Tag Archives: Americans

Mnuchin urges Congress to pass massive economic relief bill by next week

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Thursday urged Congress to move quickly to pass a $1 trillion economic relief measure by early next week, saying he expects bipartisan support for the bill to get cash payments to Americans during the coronavirus crisis.

Mnuchin, in an interview on Fox Business Network, said the federal government was focused on being able to provide liquidity to companies and had no problem issuing more debt, but that it expected loans to businesses to be paid back.

Congress is taking up its third legislative package to address the coronavirus pandemic as the response to the crisis shutters U.S. businesses and puts pressure on the nation’s healthcare system.

Lawmakers already have passed a $105 billion-plus plan to limit the damage from the coronavirus pandemic through free testing, paid sick leave and expanded safety-net spending as well as an $8.3 billion measure to combat the spread of the pathogen and develop vaccines. U.S. President Donald Trump has signed both into law.

The Trump administration now wants another $1.3 trillion in aid to help businesses and individual Americans harmed economically by the virus, with Mnuchin on Thursday saying the plan was not a bailout for companies.

“We’re going to get through this,” Mnuchin said. “This is not the financial crisis that will go on for years.”

Mnuchin also rejected any suggestion that U.S. tariffs were keeping Chinese-made medicines out of the United States.

“We’re doing everything to make sure the supply chains stay open,” he said, noting that U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer had waived tariffs on any critical items.

(Reporting by Andrea Shalal and Doina Chiacu; Writing by Susan Heavey; Editing by Will Dunham)

Life upended for Americans as U.S. scrambles to contain coronavirus threat

By Jonathan Allen and Steve Holland

NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – From Disneyland to the U.S. Supreme Court, from Wall Street to Dodgers Stadium, nearly every facet of American life fell into turmoil on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak caused sweeping closures and economic disruption.

As concern grew over a rapid spread of the sometimes-fatal COVID-19 respiratory illness caused by the virus, the U.S. stock market cratered anew, professional and college sports leagues suspended play, Broadway theaters went dark and many schools from Ohio to Texas shuttered.

The unprecedented cascade of shutdowns reflected growing fears that the outbreak of the highly contagious pathogen, which has already killed at least 40 people in the United States, could race out of control unless authorities squelch large public gatherings.

As companies locked their offices and sent employees to work from home, fears of a recession rose in step with the number of U.S. infections, which jumped to more than 1,300 on Thursday. The concerns were reflected in U.S. stock markets, with major indexes now in bear-market territory – down at least 20% from their recent high.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared a state of emergency, granting him new powers as the number of confirmed cases rose to 95 in the nation’s most populous city.

“We are getting into a situation where the only analogy is war and a wartime dynamic,” de Blasio said, referring to an expected surge in demand for hospital beds.

From California to New York, officials banned large gatherings and closed museums and other institutions without saying how long the directives would stay in place, compounding the uncertainty.

After the Trump administration imposed sweeping restrictions on air travel between the United States and Europe, Gabriella Ribeiro, a Wayne, New Jersey-based travel consultant, said she was fielding a flood of panicked calls from customers.

“We call it the ‘C’ word,” Ribeiro said of coronavirus. “We’ve been through Ebola and SARS, but I haven’t seen this level of panic among travelers since 9/11.”

CANCELED: MARCH MADNESS AND BASEBALL

With cancellations hitting everything from Little League baseball to school fairs, the rituals of American life started to grind to a halt.

The NCAA canceled its annual “March Madness” college basketball tournament. Professional hockey and basketball seasons were halted indefinitely. Major League Baseball ended spring training and suspended the first two weeks of the season.

“Opening day is religion around here,” said Frank Buscemi, a self-described sports junkie and Detroit Tigers baseball fan. “It makes sense, and you’ve got to err on the side of caution – we get that. It doesn’t make it any easier and it doesn’t make it any more fun.”

Officials in hard-hit areas, including New York and Washington states, sought to balance the need to protect the public without crippling economic activity.

New York state banned gatherings of more than 500 people beginning on Friday, Governor Andrew Cuomo told reporters. California placed the cap at gatherings of 250 people.

Hollywood postponed the release of several movies and theaters around the world closed over the health crisis.

The Walt Disney Company shuttered their large U.S. properties, including Disneyland in California and Disney World in Florida.

In Washington, D.C., officials closed the U.S. Capitol complex to the public after a staffer for a senator from Washington state tested positive for the coronavirus. [L1N2B50S4] The Supreme Court closed to the public indefinitely, and the Kennedy Center canceled all performances.

Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks and at least one player in the National Basketball Association announced that they had tested positive for the coronavirus.

“WE’RE NOT SET UP”

The patchwork of state and local directives to stem the tide of infections came as U.S. health officials struggled to expand the country’s limited testing capacity.

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now,” Anthony Fauci, the top U.S. official on infectious diseases, said at a congressional hearing. “The idea of anybody getting it (testing) easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that.”

Two U.S. senators, Rick Scott and Lindsey Graham, opted for self-quarantine after interacting with a delegation led by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in Florida. One of Bolsonaro’s team has tested positive for the virus.

