Tag Archives: Recovery

Top Israeli rabbis, and U.S. envoy, pray for Trump recovery

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel’s top rabbis prayed for U.S. President Donald Trump to recover from COVID-19 on Monday, invoking his name in a Jewish holiday ceremony at Jerusalem’s Western Wall.

Support for Trump, who recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and moved the U.S. Embassy to the city, is strong among Israelis, who mark the Jewish high holidays this year while under a second coronavirus lockdown.

“May He who blessed our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, David and Solomon send healing to Donald John, son of Fred,” intoned Shmuel Rabinovitch, rabbi of the Western Wall, Judaism’s holiest prayer site.

“May the Holy Blessed One overflow with compassion for him, restore him, cure him, strengthen him, enliven him,” he said, reciting the traditional prayer for those in ill health, to amens from Israel’s two chief rabbis and U.S. ambassador David Friedman.

They were attending a ceremony, coinciding with the Sukkot festival, in which members of Judaism’s priestly caste bless the public in a chant at the Western Wall.

With Israel struggling against a surge in coronavirus cases, attendance was drastically pared down this year.

Heading to the event as an invited guest, Friedman tweeted that it was “normally attended by thousands, today just 20”.

“I will pray for God’s mercy and healing upon all those throughout the world afflicted with Covid-19,” he said.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by William Maclean)

FDA’s emergency approval of blood plasma as COVID-19 treatment on hold: NYT

(Reuters) – The emergency approval of blood plasma as a potential COVID-19 treatment by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now been put on hold, the New York Times reported on Wednesday, citing two senior administration officials.

A group of top federal health officials including Anthony Fauci have argued that the emerging data on the treatment was too weak, the report said, adding that an emergency approval could still be granted in the near future.

The authorization is on hold for now as more data is reviewed, the NYT reported, citing Clifford Lane, the clinical director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institute of Health.

The FDA and NIH did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

People who survive an infectious disease like COVID-19 are left with blood plasma containing antibodies, or proteins the body’s immune system created, to fight off a virus. This can be transfused into newly infected patients to try to aid recovery.

An FDA emergency-use authorization could allow faster access to a therapy for the pandemic.

(Reporting by Trisha Roy in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)

Kudlow sees single-digit unemployment in August, ‘V’ recovery

(Reuters) – White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Thursday said he expects the U.S. unemployment rate to return to single-digit levels as early as this month and growth in the third quarter should be 20% or more as the economy recovers from the recession triggered by the coronavirus pandemic.

“The key point that I would make is the economy is rebounding, it looks like a V-shaped recovery and the recent news now is even better than it was a month ago,” Kudlow said in a virtual appearance at a conference hosted by the Council of the Americas.

(Reporting By Jonnelle Marte and Dan Burns; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

Explainer: What to look for in the Fed’s U.S. economic outlook

By Ann Saphir

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – U.S. Federal Reserve policymakers on Wednesday will publish their first economic projections since the coronavirus pandemic set off a recession in February, estimates expected to signal a collapse in output this year and near-zero interest rates for the next few years.

They’ll also give shape to the range of views at the U.S. central bank about the expected speed of the recovery and any longer-term damage to the world’s biggest economy from a pandemic that has so far killed nearly 111,000 Americans and prompted unprecedented restrictions on commerce and movement to slow its spread.

Here is a guide to what the projections may show and what questions they may raise about the future of the U.S. economy as authorities lift those restrictions.

WHAT ARE THEY?

Every three months, each of the Fed’s 17 policymakers develops a set of multi-year forecasts for U.S. unemployment, inflation, economic growth and interest rates. The projections are published in summary form at the end of the policy-setting meeting. The Fed did not release a quarterly summary of economic projections in March, however, because of massive uncertainty about the spread of the novel coronavirus, the resulting lockdowns, and the economic fallout. Though plenty is still uncertain, one thing is clear: the projections on Wednesday will be starkly worse than the Fed’s largely favorable outlook in December. (Please see graphic )

DOES THIS HAVE ALL THOSE DOTS?

Yes. The projections’ centerpiece is the so-called dot plot, a graphic representation of where each unnamed policymaker sees interest rates in coming years. This collection of rate-setters’ individual views has also occasionally functioned as a loose policy promise about the path of rates. This is one of those times. The Fed has signaled it will keep its key overnight lending rate near zero until the recovery is well underway. The dots, which will likely show most Fed policymakers expect no change in rates through 2022, “could be seen as a soft way of reinforcing that guidance,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JP Morgan.

HOW DEEP, HOW LONG?

