House and Senate lawmakers are preparing new legislation that would make it easier for the government to forgive emergency loans to small businesses hurt by the coronavirus pandemic after a lobbying blitz by firms that argued they needed more assistance.

The bills would give companies more time to use funding under the Paycheck Protection Program, allowing them additional flexibility to rehire workers later this year rather than rush to bring people back by June.

It’s unclear, though, whether a political compromise to rework the Small Business Administration’s PPP is near, even as many businesses argue they are on the verge of closing for good.

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Carrie Duran didn’t have to scrounge too much when her rent came due in April. The 48-year-old single mother covered the bill with the $1,200 federal stimulus check she received that month.

But May soon would prove to be much tougher. Her hours working for a local nonprofit organization had been cut dramatically. She wasn’t receiving unemployment benefits in her home state of New Hampshire. She had three kids to feed, a daughter with Down syndrome to support, a car payment that hounded her so much that creditors called her five times on Mother’s Day alone — an ever-growing list of responsibilities competing for her attention and her ever-dwindling bank account.

As the pandemic threatens to last late into the year, many families across the six-state New England region are coming to a similar, scary realization: It’s never been easy to afford a home or apartment here, and it’s about to become even more difficult.

Read more here.

Guidance for reopening houses of worship amid the coronavirus pandemic has been put on hold after a battle between the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the White House, which was resistant to putting limits on religious institutions, according to administration officials.

The CDC this week issued a detailed road map for reopening schools, child-care facilities, restaurants and mass transit. On Tuesday night, the agency issued additional guidance in the form of “health considerations” for summer camps, including overnight camps, and youth sports organizations and colleges.

But there are currently no plans to issue guidance for religious institutions, according to three administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss policy decisions.

Public health experts said the lack of reopening guidance for religious institutions puts some of the most vulnerable at risk for contracting covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

Read more here.

Georgia acknowledged Wednesday that it has included the results of antibody tests in the count of those tested for the novel coronavirus — a practice criticized by experts as misleading when it comes to how well the spread of the virus is tracked.

The state’s published test count, 402,940, is a combination of diagnostic tests used to identify who is currently infected with the coronavirus and antibody tests, which can detect whether someone once had the virus. However, 57,000 tests, or about 14 percent, are antibody tests, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

The combination of testing forms was first reported by the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.

Georgia Health Commissioner Kathleen Toomey told the Journal-Constitution that she was unaware how many antibody tests were being included in the test count but that “it’s not really an error.”

“It’s a way it was collected,” she said. “I didn’t fully appreciate how many antibody tests have been done.”

After similarly adding antibody tests to its daily test count, Virginia officials said last week that they would stop, reducing the state’s overall screening of the coronavirus by 9 percent.

Dartmouth College epidemiologist Quang P. Nguyen and Erin Kissane, managing editor of the COVID Tracking Project, called combining antibody and viral testing figures a “deceptive misuse of the data,” in a position statement on Virginia’s admission.

Nguyen and Kissane said that they contacted 44 states and territories about their antibody-test reporting policy and that at least two states besides Virginia were combining antibody and viral test results, but they did not name which states.

The latest disclosure from Georgia about its data comes as the state has struggled with other concerns about its ability to track infection. Last week, it was revealed that a graph the state shared that appeared to depict a consistent downward trend in new cases in several large counties was out of chronological order.

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The NCAA Division I Council voted to approve voluntary activities for football, men’s basketball and women’s basketball beginning June 1. The move, announced by the council Wednesday, allows athletes to return to campus for workouts if their conference and school also decide to lift the suspension of team activities.

College athletic facilities across the country closed in mid-March as the pandemic upended sports in the United States. The NCAA’s moratorium on all athletic activities extends through May 31. The Division I Council will address the resumption of other sports at a later date through an electronic vote.

Read more here.

Twenty-three children from the Washington region are being treated at Children’s National Hospital for an inflammatory syndrome associated with covid-19, a hospital spokesperson said Wednesday night.

The illness, known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, is a recently discovered complication from the virus.

The young patients being treated are from the District, Maryland and Virginia, said hospital spokeswoman Beth Riggs. NBC Washington first reported the pediatric cases at the hospital.

District officials told the D.C. Council Wednesday that at least three children in the nation’s capital have developed the syndrome. LaQuandra Nesbitt, director of the D.C. Health department, told city lawmakers that medical professionals still know very little about the syndrome and the virus’s effect on children.

The inflammatory syndrome has been linked to the death of a 15-year-old in Baltimore County.

Maryland has disclosed four cases and Virginia reported one case this week. Symptoms for the syndrome, which can cause problems with a child’s heart and other organs, may include persistent fever and low blood pressure.

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LONDON — Adil el-Tayar was a distinguished renal transplant surgeon, originally from Sudan, who volunteered to attend to coronavirus patients in an emergency room. Within weeks, the 64-year-old was dead — the first doctor in Britain to succumb to the virus.

“He was aware there was a risk,” his son Osman said. “But he didn’t believe it would affect him the way it did.”

Nearly all the doctors who have died of covid-19 in Britain have been ethnic minorities, most born overseas, like el-Tayar, according to the British Medical Association.

That grim toll has confounded health experts, alarmed minority physicians, and startled a nation that relies on immigrants to swell the ranks of its public health-care system — yet voted for Brexit with a promise to “take back control” of its borders and limit immigration.

Read more here.

Mastercard said corporate employees can make the decision on when they feel comfortable returning to an office amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

“They know their personal circumstances and needs,” a Mastercard spokesperson said in an email to The Washington Post.

The credit card company is not the first to announce that it will delay reopening past government-enforced shutdown orders, as technology giants Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and Twitter have all told their employees not to expect to return soon — or perhaps ever. Mastercard’s main competitors, American Express and Visa, have also extended their work-from-home periods, Reuters first reported Wednesday.

Google and Facebook said many workers who can do their jobs remotely should plan to do so until 2021. Amazon and Microsoft said workers may tentatively return in the fall.

Mastercard, which has nearly 19,000 people employed worldwide, is headquartered in Purchase, N.Y.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said Mastercard would not ask its employees to return until a vaccine for the novel coronavirus is available. A spokesman says it’s up to when employees feel comfortable. This post has been updated.

Dallas, Houston, Southeast Florida’s Gold Coast, the entire state of Alabama and several other places in the South that have been rapidly reopening their economies are in danger of a second wave of coronavirus infections over the next four weeks, according to a research team that uses cellphone data to track social mobility and forecast the trajectory of the pandemic.

The model, developed by ­PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and updated Wednesday with new data, suggests that most communities in the United States should be able to avoid a second spike in the near term if residents are careful to maintain social distancing even as businesses open up and restrictions are eased.

But the risk for resurgence is high in some parts of the country, especially in places where cases are already rising fast, including the counties of Crawford, Iowa; Colfax, Neb.; and Texas, Okla. and the city of Richmond. Since May 3, Crawford County’s caseload has risen by 750 percent, and Colfax County’s has increased 1,390 percent, according to state data compiled by The Washington Post.

Read more here.

ROME — Out front, a chalkboard displayed the day’s menu, and back in the kitchen, a chef wearing a mask and gloves had just made the pappardelle and fettuccine. It was noontime. The double doors to Zia Rilla swung open. The restaurant, remade for the pandemic, was serving lunch and dinner for the first time in 72 days.

Its tables were spaced apart, each marked off by blue painter’s tape. Its capacity had been reduced by more than half, to 12 seats. A black spiral notebook sat on a back table, a log for customers’ names and phone numbers that would help if contact tracing ever became necessary.

“I am anxious,” said the owner, Enrica Sutrini, 66. In a country facing all sorts of risks in getting back to normal, it was unclear whether anybody would come through the door, or whether Italy — so defined by the din and joys of dining — could reclaim one of its most emblematic traits.

Read more here.

The mayor of Montgomery, Ala., said Wednesday the city is facing a shortage of intensive care beds and is being forced to divert patients to Birmingham, as the city’s health-care system has been “maxed out” due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Right now, if you’re from Montgomery, and you need an ICU bed, you’re in trouble,” Steven Reed said during a Wednesday news briefing. “If you are from Central Alabama, and you need an ICU bed, you may not be able to get one because our health-care system has been maxed out.”

The mayor said that as of Wednesday, Baptist Medical Center East only had three remaining ICU beds available, Baptist South had no ICU beds and Baptist Health Prattville has zero. Jackson Hospital, in downtown Montgomery, had one remaining.

“I want us to really think about the seriousness of that, because none of us know who may need that ICU bed today and who may need that this evening, tomorrow or over this extended Memorial Day weekend,” Reed said.

The grim news comes as experts warn of a second wave of the coronavirus in the South as hot spots erupt across the country.

State Health Officer Scott Harris said this week that Alabama’s numbers were “not as good as we could hope for.” The state began easing its stay-at-home order and other restrictions this month. Gov. Kay Ivey (R), who has allowed restaurants, bars, retail businesses, churches, gyms and salons to reopen, is expected to outline further steps this week.

Alabama will probably see a steep increase in cases in nearly every county over the next month, according to a model developed by PolicyLab at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

As of Wednesday, Alabama reported 13,052 confirmed coronavirus cases and 522 fatalities. Montgomery County has reported 994 cases and 27 deaths. The county is only second to Jefferson County (1,433 confirmed cases and 83 deaths) for the highest number of confirmed cases out of any county in the state.

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Illinois Republican State Rep. Darren Bailey was booted off the House floor Wednesday for refusing to wear a mask after the legislative body voted to require them.

