North America

ATLANTA (AP) — Spain called off the Running of the Bulls in July, the U.S. scrapped the national spelling bee in June and Germany canceled Oktoberfest five months away, making it clear Tuesday that the effort to beat back the coronavirus and return to normal could be a long and dispiriting process.

Amid growing impatience over the shutdowns that have thrown tens of millions out of work, European countries continued to reopen in stages, while in the U.S., one state after another — mostly ones led by Republican governors — began taking steps to get back to business.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Reopening the U.S. economy is complicated by some troubling scientific questions about the new coronavirus that go beyond the logistics of whether enough tests are available.

In an ideal world, we’d get vaccinated and then get back to normal. But, despite unprecedented efforts, no vaccine will be ready any time soon.

“We’re all going to be wearing masks for a while,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, infectious diseases chief at Massachusetts General Hospital, predicted during a podcast with the Journal of the American Medical Association.

21 April 2020; MEMO: US President Donald Trump has acknowledged that his administration is considering stopping all imports of crude oil from Saudi Arabia in an effort to save the American oil industry.

When asked by reporters at his daily press conference about requests from Republican lawmakers to block Saudi oil shipments, Trump replied, “Well, I’ll look at it.” He said that he had heard of the proposal before the media session. “We certainly have plenty of oil, so I’ll take a look at it,” he added.

New York, Apr 21 (PTI) New York city, the financial capital of the world that has emerged as the new epicenter of the coronavirus in the US, is forming a new response team to address the growing incidents of harassment and discrimination against Asian-Americans in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 14,000 people have died in the city and over 200,000 people have contracted the deadly virus. The number of the coronavirus cases in the US has gone up to 787,370, while over 35,000 people have died from the disease.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said on Tuesday he thinks Republicans and Democrats have agreed on a fourth coronavirus spending bill, and that the Trump administration has also agreed to a national testing strategy.

“I believe we have a deal, and I believe we will pass it this afternoon at 4 p.m. (2000 GMT),” he told CNN. Schumer added that $125 billion of small business funds will go exclusively to the unbanked and ‘mom and pop’ stores and that hospitals will receive another $75 billion.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico has entered its most serious stage in the spread of the coronavirus, which the government calls “Phase 3,” as the spread of the virus is intensifying, Deputy Health Minister Hugo Lopez-Gatell said on Tuesday.

Mexico has registered 712 coronavirus deaths and 8,772 infections, with 511 new cases reported on Monday.

Lopez-Gatell said it was vital Mexicans followed government instructions to help the country’s health system.

LONDON, April 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Oil plunged below $5 a barrel as the coronavirus pandemic ravages global economies, threatening to erase an entire decade of demand growth, slashing thousands of jobs and wiping out hundreds of billions of dollars from company valuations.

Industrial and economic activity is grinding to a halt as governments around the globe extend shutdowns due to the swift spread of the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON, April 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — President Donald Trump said the United States would take advantage of the historic drop in oil prices to replenish its national strategic stockpile, pending approval by Congress.

“We are filling up our national petroleum reserves… You know, the strategic reserves,” Trump told reporters at his daily coronavirus press conference.

“And we are looking to put as much as 75 million barrels into the reserves themselves,” he added.

OTTAWA, April 21 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The death toll from the worst mass shooting in Canadian history rose to 19, including a police officer and the gunman, Canadian police said, adding that they expected to uncover more fatalities from the weekend massacre in Nova Scotia.

The gunman, who at one point masqueraded as a policeman and also painstakingly disguised his car to look like a police cruiser, shattered the peace of rural communities in the Atlantic province during a 12-hour rampage that started late on Saturday, authorities said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that juries in state criminal trials must be unanimous to convict a defendant, settling a quirk of constitutional law that had allowed divided votes to result in convictions in Louisiana and Oregon.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the court that the practice is inconsistent with the Constitution’s right to a jury trial and that it should be discarded as a vestige of Jim Crow laws in Louisiana and racial, ethnic and religious bigotry that led to its adoption in Oregon in the 1930s.