| Trump chides Cuomo for seeking 'independence' in coronavirus response Posted: 14 Apr 2020 08:52 AM PDT  The president continued to assert his absolute in authority in reopening the country following the shutdown to slow the spread of coronavirus.
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| Intelligence officials weigh possibility coronavirus escaped from a Chinese lab Posted: 14 Apr 2020 12:49 PM PDT  Though the the U.S. intelligence community has long since dismissed the notion that the coronavirus is a synthesized bioweapon, it is still weighing the possibility that the pandemic might have been touched off by an accident at a research facility rather than an infection from a live-animal market.
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| Photos show nearly a dozen Iranian attack boats harassing US Navy and Coast Guard ships in 'dangerous' exchange Posted: 15 Apr 2020 02:30 PM PDT  The US Navy said 11 Iranian boats "conducted dangerous and harassing approaches," crossing the bows and sterns of the US ships repeatedly.
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| Florida inmate freed over COVID-19 fears killed man the next day, police say Posted: 14 Apr 2020 09:57 PM PDT  Edward Williams, 26, was released based on concerns over coronavirus but was eligible to be freed on bond.
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| Lagos unrest: The mystery of Nigeria's fake gangster attacks Posted: 15 Apr 2020 05:50 AM PDT  Residents of two Nigerian states, where there is a lockdown, panicked after fake reports of mass attacks.
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| Bolsonaro expected to fire defiant Brazilian health minister Posted: 15 Apr 2020 05:30 AM PDT  Brazilian health officials braced on Wednesday for President Jair Bolsonaro to fire his health minister over disagreements on how to handle the coronavirus outbreak, with at least one secretary offering his resignation in protest. In a defiant news conference, Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta acknowledged his differences with Bolsonaro and said he had discussed a search for his replacement with the presidential chief of staff. "The president has made clear that he would like a different position from the Health Ministry," Mandetta said in televised remarks.
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| Trump news: President throws wild accusations at WHO about coronavirus as he threatens to adjourn House and Senate Posted: 15 Apr 2020 02:13 PM PDT  Donald Trump has carried through with his threat to end US funding to the World Health Organisation (WHO), depriving the body of $500m (£399m) per year at the height of the global coronavirus pandemic, blaming the body for "covering up" the outbreak in its early stages without offering any evidence for his contention.He contended on Tuesday that the US is a "developing nation" and complained about "unfair" treatment from the organisation after accusing its officials of "knowing exactly what was going on" as the outbreak developed. His remarks this week follow several reports illustrating his failure to heed multiple warnings over several weeks to prepare for the virus, which analysts predict cost thousands of lives.
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| Taiwan virus aid sparks calls to rename China Airlines Posted: 15 Apr 2020 02:58 AM PDT  Taiwan's aid shipments to countries battling the coronavirus have sparked a fierce debate on the island about whether it should rebrand its national carrier China Airlines. The self-ruled island has been held up as a model for tackling the virus with fewer than 400 confirmed cases despite its proximity to China. Much of that aid has been ferried on China Airlines jets, sparking some confusion on arrival -- and online -- over whether the largesse has come from Taiwan or China.
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| Iran parliament: Virus deaths nearly double reported figures Posted: 15 Apr 2020 06:09 AM PDT  The death toll in Iran from the coronavirus pandemic is likely nearly double the officially reported figures, due to undercounting and because not everyone with breathing problems has been tested for the virus, a parliament report said. Iranian health officials offered no comment on the report, which represents the highest-level charge yet from within the Islamic Republic's government of its figures being questionable, something long suspected by international experts. Iran on Wednesday put the death toll at 4,777, out of 76,389 confirmed cases of the virus — still making it the Mideast's worst outbreak by far.
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| Trump's candidate loses in Wisconsin, despite help from courts Posted: 14 Apr 2020 12:18 PM PDT  The president floated conspiracies of voter fraud after a progressive challenger knocked off a conservative incumbent in the race for a state Supreme Court seat.
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| Carnival's CEO said the company has enough money to make it through the rest of 2020 without bringing in any revenue Posted: 14 Apr 2020 03:16 PM PDT  Carnival has raised over $6 billion in debt and equity this year after drawing $3 billion from its credit lines.
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| Democrats take another step toward unity as Elizabeth Warren endorses Joe Biden Posted: 15 Apr 2020 06:10 AM PDT  Former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren, on Twitter and in a video, endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president.