He was one of 12 lawmakers who voted against changing the House rules to require a face covering for members, staff and visitors. While the 11 other lawmakers donned masks shortly after the vote, Bailey didn’t. Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch, a Democrat, called him out on it and made a motion to remove him, which passed 81-27 with Republican support.

Bailey smiled as he was escorted out of the temporary house floor at the Bank of Springfield Center by a small group, who were all wearing masks. As he left the building, he told a Chicago Sun Times reporter that he was unsure if he would return to session later this week.

At a daily press briefing Wednesday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) admonished Bailey after Illinois Department of Health’s Dr. Ngozi Ezike spoke about the risk people who refuse to wear a mask present to others if they are carrying the virus but are asymptomatic.

“The representative has shown a callous disregard for life, a callous disregard for people’s health,” Pritzker said. “You just heard a doctor tell you why people wear a mask in the first place. It is to protect others. So clearly the Representative has no interest in protecting others.”

Bailey is the only person in Illinois, besides essential workers, who is exempt from Pritzker’s stay-at-home order after a judge in southern Illinois granted a temporary restraining order blocking the state from enforcing Pritzker’s order against him.

Bailey didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment from The Post.

Thailand’s film industry is hitting play again — while following a socially distanced script.

Under guidelines issued by the Ministry of Culture, filmmakers are permitted to return to work in well-ventilated studios with no more than 50 mask-wearing crew members. Scenes depicting some of the key attractions of the big screen — kissing, touching and fighting — are now taboo as possible virus vectors. Instead, special effects and camera angles will be used in postproduction to, literally, fill on some of the gaps, the Guardian reported.

With Thailand’s rate of new infections falling, the government has been easing the country’s movement restrictions following two months of shutdowns. Department stores are reopening to eager customers, and the country’s curfew has been reduced by one hour from 11 p.m. to 4 a.m.

The new rules also offer a glimpse into what could await film industries in other countries, as producers and actors seek a return to the business while keeping workers safe and coronavirus-free.

Minnesota churches announced Wednesday they will resume in-person worship services starting May 26, defying Gov. Tim Walz’s current executive order which allows for retailers to operate at 50 percent capacity but caps church services at 10 people.

The Minnesota Catholic Conference and the Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod sent Walz (D) two separate letters stating their intended actions. In a news release, the churches said they would resume services at 33 percent capacity.

Additionally, the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty sent Walz and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison a letter explaining why continuing to keep churches closed “violates the First Amendment.”

This comes days after U.S. Attorney General William P. Barr directed federal prosecutors across the country on Monday to “be on the lookout” for state and local coronavirus-related restrictions that might run afoul of the Constitution and to pursue court action, if necessary. Earlier in the month, two Twin Cities churches filed a lawsuit claiming Walz’s executive orders during the pandemic unfairly picked “winners and losers” by closing some businesses, schools and places of worship.

The news out of Minnesota comes at a time when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stated in a new report that large gatherings pose risk for coronavirus transmission and called on faith-based organizations to work with local health officials to implement guidelines for modified activities.

“Our Constitution stands for ‘equal justice under law’ and imposing a special disability on churches is anything but. Gov. Walz and Attorney General Ellison should ensure equal treatment for churches and houses of worship — especially because they are crucial to helping our nation overcome this crisis,” Eric Rassbach, vice president and senior counsel at Becket, said in a statement.

Nearly 860,000 additional travelers flocked to parts of Maryland and Virginia over the weekend as the states began to reopen Friday, according to researchers tracking smartphone data. Many were from the Washington suburbs, which remained shut down.

The 18 percent jump in travel from previous weekends brought a total 5.83 million trips to those areas between Friday and Sunday, according to an analysis by University of Maryland researchers.

The increase in travel underscores concerns among public health experts that piecemeal lifting of restrictions increases the chances of the coronavirus spreading. They say they’re particularly concerned about rural areas, where there have been fewer cases, as people travel from closed areas to those that have reopened.

Read more here.

In Hong Kong, anyone known to have been exposed to the novel coronavirus was dispatched by authorities to a government-run facility to quarantine for two weeks. Recently, officials announced that weeks had passed with no new locally transmitted cases.

In South Korea, people with moderate symptoms were ordered to decamp to isolation centers. That country’s response to the virus is hailed as a model for the world.

But even as centralized, out-of-home quarantine and isolation appeared helpful in breaking the chain of transmission in other countries, the United States has remained largely resistant to isolating people in government-run centers away from their homes. And in places where voluntary isolation facilities are available, local officials are finding fewer people taking advantage of them than expected.

Read more here.

Front-line health-care workers experienced shortages of critical equipment for protection from the novel coronavirus into early May — including nearly two-thirds who cited insufficient supplies of the masks that filter out most airborne particles, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll.

More than 4 in 10 also saw shortages of less protective surgical masks, and 36 percent said their supply of hand sanitizer was running low, according to the poll. Roughly 8 in 10 reported wearing one mask for an entire shift, and more than 7 in 10 had to wear the same mask more than once.

The dire shortage of personal protective equipment for health-care workers emerged in March as one of the earliest signals of the country’s lack of preparation for the coronavirus pandemic. Nurses and others have said they were forced to put their health at risk caring for highly infectious patients because they lacked adequate supplies, in particular N95 masks, which filter out 95 percent of airborne particles.

Read more here.

Flights out of locked-down and crash-strapped Lebanon began Wednesday for some foreign domestic workers stuck in the Middle Eastern country and wanting to return home.

Many of those seeking a flight out lost their jobs as Lebanon’s economic crisis has worsened and employees have cut salaries or can no longer afford domestic and other informal work. But many had also been victims of domestic and labor abuse, forced out into the streets or looking to leave an exploitative work environment.

“The level of desperation has just gone through the roof,” a case worker for the Lebanese activist group This is Lebanon, which assists foreign domestic workers, told Agence France-Presse. “There has been a vast increase in the number of people contacting us about unpaid salaries.”

There are around 250,000 domestic workers in Lebanon, most of whom are from Ethiopia or elsewhere in Africa and Asia. Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned conditions for these workers, who as part of the “kafala” sponsorship system are excluded from labor laws and often toil for little pay and are left with no protections from abusive employees or other violations.

The pandemic has exacerbated Lebanon’s already severe economic crisis, which before the virus had brought people to the streets for sustained anti-government protests. Dollars are now impossible to get in cash-strapped banks and exorbitantly high on the black market, complicating workers’ efforts to save or send remittances home. Some have reported employees trying to pay them in the devalued Lebanese currency instead.

Lebanon’s main airport has been closed since March 19 as part of the country’s lockdown to contain the coronavirus.

President Trump said Wednesday that he was one or two days from completing a regimen of hydroxychloroquine, after he announced Monday that he was taking the drug as protection against the coronavirus.

“I think the regimen finishes in a day or two,” he told reporters at the end of his meeting with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D). “I think it’s in two days.”

Earlier, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in her briefing that hydroxychloroquine is “a safe drug to use.”

On Monday, Trump said he began taking the antimalarial drug about 10 days earlier, after telling the White House physician that he would like to start taking it. That was also around the time that two White House staffers tested positive for the virus.

“I think it’s good. I’ve heard a lot of good stories. And if it’s not good, I’ll tell you right. I’m not going to get hurt by it,” he said, noting the drug has long been accepted as a treatment for malaria, rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. “It’s been around for 40 years.”

There is little evidence that hydroxychloroquine prevents individuals from contracting the coronavirus, however, and physicians have warned that it can be deadly.

After Trump announced that he was taking hydroxychloroquine, the White House released a letter from Sean P. Conley, Trump’s in-house doctor, who did not specify whether he had prescribed the president the drug.

“After numerous discussions he and I had for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks,” Conley wrote. He said Trump continues to test negative for the virus.

Washington Redskins rookie Antonio Gandy-Golden tested positive for the coronavirus during his pre-NFL draft training, he announced Wednesday in a statement, but he has since made a full recovery.

Gandy-Golden’s symptoms were “mild” after the March 24 diagnosis, he said, and after self-quarantining for two weeks, he was cleared as of April 7. Nearly three weeks later, the Redskins drafted the wide receiver out of Liberty University in the fourth round.

On Tuesday, Liberty President Jerry Falwell Jr. hinted at Gandy-Golden’s positive test by saying, during an appearance on Fox News, that the university had one positive case but that it was a football player who had left school to prepare for the NFL draft. Falwell did not reveal the player’s name, but Gandy-Golden was the only Flames player selected this year. Hours later, Gandy-Golden released his statement.

Read more here.

Trump threatened Wednesday to “hold up” federal funding to Michigan if the state proceeds with a plan to send absentee ballot applications to all of its 7.7 million voters in a bid to mitigate the risks of in-person voting in the state’s primary and general election this year.

Trump did not specify which funds he might withhold, and he has not always followed through with similar threats.

His message — delivered in a morning tweet — comes as many states grapple with how to safely proceed with elections. Amid the pandemic, Trump has repeatedly railed against mail-in voting, claiming it is subject to fraud and has hurt Republicans in previous elections.

Later Wednesday, in an exchange with reporters at the White House, Trump said “you’ll be finding out very soon” if it’s necessary to withhold funding from the state, although he added that he doesn’t “think it’s going to be necessary,” without providing details.

He also said he plans to visit Michigan “at the appropriate time.”

