Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday he was ‘disappointed’ with the stimulus bill passed by the US Senate on Wednesday night, and called the actions of the Senate ‘irresponsible’ and ‘reckless’.
The $2tn package that passed the Senate woefully neglects New York, according to Cuomo, who said it allocated $5bn in aid to the state, earmarked only for Covid-19 expenses. The funds do nothing to address the $10bn-$15bn in lost revenue New York expects to incur because of the crisis, he said.
The president was slow to address the pandemic that is plunging the US into recession but could an economic bounceback come in time to aid his re-election hopes
$15m reward for information leading to president’s capture
William Barr alleges plot involving Farc guerrilla faction
The US has charged the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, and 14 members of his inner circle with drug trafficking, “narco-terrorism”, corruption and money laundering, and offered a $15m reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture and prosecution.
Unveiling the indictment, the attorney general, William Barr, said the Venezuelan leadership collaborated with a dissident faction of the former Colombian guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or Farc, operating on the Colombian-Venezuelan border, which Barr described as an “extremely violent terrorist organization”.
As the reality of the coronavirus crisis took hold in the US, Donald Trump’s Facebook campaign remained focused on a different “crisis” – the supposed threat of immigrants entering the US through the southern border.
Prototype of revolutionary running device being worked on by scientists at US university
A wearable spring-based contraption that attaches to the legs has the potential to boost human running speeds by 50%, according to researchers who hope to build the first prototype over the next year.
Scientists came up with the concept after computer models showed that it was possible to dramatically increase the amount of energy people put into each running step by enabling them to do work when their feet are in the air.
Levinson disappeared 13 years ago after being sent on a mission to Kish island by CIA analysts who had no authority to do so
Robert Levinson, a former FBI agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007, died in Iranian custody, according to a statement from his family.
The statement said Levinson’s family received the news from US officials but did not know how or when he died, only that his death preceded the coronavirus outbreak that has ravaged Iran.
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Louisiana governor John Bel Edwards updated reporters on a major spike in the Covid-19 death toll and contraction rate in the state, which remains a major coronavirus hotspot.
There are now 1,975 confirmed cases, a day-on-day increase of 407, and 65 deaths, a day-on-day increase of 19.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said in a briefing on Wednesday that 1 million people have filed for unemployment in the state since March 13th.
Gov @GavinNewsom says 1 million Californians have filed for unemployment since March 13. For context, CA usually gets 2500 claims a day, or about 22,500 in the 9 business days since 3/13. Instead: *one million.*#coronavirus#COVID19
Ranger in Canadian Rockies says video she captured was ‘something everybody needed’ in a time of isolation
On a bright spring day, a hulking grizzly bear named Boo emerged from his winter den, shaking a dusting of snow from his thick coat as he looked around groggily.
The moment was filmed in a remarkable viral video – which also captures the elated reaction of one of the bear’s closest humans, the manager of grizzly refuge in the Canadian Rockies.
Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael say they’ve “agreed the need form a strong, stable government” in Ireland as the number of confirmed cases in the country rises by 235 to 1,564. Ireland’s health department has also confirmed two more deaths, bringing the total number to nine.
The Irish general election earlier this year resulted in an almost tied result with Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael dominating. None won enough seats to form a government by itself and numerous rounds of talks between parties have failed to result in an agreement to form a coalition government. The statement reads:
Both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael met this afternoon and had a productive meeting. They both agree the need to form a strong stable government that will help Ireland recover post Covid-19.
They are working to develop a programme for government that provides stability and majority support in the Dáil. They will meet again over the coming days and will both continue to reach out and engage with other parties.
Andy Burnham, a former UK health secretary and now the mayor of Greater Manchester in the north of England, says he is taking legal advice on whether firms forcing employees to work without adequate protection and not observing guidance to keep them two metres apart are breaking the law.
After a conference call with Greater Manchester MPs, he tweeted:
... I am taking legal advice about whether @gmpolice or other GM agencies can take enforcement action against companies which are exposing their employees in this way. If you would like to make a confidential report, please do so using: the.mayor@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk 2/2
Following government instructions to stay at home, the move to accommodate hundreds of homeless people in hotel rooms is a recognition of the vulnerability of many rough sleepers and homeless people in shared accommodation spaces, and their need for support and a safe place to stay at this difficult time.
US tsunami warning centre says quake capable of generating destructive wave
A 7.5-magnitude earthquake hit off Russia’s Kuril Islands on Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said, prompting a tsunami warning.
