Saints emails on clergy crisis should stay secret

Hundreds of emails detailing the New Orleans Saints’ efforts to conduct damage control for the area’s Roman Catholic archdiocese amid its clergy sexual abuse crisis should remain shielded from the public, a court official recommended Thursday.

The recommendation by a court special master came almost three months after The Associated Press urged the release of the confidential emails as a matter of public interest. Those emails emerged as part of a lawsuit against the church and it will ultimately be up to a judge in that case to make the final decision.

Releasing the messages would only “embarrass or bring under public scrutiny” those who tried to help the Archdiocese of New Orleans as it sought to weather the fallout from the clergy abuse crisis, retired Judge Carolyn Gill-Jefferson wrote in a five-page filing.

She agreed with church leaders and the Saints that the communications were private, writing that “the exchange of information during discovery is to be held within the confines of the pending litigation and outside of public view.”

Attorneys for about two dozen men suing the church have alleged the emails show that the NFL team, whose owner is devoutly Catholic, aided the church in its ” pattern and practice of concealing its crimes.”

Biden joins growing call for release of racial data on virus

DETROIT — Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is joining a growing call for the release of comprehensive racial data on the coronavirus pandemic, which he says has put a spotlight on inequity and the impact of “structural racism.”

Biden’s Medium post on Thursday said he is joining Democratic congressional members Ayanna Pressley, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and others who have also called for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other agencies to release more data. Biden said he wants data released on income, too, to better help allocate resources to communities in need.

Biden acknowledged this is an “anxious, difficult time” for all Americans, but he noted the disparate impact on black Americans and Latinos, saying the virus can “hit anyone, anywhere,” but it doesn’t affect every “community equally.”

The former vice president also noted a climbing number of infections and deaths among “Navajo Nation and fears about the disproportionate impact the virus could have on Indian Country.”

“Unsurprisingly, it’s also amplifying the structural racism that is built into so much of our daily lives, our institutions, our laws, and our communities,” Biden wrote. “It’s unconscionable, and it shouldn’t be the case in the United States of America in the 21st Century.”