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A pandemic forcing everyone to stay home could be the perfect moment for online grocery services. In practice, they’ve been struggling to keep up with a surge in orders, highlighting their limited ability to respond to an unprecedented onslaught of demand.After panic buying left store shelves stripped of staples like pasta, canned goods and toilet paper, many shoppers quickly found online grocery delivery slots almost impossible to come by, too.”It’s kind of becoming more challenging to put a meal together,” said Paul Smyth, a software engineer who lives near Manchester, England, where the online groceries industry is particularly advanced. He’s a longtime customer of British online-only supermarket Ocado but hasn’t been able to land a slot since he received his last delivery two weeks ago.  The problem for many delivery services is ramping up staff to pick goods in shops and deliver. But for Ocado, a cutting edge service that relies on warehouse robots, significantly increasing deliveries would mean a big investment in new machinery and warehouses too late to catch the spike in demand.  Smyth said he’s starting to run low on meat and frozen goods, but wants to avoid going to a supermarket because he worries his asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure are risk factors if he catches the new coronavirus.”I won’t be panicking for another week, but if I’ve got to wait another two weeks for a delivery slot it’s going to be very close to the bone.”  The coronavirus crisis is giving the e-commerce industry a boost but troubles at Ocado and other online grocers highlight how hard it is for the industry to quickly scale up online delivery.  In the U.S., grocery shopping had only been slowly migrating online, making up 3% of the food retail market, according to a report last year by Deutsche Bank.As the crisis hit, delivery orders surged as millions of Americans stayed home. During the week of March 2, even before some cities and states imposed “stay at home” orders, Instacart, Amazon, and Walmart grocery delivery sales all jumped by at least two-thirds from the year before, according to Earnest Research. Instacart, a platform that partners with more than 25,000 stores in North America, says orders in more recent weeks have surged 150%.As a result, customers in hard-hit New York City are waiting days to schedule deliveries that usually take just hours.In China, where the outbreak originated early this year, ubiquitous smartphone food apps helped millions get through months of strict lockdown. Even so, e-commerce giant Alibaba’s supermarket chain Freshippo reportedly recruited laid off restaurant workers for temporary staff as more customers shifted to ordering by app and average basket sizes jumped in the first half of February.Britain’s online grocery market, one of the world’s most advanced, is estimated to account for 8.3% of all sales in 2020, according to market research firm Mintel. Nevertheless, Ocado and the online arms of bricks and mortar rivals like Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Walmart owned-Asda were all booked up. To be fair, they’re prioritizing slots for vulnerable customers.  Ocado has pioneered online groceries in the U.K. since 2002 with automated warehouse robots and has licensed its technology to other companies including Kroger. That experience wasn’t enough when its website melted down after traffic quadrupled.The company battled to get systems back to normal by taking its smartphone app offline and stopping new account signups. It temporarily blocked its website, then made all visitors wait in a virtual queue, alienating long-time users.”It just felt as if they’d completely abandoned customers,” said Smyth, 50, who waited as long as four hours online only to find there were no delivery slots. Ocado now has a new system to allocate slots but Smyth still hasn’t had any luck and is getting by with basic items from a local shop.  CEO Melanie Smith emailed customers to tell them demand spiked to 10 times the normal level. Her message came after Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced new lockdown rules and urged people to use food delivery services.Every time the British government announces new measures to fight the virus, she said, “we see a further extraordinary surge of customers.”  “No matter how hard we work, we will not have enough capacity to serve the unprecedented levels of demand.”Ocado operates three warehouses where cube-shaped robots on wheels zip along vast grids, picking up crates of soda, teabags, or apples and delivering them to “picking stations.” There, humans or robot arms put together customer orders to be delivered by a fleet of vans.The company said it handled 343,000 orders per week in the quarter ending March 1, and sales have since doubled. Analysts note the main factor influencing growth in an automated system like Ocado’s is warehouse capacity.”There are only so many of those warehouses you can build,” said Simon Bowler, an analyst at Numis Securities. It takes up to two years for Ocado to build a warehouse, so “saying today, we’re going to build a new warehouse, it doesn’t solve the problem here and now.” A fourth warehouse was destroyed by a fire last year.Traditional supermarkets have their own less sophisticated online operations, using people to pick items off shelves.That is “a bit easier to flex to sudden huge increases in demand,” said Bowler – you just need to hire more people.Companies have started doing that. British supermarket Morrison’s is hiring 2,500 extra drivers and pickers. Amazon is looking for 100,000 more staff, while Instacart plans to add 300,000 gig workers, more than doubling the number of people it has picking and delivering groceries.  Still, Instacart’s workers have struggled to meet efficiency targets, as stores impose distancing rules and business surges.That highlights the main downside to human store pickers, Bowler said: They’re 10-15% less cost efficient than robots. 
