North America

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has held an unequivocal position about China and the coronavirus — several of them.

Trump initially praised China, then excoriated Beijing after it made unsubstantiated claims that the virus originated in the United States. Now, Trump is back to offering niceties.

The diverging messages have generated finger-pointing by both Beijing and Washington that is further destabilizing a critical relationship between countries with the two largest economies and militaries.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the new coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, states are increasingly pushing shutdown orders of their own.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 01 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has launched a new plan to counter the devastating socio-economic impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, calling on everyone to “act together to lessen the blow to people”.

“The new coronavirus disease is attacking societies at their core, claiming lives and people’s livelihoods”, he said Tuesday, pointing out that the potential longer-term effects on the global economy and individual countries are “dire”.

WASHINGTON, April 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The total US death toll from the coronavirus pandemic topped 4,000 early Wednesday, more than double the number from three days earlier, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University.

The number of deaths was 4,076 – more than twice the 2,010 recorded late Saturday, Johns Hopkins data showed.

More than 40 percent of recorded deaths nationally were in New York state, the Johns Hopkins data showed.

TIJUANA/CIUDAD JUAREZ (Mexico), April 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The world’s busiest land border has fallen quiet as restrictions to contain the coronavirus prevent millions of Mexicans from making daily trips north, including many who work in US businesses.

At least 4 million Mexicans residing in cities along the 3,144-km border have been hit hard by the restrictions on non-essential travel. The measures effectively invalidate visas allowing short crossings into US cities to visit family, get medical care or shop.  

WASHINGTON, April 1. /TASS/: US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette has held telephone talks on Tuesday with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, the press service of the US Department of Energy told TASS.

1 April 2020; AFP: Xerox on Tuesday dropped its unwelcomed bid to buy computer and printer maker HP for about $36 billion, blaming market turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The end of the hostile takeover campaign came less than two months after the imaging and copying giant upped by about 10 percent a bid rejected by the HP board of directors last year.

1 April 2020; AFP: The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to worsen Wednesday despite unprecedented lockdowns, as the head of the United Nations sounded the alarm on what he said was humanity's worst crisis since World War II.

The warning came as Donald Trump told Americans to brace for a "very painful" few weeks after the United States registered its deadliest 24 hours of the crisis.

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Tuesday launched a report on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for global solidarity to respond to the impacts of COVID-19, which have caused and will cause tremendous losses to the human society.

The report describes the speed and scale of the outbreak, the severity of cases, and the societal and economic disruption of COVID-19.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is intervening once again to try to smooth out the world’s lending markets, this time by lending dollars to other central banks in exchange for Treasurys.