WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S.-Canada border will close to nonessential traffic, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted on Wednesday, saying details on the move would be announced later but that it would not affect trade between the two countries.
“We will be, by mutual consent, temporarily closing our Northern Border with Canada to non-essential traffic. Trade will not be affected. Details to follow!” Trump wrote.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A handful of U.S. State Department employees across the globe have tested positive for the new coronavirus, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Tuesday.
“We’ve had a couple of employees, you can count them on one hand, who have positive tests,” Pompeo said in a news briefing. “We’ve handled those exactly the way we’re asking every American to respond to those wherever they find themselves in the world.”
He gave no details on the precise number of State Department employees who have tested positive for the highly contagious virus, where they were based or whether they had returned to the United States. He noted that the State Department has already limited U.S. diplomats’ travel.
“We’ll continue to take care of our team, we will act in a way that’s consistent with the CDC’s (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) guidelines and the professional medical staff who work here with the State Department,” he said.
Pompeo added that he felt “great,” though he did not say whether he had been tested for the coronavirus.
(Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk, Writing by Daphne Psaledakis and Jonathan Landay, Editing by Franklin Paul and Paul Simao)
By Brendan Pierson and Jan Wolfe
(Reuters) – Comparing crowded U.S. jails to “ticking time bombs,” defense lawyers are urging law enforcement officials to release more defendants on bail while they await trial amid the coronavirus pandemic – an approach that has already been adopted by San Francisco and Philadelphia.
The Federal Defenders of New York, which represents defendants who cannot afford a lawyer, wrote in a letter on Sunday that prosecutors should not engage in “business as usual” when deciding whether to recommend jail for defendants awaiting trial.
“Absent extraordinary circumstances, namely cases that involve an imminent threat of violence, it does not advance public safety to add more people to our local jails,” the organization’s director, David Patton, wrote in the letter to federal judges and prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn.
“I truly believe the jails are ticking time bombs,” Patton said.
Patton told Reuters on Monday that his office had filed several motions asking that incarcerated defendants be released because of the coronavirus.
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP), which runs federal prisons and jails, had no immediate comment. On Friday the BOP announced a suspension of visits and inmate transfers, among other measures to contain the virus, saying it was coordinating with experts inside and outside the agency.
Public defenders in Minnesota are making a similar push to keep clients awaiting trial out of jails, which some experts say are particularly susceptible to contagion because of crowding, unhygienic conditions, and the constant turnover of detainees.
“All of us – every position – need to work together to get our clients out of the jails,” Minnesota’s chief public defender Bill Ward said in an e-mail to colleagues obtained by Reuters and first reported by the Star-Tribune.
The requests comes as law enforcement officials debate how to limit the spread of the coronavirus among the millions of people in jails, prisons, immigrant detention centers, and other facilities around the country.
Magistrate Judge James Orenstein in Brooklyn on Thursday refused to jail a man who was under house arrest, even though the defendant had failed drug tests while awaiting trial for possession of methamphetamine.
Orenstein said that sending him to Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) would pose a “risk to the community” in light of the outbreak.
“Our community includes the people incarcerated at the MDC, those who work there and those who live and interact with those who work there,” Orenstein said at a hearing, according to a transcript. “And let’s not kid ourselves. The more people we crowd into that facility, the more we’re increasing the risk to the community.”
In Manhattan federal court, a lawyer for a man awaiting trial in jail for attempted sexual enticement of a 12-year-old girl on Sunday asked a judge to release him on bail, even though he was arrested last year while under home confinement after cutting his ankle monitor.
“The courts have long recognized that there is no greater necessity than keeping a defendant alive, no matter the charge,” the lawyer, Sylvie Levine, wrote.
Prosecutors opposed the request on Monday, saying the man posed too great a danger to the community and was likely to flee.
Some law enforcement officials already have indicated that they will work with defense lawyers to reduce jail populations.
San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin last week directed prosecutors to refrain from opposing motions to release defendants facing misdemeanor charges or drug-related felony charges provided the person posed no threat to public safety.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner is also revising his office’s policies and advising prosecutors only to make specific bail requests in serious cases, including gun and domestic violence cases, a spokeswoman confirmed. The revisions were first reported by the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Critics say such an approach could lead to an increase in crime.
Public defender organizations are “using this emergency to push their agenda,” said Richie Greenberg, a businessman who ran for mayor of San Francisco in 2018, in an interview.
“Once prisoners are out they are gone. They all become potential fugitives,” Greenberg said.