President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence also met the Brazilian delegation, but White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said both of them had “almost no interactions with the individual who tested positive and do not require being tested at this time.”

Republicans initially balked at a sweeping coronavirus economic aid package crafted by Democrats in the House of Representatives. After a day-long negotiating session, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said late Thursday that they were close to a deal with the administration.

The Senate canceled a scheduled recess and will return next week to work on legislation.

The Trump administration spelled out details of new rules on U.S. citizens and permanent residents’ returning from Europe under restrictions that ban most Europeans from entering the United States.

“Americans coming home will be funneled through 13 different airports, they’ll be screened, and then we’re going to ask every single American and legal resident returning to the United States to self-quarantine for 14 days,” Pence said.

Trump defended his decision, which goes into effect at midnight on Friday and lasts for 30 days. He said the ban could be lengthened or shortened.

The restrictions will heap pressure on airlines already reeling from the pandemic, hitting European carriers the hardest, analysts said.

American Airlines Inc <AAL.O> and Delta Air Lines Inc <DAL.N> said they were capping fares for U.S.-bound flights from Europe amid reports of exorbitant pricing as U.S. citizens flocked to European airports trying to return home.

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert, Patricia Zengerle, David Morgan and Richard Cowan in Washington and Maria Caspani, Michael Erman and Dan Burns in New York, Steve Gorman in Culver City, California; Writing by Ginger Gibson and Paul Simao; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall, Cynthia Osterman, Leslie Adler and Daniel Wallis)

U.S. pumps $8.3 billion into coronavirus battle as more states report cases

By Gabriella Borter

(Reuters) – A bill signed by U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday will provide $8.3 billion to bolster the country’s capacity to test for the fast-spreading new coronavirus and fund other measures to stem an outbreak that has now hit 21 states, with Pennsylvania and Indiana reporting their first cases.

The president signed the legislation, approved by the Senate on Thursday, at the end of a week in which the virus began to disrupt daily life for many Americans.

In Seattle, the epicenter of the nation’s outbreak, there were school closings and orders to work from home. In Miami and Baltimore, areas less affected by the outbreak, music festivals and sporting events were canceled or curtailed as a precaution.

The funds will partly go toward expanding testing capacity, which health officials say is a key slowing the spread of the respiratory illness in the United States.

The U.S. death toll reached 14 by Friday with more than 230 cases. Worldwide, about 100,000 people have been infected and more than 3,400 have died, most of them in China.

“We’re doing very well,” the president said after signing the bill. “But it’s an unforeseen problem … came out of nowhere but we’re taking care of it.”

Trump’s spokeswoman said he would travel to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta on Friday.

The planned trip had been called off because a CDC staff member was suspected to have the virus, but the person tested negative, White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham said.

Washington’s King County has been the hardest hit area in the United States with 12 of the deaths, at least six whom were people living at a nursing facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.

The University of Washington announced on Friday that all classes would be held virtually for the rest of the winter term to limit contagion.

Alphabet Inc’s Google on Thursday joined Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc and Microsoft Corp in recommending employees in the Seattle area work from home after some contracted the virus, a policy affecting more than 100,000 people. Gap Inc on Friday closed its New York headquarters because one employee had tested positive.

In Florida, Miami officials canceled two music festivals on Friday – Ultra and Calle Ocho – because of potential risk that coronavirus could spread at events that bring large crowds into close proximity.

For similar reasons, the NCAA Division III men’s basketball tournament will go ahead at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore this weekend but without spectators, the university said on Friday.

As new states report their first cases, others watched their tally grow. Cases in New York jumped to 33 from 22, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Friday, adding that some 4,000 people in the state were under precautionary quarantine and 44 under mandatory quarantine.

But he also tried to stem any sense of panic by the public. “I think the anxiety and the fear is more of a problem than the virus,” Cuomo said.

GRAPHIC: Tracking the spread of the novel coronavirus – https://graphics.reuters.com/CHINA-HEALTH-MAP/0100B59S39E/index.html

INCREASED TESTING

Trump said he had spoken to California Governor Gavin Newsom about a cruise ship that was barred from docking in San Francisco after at least 35 people developed flu-like symptoms while on board. The ship has been linked to two confirmed cases of the illness caused by the virus called COVID-19.

“We’re doing testing on those people,” Trump said.

Test results of passengers were due on Friday, according to Mary Ellen Carroll, executive director of San Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management. State and local officials airlifted diagnostic kits to the vessel.

More than $3 billion included in the $8.3 billion spending bill is intended for test kits, research and development into vaccines and treatments. There are currently no approved vaccines or treatments for the illness, which began in China and has spread to about 90 countries and territories.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, who was present at Trump’s bill signing, said the CDC had already sent tests for 75,000 people to public health labs around the country, amid widespread criticism of not enough tests available for states in need.

Azar said a private contractor was working with the CDC to send kits capable of testing 400,000 people to private hospitals and labs nationwide.

“The production and shipping of tests that we’ve talked about all week is completely on schedule,” Azar said.

Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, acknowledged issues that slowed distribution of coronavirus tests, but said the overall response was going well.

“There were certainly some missteps in the beginning,” he told NBC’s Today program. “In the next couple of weeks we should be ratcheted up to get many more out.”

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, tasked by Trump to lead the coronavirus response, on Thursday noted there were not yet enough tests to meet demand going forward.

The deepening crisis has hit stocks hard. The benchmark S&P 500 was down nearly 3% on Friday after also falling by as much on Thursday.

The Trump administration may take targeted steps to stimulate the U.S. economy as the outbreak may temporarily drag down some sectors, White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on Friday.

“We’re worried about individuals at home who may lose paychecks. We’re worried about small business,” he said.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Lisa Lambert Timothy Ahmann and Steve Holland in Washington, D.C., Gabriella Borter, Peter Szekely and Nathan Layne in New York; Writing by Gabriella Borter; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bill Berkrot)

Gatherings banned, travel restricted as coronavirus cases grow worldwide

By Steve Holland and Julia Harte

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Leaders in Europe, the Middle East and the Americas rolled out bans on big gatherings and stricter travel restrictions as cases of the new coronavirus spread around the world.

The United States on Saturday reported its first death from the disease, a man in his 50s in Washington state, where officials said two of the state’s three cases have links to a nursing home with dozens of residents showing disease symptoms.

Although most Americans face a low risk from the virus, more U.S. deaths could be imminent following the nation’s first, CNN quoted Vice President Mike Pence as saying.

“We know there will be more cases,” Pence told CNN’s Jake Tapper in a clip released on Saturday, echoing President Donald Trump’s earlier comments that additional cases in America were “likely.”

Travelers from Italy and South Korea would face additional screening, Trump and top officials told a White House news briefing, warning Americans against traveling to coronavirus-affected regions in both countries.

Pence said an entry ban on travelers from Iran would be expanded to include any foreign nationals who have visited Iran in the last 14 days.

The United States may also restrict travel on its southern border with Mexico, officials said. However, they encouraged Americans to travel around the country, including states that have recorded some of its more than 60 cases.

The outbreak is disrupting flight demand and many airlines have suspended or modified services in response. After Saturday’s press conference, the White House held a call with airlines to discuss new travel restrictions.

American Airlines Inc said late on Saturday it was suspending all U.S. flights to Milan.

NEW CASES

Ecuador on Saturday reported its first case, in a woman who had traveled from Madrid, while Mexico reported four cases, all in people who had visited Italy.

Brazilian officials confirmed that country’s second case, a patient in São Paulo who recently visited Italy.

As governments worldwide stepped up efforts to halt the spread of the virus, France announced a temporary ban on public gatherings with more than 5,000 people in confined spaces. It reported 16 new cases for a total of 73, and canceled a half-marathon of 40,000 runners scheduled for Sunday.

Switzerland said it is banning events expected to draw more than 1,000 people.

More than 700 tourists remain quarantined at a hotel in the Canary Islands, after several Italian guests there tested positive for coronavirus.

Schools and universities in Italy, which is experiencing Europe’s worst outbreak of the disease, will stay closed for a second consecutive week in three northern regions. The country has reported more than 1,100 cases and 29 deaths.

Analysts have warned that the outbreak looks set to shunt Italy’s fragile economy into its fourth recession in 12 years, with many businesses in the wealthy north close to a standstill and hotels reporting a wave of cancellations.

FOCUS ON IRAN

Iraq reported five new cases of the disease, bringing its total to 13, and Qatar reported its first Saturday, leaving Saudi Arabia as the only Gulf state not to have signaled any coronavirus cases.

The majority of infections in other Gulf countries have been linked to visits to Iran or involve people who have come into contact with people who had been there.

Armenia reported its first infection on Sunday, in a citizen returning from neighboring Iran.

Tehran has ordered schools shut until Tuesday and extended the closure of universities and a ban on concerts and sports events for a week. Authorities have also banned visits to hospitals and nursing homes as the country’s case load hit nearly 600.

One Iranian lawmaker, elected in Feb. 21 polls, has died from the disease along with more than 40 other Iranians, and several high-ranking officials have tested positive for the virus.

Azerbaijan said on Saturday it had closed its border with Iran for two weeks to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Two Azerbaijanis who traveled to Iran have tested positive for the disease and quarantined.

Mainland China reported 573 new confirmed coronavirus cases on Feb. 29, up from 427 the previous day, national health officials said on Sunday in China. The number of deaths stood at 35, down from 47 the previous day, taking the toll in mainland China to 2,870.

A man wearing a face mask is seen at a checkpoint for registration with a body temperature measurement tool in his hand near a residential compound, as the country is hit by a novel coronavirus outbreak in Beijing, China March 1, 2020. REUTERS/Stringer

The epidemic, which began in China, has killed almost 3,000 people worldwide, the ministry said.

Thailand reported its first death from the virus on Sunday, while in Australia, a former passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined off Japan died in the western city of Perth.

