(AP) Stocks are rising around the world as governments prepare to gradually lift restrictions they imposed on businesses to slow the sweep of the coronavirus pandemic. The S&P 500 added 1.2% in afternoon trading Monday at the start of a week chockablock with market-moving events. Several major central banks are meeting, including the Bank of…
Minneapolis, MN (AP) — Streets in Spain echoed again with joyful cries as the country let children go outside for the first time in six weeks. European nations are methodically working to ease their lockdowns, while American governors are moving at differing speeds, some more aggressive, others more cautious. In Italy, the premier laid out…
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has signed a $484 billion bill that aids employers and hospitals under stress from the coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak has killed more than 50,000 Americans and devastated broad swaths of the economy. The bill is the latest effort by the federal government to help keep afloat businesses that have…
Beijing, China (AP) — Chinese envoys have set off diplomatic firestorms overseas with a combative defense whenever their country is accused of not acting quickly enough to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. They belong to a new generation of “Wolf Warrior” diplomats, named after patriotic blockbuster films starring a muscle-bound Chinese commando killing…
NEW YORK (AP) — Unemployment in the U.S. has swelled to levels last seen during the Great Depression, with 1 in 6 American workers thrown out of work by the coronavirus. The government says more than 4.4 million laid-off workers applied for unemployment benefits last week. In all, about 26 million people have now filed…
San Francisco, CA (AP) — Health officials say two people infected with the coronavirus in California died as many as three weeks before the U.S. reported its first death from the disease in late February — a gap that underscored shortcomings in the nation’s surveillance system for detecting outbreaks. The deaths in early and mid-February…
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration has come out with a plan to start paying hospitals and doctors who care for uninsured COVID-19 patients. Expect Democratic lawmakers and health industry groups to press for more help. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar says hospitals and doctors would submit their bills directly to the government…
Baton Rouge, LA (AP) — Governors in 17 states have committed to regional coordination to reopen their economies during the coronavirus outbreak. But none are in the South, where leaders are going it alone, just as they did in imposing restrictions. As questions about when and how to ease virus-control measures becomes increasingly politically charged,…
An Associated Press investigation has found that a relief fund Congress created to protect small businesses amid the coronavirus crisis has helped companies with thousands of employees, past regulatory run-ins and risks of financial failure even before the economy got walloped. The Paycheck Protection Program was supposed to help small businesses, which typically have less…
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. health regulators have OK’d the first coronavirus test that allows people to take their own sample at home. The test from LabCorp will initially only be available to health care workers and first responders under a doctor’s orders. The sample will still have to be sent back to LabCorp for processing.…