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After oil prices crashed to historic lows Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump declared “this is a great time to buy oil.” The president largely brushed off the ramifications to domestic energy jobs and the geo-political consequences of the oil price plunge amid the coronavirus pandemic, telling reporters that the “problem is nobody’s driving a car anywhere in the world, essentially.”  The president, looking to add as much as 75 million barrels of oil to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, said “if we can buy it for nothing, we will take everything we can get.” Trump also said he is looking at stopping incoming Saudi shipments of oil.  The president termed it “largely a financial squeeze,” when asked about the May futures contract for West Texas Intermediate crude oil trading closing for the day at minus $37.63 per barrel, the first time ever a price for the commodity transitioned into negative numbers. Those holding the May contracts on Tuesday, amid evaporated demand, would need to arrange for delivery of their barrels of oil.  “It’s going to be picking up, and the energy business is going to be strong,” predicted Trump, noting that other types of crude oil are still trading above $25 per barrel.   COVID-19 testingTrump and members of the White House coronavirus task force Monday defended the administration’s gradual ramping up of coronavirus testing.  They explained there are ample testing supplies available for all states to proceed to the first stage of reopening their economies that were shut down to prevent the spread of the highly infectious virus. “We’re going maximum, we’re going to the outer limits,” said Trump of plans to test millions more Americans.  About 4 million people in the country have been tested so far, about 1% of the U.S. population.  Some governors are not convinced of the current domestic capabilities for testing.  Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan speaks at a news conference in Annapolis, Md., with his wife, Yumi Hogan, April 20, 2020. He announced that Maryland received supplies from a South Korean company to boost the state’s ability to conduct tests for COVID-19.Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said his state has acquired 500,000 testing kits from South Korea.  “He didn’t need to go to South Korea. He needed to get a little knowledge,” said Trump, saying the governor was not adequately informed of what is available in the country.  “I’m not sure what the president is referring to. I have a pretty good understanding of what’s going on,” Hogan, head of the National Governors’ Association, told CNN following the president’s remarks.  Trump is also rebuffing concern that he was not taking the virus as seriously as he should have as late as last month, when he held a political rally.  Trump pointed to restricting travelers in early February from China, where COVID-19 emerged, although since that action tens of thousands of Americans and other authorized travelers entered the United States from Chinese airports.  “We would have lost millions of people” if he had not taken that action, Trump asserted. “It would have been an atrocity. We’ve done the right thing.”  US has highest death tollMore than 41,000 people in the United States have died of the coronavirus, the most reported by any country.  About 170,000 people globally are confirmed to have died of COVID-19.  The head of the World Health Organization, which avoids politics, issued one of his most direct criticisms yet of the lack of global solidarity since the outbreak of the disease.  “The cracks between people and the cracks between parties is fueling it,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. “Don’t use this virus as an opportunity to fight against each other or score political points. It’s dangerous. It’s like playing with fire.” The comment came less than a week after Trump, who has called Tedros’ leadership “China-centric,” announced that the United States will suspend funding to WHO while it reviews the agency’s response to the pandemic. 