(Reporting by Brendan Pierson in New York and Jan Wolfe in Washington; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Christopher Cushing)
By Doina Chiacu and Maria Caspani
WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The streets of major U.S. cities were eerily empty on Tuesday morning after officials from President Donald Trump on down stepped up warnings about the coronavirus pandemic, while the number of cases mushroomed and deaths topped 80.
Millions of Americans hunkered down in their homes instead of commuting to work or school. New York and other major cities escalated “social distancing” policies by closing schools, bars, restaurants and theaters.
Officials in six San Francisco Bay Area counties on Monday ordered residents to stay at home for all but the most crucial outings until April 7. That directive came a day after California Governor Gavin Newsom urged adults older than 65, and their caretakers, to remain indoors whether or not they have underlying health conditions.
It was St. Patrick’s Day but the mood was sober, not joyous, after traditional parades and parties celebrating the Irish heritage of many Americans were cancelled across the country.
Financial markets will look to stabilize after the stock market suffered a historic loss on Monday. The S&P 500 tumbled 12 percent, its worst single-day loss since the stock market crash of 1987.
But politics will proceed mostly as scheduled in three of four states that have primary elections on Tuesday to select a Democratic presidential candidate to challenge Trump in the November general elections.
Democratic candidates Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders square off in Florida, Illinois and Arizona, but Ohio officials canceled their primary due to coronavirus fears hours before the vote was to begin.
The tally of confirmed U.S. cases has multiplied quickly over the past few weeks, surpassing 4,600 and prompting fears American hospitals might soon be overwhelmed, as Italian medical centers have been strained to the breaking point.
At least 83 people in the United States had died of the virus, as of Monday, according to Johns Hopkins University and various state and local public health agencies, with the hardest-hit state, Washington, accounting for the bulk of the fatalities, including six more announced on Monday.
The United States has lagged behind other industrializednations in its ability to test for the novel coronavirus. Inearly March, the Trump administration said close to one milliontests would soon be available and anyone who needed a test wouldget one, a promise it failed to keep.
After previously downplaying the danger and declaring the situation under control, the White House urged Americans on Monday to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people and called for closing bars, restaurants and other venues in states where local virus transmission exists.
The president’s change in tone followed newly urgent messaging from governors and mayors across the country who have taking their own drastic measures.
The states of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut struck a regional agreement to close all movie theaters, casinos and gyms as of 8 p.m. Monday (0000 GMT). Restaurants and bars in the three states – where more than 22 million people live – will serve takeout and delivery only.
Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, would not say whether the Trump administration was close to issuing some sort of domestic travel restriction.
“We’re looking very carefully at the data every day and that’s why you see this escalation in guidelines from the president,” she said on Fox News.
She said integrating data and understanding how the new outbreaks are occurring – from travel between states, or within states – is crucial to formulating the response and updating guidelines.
“As we track down these outbreaks, if we see that that is happening from flight travel, then I think the president will react but we don’t have enough information right now to suggest that,” she said.
Asked if people were getting sick on airplanes, Birx said, “We don’t know.”
Birx also said authorities remain focused on ramping up testing in communities “so that people in the hospitals are not overrun by continuous need for diagnosis.”
In one ray of positive news, actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson, who tested positive for coronavirus last week, are out of a hospital in Australia, according to a video posted by their son Chet on Instagram.
“They’re still self-quarantined obviously, but they are feeling a lot better,” he said.
(Reporting by Doina Chiucu and Maria Caspani; Writing by Daniel Trotta; Editing by Alistair Bell)
By Doina Chiacu and Guy Faulconbridge
NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – Bars, restaurants, cinemas and schools were shutting down from New York and Los Angeles to Paris and Dubai in a worldwide effort to combat the coronavirus pandemic, as financial markets tumbled despite emergency action by global central banks.
The U.S. Federal Reserve cut interest rates for the second time in less than two weeks, but Wall Street opened with a dizzying plunge that set off circuit breakers.
EU finance ministers were planning a coordinated economic response to the virus, which the European Commission says could push the European Union into recession.
Leaders of the G7 countries were due to hold a video conference on Monday to discuss a joint response.
European stocks fell on Monday to their lowest level since 2012, with investors still worried about the threat to the global economy. Wall Street’s S&P 500 index fell more than 9% as trading resumed after an initial automatic 15-minute cutout.
In Italy, hardest-hit country in Europe, there were 368 new deaths from the COVID-19 outbreak on Sunday, a daily toll more dire than even China was recording at the peak of the outbreak that first hit its central city Wuhan.
“Many children think it is scary,” Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference, at her office, dedicated to answering children’s questions about the pandemic.
“It is okay to be scared when so many things happen at the same time.”
