May 1, 2020 4:11 am
NEW YORK (AP) – State officials are investigating a New York City funeral home that resorted to storing dozens of bodies on ice in rented trucks after it was overwhelmed by coronavirus deaths. Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker said Thursday that the funeral home in Brooklyn could face civil fines and license suspensions. Authorities responding to complaints about a bad smell found that the home had rented four trucks to hold about 50 corpses. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the actions “unconscionable.” New York City funeral homes have struggled since late March as the number of fatalities linked to the virus has topped 18,000.
May 1, 2020 4:09 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s new spokeswoman, Kayleigh McEnany, says she will never lie to reporters. McEnany made her debut at the first White House briefing by a press secretary in more than a year. Asked if she would tell reporters the truth, McEnany said: “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.” During past administrations, a White House press secretary holding a formal briefing would hardly be news. But it was the first such briefing since March 11, 2019, when Sarah Sanders held the job. Sanders’ successor, Stephanie Grisham, never held a briefing during her entire nine-month tenure. (Photo: CNN)
May 1, 2020 4:08 am
LANSING, Mich. (AP) – The Republican-led Michigan Legislature has refused to extend the state’s coronavirus emergency declaration. It also voted Thursday to authorize a lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s authority and actions to combat the pandemic. The unfazed governor issued new orders declaring states of emergency and disaster. A court fight is looming. The emergency is the basis for Whitmer’s stay-at-home order, which she says has saved lives. The Legislature’s steps came as hundreds of conservative activists returned to the Capitol to denounce Whitmer’s stay-home measure. The coronavirus has infected more than 41,000 Michigan residents and contributed to the deaths of nearly 3,800.
May 1, 2020 4:07 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says state and local governments are seeking up to $1 trillion for coronavirus costs. It’s an eye-popping sum for the next relief package that’s certain to run into opposition from Senate Republicans. Pelosi said Thursday the money for “heroes” would help prevent layoffs of nurses, bus drivers and other front-line workers as governors and mayors stare down red ink in their budgets. The new marker comes after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shifted tone and said he’s “open” to additional funding for the states. But McConnell says any new bill must include liability protections from an “avalanche” of lawsuits against businesses that reopen.
May 1, 2020 4:04 am
Comcast’s net income slid in the first three months of the year as the coronavirus pandemic forced it to shut down its theme parks and its movies were kept out of shuttered theaters. On the cable side, the biggest source of the company’s profits, Comcast lost 409,000 video customers, as cord-cutting accelerated, and added 477,000 internet customers. The virus dented profit and revenue at the NBCUniversal arm, hurting the parks and movie business, and at Sky TV, internet and broadcasting unit in Europe.
April 30, 2020 10:54 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the new coronavirus was “not man-made or genetically modified.” But they say they’re still examining whether the origins of the pandemic trace to contact with infected animals or an accident at a Chinese lab. The statement came Thursday from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the clearinghouse for the web of U.S. spy agencies. It comes as President Donald Trump and his allies have touted the as-yet-unproven theory that an infectious disease lab in Wuhan, the epicenter of the Chinese outbreak, was the source of the global pandemic that has killed more than 220,000 worldwide.
April 30, 2020 7:23 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – More than 3.8 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week as the U.S. economy slid further into a crisis that is becoming the most devastating since the 1930s. Roughly 30.3 million people have now filed for jobless aid in the six weeks since the coronavirus outbreak began forcing millions of employers to close their doors and slash their workforces. That is more people than live in the New York and Chicago metropolitan areas combined, and it’s by far the worst string of layoffs on record. It adds up to more than one in six American workers.
April 30, 2020 6:20 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Americans are grappling with an essential question as they try to get the information they need to stay safe during the coronavirus crisis: Whom do you trust? Sixty-eight percent of Americans say they have high trust in the information provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Sixty-six percent highly trust their doctor or health care provider, and 52% said the same about their state or local government. That’s according to an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll published last week. Just 23% of Americans say they have a great deal or quite a bit of trust in the coronavirus information provided by President Donald Trump.
April 30, 2020 4:13 am
TOKYO (AP) – As questions mount about the health of Kim Jong Un, an underlying concern looms for spies, policymakers and curious watchers alike. What do we really know about the man who leads North Korea? The answer is crucial because Kim’s intentions, and the as-yet-unknown state of his health, have played an outsized role in Northeast Asia, an uneasy collection of wary neighbors at the best of times and home to two of the three biggest economies in the world and a huge buildup of American military power. Some unsourced news reports say Kim is in fragile condition or even in a vegetative state following heart surgery. South Korea maintains that Kim still appears to be in power and nothing big has happened in North Korea.
April 30, 2020 4:08 am
WASHINGTON (AP) – Hopes are beginning to arise that the U.S. economy might be poised to rebound by the second half of the year. The idea is that the economy might be able to mount a sharp comeback if more employees and consumers were to gradually return to working and spending. Yet most economists say such expectations should be kept in check. Among their concerns is that the coronavirus could flare up again after the economy is re-opened, forcing reopened businesses to shut down again. Another is that people will remain too wary of contracting the coronavirus to return to anything resembling normal economic behavior.
