Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
Executive order says US will oppose any international effort to bar it from removing chunks of moon, Mars or elsewhere in space
The world may be racked by the coronavirus, but Donald Trump has less earthly concerns on his mind, too, after signing an executive order encouraging the US to mine the moon for minerals.
The executive order makes clear that the US doesn’t view space as a “global commons”, opening the way for the mining of the moon without any sort of international treaty.
New York suffered the highest single-day increase in its death toll from coronavirus, governor Andrew Cuomo reported on Tuesday, even as those in the state were still under orders to stay at home.
The governor noted the three-day average of hospitalizations was down, indicating the state is “reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalizations”.
Stock market crash strips billionaire status from 267 of world’s richest people in the annual list
Donald Trump lost an estimated $1bn of his paper fortune in the past month as the coronavirus lockdown forced the closure of offices, shopping centres, hotels and golf courses he owns.
The US president’s fortune has fallen from an estimated $3.1bn (£2.5bn) on 1 March to $2.1bn on 18 March (at the height of stock market panic caused by the coronavirus pandemic) according to Forbes magazine’s annual billionaires list.
In court filing, Israeli spyware company says it does not operate technology it provides
An Israeli spyware company that has been accused by WhatsApp of hacking 1,400 of its users, including journalists, human rights activists, and diplomatic officials, has blamed its government clients for the alleged abuses, according to court documents.
NSO Group – whose technology is reported to have been used against dozens of targets including Pakistani intelligence officials, Indian journalists and exiled Rwandan political activists – also claimed in legal documents that the lawsuit brought against the company by WhatsApp threatened to infringe on its clients’ “national security and foreign policy concerns”.
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Joe Biden said he would like Bernie Sanders to be “part of the journey,” although not his running mate, if he wins the Democratic nomination.
Biden has a significant lead in the delegate count, but Sanders remains in the race, despite an increasingly narrow path to the nomination.
President Trump said he had a friendly phone conversation with former Vice President Joe Biden to talk about the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. Biden told @craigmelvin in a one-on-one interview that he doesn't want the November election delayed. pic.twitter.com/DICLhBafTE
The White House has confirmed Stephanie Grisham is leaving her role as press secretary to rejoin the first lady’s team.
“My replacements will be announced in the coming days and I will stay in the West Wing to help with a smooth transition for as long as needed,” Grisham said in a statement released by the White House.
A US woman who claims she was trafficked to the UK as a teenager to have sex with Prince Andrew is in hospital, where she has been tested for Covid-19.
Virginia Giuffre said on Twitter on Tuesday: “I’m so scared right now, having trouble breathing, fever & cough. Getting tested for Covid-19 praying it’s not positive.”
Application filed in US ranges from awards to clothing to a health website
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex appear to be planning a wide-ranging non-profit empire, including websites, films and their own awards, according to trademark applications lodged in the US under the name of Archewell.
The first clear indications of how Harry and Meghan intend to rebrand themselves as non-working royals are revealed in an extensive list published on the United States Patent and Trademark Office website.
Workers at Amazon’s warehouse and shipping facilities say they fear going to work amid the coronavirus outbreak, and called on the company to do more to improve safety.
“We have no more wipes and hand sanitizer. We aren’t provided masks, don’t have the proper gloves, and not everything is being sanitized and cleaned before it comes to use,” said one Amazon warehouse associate in Phoenix, Arizona.
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Dr Birx shared a personal story about her granddaughter’s current high fever and her inability to visit. Earlier, Trump accidentally referred to her “grandson”.
“I’m sure it’s roseola or something,” Birx says of her 10-month-old granddaughter’s high fever.
She doubts it’s coronavirus because her family is self-isolating.
“No one is allowed into that house or out of that house because there’s too much precious cargo inside,” Birx says https://t.co/zvWlrulgbf
More details from the Guardian’s Sam Levine on the Wisconsin election:
The US supreme court ruled 5-4 that Wisconsin voters have to have their mail-in ballots postmarked by 7 April, election day, in order to have them counted in the state’s closely watched election. The deadline for election officials to receive the ballot is 13 April. The decision, which came shortly after the state supreme court ordered the election to move forward on Tuesday, ends days of legal fighting over the deadline for receiving absentee ballots in the state.
