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UNDATED (AP) — An Italian cruise ship docked in a southern Japanese port city of Nagasaki had 43 more new cases in an outbreak that erupted this week, bringing the total infected to 91, local officials said. The outbreak on the Costa Atlantica surfaced Tuesday when officials from Nagasaki and Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, which is in charge of repairs and maintenance on the ship, announced that a crew member developed a cough and fever.
ATLANTA (AP) — Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is calling on Congress to provide enough money for every state to allow voters to cast a mail ballot this November amid the coronavirus pandemic. Biden told donors during an online fundraiser Thursday that “we have to make it easier for everybody to be able to vote, particularly if we are still basically in the kind of lockdown circumstances we are in now." Biden also blasted President Donald Trump for criticizing mail voting and not supporting aid for the Postal Service. Biden called it “un-American” and suggested Trump is trying to undermine the November election.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has delivered a nearly $500 billion infusion of coronavirus spending, almost unanimously rushing new relief to employers and hospitals buckling under the strain of a pandemic that has claimed almost 50,000 American lives and one in six U.S. jobs. President Donald Trump is scheduled to sign the bill during a White House ceremony Friday. House lawmakers gathered in Washington for the first time since March 27, adopting stricter social distancing rules while aiming to prove they can do their work despite the COVID-19 crisis. Easy passage of the measure belies a potentially bumpier path ahead.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Calls are growing for an investigation into the ouster of a senior government scientist who says he’s being punished for opposing widespread use of an unproven drug President Donald Trump touted as a remedy for COVID-19. Rick Bright says he was summarily removed from his job as an agency director at the Department of Health and Human Services for trying to limit use of a malaria drug favored by the president. HHS has not commented on his allegations of political interference. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone of New Jersey is asking for an inspector general probe.
TOKYO (AP) — Asian shares have fallen after a rally on Wall Street fizzled out, while oil prices extended gains. Benchmarks in Japan, Australia, South Korea and China fell in morning trading. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 flipped between gains and losses in a microcosm of markets' extreme swings as investors struggle to set prices for where corporate profits and the economy will be months from now. Dismal economic data showed weak manufacturing and services activity in Europe and the United States and weak sales of new U.S. homes. The worst was an update on job losses, with roughly one in six U.S. workers filing unemployment claims in five weeks.
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