With states in various stages of reopening after weeks or more of stay-at-home orders that precipitated the recession, the Fed policymakers’ forecasts will map their sense of how quick the recovery will be.

“The Fed likely forecasts a strong rebound in growth in H2, but the level of GDP will remain well below the pre-coronavirus level until late 2021” Oxford Economics’ Kathy Bostjancic wrote. Her view was widely echoed by other economists.

The U.S. unemployment rate, which fell unexpectedly to 13.3% in May, may be projected to end this year in double digits and remaining well above healthy long-run levels next year. The Fed will likely project inflation to undershoot its 2% target for the foreseeable future, Bostjancic and others say.

Importantly, the Fed’s summary of projections reflects what policymakers see as the most likely path for the economy, which for many does not factor in a second wave of infections – a key unknown for now.

But deaths from COVID-19, the respiratory illness caused by the novel coronavirus, continue to increase in many U.S. states, and public health officials have flagged the possibility of further spread after crowded Memorial Day celebrations in parts of the country in late May and ongoing mass protests against racial inequalities since the May 25 death of George Floyd, a black man, in police custody in Minneapolis.

“The risk to our forecast, and likely the Fed’s, is skewed to the downside,” Bostjancic said.

LONG-TERM DAMAGE?

The economic projections being released on Wednesday will also offer insight into whether Fed officials see the pandemic as inflicting permanent damage on the economy. Nomura economist Lewis Alexander projects little change to the Fed’s earlier estimate that the economy can sustain about 1.9% yearly growth in the long run, along with 4.1% unemployment, though both could erode. More broadly, he said, “it is important to emphasize the significant amount of uncertainty” around the forecasts.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Dan Burns and Paul Simao)

Lower mortgage rates, prices lift U.S. new home sales to one-and-a-half-year high

FILE PHOTO: A real estate sign advertising a new home for sale is pictured in Vienna, Virginia, U.S. October 20, 2014. REUTERS/Larry Downing/File Photo

By Lucia Mutikani

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Sales of new U.S. single-family homes rose to a near 1-1/2-year high in March, boosted by lower mortgage rates and house prices.

The third straight monthly increase reported by the Commerce Department on Tuesday suggested some recovery was under way in the housing market, which hit a soft patch last year against the backdrop of higher borrowing costs and more expensive homes.

“In this housing market, affordability for buyers is key,” said Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor.com. “This trend supports the fact that lower mortgage rates have started to entice buyers this spring and foreshadows a potential strengthening of existing home sales in the months to come.”

New home sales increased 4.5 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 692,000 units last month, the highest level since November 2017.

February’s sales pace was revised down to 662,000 units from the previously reported 667,000 units. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast new home sales, which account for about 11.7 percent of housing market sales, decreasing 2.5 percent to a pace of 650,000 units in March.

New home sales are drawn from permits and tend to be volatile on a month-to-month basis. They increased 3.0 percent from a year ago.

The median new house price dropped 9.7 percent to $302,700 in March from a year ago, the lowest level since February 2017. A separate report on Tuesday from the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) showed its house price index rose a seasonally adjusted 4.9 percent in February from a year ago.

That followed a 5.6 percent increase in January. The FHFA’s index is calculated by using purchase prices of houses financed with mortgages sold to or guaranteed by mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

U.S. financial markets were little moved by the new home sales data.

New home sales have not been severely impacted by the supply problems that have plagued the market for previously owned homes. A report on Monday showed home resales tumbled in March, weighed down by a persistent shortage of lower-priced houses.

Despite the broader housing market’s struggles with supply, the fundamentals for housing are strengthening. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate has dropped by about 80 basis points since November, according to data from mortgage finance agency Freddie Mac. That followed a recent decision by the Federal Reserve to suspend its three-year monetary policy tightening campaign.

In addition, house price inflation has slowed and wage growth has picked up. Still, land and labor shortages are constraining builders’ ability to break more ground on lower- priced housing projects. Investment in homebuilding contracted 0.3 percent in 2018, the biggest drop since 2010.

New home sales in the South, which accounts for the bulk of transactions, increased 3.6 percent in March to their best level since July 2007. Sales in the Midwest soared 17.6 percent to an 11-month high, while those in the West surged 6.7 percent to their strongest level in a year.

But sales in the Northeast tumbled 22.2 percent.

There were 344,000 new homes on the market last month, down 0.3 percent from February. At March’s sales pace it would take 6.0 months to clear the supply of houses on the market, down from 6.3 months in February.

About 62 percent of the houses sold last month were either under construction or yet to be built.