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Hungary’s ambassador to Washington has stepped down and returned to Budapest on short notice to take charge of a beefed up messaging operation in support of Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling party.The party, Fidesz, announced last week that it was launching an Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban arrives for an EU summit in Brussels, Dec. 12, 2019.The announcement brought an end to several days of speculation in Washington, where friends and acquaintances of Szabo had been puzzling over the Hungarian envoy’s departure from the U.S. capital with less than 48 hours’ public notice. For many in the diplomatic community, the first word of Szabo’s plans came in an April 11 email inviting recipients to listen in on an online virtual concert to mark the occasion. Szabo was in an airplane on his way home less than two days later. “After almost three years as the Ambassador of Hungary to the US, I am leaving office next week to take over an exciting new responsibility in Budapest in the private sector,” wrote Szabo, who holds a degree as a doctor of medicine. Given that Szabo had worked for 20 years in the global pharmaceutical industry, including over a dozen years at U.S.-based Eli Lilly, some had assumed that he was returning to that sector to engage in the global fight against the coronavirus pandemic. “It is always sad to see an esteemed colleague go, but Laszlo had a life ‘outside’ diplomacy … This might just be the right moment for him to return to the private sector – I wish him best of luck for all future endeavors,” said Austria’s ambassador to the United States, Martin Weiss, before learning of the KESMA appointment. He told VOA he had always “enjoyed working with” Szabo. Some members of the D.C. diplomatic community, when told of the departed envoy’s new responsibilities, suggested that KESMA is not quite “the private sector as most of us understand it.” KESMA is described as “a government-funded foundation” by Hungary Today, which says the media holding company known as Mediaworks “consists of almost 500 media outlets” including a leading national daily as well as “almost all the regional daily news sources in the country.”  The same report acknowledges that the KESMA foundation “has drawn much controversy” since its founding in late 2018. At the time of its formation, Prime Minister Orban declared the consolidation of pro-Fidesz media outlets as a matter of “national strategic importance in the public interest.” But critics say Orban has created a virtual media monopoly, reducing the space for media outlets critical of the current government.   More recently, Orban has been criticized for using the coronavirus crisis to push through parliament legislation entitling him to rule by degree for an indefinite period. The legislation, approved late last month, also provides stiff jail terms for spreading what the government deems to be false information.  Budapest has yet to announce who will succeed Szabó to represent Hungary in Washington. For the time being, an embassy spokesperson told VOA that a chargé d’affaires is at the helm, and “all embassy staff is working full-time.” No matter whom Budapest selects, some in the Washington policy community warn that the next ambassador can expect his or her efforts to be greeted with the same skepticism and reluctance to engage that Szabo might have experienced. “It’s not engagement with the embassy or ambassador that’s the issue per se, but rather engaging with the Orban government,” one analyst told VOA. The idea behind limiting contact, the analyst said, “is to not give the Hungarian government a platform for its undemocratic, nationalist positions.”  Szabo and his staff worked diligently during his three-year tenure to combat that image, including with regular emails to the news media. Yet, a similar protocol may exist in some U.S. government agencies. According to a former Pentagon official, “the policy [at Pentagon] was to refrain from engaging above the DASD [Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense] level.”   Nevertheless, the United States and Hungary have increased collaboration on some levels. One year ago, the two countries signed a defense cooperation agreement covering such areas as infrastructure improvements and missile defense cooperation.”  
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A professor at New York University has called on social scientists around the world to participate in an effort that could help medical experts and world leaders to better predict the spread of the coronavirus and also to control the outbreak. Bronwyn Benito has more.
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As many as 26 members of Afghan local forces or pro-government militias were killed over the past two days in northern Afghanistan in fighting with the Taliban, according to the Ministry of Defense and local officials.  On Sunday night, Taliban  fighters attacked local Afghan forces in Khwaja Ghar district in Takhar province. Mohammad Jawad Hijri, a spokesman for Takhar’s governor, told VOA fighting continued for hours and the attack was only repulsed after reinforcements arrived.    A Defense Ministry statement said 17 of those killed belonged to the Afghan local army, which is different from the regular national army in Afghanistan. Officially called the Afghan National Army Territorial Force, the local force under the leadership of the army was created in 2018 to allow locals to guard their own territories.    “[T]hey work extremely well, producing determined fighters with local knowledge who protect the civilians in their areas and often stand their ground more than regular troops because they have nowhere else to retreat to,” wrote Kate Clark, the co-director of Afghanistan Analysts Network in a dispatch about the local force.    Meanwhile, provincial officials in Balkh confirmed a separate Taliban attack Saturday in the Shulgra district that killed nine men and wounded seven others. All of them belonged to local militias known as anti-Taliban uprising forces.    The Taliban have not yet commented on these incidents, but the insurgent group has come under heavy criticism for continuing attacks that often kill innocent civilians.    FILE – Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the leader of the Taliban delegation, and Zalmay Khalilzad, U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan, shake hands after signing an agreement at a ceremony in Doha, Qatar, Feb. 29, 2020.For a week in February, leading up to the Taliban’s signing a historic deal with the United States to end the war in Afghanistan, all sides agreed to reduction in violence. Security incidents around the country dropped to a trickle. The Afghan government and its allies were hoping the reduction in violence would continue but the level of Taliban attacks increased soon after the week was over.    Findings by Afghanistan’s local Tolonews channel showed the Taliban have carried out more than 2,000 attacks on Afghan security forces since the signing of the deal on February 29.  A countrywide cease-fire was supposed to be one of the top items on the agenda of talks between the Taliban and other Afghan factions. Those talks have been postponed due to a delay in the release of as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan government.   FILE – In this handout photo taken and released on April 11, 2020 by Afghanistan’s National Security Council, Taliban prisoners stand before being released from the Bagram prison next to the US military base in Bagram, some 50 km north of Kabul.However, in the past two weeks, the Afghan government has released around 361 prisoners in batches, and the Taliban has released around 60 security forces personnel held by them, raising hopes that the two sides may be inching closer to the start of talks.        