Trump made a similar threat to withhold funding in a second tweet Wednesday directed at Nevada, where officials have been encouraging use of mail-in ballots. Trump claimed that has created “a great Voter Fraud scenario for the State.”

At the White House, Trump railed against mail-in ballots, describing them as “a very dangerous thing.”

On Tuesday, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) announced all of Michigan’s registered voters would be mailed absentee ballot applications for the state’s primaries in August and general election in November.

“Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election,” Trump wrote in his tweet, incorrectly describing the move to send applications for ballots. “This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!”

Trump tagged the Treasury Department among others in his tweet.

“By mailing applications, we have ensured that no Michigander has to choose between their health and their right to vote,” Benson said in announcing the decision on Tuesday.

Trump’s threat comes as Michigan responds to unprecedented flooding after a pair of dams in Midland County collapsed following record rainfall.

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Attractions will be permitted to open throughout South Carolina beginning on Friday, Gov. Henry McMaster (R) announced Wednesday.

Those facilities — set to reopen just in time for Memorial Day weekend — include but are not limited to zoos, museums, aquariums, planetariums, historical buildings and sites, water parks, amusement park rides, go-kart tracks, bingo and miniature-golf facilities.

After a meeting of AccelerateSC, a task force McMaster formed and charged with helping the state plan for reopening the South Carolina economy, he also stated that youth and adult sports leagues will be allowed to starting practicing on May 30.

According to the guidelines on the AccelerateSC website, all attractions are encouraged to establish their own procedures respective to their particular services and facilities. Additionally, until further notice, the maximum occupancy of any indoor facility is limited to no more than 50 percent of the occupant load as determined by the fire marshal.

In recent weeks, the state has eased restrictions put in place to slow the spread of the coronavirus. McMaster has allowed customers to dine in at restaurants and for retail shops, salons and barbershops to reopen. Beaches have also been approved to reopen in South Carolina.

As of Tuesday, South Carolina had reported 9,056 positive cases in the state and 399 fatalities.

Stocks rose Wednesday as investors brushed off a report questioning a coronavirus vaccine candidate and focused on signs that the reopening of the global economy is gathering momentum.

The Dow Jones industrial average jumped 300 points at the opening bell and never looked back, extending its gain to 369 points, or 1.5 percent. The Dow is up 3.8 percent this week but down 14 percent this year. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq composite indexes also surged.

Energy stocks were a big winner, with Chevron and ExxonMobil surging about 3 percent. Walt Disney and American Express, both of which stand to benefit from an economic reopening, paced the blue chips through the day.

“There are green shoots all over the place showing the economy might have bottomed,” said Ivan Feinseth of Tigress Financial Partners.

Stocks have been volatile all week as news on coronavirus vaccines, economic milestones, politics and earnings buffet investor sentiment.

Read more here.

Tesla on Wednesday dropped its lawsuit against a California county that instructed the company to cease production at its Fremont plant.

After Alameda County officials agreed to let the facility reopen with worker safety precautions last week, the company dropped its lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The suit alleged that the county had violated the due-process and equal-protection clauses of the 14th Amendment by ordering the closure of the plant. The company had sought an injunction that would allow it to operate.

The Fremont manufacturing plant can remain open as long as public health indicators remain stable or improve, the Alameda County Public Health Department announced last week. Fremont police will verify whether Tesla is holding up its part of the agreement.

Chief executive Elon Musk has spoken out against the restrictions that forced the plant to cease production, calling stay-home orders “fascist” during a company earnings call in April.

Musk continued to speak out against the orders, telling President Trump on a call with executives that he wanted to open by May 1. After the call, Trump tweeted his support for Musk. “California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW,” he wrote. “It can be done Fast & Safely!”

Tesla did not respond to a Washington Post request for comment on the court filing Wednesday.

The tax behemoth that touches virtually every American has made the government’s most aggressive effort so far to recall its workforce. But like other federal agencies following President Trump’s push to reopen the country, the IRS is struggling to ensure the safety of its employees as it tries to chip away at a crushing backlog and reconnect with tens of millions of taxpayers it has struggled to serve since late March.

No federal leaders could fully prepare for a disruption on this scale. Yet the IRS, awash in sensitive taxpayer information, finds itself in a morass brought on by years of crippling budget cuts, cumbersome paper-based systems and resistance to telework.

The challenges seem insurmountable. Even before the recent coronavirus infections, few employees felt secure enough to go back. As of Monday, about 3,000 customer-service and clerical workers had volunteered to return to the office, an absentee rate of almost 75 percent.

Read more here.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) sent a letter Wednesday to the heads of state agencies and higher-learning institutions, asking them to cut their budgets by 5 percent while highlighting the still uncertain economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.

In his letter, Abbott said Texas and the world face “significant economic uncertainty” and that it will be months before the fallout is made clear, along with “how combating this virus will impact state finances.”

“To prepare for this economic shock, we must take action today to ensure that the state can continue providing the essential government services that Texans expect,” Abbott wrote in the letter, which was also signed by Dan Patrick, the lieutenant governor, and Dennis Bonnen, speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, both Republicans.

Abbott’s letter also suggested “cost-saving strategies” described as not impacting the state’s coronavirus-related actions, including not filling jobs deemed inessential to the pandemic response and sidestepping some travel or administrative costs. His letter asks for these plans by June 15.

Certain things are exempt from this, his letter adds, including funding for child protective services, the Texas Department of Public Safety, the Texas Department of State Health Services and parts of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Days after reopening about 500 beaches, Greece announced Wednesday it was ready to welcome back tourists beginning June 15 and gradually allow international flights from July 1.

The economically embattled country, which is highly dependent on tourism, is keen to kick-start the industry after having contained its coronavirus outbreak comparatively better than other nations.

Under the plan, announced by Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis in a televised address to the nation, visitors will not be subject to a quarantine upon arrival, though they will need to be tested for the virus.

“We will win the economy war, just as we won the health battle,” Mitsotakis said, according to AFP.

First in are expected to be holidaymakers from neighboring Balkan states, which similarly have relatively low infection and fatality rates and are within driving distance of Greece. The government will release a list of countries that will resume flights at the end of May, according to the country’s tourism minister, Harry Theocharis.

Resuming travel “from the Balkans to the Baltic” was a priority, Theocharis added. He said he expects visitors from Bulgaria, Israel, Cyprus, Germany and northern Europe to be among the first in. Direct flights between the U.K. and Greece will resume July 1, the Guardian reported. Greece also will cut duties levied on transport to make travel more attractive amid the economic upheaval.

Other countries such as China and South Korea have seen spikes in coronavirus clusters after relaxing movement restrictions.

President Trump said Wednesday that he is considering reviving plans to host a summit of the world’s largest industrialized democracies in June at Camp David, the rustic presidential retreat in Maryland, as a sign of “normalization.”

Trump shared his thinking in a morning tweet, saying the United States and other members of the Group of Seven are “beginning their COMEBACK.” The gathering had been scheduled to begin June 10 but was scuttled in March amid global travel restrictions and other responses to the pandemic.

“Now that our Country is ‘Transitioning back to Greatness’, I am considering rescheduling the G-7, on the same or similar date, in Washington, D.C., at the legendary Camp David,” Trump tweeted. “The other members are also beginning their COMEBACK. It would be a great sign to all — normalization!”

In March, the White House said G-7 leaders — Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States — would huddle by video conference this year.

Trump had originally announced plans to host this year’s G-7 summit at his private golf resort outside Miami before moving it to Camp David after a public uproar.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday that it is “extremely important” that summits such as the G-7 continue and that he will look at what the United States is proposing “to see what kind of measures will be in place to keep people safe [and] what kind of recommendations the experts are giving in terms of how that might function.”

“There are lots of discussions to come,” Trudeau told reporters in Ottawa, “but we look forward to having those discussions with the American hosts.”

French President Emmanuel Macron also expressed interest. “Given the importance of the G7 in responding to the crisis, the President is willing to go to Camp David, if of course health conditions permit,” said a spokesperson for the Elysee Palace, the official seat of the French presidency.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was noncommittal when reporters asked her if she would travel to the United States for the G7 meeting. Whether by video conference or otherwise “I will fight for multilateralism,” she said, according to German media.

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During an event with Vice President Pence at a senior center in Orlando, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Wednesday issued a lengthy defense of his state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, dismissing criticism of the state’s data management as “just typical partisan narrative trying to be spun.”

DeSantis accused members of the media of waxing “poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York. ‘Wait two weeks; Florida’s going to be next. Just like Italy; wait two weeks.’ "

“Well, hell, we’re eight weeks away from that, and it hasn’t happened,” DeSantis said, arguing that Florida has a lower death rate than several other parts of the country. “So, we’ve succeeded. And I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative.”

“It challenges their assumption, so they got to try to find a boogeyman,” he added. “Maybe it says there are black helicopters circling the Department of Health. If you believe that, I got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.”

As of Wednesday, Florida had reported 47,471 cases and 2,096 deaths.

Digital sales at Target surged 141 percent in the most recent quarter, as shoppers turned to delivery and curbside pickup services during the pandemic.

The big-box retailer said a spike in grocery sales helped drive an 11 percent increase in total revenue, which grew to $19.6 billion during the three-month period that ended May 2. Customers made fewer — but bigger — shopping trips, spending 13 percent more on average on each transaction.

Sales of electronics like video games and home office items jumped 45 percent, while food and drink sales rose more than 20 percent, Brian Cornell, the company's chief executive, said in a Wednesday call with analysts. Digital sales, he said, rose a “jaw-dropping” 282 percent in April, with the company fulfilling more orders on an average day than during last year's Cyber Monday.

