North America

NEW YORK (AP) — Americans braced for what the nation’s top doctor warned Sunday would be “the hardest and saddest week” of their lives while Britain assumed the unwelcome mantle of deadliest coronavirus hot spot in Europe after a record 24-hour jump in deaths that surpassed even hard-hit Italy’s.

Britain’s own prime minister, Boris Johnson, was hospitalized, 10 days after testing positive for COVID-19 in what his office described as a “precautionary step.”

NEW YORK, Apr 5 (APP): Members of official tribunals, set up in Assam to decide who was an Indian citizen and who was not, have said they felt pressured to declare Muslims non-citizens as the government seeks to expel illegal migrants, according to a dispatch published in The New York Times Saturday.

5 April 2020; AFP: A gang battle in Mexico has left at least 19 people dead in the northern state of Chihuahua, officials said Saturday.

At least five armed clashes have occurred in the Madera community so far this year, local authorities have said.

"The state attorney general, in conjunction with the public safety office and Mexican Army, launched an operation to investigate and locate armed groups that staged a confrontation that left 19 people dead yesterday in the town of Madera," authorities said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A planned $1 billion cut in U.S. aid to Afghanistan would come from funds for Afghan security forces, according to three U.S. sources, a step experts said would undercut both Kabul’s ability to fight the Taliban and its leverage to negotiate a peace deal with them.

Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers stand guard at a check point near the Bagram Airbase north of Kabul, Afghanistan April 2, 2020. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani

NEW YORK, Apr 5 (NNN-XINHUA) – A donation of 1,000 ventilators arrived in New York City on Saturday from China, said New York Governor, Andrew Cuomo.

“We finally got some good news today,” said the governor on Twitter. “The Chinese government helped facilitate a donation of 1,000 ventilators that will arrive in JFK (Airport) today (yesterday).”

Both on Twitter and at a press briefing on Saturday, Cuomo expressed thanks to Chinese business magnates and Alibaba co-founders, Jack Ma and Joe Tsai, Jack Ma Foundation and The Joe and Clara Tsai Foundation.

MEXICO CITY, Apr 5 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) – At least 19 people were killed and one wounded, in a confrontation between alleged criminal groups in Mexico’s northern state of Chihuahua, authorities said.

The shootout was first reported at 6:35 p.m. local time (0030 GMT) on Friday, in the town of Chuhuichupa, in the municipality of Madera in western Chihuahua, the state attorney general’s office said in a statement.

Local police and soldiers who responded to the report found 18 people dead at the scene and two more injured, one of whom died later at hospital.

NEW YORK, Apr 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) – The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 300,000 by 3:40 p.m. local time Saturday (1940 GMT), according to the Centre for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The fresh figure reached 300,915 with 8,162 deaths, according to the CSSE.

The state of New York, which suffered the most in the country, recorded 113,806 cases and 3,565 fatalities. Other states with over 10,000 cases include New Jersey, Michigan, California, Louisiana, Florida, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.

GUATEMALA CITY (Reuters) - Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei has banned travel between the different departments of the Central American country before and during Easter to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.

The ban comes as Guatemalans living in large cities were preparing to head home to celebrate Easter with family members in the countryside, many of them older and more vulnerable.

Giammattei also announced a ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol that will take effect on Sunday afternoon and end on April 12.

WASHINGTON, April 4 (Xinhua) -- A new measure of global uncertainty around the coronavirus has surged to a record high, according to a blog post released by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Saturday.

"The coronavirus continues to spread. As more countries impose quarantines and social distancing, the fear of contagion and income losses is increasing uncertainty around the world," Hites Ahir and Davide Furceri, officials at the IMF's Research Department, and Nicholas Bloom, a professor of economics at Stanford University, wrote in the blog post.

NEW YORK, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States topped 300,000 by 3:40 p.m. local time Saturday (1940 GMT), according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The fresh figure reached 300,915 with 8,162 deaths, according to the CSSE.

A bus driver wearing a face mask steers in the Brooklyn borough of New York, the United States, on April 3, 2020. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)