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Global markets are enjoying a second consecutive day of gains Tuesday with Europe’s major indexes in positive territory in mid-morning trading amid rising hope that the devastating effects of the coronavirus pandemic may be easing. The FTSE in London has gained more than 2%, Paris’s CAC-40 is up nearly 3.5%, and the DAX in Frankfurt is up well over 4%.   Europe’s higher numbers continue Monday’s much-needed rally across the globe, capped by gains of 7% percent or more on Wall Street.  The gains resumed again Tuesday in Asia, with Japan’s benchmark Nikkei index earning 2% at the closing bell as the nation awaited Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s formal introduction of a $990 billion economic stimulus plan.  The Hang Seng in Hong Kong and Shanghai’s index also finished 2% percent higher, while Seoul’s KOSPI index was up 1.7%.     Australia’s S&P/ASX was down nearly one-half of one percent at the closing bell.In futures trading, the Dow Jones, S&P and Nasdaq were all trading between 2.5% and 3%.   The global economy has ground to a standstill as authorities imposed strict lockdowns and quarantines to stop the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has sickened more than a million people across the globe, including nearly 75,000 deaths.    But investors are expressing cautious optimism on news that the number of confirmed cases and fatalities in Spain and Italy, two of the world’s biggest hotspots for the virus, have been steadily declining in recent days. This, while the daily death toll in New York City has essentially evened out while the number of new coronavirus patients have slowly begun to decline.          
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With Istanbul the epicenter of Turkey’s COVID-19 epidemic, the city is becoming the political battleground over how to defeat the virus.  Istanbul’s mayor is calling for a city shutdown, but the Turkish president insists the wheels of the economy must continue to turn. Every day, millions of people in Istanbul go to work, potentially running a gantlet of infection. While the city’s schools and entertainment venues are closed like the rest of the country, many factories and businesses continue to function.   Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
Istanbul shop keeper Burak believes there needs to be a full lockdown of Istanbul, but says compensation needs to be worked out by the government. (Dorian Jones/VOA)”The businesses should all be closed,” said shopkeeper Burak, who only wanted to be identified by his first name. “But if they are closed, stores like mine will not be able to pay their rents, cover the expenses for their personnel. There is no clear explanation for how the solution will be to cover our costs. “The government has mentioned that there will be a part-time payment solution,” he added. “My colleagues and some other friends in other businesses already applied more than two weeks ago for this procedure, but they haven’t got any answers till today.” Burak said the economy was weak before the epidemic. “I think our government also got caught in a financially difficult situation. That’s why I think they will be prolonging the postponing of the shutdown as much as they can, to win time,” he said. In a possible sign of limited state funds, Erdogan last week launched a national public appeal for donations to help support those worst affected by the epidemic. While resisting calls for a complete lockdown, the Erdogan government is enforcing a curfew on those younger than 20 and for those older than 65.    Despite such moves, the coronavirus grip on Turkey tightens. The city accounts for most of the country’s deaths and infections. Many commuters wear masks distributed by the Istanbul city authority to contain COVID-19, but Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu is calling for a lockdown of the city. (Dorian Jones/VOA)In a desperate bid to control the virus, authorities issued masks to users of public transport, some of whose hours have now been curtailed. Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) says Ankara must enforce a complete lockdown on the city, saying there are still too many people on the streets. “A 15% mobility in Istanbul means more than 2 million people, and this is very frightening,” he said. “It’s as much as the population of a prominent city in Europe. It is clear this current mobility is posing a threat, and this is why we say that we need a strict measure.” Imamoglu says Istanbul, home to 16 million people, is now the front line for Turkey’s battle against the virus. But he fears that too much time may have been lost. “It’s very important because the measures you take for 16 million people and your methods of stopping the pandemic will save Turkey,” he said, “since it is clear Istanbul has become the center of the pandemic in Turkey. If we had declared a stay-at-home order a week ago, we could have been in a very different position today. This is why we are insisting (for a shutdown).” Millions of people in Istanbul still commute to work despite the city being the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, as President Erdogan insists the “wheels of economy still need to turn.” (Dorian Jones/VOA)Atilla Yesilada of Global Source Partners says the cost of shutting down Turkey’s largest city might be a price too high to pay for the government.  “Tax revenues are not coming in anymore, and you are shutting down industries with potentially 4 and 5 million workers,” Yesilada said. “Even if the law doesn’t dictate it, ethics, as well as good governance, will dictate that you pay some kind of compensation to these people so they don’t starve or protest on the streets and the budget equation becomes unmanageable.” But with reports that Erdogan’s top medical advisers are also calling for a more extensive curfew, Erdogan appeared to open the door for such a move. “We won’t need further measures if all our citizens keep themselves in voluntary quarantine,” Erdogan said Sunday. “However, we may have to take much more advanced measures if the pandemic spreads and our citizens don’t pay attention to the rules, such as staying at home, social distancing and hygiene.” But some analysts warn that time may be running out for Istanbul and the country for the government to find the right balance to fighting the virus. “There is no way you can fight it unless you impose a Chinese-style, Italian-style very stringent curfew,” Yesilada said. “But Erdogan has a small window of opportunity to enforce the curfew, because when summer comes, when the heat is 40 degrees in people’s small houses, you are not going to keep people in their homes. It’s going to be impossible to enforce the curfew.” 
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Australia’s highest court has dismissed the convictions of the most senior Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse. High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel announced the decision of the seven judges on Tuesday in the appeal of Cardinal George Pell. The decision means he will be released from Barwon Prison outside Melbourne after serving 13 months of a six-year sentence. Pope Francis’ former finance minister was convicted by a Victoria state jury in 2018 of sexually abusing two 13-year-old choirboys in a back room of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Melbourne in December 1996 while he was archbishop of Australia’s second-largest city. Pell was also convicted of indecently assaulting one of the boys by painfully squeezing his genitals after a Mass in early 1997. Pell had been ordered to serve three years and eight months behind bars before he became eligible for parole.  The High Court found that the Victorian Court of Appeal was incorrect in its 2-1 majority decision in August to uphold the jury verdicts. Pell was regarded as the Vatican’s third-highest ranking official when he voluntarily returned to Melbourne in July 2017 determined to clear his name of dozens of decades-old child abuse allegations. All the charges were dropped by prosecutors or dismissed by courts in preliminary hearings over the years except the cathedral allegations. Pell was tried on the charges twice in 2018, the first County Court trial ending in a jury deadlock. Pell did not testify at either trial or at the subsequent appeals. But the juries saw his emphatic denials in a police interview that was video recorded in a Rome airport hotel conference room in October 2016. “The allegations involve vile and disgusting conduct contrary to everything I hold dear and contrary to the explicit teachings of the church which I have spent my life representing,” Pell read from a prepared statement. Australian Cardinal George Pell leaves at the end of a meeting with the victims of sex abuse, at the Quirinale hotel in Rome, Italy, March 3, 2016.He also pointed out that he had established a world-first compensation scheme for victims of clergy, the Melbourne Response, months before the crimes were alleged to have occurred. As police detailed the abuse allegations, Pell responded: “Absolutely disgraceful rubbish. It’s completely false. Madness.” Pell was largely convicted on the testimony of one of the choirboys, now in his 30s with a young family. He first went to police in 2015 after the second victim died of a heroin overdose at the age of 31. Neither can be identified under state law. Director of Public Prosecutions Kerri Judd told the High Court last month that the surviving choirboy’s detailed knowledge of the layout of the priests’ sacristy supported his accusation that the boys were molested there. Pell’s lawyers argued that Pell would have been standing on the cathedral steps chatting with churchgoers after Mass when his crimes were alleged to have occurred, was always with other clerics when dressed in his archbishop’s robes, could not have performed the sexual acts alleged while wearing the cumbersome garments and could not have abused the boys in the busy priests’ sacristy without being detected. Much of the two-day hearing focused on whether the jury should have had a reasonable doubt about Pell’s guilt and whether he could have time to molest the boys in five