(Reporting by Lucia Mutikani; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

After devastating flooding, U.S. Midwest farms need more than ‘paper towels’ to recover

A combination of aerial photos show the farm of Richard Oswald near Langdon, Missouri after flooding March 20, 2019 and in the fall of 2018 at right. Courtesy of Richard Oswald/Handout via REUTERS.

By Andrew Hay

(Reuters) – Missouri farmer Richard Oswald needs a lot of help to recover from flooding that left his home and farm looking like a manmade island in an inland sea.

Relief groups are giving tetanus shots and handing out free meals and cleaning supplies near his farm in the Langdon-Rock Port area, about 100 miles (161 km) northwest of Kansas City. But what Oswald really needs is money.

Hit by the worst flooding in living memory, he and thousands of other farmers along the Missouri River will each require hundreds of thousands of dollars in disaster funds or loans to start over.

“The typical response on flood relief is groups like the Red Cross show up with paper towels and rubber gloves and scrub buckets,” said Oswald, 69, who does not expect to be able to get to his home or land for weeks. “The biggest thing farmers need is cash, or ways to access funds.”

‘BOUNCE BACK’

Slammed by a trade war and low commodity prices, Midwest family farms have been in the red and in decline for the last five years. The number of U.S farms fell by 100,000 between 2010 and 2017, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) data.

Thousands more will now go under without emergency financial support for flooding, pummeling heartland economies almost entirely dependent on agriculture, farmers and aid groups said.

It is a call federal and state agencies, as well as non-governmental and faith-based relief groups are answering.

President Donald Trump has approved disaster declarations for Nebraska and Iowa, making federal disaster funding available in flood-hit areas. Missouri Governor Mike Parson declared a state of emergency, paving the way for similar actions in his state.

“I know we aim for bringing everything back up to where it was,” said Rosalynn Days-Austin, a USDA emergency coordinator helping direct Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) efforts in flood-affected areas. “Sometimes that’s not always possible, for a variety of reasons, but the goal is definitely to help them bounce back from their loss.”

CASH PREFERRED

Relief groups like Farm Aid are tending to the immediate needs of farmers, distributing tens of thousands of dollars in “emergency grants” – $500 gifts from cash donations that help families pay for things like groceries. After that, the group and its partners advise farming families on how to access federal disaster funds they hope are coming soon.

“What we’re hearing, because of the snowpack and rain and the wet ground, is that farmers are going to be dealing with this throughout the spring. So we’re in it for the long haul,” said Jennifer Fahy, a spokeswoman for the group established by country singer and activist Willie Nelson.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is coordinating a long-term response to get displaced families housed, navigate the red tape of insurance companies and federal agencies and tend to the mental health needs of people who have suffered extreme trauma, said Bishop Brian Maas.

“We have national partners and coalitions within the state,” said Maas, who is asking people to hold off donating more material goods, for now. “There will be stresses because we’ve not done anything of this magnitude.

“Now we have mountains of cleaning supplies and so forth that can’t be used,” Maas said, appealing to people to get back in touch in a month to see how they can donate then. “Cash is the most flexible way to respond.”

‘FEMA IS WORTHLESS’

Another immediate need is feed for livestock.

Relief organization Farm Rescue is collecting donations of hay in the Dakotas and trucking it to farmers whose cattle are starving after their feed stands were submerged in floodwater.

“I don’t know of anything this widespread that has ever affected so many people in our service area,” said Dan Erdmann, a spokesman for the group which helps family farms get through crises ranging from natural disasters to medical emergencies.

Farmworkers, some of them undocumented and legal migrants, have been hit hard. Lutheran Family Services of Nebraska is looking at housing assistance for displaced people who previously paid around $300 a month rent and now face rents triple that due to a dearth in properties, said Stacy Martin, chief executive of the social services charity.

While relief groups tend to urgent needs, farmers like Scott Olson say more federal relief money is needed at a time when low crop prices and high debt levels are limiting farmers’ access to credit. He is counting on a farm relief bill in Congress for extra disaster compensation after he successfully lobbied in Washington for similar funds following 2011 flooding.

“Flood insurance isn’t going to cover this worth a darn. FEMA is worthless,” said Olson, who farms 3,000 acres near Tekamah, Nebraska and runs a farm equipment business. “They don’t have any money, nobody has any money.”