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| US military chief: 'Weight of evidence' that Covid-19 did not originate in a lab Posted: 14 Apr 2020 01:33 PM PDT  * Chair of joints chiefs says 'natural' origin more likely * 2018 cable expressed concern about Wuhan laboratory * Coronavirus – latest US updates * Coronavirus – latest global updates * See all our coronavirus coverageThe Pentagon's top general has said that US intelligence has looked into the possibility that the coronavirus outbreak could have started in a Chinese laboratory, but that the "weight of evidence" so far pointed towards "natural" origins.The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen Mark Milley, was speaking on the day of a Washington Post report about state department cables in 2018 in which US diplomats raised safety concerns about the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) which was conducting studies of coronavirus from bats."During interactions with scientists at the WIV laboratory, they noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory," a cable dated 19 January 2018 said, according to the Post.The diplomats urged further US support for the laboratory to address the concerns, but no support was given, at a time when the Trump administration was cutting back on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outreach abroad.Beijing's official version of the start outbreak was the Covid-19 virus (Sars-CoV-2) was transmitted to humans from animals at Wuhan's wild animal markets, though some Chinese officials have circulated conspiracy theories suggesting it was engineered in a US bioweapons laboratory.The cables reported by the Washington Post have emerged at a time when the administration is seeking to focus blame for the pandemic on China and the World Health Organization. The Republican senator Tom Cotton has raised the possibility that the pandemic was a deliberate Chinese bioweapon attack, though he has argued natural transmission from animals to humans, or a lab accident, were more likely scenarios."There's a lot of rumour and speculation in a wide variety of media, blog sites, etc," Milley told reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday. "It should be no surprise to you that we've taken a keen interest in that, and we've had a lot of intelligence look at that. And I would just say at this point, it's inconclusive, although the weight of evidence seems to indicate natural. But we don't know for certain."Most scientists say that this coronavirus probably originated in bats but found its way to humans through an intermediary animal.There is no conclusive evidence that this happened at Wuhan's notorious "wet" markets where wild animals were sold for meat. Analysis of the first 41 Covid-19 patients in medical journal the Lancet found that 27 of them had direct exposure to the Wuhan market. But the same analysis found that the first known case did not.
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| Newsom offers time line for lifting of stay-at-home orders in Calif. Posted: 14 Apr 2020 02:09 PM PDT  Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday provided a potential time line for when stay-at-home orders would be lifted in the state.
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| Iran's Rouhani forecasts bumper wheat output, says food supplies secure Posted: 15 Apr 2020 05:33 AM PDT  Iran expects to produce 14 million tonnes of wheat by March 2021, President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday, adding that the coronavirus outbreak had not hit its farm sector and Iranians did not need to worry about food supplies. "Our forecast is some 3.5%-4% increase in agricultural products and we predict production of 14 million tonnes of wheat during this (Iranian) year," Rouhani said during a televised cabinet meeting. Rouhani said Iran's domestic grain production had been boosted by heavy rainfall that could cover its needs until the next Iranian year, which starts on March 21, 2021.
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| Pelosi: Trump coronavirus missteps 'caused unnecessary death and economic disaster' Posted: 14 Apr 2020 04:56 PM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi released a letter in which she charged President Trump with missteps in handling the coronavirus pandemic that "caused unnecessary death and economic disaster" in the U.S.
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| Climate change: Blue skies pushed Greenland 'into the red' Posted: 15 Apr 2020 06:30 AM PDT  Cloud-free skies played a key role in one of the worst years for Greenland's ice sheet.
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| Wuhan ended its 76-day coronavirus lockdown last week — here's how Wuhan residents are reacting Posted: 14 Apr 2020 02:45 PM PDT  The people of Wuhan, China, have mixed feelings about the reopening of their city, which was put under lockdown in January.