or six minutes immediately after a Mass. The appeals court found in a 2-1 majority in August that Pell had had enough time to abuse the boys and that the unanimous guilty verdicts were sound. Judd said the “two big points” raised by Pell’s lawyers against the prosecution case were evidence that Pell had been chatting with members of the congregation on the steps of the cathedral after the Masses when the abuses could have occurred and that he only had windows of five or six minutes to commit the abuses undetected. Pell’s lawyer Bret Walker told the High Court that all that the prosecution had to do at his trial and appeals court hearing was to prove that Pell being left alone while robed or not talking with congregants after Mass was “possible” to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt. “That … is a grotesque version of the reversal of onus of proof, if all the Crown has to do is to prove the possibility of something,” Walker said. Judd argued that the charges were proved beyond reasonable doubt. “The High Court found that the jury, acting rationally on the whole of the evidence, ought to have entertained a doubt as to the applicant’s (Pell’s) guilt with respect to each of the offenses for which he was convicted,” the court said in a statement. 
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The United States has designated the white supremacist group Russian Imperial Movement (RIM,) as a global terrorist organization, an unprecedented move that reflects increasing concerns about violent white supremacists with transnational connections.In Monday’s State Department announcement, three of RIM’s leaders — Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov — have also been designated global terrorists.The move comes after the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.  The March 15, 2019, attack was linked to a global rise in white supremacism and alt-right extremism since 2015. “These historic designations are just one part of the administration’s broader efforts to counter white supremacist terrorism abroad,” Nathan Sales, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism and ambassador-at-large, said Monday.“We’re bringing all of our counterterrorism tools to this fight — information-sharing, counter-messaging, combating terrorist travel, engaging with tech companies and building partner capacity — to protect soft targets like synagogues and mosques,” Sales added.The designation denies RIM and its leaders access to the U.S. financial system. Any assets they may have in the U.S. are now frozen. Americans will also be banned from financial dealings with the group.  The State Department said Monday’s designation not only makes it “substantially more difficult” for RIM to move money throughout the international financial system, but also makes it easier for U.S. officials at the borders to stop RIM-related individuals from traveling to the U.S.”White supremacist groups are increasingly transnational in nature. This is an important first step by this administration, both in terms of substance and public messaging,” said Seamus Hughes, deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University.RIM provides paramilitary-style training to neo-Nazis and white supremacists. The organization also attempts to rally like-minded Europeans and Americans against perceived enemies. RIM has two training facilities in St. Petersburg, which likely are being used for woodland and urban assault, tactical weapons, and hand-to-hand combat training, according to the State Department.  FILE – Members of the Russian Imperial Movement, a nationalist group in Russia, pose for a picture with weapon simulators at a training base in Saint-Petersburg, Feb. 28, 2015. In August 2016, two Swedish men traveled to St. Petersburg and underwent 11 days of paramilitary-style training provided by RIM. A few months later, these men and another person conducted a series of terrorist attacks in the Swedish city of Gothenburg, including a bomb attack outside a café and the bombing of a migrant center.When asked about RIM’s outreach and potential connections to domestic white supremacist groups in the U.S., Sales said while Washington does not have the authority to designate groups or individuals on the basis of constitutionally protected speech, blacklisting RIM enables U.S. authorities to keep these terrorists off U.S. soil and denies them resources that could harm U.S. interests.“We’ve seen what RIM-trained terrorists can do in Europe. We want to make sure that RIM is not able, or any terrorist group is not able, to accomplish something similar here in the United States, that is to say providing training that could enable violent attacks and deadly attacks here on the homeland,” Sales told reporters in a telephone briefing on Monday.Some analysts say the rise of white supremacy in Western society and far-right groups in Europe has been part of a disinformation campaign by the Russian government, taking advantage of anything they can do to create divisiveness in Western societies.VOA’s National Security correspondent Jeff Seldin contributed to this story. 
