| Joe Biden makes virtual campaign trail debut after several days of public absence Posted: 23 Mar 2020 10:16 AM PDT  Former Vice President and Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden made his first video address after four days of cable news silence to address the coronavirus pandemic from his family home in Wilmington, Del.
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| A 39-year-old otherwise healthy New Orleans woman who showed signs of the novel coronavirus died alone in her kitchen awaiting test results Posted: 23 Mar 2020 03:20 PM PDT  "I don't want to be sick anymore," Natasha Ott, a 39-year-old social worker, texted days before her death. Her COVID-19 results are still unknown.
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| I am a doctor, a public health expert and a mother. This is what people ask me, and what I tell them. Posted: 22 Mar 2020 07:58 AM PDT  What does an expert in infectious disease get asked about coronavirus, and what does she answer?
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| Italy coronavirus deaths rise by 602 in a day, lifting total death toll to 6,077 Posted: 23 Mar 2020 11:51 AM PDT  The death toll from an outbreak of coronavirus in Italy has grown by 602 to 6,077, the head of the Civil Protection Agency said on Monday, the smallest rise in numerical terms since Thursday, suggesting a clear downward trend. The Civil Protection Agency initially said 601 people died on Monday, but the agency head told reporters the real number was 602. The total number of confirmed cases in Italy rose to 63,927 on Monday from a previous 59,138, an increase of 8%, the Civil Protection Agency said -- the lowest rise in percentage terms since the contagion came to light on Feb. 21.
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| 3 workers at facilities housing migrant kids in U.S. custody test positive for coronavirus Posted: 23 Mar 2020 03:54 AM PDT  A dozen migrant children in U.S. custody have been tested for the virus. Five results came back negative and the rest are pending.
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| Epstein Claimed Harvey Weinstein Tried to Assault One of His Girls Posted: 23 Mar 2020 01:30 AM PDT  Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein were chummy until the disgraced movie mogul allegedly berated one of Epstein's favorite girls for rejecting his advances, according to an upcoming book by attorney Bradley J. Edwards, who has spent 12 years representing Epstein's victims. In the following excerpt from his new book—Relentless Pursuit, with Brittany Henderson to be published by Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster—Edwards tells how model scout and Epstein pal Jean-Luc Brunel first related the falling out between the two wealthy predators.* * *On May 2, 2016, true to his word, Jean-Luc Brunel showed up to the Boies Schiller Flexner office in New York. He did so on one condition—that I would not be there. He explained before he arrived that he did not like me. He somehow blamed me for the fact that he had skipped out on his original deposition. His reason for disliking me wasn't very logical, but this was his condition, so I lived with it. I still believed that Jean-Luc was pretending to cooperate with us while really being there as a Jeffrey Epstein spy and told [lawyer] Stan [Pottinger], who would be meeting with Jean-Luc without me, as much. Jean-Luc was claiming, after all, that he now hated Epstein because his association with Epstein had ruined the reputation of the modeling agency. It was hard for me to imagine a decades-long friendship between the two of them having gone sideways because of the exact conduct that had brought these two men together in the first place. So, what was Jean-Luc's game? Was this voluntary interview being offered in hopes of getting our help to serve his bogus lawsuit on Jeffrey Epstein, or did he have other motives in mind?Stan and Jean-Luc talked for hours. Jean-Luc put up a good front. He seemed to have several objectives. One was to convince Stan that he, Jean- Luc, was not the person he was accused of being. He explained how he had known Ghislaine [Maxwell] since the 1980s and how she had introduced him to Jeffrey in the 1990s. He didn't speak well of Jeffrey or Ghislaine—these were once two of his best friends, but now he was willing to spill the beans on both of them.REVEALED: We Found Billionaire Pedophile Jeffrey Epstein's Secret CharityModels Say Jeffrey Epstein's Closest Pal Drugged, Raped ThemJean-Luc spun a story that even he was a victim of Epstein's operation. He was vulnerable when he met Jeffrey Epstein, he