But the shifts in spending also cut into profits. Groceries tend to be less profitable than items such as clothing and shoes, which became less of a priority for customers during the pandemic. Profits fell 64 percent during the quarter, to $284 million from $795 million a year earlier.

“This quarter was unlike anything we’ve ever seen in our company’s long history,” Cornell said. “Unprecedented volatility within the quarter presented the most extreme test of our business and operations that I could’ve imagined.”

New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced this week that it will try using ultraviolet light in the fight against the coronavirus, sending out lamps to disinfect subway trains and buses.

As part of a pilot project, announced Tuesday, about 150 of these lamps will be dispatched to see how effective they are at killing the virus that has spread virulently through New York and across the world. Ultraviolet light has been used as a disinfectant, and some research has found that ultraviolet light can effectively kill the virus.

Footage released by the MTA showed the devices, small boxes affixed to subway polls that release bright flashes of light. The New York program, using ultraviolet-C lamps, will start on some trains, buses and stations early next week and could next expand to trains on the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North.

The devices used for the pilot program come from PURO Lighting, a Colorado start-up that touts the use of lighting to disinfect gathering spots.

“For nearly three months, the MTA has worked relentlessly to disinfect our entire fleet of subways and buses but we’ve always promised that we would explore any and all new approaches available to us as well,” Patrick Foye, chairman and chief executive of the MTA, said in a statement.

The MTA shuttered New York City subway service overnight earlier this month to allow for stations and trains to be cleaned, an unprecedented step it took amid the pandemic. The city’s subways have been closed from 1 to 5 a.m. since then.

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Hospitals nearing capacity. Deaths soaring. A president urging people back to work. São Paulo, the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, is emerging as the coronavirus pandemic’s latest global hot spot. Confirmed cases in the city have soared 34 percent, and at least 510 people have died in the past week as the public health infrastructure buckles and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro continues to shrug off the crisis.

“This is the picture of Bolsonaro’s Brazil,” said Gerson Salvador, an infectious disease specialist in the intensive care unit at Sao Paulo’s University Hospital. “People are being exterminated. There is no organized system to care for them, they are being advised to go out, and given no alternative but to work.”

On Tuesday, President Trump, who has maintained friendly ties with Bolsonaro, a fellow populist, said he was considering banning travel from the country.

Read more here.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) defended the removal of the architect and manager of the state’s coronavirus dashboard on Wednesday, during a visit to the state by Vice President Pence that was designed to highlight efforts to recover economically from the pandemic.

Rebekah Jones, who is credited with creating the Florida Department of Health data portal, which has been praised by experts including White House coronavirus task force coordinator Deborah Birx, said this week that she was removed because she refused to censor data and “manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen.”

DeSantis told reporters that Jones is being terminated for “a bunch of different reasons” and suggested she had been given too much credit for the portal.

“One, she’s not a data scientist. She’s somebody that’s got [a] degree in journalism, communication and geography,” DeSantis said. “She is not involved in collating any data, she does not have the expertise to do that.”

“She is not the chief architect of our web portal. That is another false statement,” he added. “And what she was doing was, she was putting data on the portal, which the scientists didn’t believe was valid data. So she didn’t listen to the people who were her superiors — she had many people above her in the chain of command.”

DeSantis also noted that Jones is facing a criminal charge. According to the Miami Herald, Jones faces a stalking charge that is awaiting trial next month stemming from a romantic relationship that turned contentious while she was pursuing a doctoral degree at Florida State University a few years ago.

Jones did not respond to requests for comment on the charge, the Herald reported.

“I’ve asked the Department of Health to explain to me how someone would be allowed to be charged with that and continue on, because this was many months ago,” DeSantis told reporters.

Jones told The Washington Post this week that she designed the portal by herself.

“Every line of code, every little graphic, was built by me,” she wrote in an email. “I built it and the underlying data by myself, working 16-hour days, every day without a break.”

BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries are seeing a sharp spike in coronavirus cases, prompting governments to reimpose some restrictions that had been lifted late last month ahead of the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Saudi Arabia, the largest of them, had recorded about 15,000 cases when Ramadan began. But in less than a month, the kingdom’s numbers quadrupled, with nearly 60,000 confirmed cases as of Wednesday, making it the Arab world’s new hotbed of infection. In response, the kingdom has announced it will enforce a nationwide 24-hour curfew starting Saturday and continuing into next week during the Eid al-Fitr festival, which marks the end of Ramadan.

Read more here.

SAN FRANCISCO — Within days of social media companies taking down a viral video touting conspiracy theories about the novel coronavirus, a clip popped up on YouTube advising viewers of another way to access the banned footage: through a link to the video on the file-sharing service Google Drive.

Google Drive is not a social media platform, nor is it set up to tackle the problems social media companies face: the weaponization of their services to amplify dangerous content.

But the use of the Drive link, to the trailer for a documentary called “Plandemic,” reflects a wave of seemingly countless workarounds employed by people motivated to spread misinformation about the virus — efforts that continue to thwart social media companies’ attempts at preventing hoaxes and conspiracy theories from spreading in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in decades.

Read more here.

United Airlines announced Wednesday it is partnering with Clorox and the Cleveland Clinic to improve customer safety and sanitation procedures amid the pandemic.

The company said it will use Clorox products at its hub airports in Chicago and Denver and that experts from the Cleveland Clinic, an academic medical center, will advise the company about new technologies, training development and quality-assurance programming.

United is rolling out touchless kiosks for luggage check-in at some airports, sneeze guards and mandatory face coverings for passengers and crew. Customers will be given other travel options when flights are crowded. By Friday, the airline will distribute wrapped snack bags, instead of distributing refreshments in multiple rounds.

The plan is a turn from a complaint lodged against the company earlier this month when a San Francisco-based doctor tweeted he was on a packed United flight out of Newark. He noted the airline had said middle seats would be blocked for social distancing, but they were not.

JetBlue announced a similar commitment to customers by pledging to check the temperatures of crew members, increasing cleaning of planes before flights and implementing back-to-front boarding to minimize passengers passing each other in the aisle.

The carrier also is blocking off middle seats to allow for more spacing between customers, as well as waiving change and cancel fees on all fares for travel through Jan. 4 with tickets purchased by May 31.

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Before the coronavirus pandemic, most Americans had heard about pulse oximeters only via TV shows where EMTs shout out a patient’s “pulse ox” — or measure of oxygen in the blood. But when multiple news reports mentioned pulse oximeters as a possible tool in the limited arsenal of weapons against covid-19, the low-cost medical devices flew off shelves almost as quickly as toilet paper.

Pulse oximeters are usually purchased for home use by people who want or need to monitor their oxygen supply, including patients with chronic lung conditions such as COPD, performance athletes or people living at high altitudes. Shortly after the pandemic began, the easy-to-use devices started being touted as a means to detect serious complications from covid-19, the disease the virus causes.

Read more here.

The federal watchdog who issued an early report documenting acute shortages of tests for the coronavirus and personal protective equipment at overwhelmed hospitals will testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday, a congressional aide said.

Christi A. Grimm, principal deputy inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services, documented “severe shortages” of supplies in late March and described hospitals’ intense frustration with government authorities who were unequipped to address the scarcity.

After Grimm issued her report on April 3, Trump criticized her for serving during the Obama administration and disputed the findings. On May 1, Trump nominated a permanent HHS inspector general to replace Grimm — one of several moves he has made to oust inspectors general who served under Barack Obama and previous presidents.

Read more here.

World Health Organization Executive Director Mike Ryan indirectly pushed back against President Trump’s touting of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the novel coronavirus, saying at a news conference Wednesday that the anti-malaria medicine should not be used beyond its officially tested prescriptions.

Trump said Monday that he is taking the anti-malaria drug to prevent covid-19, despite warnings from the Food and Drug Administration that it could cause heart issues and should not be taken until further studies are conducted about its efficacy against the coronavirus. The WHO has also previously cautioned against the use of herbal remedies and antivirals that have not been rigorously tested to treat covid-19.

Trump has repeatedly and publicly taken on the WHO over its and China’s handling of the pandemic. Officials from the U.N. agency have remained relatively subdued in their responses.

In Wednesday’s briefing, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he received a letter from Trump in which the president threatened to completely cut U.S. funding to the agency, though Tedros declined to comment further.

“The answer is simply we have received the letter and are looking into it,” he said, according to Reuters.

The WHO also said Wednesday that the world was nearing 5 million confirmed cases of the virus and that the agency was particularly worried about rising rates of infections in low- and middle-income countries.

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A federal judge cleared the way Tuesday for all Texas voters to seek a mail-in ballot should they be afraid of contracting the novel coronavirus at the polls, finding the state’s restrictions on voting by mail are unconstitutional.

In a sharply worded ruling, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery ordered that fear of contracting the virus be considered a disability under Texas’s mail-in ballot law. Under Texas’s election law, only absentees, those with an existing disability, or people over the age of 65 had been allowed to seek a mail-in ballot.

Voters, he wrote, should “have the option to choose voting by letter carrier versus voting with disease carriers.”

Read more here.

President Trump on Wednesday ramped up his rhetoric against China, claiming that the nation’s “incompetence” was responsible for “this mass Worldwide killing!”

“Some wacko in China just released a statement blaming everybody other than China for the Virus which has now killed hundreds of thousands of people,” Trump tweeted. “Please explain to this dope that it was the ‘incompetence of China’, and nothing else, that did this mass Worldwide killing!”