The quake hit at a depth of 59km (37 miles), around 1,400km north-east of the Japanese city of Sapporo, USGS added. There were no early reports of casualties.
Leaders in California are scrambling to prepare the state amid a shortage of hospital beds, limited access to masks and ventilators and a patchwork approach to testing, as a surge of cases in New York provides a warning of how quickly the coronavirus crisis could spiral out of control.
The number of cases in New York state had soared by Tuesday morning, with 25,665 confirmed infected and 210 deaths. “We are now, in New York City, the epicenter of this crisis in the United States of America,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said Sunday. “The worst is yet to come.”
Exactly a month after Donald Trump tweeted that the US had the coronavirus outbreak “very much under control”, the World Health Organization delivered a stark and jarring reality check: America faces being the centre of a pandemic that has paralysed much of the world.
Director says in new memoir that not raising his adopted daughter after abuse allegations – which he denies – was ‘one of the saddest things’ of his life
Woody Allen has written that he “would welcome Dylan [Farrow] with open arms if she’d ever want to reach out”, in his recently published memoir Apropos of Nothing.
In extracts published in the New York Times, Allen writes: “One of the saddest things of my life was that I was deprived of the years of raising Dylan and could only dream about showing her Manhattan and the joys of Paris and Rome. To this day, Soon-Yi [Previn] and I would welcome Dylan with open arms if she’d ever want to reach out to us as Moses [Farrow] did, but so far that’s still only a dream.”
The president’s handling of the coronavirus crisis has been feeble. But that’s the beauty of setting an incredibly low bar for yourself – you can fail up
Just a few weeks ago, I was confident that Donald Trump’s days in the White House were numbered. The economy was tanking; coronavirus cases were soaring. And what was the president doing? Calling the coronavirus a “hoax” and mindlessly tweeting. On the same day, the Dow Jones plunged more than 2,000 points and Trump cheerfully retweeted a doctored photo of him playing a violin, remarking: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds good to me!” “Nero” immediately started trending.
Trump may be fiddling while the world burns, but, over the past week, he has sharply changed his tune. The guy who recently assured us that Covid-19 would “like a miracle … disappear” now insists that, actually, he knew it was “a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic”. Having realised he can’t just bluster coronavirus away, Trump has rewritten the past, adopted a newly sombre tone and reinvented himself as a “wartime” president. Last Monday, Trump finally admitted the gravity of the situation and announced a 15-day plan to “slow the spread” of the virus.
The United States could become the new centre of the global coronavirus pandemic, according to the World Health Organization, which said case numbers were rising quickly there even asDonald Trump talked of re-opening the country for business.
“We are now seeing a very large acceleration in cases in the US. So it does have that potential [to become the centre of the pandemic],” the WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.
Deaths jump in Spain; France tightens lockdown; Afghanistan appeals for help amid new cases; South Africa prepares for lockdown. Follow the latest updates
Thailand’s leader said on Tuesday he would invoke sweeping emergency powers in the face of surging coronavirus infections, Reuters reports.
In a sign of toughening official action a man was arrested over allegations of creating panic on social media.
Thailand and neighbouring Cambodia were among Southeast Asian countries accused by New York-based Human Rights Watch of using the pandemic to crack down on criticism. Both countries reject the accusations and say their measures are needed to keep order and combat disinformation.
The UK’s supreme court has adapted to physical distancing by holding its first remote, live hearing on Tuesday morning, reports my colleague Owen Bowcott.
The building in Westminster is closed but the case is being conducted via video links and can be watched online. The judges are determined that justice should be transparent even in times of pandemic.
The first appeal using the technology is the case of Fowler v Commissioners for Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, dealing with the intricacies of the UK-South Africa Double Taxation Treaty.
The coronavirus pandemic has brought urgency to the defining political question of our age: how to distribute risk. As with the climate crisis, neoliberal capitalism is proving particularly ill-suited to this.
Like global warming, but in close-up and fast-forward, the Covid-19 outbreak shows how lives are lost or saved depending on a government’s propensity to acknowledge risk, act rapidly to contain it, and share the consequences.
Covid-19 symptoms vary widely, and undertesting in many countries means that many people may have already had the coronavirus without having received a positive diagnosis. Is it possible to find out, and how should you behave if you think you may have been infected?
Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post use open letter to urge reversal of decision
Publishers of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have pleaded with the Chinese government not to expel their reporters, in an open letter published on Tuesday.