(Reporting by Andrew Hay in New Mexico; Additional reporting by Tom Polansek in Chicago; editing by Bill Tarrant and Lisa Shumaker)

No vacancy: Housing crisis dogs Florida Keys months after Irma

Terri Metter, 50, and her Boston Terrier Nikki stand in front of a debris-filled canal in the RV park where she has been living in a FEMA trailer since November 2017, in Marathon, Florida, U.S., June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Zach Fagenson

By Zachary Fagenson

MARATHON, Fla. (Reuters) – For eight months Terri Metter has made her home in a government trailer parked along a debris-clogged canal in the Florida Keys and she considers herself lucky since Hurricane Irma forced many of her former neighbors to move off the once-idyllic archipelago.

Terri Metter and her Boston Terrier Nikki overlook what's left of destroyed trailers that fill a canal near a trailer park in Marathon, Florida, U.S., June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Zach Fagenson

Terri Metter and her Boston Terrier Nikki overlook what’s left of destroyed trailers that fill a canal near a trailer park in Marathon, Florida, U.S., June 10, 2018. REUTERS/Zach Fagenson

Metter has been bunked down in temporary housing supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) since November, after the Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 130 miles per hour (209 kph), strafed nearby Cudjoe Key on Sept. 10, 2017.

“A few people are finding housing on boats or they’re sleeping on couches, but a lot of people who work here can’t afford to stay and it’s a sad thing,” said the 50-year-old bookkeeper and bartender in Marathon, a city made up of 13 tiny islands about 50 miles east of Key West and 115 miles southwest of Miami.

Though much of mainland Florida escaped major damage, the Keys were devastated. The resort islands, stretching southwest from the tip of the Florida Peninsula into the Gulf of Mexico, are connected by a single, narrow highway that runs along a series of bridges and causeways.

The hurricane destroyed almost 1,200 homes in Monroe County, which includes the Keys and parts of the mainland that are almost entirely in Everglades National Park. That figure excludes trailers, a popular form of housing in the Keys, and homes damaged so severely that owners simply abandoned them.

Overall, 84 people in Florida died as a result of Irma, and the region, including other southeastern states, suffered an estimated $50 billion worth of damage, according to the National Hurricane Center.

As the hurricane approached, Metter evacuated and stayed with family in Michigan, but returned a month later to see the devastation in her neighborhood, where only eight of 50 trailers and homes remained intact. Rotting debris and seaweed filled her home, and she decided rebuilding was the only option.

Others had no choice but to live elsewhere. A lack of affordable, safe housing forced many of those who work in the Keys’ numerous restaurants and hotels to move to the mainland, officials said.

“Folks are living in unlawful spaces that don’t meet code, unsafe spaces, and they have been doing it because they want to be there and it’s the only way they can afford to be there,” said Jaimie Ross, president of the Florida Housing Coalition.

Monroe County Commissioner George Neugent expects many who lost their homes or suffered major damage to never come back. In 2016, the county’s population totaled about 79,000, almost all of them residing in the Keys, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“I’m estimating between 15 and 25 percent of our population is going to be lost and we lose more and more every day,” he said.

To put a dent in the housing deficit, Monroe County has teamed with private developers and donors on a plan to build homes capable of withstanding 200 mile-per-hour winds that are affordable for hospitality workers. Florida Governor Rick Scott and state lawmakers are also weighing a proposal for 1,300 new housing units for workers in the Keys.

The construction cannot come fast enough as the region braces for what this year’s hurricane season, which began June 1, will bring to the region.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Climate Prediction Center expects the season to be a near-normal to above-normal season in terms of the number and intensity of storms.

The long recovery from Irma and the previous hurricane season has raised doubts with many, said Neil Curran, 45, a contractor and waiter who lost the 42-foot sailboat where he lived off Key West during last year’s storm.

While Curran is renting a new boat after bouncing around more than a dozen FEMA-funded hotel rooms, he said he knew of at least two dozen friends who have left the islands, and more on the cusp of leaving.

“Over the summer, we’re going to see a pretty big mass exodus,” he said.

(Reporting by Zachary Fagenson; editing by Ben Klayman, Frank McGurty and G Crosse)

U.S. Stock Markets Bounce Wall Street recovers after historic falls

A trader reacts on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange in New York, U.S., February 6, 2018.

By Tanya Agrawal

(Reuters) – U.S. stock markets bounced after a torrid opening on Tuesday, bargain-hunters and gains for Apple pushing the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the Dow Jones Industrial Average into positive territory after two days of heavy losses.

Both the S&P 500 and the Dow sank more than 4 percent on Monday, their biggest falls since August 2011, as concerns over rising U.S. interest rates and government bond yields hit record-high valuations of stocks.

New York’s three main indexes sank as much as 2 percent on the opening bell but they quickly moved back into positive territory.