Trump did not identify the target of his tweet by name, and the White House did not immediately elaborate on what prompted the president’s ire.

The tweet came a day after Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian criticized a letter by Trump to the World Health Organization in which he threatened to permanently pull funding if the U.N. agency did not demonstrate independence from China.

“The U.S. leader’s letter was full of such ambiguous wordings … trying to mislead the public, smear China’s efforts and shift the blame of U.S. incompetence to others, but this attempt will not succeed,” Zhao said at a news conference.

While he initially praised Chinese President Xi Jinping for his handling of the early outbreak of the coronavirus in his country, Trump and other Republicans have increasingly sought to blame China for the scope of the pandemic — with the president making it a theme of his reelection campaign.

Animus in China toward the United States has already been increasingly evident. A video recently tweeted by state-owned television depicts a cartoon version of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo making repeated misstatements about the virus and lacking credibility.

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U.S. highways have been emptier during the coronavirus pandemic, but they have also been more deadly, according to statistics released Wednesday.

The National Safety Council said preliminary data show that in March, when most Americans began to drive less because of pandemic-related stay-at-home orders, the fatality rate per mile driven went up by 14 percent compared with March 2019.

The traffic fatality data, compiled from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, confirm the alarming reports across the country that speeding and reckless driving during the health crisis are leading to a disproportionate number of crashes and fatalities.

Read more here.

Walmart chief executive Doug McMillon on Wednesday attributed the company’s recent surge in sales to a shift in customers’ needs as more of them return to work while states restart their economies.

“As you see the country start to reopen, there are different things happening in Georgia, Florida or in the Northeast, for example,” he said in an interview with CNBC. “We’ve got to respond to what those customers are looking for at that time.”

McMillon said although sales data show people have been replacing home items under social distancing, trends indicate consumers are planning more forward-thinking projects as states reopen in phases. Walmart teams are monitoring and reacting to the changing weekly demands of its customers, McMillon said.

“Right now, people are starting to think about — in some cases — going back to work, and we’ve seen those trends show up in the health and beauty aids categories, and footwear, where people are starting to think about going back to work,” McMillon said. “We want to be there for them as they prepare for that, too.”

Target also reported a surge of online sales with similar trends. The big-box store experienced frenzied stockpile purchases of staples and cleaning products at the start of the quarter, followed by an increase in sales of personal-care items and clothes when stimulus checks started to be distributed in late April, Reuters reported.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo used his first news conference since the firing of the State Department’s independent watchdog to lash out at China, calling it a “brutal authoritarian regime” that has failed to embrace democracy despite decades of American efforts.

“We greatly underestimated the degree to which Beijing is ideologically and politically hostile to free nations — the whole world is waking up to that fact,” Pompeo told reporters at the State Department.

The media availability had been widely anticipated, as Democrats and some Republicans demand that Pompeo explain the reason for the firing of Inspector General Steve Linick, who was investigating several allegations of wrongdoing by the secretary and his employees.

Pompeo declined to discuss “personnel” matters but instead used some of his most unsparing language to date regarding China, which the Trump administration has sought to blame for the global spread of the novel coronavirus.

He denounced Beijing’s territorial claims to the South China Sea, its economic threats to Australia in the wake of that country’s calls for an investigation into the origins of the coronavirus, and Beijing’s “troubling” relationship with World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“Sixty-six percent of Americans have an unfavorable view of China,” said Pompeo, citing a recent Pew Research poll. “That is a direct result of the Chinese Communist Party’s choices, which are influenced by the nature of the regime, and the nature of that regime is not new.”

A worker at a mink farm in the Netherlands may have contracted the novel coronavirus from an animal there, the country’s agricultural minister said Wednesday.

The patient worked at two mink farms put under quarantine at the end of April after animals housed there tested positive for the virus. Researchers then mapped the genetic code of the virus in the infected animals and compared it to the virus in the worker.

“It is concluded from this investigation that it is plausible that one employee of an infected mink farm was infected by mink,” Agricultural Minister Carola Schouten said in a letter to parliament, Reuters reported.

If confirmed, this is would be first recorded incident of animal-to-human transmission. As of now, however, there remains insufficient evidence, J. Scott Weese, chief of infection control at the University of Guelph’s Ontario Veterinary College, wrote in a blog post Wednesday.

“From a biological standpoint, mink-human transmission wouldn’t be surprising,” he wrote. “If mink can infect other mink, it makes sense they could infect people with close contact (although close contact with farmed mink is rare). However, identifying animal-to-human transmission when there’s widespread human-human transmission is a challenge, especially when people can be infected by other people with asymptomatic infections.”

Weese also cautioned that he found it “surprising” the researchers could so easily identify animal-to-human transmission. “How this was determined isn’t clear and more details are needed,” he wrote. “The nuances of what was said also are unclear.”

There have been other cases of animals, such as household cats and dogs and captive lions and tigers in zoos, testing positive for the virus.

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Rigorous exercise in packed fitness facilities could increase the risk of contracting the coronavirus, according to a new study published in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s peer-reviewed journal.

The study suggested that large class sizes, small spaces and intense workouts may lead to increased transmission because the turbulent airflow caused by energetic exercise can combine with the warm, moist atmosphere of sports facilities to cause more dense transmission of droplets.

The findings come from researchers at South Korea’s Dankook University Hospital, who tried to identify how the coronavirus appeared in the city of Cheonan, far from the country’s other hot spots.

The scientists traced a cluster of confirmed infections to a four-hour fitness dance workshop on Feb. 15. Of the 27 instructors who participated in the workshop, eight tested positive for the coronavirus. They were all asymptomatic at the time.

By March 9, the researchers found 112 infections associated with fitness dance classes in 12 sports facilities in Cheonan.

The study found that instructors with very mild symptoms of the virus had taught classes for an average of a week after they went to the workshop. The instructors and students had contact only during classes, held twice a week for about 50 minutes.

Class participants developed symptoms an average of 3½ days later. About half of the cases the researchers identified were transmissions from instructors to participants. An additional one-third were transmissions from instructors or participants to members of their families, and the rest were infections spread during meetings with colleagues or acquaintances.

The median age of the class participants who were infected was 42. All were women, and 10 had underlying medical conditions.

As countries start to reopen their economies, public-health experts are putting the situation in context by warning that more waves of the coronavirus are likely.

A European Union-backed study released Wednesday outlines what a response to that reality could look like: Fifty days of shutdown followed by 30 days of relative relaxation. Repeat until pandemic-free.

In the study published in the European Journal of Epidemiology, researchers from nine countries examined various models for how to ensure a degree of economic activity and limit the spread of the novel coronavirus. They then simulated three options in 16 countries: no intervention, cycles of mitigation followed by easing of restrictions and “cycles of suppression measures followed by a relaxation period.”

They found that the second, middle-ground option was ineffective in reducing intensive care unit (ICU) hospitalizations to a manageable rate.

“By contrast, dynamic cycles of 50-day suppression followed by a 30-day relaxation kept the ICU demands below the national capacities,” the researchers wrote in the abstract. “Additionally, we estimated that a significant number of new infections and deaths, especially in resource-poor countries, would be averted if these dynamic suppression measures were kept in place over an 18-month period. … Such a “schedule” of social distancing might be particularly relevant to low-income countries, where a single, prolonged suppression intervention is unsustainable.”

The study’s findings offer a path forward that clashes with the warlike rhetoric of many political leaders eager to restart economies.

On Wednesday, however, the director of the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control warned that Europe needs to prepare for the next wave.

“The question is when and how big, that is the question in my view,” Andrea Ammon told the Guardian.

“Looking at the characteristics of the virus, looking at what now emerges from the different countries in terms of population immunity — which isn’t all that exciting between 2 percent and 14 percent, that leaves still 85 percent to 90 percent of the population susceptible. … I don’t want to draw a doomsday picture but I think we have to be realistic. That it’s not the time now to completely relax.”

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U.S. markets climbed Wednesday as investors seemed to shake off doubts about the viability of a coronavirus vaccine candidate to focus on strong earnings reports, with the Dow Jones industrial average getting a more than 300-point pop at the opening bell.

The blue-chip index took a last-minute slide Tuesday after a Stat news report suggested Moderna had not produced enough critical data in its first human trial. The biotech company announced Monday that its treatment successfully produced covid-19 antibodies in participants, which helped power the Dow’s 911-point rally on Monday.

“Investors are pretty much convinced that a vaccine for covid-19 will be found over the next year, and whether it is Moderna’s or another one will not change the outlook for equities,” Ed Moya, an analyst with OANDA, wrote in commentary Wednesday. “Right now the biggest risk to the stock market is if we start to see massive spikes of new coronavirus cases with states that were early to reopening.”

Strong earnings from Target and Lowe’s reassured investors. Target handily beat analyst expectations for revenue and earnings per share, with digital sales driving a 10.8 percent jump in same-store sales. Its shares rose 2.5 percent in premarket trading.

Home improvement retailer Lowe’s shares climbed 7 percent after its sales and revenue significantly beat expectations. But Lowe’s revoked its year-end guidance amid coronavirus uncertainty, despite its strong second quarter performance — just as Walmart did on Tuesday.

The Dow opened up 316 points, or 1.3 percent. The Standard & Poor’s 500 and Nasdaq indexes surged 1.3 and 1.4 percent, respectively.

Oil continued its recovery Wednesday as gradual steps toward normalcy put more people in motion, alleviating fears of a global oil glut. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was up nearly 2.4 percent to trade at $35.44 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate crude, the U.S. benchmark, climbed 2.2 percent to $32.66 a barrel.