Several countries banned mass gatherings such as sports, cultural and religious events to combat the disease that has infected over 169,000 people globally and killed more than 6,500.
Just a month ago, financial markets were hitting record highs on the assumption that the outbreak would largely be contained in China. But there have now been more cases and more deaths outside mainland China than inside.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said on Sunday he was ordering restaurants, bars and cafes to sell food only on a take-out or delivery basis. He also said he would order nightclubs, movie theatres, small theater houses and concert venues to close.
“These places are part of the heart and soul of our city,” he said. “But our city is facing an unprecedented threat, and we must respond with a wartime mentality.”
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti issued similar orders.
Spain and France, where cases and fatalities have begun surging at a pace just days behind that of Italy, imposed severe lockdowns over the weekend.
The Middle East business and travel hub of Dubai said it was closing all bars and lounges until the end of March. Thailand plans to close down schools, bars, movie theatres and popular cockfighting arenas.
“The worst is yet ahead for us,” said Dr Anthony Fauci, the top infectious diseases expert in the United States.
GETTING WORSE IN ITALY
U.S. Surgeon General Dr Jerome Adams said it was important to react aggressively.
“Do we want to go the direction of South Korea and really be aggressive and lower our mortality rates or do we want to go the direction of Italy?” he told Fox News.
Italy’s Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte told daily Corriere della Sera that the outbreak was still getting worse, though the governor of Lombardy, the northern region that has suffered the worst, said he saw the first signs of a slowdown.
Britain has asked manufacturers including Ford <F.N>, Honda <7267.T> and Rolls Royce <RR.L> to help make health equipment including ventilators to cope with the outbreak and will look at using hotels as hospitals.
The worldwide financial policy actions were reminiscent of the sweeping steps taken just over a decade ago to fight a meltdown of the global financial system, but the target now is forcing entire societies to effectively shut down.
“The issue for investors that still remains is that the virus’s economic impact is still not known, if this is a one-month event or if this is a one-year event, and how deep the cutback in consumer spending is going to be,” said Rick Meckler, partner at Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
Airlines said they would make more drastic cuts to their flying schedules, shed jobs and seek government aid because of sweeping global travel restrictions.
China said industrial output contracted at the sharpest pace in 30 years in the first two months of 2020.
The International Olympic Committee will hold talks with heads of international sports organisations on Tuesday, a source close to a federation briefed on the issue said, amid doubts the Tokyo 2020 Olympics starting on July 24 can proceed.
The Jewish faithful should avoid kissing the stones of the Western Wall, the chief rabbi of the Jerusalem site said.
And Starbucks <SBUX.O> has moved to a “to go” model in all its company-owned stores in the United States and Canada, the coffee chain said, temporarily abandoning reusable cups.
(Reporting by Doina Choicu, Leela de Krester in New York; Lindsay Dunsmuir, Nandita Bose, Howard Schneider and Ann Saphir in Washington; Guy Faulconbridge and Kate Holton in London; Jan Strupczewski and Francesco Guarascio in Brussels; Francesca Landini and Elvira Pollina in Milan; Kevin Yao in Beijing; Jaime Freed in Sydney; Gwladys Fouche in Oslo; Kay Johnson in Bangkok and Tracy Rucinski in Chicag; Writing by Raju Gopalakrishnan and Nick Macfie; Editing by Stephen Coates, Timothy Heritage and Peter Graff)
(Reuters) – France and Spain joined Italy in imposing lockdowns on tens of millions of people, Australia ordered self-isolation of arriving foreigners and other countries extended entry bans as the world sought to contain the spreading coronavirus.
Panic buying in Australia, the United States and Britain saw leaders appeal for calm over the virus that has infected over 156,000 people globally and killed more than 5,800.
Several countries imposed bans on mass gathering, shuttered sporting, cultural and religious events, while medical experts urged people to practice “social distancing” to curb the spread.
Austria’s chancellor urged people to self-isolate and announced bans on gatherings of more than five people and further limits on who can enter the country.
All of Pope Francis’ Easter services next month will be held without the faithful attending, the Vatican said on Sunday, in a step believed to be unprecedented in modern times.
The services, four days of major events from Holy Thursday to Easter Sunday, usually draw tens of thousands of people to sites in Rome and in the Vatican.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said from midnight Sunday international travelers arriving in the country would need to isolate themselves for 14 days, and foreign cruise ships would be banned for 30 days, given a rise in imported cases.
Australia’s latest restrictions mirror those announced by neighboring New Zealand on Saturday.
TRAVEL BANS, AIRLINE CUTBACKS
Donald Trump tested negative for the coronavirus, his doctor said on Saturday, as the U.S. president extended his country’s travel ban to Britain and Ireland.
