Live updates: New Zealand postpones election amid new coronavirus cases

An Arizona school district that planned to reopen this week despite not meeting health benchmarks reversed course after more than 100 teachers and staff members said they would not show up for the first day of class.

At least 109 certified staff at J.O. Combs Unified School District notified administrators that they planned to be absent on Monday, according to the Arizona Republic. On Friday, the district sent out a letter to parents, saying that both in-person and virtual classes were canceled on Monday due to “a high volume of staff absences” that were motivated by safety concerns.

“At this time, we do not know the duration of these staff absences, and cannot yet confirm when in-person instruction may resume,” Superintendent Gregory A. Wyman said in a statement, according to the Arizona Republic.

The district, on the outskirts of Phoenix, voted last week to resume face-to-face learning. Arizona has given school boards the discretion to decide whether to bring students back to classrooms, but issued benchmarks intended to help officials determine when it will be safe to do so. As of Thursday, no counties in the state had met those benchmarks.

At neighboring Queen Creek Unified School District, which similarly voted to restart in-person classes, numerous teachers plan to resign or sit out the first day, the Arizona Republic reported.

The Arizona “sickout” comes as coronavirus cases continue to pop up at schools across the country that reopened this month, throwing fall semester plans into disarray. Georgia’s Cherokee County School District said Sunday that it was closing a third high school where 25 people had tested positive and 500 students were placed in “precautionary quarantine.” And an Oklahoma high school said that an asymptomatic student tested positive for coronavirus but showed up for the first day of class last week anyway because the student’s parents believed it would be safe to do so, KFOR reported.

Through days of schooling and nights of studying, the two Chinese students pictured the big moment: Telling their parents. Posting the news. Haila Amin off to the University of Virginia. Jingchu Lin en route to Yale.

But between the time they applied to U.S. schools and decision day in the spring, a virus changed the world around them, upending nearly everything.

For Haila, Jingchu and other Chinese students bound for the United States, fall 2020 looks nothing like what they expected. Some returning students are stranded in the United States. Incoming students are stuck in China. Nobody knows what will happen in September. Nobody can believe this is happening at all. That uncertainty is changing lives and trajectories. It will reshape American education, potentially making U.S. institutions less attractive. And it may diminish what remains of the United States’ soft power in China as ties between the world’s two largest economies hit fresh lows.

A hotel housekeeper, furloughed for months, worries she’ll lose her benefits. A restaurant manager wonders how he’ll be able to sustain the livelihoods of his family and staff. A recent college graduate, struggling with her mental health, is terrified of graduating into a recession.

Like so many others across the country, their lives have been upended — jobs lost, companies brought to a standstill, families separated and futures uncertain.

In April, The Washington Post began following the lives of 10 people navigating the coronavirus pandemic. Our goal was to understand how the pandemic would affect them and millions of other Americans facing similar challenges over time. What would their lives look like months later? Would they be able to return to those lost jobs? Would businesses be able to survive and would federal aid programs make a difference?

CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand — Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern on Monday postponed New Zealand’s general election, scheduled for Sept. 19, for four weeks as authorities grapple with a new wave of coronavirus cases that has set back the country’s pandemic recovery. The decision follows confirmation last Tuesday that several members of a family in Auckland had tested positive for the virus, ending the Ardern government’s record of more than 100 days without a known case of community transmission.

Ardern’s move followed calls from leaders of other parties, including Winston Peters, deputy leader of the coalition she heads, to postpone the vote. She denied, however, that political pressure played a role in her decision. “Even if I had not picked up the phone and contacted anyone, I believe this is still the outcome I would have arrived at,” she told reporters, stressing that she had “absolutely no intention” of delaying the vote, now scheduled for Oct. 17, a second time.

News of a fresh coronavirus outbreak came days after Ardern launched her campaign for a second term at a rally in which she highlighted her government’s success in beating back the virus, declaring that the vote would be a “covid election,” with a focus on economic recovery.

With classes about to start at Alabama’s two big-time college football schools, some members of the Alabama Crimson Tide and Auburn Tigers are expressing concern about the lack of masks they’re seeing around them. That threat to the health of players, staff, students and fans — not to mention to the SEC’s hopes of staging a football season this fall — also produced reactions of alarm Sunday by the University of Alabama’s athletic director and the daughter of Tide Coach Nick Saban.

Alabama senior center Chris Owens shared a photo Sunday showing a long, crowded line outside a bar near his campus in Tuscaloosa. Most of the people in the line were not wearing masks despite months of recommendations that covering noses and mouths, as well as social distancing, are among the simplest, most effective ways to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus.

“How about we social distance and have more than a literal handful of people wear a mask?” Owens asked. “Is that too much to ask Tuscaloosa?”