said, and yes, it was true that Epstein had gotten him back on his feet in the modeling industry and he was indebted to Jeffrey. But it irritated Jean-Luc because he would talk about models and Jeffrey would pretend that he had his own eye for modeling, while really, he was just trying to sleep with them. Epstein would put these girls in his apartments and say they were "models," but they never modeled. Maxwell basically did whatever Epstein wanted her to do. Brunel talked angrily about how his reputation had been ruined by Epstein, who took the modeling concept and turned it into trash. Jean-Luc did seem to remember having met [victim] Virginia [Roberts Giuffre]. And, certainly, he knew the names of many of the people whom Epstein lent his girls to for sex. Still, he identified only a few, and when pressed for names, focused only on one—Harvey Weinstein. Remember, this interview was happening in May 2016, more than one year before the world would learn about Harvey's unwanted sexual advances and attacks on women.In later discussions, Jean-Luc described one incident in greater detail, which he said culminated in a heated argument between Epstein and Weinstein that terminated their relationship. Weinstein was at Epstein's apartment in France receiving a massage from one of Epstein's girls when he attempted to aggressively convert the massage into something sexual. The girl rejected his advances. As the story goes, Harvey then verbally abused her for rejecting him. Little did Harvey know, this was one of Epstein's favorite girls at the time and Jeffrey viewed the aggressive mistreatment as disrespectful to him. Jeffrey then came into the room, got in Harvey's face, and kicked him out of his house, delivering the message that he was never to come back. Following the interview of Jean-Luc, I heard various versions of this story from others, including years later from Epstein himself, who referred to Harvey as a pig. Imagine that. Even more interesting was Jean-Luc's knowledge and description of the current state of Epstein's operation. Epstein's new chief recruiter was a Russian-born twenty-something-year-old woman named Svetlana. According to Brunel, she was using her connections to import young girls into the United States under the pretense that they were models. While many media accounts have hinted that a primary purpose of Epstein's enterprise was to attract young females and lend them out to powerful people in order for him to hold these sexual encounters over their heads as blackmail, that was not really the case. The primary, if not exclusive, purpose of the operation was Epstein's personal sexual gratification. If some of his friends liked what they saw and wanted to partake, Epstein would share with a select few. For those who participated, it incidentally provided ammunition for Epstein to hold over their heads if he ever wanted to, but despite all the speculation, there has been no recovered evidence that he actually used any of this sexual information against anyone in order to get something out of them. Maybe the knowledge that he could have done that was enough. Maybe it was also enough to influence his pals without his having to threaten them explicitly. Either way, Jean-Luc verified what we thought was true: Epstein's so-called jailing in Florida had not changed the essence of who he was, only the way he operated. Jail had had no effect on the number of cult followers. The devotion of his past and current female followers was reminiscent of the Manson family at its peak.Copyright © 2020 by Bradley Edwards. From the forthcoming book RELENTLESS PURSUIT by Bradley J. Edwards with Brittany Henderson to be published by Gallery Books, a division of Simon & Schuster. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| The new normal of funerals: How we grieve is changing during the coronavirus outbreak Posted: 23 Mar 2020 11:57 AM PDT  There is a new normal when it comes to funeral services and how they're carried out. Some cemeteries aren't allowing graveside services at all.
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| Man sentenced to 25 years for trying to bomb Oklahoma bank Posted: 23 Mar 2020 11:43 AM PDT  An Oklahoma man was sentenced Monday to 25 years in prison after being convicted of trying to blow up an Oklahoma City bank with a massive vehicle bomb, according to federal prosecutors. Jerry Drake Varnell, 26, of Sayre, was sentenced in federal court in Oklahoma City. Varnell was arrested in August 2017 after he tried to detonate what authorities said he believed was a half-ton (450-kilogram) bomb outside BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City.
