The Food and Drug Administration announced Tuesday that it has approved the first authorized at-home coronavirus test. The test will be made available first to health care workers and first responders, and is expected to go on sale for consumers in most states within weeks.... [Read Full Story]
Walt Disney Co., the world’s largest entertainment company, will be furloughing more than 100,000 employees this week. It was reported Monday that the move makes nearly half its workforce eligible for unemployment while still protecting executive bonuses.... [Read Full Story]
Shake Shack is returning the money it received from the government’s stimulus loans program aimed at saving small businesses ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic. Shake Shack received $10 million in forgivable loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which kicked off on April 3. The plan was meant to help small businesses pay employees during the pandemic. However, the fund ran out of money on Thursday.... [Read Full Story]
A police officer was killed and two others were injured in what authorities described as an “ambush” in San Marcos, Texas. Officials said the shooting took place after officers responded to a 6:05 p.m. domestic disturbance call at an apartment complex, the San Marcos Police Department said in a statement. “During the course of their response, the suspect ambushed the officers with a rifle,” it said. A suspect apparently died for a self-inflicted gunshot, police said.... [Read Full Story]
Sixteen people, including a police officer, are dead in Nova Scotia following the worst shooting rampage in Canadian history. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said Sunday that the suspected shooter was also dead, identified as 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman. Police said he was believed to be wearing an RCMP uniform at one point, but he was not employed by RCMP. The motive is unknown.... [Read Full Story]
On Thursday, President Trump announced the White House’s guidelines for beginning to reopen the country, something he says was reached with input from medical experts and scientists. “We are not opening all at once, but one, careful step at a time,” Mr. Trump said, adding that states will reopen their economies at different times. ... [Read Full Story]
Seven Midwestern governors announced on Thursday that they will coordinate on reopening their state economies amid the coronavirus pandemic, following similar agreements made in the Northeast and on the West Coast. This latest agreement includes Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Kentucky.... [Read Full Story]
Government relief checks began arriving in Americans’ bank accounts on Wednesday, as the economic damage to the U.S. from the coronavirus pandemic deepened. Sluggish sales at reopened stores in Europe and China emphasized that business will not recovery immediately once the crisis eases.... [Read Full Story]
Retail sales plunged nearly 9% in March, marking the largest one-month drop in U.S. retail sales since the U.S. Department of Commerce began keeping records in 1992. A preliminary report from the Department of Commerce showed an 8.7% drop, or $483.1 billion, in sales, as the coronavirus pandemic worsened across the country.The drop was a 6.2% decrease from the same time in 2019.... [Read Full Story]
The Trump administration said it will halt funding to the World Health Organization as it evaluates the agency’s “role in severely mismanaging” the coronavirus pandemic.... [Read Full Story]
New York City’s novel coronavirus death toll reached over 10,000 on Tuesday, after the Health Department included those who died without an official test. The Health Department estimated that the inclusion adds 3,778 New York City dwellers lost their lives to the fatal virus. The new count is 57 percent higher than reported just hours earlier.... [Read Full Story]
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday. that seven Northeast states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts — are joining forces to create a reopening plan.... [Read Full Story]
In a joint livestream on Monday, Senator Bernie Sanders officially endorsed former vice-president Joe Biden for president. Sanders said, “Today, I am asking all Americans, I’m asking every Democrat, I’m asking every independent, I’m asking a lot of Republicans, to come together in this campaign to support your candidacy, to make certain that we defeat somebody who I believe — and I’m speaking just for myself now — is the most dangerous president in the modern history of this country.”... [Read Full Story]
On Sunday, public health officials discussed the possibility of partially reopening parts of the economy from government-mandated lockdowns as soon as next month, despite U.S. coronavirus infection and death totals continuing to climb. As of Sunday morning, there are more than 530,000 confirmed infections in the United States – accounting for roughly 30% of the more than 1.8 million people infected around the world. More than 20,000 Americans and more than 110,000 people globally have died.... [Read Full Story]
Tornadoes struck northern Louisiana on Sunday afternoon, causing damage to nearly two dozen homes and an airport, as a severe storm system passed through the South.... [Read Full Story]