Rolls-Royce will slash 9,000 civil aviation jobs as part of a $1.6 billion cost-cutting campaign spurred by dampened air travel demand, the engine maker announced Wednesday.

The cutbacks represent more than 17 percent of its global workforce of 52,000.

Rolls-Royce sold its famous luxury auto brand to BMW in 1998, but it continued as a major civil and defense aerospace engine manufacturer. It produces parts for Boeing and Airbus. But with the commercial airline industry grounded because of the coronavirus pandemic, the company estimates it could take years for demand to ramp back up.

“This is not a crisis of our making,” Rolls-Royce chief executive Warren East said in a statement. “But it is the crisis that we face and we must deal with it. Our airline customers and airframe partners are having to adapt and so must we.”

British labor union Unite said it expects 3,375 of the layoffs to occur in Britain. Rolls-Royce has nearly the same number of employees enrolled in a government-sponsored furlough program, according to CNN. The rest of the layoffs will be spread in civil aviation plants around the world, including in the United States.

Amid public tensions between the White House and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and an ongoing debate over how quickly to loosen coronavirus restrictions and spur economic activity, the agency’s former director said people would only go out and resume normal actions if they felt secure.

“If people don’t feel safe, they don’t go out and the economy doesn’t recover,” Tom Frieden, the former CDC director, said Wednesday on “CBS This Morning.” Frieden was head of the CDC during the Obama administration.

Frieden’s remarks came days after White House trade adviser Peter Navarro went on television to sharply criticize the CDC and defend the Trump administration’s push for states to lift restrictions, claiming that locking people down will “indirectly … kill a lot more people.”

Frieden said that following public-health guidance would help protect economies.

“Governments that have been guided by public health and that have fully supported public health have reduced infections, reduced deaths and protected their economy,” Frieden said. “This isn’t about health versus economics. This is about being in it together to control the virus as well as possible so that we can reopen.”

Another day, another innocuous video chat hijacked with inappropriate material.

The latest target was a video meeting in South Carolina, where Dreher High School officials were hosting the virtual discussion last week to discuss graduation plans — until somebody else took over the meetup and started playing pornography, according to local reports.

It was just the latest in a seemingly endless line of virtual gatherings for schools, businesses and local officials that were prompted by the pandemic, only for other users to interrupt with pornography, bigoted messages and harassing or threatening language, among other things. These messages have cut into everything from online classes to city council meetings, including the Oklahoma City University graduation, which was hit with a racist and anti-Semitic interruption this month.

In the early weeks of the pandemic, the FBI put out a bulletin warning that teleconferences and schools had been interrupted by pornography, hate-filled images and threats, urging people to take precautions, including keeping meetings private and not widely sharing links.

Trevor Noah buried his face into his hands.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” Noah moaned, laughing in disbelief as he came up for air during his show Tuesday night. “No. Are you serious?”

The Comedy Central host, like many others, was reacting to President Trump’s announcement Monday that he has been taking the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a preventive measure against the novel coronavirus, despite numerous physicians saying the medicine has no proved ability to ward off or treat covid-19 and has potentially deadly side effects.

Read more here.

Vice President Pence is heading to Florida on Wednesday while Trump hosts the governors of Arkansas and Kansas at the White House — all part of a focus by the administration on states’ efforts to revive their economies.

Pence’s itinerary in Orlando includes a meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a discussion with “tourism industry leaders” about their plans for reopening and a meeting with leaders of a senior living facility to discuss “nursing home challenges during covid-19.”

Later Wednesday, Trump is scheduled to hold a joint meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House with Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) and Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D).

In a statement this week, Hutchinson said he plans to talk with Trump about the work of his state’s meat processors in protecting the food supply chain and “the steps we are taking to get Arkansans back to work and ready for business."

Kelly’s office said discussion would include her state’s phased reopening and statewide testing strategy, as well as protecting the country’s food supply chain.

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New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern suggested Tuesday that employees should be able to work more flexibly, partially as a stimulus for the country’s crucial tourism sector.

Ardern referred to suggestions to introduce four-day workweek models and more remote work, which would allow New Zealanders to spend time in currently empty tourist destinations, although she did not hint at any specific new legislation to support such plans.

New Zealand depends on tourism for more than 5 percent of its gross domestic product, but international travel to the country is expected to remain restricted for months to come.

The country of about 5 million people imposed a strict lockdown early in its covid-19 outbreak. As a result, there were no new coronavirus cases several days last week, allowing the country to gradually reopen.

Ardern’s comments regarding flexible work models match prior efforts by her government. One of her signature policies over the past two years has been the creation of a “well-being budget.”

At the World Economic Forum and other venues, Ardern suggested that GDP growth or stock market performance cannot fully capture how well a country is doing. Instead, her government proposed a more holistic budget approach last year that prioritizes five key areas, including mental health and the environment.

The New Zealand budget proposed this year is more comparable to a conventional stimulus plan in the midst of a public health and economic crisis, but it still echoes the well-being focus that dominated the debate over last year’s government spending plans. While most of the coming government funding will be used to boost the economy, the health and education sectors are also set to benefit.

Chicago’s Ford assembly plant sent thousands of workers home early on Wednesday only two days after reopening because an employee tested positive for the novel coronavirus, CBS Chicago reported.

The unexpected dismissal came after the automaker reopened Monday. Production was set to resume Tuesday night, CBS Chicago reported.

The company had implemented temperature checks, installed social distancing reminders and redesigned work stations for safety.

A spokesperson for Ford told the station that the company has been cleaning and disinfecting all areas that the ill employee might have touched. Some plant employees told CBS Chicago that they were delighted to be working again, while others expressed concerns about whether their return-to-work decision was a good idea.

Michael Hopper, an employee at the plant, told the station that people are still close to one another in the facility. “I cleaned my own workstation myself,” he told CBS Chicago. “How our jobs are set up, if one person gets in the hole, that would affect the person behind him.”

LONDON — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson made his first public appearance in a week on Wednesday to attend Parliament’s question time, as the public wondered where he had been.

In recent days, many Britons have expressed concern over Johnson’s whereabouts after days of not seeing him in public. The country’s daily coronavirus briefings have been led by other ministers after he was last seen on his doorstep May 14 clapping for health workers.

So many people used the hashtags #WhereIsJohnson and #WhereIsBoris that the phrases began trending on Twitter in Britain.

“Has he been furloughed?” read one comment, after unemployment claims in Britain surged an unprecedented 69 percent in April. “ ‘Stay Alert’ or you may miss him!” read another, in a swipe at the government’s latest slogan, which replaced the instruction “Stay home.”

Others asked whether the man leading the country had retreated back into a refrigerator to avoid the current crisis — a nod to an incident from December last year when Johnson was accused of hiding in a refrigerator to dodge an interview with broadcast journalist Piers Morgan.

During Wednesday’s return to center stage, Johnson was quizzed over the government’s track-and-trace operation, which he confirmed would be in place by June 1.

Even before the coronavirus crisis, Johnson had been accused by the opposition of shirking his duties as prime minister.

It has been a roller-coaster few months for Johnson, who has been challenged with steering the country through a pandemic that at one point put him in the hospital. He also became a father once again in April — all events that critics say may have distracted him from leadership duties.

Britain has the second-highest covid-19 death toll in the world, with at least 35,422 fatalities.

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A new ad bluntly urging people to vote on behalf of fellow Americans who have died of the coronavirus offers a glimpse of how Democrats are gearing up to use the pandemic against President Trump heading into November.

The spot, produced for a political action committee affiliated with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), closes with a montage of faces of people who died of covid-19, with a message on the screen: “They can’t vote. Will you?” Earlier, a woman whose father died of the virus tells the story of his demise as images flash on the screen of Trump playing golf, attending a Super Bowl party and holding political rallies as cases began to spread in the United States.

Swalwell’s Remedy PAC is seeking to register voters heading into the fall. A shorter version of the ad will start airing on television next week, according to Politico, which reported Wednesday on the efforts of the former Democratic presidential aspirant.

Meanwhile, with an eye on his reelection bid, Trump’s campaign has launched an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president and advocate on television for reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, the Associated Press reported.

“Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told the AP on Monday. “And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. … The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible.”

President Trump’s contention that the United States leading the world in confirmed coronavirus cases is “a badge of honor” drew condemnation and ridicule, with critics from both parties dismissing his claim that the still-increasing figure is a reflection of the nation’s testing capacity.

Trump made his assertion Tuesday in response to a question from a reporter at a White House event, saying that he sees the more than 1.5 million confirmed cases in the United States “in a certain respect as being a good thing because it means our testing is much better.”

“So, I view it as a badge of honor. Really, it’s a badge of honor,” he said.

The United States has more than 30 percent of the world’s known coronavirus infections but accounts for less than 5 percent of the global population.

Harvard law professor Laurence H. Tribe was among the Trump critics who pounded on the president’s assertions, calling him “a ghoul and an idiot.”

“This is like calling a trail of corpses a badge of honor for the police department that let the serial murderer run free for months before shutting him down,” Tribe said on Twitter.

The president’s comments were widely highlighted on social media, including by former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele. “Folks, I have no head left to shake,” he said in a tweet quoting the Republican president.

Joe Walsh, a former Illinois congressman who aborted a GOP primary challenge to Trump earlier this year, also weighed in, saying the president’s words showed “how ignorant & dishonest Trump is.”