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| Coronavirus: Trump teases end of lockdown as his treasury secretary says outbreak will last 10 more weeks Posted: 23 Mar 2020 08:49 AM PDT  Donald Trump is floating the notion of ending a national shutdown as soon as next week, with his treasury secretary suggesting the administration thinks the coronavirus outbreak could be over in as few as 10 weeks.The president used a late-night tweet then a handful of re-tweets Monday morning to signal he is worried enough about the fate of the US economy – which economic experts, as well as Republican and Democratic lawmakers say could careen into a recession – that he could declare the shutdown over when a 15-day period the White House set to separate Americans to slow COVID-19's spread ends on 30 March.
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| Op-Ed: Can Democrats take back the Senate? Possibly. Here's how Posted: 22 Mar 2020 10:00 AM PDT  To oust Republicans from Senate control, Democrats need to focus their efforts on a handful of key states.
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| Surgeon General: Delay elective medical, dental procedures to help us fight coronavirus Posted: 22 Mar 2020 02:09 PM PDT  The lives of many, especially our most vulnerable, are at stake. We can win this war if we all commit to taking the right actions for our country.
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| Iran leader refuses U.S. help, citing coronavirus conspiracy theory Posted: 22 Mar 2020 07:25 AM PDT  Iran's supreme leader refused U.S. assistance on Sunday to fight the new coronavirus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus could be produced by America.
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| India shuts down flights, big cities as coronavirus toll rises in region Posted: 23 Mar 2020 10:56 AM PDT  India on Monday announced a halt to domestic flights and said the majority of the country was under complete lockdown to stop the spread of coronavirus as the number of people dying of the disease ticked up across densely populated South Asia. India has reported 471 cases of the coronavirus but health experts have warned that a big jump could be imminent, which would overwhelm the underfunded and crumbling public health infrastructure. On Monday, India confirmed two more deaths, bringing the total to nine.
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| Sen. Kyrsten Sinema calls Rand Paul's behavior prior to receiving coronavirus results 'irresponsible' Posted: 22 Mar 2020 07:57 PM PDT  Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) on Sunday tweeted that she has "never commented about a fellow senator's choices/actions," but Sen. Rand Paul's (R-Ky.) recent behavior has forced her to speak out.On Sunday, Paul's office announced that he tested positive for the novel coronavirus. Not long after, CNN's Seung Min Kim reported that two people briefed on the matter told her that during the Senate Republican lunch on Sunday, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) shared with colleagues "that Rand was at the gym this morning ... and that he was swimming in the pool."Paul's office tweeted in response that "Paul left the Senate IMMEDIATELY upon learning of his diagnosis. He had zero contact with anyone and went into quarantine." His office did not address Paul visiting the Senate gym and pool before receiving the results of his test, which is what outraged Sinema. "This, America, is absolutely irresponsible," she said. "You cannot be near other people while waiting for coronavirus test results. It endangers others and likely increases the spread of the virus."More stories from theweek.com Trump suggests he might soon prioritize the economy over public health U.K. imposes strict coronavirus lockdown measures for next 3 weeks The worst possible president for this crisis
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| North Carolina wins court piracy case over Blackbeard's ship Posted: 23 Mar 2020 08:11 AM PDT  The Supreme Court sided unanimously Monday with North Carolina in a copyright fight with a company that has documented the salvage of the pirate Blackbeard's ship off the state's coast. Justice Elena Kagan wrote for the court that the company's copyright infringement lawsuit, which she called "a modern form of piracy," could not go forward because the Constitution generally protects states from lawsuits in federal courts. The 21st century dispute arose over the Queen Anne's Revenge, which ran aground more than 300 years ago.
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| White House press corps confirms 'suspected case' of coronavirus in the briefing room Posted: 23 Mar 2020 02:10 PM PDT  A member of the White House press corps who has been in the briefing room several times with President Trump has come down with a suspected case of coronavirus.