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| South Korean Leader’s Party Wins Big in Election During Pandemic Posted: 15 Apr 2020 04:36 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- South Korean President Moon Jae-in's ruling party scored a landslide victory in parliamentary elections held in the throes of the pandemic, signaling to global leaders a strong response to the virus can translate into votes.Moon's Democratic Party of Korea and its satellite party could win at least 180 places in the 300-seat National Assembly, according to election results and projections compiled by Yonhap News Agency, which said it amounted to the biggest win since democratic elections began in 1987. Voter turnout was at about 66%, the highest in 28 years and the projected outcome indicates a show of support for Moon's handling of the crisis.The results point to a super-majority for Moon and his progressive camp, giving them power to quickly push through a supplementary budget and reshape an economy reeling from the pandemic. It will add momentum to their key goals to reduce income inequality by prioritizing wages, reforming chaebol conglomerates and tightening rules on expensive housing development."This is a reminder that people respond to steady, trustworthy leadership in times of crisis," said Mintaro Oba, a former American diplomat who worked on Korean Peninsula issues. "Moon Jae-in showed you can win elections on a cult of competence instead of a cult of personality."Moon, like many leaders, stumbled in his early response to the pandemic, having predicted that the virus would be terminated "before long" only to see cases spike days later. But the government's focus on mass testing and isolation of the sick to corral coronavirus clusters has been credited with a sharp slowdown in the spread, with new cases now at their lowest levels since February.His approval rating shot up to 56% from 42% during the crisis as South Korea won global praise for its response to the outbreak. The initial results indicate that holding an election during the pandemic is not only possible but can be beneficial for politicians seen as managing the crisis well.South Korea's decision to hold the election contrasts with some U.S. states that have delayed presidential primaries and France, which suspended some local elections after cases began to multiply. Poland plans to conduct its May 10 presidential election by mail-in ballot.The virus provided an opportunity for Moon to rebuild support battered by an economic slowdown, corruption scandals involving presidential aides and resurgent tensions with North Korea, which fired missile barrages on the eve of the election in a show of force.U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo congratulated South Korea on successfully holding an election, saying its "dedication to democratic values in the face of a global pandemic is a hallmark of a truly free, open, and transparent society -- qualities that are necessary in facing the current crisis." He called it "a model for others around the world."Final results may not be known until later Thursday morning but current projections show that the progressive party will have an outright majority in the country's National Assembly for the first time in 12 years.South Korea took precautions to keep voters safe: They were required to stand at least one meter (3 feet) apart, cover their faces, wear disposable gloves and be ready to submit to temperature checks, while voting booths were frequently disinfected.The vote came about halfway through Moon's single, five-year term, a point when an electoral defeat made his predecessor, former President Park Geun-hye, a lame duck and ultimately paved the way for her impeachment and removal."We've seen more defeats of a ruling party in interim elections in Korean history, so this is a rare case that a sitting president wins," said Lee Jae-mook, who teaches political science at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul.South Korea was initially one of the world's hardest-hit countries and developed tactics including drive-thru testing that have been copied by others. New infection rates in the country have fallen this month to their lowest levels since February and per capita deaths from Covid-19 are some of the lowest among major economies."I went out to vote because I believe it's important to take part in shaping our country, especially with the hit from the coronavirus crisis," said Lee Kyung-eun, 29, who works at a startup and voted just outside Seoul.More than 1,100 candidates from 21 political parties signed up for 253 constituencies with direct elections. Another 300 candidates were fighting for 47 seats decided by support for the parties.Postponing the election would have been a worrisome precedent in South Korea's three decade-old democracy, with many Moon supporters being among those who took to the streets in the 1980s to end autocratic rule."South Koreans have been traumatized by living under the authoritarian regimes of the past and see elections as essential," said Duyeon Kim, a senior adviser on Northeast Asia and nuclear policy at the International Crisis Group.(Updates with results and quotes)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Missteps mar Puerto Rico's response to the coronavirus Posted: 15 Apr 2020 09:13 AM PDT  Puerto Rico officials say data that show COVID-19 cases on the island are much lower than in some U.S. states constitute proof they are containing the new coronavirus, but a series of missteps is raising concerns it could be more widespread than believed. Local officials, meanwhile, have favored televised discussions over press conferences in a situation that has angered many and drawn comparisons to Hurricane Maria. "We're basically operating blindly," said Mónica Feliú-Mójer, spokeswoman for CienciaPR, a nonprofit group of Puerto Rican scientists who are demanding widespread testing.
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| Emergency room doctor, near death with coronavirus, saved after experimental treatment Posted: 13 Apr 2020 10:48 PM PDT  A Seattle emergency-room doctor contracted COVID-19 while treating patients infected by coronavirus. He owes his life to physicians who used an experimental treatment.
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| Virus hit 'like a bomb' as toll rises in Ecuador's business capital Posted: 14 Apr 2020 07:35 PM PDT  Ecuador's economic capital Guayaquil is reeling from the most aggressive outbreak of COVID-19 in Latin America after the pandemic hit the city "like a bomb," its mayor said. Cynthia Viteri has emerged from her own bout with the virus to battle the worst crisis the port city of nearly 3 million people has known in modern times. Mortuaries, funeral homes and hospital services are overwhelmed, and Viteri said the actual death toll from the virus is likely much higher than the official national figure of 369.
