USA

NEW YORK, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Governor of the U.S. state of New York Andrew Cuomo said on Saturday that a total of 10,356 people in the state had tested positive for novel coronavirus, jumping 3,254 compared with the previous day.

The Empire State has thus become the first state in the country that reported over 10,000 COVID-19 cases, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The governor said the increase of confirmed cases demonstrated the scale of testing in the state.

WASHINGTON, March 21 (Xinhua) -- Italian general practitioners remember seeing strange pneumonia cases as early as November, which could mean the virus was circulating in parts of Italy before doctors became aware of China's COVID-19 outbreak, a U.S. radio outlet reported, citing a paper on Italy's coronavirus crisis.

The report published Thursday by U.S. media outlet National Public Radio (NPR) cited Giuseppe Remuzzi, co-author of a recent paper in The Lancet about Italy's epidemic.

North Carolina (AP) --- A man wounded by police in a case that sparked protests around North Carolina’s capital city was raising a gun when he was shot, according to a preliminary investigative report, which comes as community activists press for increased police transparency and accountability.

LARGO, Fla. (AP) — As restaurants across the country stacked chairs on tables and shut their doors to try to contain the deadly coronavirus, what would be the final visitors streamed into the Conservative Grounds coffee shop in Largo, Florida.

Fox News played on the televisions. Patrons posed for photos in a replica of the Oval Office. An 80-year-old man, defying officials’ advice to stay home, beamed near a life-sized cutout of a grinning President Donald Trump.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — New York City was hit by the nation’s largest coronavirus jail outbreak to date this week, with at least 38 people testing positive at the notorious Rikers Island complex and nearby facilities — more than half of them incarcerated men, the board that oversees the city’s jail system said Saturday.

Another inmate, meanwhile, became the first in the country to test positive in a federal jail.

In a letter to New York’s criminal justice leaders, Board of Correction interim chairwoman Jacqueline Sherman described a jail system in crisis.

(AP) --- The virus pandemic advanced Sunday after the U.S. and Europe reported soaring new cases, prompting a scramble in some regions to set up additional hospital beds and replenish much-needed medical supplies.

Italy announced its biggest day-to-day increase of infections, which rose by 6,600 with nearly 800 new fatalities from the virus that causes COVID-19. The country’s total death toll of more than 4,825 has surpassed the number of deaths in China, where the first cases emerged late last year.

NEW YORK, Mar 21 (APP): New York’s iconic Times Square that sees nearly 330,000 people pass through it each day was virtually empty Friday after the city that never sleeps was placed under lockdown in a bid to slow the spread of coronavirus.

New Yorkers, like many Americans across the country, have been told to hunker down in their homes and avoid large crowds and mass gatherings as much as possible as the number of confirmed cases in the United States surged past 14,000 people, with over 200 dead. Globally, there are more than 210,000 confirmed cases and more than 9,000 deaths.

UN, March 21. /TASS/: At least 24 UN staff members have so far tested positive for the novel coronavirus, UN Secretary-General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric has told reporters.

"The total number of UN cases, not just at Headquarters but of UN cases, is 24," he said.

In his words, Executive Director of the World Food Programme David Beasley remains the only top-level UN official diagnosed with the novel coronavirus.

"He is working from home in South Carolina, and he’s doing fine," Dujarric added.

21 March 2020; AFP: The United States announced Friday it has successfully tested an unarmed prototype of a hypersonic missile, a nuclear-capable weapon that could accelerate the arms race between superpowers.

The Pentagon said a test glide vehicle flew at hypersonic speeds -- more than five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5 -- to a designated impact point.

21 Mar 2020; MEMO: The United States believes Saudi Arabia’s flooding of oil markets compounds the coronavirus-caused global economic crash and intends to send a senior official to Riyadh for months to boost efforts to stabilize energy markets, senior US officials said on Friday, reports Reuters.