The Wall Street Journal - 18.03.2020

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ***** Wednesday, March 18, 2020 |A

A trolley passed City Hall in Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday. The city’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was called off over coronavirus fears.

FROM TOP: STEPHEN B. MORTON/ASSOCIATED PRESS; MARK KAUZLARICH FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

There also was no party in

New York City, where the St.

Patrick’s Day Parade dates

back to 1762. The event, which

was expected to attract 1.

million people, was canceled

at the request of New York

Gov. Andrew Cuomo because

of contagion concerns.

In both cities, bars and res-

taurants have been closed. The

timing has been especially

devastating for businesses

that have depended on the St.

Patrick’s Day celebrations for

one of their strongest sales

events of the year.

At Corcoran’s Grill & Pub,

which was open for takeout-

only in Chicago’s Old Town

neighborhood, workers on

Tuesday were taking down St.

Patrick’s Day decorations.

Owner Kevin Vaughan said

most restaurants scrape

through winter and then stock

up for St. Patrick’s Day, which

kicks off spring. “It came at

the worst possible time,” he

said of the shutdown.

One part of the New York

tradition was preserved: Early

Tuesday morning, the 69th

Regiment of the New York

State National Guard, which

has led the parade for over

160 years, held a small march

from its armory to St. Patrick’s

Cathedral.

“We kept it very, very quiet

to stay within the guidelines,”

said Sean Lane, the chairman of

the parade committee. March-

ers “were well spaced-out” to

avoid contagion, he said.

CHICAGO—Molly Gstalter

missed out on a lot of must-

do’s this St. Patrick’s Day, as

the new coronavirus nearly

shut down the celebration of

all things Irish.

She normally grabs a Sham-

rock Shake at McDonald’s, lis-

tens to Irish playlists, includ-

ing “My Irish Molly,” which her

grandmother used to sing to

her, drinks green beer and has

the students in her high-school

German class practice using

the German word for luck.

This year, she didn’t do any

of it, including the corned beef

and cabbage she normally eats

at her mother’s house. “It’s

not worth risking her,” said

Ms. Gstalter, 28 years old, who

did wear a pair of green tights

and a green headband for a

shopping trip Tuesday to cele-

brate the day.

St. Patrick’s Day in Chicago

usually covers the weekend

before and after March 17, and

includes the dyeing green of

the Chicago River and a huge

downtown parade as well as a

separate parade in the histori-

cally Irish neighborhoods of

the city’s South Side. Pretty

much throughout the entire

stretch, people in their 20s

can be found dressed in green

going from pub to pub.

The city, along with the

plumbers union that handles

the nearly 60-year-old tradi-

tion of dyeing the river, called

it all off.

BYJOEBARRETT

ANDPETERGRANT

Muted St. Patrick’s Day Celebrations

Go On Without Parades, Green Beer

from the 1940s to the 1980s

and is still in hundreds of

thousands of buildings, includ-

ing schools, across the coun-

try. Asbestos was banned from

most building materials in the

1980s, but older buildings, in-

cluding schools, typically con-

tain ceilings, floor tiles, pipe

insulation and other materials

with asbestos used for its fire-

proof and acoustic qualities.

Last year, 18 state attorneys

general asked Congress to pre-

vent all uses of the material. A

bill in the House would ban

the manufacture and distribu-

tion of asbestos.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom

Wolf in January proposed

spending more than $1 billion

to remove asbestos and lead in

schools. The School District of

Philadelphia said it has 175

buildings with asbestos, and it

has closed nine since Septem-

ber due to health concerns.

“Asbestos can be contained

and managed on-site,” said

Claire Barnett, executive direc-

tor of Healthy Schools Net-

work, which advocates for re-

moving environmental hazards

in schools. But if maintenance

is poor, moisture can cause as-

bestos to crumble, exposing its

deadly dust, she said. “It hap-

pens everywhere.”

An estimated 40,000 people

die in the U.S. from asbestos-

related diseases each year, in-

cluding mesothelioma, a can-

cer of the linings of the lungs

or stomach that can develop

30 years or more after expo-

sure.

Asbestos litigation, which

has been moving through

court dockets for years, has to

date largely targeted product

manufacturers. Workplace in-

juries are usually handled

through workers’ compensa-

tion claims, but people who

develop asbestos-related dis-

eases years after retiring are

often beyond the deadline for

filing such a claim against an

employer.

A 2013 court ruling in

Pennsylvania allowed people

who develop an asbestos-re-

lated disease to sue an em-

ployer for negligence outside

of the workers’ compensation

act and made the suit against

Penn State and other potential

cases possible.

