USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is increasingly looking like an imperfect microcosm of the challenges that all Americans face in keeping the coronavirus at bay as huge swaths of the nation move to reopen.

Two aides who work in the White House complex are known to have tested positive in the past week for the coronavirus despite layers of security there, including access to rapid testing, temperature checks for all who enter and social distancing protocols.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The government’s $3 trillion effort to rescue the economy from the coronavirus crisis is stirring worry at the Pentagon. Bulging federal deficits may force a reversal of years of big defense spending gains and threaten prized projects like the rebuilding of the nation’s arsenal of nuclear weapons.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the sudden burst of deficit spending to prop up a damaged economy is bringing the Pentagon closer to a point where it will have to shed older weapons faster and tighten its belt.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rarely holds his fire, hurling accusations true and false.

But when it comes to the sexual assault allegation leveled against Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, the president has been unusually reticent.

Trump didn’t publicly address the issue until April 30, more than a month after former Senate staffer Tara Reade alleged on a podcast that Biden sexually assaulted her in a Capitol Hill basement in 1993. Biden has vehemently denied the allegation, saying it never happened.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump rarely holds his fire, hurling accusations true and false.

But when it comes to the sexual assault allegation leveled against Joe Biden, his Democratic rival, the president has been unusually reticent.

Trump didn’t publicly address the issue until April 30, more than a month after former Senate staffer Tara Reade alleged on a podcast that Biden sexually assaulted her in a Capitol Hill basement in 1993. Biden has vehemently denied the allegation, saying it never happened.

WASHINGTON (AP) — With deaths mounting at the nation’s nursing homes, the White House strongly recommended to governors Monday that all residents and staff at such facilities be tested for the coronavirus in the next two weeks.

Why the government is not ordering testing at the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes was unclear. Nor was it clear why it is being recommended now, more than two months after the nation’s first major outbreak at a nursing home outside of Seattle that eventually killed 45 people.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus may be thousands of fatalities worse than the tally kept by the city and state, according to an analysis released Monday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Between March 11 and May 2, about 24,000 more people died in the city than researchers would ordinarily expect during that time period, the report said.

That’s about 5,300 more deaths than were blamed on the coronavirus in official tallies during those weeks.

NEW YORK (AP) — A top world health official Monday warned that countries are essentially driving blind in reopening their economies without setting up strong contact tracing to beat back flare-ups of the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump insisted Monday his administration has “met the moment” and “prevailed” on coronavirus testing, even as the White House itself became a potent symbol of the risk facing Americans everywhere by belatedly ordering everyone who enters the West Wing to wear a mask.

United Nations, May 11 (PTI) International tourism could decline by 60-80 per cent in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in the revenue loss of USD 910 billion to USD 1.2 trillion and placing millions of livelihoods at risk, the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) has said.

The global international agency said that the pandemic has caused a 22 per cent fall in international tourist arrivals during the first quarter of 2020.

(Reuters) - Investors are rummaging through battered energy stocks to play a potential rebound in oil prices, just weeks after crude futures traded below zero for the first time ever.

It’s a high-stakes game. The months-long plunge in oil has dragged valuations in the sector to their lowest levels in decades, according to some measures, raising companies’ allure to bargain hunters. Yet bankruptcies in the oil patch are expected to grow, and choosing the wrong stock could leave a portfolio with outsized losses.