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| China reports fewer coronavirus cases but local infections rise near Russian border Posted: 14 Apr 2020 05:43 PM PDT  China reported a decline in new confirmed cases of the coronavirus in the mainland on Wednesday, but there was an increasing number of local transmissions in its far northeast bordering Russia. China had 46 new confirmed cases on Tuesday compared with 89 a day earlier, according to the National Health Commission. The 10 remaining cases were new locally transmitted infections, with the northeastern Heilongjiang province accounting for eight and the southern Guangdong province two.
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| US officials were reportedly concerned that safety breaches at a Wuhan lab studying coronaviruses in bats could cause a pandemic Posted: 14 Apr 2020 07:48 AM PDT  Diplomatic cables obtained by The Washington Post raise more questions about the virus' origins and whether a top-level lab may have been involved.
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| Sen. Graham defends Trump's early action to combat COVID-19 against media attacks Posted: 14 Apr 2020 05:53 AM PDT  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham joins 'Fox & Friends' after a contentious press conference between the president and the media on the White House response.
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| Orban Allies’ Shares Are Winners of Hungary Power Grab Posted: 14 Apr 2020 08:00 PM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's decision to start ruling by decree indefinitely triggered European Union criticism and a currency sell-off in response to what was seen as a thinly-veiled power grab during the pandemic.But the prospect of Orban calling all the shots has done wonders for stocks owned by the premier's family and friends.Shares of Opus Global Nyrt., a conglomerate controlled by Orban's boyhood friend and closest business ally Lorinc Meszaros, surged 57% since parliament approved Orban's power play on March 30, versus a 5.7% gain in the benchmark BUX index. Real-estate group Appeninn Nyrt., co-owned by Meszaros and Orban's son-in-law, was runner-up with a 25% gain, followed by 4iG Nyrt., a technology group in which Meszaros also has a stake. All three rely heavily on state contracts.The day after assuming emergency powers, Orban's government filed a bill to classify for 10 years contracts relating to a $2 billion, Chinese-funded Budapest-Belgrade rail construction. An Opus unit based in Orban's home town has a 50% stake in the consortium running the project.The rail link was green-lighted despite earlier criticism about the project's viability and its cost, especially during the coronavirus crisis. The government estimates a deep recession this year due to the pandemic. The rail project's cost is equivalent to half of the budget funds the cabinet earmarked for its economic stimulus plan.While the details of the stimulus package are still hazy, Opus shares surged 20% on back-to-back trading days after Orban said he'd channel government funds to the sectors worst-hit by the pandemic, including tourism and construction -- areas in which Opus is active."The Meszaros Group is continuously monitoring government measures aimed at moderating the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the national economy," according to an emailed statement. "Management will decide after a comprehensive assessment what kind of assistance the group will accept."Hungary's opposition has long accused Meszaros -- who went from village gas-fitter to Hungary's richest person in the span of the past five years thanks largely to an avalanche of government contracts -- of being a front for Orban's personal business, an allegation the premier and Meszaros have rejected."I've never had a business relationship with the prime minister," Meszaros, 54, said in a written reply to questions last year, one of the rare instances when he's talked about his business. "Our relationship is private in nature. I've known Viktor Orban since my childhood."For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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| Guatemala: US deportations driving up COVID-19 cases Posted: 14 Apr 2020 07:02 AM PDT  Guatemala's health minister said Tuesday that deportees from the United States were driving up the country's COVID-19 caseload, adding that on one flight some 75% of the deportees tested positive for the virus. Health Minister Hugo Monroy's comments were dramatically out of line with what the government had previously said about infected deportees. Later, presidential spokesman Carlos Sandoval told reporters that Monroy was referring to a March flight on which "between 50% and 75% (of the passengers) during all their time in isolation and quarantine have come back positive."
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| Nurse gives birth while sedated on a ventilator Posted: 15 Apr 2020 11:08 AM PDT  A nurse in Ohio just had a baby, but she won't know it until she's taken off a ventilator.The 27-year-old nurse has been hospitalised for more than two weeks while being treated for coronavirus. She first noticed her symptoms in late March and is currently sedated and on a ventilator according to WDTN News.
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| Sheriff's Department, DA in California Fight to Keep Some Inmates Behind Bars Amid Pandemic Posted: 13 Apr 2020 07:49 PM PDT  Across California, inmates accused of low-level crimes are expected to be released from jail this week.
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| Coronavirus: Is President Trump right to criticise the WHO? Posted: 15 Apr 2020 11:06 AM PDT  The World Health Organization "failed in its basic duty" over coronavirus, Donald Trump claims.
