USA

2 May 2020; AFP: NASA and SpaceX said Friday they were pressing ahead with plans to launch astronauts to space from US soil for the first time in nearly a decade later on this month, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley, both veterans of the Space Shuttle program that was shuttered in 2011, will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida on May 27.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump intends to nominate Keith Dayton to be the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the White House said on Friday, a year after Trump removed the previous envoy.

Dayton, a retired Army lieutenant general, currently serves as the senior U.S. defense adviser to Ukraine and director of the George C. Marshall Center in Germany.

If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Dayton would replace Marie Yovanovitch, a career diplomat who was recalled in May 2019.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Co is not a target in the Justice Department’s investigation into corruption within the United Auto Workers union, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit said on Friday.

GM said earlier Friday that media reports suggesting GM might be a focus of a “newer front in the years long criminal investigation” being conducted by federal prosecutors in Detroit are “not true.”

“A letter was sent to GM’s counsel this week stating that GM is not a target,” a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

(Reuters) - New York City’s pension fund leader claimed a win on Friday after JPMorgan Chase & Co set a timetable to replace its lead independent director, a former Exxon Mobil Corp CEO who had become the focus of criticism of the bank’s climate record.

The director, Lee Raymond, who is up for re-election at the bank’s annual meeting on May 19, had earlier asked the board to start a formal process to find a successor for the lead independent director role, JPMorgan said previously.

WASHINGTON (AP) — House lawmakers investigating the market dominance of Big Tech are asking Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to testify to address possible misleading statements by the company on its competition practices.

In a letter to Bezos on Friday, leaders of the House Judiciary Committee from both parties are holding out the threat of a subpoena if he doesn’t agree voluntarily to appear.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government was slow to understand how much coronavirus was spreading from Europe, which helped drive the acceleration of outbreaks across the nation, a top health official said Friday.

Limited testing and delayed travel alerts for areas outside China contributed to the jump in U.S. cases starting in late February, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, the No. 2 official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“We clearly didn’t recognize the full importations that were happening,” Schuchat told The Associated Press.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Friday that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing “untold fear and suffering” for older people around the world who are dying at a higher rate, and especially for those over age 80, whose fatality rate is five times the global average.

The U.N. chief said that beyond the health risks, “the pandemic is putting older people at greater risk of poverty,” with an especially devastating impact on the elderly in developing countries.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Cuban man who sought asylum in the U.S. opened fire with an AK-47 at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, spraying the front of the building with nearly three dozen rounds because he wanted to “get them before they could get him,” according to court papers.

Alexander Alazo, 42, of Aubrey, Texas, was taken into custody shortly after the shooting early Thursday morning in northwest Washington.

NEW YORK (AP) — As America tentatively emerges from weeks of lockdowns, it is becoming clear that the pandemic has taken its toll on workers who have been on the front lines all along.

They have been packing and delivering supplies, caring for the sick and elderly, and keeping streets and buildings clean.

They have also watched their co-workers fall ill. Thousands have gotten sick themselves. Many have died.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, vowed Friday not to lie to reporters from the podium as she made her debut at the first White House briefing by a press secretary in more than a year.

“I will never lie to you,” McEnany told reporters. “You have my word on that.” But the briefing that followed included several misstatements and mischaracterizations nonetheless.