An almost 2 percent gain for Apple was at the heart of an almost half percent gain for the Nasdaq Composite.

“Daily drops of 3 percent or more have been buying opportunities for the S&P 500 post financial crisis,” said Lori Calvasina, head of U.S. equity strategy at RBC Capital Markets.

At 9:49 a.m. ET (1449 GMT), the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 0.25 percent to 24,406.14. The S&P 500 rose 0.2 percent to 2,654.25 and the Nasdaq 0.4 percent to 6,993.47.

(Reporting by Tanya Agrawal; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Patrick Graham)

Trump Cabinet officials to visit Puerto Rico to assess recovery

Trump Cabinet officials to visit Puerto Rico to assess recovery

By Roberta Rampton

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two members of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet are set to visit Puerto Rico on Tuesday to assess the U.S. territory’s rebuilding in the three months since Hurricane Maria devastated homes, businesses and the power grid.

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson will travel to Puerto Rico, where about a third of the island’s 3.4 million residents are still without power, hundreds remain in shelters, and thousands have fled to the U.S. mainland.

The visit comes as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday were planning to unveil a disaster aid package totaling $81 billion, according to a senior congressional aide. Some of that aid would go to Puerto Rico, but also to states like Texas and Florida that were hit by other hurricanes and to California, which is grappling with wild fires.

Even before Maria savaged Puerto Rico, the island was contending with $72 billion in debt. Puerto Rican Governor Ricardo Rossello has asked the federal government for a total of $94.4 billion in aid, including $31.1 billion for housing and $17.8 billion to rebuild its ruined power grid.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has so far approved more than $660 million in aid for individuals in Puerto Rico as well as more than $450 million in public assistance.

Nielsen and Carson will receive detailed briefings on rebuilding efforts and see how federal aid is helping residents to recover, a DHS official said.

Nielsen, who oversees FEMA, and Rossello are slated to hold a news conference.

The visit comes as Congress prepares to vote on a tax overhaul bill that Puerto Rican officials have said they fear will hurt the commonwealth’s pharmaceutical manufacturing sector – the cornerstone of the island’s economy – at a time when Puerto Rico can least afford to lose jobs and tax revenue.

Puerto Rico’s government has said 64 people died because of the hurricane, but after multiple media estimates of dramatically higher figures, Rossello on Monday ordered an official review of the death toll.

(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Schumer calls on Trump to appoint official to oversee Puerto Rico relief

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-NY) departs after a full-Senate briefing by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein at the U.S. Capitol in Washington

By Pete Schroeder

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Charles Schumer, the top Democrat in the U.S. Senate, called on President Donald Trump on Sunday to name a single official to oversee and coordinate relief efforts in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico.

Schumer, along with Representatives Nydia Velàzquez and Jose Serrano, said a “CEO of response and recovery” is needed to manage the complex and ongoing federal response in the territory, where millions of Americans remain without power and supplies.

In a statement, Schumer said the current federal response to Hurricane Maria’s impact on the island had been “disorganized, slow-footed and mismanaged.”

“This person will have the ability to bring all the federal agencies together, cut red tape on the public and private side, help turn the lights back on, get clean water flowing and help bring about recovery for millions of Americans who have gone too long in some of the worst conditions,” he said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Democrats contended that naming a lone individual to manage the government’s relief efforts was critical, particularly given that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is already stretched thin from dealing with other crises, such as the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in Texas and the wildfires in California.

The severity of the Puerto Rico crisis, where a million people do not have clean water and millions are without power nearly a month after Hurricane Maria made landfall, demand a single person to focus exclusively on relief and recovery, the Democrats said.

Forty-nine people have died in Puerto Rico officially, with dozens more missing. The hurricane did extensive damage to the island’s power grid, destroying homes, roads and other vital infrastructure. Now, the bankrupt territory is struggling to provide basic services like running water, and pay its bills.

“It’s tragically clear this Administration was caught flat footed when Maria hit Puerto Rico,” said Velàzquez. “Appointing a CEO of Response and Recovery will, at last, put one person with authority in charge to manage the response and ensure we are finally getting the people of Puerto Rico the aid they need.”

On Thursday, Trump said the federal response has been a “10” on a scale of one to 10 at a meeting with Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello.

The governor has asked the White House and Congress for at least $4.6 billion in block grants and other types of funding.

Senator Marco Rubio called on Congress to modify an $18.7 billion aid package for areas damaged by a recent swath of hurricanes to ensure that Puerto Rico can quickly access the funds.

 

(Reporting by Pete Schroeder; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn and Diane Craft)