California Governor Gavin Newsom stirred up controversy after announcing his state’s plan to send 500 ventilators to the national stockpile on Monday, in order to assist New York and other states that have been hit hardest by the novel coronavirus.... [Read Full Story]
The nation’s coronavirus outbreak epicenter logged its single deadliest day yet. Gov. Andrew Cuomo said that the state had its highest single-day death toll due to COVID-19, with 779 reported Tuesday, but the average number of hospitalizations has decreased over the past couple of days. Cuomo said Wednesday that dramatic action and social distancing is “making the difference” in the fight against the pandemic.... [Read Full Story]
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out of the 2020 Democratic presidential race on Wednesday. Former Vice President Joe Biden is now the party’s best chance to defeat President Donald Trump in November. Biden now has a clear path to the nomination, though the end of the primary is overshadowed by the global crisis of the coronavirus pandemic as it spread across the U.S.... [Read Full Story]
White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham is leaving that role to become First Lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and spokeswoman. President Donald Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany will replace Grisham as White House press secretary.... [Read Full Story]
Defense secretary Mark Esper confirmed Tuesday that he had accepted the resignation of Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas B. Modly after Modly called the aircraft carrier captain he fired last week “stupid” in an address to the ship’s crew.... [Read Full Story]
Authorities found the body of Maeve Kennedy Townsend McKean on Monday, five days after her canoe apparently capsized in the Chesapeake Bay. McKean, 40, the daughter of former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend and granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, went missing late Thursday afternoon along with her son 8-year-old son, Gideon.... [Read Full Story]
President Donald Trump said Monday that he granted New York Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s request to treat novel coronavirus patients on a hospital ship docked off of Manhattan.... [Read Full Story]
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was hospitalized Sunday, 10 days after testing positive for coronavirus. Johnson was admitted “for tests” after displaying “persistent symptoms,” according to a press release from his office. Johnson was admitted to an unnamed London hospital “on the advice of his doctor,” the release explained. The statement also said the hospitalization is a “precautionary step.”... [Read Full Story]
Federal officials and NYC’s Bronx Zoo said on Sunday that a tiger at the zoo has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, in what is believed to be the first known infection in an animal in the U.S. or a tiger anywhere.... [Read Full Story]
Two cruise ships holding coronavirus patients aboard for two weeks after being turned away from South American ports were allowed to dock in Florida on Thursday. The Zaandam and a sister ship sent to help it, the Rotterdam, were both given permission to disembark passengers at Port Everglades after days of negotiation with local officials. The final agreement was reached on Thursday afternoon between local, state and federal officials and Carnival Corp., which owns the Zaandam and the Rotterdam, said Broward County officials and Holland America, the company that operates the ships.... [Read Full Story]
A record-breaking 6,648,000 people filed for unemployment in the week ending March 28 amid the novel coronavirus pandemic, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday. COVID-19 has slammed the U.S. economy, forcing thousands of businesses to shut down amid government-mandated stay-in-place orders.... [Read Full Story]
The U.S. recorded 681 deaths on Wednesday, its worst day since the coronavirus outbreak began. More than 200,000 infections have been reported, and public health officials are considering recommending that more Americans wear face masks. “Even if you do wear a mask, it can’t be at the expense of social distancing,” Surgeon General Jerome Adams said, adding that higher-level N95 masks would not be necessary. ... [Read Full Story]
U.S. stocks fell Wednesday amid reports on job losses and the potential for as many as 200,000 deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 973.65 points, or 4.44 percent, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite both closed down 4.41 percent.... [Read Full Story]
Coronavirus Task Force response coordinator Deborah Birx said during a Coronavirus Task Force Briefing that the White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 Americans will die from coronavirus if “full mitigation” measures are taken. Without social distancing, deaths could be much higher, the White House projects.... [Read Full Story]
New York City’s efforts are continuing to find places to build medical facilities in order to ease the burden on hospitals caused by coronavirus. The city is set to lease thousands of hotel rooms, and in some cases, entire hotels. Mayor Bill de Blasio said that federal authorities are working to rent hotel rooms to serve as non-intensive care facilities for Covid-19 patients and others. ... [Read Full Story]
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