While I do not doubt the good faith of my colleagues, the court’s order, I fear, will result in massive disenfranchisement. A voter cannot deliver for postmarking a ballot she has not received. The question here is whether tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens can vote safely in the midst of a pandemic.”
The Pentagon leadership crisis over a US aircraft carrier has intensified after the acting navy secretary called the ship’s ousted captain “too naive or too stupid” to be in command.
There were calls from Congress and former officers for Thomas Modly to resign after an audio recording surfaced of a speech he gave to the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, in which he denigrated the commander he had fired for having circulated a memo calling for more help for his crew, who had been stricken by a coronavirus outbreak onboard.
Multimillion dollar scheme involved kickbacks to Fifa officials for broadcast rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cup
Two former senior executives at Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox corporation have been indicted over their alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving kickbacks to Fifa officials in exchange for broadcast and marketing rights to some of the world’s biggest football tournaments.
The US Department of Justice announced on Monday that Hernan Lopez, the former chief executive of Fox International Channels and Carlos Martinez, the former president of Fox Latin America, have been charged with wire fraud and money laundering offenses, marking another series of indictments in the US government’s sprawling investigation of corruption in world football.
The Trump administration has agreed a deal with the US manufacturer 3M to import more than 166m respirators from China over the next three months and allow 3M to continue exporting its US-made respirators.
The agreement breaks a deadlock which resulted in Washington stopping nearly three million of the specialized masks from being exported to Ontario, stirring fears that Canada’s most populous province would run out of supplies for medical staff battling coronavirus by the end of the week.
The New York governor has announced he is doubling the fine for violating his ‘stay at home’ order to $1,000 after ‘unacceptable laxness’ over the weekend. ‘If I can’t convince you to show discipline for yourself, then show discipline for other people,’ Andrew Cuomo told rule-breakers
A group of 24 senior diplomats and defence officials, including four former Nato secretary generals, have urged Donald Trump to save “potentially hundreds of thousands of lives” across the Middle East by easing medical and humanitarian sanctions on Iran.
Just back to Donald Trump’s marathon press conference and he is fielding questions on the US naval commander who was fired over his coronavirus memo, suggesting he doesn’t think his life should be “destroyed” as a result, Sam Levin writes:
He made a mistake. He shouldn’t be sending letter. He’s the captain … you don’t send letters and then it leaks into a newspaper. I may get involved ...If I can help two good people, I’m going to help him
The continued closure of car plants across Europe and North America will cost the auto industry more than $100bn (£82bn) in lost revenues if the shutdown lasts until the end of April.
All major European carmakers have suspended production because of disruption caused by the spread of the coronavirus and if this continues as expected until the end of April, this will account for $66bn (£54bn) in lost sales in Europe, or 2.6m cars. In North America this will account for 2m cars, and lost sales of about $52bn (£42bn).
Donald Trump fired Michael Atkinson, a pivotal figure in his impeachment last year, on Friday
The ousted US inspector general of the intelligence community has said he is “disappointed and saddened” that Donald Trump fired him, but he also encouraged other inspectors general to continue to speak out when they are aware of wrongdoing.
The US president notified Congress late on Friday evening that he intended to fire Michael Atkinson, a pivotal figure in his impeachment last year, because he had lost confidence in him. On Saturday, Trump made it clear that the move had been retaliatory, telling reporters that Atkinson was a “disgrace” and had done “a terrible job” because he had provided an anonymous whistleblower complaint to Congress – a move that was required by law.
Maeve McKean, 40, and son Gideon, eight, are missing
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend speaks of ‘profound sadness’
Divers and boats will on Sunday resume their search in the Chesapeake Bay for the bodies of the daughter and a grandson of former Maryland lieutenant governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, Maryland police said.
Mike Pompeo and Mark Esper agreed to proceed with US withdrawal of Open Skies Treaty despite pandemic, sources say
The Trump administration is determined to withdraw from a 28-year-old treaty intended to reduce the risk of an accidental war between the west and Russia by allowing reconnaissance flights over each other’s territory.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, which has put off a full national security council (NSC) meeting on the Open Skies Treaty (OST), the secretary of defence, Mark Esper, and secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, have agreed to proceed with a US exit, according to two sources familiar with administration planning.