By BY PATRICK J. LYONS from NYT U.S.


Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

By BY PETER BAKER from NYT U.S.


Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), United States Politics and Government, News and News Media

By BY THE EDITORIAL BOARD from NYT Opinion


States (US), Federal Budget (US), Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (2020), United States Politics and Government, Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), Bankruptcies

By BY ELIZABETH WILLIAMSON from NYT U.S.


Presidential Election of 2016, Presidential Election of 2020, United States Politics and Government, News and News Media, Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

The memo said Republicans shouldn't defend Trump's handling of the pandemic but should shift the conversation to blaming China.

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The CDC has added 6 new recognized symptoms to its list for COVID-19: sore throat, headache, chills, muscle pain, loss of smell or taste, and shaking.

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The medics are among 1,200 sent to countries that requested help from the communist state.

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Immigrant women detained in rural Louisiana feel powerless to shield themselves from the rapidly-spreading coronavirus. They're asking the U.S. not to forget about them.

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Israel allowed some businesses to reopen on Sunday and said it was considering letting children return to school as part of trial efforts to ease coronavirus restrictions and help the country's struggling economy. In Jerusalem's popular Mahane Yehuda market, angry vendors wearing face masks demonstrated to demand their stalls be reopened. "There is no sense in shops or groceries being open just around the corner from Mahane Yehuda market while this market stays closed," said Tali Friedman, who heads its committee of vendors.

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The Navy hospital ship arrived in New York City to great fanfare. Less than a month later, it is being sent home to Virginia.

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Some are comparing the pandemic-hit Trump economy still favorably to its high point under the Obama administration. That claim is partly false.

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A grim milestone is passed by the world's deadliest outbreak, although US mortality rate is comparatively low.

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1. The noble art of sarcasm: Trump replaces coronavirus briefing with tweets  POLITICO
2. Coronavirus US live: Maryland's Republican governor concerned over Trump's 'mixed messages' – as it happened  The Guardian
3. Trump officials eye 'additional steps' after executive order on immigration  Fox News
4. Brandon Judd: As coronavirus sends unemployment skyrocketing, Trump’s immigration restrictions clearly needed  Fox News
5. 'Hambergers' and 'Noble prizes': Trump attacks press in furious Twitter rant riddled with spelling errors  The Independent
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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The best board games to play with your quarantined housemates  Ars Technica

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1. Gerry Dulac grades the Steelers' 2020 NFL draft  Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
2. Tim Benz: You know who the Steelers got in the draft. Now let's look at who they didn't get.  TribLIVE
3. AFC North stayed true to identity: How the Browns’ division fared  cleveland.com
4. Anthony McFarland's Character Extensively Vouched For After Attack By Anonymous Scout  Steelers Depot
5. Pittsburgh Steelers had a NOT REAL SEXY draft class | 2020 NFL Draft | CBS Sports HQ  CBS Sports
6. View Full Coverage on Google News

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Researchers have shown that ultraviolet light can be used to disinfect surfaces and kill viruses in ambient air in ways that could be used to reduce transmission in public spaces.

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Stuck in their Tirana flat under a coronavirus lockdown, 81-year-old Osman Hoxha and his family quietly mark the start of Ramadan, recalling the communist era when practicing religion meant risking death. Like many parts of the world, mosques in Muslim-majority Albania are eerily empty while iftar supper tables have fewer chairs than normal as families shelter at home to curb the spread of the virus. For older generations, the intimate settings inevitably stir up memories of how they were forced to furtively keep their faith alive under the long and brutal reign of the late communist dictator Enver Hoxha, who outlawed religion.

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Nearly 150 cases of coronavirus infection have been confirmed among crew members of an Italian cruise ship docked in Japan after health authorities finished testing everyone on board, an official said on Saturday. The Nagasaki prefecture official said 57 more crew had tested positive, bringing the total infections on board the Costa Atlantica to 148, roughly one quarter of the vessel's 623 crew members. Authorities began testing after one crew member tested positive for the virus earlier this week.

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"We've had very good compliance," a lifeguard said. "People are spreading out."

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The Australian government app notifies users if they have had contact with a user who has Covid-19.