Universities typically moni-

tor asbestos, as required by

federal and state regulations,

and remove it during renova-

tions. Penn State found in the

1970s that close to 100 build-

ings contained asbestos, ac-

cording to court documents.

By 1984, the school had spent

over $500,000 removing as-

bestos.

During the 1980s the cost

of removing asbestos at the

university rose fivefold, ac-

cording to court documents. In

1989, a Penn State official

stated in a memorandum that

the school would no longer re-

move asbestos when it was

encountered.

“In all future projects, our

goal should be to minimize the

removal of asbestos to only

what is absolutely required,”

the official wrote. “Obviously,

this will help us a lot in the

area of project budgets.”

Michael Robb, a Pittsburgh

attorney representing the La-

bosky family, alleges that the

university scaled back its as-

bestos removal to cut costs

while it knew about health

risks.

PITTSBURGH—Peter La-

bosky Jr. had been retired for

12 years from his job as a pro-

fessor of wood sciences at

Pennsylvania State University

when he was diagnosed in

2014 with mesothelioma. He

died five months later.

Mr. Labosky’s family alleges

in a lawsuit filed in 2016 that

the university negligently ex-

posed him to asbestos dust af-

ter failing to clean it up in

buildings where he taught. The

case is working its way

through state court in Pitts-

burgh.

The lawsuit is proceeding

amid louder calls to clean up

asbestos and halt its use na-

tionally. It appears to be the

first of its kind brought

against a university, creating a

new path for asbestos litiga-

tion, said legal experts. It

could open the door to similar

suits in Pennsylvania, and

raise awareness about poten-

tial exposures at universities

in other states.

“This could raise a lot of

concern by employers with re-

gard to the facilities they pro-

vide to their workers which

may contain asbestos prod-

ucts,” said Lester Brickman, an

emeritus professor at Benja-

min N. Cardozo School of Law

in New York who has written

extensively on asbestos litiga-

tion.

Penn State defends its han-

dling of asbestos as proactive

and careful, and doesn’t com-

ment on pending litigation,

said Lisa Powers, a spokes-

woman for the university.

Asbestos was widely used

BYKRISMAHER

In a Twist, Asbestos Suit Targets College

A priest blessed a visitor outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, which also canceled its parade.

Asbestos, which can lead to mesothelioma, remains in many

buildings today after being widely used from the 1940s to

the 1980s.

U.S.asbestosuseinproducts U.S.deathsfrommalignant

mesothelioma

800

0

200

400

600

thousand tons

1980 ’90 2000 ’

4,

0

1,

2,

3,

2000 ’

Sources: U.S. Geological Survey (use); Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (deaths)

Secret Service Is

Now Guarding Biden

WASHINGTON—Former Vice

President Joe Biden, the leading

contender for the Democratic

presidential nomination, is now

receiving Secret Service protec-

tion, officials said Tuesday.

The U.S. Secret Service said

it had “initiated full protective

coverage,” for Mr. Biden, who

has been staying at his Dela-

ware home since departing the

campaign trail last week given

the coronavirus outbreak.

Biden campaign spokesman

T.J. Ducklo said the campaign

“does not comment on security

measures.”

Mr. Biden has used private

security since announcing his

candidacy last year, and local

law enforcement have also

provided security measures at

larger campaign events before

the pandemic.

His security came under

scrutiny earlier this month when

anti-dairy industry protesters

rushed on stage while Mr. Biden

was speaking in Los Angeles as

Super Tuesday results came in.

The protesters were restrained

by Mr. Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, a

member of his security team

and several aides.

The next day, House Home-

land Security Committee Chair-

man Rep. Bennie Thompson (D.,

Miss.), asked the Department

of Homeland Security to deter-

mine whether any Democratic

candidates should receive Se-

cret Service protection.

The Secret Service can offer

protection to major-party presi-

dential and vice presidential

nominees within 120 days of the

general election. But candidates

often receive Secret Service de-

tails earlier in the campaign.

Mr. Biden’s Secret Service

code name will be “Celtic,” ac-

cording to a law-enforcement

official, the code name that he

used as vice president.

An aide to Sen. Bernie

Sanders, Mr. Biden’s chief rival,

said the Vermont senator

doesn’t have Secret Service

protection.

U.S. NEWS

care, wealth inequality and cli-

mate change. He told young vot-

ers inspired by Mr. Sanders, “I

hear you, I know what’s at

stake.”

During a live-stream address

earlier Tuesday evening, Mr.

Sanders outlined his proposals

to blunt the effects of the coro-

navirus outbreak. He didn’t

mention the primary elections

or his narrowing prospects.

