USA

WASHINGTON, April 1. /TASS/: US Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette has held telephone talks on Tuesday with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak, the press service of the US Department of Energy told TASS.

1 April 2020; AFP: Xerox on Tuesday dropped its unwelcomed bid to buy computer and printer maker HP for about $36 billion, blaming market turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

The end of the hostile takeover campaign came less than two months after the imaging and copying giant upped by about 10 percent a bid rejected by the HP board of directors last year.

1 April 2020; AFP: The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic continued to worsen Wednesday despite unprecedented lockdowns, as the head of the United Nations sounded the alarm on what he said was humanity's worst crisis since World War II.

The warning came as Donald Trump told Americans to brace for a "very painful" few weeks after the United States registered its deadliest 24 hours of the crisis.

UNITED NATIONS, March 31 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Tuesday launched a report on the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, calling for global solidarity to respond to the impacts of COVID-19, which have caused and will cause tremendous losses to the human society.

The report describes the speed and scale of the outbreak, the severity of cases, and the societal and economic disruption of COVID-19.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is intervening once again to try to smooth out the world’s lending markets, this time by lending dollars to other central banks in exchange for Treasurys.

MIAMI (AP) — The Trump administration is prepared to lift crippling sanctions on Venezuela in support of a new proposal to form a transitional government requiring both Nicolas Maduro and opposition leader Juan Guaidó to step aside in favor of a five-person governing council, U.S. officials said.

BUTTE, Mont. (AP) — At a former open pit copper mine filled with billions of gallons of toxic water, sirens and loud pops from propane cannons echo off the granite walls to scare away birds so they don’t land.

After several thousand migrating snow geese perished in the Berkeley Pit’s acidic, metal-laden waters in 2016, its owners deployed a sophisticated arsenal to frighten away flocks, including lasers, drones, fireworks and remote-controlled boats.

NEW YORK (AP) — It has become a grim ritual outside New York City’s hospitals: workers in protective gear loading the bodies of coronavirus victims into refrigerated trailers.

A surge in deaths in the epicenter of the crisis in the U.S. has overwhelmed the city’s permanent morgues and filled storage spaces in many hospitals to capacity. The Federal Emergency Management Agency is sending 85 refrigerated trucks to serve as temporary morgues, the city said.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The captain of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier facing a growing outbreak of the coronavirus is asking for permission to isolate the bulk of his roughly 5,000 crew members on shore, which would take the warship out of duty in an effort to save lives.

In a memo to Navy leaders, the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt said that the spread of the disease is ongoing and accelerating and that removing all but 10% of the crew is a “necessary risk” in order to stop the spread of the virus. The ship is docked in Guam.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department inspector general has found additional failures in the FBI’s handling of a secretive surveillance program that came under scrutiny after the Russia investigation, identifying problems with dozens of applications for wiretaps in national security investigations.