“If the US had the fewest confirmed cases in the world, Trump would say THE EXACT SAME THING,” Walsh tweeted.

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MADRID — Spain is ordering everyone over 6 years old to wear masks in public areas as the government gradually eases one of Europe’s strictest coronavirus lockdowns, in effect since March 15.

The government said it would hand out 9.6 million masks throughout Spain after the Health Ministry made them compulsory starting Thursday wherever a two-meter personal distance in public spaces cannot be guaranteed.

The government order will probably apply to supermarkets and events, but it may also be enforced at beaches and in parks.

Parts of Spain have lifted some restrictions, while the two main cities, Madrid and Barcelona, still have not been allowed to organize small social gatherings or open closed businesses.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez asked legislators to extend a state of emergency through June 7 as the country clocked 295 new infections, bringing the total to more than 232,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.

“The state of alarm and the de-escalation are working,” Sánchez said in parliament. He said the daily death toll has slowed to under 100, with a total of 27,778 lives so far lost to the coronavirus.

“The state of alarm won’t last one day more than necessary,” Sánchez said.

Opposition parties have been reluctant to support the extension, amid growing dissatisfaction among Spaniards.

Nightly demonstrations involving the banging of pots and pans at 9 p.m. call for the government’s resignation, with figures showing that the population is roughly split in half on the measures.

According to a recent survey by the government-controlled National Institute of Statistics, 48.4 percent of respondents said they do not have trust in the government’s handling of the pandemic, compared with 45.7 percent who said they trust the government’s response.

BERLIN — The German government has introduced new measures to prevent some foreign takeovers of German medical companies, giving officials more sway over the country’s expansive health-care industry.

The new rules announced by the German Economy Ministry on Wednesday will make it mandatory for non-European Union buyers to provide advance notice if they plan to acquire shares of more than 10 percent in German health enterprises. German officials will be able to veto the bids.

The rules are expected to take effect in the coming weeks and will apply to companies that develop or produce vaccines, ventilators, treatments or personal health equipment, among other products.

“The current coronavirus crisis shows how important medical know how and [our] own production capacities in Germany and Europe can be in times of crisis,” German economy minister Peter Altmaier said, according to a statement.

While some industry groups criticized the plans as protectionism, German officials argue the measures are supposed to prevent an unfair race between nations.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron have championed a global initiative to develop a viable vaccine to prevent the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that would be available worldwide at the same time and would not favor the country where it was produced.

Reported takeover attempts or offers to gain exclusive access to vaccines, however, have raised concerns in Germany and other parts of Europe that the United States may hope to outbid others to gain a strategic advantage.

Germany is a European hub for medical companies, which gave it an advantage in the early stage of the coronavirus pandemic.

In neighboring France, Macron on Tuesday summoned the executives of Sanofi, a major French pharmaceutical company developing two candidate covid-19 vaccines. The firm’s chief executive said last week that the United States could get priority access to a successful vaccine, but the Sanofi executives later appeared to walk back that suggestion.

James McAuley in Paris contributed to this report.

A former employee at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center claims she was fired for raising red flags on social media about what she contends was a lack of safety precautions by the hospital against the spread of the novel coronavirus.

According to a lawsuit filed Friday in D.C. Superior Court, Sarah Cusick’s social media posts also prompted the hospital’s management to ask her to remove tweets, which she did.

“They called her in and said, ‘We want you to remove the posts; this is hurting MedStar’s brand,’ ” Cusick’s attorney, Lynne Bernabei, told The Washington Post. “Essentially, this is a whistleblower’s claim.”

So Young Pak, the hospital’s director of media relations, told The Post that the facility has not yet been served with the lawsuit and “thus cannot offer any comment.”

Read more here.

Nearly a decade ago, the man was arrested for his role in a heroin deal.

On Friday, he was sentenced to death — by Zoom.

Punithan Genasan, a 37-year-old from Malaysia, became the first person in Singapore to receive a capital punishment verdict via video call, Reuters reported.

The dystopian episode underscores how the coronavirus has shaped even the most fatal decisions in justice systems. Earlier this month, a man in Nigeria was ordered hanged after being found guilty of murder in another Zoom videoconference.

Singapore is known for its zero-tolerance laws on illegal drugs, resulting in the execution of hundreds, including many foreigners. Since April, the island city-state has been under lockdown to contain one of Asia’s most rapidly spreading outbreaks.

While many court hearings have been adjourned over the course of pandemic until June at the earliest, cases deemed essential have been tried remotely.

A spokesperson for Singapore’s Supreme Court told Reuters that Genasan’s hearing was conducted by videoconference “for the safety of all involved in the proceedings.”

Some human rights groups have spoken out against the use of video calls for cases involving the death penalty.

But Genasan’s lawyer, Peter Fernando, said he did not object to the technology. The judge’s order could be heard clearly, he said, and it was the only legal argument presented during the call.

The Trump administration called on the United Nations this week to remove any references to reproductive health, including abortion, from a humanitarian response plan to address the rippling consequences of the coronavirus.

In a letter to U.N. leadership Monday, John Barsa, the acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the inclusion of “sexual and reproductive health services” in the international body’s guiding framework would “add unnecessary discord” to the response.

The $6 billion effort is meant to guide individual governments and international agencies on how to address preexisting humanitarian crises, particularly in regions where U.N. workers already maintain an outsize presence.

It comes with funding requirements for member nations, including the United States, and lists “sexual and reproductive health services” alongside objectives such as nutrition and food security, shelter and sanitation, a move Barsa called controversial.

“The United States stands with nations that have pledged to protect the unborn,” Barsa wrote. “The U.N. should not use this crisis as an opportunity to advance access to abortion as an ‘essential service.’”

Earlier this week, President Trump threatened to permanently cut off funding to the World Health Organization, a U.N. agency, if it does not meet certain unspecified requirements. Doing so entirely may prove difficult without congressional approval.

Barsa said the reproductive health references would undermine a united global response, particularly from governments that do not support abortion. But human rights groups shot back, saying his request would target a key part of a long-standing U.N. framework.

Besides abortion, the request would remove topics such as contraception, maternity care, and HIV diagnosis from the response plan, the groups said, at a time when gender-based violence is on the rise.

Since Trump’s first days in office, his administration has denied U.S. assistance to foreign-based organizations that perform or offer information on abortion.

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It was mostly the worst of times. Cities across the world have become sites of the novel coronavirus pandemic’s greatest tragedies. New York City is possibly now the single biggest hot spot of the virus and has suffered close to a quarter of all U.S. deaths. It’s a similar ratio in London when set against the rest of Britain. Madrid’s toll may be even worse.

In most cities, life is a shadow of what it once was, with streets empty, arenas abandoned, businesses shuttered. Well-heeled residents have skipped town to country abodes and seaside getaways. Most of those who remain have slipped into an atomized existence — their movements curtailed, their social circles exponentially shrunk — that’s anathema to the whole point of living in a bustling, vibrant city.

Read more here.

Hundreds of workers who sort and pack apples in Washington state’s Yakima Valley have gone on strike in recent weeks to demand safer working conditions and hazard pay during the coronavirus pandemic.

Yakima County regularly ranks as the nation’s top apple producer, and also has the highest rate of coronavirus infections on the West Coast. Since approximately a third of the jobs in Yakima County are in agriculture and food processing, according to Northwest Public Broadcasting, many of the region’s workers are considered essential and have been reporting to work as the rest of the state shuts down.

While farmworkers can generally maintain a safe distance while picking apples, those who work inside packing facilities typically encounter crowded conditions more comparable to the meatpacking plants that have been the source of coronavirus outbreaks across the country. At one apple warehouse, Columbia Reach, at least 29 workers have tested positive for coronavirus, according to the Yakima Herald-Republic.

Growers in the Yakima Valley have instituted social distancing protocols and started handing out protective gear. But local health inspectors have said they could be doing more to protect workers, and recommended additional safety measures, the paper reported.

Since May 7, workers at six different companies have walked out to demand a hazard pay increase of $2 an hour, paid sick leave and more safety precautions. Two fruit packers began a hunger strike on Tuesday as the protests neared their third week.

Farmworkers demonstrating for safer conditions have encountered counter protests and threats, according to the Herald-Republic. On Thursday, a 58-year-old man was arrested after allegedly walking up to a group of striking workers and telling them that he would come back with a gun and shoot them.

The Washington State Tree Fruit Association says apple shipments haven’t been affected by the strikes.

Cambridge University is moving lectures online for the entire 2020-2021 academic year, making it the first British university to extend virtual teaching beyond the fall semester.

The university said in a Tuesday statement that it was “likely that social distancing will continue to be required” throughout the upcoming school year, which ends in the summer of 2021. Some smaller teaching groups might be able to meet in person if they conform to social distancing requirements, it said, but large lectures will be unfeasible.

Cambridge began holding all classes online in March, and, like many universities, is facing a potential drop in international students amid widespread uncertainly about what the coming school year will look like. In both Britain and the United States, a growing number of students are contemplating deferring admission and taking gap years so that they don’t have to pay tuition while missing out on the typical residential college experience.

Enrollment across British universities could drop by approximately 232,000 students next year, representing a 24 percent decline from the 2018-2019 school year, according to projections from consulting firm London Economics. The shortfall in tuition fees and teaching grants could have a ripple effect, leading to 30,000 job losses across the higher education sector, the analysts predicted.

The Office for Students, Britain’s higher education watchdog, warned universities earlier this week that students need “absolute clarity” about whether classes will take place online or in person before they decide to enroll this fall.