Ohio had been expected to

hold a primary on Tuesday, but

it joined a growing list of states

that have delayed their contests

until May or June in hopes the

coronavirus situation will im-

proves.

On the eve of the balloting, a

court there rejected a request to

postpone the state’s primary un-

til June 2 as Republican Gov.

Mike DeWine had recom-

mended. The in-person voting

was subsequently placed on hold

after the state’s top health offi-

cial ordered polls closed.

The state Supreme Court de-

nied a last-minute legal chal-

lenge to the postponement, and

county election boards were del-

uged with phone calls from con-

fused, frustrated voters.

Late Tuesday, Democratic Na-

tional Committee Chairman Tom

Perez called for states with up-

coming primaries and caucuses

to use voting by mail and other

alternatives to casting ballots in

person.

“What happened in Ohio last

night has only bred more chaos

and confusion,” he said. “States

that have not yet held primary

elections should focus on imple-

menting the aforementioned

measures to make it easier and

safer for voters to exercise their

constitutional right to vote, in-

stead of moving primaries to

later in the cycle when timing

around the virus remains un-

predictable.”

Florida and Arizona are bat-

tleground states, so they may

offer insights into general-elec-

tion trends. This round of con-

tests might be the last signifi-

cant ones for some time, if

more states announce primary

postponements.

States that move their con-

tests later than June 9 will need

a waiver from the party to

avoid losing delegates to the

July convention, the DNC wrote

in a memo this week.

Voters, sobered by the health

crisis, also cast ballots in local

and state contests as they con-

fronted school closures, travel

limitations, event cancellations

and a stressed global economy.

Germs were also on their minds.

At a polling location inside a

Miami fire station, workers

wore gloves as they inspected

voter identification cards and

dispensed hand sanitizer to visi-

tors. Some voters arrived with

their own pens, gloves and dis-

infecting wipes.

Meanwhile, the Republican

National Committee noted

Tuesday night that Mr. Trump

had secured enough delegates

through the GOP primaries to

become the party’s presumptive

nominee for president.

—Eliza Collins, Alexa Corse,

Arian Campo-Flores, Chad

Day and Ken Thomas

contributed to this article.

Joe Biden won all three pri-
maries held Tuesday on a day
filled with anxious voting,
building a lead in the Demo-
cratic presidential nomination
race that appears increasingly
difficult for Bernie Sanders to
overcome.
The contest lurched forward
amid major disruptions trig-
gered by the coronavirus pan-
demic as the first balloting was
held—in Florida, Illinois and
Arizona—since the crisis en-
gulfed the nation.
After all of the day’s votes
are counted, the former vice
president is likely to have a
majority of the delegates
awarded so far. As of late Tues-
day, he already had secured
more than half of the 1,
needed to win the nomination.
In Florida, a critical general
election battleground, Mr. Bi-
den won nearly three times as
many votes as the Vermont
senator and carried all 67
counties. In Illinois, with 85%
of precincts reporting, he was
racking up a 59% to 36% mar-
gin. The Associated Press
called the race in Arizona for
Mr. Biden with early results
coming in.
The latest large victories by
Mr. Biden are likely to place
more pressure on Mr. Sanders to
exit from the race so the party
can focus on competing against
President Trump in November.
A Wall Street Journal/NBC News
poll released Sunday showed Mr.
Biden was favored nationally,

61% to 32%, among those who
have already voted in the Demo-
cratic primary or plan to do so.
Mr. Biden is already trying to
unify the party behind him, en-
dorsing policy proposals related
to bankruptcy laws and college
tuition in a bid to woo liberals.
Mr. Sanders acknowledged last
week that he’s losing the “de-
bate over electability” among
Democrats.
Time is running out for Mr.
Sanders to catch up with more
than half of state primaries and
caucuses already held. He would
have to capture a large share of
the remaining delegates to win
the nomination—and no other
states are expected to hold con-
tests until early April.
Mr. Biden, speaking from his
home in Wilmington, Del.,
reached out to his rival’s sup-
porters. He noted he was deliv-
ering his address by live stream
to avoid gathering supporters
during the pandemic.
“We’ve moved closer to se-
curing the Democratic Party’s
nomination for president, and
we’re doing it by building a
broad coalition,” he said.
Mr. Biden said he and Mr.
Sanders “may disagree on tac-
tics, but we share a common vi-
sion” on issues such as health

BYJOHNMCCORMICK

Biden Shuts

Out Sanders

In3States

Ohio’s primary was

canceled at the last

minute because of

the pandemic.