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| 'No more slush funds': Democrats attack part of the $1.8 trillion stimulus bill as a bailout for massive corporations Posted: 23 Mar 2020 07:40 AM PDT  "No more slush funds or no-strings-attached bailouts," Elizabeth Warren said in a tweet attacking a key part of the massive stimulus bill.
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| Biden has talked with Obama about his possible vice president Posted: 22 Mar 2020 06:24 PM PDT  Biden told Georgia donors his nominee would have to be prepared to step into the top job immediately.
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| South Africa: 'Our children are dying, but President Ramaphosa doesn't care' Posted: 22 Mar 2020 05:08 PM PDT  South Africa's leader Cyril Ramaphosa is accused of inaction over a spate of child murders.
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| COVID-19 pandemic 'accelerating': WHO chief Posted: 23 Mar 2020 11:37 AM PDT  The new coronavirus pandemic is clearly "accelerating", the World Health Organization warned Monday, but said it was still possible to change its trajectory by going on the attack. "The pandemic is accelerating," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference. Joined by FIFA president Gianni Infantino, Tedros compared the fight against COVID-19 to football tactics.
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| No bipartisan coronavirus bill yet, Pelosi warns Posted: 22 Mar 2020 10:30 AM PDT  House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said her fellow Democrats plan to introduce their own bill aimed at limiting the coronavirus outbreak's toll on the American economy even though she still hopes to agree upon a deal with Republicans.
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| These national and state parks are closed amid coronavirus outbreak Posted: 23 Mar 2020 01:37 PM PDT  Rocky Mountain National Park and Ellis Island are among major parks that are closed to slow the spread of coronavirus.
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| Coronavirus: Massive stimulus bill stalls in Senate as Trump activates National Guard Posted: 23 Mar 2020 05:13 AM PDT  "This week, it's going to get bad," the U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams warned on the "TODAY" Show Monday.
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| Senate again fails to advance coronavirus bill as deal remains elusive Posted: 22 Mar 2020 11:34 PM PDT  A second attempt to move forward with the massive spending deal failed as Democrats demanded changes to the Republican bill.
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| A longtime Biden adviser reveled in his comeback. He won't see how it ends. Posted: 22 Mar 2020 08:34 PM PDT  Larry Rasky died unexpectedly Sunday at 69.
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| 'Absolutely irresponsible': Rand Paul's colleagues are calling him out after he reportedly went to the gym after testing for coronavirus Posted: 23 Mar 2020 07:59 AM PDT  Two of Paul's colleagues in the Senate criticized him after he reportedly refused to isolate himself after testing for the coronavirus.
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| Dumped amid coronavirus, former Bloomberg campaign aides sue for pay and benefits Posted: 23 Mar 2020 01:14 PM PDT  Employees resigned from good jobs to take positions with Bloomberg's campaign, and they now face unemployment and the loss of their health insurance in the midst of the spreading virus, field organizers Alexis Sklair, Sterling Rettke and Nathaniel Brown said in their complaint, one of two proposed class action lawsuits potentially representing thousands of workers. "And they pledged to keep this promise regardless of whether Bloomberg won the Democratic nomination." Donna Wood, an organizer in Miami, said in a separate complaint that she was laid off last week despite promises of continued employment.
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| Yemen Huthis uphold death sentence for Baha'i, community says Posted: 23 Mar 2020 09:02 AM PDT  A court run by Yemen's Huthi rebels has upheld the death sentence of a Baha'i over his religion in defiance of international appeals, the community said Monday. Hamed bin Haydara, who has been detained since 2013, was not allowed into Sunday's hearing in the capital Sanaa that rejected his appeal against the sentence imposed more than a year ago, the community said. The Baha'i International Community in a statement said it was "utterly dismayed at this outrageous verdict" and urged the court to overturn it.
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| A 12-year-old coronavirus patient 'fighting for her life' had no preexisting conditions, her family said Posted: 23 Mar 2020 07:07 AM PDT  Emma was diagnosed with pneumonia on March 15. On Saturday, she was hospitalized and put on a ventilator.