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(Bloomberg) -- Coronavirus deaths slowed in key European countries, though an increase in the U.K. underscored the risks facing the region’s leaders as they plan to relax lockdown measures.Italy counted the fewest deaths in almost six weeks on Saturday and France reported the smallest daily increase since March 29. Spain announced less than 400 fatalities for the second day in row, and deaths in Germany dropped to the lowest in five days.By contrast, the U.K. became the fifth country with more than 20,000 casualties from the virus as the death toll rose by 813 in the latest 24-hour period.“The sun might be shining, but the virus hasn’t gone away,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s office said in a Twitter post. “Stop the spread, stay home.”With Europe’s economies battered by lockdowns imposed to bring the epidemic under control, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Saturday that her country will boost funding to the European Union to mitigate the economic fallout. She also called on the EU to use planned stimulus spending to reduce dependence on global supply chains, including for items such as face masks.“The economic damage will be great,” Merkel said in her weekly podcast. Germany will have to commit to “much more” of a contribution to reconstruction than its existing funding plans for the EU, she said.Some of Europe’s worst-hit countries are preparing to ease restrictions. Italy plans an initial reopening of businesses on May 4 and France intends to gradually restart the economy as of May 11. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday he plans to allow outdoor exercise and walks starting May 2, the second step to chip away at confinement in the European country with the most confirmed infections. Germany’s government expects output to shrink by 6.3% this year, the worst contraction since at least 1950, Handelsblatt reported, citing draft projections. Even so, European manufacturers are restarting factories — with little visibility on consumer demand.Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey has said a 35% drop in U.K. economic output in the second quarter isn’t implausible. The BOE has launched unprecedented measures to support output and prevent long-term economic harm, Bailey said in an editorial in The Sun newspaper on Saturday.The European Central Bank takes center stage on Thursday when its governing council holds a scheduled policy meeting. The central bank will increase emergency bond-buying in the coming months, according to a Bloomberg survey of economists.Johnson RecoveringHealth officials in Spain said deaths rose by 378 to 22,902. With the bulk of confinement measures in force until May 9, the government is relaxing one of the world’s strictest lockdowns on Sunday to let some children go outside for an hour a day with an adult.Italy, faced with Europe’s deadliest outbreak, reported 415 fatalities, the fewest since March 17. The death toll since the start of the outbreak rose to 26,384.Deaths in Germany rose by 148 to 5,723 in the 24 hours through Saturday morning, less than Friday’s increase of 260, according to Johns Hopkins University data. U.K. deaths rose by 813 to 20,319. Only the U.S., Italy, Spain and France have reported more fatalities linked to Covid-19.While Johnson is easing back to work after his battle with the virus, there’s no date for his full-time return. The U.K. Treasury is preparing plans to allow non-essential businesses to reopen while ensuring they’re free from the coronavirus, The Times reported, citing a Treasury blueprint.‘Never Before’Deaths increased to 6,917 in Belgium, which has the world’s highest per-capita death rate. Its government plans to gradually allow businesses to reopen in the first half of May.“We have never before tried out an exit strategy like this,” Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes said late Friday in Brussels. “Nothing will be carved in marble, especially not the target dates.”(Updates with further Spanish easing in seventh paragraph.)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

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The Life Tabernacle Church pastor has admitted to violating Louisiana's mandate to avoid large gatherings by hosting hundreds of worshipers.