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| Ten U.S. states developing 'reopening' plans account for 38% of U.S. economy Posted: 14 Apr 2020 04:11 AM PDT  The ten U.S. states coordinating plans separately from the White House to reopen businesses shut by the coronavirus are responsible for an outsized proportion of the U.S. economy. On Monday, three states on the U.S. West Coast, led by California Governor Gavin Newsom, and seven on the East Coast, led by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, said they will develop coordinated regional plans. Collectively the ten states generated 38.3% of the total U.S. economic output in the fourth quarter of 2019, highlighting how much of the U.S. economy depends on its most populous states.
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| Beijing Privately Warned Health Officials of A ‘Pandemic’ Six Days Before Xi Jinping’s Public Coronavirus Comments Posted: 15 Apr 2020 06:05 AM PDT  Documents reveal that Chinese President Xi Jinping waited six days to publicly warn about the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, after his top officials determined that the situation was "likely to develop into a major public health event."On January 20, Xi broke silence on the outbreak to warn it "must be taken seriously," with leading Chinese epidemiologist, Zhong Nanshan saying for the first time publicly that the virus was transmissible from person-to-person.That public warning came six days after a January 14 teleconference in which the head of China's National Health Commission, Ma Xiaowei, warned Xi and local health officials that a global pandemic was likely underway, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. Some 3,000 Chinese people are believed to have been infected during the six-day delay."The epidemic situation is still severe and complex, the most severe challenge since SARS in 2003, and is likely to develop into a major public health event," Ma said, according to the memo.The call came a day after authorities in Thailand discovered the first case reported outside of China, which the memo cited as an indication that the situation had "changed significantly." It added that "clustered cases suggest that human-to-human transmission is possible.""With the coming of the Spring Festival, many people will be traveling, and the risk of transmission and spread is high," the memo reads. "All localities must prepare for and respond to a pandemic."Ma also urged officials to prioritize political considerations and social stability ahead of the long China's two biggest political meetings of the year in March.The same day as the teleconference, the World Health Organization stated that "preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in Wuhan, China." One day prior, on January 19, the National Health Commission said the virus was "still preventable and controllable."A timeline of China's slow response to the coronavirus reveals the failures of Beijing to slow the spread of the pandemic. While the Chinese government has reported approximately 82,000 cases, estimates have suggested the number is closer to 2.9 million.In December, party officials issued a gag order to labs in Wuhan after scientists realized the novel virus closely resembled SARS, ordering them to halt tests, destroy samples, and conceal the news.
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| Germany Mulls Easing Curbs as Europe’s Virus Struggle Progresses Posted: 15 Apr 2020 12:15 AM PDT |
| Guatemala health chief says at least half of deportees from U.S. have coronavirus Posted: 14 Apr 2020 08:50 PM PDT  Guatemalan health minister says at least 50% of deportees
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| Putin's Bleak COVID-19 Admission: 'We Don't Have Much to Brag About' Posted: 14 Apr 2020 05:27 AM PDT  MOSCOW -- The head of Russia's coronavirus task force, Tatyana Golikova, assured President Vladimir Putin in mid-March that the country was ready to take on the pandemic. From masks to ventilators, she said, Russia's hospitals had everything they needed to weather the crisis."There is no reason at all to panic," she said.A week later, the head doctor of one of Moscow's top hospitals caring for coronavirus patients quietly wrote to a medical charity asking for help. The hospital, he wrote, was in need of "disposable materials and equipment" to continue to serve the critically ill."We're used to always living, somehow, in the unspoken, looking through rose-colored glasses," said Elena Smirnova, head of the charity, Sozidaniye. "They can't hide this anymore."For weeks, the coronavirus pandemic had the makings of a Kremlin propaganda coup; even as Western countries succumbed one by one, Russia appeared invincible, recording fewer than 100 new cases a day through late March despite its tightly packed cities, global travel connections and 2,600-mile land border with China.There was talk that Putin's early move to shut down most travel from China, along with an extensive testing and contact-tracing effort rooted in the Soviet Union's disease-fighting legacy, was succeeding where Italy, Spain and the United States all had failed.So confident was the Kremlin that it dispatched planeloads of aid to Italy, Serbia and even Kennedy Airport in New York, signaling that Russia had stockpiled so many masks and ventilators that it was able to share some of them with less fortunate countries.But it has become clear in recent days that Russia is unlikely to escape a severe hit by the pandemic, presenting an existential test to the country's teetering health system and a new challenge to the aura of rising confidence and competence projected by Putin's Kremlin."We have a lot of problems, and we don't have much to brag about nor reason to, and we certainly can't relax," Putin told senior officials Monday in his bleakest comments on the crisis yet. "We are not past the peak of