USA

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Los Angeles recorded its first case of coronavirus five weeks before New York City, yet it’s New York that is now the U.S. epicenter of the disease.

Public health officials are keeping a wary eye and warning that LA could end up being as hard hit as New York in coming weeks, in part because a planned increase in testing may uncover a dramatic surge in cases. Testing in Los Angeles County is expected to increase from 500 per day to 5,000 by the end of the week.

MIAMI (AP) — Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro stood defiant in the face of a $15 million bounty by the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges, calling Donald Trump a “racist cowboy” and warning that he is ready to fight by whatever means necessary should the U.S. and neighboring Colombia dare to invade.

NEW YORK (AP) — Autism has grown slightly more common in the U.S., but a gap in diagnosis of white and black kids has disappeared, according to a government report released Thursday.

Closure of that gap — thanks to increased screening — is the main reason autism diagnoses are up a little, some experts said.

About 1 in 54 U.S. children were identified as having autism in 2016, according to the new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from 1 in 59 children in 2014, and from 1 in 68 in both 2010 and 2012.

MIAMI (AP) — Nicolás Maduro effectively converted Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups as he and his allies stole billions from the South American country, the Justice Department charged in several indictments made public Thursday against the embattled socialist leader and his inner circle.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says that federal officials are developing guidelines to rate counties by risk of virus spread, as he aims to begin to ease nationwide guidelines meant to stem the coronavirus outbreak.

In a letter to the nation’s governors, Trump said the new guidelines are meant to enable state and local leaders to make “decisions about maintaining, increasing, or relaxing social distancing and other measures they have put in place.” States and municipalities would still retain authority to set whatever restrictions deem necessary.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — As hospitals and nursing homes desperately search for hand sanitizer amid the coronavirus outbreak, federal regulators are preventing ethanol producers from providing millions of gallons of alcohol that could be transformed into the germ-killing mixture.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s roadblock has been frustrating the health care and ethanol industries, which have been calling for a relaxed regulation to deal with the public health care emergency.

NEW YORK (AP) — A nurse died from coronavirus after working nonstop for weeks at a hospital where staffers frustrated with dwindling supplies posed in gowns made of trash bags. An emergency room doctor fears he had the virus long before getting too sick to work. Another nurse worries the lone mask she’s issued each day won’t be enough to protect her from an unending tide of hacking, feverish patients.

(AP) --- The human and economic toll of the lockdowns against the coronavirus mounted Thursday as India struggled to feed the multitudes, Italy shut down most of its industry, and a record-shattering 3.3 million Americans applied for unemployment benefits in a single week. The U.S. surpassed official Chinese government numbers to become the country with most reported infections.

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the coronavirus crisis, even doctors can face a cash crunch.

Dr. Benjamin Ticho, an ophthalmologist in Chicago Ridge, Illinois, has seen his revenue plunge 80% as patients stay home and he cancels non-emergency surgeries. He’s cut his staff’s hours sharply and is negotiating with his creditors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump declared that “I’ll be the oversight” as lawmakers were in the final days of drafting what became a $2.2 trillion rescue plan for American businesses. In the end, Congress ensured that won’t be the case.