USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The scene at the White House a week ago was one of normalcy in these most abnormal times: a crowd of revelers gathered in the Rose Garden, a band playing, the mingling of the elite, good cheer everywhere, handshakes and hugs left and right.

Now it’s a suspected petri dish of coronavirus infection, prominent among the numerous occasions over a week or more where President Donald Trump might have caught — or spread — the virus that has now landed him in the hospital

WASHINGTON (AP) — The coroniavirus reached further into Republican ranks on Saturday, forcing the Senate to call off lawmaking as a third GOP senator tested positive for COVID-19. Even so, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared he would push President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee toward confirmation in the shadow of the November election.

NEW YORK (AP) — Vice President Mike Pence in March directed the nation’s top disease control agency to use its emergency powers to effectively seal the U.S. borders, overruling the agency’s scientists who said there was no evidence the action would slow the coronavirus, according to two former health officials. The action has so far caused nearly 150,000 children and adults to be expelled from the country.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - White House officials sought to project an air of business as usual on Friday despite President Donald Trump’s COVID-19 diagnosis, but aides privately expressed concern about the presidential election and showed signs of rising worry about the coronavirus.

“The business of government continues,” economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters after Trump disclosed on Twitter early in the day that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.

03 Oct 2020; MEMO: US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman announced that the Israeli plan to annex land in the West Bank will not be implemented in the near future, stating that his country believes that normalisation agreements will serve Israel’s interests better than the annexation project for the time being.

Washington, Oct 3 (PTI) US President Donald Trump, who was shifted to a military hospital after being tested positive for COVID-19, is undergoing Remdesivir therapy and is "doing well", the White House physician has said.

The Trump administration had issued an emergency use authorisation for Remdesivir earlier this year after the drug showed moderate effectiveness in improving outcomes for patients who were hospitalised with the coronavirus.

NEW YORK, Oct. 2 (Xinhua) -- The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed 7.3 million on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

U.S. COVID-19 case count rose to 7,303,914, with the national death toll reaching 208,304, as of 2:23 p.m. local time (1823 GMT), according to the CSSE.

California reported 823,264 cases, the highest state-level caseload. Texas and Florida both topped 700,000 cases, followed by New York state with more than 460,000 cases.

(AP) --- The experimental antibody drug given to President Donald Trump has been called one of the most promising approaches to preventing serious illness from a COVID-19 infection.

Its maker, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc., said the company agreed to supply a single dose, given through an IV, for Trump at the request of his physician under “compassionate use” provisions, when an experimental medicine is provided on a case-by-case emergency basis, while studies of it continue.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Friday that the world is living “in the shadow of nuclear catastrophe,” fueled by growing distrust and tensions between the nuclear powers.

The U.N. chief told a high-level meeting to commemorate the recent International Day for Total Elimination of Nuclear Weapons that progress on ridding the world of nuclear weapons “has stalled and is at risk of backsliding.” And he said strains between countries that possess nuclear weapons “have increased nuclear risks.”

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Harvey Weinstein was charged Friday with the rapes of two more women and now faces 11 sexual assault counts involving five women in California as the former movie mogul serves prison time in New York, prosecutors said.

Weinstein was charged with three new counts of rape and three new counts of forcible oral copulation involving two women, the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office said.