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| Malaysia Growth Seen as Low as 2% on ‘Triple Whammy’ of Woes Posted: 22 Mar 2020 07:39 PM PDT |
| Editorial: Climate change is just as real as COVID-19. Now's the last, best chance for our government to treat it that way Posted: 23 Mar 2020 03:00 AM PDT  President Trump and Congress should keep climate change in mind as they prepare economic aid packages for businesses and industries.
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| 'Run them over:' Chinese Americans face growing hate in coronavirus outbreak Posted: 23 Mar 2020 08:22 AM PDT  As the new coronavirus continues to spread throughout the U.S., Chinese Americans — and Asian Americans as a whole — have reported rising verbal and physical attacks suggesting they're responsible for COVID-19's emergence. It's "a sudden spasm of hate that is reminiscent of the kind faced by Muslim-Americans after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001," but this time, the president isn't acting like he's on their side, The New York Times reports.Yuanyuan Zhu recalled walking to the gym in San Francisco for one of her last workouts before an inevitable quarantine a few weeks ago. Along the way, she noticed a man "yelling an expletive about China," and hearing him shout "run them over" when a bus went by, the Times writes. Zhu tried to stay away, but when she got stuck with the man waiting for a crosswalk, he spit on her.The possibility of those kinds of attacks have the nearly two dozen Asian Americans interviewed by The New York Times "afraid to go grocery shopping, to travel alone on subways or buses, to let their children go outside." Even Dr. Edward Chew, the head of the emergency department at a large Manhattan hospital, says he has noticed people covering their noses and mouths when he walks by.Still, President Trump insists on calling COVID-19 the "Chinese virus" despite medical professionals warning how that could fuel fear of and attacks against an entire group of people. "If they keep using these terms, the kids are going to pick it up," Tony Du, an epidemiologist in Maryland, told the Times. "They are going to call my 8-year-old son a Chinese virus. It's serious." Read more at The New York Times.More stories from theweek.com Trump suggests he might soon prioritize the economy over public health U.K. imposes strict coronavirus lockdown measures for next 3 weeks The worst possible president for this crisis
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| Senate Democrats Block Massive Coronavirus Stimulus Bill Posted: 23 Mar 2020 04:50 AM PDT  Senate Democrats blocked a massive emergency coronavirus funding package from moving forward Sunday evening on the grounds that the package favored corporations over working Americans.Minority Leader Chuck Schumer rallied his caucus against a procedural vote that would have fast-tracked the legislation by placing a time limit on debate and forcing the vote. The cloture vote, which requires the support of 60 senators to pass, failed 47-to-47 along partisan lines."I think there's a good chance we'll have an agreement. But we don't need artificial deadlines. We will get this done. We will come in at noon and hopefully we will have an agreement by then," Schumer said.Democrats argue that the Republican stimulus bill favors corporations over working Americans, citing the $75 billion that would be allocated to bail out distressed companies, particularly in the travel in hospitality industries. Republicans have responded by slamming Democrats for standing in the way of the swift action needed to prevent more Americans from losing their jobs."The American people are watching this spectacle. I'm told the futures market is down 5 percent. I'm also told that's when trading stops. So the notion that we have time to play games here with the American economy and the American people is utterly absurd," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said, visibly frustrated, from the Senate floor.The bill would be the third coronavirus stimulus bill, and the most expensive so far. A new Senate vote is now expected at 1pm.Five Republican senators are currently self-quarantined, including Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who announced Sunday that he tested positive for coronavirus. Their absence reduces the GOP majority to a mere one vote advantage.
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| 'Unconscionable': Latino, black student numbers at NYC elite public high schools stay low Posted: 23 Mar 2020 12:20 PM PDT  "It's not clear to me that those tests necessarily test ability as much as they test parents' income or sociological location," one education expert noted.
