Live updates: All coronavirus testing centers shuttered in Los Angeles over ‘safety worries’ during protests

The Supreme Court’s deeply divided order rejecting an emergency challenge to California’s pandemic-related restrictions on places of worship still provides a guide for lower courts balancing government rules intended to preserve public health with parishioners’ constitutional religious rights.

Just before midnight Friday, the court on a 5-to-4 vote rejected a challenge from South Bay Pentecostal Church near San Diego. The church had argued that Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s reopening orders violated the Constitution by placing fewer restrictions on some secular businesses than houses of worship.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined with the court’s four consistent liberals to reject the church’s call to stop enforcement of the restrictions.

“California’s guidelines place restrictions on places of worship, those restrictions appear consistent with the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment,” Roberts wrote in his opinion.

“Voices from the Pandemic” is an oral history of covid-19 and those affected:

They keep telling me it’s not my fault, and I’d give anything to believe that. The doctor called after my mom went to the hospital and said: “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.” The pastor said basically the same thing at her funeral. “Let it go. You had nothing to do with this.”

I know they’re trying to make me feel better, but it’s a lie. I had everything to do with it. This virus doesn’t just appear in your body out of nowhere. It has to pass from one person to the next. It has to come from somebody, and this time I know it came from me.

In the first large-scale study examining coronavirus antibodies in children, researchers in Washington state found that roughly 1 percent of children who visited a Seattle hospital in March and April were infected with the novel coronavirus, even though most were not symptomatic.

The study, which was released Saturday and has not been peer reviewed, also found that most of the children’s immune systems neutralized the virus quickly, offering hope for researchers working to develop a vaccine.

“If children can respond to the virus, then children can respond to a vaccine,” the study’s co-author, Janet Englund, an infectious-disease specialist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, told the Seattle Times. “And vaccines that are given to children are one of the most effective ways to stop the spread of disease in the community.”

“This is just a baby step,” Englund added. “But this is, to my knowledge, the first study of seroprevalence in children.”

The Seattle area was one of the first parts of the country hit hard by the coronavirus, which killed dozens of residents of a nursing home in the city’s suburbs following the emergence of the first cases in late February.

Researchers conducted serology tests on 1,076 children who were admitted to the Seattle Children’s Hospital between March 3 and April 24, during which time confirmed cases spiked in Washington state and subsequently tapered off. Most were admitted for reasons unrelated to the coronavirus.

One child tested positive for the antibodies in March, the other nine in April, according to the study. Eight out of the 10 were not suspected of having covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Britain’s foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, went on the Sunday morning talk shows to defend his government’s plan to unlock the lockdown in England, even as some top scientific advisers warn there may be too much loosening, too soon.

Britain, like most of Europe, is seeing plummeting hospital admissions and deaths due to the novel coronavirus, but the number of new infections — with symptoms and no symptoms — remains relatively robust.

Late last week, some top British scientists who advise the government warned that England might be moving too fast to relax strict measures to restart the economy — especially since Britain’s delayed “test, trace and isolate” system is only now being cranked up.

“I think at the moment, with relatively high incidence and relaxing the measures and also with an untested track and trace system, I think we are taking some risk here,” John Edmunds, a professor of infectious-disease modeling at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, told the Guardian newspaper.

“We can’t just stay in lockdown forever. We have got to transition,” Raab told Sky News.

Over considerable resistance by parents and teachers, England will reopen classes in elementary schools on Monday. The government is also allowing barbecues and for six people from six different households to meet outdoors. The government has also announced that nonessential shops can open doors again on June 15.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told Sky News that Prime Minister Boris Johnson may be taking England out of lockdown too quickly.

“This virus has not gone away,” she said. “That is why in Scotland we are moving very slowly.”

The various nations making up the United Kingdom — England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland — are all operating at different speeds to loosen strict measures to contain the contagion.

DUBAI — Mosques in Saudi Arabia, shuttered for the past two months to stem the spread of the coronavirus, reopened Sunday under new social distancing guidelines.

Some 10 million text messages were sent out to citizens and residents of this country of 33 million in several languages explaining the guidelines. Among the country’s 90,000 mosques, the revered Prophet’s Mosque in the city of Medina was reopened at 40 percent capacity.

The measure is part of a gradual opening in Saudi Arabia which has been the hardest hit country by the coronavirus in the Arab world with more than 83,000 cases and 1,618 new ones announced on Saturday alone.