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A flood of new research suggests that far more people have had the coronavirus without any symptoms, fueling hope that it will turn out to be much less lethal than originally feared.
While that’s clearly good news, it also means it’s impossible to know who around you may be contagious. That complicates decisions about returning to work, school and normal life.
In the last week, reports of silent infections have come from a homeless shelter in Boston, a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, pregnant women at a New York hospital, several European countries and California.  
The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  says 25% of infected people might not have symptoms. The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John Hyten, thinks it may be as high as 60% to 70% among military personnel.
None of these numbers can be fully trusted because they’re based on flawed and inadequate testing, said Dr. Michael Mina of Harvard’s School of Public Health.  
Collectively, though, they suggest “we have just been off the mark by huge, huge numbers” for estimating total infections, he said.  
Worldwide, more than 2.3 million infections and more than 160,000 deaths have been confirmed. The virus has caused nearly unprecedented economic and social harm since its existence was reported in early January.  Stealth cases
Based on known cases, health officials have said the virus usually causes mild or moderate flu-like illness. Now evidence is growing that a substantial number of people may have no symptoms at all.
Scientists in Iceland screened 6% of its population to see how many had previously undetected infections and found  that about 0.7% tested positive. So did 13% of a group at higher risk because of recent travel or exposure to someone sick.
Aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt, where one crew member died from the virus, “the rough numbers are that 40 percent are symptomatic,” said Vice Adm. Phillip Sawyer, deputy commander of naval operations. The ratio may change if more develop symptoms later, he warned.
In New York, a hospital tested all pregnant women coming in to deliver over a two-week period.
Nearly 14% of those who arrived with no symptoms of coronavirus turned out to have it. Of the 33 positive cases, 29 had no symptoms when tested, although some developed them later.  
Previously, tests on passengers and crew from the Diamond Princess cruise ship found  nearly half who tested positive had no symptoms at the time. Researchers estimate  that 18% of infected people never developed any.  STAMFORD, CT – MARCH 20: A sign sits on a barrier at a coronavirus (COVID-19) drive thru testing location operated by Murphy Medical Associates at Cummings Park on March 20, 2020 in Stamford, Connecticut. We are still at the beginning of this public…Flawed testing methods
These studies used tests that look for bits of the virus from throat and nose swabs, which can miss cases. Someone can test negative one day if there’s not much virus to detect and then positive the next.  
Symptoms also may not appear when someone is tested but turn up later. One Japanese study found more than half of those who had no symptoms when they tested positive later felt sick.  
Better answers may come from newer tests that check blood for antibodies, substances the immune system makes to fight the virus. But the accuracy of these, too, is still to be determined.  
On Friday, researchers reported results from antibody tests on 3,300 people in California’s Santa Clara county: Between 1.5% and 2.8% have been infected, they claimed. That would mean 48,000 to 81,000 cases in the county — more than 50 times the number that have been confirmed.