the epidemic, not even in Moscow."Putin warned of overworked medical staff and shortages of protective equipment, acknowledging what critics said was long clear: that Russia's health system could be strained beyond its breaking point by the pandemic and that the government needed to do more to get ready.There were also worrying signs of the pandemic spreading outside Moscow.The government airlifted a field hospital to an Arctic town near the border with Norway, where hundreds of workers at a construction site were feared infected. The town of Vyazma, 130 miles west of Moscow, was closed off because of an outbreak at a nursing home, and 1,000 people were reported to be under quarantine in a hospital in the south-central city of Ufa.As footage of hourslong lines of ambulances outside Moscow emergency rooms ricocheted through Russian social networks over the weekend, health officials went on state television and confirmed that the images were real."We objectively did not pay very much attention," Golikova, the task force head, admitted in an interview aired Sunday night, "to how effectively the infectious disease service needs to be prepared."By Monday, Russia's total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 had reached 18,328, double the level of five days earlier. The number of deaths stood at 148, a number widely seen as an undercount amid reports of other causes of death being declared for people who were ill with COVID-like symptoms.The epicenter of the pandemic in Russia is Moscow, the biggest city in Europe, with a population of some 13 million and about two-thirds of the country's coronavirus cases.Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, Putin's former chief of staff, has won praise, even from some Kremlin critics, for leveling with the public about the threat of the disease and taking aggressive measures to try to slow its spread.On March 24, Sobyanin told Putin that the number of infected Russians was significantly higher than the official data. Days later, he ordered all Muscovites to stay home.But the Kremlin continued to play down the seriousness of the threat."There is de facto no epidemic" in Russia, Kremlin spokesman Dmitri S. Peskov told reporters March 26.Under the surface, however, Russian hospitals were scrambling to prepare, with limited resources.Smirnova, of the Sozidaniye charity, launched a drive in late March to help hospitals fighting the coronavirus buy equipment and supplies.The 19-year-old organization has supported hospitals in the past but typically in relatively poor, far-flung parts of the country. Never in her two decades of charity work, Smirnova said, had she seen so many senior big-city hospital officials put their jobs on the line by asking for help."You must understand, a head doctor who says all is well is a 'good' doctor," she said. "If he says, 'Things aren't good at all; I've reached out to a charity,' he is taking a risk."Working with Russia's biggest state-owned bank, Sberbank, Sozidaniye raised more than $120,000 for hospitals across Russia, including nine in and around Moscow.One of them, City Clinical Hospital No. 52 in northwestern Moscow, has been relying on close to 100 volunteers to distribute food for medical workers and care packages for patients and even for help in setting up a new call center.Inside, with the hospital flooded with virus patients, conditions resemble those of military field medicine more than typical hospital care, a surgeon, Dr. Aleksandr Vanyukov, said in a phone interview.For now, he said, supplies of protective gear were sufficient. But he said he was increasingly losing hope that Moscow would be spared the fate of hard-hit Western cities, in part because residents last week seemed to be relaxing their adherence to stay-at-home orders."When everyone was sitting at home and carefully observing the quarantine, it seemed like we were managing," Vanyukov said.But if the current pace of growth continues, he said, "We'll be in a New York-type situation rather soon, probably."We'll just drown," he said.With the epidemic bearing down, Russia's state news media -- which is adept at playing down domestic problems -- has started to acknowledge its severity. The evening news on state-run Channel 1 on Sunday showed the lines of ambulances outside Moscow area hospitals and spoke of the "colossal pressure increasing with every day."The head doctor of the Filatovskaya hospital said it was treating 1,525 patients, despite a capacity of 1,350 beds. Another doctor said the hospital would enlist psychologists to help its workers handle the pressure.Moscow's medical personnel, the news report warned, are being stretched dangerously thin."In terms of doctors, things are difficult but bearable," a Channel 1 reporter said. "But nurses are in catastrophically short supply."In a videoconference on the pandemic with Golikova, Sobyanin and others Monday, Putin warned that things were getting worse, with the number of severely ill patients rising.He directed officials to take steps to remedy shortages in medical workers' protective equipment and to share ventilators and medicine across Russia's far-flung regions to respond to geographic differences in demand."All scenarios of how the situation could develop must be taken into account, including the most difficult and extraordinary ones," Putin said.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
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| Hungry S.Africans clash with police over food aid in Cape Town Posted: 14 Apr 2020 05:18 PM PDT  South African police on Tuesday fired rubber bullets and teargas in clashes with Cape Town township residents protesting over access to food aid during a coronavirus lockdown. Hundreds of angry people fought running battles with the police, hurling rocks and setting up barricades on the streets with burning tyres in Mitchells Plain over undelivered food parcels.