Last week, Trump had met a Brazilian delegation in which at least one member has since been tested positive.
Travel restrictions and bans, and a plunge in global air travel, saw further airline cutbacks, with American Airlines Inc planning to cut 75% of international flights through May 6 and ground nearly all its widebody fleet.
China tightened checks on international travelers arriving at Beijing airport on Sunday, after the number of imported new coronavirus infections surpassed locally transmitted cases for a second day in a row.
Anyone arriving to Beijing from abroad will be transferred directly to a central quarantine facility for 14 days for observation starting March 16, a city government official said.
China, where the epidemic began in December, appears to now face a greater threat of new infections from outside its borders as it continues to slow the spread of the virus domestically.
South Korean soldiers clean desks with disinfectant in a classroom of a cram school for civil service exams, following the rise in confirmed cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Daegu, South Korea, March 15, 2020. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon
China has reported 80,984 cases and 3,203 deaths. The country imposed draconian containment policies from January, locking down several major cities.
LOCKDOWNS, STAY HOME
Spain put its 47 million inhabitants under partial lockdown on Saturday as part of a 15-day state of emergency to combat the epidemic in Europe’s second worst-affected country after Italy.
Streets in Madrid and Barcelona were deserted on Sunday. All major newspapers carried a front-page wrapper emblazoned with a government-promoted slogan: “Together we’ll stop this virus.”
Spain has had 193 deaths from the virus and 6,250 cases so far, public broadcaster TVE said on Sunday.
France will shut shops, restaurants and entertainment facilities from Sunday with its 67 million people were told to stay home after confirmed infections doubled in 72 hours.
French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said the government had no other option after the public health authority said 91 people had died in France and almost 4,500 were now infected.
“We must absolutely limit our movements,” he said.
However, French local elections went ahead.
“I am going to vote and keep living my life no matter what. I am not scared of the virus,” said a 60-year-old voter, who asked to be identified only as Martine, at a Paris polling station.
Britain is preparing to ban mass gatherings and could isolate people aged over 70 for up to four months as part of plans to tackle coronavirus, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said.
Argentina banned entry to non-residents who have been to any country highly affected by coronavirus in the last 14 days, while Colombia said it would expel four Europeans for violating compulsory quarantine protocols, hours after closing its border with Venezuela.
Starting Sunday, South Korea began to subject visitors from France, Germany, Britain, Spain and the Netherlands to stricter border checks, after imposing similar rules for China, Italy and Iran which have had major outbreaks.
Visitors from those countries now need to download an app to report whether they have symptoms. South Korea has been testing hundreds of thousands of people and tracking potential carriers using cell phone and satellite technology.
(Reporting by John Irish in Paris;Belén Carreño, Sonya Dowsett and Ingrid Melander in Madrid; Brenda Goh in Shanghai; Judy Hua in Beijing; Kate Lamb in Sydney; David Shepardson in Washington; Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Paul Sandle in London; Philip Pullella in Rome; Brenna Hughes Neghaiwi in Zurich; Writing by Michael Perry and Frances Kerry; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Edmund Blair)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned Iraq’s prime minister that the United States would take measures in self-defense if attacked, according to a statement on Monday after a rocket attack on an Iraqi base that houses U.S. troops helping fight Islamic State.
Pompeo spoke to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi on Sunday, a day after three American troops and several Iraqi forces were wounded in the second major rocket attack in the past week on an Iraqi base north of Baghdad, U.S. and Iraqi officials said, raising the stakes in an escalating cycle of attacks and reprisals.
He said Iraq’s government should defend the U.S.-led coalition helping it fight Islamic State, according to the statement from State Department spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus.
“Secretary Pompeo underscored that the groups responsible for these attacks must be held accountable. Secretary Pompeo noted that America will not tolerate attacks and threats to American lives and will take additional action as necessary in self-defense,” it said.
Iraq’s Joint Operations Command said 33 Katyusha rockets were launched near a section of the Taji base which houses U.S.-led coalition troops. It said the military found seven rocket launchers and 24 unused rockets in the nearby Abu Izam area.
The Iraqi military said several Iraqi air defense servicemen were critically wounded. Two of the three wounded U.S. troops are seriously injured and are being treated at a military hospital in Baghdad, the Pentagon said.
Longstanding antagonism between the United States and Iran has mostly played out on Iraqi soil in recent months.
Iranian-backed paramilitary groups have regularly rocketed and shelled bases in Iraq which host U.S. forces and the area around the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
The United States has in turn conducted several strikes inside Iraq, killing top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani and Kataib Hezbollah founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January.
(Reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Alex Richardson and Andrea Ricci)
By Steve Holland and Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency over the fast-spreading coronavirus, opening the door to providing what he said was about $50 billion in federal aid to fight the disease.
Trump made the announcement at a Rose Garden news conference.
Trump said he was declaring the national emergency in order to “unleash the full power of the federal government.” He urged every state to set up emergency centers to help fight the virus.
Pressure has been mounting for Trump to declare an infectious disease emergency under the 1988 law that would allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide disaster funds to state and local governments and to deploy support teams. The power is rarely used. Former President Bill Clinton in 2000 declared such an emergency for West Nile virus.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; additional reporting by Lisa Lambert and Susan Heavey, Editing by Franklin Paul and Bill Berkrot)
(Reuters) – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday reported 1,678 cases of the coronavirus, an increase of 414 cases from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 5 to 41.
The agency said the cases had been reported by 46 states and the District of Columbia, up from its previous report of 42 states and the District of Columbia.
The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on March 12.
The CDC tally includes 49 cases among people repatriated from Japan and Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began.
The figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.
(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
By Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States waged a series of precision air strikes on Thursday against an Iran-backed militia in Iraq that it blamed for a major rocket attack a day earlier that killed two American troops and a 26-year-old British soldier.
The U.S. strikes appeared limited in scope and narrowly tailored, targeting five weapons storage facilities used by Kataib Hezbollah militants, including stores of weaponry for past attacks on U.S.-led coalition troops, the Pentagon said.
In a statement, Iraq’s military said the U.S. air strikes hit four locations in Iraq that housed formal Iraqi police and military units, in addition to the paramilitary groups.
Three Iraqi army soldiers were killed and four wounded, police in Babel province said in a statement. Five paramilitary fighters and one policeman were also injured, they said, adding that the fate of two more policemen was unknown.
One strike hit an Iraqi civilian airport under construction in the holy Shi’ite Muslim city of Kerbala and killed a worker, Iraqi religious authorities said on Friday.
The U.S. military did not estimate how many people in Iraq may have been killed in the strikes, which officials said were carried out by piloted aircraft.
But there was no sign of the kind of high-profile killing that President Donald Trump authorized in January, when the United States targeted a top Iranian general, Qassem Soleimani.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper, in a Pentagon statement detailing the strikes, cautioned that the United States was prepared to respond again, if needed.
“We will take any action necessary to protect our forces in Iraq and the region,” Esper said.
Trump had been quick to authorize the U.S. military to respond following Wednesday’s attack in Iraq, in which militants fired dozens of 107 mm Katyusha rockets from a truck, striking Iraq’s Taji military camp north of Baghdad.
About 18 of the roughly 30 rockets fired hit the base. No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
It was the third time in recent months the U.S. military lashed out against Kataib Hezbollah. It killed more than two dozen militants in December in response to an attack on an Iraqi base that killed a U.S. contractor.
The U.S. military drone strike in January that targeted Soleimani also killed Kataib Hezbollah founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
It was unclear if the latest strikes would deter further militant action. The Taji rocket attack took place on what would have been Soleimani’s 63rd birthday, suggesting the militants still sought revenge.
FURTHER ATTACKS?
Dennis Ross, a former U.S. ambassador now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think tank, cast doubt on the Pentagon’s ability to deter Kataib Hezbollah.
“Regrettably, these attacks on our forces will continue as Iran has no problem fighting to the last of the Shia militias and believe they can force us out of Iraq,” he said on Twitter.
Iran retaliated for the U.S. drone strike that killed Soleimani by launching missiles from its territory at an Iraq base hosting U.S. troops, causing brain injuries to more than 100.
In the latest attack, 14 U.S.-led coalition personnel were wounded, including American, British, Polish and other nationals. Private-industry contractors were among the wounded.
U.S. Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters that five of the wounded were categorized as “urgent,” suggesting serious injuries that could require rapid medical evacuation.
Britain identified its fallen service member as Lance Corporal Brodie Gillon. The United States has not yet identified its service members killed.
In a sign of concern that tension between the United States and Iran could be headed toward open conflict, the Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday to limit Trump’s ability to wage war against Iran.
The Republican president has been engaged in a maximum-pressure campaign of renewed sanctions and near-constant rhetoric against Iran, after pulling the United States out of the international nuclear deal struck under his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have mostly played out on Iraqi soil in recent months.
Iran-backed paramilitary groups have regularly been rocketing and shelling bases in Iraq that host U.S. forces and the area around the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Ulf Laessing in Baghdad, Ali Rubei in Babel; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
