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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators approved the first saliva-based coronavirus test that allows people to collect their own sample at home. The new at-home option is expected to expand use of the test developed by Rutgers University, which the Food and Drug Administration first authorized last month. People can use the plastic tube at home to provide a saliva sample and ship it to a laboratory for processing. The test will be available through a New Jersey network of hospitals and testing sites affiliated with Rutgers. Wide-scale testing is considered essential to containing the spread of COVID-19 and safely reopening businesses and schools. But many states are still struggling to reach the testing levels recommended by health experts.
NEW YORK (AP) — New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio says police officers will start limiting access to a handful of parks whose visitors have become poster children for bad social distancing. Users of the parks on the Manhattan and Brooklyn waterfronts have been shamed on social media in recent weeks after images of them appeared. They showed mostly young, white people without masks and sprawled on blankets without regard for rules calling for 6 feet of separation. De Blasio said Thursday that police will start limiting how many people can access the parks at a time.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A new poll finds that most Americans think in-person religious services should be barred or allowed only with limits during the coronavirus pandemic. And only about a third say that prohibitions on in-person services violate religious freedom. Just 9% think in-person religious services should be permitted without restrictions amid the pandemic, while 42% think they should be allowed with restrictions and 48% think they should not be allowed at all. That's according to the poll by The University of Chicago Divinity School and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. It shows an increasing number of religious Americans are turning to virtual services during the outbreak.
LONDON (AP) — Europe is marking the 75th anniversary of the surrender of Nazi Germany to Allied forces following six years of war in a low-key fashion as a result of the coronavirus lockdowns. Instead of the big celebrations that had been planned, people across Europe have been asked to mark Friday's anniversary in private. Queen Elizabeth II will lead the tributes in the U.K. to mark the anniversary with a broadcast to the nation Friday night. French President Emmanuel Macron has visited the statue of General Charles de Gaulle in Paris and attended a commemoration ceremony at the Arc de Triomphe. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other high-ranking officials also laid a wreath in Berlin.
UNDATED (AP) — A program started by a Rhode Island man to provide communications devices to people isolated from their families while battling COVID-19 in the hospital has been so successful that it is expanding into other states. Kaya Suner and a friend developed the covidconnectors.org website last month to collect and distribute the donated devices. After filling the needs of all the hospitals in his home state, the program is now collecting for hospitals in Massachusetts and New Hampshire and the 19-year-old Suner hopes New York is next. He says the devices have been used for everything from celebrations to saying final goodbyes.
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