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| More than 150 people partied at an illegal San Francisco nightclub during the shelter-in-place order, and police just shut it down Posted: 14 Apr 2020 10:25 AM PDT  Video footage shows people coming and going in early April during the shelter-in-place order that directs nightclubs to close and people to stay home.
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| Meghan McCain: I’m ‘Particularly Insulted’ by Media Pressing Dr. Fauci Posted: 14 Apr 2020 09:34 AM PDT  The View co-host Meghan McCain chastised the White House press corps on Tuesday for grilling top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci at Monday's coronavirus briefing, claiming the questions left her personally and "particularly insulted."Ahead of Monday's presser, Fauci seemingly confirmed reporting by The New York Times that many within the Trump administration resisted his and other experts' recommendations to implement social-distancing guidelines weeks before President Donald Trump announced them in mid-March. During a Sunday interview, Fauci told CNN that earlier restrictions "could have saved lives" but "there was a lot of pushback about shutting things down back then."At the top of Monday's briefing, which quickly went off-the-rails when the president lashed out at the media, Fauci quickly walked back those comments, prompting reporters to press him if he was doing so "voluntarily" as Trump had shared a tweet the day before calling on the doctor to be fired. "Everything I do is voluntarily. Please. Don't even imply that," he seethed in response.Asked to react to the unhinged presser that also featured Trump playing a bizarre campaign video to claim it was the media that originally minimized the risk of the virus, McCain blamed both sides over the "acrimonious relationship" reaching a "fever pitch.""I for one am sick of the kabuki theater where a journalist asks an incendiary question and the president reacts in an incendiary way," she added before taking issue with Fauci getting grilled."I was particularly insulted in the questioning of Dr. Fauci," the conservative host huffed. "The press cannot talk to Dr. Fauci like he's Sean Spicer.""He seems to be the only person holding this country together and giving people on both sides good faith on what's happening going forward," she continued. "He actually started the tone of the press conference. He was very angry with the implication that he was not somehow in control of what he was saying, not in control of what he was doing. I took it as an implication that he was sort of a puppet with the administration."McCain's remarks echoed a tweet she blasted out a couple of hours earlier in which she said the implication that Fauci is a "bobblehead puppet" for Trump is "beyond insulting" and calling on the press to "grow up with these reductive questions."In a later segment discussing Trump tweeting out a FireFauci hashtag, McCain said that there was no danger of Trump firing the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, saying that such a concern has been a media invention."I think that's something that's being created by the media," she declared. "I think that he is absolutely integral and I think the American public would just mutiny on several different levels, because again, he's someone even on this show we are collectively in agreement that he's someone who can be trusted."Fauci, for his part, has said that he doesn't believe that the president has any intention of firing him, adding that he serves on the White House coronavirus task force at Trump's pleasure.Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| China may have conducted low-level nuclear test blasts, U.S. says Posted: 15 Apr 2020 01:49 PM PDT |
| IRS to roll out an official tool for tracking stimulus checks Posted: 14 Apr 2020 07:10 AM PDT  The IRS is set to launch a tool that will enable US taxpayers to track their stimulus payments and update their direct deposit information in the coming days. With the first stimulus checks, also known as economic impact payments, intended to jumpstart the US economy having been sent out to taxpayers over the weekend, the IRS will be launching a tool this week called "Get My Payment," which is expected to be available by Friday, April 17, according to a report by CNBC. Get My Payment is a tracking tool that will not only allow check recipients to follow the status of their funds but will also let people update their deposit information directly with the IRS.