The work has not been formally published or reviewed, but some scientists were quick to question it. Participants were recruited through Facebook ads, which would attract many people likely to be positive who have had symptoms and want to know if the coronavirus was the reason. Some neighborhoods also had way more participants than others, and “hot spots” within the county might have made infections seem more common than they are elsewhere.  
Ships, maternity wards and single counties also don’t provide data that can be used to generalize about what’s happening elsewhere. And many of the figures have come from snapshots, not research on wide populations over time.Next steps
Antibody testing in particular needs to be done “in an unbiased approach” on groups of people that are representative of the geographic, social, racial and other conditions, Mina said.
The CDC and other groups plan such studies, and they could guide public health advice on returning to normal life for people in certain areas.  
If infections are more widespread than previously understood, it’s possible that more people have developed some level of immunity to the virus. That could stifle the spread through what’s called herd immunity, but scientists caution that there is still much to learn about whether mild illnesses confer immunity and how long it might last.  
It will probably be months before enough reliable testing has been done to answer those questions and others, including how widespread infections have been and the virus’s true mortality rate, which has only been estimated so far.
“If they’ve all seen the virus before, then maybe you can relax in that neighborhood” and ease social distancing, Mina said. “We’re not anywhere close where we need to be” on antibody testing to do that yet, he said.
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Days before the holy fasting month of Ramadan begins, the Islamic world is grappling with an untimely paradox of the new coronavirus pandemic: enforced separation at a time when socializing is almost sacred. The holiest month in the Islamic calendar is one of family and togetherness – community, reflection, charity and prayer. But with shuttered mosques, coronavirus curfews and bans on mass prayers from Senegal to Southeast Asia, some 1.8 billion Muslims are facing a Ramadan like never before. Across the Muslim world the pandemic has generated new levels of anxiety ahead of the holy fasting month, which begins on around Thursday. In Algiers, Yamine Hermache, 67, usually receives relatives and neighbors at her home for tea and cold drinks during the month that Muslims fast from dusk till dawn. But this year she fears it will be different. “We may not visit them, and they will not come,” she said, weeping. “The coronavirus has made everyone afraid, even of distinguished guests.” In a country where mosques have been closed, her husband Mohamed Djemoudi, 73, worries about something else. “I cannot imagine Ramadan without Tarawih,” he said, referring to additional prayers performed at mosques after iftar, the evening meal in which Muslims break their fast. In Jordan the government, in coordination with neighboring Arab countries, is expected to announce a fatwa outlining what Ramadan rituals will be permitted, but for millions of Muslims, it already feels so different. From Africa to Asia, the coronavirus has cast a shadow of gloom and uncertainty. ‘Worst Year Ever’ Around the souks and streets of Cairo, a sprawling city of 23 million people that normally never sleeps, the coronavirus has been disastrous. “People don’t want to visit shops, they are scared of the disease. It’s the worst year ever,” said Samir El-Khatib, who runs a stall by the historic al-Sayeda Zainab mosque, “Compared with last year, we haven’t even sold a quarter.” During Ramadan, street traders in the Egyptian capital stack their tables with dates and apricots, sweet fruits to break the fast, and the city’s walls with towers of traditional lanterns known as “fawanees.” But this year, authorities have imposed a night curfew and banned communal prayers and other activities, so not many people see much point in buying the lanterns. Among the few who ventured out was Nasser Salah Abdelkader, 59, a manager in the Egyptian stock market. “This year there’s no Ramadan mood at all,” he said. “I’d usually come to the market, and right from the start people were usually playing music, sitting around, almost living in the streets.” Dampening the festivities before they begin, the coronavirus is also complicating another part of Ramadan, a time when both fasting and charity are seen as obligatory. ‘All Kinds of Togetherness Missed’ In Algeria, restaurant owners are wondering how to offer iftar to the needy when their premises are closed, while charities in Abu Dhabi that hold iftar for low-paid South Asian workers are unsure what to do with mosques now closed. Mohamed Aslam, an engineer from India who lives in a three-bedroom apartment in downtown Abu Dhabi with 14 others is unemployed because of the coronavirus. With his apartment building under quarantine after a resident tested positive, he has been relying on charity for food. In Senegal, the plan is to continue charity albeit in a limited way. In the beachside capital of Dakar, charities that characteristically hand out “Ndogou,” baguettes slathered with chocolate spread, cakes, dates, sugar and milk to those in need, will distribute them to Koranic schools rather than on the street. Meanwhile in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, some people will be meeting loved ones remotely this year. Prabowo, who goes by one name, said he will host Eid al-Fitr, the celebration at the end of the fasting month, via the online meeting site Zoom instead of flying home. “I worry about the coronavirus,” he said. “But all kinds of togetherness will be missed. No iftar together, no praying together at the mosque, and not even gossiping with friends.” 