Churches closed in South Korea as many held online services instead, with authorities looking to rein in public gatherings, as 376 new infections took the tally to 3,526 cases.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Julia Harte; Additional reporting by Reuters reporters worldwide; Writing by Heather Timmons; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Clarence Fernandez)

Mixed messages, test delays hamper U.S. coronavirus response

By Julie Steenhuysen, Andrew Hay and Brad Brooks

(Reuters) – Even as U.S. officials warn of an inevitable outbreak of coronavirus in the United States, and are alerting Americans to take precautions, some health agencies charged with protecting the public appear unprepared to deal with the threat.

Barely more than a handful of public health departments across the country are able to test for the novel virus, which began in China and has spread to at least 44 countries. The federal government has less than 10% of the protective masks required to protect healthcare workers and the public. And Washington still does not have adequate funding in place to support health departments’ efforts, though more money is on the way.

Conflicting messaging from the White House and top U.S. officials regarding the severity of the threat has only added to the uncertainty.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this week for the first time advised American businesses, schools, hospitals and families to prepare for domestic acceleration of the virus, which has infected more than 80,000 people worldwide and killed nearly 3,000.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday assured Americans that the risk of coronavirus transmission in the United States was “very low.” Despite an explosion of cases in China over the past two months, the Trump administration only this week put in a request for $2.5 billion to aid in the response, an amount both Republicans and Democrats have said is too small.

Critics of the federal response say the United States squandered precious weeks by focusing too narrowly on keeping the coronavirus from crossing U.S. borders rather than marshalling resources to prepare American communities for a widespread domestic outbreak that officials now say was inevitable.

“This has been a realistic risk for a month, and the signal to trigger that kind of preparedness has only been going out in the last few days in an explicit way,” said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development in Washington. “That’s a huge problem.”

An employee carries cans of freeze dried food to put into boxes as part of personal protection and survival equipment kits ordered by customers preparing against novel coronavirus, at Nitro-Pak in Midway, Utah, U.S. February 27, 2020. REUTERS/George Frey

FEW BEING TESTED

There are 60 confirmed U.S. cases of the novel coronavirus, which causes the disease known as Covid-19, U.S. health officials said on Wednesday. But experts admit they have no way of knowing the true figure because access to testing at present is severely limited.

So far, the U.S. strategy has focused almost exclusively on testing infected travelers, using a test that looks for genetic material from the virus in saliva or mucus. As of February 23, fewer than 500 people from 43 states had been or are being tested for the virus.

Currently, just seven state and local health departments have the ability to screen for the virus, the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) said on Wednesday. CDC-developed tests issued three weeks ago were producing inaccurate results in some labs, so new tests had to be made and cleared by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), leaving many labs with no local testing capability, the group said.

The CDC and FDA have worked out a fix that will allow 40 more public health labs to do testing by the end of next week, the APHL’s Chief Executive Scott Becker told Reuters.

In the meantime, the burden has fallen largely on the CDC, which does testing for most of the country on its campus in Atlanta.

“Unfortunately, we are now in the bottom tier in countries capable of doing population-based testing,” said Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

U.S. patients typically wait 24 to 48 hours to find out whether they have tested positive and need to be quarantined, health officials said, during which time those who are infected can spread the virus to others

The CDC’s test is restricted solely for use by public health labs, but if the virus begins spreading widely in the United States, hospitals will need to be able to do the tests themselves, public health experts say. Such testing is typically done using kits produced by commercial companies. Several privately developed tests are in the works, but none have yet won approval from the FDA.

Some health experts also fault the narrow testing criteria that the United States is using to screen for potential infections. Currently, individuals with flu-like symptoms are only tested for the coronavirus if they have traveled to a country where the virus is spreading. This has raised concerns that there are far more cases in the United States than are currently recorded.

“If the majority of testing is all around airports or travelers, we won’t know whether it’s circulating in communities,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Those worries were reinforced on Wednesday when the CDC confirmed the first U.S. case of coronavirus in a California patient with no apparent travel history. The University of California Davis said in a statement the patient was transferred to the hospital with severe pneumonia and the hospital requested testing. But since the patient didn’t fit the CDC’s criteria, those tests were delayed by several days.

On Thursday, CDC said it is broadening those criteria to allow testing when the virus is suspected.

MASKS IN SHORT SUPPLY

Around 15 state health departments contacted by Reuters raised concerns about challenges they would face in the event of community spread, including worries about not having enough personal protective gear to safeguard frontline medical workers.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday estimated that the United States would need 300 million face masks to protect healthcare workers and the public from people infected with the virus. The country has fewer than 20 million of the kind of masks needed to protect healthcare workers in the Strategic National Stockpile, a government repository of medical supplies needed to address public health emergencies.

“There is a real concern the availability of this equipment may be limited, in part because of the public buying it in a panic when they don’t need it,” said Matt Zavadsky, head of the National Association of Emergency Medical Technicians.

President Donald Trump’s administration is considering invoking special powers through a law called the Defense Production Act to quickly expand domestic manufacturing of protective masks and clothing to combat the coronavirus in the United States, two U.S. officials told Reuters.

