In Other News: Reports suggest many have had coronavirus with no symptoms; books, dance lessons, ‘Sopranos’ — freebies abound online

Published 1:19 pm Monday, April 20, 2020

Editor’s note: “In Other News” is a list of state, national and global headlines compiled by Daily Citizen-News staff from Associated Press stories. Click on the headlines below to read the full stories.

Books, dance lessons, ‘Sopranos’ — freebies abound online

NEW YORK — We might not be totally free these days, but there’s a lot out there that is. Companies like Pure Barre and Peloton are offering free access to fitness classes. Amazon is giving away book classics like “The Call of the Wild” and “Emma,” and MasterClass has experts offering their wisdom for nothing. The coronavirus’s shutdown has wreaked havoc on so many lives and also disrupted many company plans. But some are offering their goods for free or dropping their paywalls for a limited time. It may not make the best financial decision, but marketing experts say it’s good public relations and a nice way to hook future customers as long as it doesn’t seem like companies are taking advantage of the virus.

Losing face: The rise of the mask, and what’s lost behind it

PITTSBURGH — On Saturday afternoons, the Strip District neighborhood of Pittsburgh becomes a jam-packed hub of old-fashioned shopping. People stride along Penn Avenue, hopping from greengrocer to butcher to fishmonger to Italian market, smiling and gesturing and jabbering as they go. Not this weekend. As strange, spaced-out lines formed outside favorite establishments, the chatting was muted, the sidewalk sidesteps were awkward and tentative, and the facial expressions were, well, not really facial expressions at all. Just like much of the planet during these jumbled coronavirus days. Smile, they say, and the world smiles with you. Unless you’re wearing a mask. Then the world can’t see your smile, much less smile back.

Reports suggest many have had coronavirus with no symptoms

A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared. While that’s clearly good news, it also means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life. In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California.

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s misdirection on virus testing, deaths

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is falsely assigning blame to governors and the Obama administration for shortages in coronavirus testing. For much of the week, he was pretender to a throne that didn’t exist as he claimed king-like powers over the pandemic response and Congress. But by the weekend, he was again saying governors called the shots and they are the ones to blame — not the federal government, not him — for any testing problems. He says governors aren’t using all the testing capacity that the federal government has created. It’s not true.