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Australia says Facebook and Google will soon have to pay news outlets for their content.  Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced Monday that the government’s watchdog group, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, will unveil a mandatory code of conduct by July that will address the disparity between news outlets and internet giants when it comes to online advertising revenue. Facebook and Google receive nearly all online advertising spent in Australia.   The new rules are being undertaken after 18 months of talks with the U.S. tech companies over a voluntary code of conduct failed to yield an agreement. Australia would be the third western country in the world to impose such a plan, following similar moves by Spain and France.   Australian media companies have lost millions of dollars in advertising revenue in just the last month alone thanks to the coronavirus pandemic.   Facebook issued a statement that it was “disappointed” by the government’s decision, noting that it had begun a multi-million dollar investment in Australia’s news industry, while Google said it will continue to work with Australian news outlets, the ACCC and government to develop a code of conduct.  
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More than 2,000 Israelis took to the streets of Tel Aviv on Sunday, demonstrating against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to form an “emergency” government with his chief rival and accusing him of using the coronavirus crisis to escape prosecution on corruption charges.Demonstrators wore face masks and largely kept their distance from one another, in line with social-distancing rules, as speakers criticized Netanyahu’s possible partnership with rival Benny Gantz. Some held black flags, which have become the symbol of their campaign in recent weeks.Gantz, who during three bitter election campaigns over the past year vowed never to sit in a government with Netanyahu due to his legal problems, announced last month that he had accepted the prime minister’s suggestion to form an “emergency” government to deal with the coronavirus crisis. The announcement infuriated many of Gantz’s supporters and caused his Blue and White party to fracture.”You don’t fight corruption from within. If you’re inside, you’re part of it,” said Yair Lapid, Gantz’s former political partner, who withdrew from the Blue and White alliance last month.Netanyahu has been charged with fraud, breach of justice and accepting bribes. He denies the charges and says he is the victim of a hostile media and aggressive police and prosecutors.  Protesters on Sunday accused Netanyahu of exploiting the crisis to evade his looming trial and cement his lengthy rule.Citing the pandemic, Netanyahu’s hand-picked justice minister delayed the prime minister’s trial just two days before it was to begin until late May.  Since then, Netanyahu’s coalition talks with Gantz have reportedly stalled due to demands by the prime minister to gain more control over judicial appointments and assurances that he can remain in office even if he gives up the prime minister’s job in a proposed power-sharing arrangement with Gantz. Under Israeli law, public officials, with the exception of the prime minister, must resign if charged with a crime.Demonstrators repeatedly chanted “democracy” and accused the prime minister of endangering the country’s democratic institutions. “Corona equals virus in the service of a dictator,” said one sign. 