Health Minister Tawfiq al-Rabiah said Saturday in a television interview that any major increase of cases or lack of adherence to regulations would bring a return to the harsh lockdowns in place for the past two months.

Family gatherings have been increased to 50 people, curfews have been reduced to nighttime hours, offices will be reopened, restaurants can resume dine-in services and there will be domestic flights once more.

Face masks, however, will still be required in public.

The exceptions to these new measures will be the holy city of Mecca, focus of the annual hajj pilgrimage, which remains locked down, suggesting it is still a major center of the outbreak. The government also announced new drive-through testing centers in the city.

The al-Aqsa Mosque reopened for prayers on Sunday in Jerusalem as hundreds of worshipers thronged into the compound in Jerusalem for the first time in two months.

Worshipers wore masks and carried their own prayer rugs as they entered the gates to the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, which also contains the golden Dome of the Rock shrine.

Jerusalem is central to three of the world’s religions but all its holy sites, including Judaism’s Western Wall and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, were restricted to worshipers to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

The mosque, which is considered the third-holiest place in Islam and revered by Muslims as the site where the prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven, remained closed during the holy fasting month of Ramadan as well as the Eid al-Fitr holiday ending it — times it would normally host packed prayers.

Worshipers chanted “God is greatest,” kissed the ground as they entered for dawn prayer, according to Reuters news agency, which added that more than 700 people attended.

Tensions have been high around the Old City of Jerusalem after Israeli forces shot dead on Friday an autistic Palestinian they mistakenly believed to be armed.

Israeli police said they mobilized extra units to oversee the reopening of the mosque compound and arrested eight men for chanting “nationalistic calls” against certain visitors to the site. Israeli Army Radio reported that 150 Jews went to the Temple Mount Sunday.

The spread of the coronavirus in Israel and Palestinian territories appears to have been substantially slowed in recent weeks, with some 17,000 recorded cases in Israel but fewer than 300 deaths. The Palestinians have only reported 386 cases.

In sermons over the weekend, Pope Francis warned against pessimism in this time of coronavirus and urged followers to believe in hope and build a new world that tackles the “pandemic of poverty.”

On Saturday, the pope said “all the suffering will be of no use” if the world does not build a “more just and equitable society.

“Once we emerge from this pandemic, we will not be able to keep doing what we were doing, and as we were doing it. No, everything will be different,” Francis said in a video message, according to AFP news agency.

“From the great trials of humanity — among them this pandemic — one emerges better or worse. You don’t emerge the same. I ask this of you: How do you want to come out of it? Better or worse?” he said.

Francis prayed for an end to the coronavirus pandemic and the development of a vaccine as he presided over an outdoor gathering in Rome. He was joined in the Vatican Gardens by a doctor, a nurse, a hospital chaplain, a pharmacist, a journalist and a civil protection official, all of whom represented a sampling of people on the front lines.

He also called for the “enormous sums of money used to grow and perfect armaments be instead used to fund research to prevent similar catastrophes in the future.”

On Pentecost Sunday, the pope performed mass in St. Peter’s Basilica before just a few dozen worshipers wearing masks and widely spaced among the pews and he called on all to remember the importance of hope.

“At this moment, in the great effort of beginning anew, how damaging is pessimism, the tendency to see everything in the worst light and to keep saying that nothing will return as before!” he said, according to Reuters. “When someone thinks this way, the one thing that certainly does not return is hope.”

Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) during the weekend announced plans to end mandatory quarantines for incoming travelers, requiring instead that people get tested for the novel coronavirus before boarding flights into the state.

Dunleavy said out-of-state travelers will have to be tested within 72 hours of flying to Alaska and must submit their results to health authorities when they arrive.

“If you test negative, you’ll go on and enjoy your trip,” Dunleavy said in a news conference. “If you test positive, we’ll work with you on how we can deal with your health issue.”

Those who do not get tested before arriving will be provided a test at the airport, Dunleavy said, or can opt instead to enter quarantine for two weeks.

Under a health mandate issued in March, the state required people spend 14 days in quarantine after arriving. That mandate is set to expire next week.

Dunleavy said he hoped the changes would reverse some of the economic damage the state has experienced in the pandemic while also boosting testing.

“We do believe that this will open up Alaska more to travel coming to Alaska,” he said, “which is going to help folks come see Alaska, help our local businesses get some of the business back that we’ve lost, but also test people because that’s been one of the big things we’ve all talked about nationwide.”