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was moved to the intensive care unit of a London hospital after his coronavirus symptoms worsened Monday, just a day after he was admitted for what were said to be routing testsJohnson was admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital late Sunday, 10 days after he was diagnosed with COVID-19.”Over the course of this afternoon, the condition of the Prime Minister has worsened and, on the advice of his medical team, he has been moved to the Intensive Care Unit at the hospital,” his office said in a statement.Downing St, said Johnson was conscious and does not require ventilation at the moment, but was in the intensive care unit in case he needed it later.It said Johnson has asked Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab to deputize for him.Hours earlier, Johnson tweeted that he was in good spirits after spending a night in hospital.The prime minister’s spokesman said Johnson had spent a comfortable night and remained in charge of government despite being admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital after COVID-19 symptoms of a cough and fever persisted.Johnson sent out a tweet thanking the National Health Service for taking care of him and others in this difficult time.”On the advice of my doctor, I went into hospital for some routine tests as I’m still experiencing coronavirus symptoms,” Johnson said in the tweet. “I’m in good spirits and keeping in touch with my team, as we work together to fight this virus and keep everyone safe.”.Johnson’s spokesman, James Slack, refused to say what kind of tests Johnson was undergoing. He insisted that “the PM remains in charge of the government.””He is receiving updates in hospital and is continuing to receive a (ministerial red) box” of files and briefing papers, Slack said,The 55-year-old leader had been quarantined in his Downing Street residence since being diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26 — the first known head of government to fall ill with the virus.He continued to preside at daily meetings on the outbreak until Sunday and has released several video messages during his 10 days in isolation.Raab chaired the meeting Monday.Britain has no official post of deputy prime minister, but Raab has been designated to take over should Johnson become incapacitated.Speaking at the government’s daily coronavirus press briefing, Raab said Johnson was being “regularly updated,” but admitted he had not spoken to him since Saturday.”He’s in charge, but he’ll continue to take doctors’ advice on what to do next,” Raab said.Johnson was admitted to the hospital as a message to the nation from Queen Elizabeth II was being broadcast Sunday evening. The 93-year-old monarch urged the public to show resolve and follow advice to stay inside.Concerns had been growing about Johnson’s welfare ever since he posted a message Friday saying that he was feeling better, though was still feverish.  The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most people, but for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and lead to death.The government said Monday that 51,608 people had been confirmed to have the coronavirus in Britain, 5,373 of whom have died.One of the advantages of being in the hospital is that it will allow doctors to directly monitor Johnson’s condition.  Derek Hill, a professor of medical imaging science at University College London said that since COVID-19 causes difficulty breathing, one test performed on people with the disease is lung imaging with ultrasound or CT scans to see how badly they might be affected.”Some people are rapidly discharged,” he said. “Some others can quickly deteriorate and need help breathing. We have no reason to believe the PM needs such help.”Hill said there are various types of breathing help, depending on the person and the difficulties.”The reasons some people get seriously ill with COVID-19 while others have minor symptoms is not yet fully understood,” Hill said. “But doctors managing these patients report that more men than women have serious problems, and patients who are overweight or have previous health problems are at higher risk.” 