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On most mornings, Somaya Farooqi and four other teen-age girls pile into her dad’s car and head to a mechanic’s workshop. They use back roads to skirt police checkpoints set up to enforce a lockdown in their city of Herat, one of Afghanistan’s hot spots of the coronavirus pandemic.The members of Afghanistan’s prize-winning girls’ robotics team say they’re on a life-saving mission — to build a ventilator from used car parts and help their war-stricken country battle the virus.”If we even save one life with our device, we will be proud,” said Farooqi, 17.Their pursuit of a low-cost breathing machine is particularly remarkable in conservative Afghanistan. Only a generation ago, during the rule of the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban in the late 1990s, girls weren’t allowed to go to school. Farooqi’s mother was pulled from school in third grade.After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, girls returned to schools, but gaining equal rights remains a struggle. Farooqi is undaunted. “We are the new generation,” she said in a phone interview. “We fight and work for people. Girl and boy, it does not matter anymore.”Afghanistan faces the pandemic nearly empty-handed. It has only 400 ventilators for a population of more than 36.6 million. So far, it has reported just over 900 coronavirus cases, including 30 deaths, but the actual number is suspected to be much higher since test kits are in short supply.Herat province in western Afghanistan is one of the nation’s hot spots because of its proximity to Iran, the region’s epicenter of the outbreak.This has spurred Farooqi and her team members, ages 14 to 17, to help come up with a solution.On a typical morning, Farooqi’s father collects the girls from their homes and drives them to the team’s office in Herat, zigzagging through side streets to skirt checkpoints. From there, another car takes them to a mechanic’s workshop on the outskirts of the city.In Herat, residents are only permitted to leave their homes for urgent needs. The robotics team has a limited number of special permits for cars.  So far, Farooqi’s father hasn’t been able to get one, but the girls are in a hurry. “We are concerned about security driving out of the city but there is no other option, we have to try to save people’s lives,” Farooqi said.At the workshop, the team is experimenting with two different designs, including an open-source blueprint from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The parts being used include the motor of a Toyota windshield wiper, batteries and sets of bag valve masks, or manual oxygen pumps. A group of mechanics helps them build the frame of a ventilator.Daniela Rus, a professor at MIT, welcomed the team’s initiative to develop the prototype. “It will be excellent to see it tested and locally produced,” she said.Tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob, who founded the team and raises funds to empower girls, said she hopes Farooqi’s group will finish building a prototype by May or June. In all, the team has 15 members who work on various projects.The ventilator model, once completed, would then be sent to the Health Ministry for testing, initially on animals, said spokesman Wahid Mayar.Farooqi, who was just 14 years old when she participated in the first World Robot Olympiad in the U.S., in 2017, said she and her team members hope to make a contribution.”Afghans should be helping Afghanistan in this pandemic,” she said. “We should not wait for others.”
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An Ebola flare-up in eastern Congo may spread again after a patient escaped from a clinic, complicating efforts to contain the disease that has infected six people since last week, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.The Democratic Republic of Congo was two days away from declaring the end of the world’s second-largest Ebola epidemic when a new chain of infection was discovered on April 10, following more than seven weeks without a new case.Since then, health authorities have sought to contain any renewed spread of infections.But on Friday a 28-year-old motorbike taxi-driver who had tested positive for Ebola ran away from the center where he was being treated in the town of Beni.”We are using all the options to get him out of the community,” said Boubacar Diallo, deputy incident manager for the WHO’s Ebola response operation. “We are expecting secondary cases from him.”Decades of conflict and poor governance have eroded public trust in authorities in Congo. Despite Ebola having killed more than 2,200 people since August 2018, research shows that many communities believe the disease is not real.Small outbreaks are common towards the end of an epidemic, but health workers need to ensure the virus is contained by tracking, quarantining and vaccinating the contacts of new cases.”We do not have any details yet. All have been working with the authorities, youths and civil society to find him. Search is ongoing,” Diallo said by WhatsApp message.A 15-year-old girl also tested positive for the virus on Friday, Diallo said, taking the total number of confirmed new cases since the flare-up to six.Beni’s deputy mayor Muhindo Bakwanamaha said the local authorities have not so far been able to track down the escaped patient. “Since he is out of treatment he will die, and create a lot of contacts around him,” he said.Two new vaccines have had a major impact in containing Ebola, but militia attacks have prevented health workers from reaching some areas hit by the virus.Congo’s battered health system is simultaneously fighting measles and cholera epidemics, as well as the global coronavirus pandemic. The country has recorded 327 cases of COVID-19 and 25 deaths. 