With no Covid-19 vaccine or proven anti-viral medicine available, states are planning to isolate sick people in their homes, both to slow community spread and reduce pressure on hospitals, according to the CDC.

Their ability to track a rapidly expanding web of patients who test positive, and all the people with whom they have had contact, is of major concern, according to chief epidemiologists in several states.

Health departments in some states have purchased disease surveillance software to help them with that task. The state of Washington’s system, for instance, tracks patients and people they have had contact with, and asks them about their condition. If someone reports symptoms that merit hospitalization, the patient and doctors are informed of that.

The CDC said in a news conference on Tuesday that transmission of the virus could be slowed by the closure of schools and businesses and the cancellations of concerts and other mass gatherings.

But exactly who would make those decisions or how they would be enforced isn’t clear and could vary widely throughout the nation.

In Texas, for example, such decisions may be made by local officials, said Chris Van Deus, a spokesman with the Texas health department.

“Texas is a home rule state so the buck really stops with county judges and mayors,” Van Deus said.

Another concern is a flood of patients into health systems that are already overburdened in many parts of the country, particularly during winter flu season.

Washington state is considering temporary drive-through care facilities to stop potential coronavirus carriers entering healthcare facilities, mindful that hospitals can amplify outbreaks, as was the case with the viruses that cause MERS and SARS.

New Mexico is working with healthcare systems to turn outpatient facilities into care units if needed, said State Epidemiologist Michael Landen.

“The biggest challenge is getting a consistent message to the public with respect to their options with dealing with this virus,” Landen said.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen in Chicago, Andrew Hay in Taos, New Mexico and Brad Brooks in Austin, Texas; Editing by Marla Dickerson)

Hundreds of Americans flown home from cruise ship, 14 with coronavirus

By David Stanway and Stephen Lam

SHANGHAI/TRAVIS AIR FORCE BASE, Calif. (Reuters) – More than 300 American cruise liner passengers, including 14 who tested positive for coronavirus, were flown home to military bases in the United States, after two weeks under quarantine off Japan.

The cruise ship Diamond Princess, with more than 400 cases by far the largest cluster outside China, has become the biggest test so far of other countries’ ability to contain an outbreak that has killed 1,770 people in China and five elsewhere.

Ground crew in anti-contamination suits met a chartered jet that touched down at Joint Base San Antonio in Texas, and passengers could be seen climbing down the stairs wearing face masks in the pre-dawn mist. Another flight landed at Travis Air Force Base in California hours earlier. Those arriving were taken into a two-week quarantine.

Although U.S. officials said passengers with coronavirus symptoms would not be taken, 14 passengers found at the last minute to have tested positive were permitted to board the planes. The U.S. State Department said the infected passengers were kept in isolation on the flights.

Across mainland China, officials said the total number of coronavirus cases rose by 2,048 to 70,548. That was slightly more new cases than were reported on Sunday, but hundreds fewer than reported on Saturday.

Chinese authorities say the stabilization in the number of new cases is a sign that measures they have taken to halt the spread of the disease are having an effect.

However, epidemiologists say it is probably still too early to say how well the outbreak is being contained within China and its central Hubei province, where the virus first appeared. Official figures of new cases have leveled off in the past, only to jump suddenly after changes in methodology.

China has responded to the COVID-19 virus by locking down Hubei’s provincial capital Wuhan, a megacity of 11 million people, and imposing restrictions in a number of other cities.

But the ruling Communist Party is also under pressure to prevent the economy from crashing and get people back to work.

China’s central bank cut the interest rate on its medium-term lending, a move that is expected to pave the way for a reduction in the benchmark loan prime rate on Thursday. Beijing has also announced plans for cuts in taxes and fees.

Even so, economists expect China’s economic growth to slow. Ratings agency Moody’s on Monday lowered its 2020 GDP growth forecast to 5.2%, making it likely China would miss a goal to double GDP over the decade to 2020.

CRUISE SHIPS

Around half of all known cases of the virus outside China have been found aboard the Diamond Princess, where around 400 people have tested positive since the cruise liner was ordered to stay under quarantine off Japan on Feb. 3.

Several other countries have announced plans to follow the United States in bringing passengers home. Around half of the 3,700 passengers and crew are Japanese.

Matthew Smith, an American passenger who remained on the ship after refusing to board the voluntary repatriation flights, tweeted that staying behind was the “best decision ever”.

“US Gov’t said they would not put anyone on the planes who was symptomatic, and they ended up knowingly and intentionally putting on 14 people who actually have the virus,” he wrote.

Authorities around the world were also trying to track down passengers from another cruise liner, the Westerdam, which was turned away from ports across Southeast Asia for two weeks before docking in Cambodia on Thursday.

One American passenger who disembarked in Cambodia tested positive for the virus in Malaysia on Saturday.

Carnival Corp., which operates both cruise liners, said it was cooperating with authorities in trying to trace other passengers from the Westerdam. None of the other 1,454 passengers and 802 crew had reported any symptoms, it said.

“Guests who have already returned home will be contacted by their local health department and be provided further information,” a statement from the company’s Holland America Line unit said. Hundreds of passengers are still in Cambodia, either on the ship or in hotels.