Cambridge’s move to extend online instruction comes as England faces increasing pressure to back away from plans to have primary school students return to class on June 1. Although the government claims that children can safely resume in-person instruction, many local jurisdictions have expressed doubts or announced plans to reopen on a delayed timeline.

Despite warnings that Africa could face another wave of the coronavirus, Tanzania’s leader is resisting calls to impose stricter social distancing measures on the East African nation.

“We have had a number of viral diseases, including AIDS and measles. Our economy must come first. It must not sleep,” President John Magufuli said in a video that went viral this week, according to the Guardian. “Life must go on.”

Although the U.S. Embassy in Tanzania warned that the city of Dar es Salaam was seeing an “exponential” rise in infections, Magufuli has insisted cases are trending downward, Reuters reported. If the trend continues, he said, Tanzania will reopen colleges and allow sporting events and international flights to restart.

Tanzania’s Health Ministry suspended the announcement of new cases of the coronavirus on May 1 pending rehabilitation work at the national laboratory. Just over 500 cases had been announced before the suspension.

Magfuli’s comments echo real concerns that the pandemic’s most severe effects in Africa could be economic. On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary General António Guterres warned the coronavirus could push millions of Africans into extreme poverty.

But Magufuli has taken those sentiments much further. Earlier this year, he asked Tanzanians to “pray away” the virus and said testing kits were faulty because they had returned negative samples on a goat.

Over the weekend, he fired a top health official with no explanation.

Unlike the sweeping measures imposed by most of its neighbors, Tanzania has allowed most normal business activities to continue. Although schools are closed and large gatherings have been banned, religious services remain in place.

At a Sunday mass service in his hometown, Magufuli called lockdown recommendations “a bizarre guideline,” according to Reuters, and indicated he would allow planes full of tourists to enter the country with only temperature checks.

SEOUL — South Korea began a phased reopening of schools on Wednesday, starting with the oldest students after a two month suspension of classes due to the coronavirus.

Some 450,000 third-year students returned to their high schools under a set of strict social distancing guidelines from temperature checks at the gate to mask-wearing in classrooms.

Even on the day of reopening, virus concerns loomed as students at dozens of schools near Seoul were asked to return home after two students in the area were reported infected.

South Korea’s Education Ministry will continue reopening schools in stages between May 20 and June 1 with middle and elementary students joining gradually.

The high school seniors were the first to return since they face their annual university entrance exam in months, education authorities said.

Unlike in the United States, South Korea’s new academic year starts in early March but it was delayed five times as the country saw virus cases emerge. Classes were held online as students were advised to stay home.

South Korea is cautiously resuming suspended activities as the daily infection numbers fell to double-digits from a peak of nearly 1,000.

A new infection cluster earlier this month centered on bars in Seoul raised fresh concerns about reopening of schools, but authorities decided the outbreak has been controlled and went ahead with the plans.

Cho Hee-yeon, the education superintendent in the capital, took temperatures of students at the entrance of a Seoul high school early Wednesday. Cho said he is “facing the reopening day while praying that not one infection will be reported in students in the 2,200 schools.”

South Korea reported 32 new cases of the virus on Wednesday. The national tally of the virus is at 11,110 with a death toll at 263.

A Michigan coronavirus patient was stopped at the airport while trying to board a plane, health authorities said on Tuesday.

The individual, who has not been identified, was visiting family members in Ingham County, Mich., and tested positive for covid-19, according to the Lansing State Journal. After receiving the results, the patient told staffers at the county health department of wanting to return home in a different state.

“It was like, ‘No you can’t,’” Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail told the paper.

Though health officials explained all the reasons getting on a plane would be inadvisable, the patient didn’t obey orders to remain quarantined and indicated the intention to still try to catch a flight back home, Vail said. Officials issued a cease-and-desist order, and warned Lansing’s Capital Region International Airport to be on the lookout.

When the patient arrived to board a flight on Friday afternoon, Vail herself showed up with the cease-and-desist notice. Airport staff had already managed to intercept the patient before passing through security, the Journal reported. After being confronted with the order, the patient agreed to stay in Ingham County.

“We can’t have people hopping on planes that are known positive with covid-19,” Vail told the Journal. “We just can’t.”

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In fits and starts, America is opening back up.

All 50 states began Wednesday to loosen some of the restrictions they had put in place to contain the coronavirus pandemic, even as public health officials sound warnings about a potential surge of cases.

Amid these concerns about the risk of increased activity, every governor in the country has issued new guidelines removing bans on businesses and public gatherings to various degrees. One governor in particular, Alaska’s Mike Dunleavy, said he would reopen his state entirely before Memorial Day weekend.

“It’s time to get Alaska back on its feet,” he said at a Tuesday news conference. “Friday, we’re open for business across the state."

Dunleavy, a Republican said Alaska would be skipping from “Phase 2” of its reopening and going straight to “Phase 4” on Friday, allowing bars, theaters, and gyms to resume business without any kind of capacity restrictions.

“It will all be open just like it was prior to the virus,” he said.

Just four other states — North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, and Wyoming — appear to have similarly lenient orders in place, according to an analysis by The Washington Post, though all will remain in their reopening process through Memorial Day.

As of late Tuesday, Alaska was reporting fewer than 400 infections and just 10 deaths — a case count low enough that Dunleavy, who is facing a recall effort, decided to fully reopen houses of worship and sports activities alike.

Large gatherings and festivals are also allowed, though organizers have been instructed to consult with public health officials.

His decision, he told the Anchorage Daily News, also rests on his belief that not all communities nor businesses within the state will rush to fully reopen Friday.

Residents are still encouraged to practice social distancing and wear face masks near other people, while senior centers, prisons and other facilities will restrict visitors. A mandatory, two-week quarantine for those arriving in Alaska will last through June 2.

Lengthy lines, surly TSA agents, barely edible meals — ah, the notorious pitfalls of commercial aviation. After months of staying at home, many would eagerly embrace those annoyances for the opportunity to safely go somewhere — anywhere. For a small segment of the population, however, it’s a trade-off they don’t even have to consider.

Perhaps you’ve never heard of an FBO, but to business moguls and A-list celebrities, they are as familiar as the check-in counter at your local airport. And in the midst of an ongoing pandemic, fixed-base operators are becoming more than mere luxury.

Read more here.

An anti-influenza drug touted as a potential coronavirus treatment by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has not shown clear efficacy in clinical trials, Kyodo News reported.

Last month, Abe told reporters the Japanese government was tripling its stockpile of Avigan after receiving reports that the drug was an effective remedy for coronavirus symptoms. But medical experts warned the drug should be administered with caution because it can cause birth defects.

Abe had voiced hope that the drug, also known as favipiravir, would be approved as a coronavirus treatment by the end of May. But interim data reported to Japan’s Health Ministry did not show clear evidence of Avigan’s effectiveness, Kyodo reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous individuals.

The drug was developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings Corp, which saw its share prices tumble on Wednesday in the wake of the discouraging report.

“There is no change in our stance that we will wait for the result and analysis of the clinical research and clinical trial,” Japanese Health Minister Katsunori Kato told a parliamentary committee on Wednesday morning, according to Kyodo.

Simon Denyer in Tokyo contributed reporting.

When the NFL starts up, the novel coronavirus pandemic is going to dictate changes. One such change could be the addition of surgical or N95 material to the face masks on players’ helmets.

The NFL and sports equipment company Oakley are testing prototypes, and Thom Mayer, the NFL Players Association’s medical director, said “there will probably be a recommendation” to use modified masks.

Protecting players as they participate in a sport in which they cannot help but breathe on and touch one another is not a simple task. Mayer said it’s possible that a player’s entire face mask could be covered. Some of the possibilities are, Mayer admitted, an unusual sight.

Read more here.

Moderna, the Massachusetts biotechnology company behind a leading effort to create a coronavirus vaccine, announced promising early results Monday from its first human safety tests.

The eagerly awaited data provide a first look at one of the eight vaccines worldwide that have begun human testing. The data have not been published in a scientific journal and are only a preliminary step toward showing the experimental vaccine is safe and effective.

The company’s stock, along with the Dow Jones industrial average, soared on the report that eight participants who received low and medium doses of Moderna’s vaccine had blood levels of virus-fighting antibodies that were similar or greater than those in recovered covid-19 patients. That suggests, but doesn’t prove, that it triggers some level of immunity.

Read more here.

The Trump administration said it has awarded a $354 million contract to a Virginia start-up that will produce a variety of generic drugs and their ingredients — including medicines used to treat covid-19 — at advanced manufacturing facilities in the United States.

White House officials called it a potential landmark in the efforts to return pharmaceutical manufacturing to the United States from overseas. Over the past two decades, most U.S. generic drug production has shifted offshore, notably to sites in China and India. That dependence on foreign suppliers became controversial as the novel coronavirus pandemic raged, when both countries limited their exports and supplies in the United States ran short.

Read more here.

President Trump’s drive to swiftly reopen the economy came under fire Tuesday from Democratic senators who pointedly questioned the administration’s strategy, forcing Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to insist the White House would not sacrifice workers’ lives for economic gain.

But the growing insistence by Trump and Republican lawmakers to push for reopening while halting any new talks about aid has created a stark divide in the government’s approach. As Trump has largely shut down negotiations for more emergency assistance, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell warned Tuesday that much more may be needed.

“We may need to do more, and Congress may, as well,” Powell told lawmakers Tuesday.

Read more here.