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Neiman Marcus Group is preparing to seek bankruptcy protection as soon as this week, becoming the first major U.S. department store operator to succumb to the economic fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, people familiar with the matter said.The debt-laden Dallas-based company has been left with few options after the pandemic forced it to temporarily shut all 43 of its Neiman Marcus locations, roughly two dozen Last Call stores and its two Bergdorf Goodman stores in New York.  Neiman Marcus is in the final stages of negotiating a loan with its creditors totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, which would sustain some of its operations during bankruptcy proceedings, according to the sources. It has also furloughed many of its roughly 14,000 employees.  The bankruptcy filing could come within days, though the timing could slip, the sources said. Neiman Marcus skipped millions of dollars in debt payments last week, including one that only gave the company a few days to avoid a default.  Neiman Marcus’ borrowings total about $4.8 billion, according to credit ratings firm Standard & Poor’s. Some of this debt is the legacy of its $6 billion leveraged buyout in 2013 by its owners, private equity firm Ares Management Corp and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB).  The sources requested anonymity because the bankruptcy preparations are confidential. Neiman Marcus and Ares declined to comment, while CPPIB representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment.  Other department store operators that have also had to close their stores are battling to avoid Neiman Marcus’ fate. Macy’s Inc and Nordstrom Inc have been rushing to secure new financing, such as by borrowing against some of their real estate. J.C. Penney Co Inc is contemplating a bankruptcy filing as a way to rework its unsustainable finances and save money on looming debt payments, Reuters reported last week.  A bankruptcy filing would be a grim milestone that Neiman Marcus has spent the last few years trying to avoid. It pushed out due dates on its financial obligations last year in a restructuring deal with some creditors, though the transactions added to Neiman Marcus’ interest expenses.  A trustee for some of the company’s bondholders sued Neiman Marcus last year, claiming the firm and its owners robbed investors of the value of its luxury e-commerce site MyTheresa by moving the business beyond the reach of creditors in a corporate reshuffling. Neiman maintains its actions were proper.  “In light of the significant headwinds stemming from the coronavirus pandemic and our expectation for a U.S. recession this year, we believe the company’s prospects for a turnaround are increasingly low,” Standard & Poor’s analysts wrote in a note last week. 
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Parliamentary elections went on as planned in Mali Sunday, despite threats of Jihadist violence and fears of spreading the novel coronavirus. Low voter turnout was expected Sunday for the run-off legislative elections. The first round of elections, held on March 29th after repeated delays, was marred by intimidation and jihadist attacks — including the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaila Cisse. Voter turnout in the first round of elections was just over 12% in the capital city of Bamako, according to government officials. Many are expected to stay inside, heeding guidelines to avoid large gatherings and keep distance between people. Mali has reported over 200 cases of COVID-19 and 13 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. These are the first elections to fill Mali’s 147-seat parliament since 2013. Elections were initially scheduled to take place in late 2018 but were delayed due to security concerns, which has left many Malians questioning why Sunday’s vote was not delayed as well. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, who was elected in 2013, addressed the nation last week wearing a face mask, saying that the decision to continue with the vote as scheduled was not made by his government, but instead determined by an independent commission in the country. Thousands of Malians have died as the country suffered sporadic attacks by jihadists as well as cases of inter-ethnic violence since unrest began in 2012. 