“We will all be tested for the coronavirus today and tomorrow by the Cambodian Ministry of Health,” said passenger Holley Rauen, a public health nurse and midwife from Fort Myers, Florida. “We have no idea when we get to get home.”

CHINA BACK TO WORK?

After an extended Lunar New Year holiday, China needs to get back to work or suffer severe economic consequences. There is a proposal to delay the opening of the annual session of parliament, due on Feb. 24.

Some cities remain in lockdown, streets are deserted, employees are nervous, and travel bans and quarantine orders are in place around the country. Many factories have yet to re-open, disrupting supply chains in China and beyond.

In Japan, where data showed on Monday that the economy had already shrunk last quarter at the fastest pace in almost six years, the impact of the virus is expected to show up in the current quarter, stoking fears of recession.

Trade-dependent Singapore downgraded its 2020 economic growth forecast and has said recession is possible. It is set to unveil measures to cushion the blow on Tuesday.

Organizers of the Tokyo Marathon have decided to limit the March 1 race to top-level athletes, banning 38,000 general participants, a person with knowledge of the issue told Reuters.

Japan’s Imperial Household Agency said it would cancel Emperor Naruhito’s public birthday address on Feb. 23, his first since his coronation last year. The event regularly attracts tens of thousands of people to the inner grounds of the Imperial Palace in the heart of Tokyo.

(Reporting by David Stanway in Shanghai; Claire Baldwin in Sihanoukville; John Geddie and Aradhana Aravindan in Singapore; Additional reporting by Farah Master in Hong Kong, Sophie Yu in Beijing, Hilary Russ in New York and Daniel Trotta; Writing by Peter Graff; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Nick Macfie)

Unaffordable rental housing may be ‘new normal’ in the United States

By Carey L. Biron

WASHINGTON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A growing number of Americans cannot afford to pay their rent as rental property prices hit a record high, researchers said on Friday, amid an outcry over rising evictions and homelessness.

The number of U.S. households living in rentals also surged to 43.7 million in 2018 – up 21% from 2004 – a study by Harvard University found, as a growing share of older, larger families can no longer afford to buy their own homes.

“This is like nothing that we’ve seen,” said Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, the study’s lead author, pointing to the rising number of households who are cost-burdened – or spend more than 30% of their income on housing.

Some 21 million U.S. renters are cost-burdened, according to the report – accounting for almost half of all renters – in both urban and rural areas across the country, with minorities disproportionately affected.

“When we talk about cost burden, this could be the new normal,” Airgood-Obrycki, a researcher with Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The problem of unaffordable rental housing is a global one, according to World Bank, which found that the only affordable rentals in most fast-growing developing countries were insecure, in the informal sector and with poor living conditions.

About 65% of the U.S. population are homeowners, according to federal statistics, with most of the rest in rentals.

Since the 2008 recession, caused in part by a wave of homeowners unable to repay their mortgages, the number of cost-burdened renters has risen by 2.8 million, according to Apartment List, an online rental platform.

These people are forced to make difficult trade-offs.

“You might cut back on health care to pay for rent, or you might miss a rent payment, which could trigger eviction or homelessness,” Airgood-Obrycki said.

High-income renters have flooded the U.S. market, having either lost their homes or unable to afford to buy, leading to higher rents, the lowest vacancy rates since the mid-1980s and a spurt of rental construction tailored to them.

Households earning at least $75,000 per year accounted for three-quarters of the growth in renters since 2010 – up by 3.2 million – the Harvard study found.

In turn, the property prices for rental apartments have reached record highs, rising 150% between 2010 and late 2019.

“In the past decade, the lowest-income renters have seen a loss of more than 2 million apartments affordable to them and experienced increased evictions,” said Diane Yentel, chief executive of the National Low Income Housing Coalition.

“The report makes clear that the housing crisis is most acute for the lowest-income renters, particularly low-income black and Latino renters,” she said in emailed comments.

Millions of poor people who are eligible for housing subsidies have not received help as federal rental assistance programmes have grown by only about 1.5% annually in recent years, the Harvard report said.

(Reporting by Carey L. Biron, Editing by Katy Migiro. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s and LGBT+ rights, human trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Successor to slain Iran general faces same fate if he kills Americans – U.S. envoy

By Nafisa Eltahir

DUBAI (Reuters) – The successor to the Iranian commander killed in a U.S. drone strike would suffer the same fate if he followed a similar path by killing Americans, the U.S. special representative for Iran said, according to Asharq al-Awsat newspaper.

Washington blamed Qassem Soleimani for masterminding attacks by Iran-aligned militias against U.S. forces in the region. U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the Jan. 3 drone strike in Iraq after an escalation that began in December with missile strikes that killed an American contractor, which Washington blamed on an Iran-aligned militia in Iraq.

Iran responded to the killing of Soleimani by launching missiles at U.S. targets in Iraq on Jan. 8, although no U.S. soldiers were killed.