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| A full coronavirus lockdown now looks 'inevitable' for the UK as the public continues to flock to public spaces despite a surge in COVID-19 deaths Posted: 23 Mar 2020 01:04 AM PDT  The UK seems headed for a full coronavirus lockdown as the British public continues to ignore social-distancing rules.
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| The Latest: China reporting 78 new coronavirus cases Posted: 22 Mar 2020 10:28 PM PDT  China's National Health Commission on Tuesday reported 78 new cases of COVID-19, including 74 which it says are "imported" infections in recent arrivals from overseas. For more than a week, the vast majority of mainland China's reported cases have been found in people coming from other countries, while community transmission inside the country has dwindled, according to the National Health Commission. WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. capital has announced 21 new positive infections from the COVID-19 coronavirus, including an infant girl, bringing the total up to 137, with two deaths so far.
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| Biden consults Obama on running mate as vetting process begins Posted: 23 Mar 2020 04:44 AM PDT  On Sunday Joe Biden said he's been discussing possible running mates with former President Barack Obama.
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| 'Enough is enough': Trudeau tells Canadians to stay home, major province clamps down Posted: 23 Mar 2020 09:58 AM PDT  OTTAWA/TORONTO (Reuters) - A clearly unhappy Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday said people defying advice to isolate themselves to fight a coronavirus outbreak should "go home and stay home" or face sanctions. The number of people diagnosed with the illness caused by the new coronavirus jumped to more than 2,000 from 1,430 on Sunday, and the death toll rose to 24 from 20, according to a tally of announcements from officials compiled by the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. Although Ottawa and the provinces have urged Canadians to stay at home, and in some cases put limits on gatherings, Trudeau said too many people were disregarding the advice.
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| US orders first shutdown of website over coronavirus fraud Posted: 22 Mar 2020 07:46 PM PDT  The US Department of Justice announced Sunday it had shut down a website claiming to sell a coronavirus vaccine, in its first act of federal enforcement against fraud in connection with the pandemic. Lawsuits had been filed against the site coronavirusmedicalkit.com, which claimed to sell vaccines for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, when in fact there is no such vaccine, the Justice Department said in a statement. The Justice Department did not specify how many people fell victim to the scam, but the investigation is ongoing to identify who is behind the fraud and how much money was stolen.
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| Bank of Israel Expands Crisis QE With $13.6 Billion Bond Buying Posted: 23 Mar 2020 07:23 AM PDT  (Bloomberg) -- Israel's central bank is adding to its lead role in trying to keep the economy and markets from unraveling in the face of the coronavirus outbreak.Policy makers on Monday committed to purchase 50 billion shekels ($13.6 billion) of government bonds in the secondary market to ease credit conditions and support activity. The Bank of Israel specified the scale of quantitative easing after re-starting the program last week for the first time since 2009, with an aim of stabilizing the market and lowering yields across the curve.The shekel extended losses against the dollar after the announcement, while prices on 10-year government bonds rose.As the coronavirus outbreak hammers local and global markets, Israel has entered a partial economic shutdown, with infections rising past 1,200 cases with one fatality. The government has announced an aid package worth 29 billion shekels, much of it in low-cost state-backed loans and tax payment deferrals.With its key interest rate already near zero, the Bank of Israel is focusing on boosting liquidity in markets. Along with purchasing government debt, it's also using its large store of foreign-currency reserves to offer up to $15 billion worth of swaps to ease pressure for dollar liquidity among local lenders.The central bought just 18 billion shekels of government bonds during its financial crisis-era program a decade ago.Israel's currency depreciated significantly since the crisis amid the crunch for dollars globally. JPMorgan Chase & Co. analysts said in a Friday note said that the sell-off was due to "domestic financial leverage and hedging behavior of domestic investors."