10 things you need to know today: April 20, 2020
1.
Governors from states that have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday disputed President Trump's assertion that they have enough coronavirus tests to safely reopen their economies soon. "To try and push this off to say that the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing — somehow we aren't doing our job — is just absolutely false," Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan told CNN. Virginia's Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam said it's "delusional" to suggest states have all of the tests they need. During the White House briefing Saturday, Trump accused governors of failing to "use all of the [testing] capacity we've created." He said Democrats were politicizing the issue of testing as part of an effort to convince Americans he is mishandling the outbreak. [CNN, Reuters]
2.
A gunman dressed in a police uniform went on a 12-hour killing spree in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia on Sunday, killing at least 16 people in the deadliest shooting rampage in Canadian history. A police officer was among the dead. The suspect, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman, died in a standoff with police after a car chase. Police confirmed that Wortman was dressed in a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform, but was not an officer. The killings forced residents in the small, rural town of Portapique to lock themselves inside, and left authorities dazed. "This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province's history," Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil said. Mass shootings are rare in Canada, which has tighter gun-control laws than the United States. [Reuters, The Guardian]
3.
The U.S. death toll from the COVID-19 coronavirus reached another grim milestone on Sunday, rising above 40,000, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. The United States has more coronavirus cases than any other country, with more than 759,786 confirmed infections. On Sunday, President Trump said he will use the Defense Production Act to compel a company to make more swabs for coronavirus testing. Two people with knowledge of the matter told CNN the company is Maine-based Puritan Medical Products, which makes flocked swabs. [CNN]
4.
Protesters held a second day of weekend rallies on Sunday to call for reopening the economy despite the ongoing coronavirus outbreak. In Arizona's capital city of Phoenix, hundreds of cars cruised past the Arizona State Capitol honking horns and waving flags in a demonstration called by Operation Gridlock Arizona to demand that state leaders lift a shelter-in-place order and let people return to work. Protesters have held similar events in Michigan, Texas, Wisconsin, Nevada, and several other states, even as the U.S. death toll continued to climb. President Trump, who was asked Sunday whether he was inciting violence by encouraging people to "liberate" their states, said that people who are calling on state governments to lift coronavirus stay-at-home orders were "good people" who have "cabin fever" and "want their life back." [ABC15, Business Insider]
5.
Staff members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other U.S. public health experts who worked at the World Health Organization headquarters gave the Trump administration real-time updates on the early spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus in China, The Washington Post reported Sunday, citing American and foreign officials. The report appeared to undercut President Trump's allegation that the WHO tried to protect China by withholding early information on the threat, contributing to the speed of its spread to the United States. A spokeswoman confirmed to the Post that the Department of Health and Human Services had 17 staff members, 16 of them from the CDC, at the WHO, where they were "working on a variety of programs, including COVID-19 and Ebola." [The Washington Post]
6.
Former Vice President Joe Biden won the Wyoming Democratic presidential caucus with 72 percent of the vote, the state's Democratic Party announced Sunday. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who last week suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden, received nearly 28 percent of the vote. Wyoming was the latest state to shift to a nominating contest with mail-in voting only due to the coronavirus pandemic. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, will get 10 of the state's pledged delegates. Sanders gets four. Sanders beat Hillary Clinton in Wyoming's 2016 in-person contest by about 12 percentage points. [The Washington Post]
7.
Violent weather hit the Southeast on Sunday for a second week in a row. Waves of severe thunderstorms swept eastward from Texas to Louisiana, with severe weather also threatening across the region to Georgia. Tornado watches were ordered from southeast Texas through Louisiana, southern Mississippi, and Alabama. The National Weather Service reported a dangerous tornado that uprooted trees and broke power poles in southeastern Mississippi early Sunday evening. The storms hammered the Houston and Dallas areas with large hail, and continued into early Monday. Last week, Easter storms churned out dozens of tornadoes that killed people in several states across the South. [The Weather Channel, The Washington Post]
8.
U.S. crude oil prices fell sharply early Monday as concerns mounted over falling demand due to the coronavirus pandemic. The price of May contracts for the U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate plunged by 19 percent to $14.80 per barrel in Asia trading. At one point it was down to $14.47 per barrel, its lowest point since 1999. International benchmark Brent crude futures were down by 2.8 percent to $27.28 per barrel. One problem for oil is that many storage facilities have filled up as coronavirus shutdowns drive down demand. "For oil there is a bit of a technical story (with storage), but still, if energy consumption is down 30 percent and OPEC reduces supply by 10 percent, there is still a large gap," said Rabobank's head of macro strategy Elwin de Groot. [CNBC, Reuters]
9.
North Korean defectors are casting doubt on the isolated communist nation's claim that it has had no coronavirus infections, The Associated Press reported Monday. "It's a lie," said Choi Jung Hun, a doctor who fled to South Korea in 2012. Choi said that during the SARS and flu pandemic doctors in North Korea had to make decisions on who to quarantine based on thermometer readings and little more. Outsiders suspect that the COVID-19 coronavirus, which has infected 2.4 million people worldwide, could easily have entered the country through its porous border with China, where the novel coronavirus outbreak began. Neighboring South Korea also has had more than 10,000 cases, although it quickly brought the spread of the virus under control. [The Associated Press]
10.
Former deputy Trump campaign chairman Rick Gates on Sunday asked a court to let him serve the rest of his 45-day prison term at home due to the coronavirus pandemic. It was not clear in the court filing how many days Gates had already served, but prosecutors reportedly did not oppose the request. Gates was sentenced in December to 45 days in intermittent federal custody after striking a deal to cooperate with then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. Gates' attorneys cited the "massive societal disruptions" and the "burdens they have placed" on Gates and his family as justification for the change. Gates also "must now provide additional care for his family for the foreseeable future while his wife continues her treatment for and recovery from cancer." [The Washington Post, Politico]
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