Alaska has one of the lowest infection rates in the country, with 59 cases per 100,000 residents, according to tracking by The Washington Post. Ten Alaskans have died from the virus and 434 have tested positive.

DUBAI — Over the weekend, beaches have been reopened, curfews pushed back until late at night and now camel racing tracks will be restarted during the overnight hours: Life is returning to normal in the United Arab Emirates.

The wealthy collection of emirates was hit hard by the coronavirus, especially the commercial center of Dubai which was one of the busiest international travel hubs and had an economy relying heavily on tourism and the service sector, especially restaurants and hotels.

In a survey of Dubai businesses carried out in April by the local chamber of commerce, 70 percent of respondents predicted their business would go bankrupt within six months.

Beginning Saturday, the Health Ministry pushed the start of curfew for the whole country to 10 p.m. (11 p.m. in Dubai) and announced that camel racing tracks could operate from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. Summer temperatures in the Persian Gulf can easily reach 120 degrees, requiring most sporting activities to take place at night.

Camel racing (with robot jockeys) is a favorite sports in the UAE with some 15 tracks around the country and, while most races occur between October and April, there can even be events during the offseason.

Beaches also reopened on Saturday and witnessed a flood of residents enjoying the water. Museums will be reopening on Monday. Restaurants and malls opened over the past two weeks but remained closed to children under 12 and adults over 60 years of age.

Hundreds of new cases of the coronavirus continue to be reported every day in UAE, though they have fallen off from a peak of nearly 1,000 new cases on May 22. On Saturday, 726 new cases were reported and the government maintains that it is carrying out tens of thousands of tests a day.

A young Belgian royal named Prince Joachim who traveled to Spain last week and attended a large party in violation of lockdown rules has now tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

El Pais newspaper reported Saturday that the 28-year-old aristocrat — ninth in line to the Belgian throne — flew to Madrid, then traveled by high-speed train to Córdoba, where he and others flouted Spain’s strict virus control measures by attending the gathering.

Prince Joachim and 26 others who were at the party are now all in quarantine as police investigate the breach, the newspaper said. Spain currently limits gathering to 15 people, so now Belgian royal could face a fine as high as $11,000.

The Royal Household confirmed to the BBC that the prince had tested positive for the virus, but did not say whether Joachim was infected in Belgium or Spain.

The prince joins a growing list of prominent people who have been caught for alleged violations of lockdown measures, including British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, who fled London to drive with his sick wife and child 260 miles north to a second home in northeast England.

Regarding the prince, the national government’s sub-delegate in Córdoba, Rafaela Valenzuela, told El Pais, “I feel surprised and indignant, given that at a moment of national mourning for so many dead, an incident of this type stands out.”

She called the royal’s partying “completely irresponsible” and said such a gathering could cause another outbreak in her city. “That is unforgivable,” Valenzuela said. “The police are investigating not just the observance of confinement measures, but also the breaking of other rules, given that we are still under a state of alarm. The virus is still out there.”

President Trump said Saturday that he will postpone until at least September the annual Group of Seven meeting of world leaders, which he had wanted to hold in-person by the end of June at the White House as the administration tries to project a return to normalcy amid the coronavirus pandemic.

But German Chancellor Angela Merkel declined Trump’s invitation to come to Washington for the meeting, citing concerns about the pandemic, which has killed more than 100,000 Americans and more than 365,000 worldwide.

Trump also said he plans to invite Russia, South Korea, Australia and India — all already part of the Group of 20, which was conceived as a larger and more inclusive gathering than the G-7.

Melissa Shapiro, 26, sat in the sun at the Redhead Lakeside Grill on Saturday, as dozens stood shoulder-to-shoulder in waist-deep water at the Lake of the Ozarks before her. “We’re millennials, we’re healthy,” she said as, adding that she and her friends planned to isolate themselves for 14 days after returning home to St. Louis.

Proprietors at a number of the bars and eateries that line the Missouri vacation spot said the crowds were about normal for an early summer weekend.

Similar scenes played out around the country as many Americans, eager to recapture a sense of normalcy and seemingly confident that the risk was low, enjoyed public recreation and seemed unbothered by the crowds.

Crowds of another sort gathered in a number of cities, where thousands took to the streets, at times amid violence, in protests sparked by the killing of George Floyd, a black man, by white police in Minneapolis.