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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| Trump Now Says He Wants to Open the Country in Weeks, Not Months Posted: 23 Mar 2020 03:34 PM PDT  President Donald Trump insisted Monday night that he's looking to "open up our country" in weeks and not months as the United States continues to face the coronavirus pandemic. "I'm not looking at months, I can tell you right now," Trump said at a briefing with the White House coronavirus task force. "We're going to be opening up our country, and we're going to be watching certain areas."The president's comments came as there remains no clear end in sight to the health crisis that has greatly impacted much of American life. Schools districts across the country have been closed for weeks, and on Monday Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam ordered that schools in his state would be closed through the end of the current academic year.Throughout his Monday press briefing, the president frequently touted a quick bounce back from the virus even though there is no clear evidence the United States has turned a corner in beating the virus or the disease it causes, COVID-19. Emphasizing "tremendous responsibility," Trump ticked off a list of concerns about the length of the healthcare crisis: jobs, people with "tremendous anxiety and depression," as well as suicides. "You have death, probably and I mean definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we're talking about with regard to the virus," Trump said. "So we have a double obligation." After touting his administration's response during press briefings last week, Trump began to signal on Twitter late Sunday night that the White House could soon make a major policy shift as many Americans practice social distancing and do their best to avoid the virus. "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF," Trump tweeted. "AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!" The president repeated that line on Monday evening, insisting "America will again and soon be open for business" and he's "not going to let the cure be worse than the problem."Fox News Stars Begin Pushing Trump to End Coronavirus Restrictions"This two week period has been good," Trump said. "I'm not saying it ends at that time. We have another seven days or so. I'm not saying it ends at that time. But I am saying, it's been like this incredible learning process. That's going to go into the future."Trump continued to emphasize that he would open up the country, but hotspots could be monitored. "We're going to be watching New York, and we're going to be watching California, we're going to be watching the state of Washington and other places, Illinois is becoming a hot spot," he said. "And we can do both. Now, we may quarantine, I mean we will be quarantining many people in these areas."Trump also announced Monday that he has signed an executive order to ban the hoarding of crucial medical supplies and equipment during the coronavirus pandemic. That would include face masks, hand sanitizers and personal protective equipment. He added that his administration wants to prevent price gouging. Attorney General William Barr said the administration has begun to see evidence of potential hoarding and price gouging. No items have been designated at this point, he said.He said this is not targeted at consumers or businesses stockpiling for their own operations. It's aimed at people hoarding "on an industrial scale for the purpose of "manipulating the market.""If you have a big supply of toilet paper in your house, this is not something you have to worry about," Barr said. "But if you are sitting on a warehouse with masks, surgical masks, you will be hearing a knock on your door."Trump also announced that his administration was postponing the deadline for compliance with real I.D. requirements. Those changes to Americans' drivers licenses would have impacted the necessary document they would have needed to board flights in the United States. Time and time again during the briefing, the president made it sound like the country could handle both recovering from the virus and returning to life as it was before it on a more optimistic scale than seems possible as medical supply shortages and health care fears continue to dominate the news. "We can do two things at one time," Trump said. Read more at The Daily Beast.Got a tip? Send it to The Daily Beast hereGet our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.
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| Senate fails to move forward with coronavirus stimulus bill Posted: 22 Mar 2020 10:39 PM PDT  The absence of several senators who are self-quarantining due to the coronavirus sidelined several Republicans who were unable to vote.
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| Rand Paul becomes first senator known to test positive for coronavirus Posted: 22 Mar 2020 03:40 PM PDT  Paul's Twitter account said he "is feeling fine and is in quarantine."
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| The UK has just 2 weeks to stop a coronavirus outbreak as bad as Italy's. Why time's running out. Posted: 22 Mar 2020 10:10 AM PDT  The coronavirus outbreak in the UK could soon be at levels even worse than what we have seen in Italy.
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| Fact check: Why is the 1918 influenza virus called 'Spanish flu'? Posted: 23 Mar 2020 09:01 AM PDT  On March 20, the Facebook page Unbelievable Facts shared a graphic on the origins of the 1918 flu pandemic's more common name, the "Spanish flu."
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