USA

WASHINGTON (AP) — Pick-up basketball games. Crowds gathering at an outdoor fish market. Family hikes along trails in Rock Creek Park. The warmer weather is bringing violations of social distance guidelines in the nation’s capital, even as health officials predict the city could become one of the next U.S. hot spots in the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 1,200 people have tested positive, with 22 deaths, in Washington. But national and local health officials predict that the worst is yet to come.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday threatened to freeze U.S. funding to the World Health Organization, saying the international group had “missed the call” on the coronavirus pandemic.

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City’s death toll from the coronavirus rose past 4,000 on Tuesday, eclipsing the number killed at the World Trade Center on 9/11. In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lay in intensive care, believed to be the first major world leader hospitalized with the virus.

Washington, Apr 7 (PTI) The death toll in the US from the coronavirus crossed the 10,000-mark on Monday as the country entered the most difficult phase during this pandemic with officials stating that there are encouraging signs in the fight against the dreaded disease mainly due to the aggressive implementation of the mitigation measures.

By Monday, more than 10,800 Americans died due to the deadly coronavirus and over 366,000 tested positive, to which top American scientists are racing against time to develop either a vaccine or a successful treatment.

CHICAGO, April 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) —Stark statistics from Chicago health officials have underscored the heavy toll of coronavirus on black Americans.

Black Chicagoans account for half of all coronavirus cases in the city and more than 70% of deaths, despite making up 30% of the population.

Other cities with large black populations, including Detroit, Milwaukee, New Orleans and New York, have become coronavirus hotspots.

The US has recorded nearly 370,000 virus cases and almost 11,000 deaths.

WASHINGTON, April 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States branded a Russian far-right group as a foreign terrorist organisation, the first time it has targeted white supremacists with tools regularly used against militant groups.

The State Department said that the Russian Imperial Movement runs two paramilitary training camps in Saint Petersburg and has pulled in neo-Nazis from across the Western world.

WASHINGTON, April 7 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States warned China not to take advantage of the coronavirus pandemic to exert itself in the South China Sea after Vietnam said Beijing sank a trawler.

Amid the global focus on fighting COVID-19, China has ramped up self-described research stations and landed special military aircraft in the dispute-rife sea, according to the State Department.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 7 (APP): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres Monday called for a “very close look” at the continued incarceration of Kashmiris prisoners in Indian occupied Kashmir amid growing cases of the deadly coronavirus, as six leading international human rights organizations jointly demanded their immediate release.

UNITED NATIONS, Apr 07 (APP): The World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Citizen, a prominent advocacy group, have announced ‘One World: Together At Home’, a concert designed to celebrate medical workers around the world who are fighting the deadly coronavirus pandemic.

UN, April 6. /TASS/: The UN Board of Inquiry into certain incidents involving civilian facilities in Syria has been unable to find sufficient evidence of the Syrian government's involvement into strikes on UN-supported hospitals in Idlib, according to a summary of the board’s report published on Monday.