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In her daily coronavirus briefing Monday, Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon took the opportunity to wish British Prime Minister Boris Johnson — hospitalized for symptoms related to COVID-19 — a speedy recovery.  Johnson tested positive for the virus over a week ago and as recently as Friday reported he was doing well. But the prime minister was taken to the hospital late Sunday on his doctor’s recommendation for further testing.At her news briefing in Edinburgh, Sturgeon said Johnson’s situation is a reminder the virus can affect anyone and everyone.Sturgeon announced an additional 255 people in Scotland tested positive for the coronavirus since Sunday, raising the nation’s total cases to 3,961.  Sturgeon also took the opportunity to introduce Scotland’s acting chief medical officer, Dr. Gregor Smith, who had been deputy CMO for the past five years. He takes the place of Catherine Calderwood, who resigned late Sunday following criticism she received for twice traveling to her second home in violation of social distancing guidelines.Sturgeon said Smith will hold the post “for the foreseeable future.” 
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British Prime Minster Boris Johnson remains in a central London hospital under observation, having been admitted there on the advice of doctors Sunday night. He was hospitalized on precautionary grounds for further tests as his symptoms had not improved. Johnson was diagnosed with the coronavirus eleven days ago. As Henry Ridgwell reports from London, the shock announcement overshadowed Queen Elizabeth’s rare televised address to the nation
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France will likely see its deepest economic downturn this year since the end of World War Two, far surpassing the slump seen after the global financial crisis, its finance minister said on Monday. Bruno Le Maire told a Senate hearing by teleconference that eurozone’s second-biggest economy would likely contract more than it did in 2009. “That shows the magnitude of the economic shock we are facing,” he said. The government estimated last month in an emergency budget update that the economy would contract 1% this year, but has since indicated that it would have to revise that figure. With the French economy currently running at two-thirds of normal levels, each month of government-imposed confinement could knock 3 percentage points off of growth, the INSEE official stats agency estimated last month. Some 5 million French workers — one out of four in the private sector —  have been put on furloughs subsidized by the state to avoid mass permanent layoffs, the Labour Ministry said on Monday. A policewoman wears a mask to protect herself against the spread of the new coronavirus, left, patrols at the garden of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, April 6, 2020.
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British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who last week tested positive for coronavirus, remained hospitalized Monday after being admitted for additional testing after having a persistent high fever. His office called the development “precautionary” and said he remained in charge of the government. Britain has emerged as one of the latest hot spots in the pandemic, reporting more than 600 deaths Sunday. Other parts of Europe showed some improvement after weeks of devastating impacts from the virus that have caused governments to put residents on lockdown to try to slow its spread. Italy, which has the most deaths, reported its smallest increase in two weeks, while Spain also reported its latest in a string of lower daily death and new infection counts. In the United States, the western states of Oregon and Washington said they will send thousands of badly needed ventilators across the country to New York, the hardest-hit area in the country.A ventilator is displayed during a news conference on March 24, 2020 at the New York City Emergency Management Warehouse, where 400 ventilators have arrived and will be distributed.About one-third of 9,600 people who have died from the coronavirus in the United States have been in New York City, where makeshift field hospitals and a U.S. Navy medical ship are trying to take some of the strain off the city’s health care system. Other parts of the country are emerging as concerns with mounting case numbers, including Pennsylvania, Colorado and the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, where about 1,000 cases have been confirmed. South Korea, one of the first hot spots in the outbreak, reported just 47 new cases Monday, but the country’s vice health minister cautioned the need for continued vigilance and for people to stay home to prevent an infection “explosion.” Kim Gang-lip said data from smartphones showed too many people were going out to restaurants and parks in recent weeks. Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is urging governments to take steps to protect women after a “horrifying” increase in domestic violence during the outbreak. 
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Two forest fires near the now defunct Chernobyl nuclear plant in Ukraine have boosted the radiation level in the area. Ukrainian firefighters worked into Sunday night to put the fires under control. Emergency services said one of the fires that spread to an area of about five hectares was contained. The other fire was covering a much larger area, of about 20 hectares. Fire officials said radiation levels in the area near Chernobyl were considerably higher than normal.  The emergencies service, however, said radiation levels in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, about 100 kilometers south, were within normal range. The fires were within the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone established after the 1986 explosion at the plant, an area of 2600 square kilometers which was largely evacuated because of radioactive contamination. Since than about 200 people have remained in the area, disregarding orders to leave.  
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