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WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's decision to suspend family-based immigration because of the coronavirus is the beginning of a broader strategy to reduce the flow of foreigners into the United States, Stephen Miller, the architect of President Donald Trump's immigration agenda, told a group of conservative allies Thursday.During a private conference call with the president's supporters, Miller sought to reassure them of Trump's commitment to their cause and urged them to publicly defend his executive order. He pledged that it was only a first step in the administration's longer-term goal of shrinking legal immigration."The first and most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor -- mission accomplished -- with signing that executive order," Miller said, according to an audio recording of the conference call obtained by The New York Times.The executive order Trump signed this week bars people from receiving green cards for 60 days, a move that immigration advocates condemned. But it does nothing to limit visa programs that bring tens of thousands of workers to the United States, infuriating groups that call for deep reductions in the number of foreign citizens entering the country.Miller said that further restrictions on programs for foreign workers were likely."In terms of dealing with some of these seasonal flows of guest workers and developing a strategy for that, that's what the president directed us to do," he said. The existence of the tape was first reported by The Washington Post.During the 2016 campaign, Trump seized on fear of immigrants as a powerful political issue, and after winning the election, he aggressively pushed to shut down illegal crossings by demanding a "big, beautiful wall" between the United States and Mexico. In summer 2018, he separated migrant parents from their children when they crossed the border illegally and sent the U.S. military to fortify the border with Mexico.But immigration hard-liners have repeatedly urged the president to do more to permanently reduce the number of foreigners allowed to enter legally. Miller has made that a top priority in the last several years, pushing through regulatory changes aimed at shrinking the opportunities for foreigners to live and work in the United States.During the call, Miller said that the president's executive order, while temporary, would have long-lasting effects because it would disrupt what conservatives call "chain migration," in which the arrival of one immigrant in the United States opens the door to an extended family: parents, adult children, siblings and others."When you suspend the entry of a new immigrant from abroad, you're also reducing immigration further, because of the chains of follow-on migration that are disrupted," Miller said. "So the benefit to American workers compounds with time."Immigration is an issue that Trump has repeatedly turned to as a way to shore up his political base whenever his fortunes have appeared troubled. In late 2018, as polls predicted -- accurately, it turned out -- deep Republican losses in the midterm elections, the president pointed to what he claimed was an "invasion" by a caravan of immigrants who were heading toward the southwestern border.During Miller's call, the deputy secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, echoed Miller's comments by saying the president has been considering such a step "since the economic effects of the COVID virus began."Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general who has long pushed for less immigration, told the president's supporters on the call that "your best approach, in my view, is just to note this is a positive step -- note the president has opened the door to more steps.""You can certainly expect more actions from him as time goes forward," Cuccinelli added.In response to a question from a caller about how to "message" the intent of the executive order, Cuccinelli said, "Talk about the fact that the president is taking steps, is taking this seriously, and has instructed us to prepare for other steps."The issue of what to do about legal immigration has long divided Republicans, and many in the president's party on Capitol Hill oppose proposals that would block businesses -- including technology companies in Silicon Valley and big agricultural industries -- from tapping into large pools of foreign labor.But others in the party, including Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, have repeatedly pushed for legislation that would reduce legal immigration. In 2017, Trump endorsed the RAISE Act, a bill that Cotton sponsored that would have cut legal immigration each year by about half, from about 1 million to about 500,000. The legislation ultimately went nowhere.While Trump has often used immigration as a tool to rally his base, he has not been consistent in his approach. The administration is facing a potential inflection point when the Supreme Court rules in the next few months on whether the administration's end of the program that protects undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, known as DACA, was done legally.If the administration's decision is upheld, Trump will face the possibility of deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants, many of whom are in high school or college and have known no other life, while he is in the middle of a reelection battle.On a recent call with Republican senators, Trump told the group that he would not "leave them hanging," in reference to immigrants affected by the decision, but he said nothing further.It is unclear exactly how the executive order that temporarily halted immigration was drafted. Two officials familiar with the discussions said that Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser who has taken on a bigger role in immigration discussions, was left out of the process of developing the order.Officials said that the order was initially meant to be broader, putting what the president called "a pause" on both family-based immigration and the guest worker programs that are important to business groups.But Tuesday, after the president tweeted about the executive order the previous night -- which caught several advisers by surprise -- the White House faced fierce criticism from corporate executives, farmers and others who rely on temporary guest workers.Kushner told the president that he should consider alternatives to the strict measures that were under discussion, according to the officials with knowledge of the discussions.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

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The White House coronavirus task force gave a rough timeline for how the pandemic will play out in the US.

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By BY SHAILA DEWAN AND VANESSA SWALES from NYT U.S.


States (US), Coronavirus (2019-nCoV), Governors (US), Epidemics

By BY CHARLES M. BLOW from NYT Opinion


Presidential Election of 2020, United States Politics and Government, Politics and Government, Polls and Public Opinion, Women and Girls, Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

Baking has become a favorite hobby of homebound, stir-crazy Americans.

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Dr. Deborah Birx defends Trump's comments on ultraviolet light, injecting disinfectants as coronavirus treatments

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A growing number of pregnant women across the US have attempted to switch to home births amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This is Nancy Pedroza's story.

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