USA

UNITED NATIONS, April 15 (Xinhua) -- It is up to the governing body of the World Health Organization (WHO) to decide where to seek funds in its COVID-19 fight, the chief spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday.

Stephane Dujarric said it was up to the World Health Assembly, the 194-member state governing body, to decide where to look for funding in the face of the United States withdrawing from WHO financing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Citing the coronavirus, Donald Trump is threatening unprecedented action — adjourning both houses of Congress — to entice the Senate to approve more of his nominees.

In recent years, Congress has refused to fully adjourn during most breaks precisely to prevent the president from making recess appointments. Little or no business is conducted in such “pro-forma sessions,” but they give members of both chambers of Congress the chance to go back home without going into recess.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Peter Navarro’s eagerness to confront, attack and be, as one former associate put it, “a real jerk to people” didn’t serve him well as a political candidate in the 1990s. But it fits what President Donald Trump was looking for to muscle companies to make critical supplies needed to fight the coronavirus.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon’s process for awarding a highly lucrative cloud computing contract to Microsoft instead of Amazon was in line with legal and government purchasing standards, a government watchdog agency said Wednesday.

The Defense Department inspector general found no evidence of White House interference in the contract award process. But the report said investigators could not fully review that aspect of the matter because the White House would not allow unfettered access to witnesses.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Elizabeth Warren endorsed Joe Biden on Wednesday, the latest of the former vice president’s onetime White House rivals to back him as the Democratic Party moves to project unity against President Donald Trump going into the November election.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Leading Republicans say the coronavirus shutdown cannot go on. Car-honking activists swarmed a statehouse Wednesday to protest stay-home restrictions. Capitol Hill staff are quietly drafting bills to undo the just-passed rescue aid and push Americans back to work.

Behind President Donald Trump’s effort to accelerate re-opening the U.S. economy during the pandemic is a contingent of GOP allies eager to have his back.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said he’s prepared to announce new guidelines allowing some states to quickly ease up on social distancing even as business leaders told him they need more coronavirus testing and personal protective equipment before people can safely go back to work.

The industry executives cautioned Trump that the return to normalcy will be anything but swift.

(AP) --- Nurse Mike Gulick was meticulous about not bringing the novel coronavirus home to his wife and their 2-year-old daughter. He’d stop at a hotel after work just to take a shower. He’d wash his clothes in Lysol disinfectant. They did a tremendous amount of handwashing.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Government relief checks began arriving in Americans’ bank accounts as the economic damage to the U.S. from the coronavirus piled up Wednesday and sluggish sales at reopened stores in Europe and China made it clear that business won’t necessarily bounce right back when the crisis eases.

With many factories shut down, American industrial output shriveled in March, registering its biggest decline since the U.S. demobilized in 1946 at the end of World War II. Retail sales fell by an unprecedented 8.7%, with April expected to be far worse.

Washington, Apr 15 (PTI) The IMF has called on all countries to refrain from putting restrictions on exporting medical supplies in view of their massive requirement across the globe to combat the coronavirus pandemic that has killed at least 119,000 people and infected nearly two million.

Medical supplies like surgical masks, gowns and ventilators are required in massive number across the globe because of the coronavirus pandemic that surfaced in central China's Wuhan city last year and spread to at least 185 countries and territories.