Pro wrestling ‘essential’ under Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ orderVideo
ORLANDO — Body slams and pile drives can go on in the Sunshine State. With Florida under a lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, there’s one business deemed essential by Florida’s governor that is raising some eyebrows: pro wrestling. Florida’s top emergency official last week amended Gov. Ron DeSantis’ stay-at-home...
Navy removes 116 from hospital ship after virus infects 7
LOS ANGELES — The Navy has removed 116 medical staff members from its hospital ship docked off Los Angeles after seven of them tested positive for covid-19, an official said Tuesday. The personnel from the USNS Mercy were taken to a nearby base and remain under quarantine. None so far...
South Dakota nears 1,000 covid-19 cases; no stay-at-home orderVideo
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Gov. Kristi Noem reiterated Tuesday that she won’t be ordering South Dakota residents to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, as another 121 confirmed cases were reported in the state. The vast majority of South Dakota’s 988 total cases — 768 — are in Minnehaha County,...
Idaho AG to probe spouse death in tangled missing kids case
BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho attorney general has agreed to investigate the mother of two missing children and her new husband in connection with the death of his first wife. The mystery of the children’s disappearance and the deaths of three people close to the couple, including their spouses, has...
Harvard scientists: Some in U.S. will have to continue social distancing measures until 2022Video
Health researchers from Harvard contend some people in the United States will have to continue social distancing measures for another two years. The findings, published Tuesday in the journal Science, show that until a vaccine is found and testing becomes widely available, prolonged or intermittent social restrictions — such as...
Congress won’t be back until May at the earliest
WASHINGTON — The Senate will not return to Washington for regular legislative action before May 4, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Tuesday. The move follows a Monday announcement that the House will also push back its expected return date until May. “As the country continues working together to flatten the...
Detained immigrants plead for masks, protection from virus
HOUSTON — Elsy was on the phone in an immigration detention center when guards showed up with face masks and forms to sign. The asylum-seeker from El Salvador and others had resorted to tearing their T-shirts into face coverings after a woman in their unit tested positive for covid-19. But...
Search for a covid-19 vaccine heats up in China, United StatesVideo
WASHINGTON — Three potential covid-19 vaccines are making fast progress in early-stage testing in volunteers in China and the U.S., but it’s still a long road to prove if they’ll really work. China’s CanSino Biologics is beginning the second phase of testing its vaccine candidate, China’s Ministry of Science and...
No hugs or handshakes: Pandemic complicates storm relief in the SouthVideo
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — For people who lost homes to the deadly tornadoes that rampaged across the South, there are no comforting hugs from volunteers or handshakes from politicians. There are no Red Cross shelters for homeless families, who are staying instead in hotel rooms to avoid large gatherings. The disaster...
Pennsylvania’s mail-in, absentee ballot applications surge for June primary
Pennsylvania counties have processed about 283,000 absentee and mail-in ballots for the June primary, and requests from Democrats are three times more common than from Republicans, state elections officials said Tuesday. The Department of State said 89,000 absentee ballot requests have already been processed, with the June 2 primary still...
Health care workers make up 10%-20% of U.S. coronavirus cases
NEW YORK — Between 10% and 20% of U.S. coronavirus cases are health care workers, though they tended to be hospitalized at lower rates than other patients, officials reported Tuesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the first national data on how the pandemic is hitting doctors, nurses...
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo says he’s frustrated at his TV role
NEW YORK — CNN anchor Chris Cuomo revealed on his SiriusXM show that he’s feeling frustration in his job, saying he doesn’t “value indulging irrationality, hyper-partisanship.” Cuomo said Monday on “Let’s Get After It” that he’s tired of some things that go along with being a TV host. That includes...
Deaths hit 45 at Virginia care home called ‘virus’s dream’
RICHMOND, Va. — Ronald Mitchell worried about his mother’s care at a suburban Richmond nursing home long before she was swept up in one of the nation’s deadliest coronavirus outbreaks. She’s bedbound and susceptible to seizures. A sore on her foot went unnoticed for so long, he said, that it...
Cuomo: Trump not a king, can’t force states to reopen
NEW YORK — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo pushed back Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s claim of “total” authority to reopen the nation’s virus-stalled economy, but also insisted “the president will have no fight with me.” “We don’t have a king in this country. We didn’t want a king, so...
Florida judge: Get out of bed, get dressed for Zoom hearings
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A Florida judge has one request for attorneys showing up for court hearings via Zoom: Get out of bed and put on some clothes! Broward Circuit Judge Dennis Bailey made the plea in a letter published by the Weston Bar Association, news outlets reported. “It is...
Obama endorses Biden, says former VP has ‘qualities we need’Video
WASHINGTON — Former President Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden in a video on Tuesday, giving the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a boost from the party’s biggest fundraiser and one of its most popular figures. “I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now,” Obama said...
Speeding driver who killed 2 young sisters in crosswalk gets no sympathy from Pa. court
Investigators said Kenneth Ruch was going nearly 75 mph in a 40 mph zone when he blew through a yellow traffic light in his Jeep and struck and killed two sisters in a crosswalk. One of the sisters, 19-year-old Kimberly Phillips, was dismembered by the impact. Her body was found...
How to end virus lockdowns? Technology, tests, coordination
BERLIN — Governments battling a virus that has crossed borders with breathtaking speed pinned their hopes Tuesday on tests, technology and a coordinated approach to ease the tight restrictions on movement that have slowed the outbreak but strangled the global economy. While the European Union looked into creating a covid-19...
New Trump panel to explore path to reopening economyVideo
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he’s enlisting advisers from business, the medical field and elected office to join a new council that will help shape his plans to reopen the coronavirus-battered economy. The panel will operate separately from the White House task force that’s leading the administration’s public...
Far-right U.S. politicians label lockdowns anti-constitutional
SPOKANE, Wash. — In deeply conservative eastern Washington state, a prominent state lawmaker kicked out of his Republican Party caucus labels the coronavirus as a foreign bio-weapon, accuses Marxists of using the pandemic to advance totalitarianism and rails against lockdown restrictions imposed by the Democratic governor. A California teleconference last...
North Korea fires barrage of missiles from ground and air
SEOUL, South Korea — A barrage of North Korean missiles fired from both the ground and fighter jets splashed down on the waters off the country’s east coast on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, a show of force on the eve of a key state anniversary in the North and...
Workers sue McDonald’s over harassment at Florida stores
Two McDonald’s workers in Florida are filing a $500 million class action lawsuit against the company, claiming a “systemic sexual harassment problem” at company-owned stores. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Illinois, where McDonald’s is based. In the complaint, current McDonald’s employee Jamelia Fairley and former employee...
Figures show hundreds of covid-19 deaths in U.K. care homesVideo
LONDON — Hundreds more people with covid-19 have died in Britain than have been recorded in the government’s daily tally, official figures showed Tuesday — including a tide of deaths in nursing homes that staff say are being overlooked. The Office for National Statistics said 5,979 deaths that occurred in...
Coronavirus is 10 times deadlier than swine flu, WHO director saysVideo
Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, is officially 10 times deadlier than the H1N1 swine flu strain that ripped across much of the world in 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed Monday. The only way to truly halt the spread is a vaccine, WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus...
Israeli president extends mandate of Netanyahu rival by 48 hours
TEL AVIV, Israel — Israeli President Reuven Rivlin early Tuesday extended by another 48 hours the mandate of centrist Blue and White faction leader Benny Gantz to try forming a long-awaited government. His announcement came as right-wing caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met into the early hours of Tuesday with...
