S&P 500 nearly breaks all-time record, despite pandemic’s hit on U.S. economy

Here are some significant developments:

• The United States logged nearly 1,500 coronavirus-related deaths on Wednesday, a harsh signal that the pandemic remained out of control here despite fairly stable average case numbers in the past few days.
• The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its website to warn against using masks with exhalation valves or vents to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Masks with vents or valves “allow air to be exhaled through a hole in the material, which can result in expelled respiratory droplets that can reach others,” the CDC website now states.
• A new attempt to restart economic relief negotiations between the White House and Democrats ended just minutes after it began on Wednesday, and President Trump appeared to cast doubt on the whole process by announcing a deal is “not going to happen.”
• President Trump’s senior aides acknowledged that they are providing less financial assistance for the unemployed than the president initially advertised amid mounting blowback from state officials in both parties.
• More than 900 students and staff at a Georgia school district have been ordered to quarantine after dozens tested positive for covid-19. Elsewhere in the state, parents and teachers clashed over in-person schooling in the district where a viral photo of maskless students in the hallway caused an uproar.
• Many are skeptical of Russia’s claim to have a working coronavirus vaccine, but Filipino President Rodrigo Duterte is not among them. “I can be the first they can experiment on,” he said this week.