Friday, Jun 19th
Last update08:51:33 AM GMT
The deepening economic slump was underscored by other data on Friday that showed production at industries collapsed last month at its deepest pace in 101 years. The reports, combined with a historic 20.5 million job losses in April, buttressed Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s warning on Wednesday of an “extended period” of weak growth and stagnant incomes.
The number of people who have died of the coronavirus in the US has now topped 80,000, while the number of cases in the country hits 1.3 million.
On Sunday, the death toll reached 80,308, and it has been revealed nursing home residents and workers now account for a third of these fatalities.
A New York Times database shows that at least 25,600 residents and workers at US nursing homes or long-term care facilities for the elderly have died from coronavirus as of Saturday.
More than 143,000 people were infected with coronavirus at about 7,500 facilities, according to statistics gathered by the newspaper.
Defying congressional oversight concerns, U.S. President Donald Trump’s acting director of national intelligence on Friday unveiled organizational changes to his agency.
Richard Grenell, who is expected to be replaced in coming months by Trump’s full-time nominee, said the changes were the result of a lengthy review and would make more efficient use of funds and enhance intelligence support for the Pentagon.
Grenell, a Trump loyalist who also serves as U.S. ambassador to Germany, proceeded with the reorganization after rebuffing a request last month for details of changes he planned from the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Representative Adam Schiff.
Barack Obama has reportedly said the “rule of law is at risk” in the US, after the justice department said it would drop its case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn.
In remarks likely to enrage Donald Trump, Obama also reportedly labeled the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak “an absolute chaotic disaster”.
Flynn, a retired general, pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about conversations with the Russian ambassador about sanctions over election interference, which were levied by Obama at the end of his presidency.
Director Vic Reynolds said that video, which has spread widely on social media, was a key piece of evidence in the case in which two white men are seen chasing Arbery down on a residential street in southern Georgia.
He said it took 36 hours from the time the bureau began assisting in the probe to arrest the father and son, Gregory and Travis McMichael, who are accused of shooting Arbery, who was black. There were "some things that needed to be done" in the investigation that had been led by Atlantic Judicial Circuit District Attorney Tom Durden since April 14, he said.
The Justice Department on Thursday said it is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that became a rallying cry for Trump and his supporters in attacking the FBI's Russia investigation.
The move is a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the last three years had maintained that Flynn had lied to the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in a January 2017 interview. Flynn himself admitted as much, and became a key cooperator for Mueller as he investigated ties between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign.
In court documents being filed Thursday, the Justice Department said it is dropping the case “after a considered review of all the facts and circumstances of this case, including newly discovered and disclosed information.” The documents were obtained by The Associated Press.
The coronavirus response being spearheaded by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has relied in part on volunteers from consulting and private equity firms with little expertise in the tasks to which they were assigned, exacerbating chronic problems in obtaining supplies for hospitals and other needs, according to numerous government officials and a volunteer involved in the effort.
About two dozen employees from Boston Consulting Group, Insight, McKinsey and other firms have volunteered their time - some on paid vacation leave from their jobs and others without pay - to aid the Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to administration officials and others familiar with the arrangement.
Fauci is most concerned that the United States will be put to the test this fall and winter by a second wave of COVID-19 if the country does not blunt the infection rate by the summer.
“Shame on us if we don't have enough tests by the time this so-called return might occur in the fall and winter,” he says, advising that the U.S. needs to make sure we not only have an adequate supply of tests available before a second wave hits, but also a system for getting those tests to the people who most need them.
“I don't think there's a chance that this virus is just going to disappear,” he says. “It's going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge.” As such, Fauci says the U.S. should also focus this summer on properly reinforcing the nation’s health care system, ensuring the availability of hospital beds, ventilators, and personal protective equipment for health care workers.
An EU-led fundraising extravaganza for Covid-19 vaccines, treatments and diagnostics fell just short of the European Commission's €7.5 billion goal on Monday — even after organizers decided to count money already spent or allocated.
But an even bigger challenge for world leaders could be keeping a pledge to fight the pandemic without fighting each other.
Russia and the United States, onetime superpower rivals in science as well as politics, pointedly did not participate, highlighting the real risk that some wealthy countries could look to control vaccines or treatments to benefit their own citizens first.
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