North America

(AP) --- The stage is set for November.

Barring unforeseen disaster, Joe Biden will represent the Democratic Party against President Donald Trump this fall, the former vice president’s place on the general election ballot cemented Wednesday by Bernie Sanders’ decision to end his campaign.

Biden likely won’t secure the number of delegates needed to clinch the nomination until June. But without any Democratic rivals left, a general election campaign that will almost certainly be the most expensive and among the nastiest in U.S. history is underway.

NEW YORK (AP) — First, it was the media that was at fault. Then, Democratic governors came under fire. China, President Barack Obama and federal watchdogs have all had a turn in the crosshairs. And now it’s the World Health Organization that’s to blame.

President Donald Trump is falling back on a familiar political strategy as he grapples with the coronavirus pandemic: deflect, deny and direct blame elsewhere.

NEW YORK (AP) — Even as coronavirus deaths mount across Europe and New York, the U.S. and other countries are starting to contemplate an exit strategy and thinking about a staggered and carefully calibrated easing of restrictions designed to curb the scourge.

“To end the confinement, we’re not going to go from black to white; we’re going to go from black to gray,” top French epidemiologist Jean-François Delfraissy said in a radio interview.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Strategic National Stockpile is nearly out of the N95 respirators, surgical masks, face, shields, gowns and other medical supplies desperately needed to protect front-line medical workers treating coronavirus patients.

The Department of Health and Human Services told the Associated Press Wednesday that the federal stockpile was in the process of deploying all remaining personal protective equipment in its inventory.

As the coronavirus tightens its grip across the country, it is cutting a particularly devastating swath through an already vulnerable population — black Americans.

Democratic lawmakers and community leaders in cities hard-hit by the pandemic have been sounding the alarm over what they see as a disturbing trend of the virus killing African Americans at a higher rate, along with a lack of overall information about the race of victims as the nation’s death toll mounts.

08 April 2020; MEMO: In spite of shortages in protective equipment including face masks in the US, putting both health workers and patients at risk, the Department of Defence has supplied the Israeli army with up to one million masks in an effort to help in its fight against coronavirus.

Washington, Apr 8 (PTI) An Indian American-owned pharma firm has pledged to donate 3.4 million Hydroxychloroquine Sulphate tablets to some of the key COVID-19 battleground states, including New York and Louisiana, joining the war against the dreaded coronavirus which by Tuesday had taken lives of more than 12,800 people in the US alone.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 8 (APP): A spokesman of the Chinese Mission to the UN has rejected Indian media reports that China, during its presidency of the Security Council in March, had ignored Pakistan’s call for urgent consideration of the situation in Indian occupied Kashmir at the 15-member body, saying Beijing’s position on the decades-old dispute remains unchanged.

“The question of Kashmir remains high on the Council’s agenda,” the spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 08 (APP): UN human rights experts have appealed to States to boost child protection measures for safeguarding the welfare of millions of children worldwide who may be more exposed to violence, sale, trafficking, sexual abuse and exploitation during the coronavirus pandemic.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government’s massive effort to nurse the economy through the coronavirus crisis was billed as a send-money-and-don’t-sweat-the-details flood of cash to people and businesses in a $22 trillion system that has ground to a halt.

So far, the checks are not in the mail.

From technological glitches to confusion over the fine points of policy, the delays are mounting. The federal government’s muddled response risks deepening and lengthening a recession already historic for the speed of its onset.