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| Don’t Kill the U.S. Postal Service. Unshackle It. Posted: 14 Apr 2020 03:30 AM PDT  (Bloomberg Opinion) -- The U.S. Postal Service has had a foot in the grave for years, with fatalists regularly urging it to accept the inevitable. "The Post Office Is Dying Because We Don't Need It Anymore," a tech- savvy writer advised in 2011. "The U.S. Postal Service Is Dying. Let It," a libertarian blogger suggested in 2017. "Why Do We Have U.S. Mail And How Much Longer Will We Have It?" a self-described "customer experience futurist" asked in Forbes last year.Mother Nature recently decided to weigh in, too. The coronavirus pandemic has delivered a potentially fatal blow to the postal service, a 228-year-old mainstay of American life that traces its roots to the Constitution and whose services and ubiquity are made real by carriers visiting mailboxes and post offices that remain neighborhood fixtures.Postmaster General Megan Brennan told Congress recently that unless the Postal Service gets $50 billion in grants and aid, a $25 billion unrestricted credit line from the Treasury Department and $14 billion to pay off debts — $89 billion overall — it will run out of money by the end of the year. Brennan said that mail delivery volumes have plunged so drastically that the Postal Service is likely to have a $13 billion revenue shortfall this fiscal year."The Postal Service is holding on for dear life, and unless Congress and the White House provide meaningful relief in the next stimulus bill, the Postal Service could cease to exist," Carolyn Maloney, a New York Democrat who is chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, observed during Brennan's testimony.Our romantic attachment to letters from far away, birthday cards and exotic stamps aside, why not just use the coronavirus-crisis to finally put the Postal Service out of its misery and rely on email and private carriers instead? Why do we keep subsidizing a losing enterprise long since eclipsed by technological innovation?After all, the Postal Service has been struggling for a long time. Unlike private companies, it can't pick and choose its customers. The law requires it to operate everywhere in the country, and it does. It has nearly 500,000 employees and the nation's largest domestic retail network — bigger than McDonald's Corp., Starbucks Corp. and Walmart Inc. combined. It operates 34,000 facilities and 232,000 vehicles. That's expensive; the Postal Service's payroll alone is about $157 million a day.Before the coronavirus outbreak, the Postal Service was processing and delivering about 182 million pieces of first-class mail each day at the bargain rate of 55 cents a letter. But a federal agency, not the Postal Service, decides whether or not postage rates can rise — which hamstrings the service's ability to fund itself more robustly. (Contrary to popular belief, the Postal Service hasn't traditionally received taxpayer funding for its operating expenses and pays its way by selling postage and other products and services.) Federal overseers also dictate how many days a week the mail has to be delivered and how many post offices have to remain open.In a press briefing last week, President Donald Trump offered a diagnosis of what ails the Postal Service. Its demise is due to "these Internet companies that give their stuff to the Postal Service — packages." Yeah, but no. The president's critique stems from his long-running vendetta against Amazon.com Inc., a large customer of the Postal Service. Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post, whose coverage the president resents and, well, you get it. This may weirdly wind up informing how much support the federal government provides the Postal Service as it lies on its deathbed, but singling out package delivery as the force dragging the service down is wildly ill-informed.Mail delivery, in fact, remains the lifeblood of the Postal Service, and it has been withering for years: 142.6 billion pieces of mail were delivered in 2019, compared with 216 billion pieces in 2006, which turned out to be a peak year. While e-commerce has given a handsome revenue boost to the Postal Service because of a jump in package deliveries, that hasn't been nearly enough money to right the ship — packages still remain a relatively small part of what mail carriers deliver.In its semiannual report to Congress last fall, long before the coronavirus emerged, the Postal Service described its financial situation as dire. It recorded a net loss of $3.9 billion in fiscal 2018, following net losses of $18.9 billion for the fiscal years 2014 through 2017. A big chunk of those losses are due to a mandate from Congress that the service prefunds future retiree health benefits for its employees — a requirement that many other public and private entities don't have to live with.For most of its history, the Postal Service believed that demand for its mail services would grow alongside the country's population boom. And demand followed that script. Until it didn't. Email and other services created an end-run that nobody anticipated when the Postal Service's business model was invented. Time and crises have since undermined it even further.But simply pulling the plug on the Postal Service isn't the answer. It still provides a vital lifeline to often unwired rural communities around the country, and older Americans depend upon it more than millennials and other younger correspondents. Those lithe private competitors – FedEx Corp., United Parcel Service Inc. and Amazon – still rely on the Postal Service to ship packages to the unprofitable "last mile" destinations their own services don't reach. Households that operate small businesses often depend on the Postal Service's package delivery as well.The Postal Service's reach and its broad network of experienced, committed employees are assets, not liabilities. The network just needs to be reconfigured and repurposed, in some wrenching ways given how the coronavirus may permanently alter how consumers transact. The service should get more control over how much it charges for its services, how many people it employs and how easily it can innovate. Many post offices may have to be closed, but others could be reconfigured to also provide banking and licensing services if and when the world normalizes.Reimagine the Postal Service. But don't simply kill it.This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Timothy L. O'Brien is a senior columnist for Bloomberg Opinion.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
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