After Soleimani’s death, Tehran swiftly appointed Esmail Ghaani as the new head of the Quds Force, an elite unit in the Revolutionary Guards that handles actions abroad. Ghaani has pledged to pursue Soleimani’s course.

“If (Esmail) Ghaani follows the same path of killing Americans then he will meet the same fate,” U.S. envoy Brian Hook told the Arabic-language daily Asharq al-Awsat.

He said in the interview in Davos that Trump had long made it clear “that any attack on Americans or American interests would be met with a decisive response.”

“This isn’t a new threat. The president has always said that he will always respond decisively to protect American interests,” Hook said. “I think the Iranian regime understands now that they cannot attack America and get away with it.”

After his appointment, Ghaani said he would “continue in this luminous path” taken by Soleimani and said the goal was to drive U.S. forces out of the region, Iran’s long stated policy.

The Revolutionary Guards aerospace commander said four U.S. military bases in the region were used to deploy aircraft and drones that played a role in the Jan. 3 attack that killed Soleimani, including two bases in Iraq and another in Kuwait.

“Most of the drones” had taken off from Kuwait, Amirali Hajizadeh, who heads the Guards’ aerospace unit, told state television, although he did not say if a drone from Kuwait was ultimately responsible for attack on Soleimani.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran have steadily increased since Trump withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 and imposed tough news sanctions that have hammered the Iranian economy.

This month’s military flare-up began in December when rockets fired at U.S. bases in Iraq killed a U.S. contractor. Washington blamed pro-Iran militia and launched air strikes that killed at least 25 fighters. After the militia surrounded the U.S. embassy in Baghdad for two days, Trump ordered the drone strike on Soleimani.

(Reporting by Nafisa Eltahir and Parisa Hafezi; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Michael Perry and Peter Graff)

Trump vows to hit 52 Iranian targets if Iran retaliates after drone strike

By Ahmed Aboulenein, Maha El Dahan and David Shepardson

BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites “very hard” if Iran attacks Americans or U.S. assets after a drone strike that killed Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani and an Iraqi militia leader, as tens of thousands of people marched in Iraq to mourn their deaths.

Showing no signs of seeking to ease tensions raised by the strike he ordered that killed Soleimani and Iranian-backed Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis at Baghdad airport on Friday, Trump issued a threat to Iran on Twitter. The strike has raised the specter of wider conflict in the Middle East.

Iran, Trump wrote, “is talking very boldly about targeting certain USA assets” in revenge for Soleimani’s death. Trump said the United States has “targeted 52 Iranian sites” and that some were “at a very high level & important to Iran & the Iranian culture, and those targets, and Iran itself, WILL BE HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD.”

“The USA wants no more threats!” Trump said, adding that the 52 targets represented the 52 Americans who were held hostage in Iran for 444 days after being seized at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979 – an enduring sore spot in U.S.-Iranian relations.

Trump did not identify the sites. The Pentagon referred questions about the matter to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Among the mourners in Iraq included many militiamen in uniform for whom Muhandis and Soleimani were heroes. They carried portraits of both men and plastered them on walls and armored personnel carriers in the procession. Chants of “Death to America” and “No No Israel” rang out.

On Saturday evening, a rocket fell inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone near the U.S. Embassy, another hit the nearby Jadriya neighborhood and two more were fired at the Balad air base north of the city, but no one was killed, Iraq’s military said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Trump referenced an unusually specific number of potential Iranian targets after a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guards commander had also mentioned a specific number of American targets – 35 of them – for possible retaliatory attacks in response to Soleimani’s killing.

General Gholamali Abuhamzeh was quoted by Tasnim news agency as saying late on Friday that Iran will punish Americans wherever they are within reach of the Islamic Republic, and raised the prospect of attacks on ships in the Gulf.

“The Strait of Hormuz is a vital point for the West and a large number of American destroyers and warships cross there. … Vital American targets in the region have been identified by Iran since long time ago. … Some 35 U.S. targets in the region as well as Tel Aviv are within our reach,” he was quoted as saying.

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah militia warned Iraqi security forces to stay away from U.S. bases in Iraq, “by a distance not less than a thousand meters (six-tenths of a mile) starting Sunday evening,” reported Lebanese al-Mayadeen TV, which is close to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Trump said on Friday Soleimani had been plotting “imminent and sinister” attacks on American diplomats and military personnel. Democratic critics said the Republican president’s action was reckless and risked more bloodshed in a dangerous region.

‘MALIGN INFLUENCE’

Trump’s provocative Twitter posts came only hours after U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo wrote on Twitter that he had told Iraq’s president that “the U.S. remains committed to de-escalation.” Pompeo also wrote on Twitter that he had spoken with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about Iran and “underscored the importance of countering Iran’s malign influence and threats to the region.”

The White House on Saturday sent to the U.S. Congress formal notification of the drone strike – as required by law – amid complaints from Democrats that Trump did not notify lawmakers or seek advance approval for the attack. White House national security adviser Robert O’Brien defended the operation’s legality and said Justice Department lawyers had signed off on the plan.

Democrats sounded unswayed. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the notification document raised “serious and urgent questions about the timing, manner and justification” of the strike.

Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a strident Trump critic, wrote on Twitter that his threat to hit Iranian sites “is a war crime.”

“Threatening to target and kill innocent families, women and children – which is what you’re doing by targeting cultural sites – does not make you a ‘tough guy.’ It does not make you ‘strategic.’ It makes you a monster,” Ocasio-Cortez wrote.

With security worries rising after Friday’s strike, the NATO alliance and a separate U.S.-led mission suspended their programs to train Iraqi security and armed forces, officials said.

Soleimani, 62, was Iran’s pre-eminent military leader – head of the Revolutionary Guards’ overseas Quds Force and the architect of Iran’s spreading influence in the Middle East. Muhandis was de facto leader of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) umbrella body of paramilitary groups.

The attack took Washington and its allies, mainly Saudi Arabia and Israel, into uncharted territory in their confrontation with Iran and its proxy militias across the region.

The United States has been an ally of the Iraqi government since the 2003 U.S. invasion to oust dictator Saddam Hussein, but Iraq has become more closely allied with Iran.

The Iraqi parliament is convening an extraordinary session during which a vote to expel U.S. troops could be taken as soon as Sunday. Many Iraqis, including opponents of Soleimani, have expressed anger at Washington for killing the two men on Iraqi soil and possibly dragging their country into another conflict.

BODIES TAKEN TO HOLY CITIES

A PMF-organized procession carried the bodies of Soleimani and Muhandis, and those of others killed in the U.S. strike, through Baghdad’s Green Zone.

The top candidate to succeed Muhandis, Hadi al-Amiri, spoke over the dead militia commander’s coffin: “The price for your noble blood is American forces leaving Iraq forever and achieving total national sovereignty.”

Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi also attended. Mahdi’s office later said he received a phone call from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and they “discussed the difficult conditions facing Iraq and the region.”

Mourners brought the bodies of the two slain men by car to the Shi’ite holy city of Kerbala, south of Baghdad, then to Najaf, another sacred Shi’ite city, where they were met by the son of Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, and where Muhandis and the other Iraqis killed will be laid to rest.

Soleimani’s body will be transferred to the southwestern Iranian province of Khuzestan that borders Iraq. On Sunday it will be taken to the Shi’ite holy city of Mashhad in Iran’s northeast and from there to Tehran and his hometown Kerman in the southeast for burial on Tuesday, state media said.

The U.S. strike followed a sharp increase in U.S.-Iranian hostilities in Iraq since last week when pro-Iranian militias attacked the U.S. embassy in Baghdad after a deadly U.S. air raid on Kataib Hezbollah, founded by Muhandis. Washington accused the group of an attack on an Iraqi military base that killed an American contractor.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein and Maha El Dahan in Baghdad and David Shepardson in Washington; Additional reporting by Ghazwan Jabouri in Tikrit, Parisa Hafezi in Dubai, Nadine Awadallah in Beirut, John Chalmers in Brussels, and Kate Holton in London; Writing by Will Dunham, Mark Heinrich and Grant McCool; Editing by Frances Kerry and Daniel Wallis)

Philippines bans two U.S. senators, mulls new visa rules for Americans

MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippines has banned two U.S. lawmakers from visiting and will introduce tighter entry restrictions for U.S. citizens should Washington enforce sanctions over the detention of a top government critic, the president’s spokesman said on Friday.

President Rodrigo Duterte will impose a requirement on U.S. nationals to get visas should any Philippine officials involved in the incarceration of Senator Leila de Lima be denied entry to the United States, as sought by U.S. senators Richard Durbin and Patrick Leahy.

Duterte’s move comes after the U.S. Congress approved a 2020 budget that contains a provision introduced by the senators against anyone involved in holding de Lima, who was charged with drug offences in early 2017 after she led an investigation into mass killings during Duterte’s notorious anti-drugs crackdown.

“We will not sit idly if they continue to interfere with our processes as a sovereign state,” Philippine presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo told a regular news conference.

The Philippines grants visa-free entry for up to 30 days to Americans, 792,000 of whom visited in the first nine months of 2019, nearly 13% of foreign arrivals, government data showed.

The U.S. embassy in Manila did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Panelo said travel restrictions over de Lima’s detention were nonsense because she was not wrongfully imprisoned but detained pending trial for crimes.

“The case of Senator de Lima is not one of persecution but of prosecution,” he said.

Duterte makes no secret of his disdain for the United States and what he considers its hypocrisy and interference, though he admits that most Filipinos and his military have high regard for their country’s former colonial ruler.

The United States is the Philippines biggest defense ally and its main source of Western influence. Millions of Filipinos have relatives who are U.S. citizens.

De Lima, a justice minister in a former administration, on Wednesday expressed what she described as overwhelming gratitude to the U.S. Congress for its help.

She has won numerous awards from human rights groups, who consider her a prisoner of conscience.

She has constantly spoken out against Duterte and been calling for an international investigation into his war on drugs, in which thousands of people have been killed.

Police say those killed were drug dealers who resisted arrest, but activists believe many of the killings were murders.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty, Robert Birsel)