U.S./World category, Page 1004
Chicago mayor takes hard line fighting coronavirus outbreak
CHICAGO — As large American cities try various strategies to keep people home to limit the coronavirus’s spread, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has balanced a blend of stern — and occasionally scolding — news conferences with lighthearted social media to drive home her point. Lightfoot’s hard-line approach began with an...
Judge releases Michael Avenatti from jail over virus threat
LOS ANGELES — A judge has allowed Michael Avenatti to be temporarily freed from a federal jail in New York City and to ride out the coronavirus scare at a friend’s house in Los Angeles. The attorney, who rose to fame representing porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits against President...
Are schools open? Governor, NYC mayor give different answers
NEW YORK — Governor and mayor locked horns again Saturday, this time over whether school buildings in the nation’s largest district would close for the rest of the year, with classes continuing online. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a news briefing that public school sites in...
Kansas’ high court weighs virus limits on religious services
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. — An attorney for Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly told the state Supreme Court on Saturday that a Republican-dominated legislative panel exceeded its authority when it overturned the Democratic governor’s executive order banning religious and funeral services of more than 10 people during the coronavirus pandemic. Lawmakers countered...
6 hospitalized after shooting breaks out at California party
BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A shooting broke out at a party in central California, sending six people to the hospital on Saturday and launching a search for four suspects, authorities said. The party, happening amid statewide stay-at-home orders intended to slow the spread of the coronavirus, might have gone unnoticed until...
Covid-19 and AIDS crisis: NYC gays see parallels, contrasts
NEW YORK — LGBT New Yorkers who lived through the AIDS crisis of the 1980s see some bleak parallels in the COVID-19 pandemic now wracking their city. But more so, they stress the differences. Now, they share the same plight as their fellow citizens while the federal government is pledging...
California’s coronavirus death toll is way below New York’s. Here’s why.
LOS ANGELES — California’s relatively quick action to close businesses and order residents to stay home has tamped down the coronavirus pandemic and left many hospitals largely empty, waiting for a surge that has yet to come. The initial success of the unprecedented shutdown of schools, businesses and other institutions...
New York area walloped as global virus deaths pass 100,000
NEW YORK — The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus surged past 100,000 Friday as the epidemic in the U.S. cut a widening swath through not just New York City but the entire three-state metropolitan area of 20 million people connected by a tangle of subways, trains and buses. In...
Crime drops around the world as covid-19 keeps people inside
CHICAGO — The coronavirus pandemic that has crippled big-box retailers and mom and pop shops worldwide may be making a dent in illicit business, too. In Chicago, one of America’s most violent cities, drug arrests have plummeted 42% in the weeks since the city shut down, compared with the same...
Libertarians debate: How to respond to coronavirus pandemic?
NEW YORK — Steve Baker, one of the British parliament’s leading libertarians, was nearly in tears as he addressed the House of Commons in support of a bill that once seemed unthinkable: a massive economic aid package in response to the coronavirus pandemic. “Libertarian though I may be, this is...
Coronavirus ravages storied New Orleans Mardi Gras group
NEW ORLEANS — On Fat Tuesday, 51-year-old Cornell Charles was taking part in a storied New Orleans Mardi Gras tradition central to the city’s African American community — driving a car in the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club’s parade. A month later his wife of three decades was watching...
‘Hope’ the calf arrives in New Orleans amid pandemic
NEW ORLEANS — The Audubon Nature Institute in New Orleans welcomed a new resident, a baby giraffe named Hope. Sue Ellen, a middle-aged giraffe at the Freeport-McMoRan Audubon Species Survival Center, gave birth Monday, according to a Friday news release. Audubon Nature Institute President and CEO Ron Forman said Hope...
Advocates furious after outbreak at San Francisco shelter
SAN FRANCISCO — In the biggest outbreak at a homeless shelter in California to date, San Francisco’s mayor announced Friday that 70 people have tested positive for the coronavirus, infuriating advocates who had sought more aggressive action to protect homeless people. Mayor London Breed said that the outbreak involving 68...
Court lifts part of order blocking Texas abortion ban
AUSTIN, Texas — A federal appeals court on Friday partially rescinded a lower-court order that had largely blocked the enforcement of an abortion ban in Texas during the coronavirus pandemic. By a 2-1 vote, the three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld enforcement of an executive...
Airlines and Trump administration haggle over payroll grants
The Trump administration is proposing that a significant amount of the $25 billion in cash that airlines expected to keep workers on the job will instead be low-interest loans that big airlines will have to repay, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Treasury Department began sending proposals...
Los Angeles adds new sexual battery count against Harvey Weinstein
LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles prosecutors have charged imprisoned former film producer Harvey Weinstein with an additional count of felony sexual battery by restraint. The district attorney’s office said the charge was filed over allegations the former movie mogul sexually assaulted a woman at a Beverly Hills hotel in May...
Doctors, nurses participate in lonely Good Friday procession at Vatican
VATICAN CITY — Nurses and doctors wearing their white hospital coats joined a torch-lit Good Friday procession in a hauntingly almost empty St. Peter’s Square, as Pope Francis presided over the ceremony which couldn’t be held at Rome’s Colosseum as tradition holds because of Italy’s lockdown in the covid-19 pandemic....
Beach towns in Mexico block themselves off because of virus
MEXICO CITY — In Mexico, beach towns have begun blocking off roads — in some cases, constructing barricades of rubble across roadways — to seal themselves off from the outside world in a bid to stop the new coronavirus from entering. The Gulf of California beach town of Puerto Peñasco...
Justice Department finds errors in additional warrant applications for national security wiretaps
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department has identified what it describes as “material errors” in two applications for national security wiretaps, but also says it has made important strides in overhauling a surveillance system that has come under political scrutiny because of mistakes made during the Russia probe. The department did...
Alaska Democrats hold mail-only presidential primary
JUNEAU, Alaska — Alaska Democrats are deciding their choice for the party’s presidential nominee, as just one major candidate — former Vice President Joe Biden — remains actively campaigning. Results are expected Saturday in the party-run primary, which became an exclusively vote-by-mail affair after concerns with COVID-19 scrapped plans for...
U.S. budget deficit totals $743.6 billion over past 6 months
WASHINGTON — The federal government’s budget deficit for the first half of this budget year totaled $743.6 billion, up 7.6% from last year, and well on its way to topping $1 trillion even before the impacts of the coronavirus were felt. The Treasury Department reported Friday that the deficit from...
After months in space, astronauts returning to changed world
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Two NASA astronauts said Friday they expect it will be tough returning to such a drastically changed world next week, after more than half a year at the International Space Station. Andrew Morgan said the crew has tried to keep atop the pandemic news. But it’s...
Apple, Google to adapt phones for virus infection tracking
Apple and Google launched a major joint effort to leverage smartphone technology to contain the covid-19 pandemic. New software the companies plan to add to phones would make it easier to use Bluetooth wireless technology to track down people for who may have been infected by coronavirus carriers. The idea...
Alex Jones gets warning from FDA for pushing phony coronavirus cures online
Infowars founder Alex Jones has received an official warning from the Food and Drug Administration for peddling phony coronavirus cures online. In a formal letter to the alt-right television personality on Thursday, the agency ordered Jones to stop telling viewers of his widely watched broadcasts that they can stave off...
Worldwide deaths from the coronavirus top 100,000
NEW YORK — The worldwide death toll from the coronavirus has hit 100,000, according to the running tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The sad milestone comes as Christians around the globe mark a Good Friday unlike any other — in front of computer screens instead of in church pews....
