USA

NEW YORK, Apr 19 (APP): A cadre of renowned musicians on Saturday night helped raise more than $127 million for the World Health Organization (WHO), a Geneva-based U.N. specialized agency, which is spearheading the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The big fundraising haul came via “One World: Together At Home,” an 8-hour virtual concert organized by international advocacy group Global Citizen and superstar Lady Gaga and broadcast around the globe to celebrate the healthcare workers on the frontlines of the deadly virus and support WHO’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

NEW YORK, Apr 20 (APP): A prominent Islamic advocacy organization Sunday deplored US President Donald Trump’s promotion of a notorious anti-Muslim writer’s tweet questioning whether U.S. mosques will be treated differently during the upcoming month of Ramadan than churches were treated during Easter amid the coronavirus pandemic lockdown.

SAN FRANCISCO, April 18 (Xinhua) -- Governor of the U.S. state of Washington Jay Inslee said Friday that President Donald Trump's calls for "liberating" parts of the country are "dangerous."

"He is putting millions of people in danger of contracting COVID-19. His unhinged rantings and calls for people to 'liberate' states could also lead to violence. We've seen it before," Inslee said in a statement.

"His words are likely to cause COVID-19 infections to spike in places where social distancing is working," the statement said.

WASHINGTON, April 20 (Xinhua) -- Confirmed infections of COVID-19 in the United States exceeded 750,000 with over 40,000 deaths recorded as of Sunday while federal and state leaders are making an increasingly hard choice between ensuring public health safety and reopening the battered economy.

The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States reached 759,086 as of 8:00 p.m. Sunday evening (0000 GMT on Monday) and a total of 40,661 people have died, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — U.N. experts have recommended blacklisting 14 vessels for violating sanctions against North Korea in a report that accuses the country of increasing illegal coal exports, imports of petroleum products and continuing with cyber attacks on financial institutions and cryptocurrency exchanges to gain illicit revenue.

ROWLETT, Texas (AP) — A man opened fire on a Dallas-area public bus on Sunday, hijacking it with two people aboard and leading officers on a chase that ended in a shootout in which the man was killed and three officers were wounded, according to police officials.

A man got on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit bus in Richardson, just north of Dallas, at around 11 a.m and opened fire, shattering windows, said Gordon Shattles, a DART spokesman.

(AP) --- Jamie Margolin had not expected to be sitting in her bedroom right now.

The high school senior had prom and graduation coming up, but so much more: A multi-state bus campaign with fellow climate activists. A tour for her new book. Attendance at one of the massive marches that had been planned this week for the 50th anniversary of Earth Day.

Then the pandemic arrived in Seattle, her hometown, and her plans went out the window.

“But still so much to do,” Margolin said, perched in front of her computer for a video interview from that bedroom.

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Ten years after a well blew wild under a BP platform in the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 men and touching off the nation’s worst offshore oil spill, gulf waters sparkle in the sunlight, its fish are safe to eat, and thick, black oil no longer visibly stains the beaches and estuaries. Brown pelicans, a symbol of the spill’s ecological damage because so many dived after fish and came up coated with oil, are doing well.

(AP) --- A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared.

While that’s clearly good news, it also means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life.

In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California.

ATLANTA (AP) — Scrambling to address voting concerns during a pandemic, election officials across the country are eliminating polling places or scaling back opportunities for people to cast ballots in person — a move raising concerns among voting rights groups and some Democrats who say some voters could be disenfranchised.