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U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sparred Sunday on the shortfall in testing people for coronavirus in the United States, but said they were close to a deal on more funding for small businesses shut by the pandemic to pay their workers and eventually reopen. Pence, the leader of the White House coronavirus task force, told “Fox News Sunday” he believes there are a “sufficient” number of test kits available throughout the country “for any state” to move into the first phase of new government guidelines to slowly return the country to work and a sense of normalcy. The U.S. is currently performing 150,000 coronavirus tests a day, but some experts say that 500,000 are needed. Pence said he thinks the government can reach 300,000 a day, which he said was a big enough number to give Americans “the confidence and tools to go back to work.” FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks outside her office on Capitol Hill, March 23, 2020.However, Pelosi, the leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, attacked President Donald Trump’s performance in handling the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. and the government’s slow response in testing. “We’re already very late” on testing in the U.S, she told Fox News. “We’re way late on that. The president gets an F.” Two governors also assailed the national government’s lax testing, including Republican Gov. Larry Hogan in the eastern state of Maryland, who is also chair of the National Governors Association. “The administration I think is trying to ramp up testing, they are doing some things with respect to private labs,” Hogan told CNN. “But to try to push this off, to say the governors have plenty of testing and they should just get to work on testing, somehow we aren’t doing our jobs, is absolutely false.” Democratic Governor Ralph Northam of Virginia told CNN that claims by Trump and Pence that states have plenty of tests were “just delusional.” But both Pence and Pelosi said the White House and Democratic lawmakers are close to a deal to add another $250 billion to the fund to help thousands of small businesses in the U.S. that have been forced to close their operations in the face of stay-at-home orders issued by 43 of the 50 U.S. state governors to curb the spread of the virus.  FILE – President Donald Trump speaks about the coronavirus in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House, April 16, 2020, in Washington.Trump and Congress initially approved a $350 billion small business fund, but with thousands of businesses applying for the money, the fund ran out of money last week and the government stopped taking more applications for the cash.  If businesses spend the money on paying workers over the next eight weeks, the government says it will foot the bill for the payments and the businesses will not have to repay it. Otherwise, if the money is not spent on salaries for workers in the next two months, it turns in to a loan and must be repaid.  “We’re very close,” Pence said of a new deal on small business aid. Pelosi told ABC’s “This Week,” “We’re close, we have common ground,” with billions more added to the small business aid to assist hospitals that have been inundated with coronavirus patients. “The businesses will have the money in a timely fashion,” she said.  Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told CNN, “I’m very hopeful we could come to an agreement (Sunday night) or early tomorrow morning.” Republicans had initially sought new aid only for small businesses, defined as those with 500 or fewer employees, while Democrats insisted on also adding hospital aid. Democrats also sought new money for financially hard-pressed local governments, but the new deal will likely exclude that funding. Pelosi defined the Democrats’ sentiment in the negotiations as: “Let’s get as much as we can for those who are helping to fight this fight so we can soon open our economy.” Some workers in several states have taken to the streets to protest their governors’ stay-at-home edicts, which were extensions of Trump’s national guidelines to Americans to maintain social distancing of two meters or more through the end of April. Vehicles sit in gridlock during a protest in Lansing, Mich., April 15, 2020. Flag-waving, honking protesters drove past the Michigan Capitol on Wednesday to show their displeasure with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s orders to keep people at home.But Trump, after last week issuing a three-phase plan for governors to follow to reopen their state economies, called on protesters to “liberate” the states of Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, all states led by Democratic governors who had imposed stay-at-home orders. Protesters, defying social distancing recommendations, have also taken to the streets in states led by Republican governors to protest their restrictions, but Trump did not single them out. In Texas, the protesters chanted “Fire Fauci,” attacking Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert on the White House task force who has cautioned against reopening the country’s economy too quickly for fear of a renewed surge of the pandemic. “I think some of the governors have gotten carried away,” Trump said at one of his daily coronavirus news briefings in critiquing their orders. Pence declined to criticize the street protests, saying the demonstrators wanted their governors to adopt the White House’s “phased framework” for reopening workplaces as quickly as possible. A total of 22 million workers — more than an eighth of the country’s labor force — have been laid off because of the pandemic. The U.S. death toll now totals more than 39,000, with more than 740,000 confirmed coronavirus cases.            
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Australia is demanding transparency from China in a proposed international investigation into the origins and spread of COVID-19.Chinese authorities have been under pressure over their handling of the coronavirus outbreak.  U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that China should face consequences if it was “knowingly responsible” for the pandemic.Beijing has dismissed this criticism and has insisted it has been open about the contagion and did take responsible steps to warn the world about the dangers of COVID-19.  The virus is thought to have originated at an animal market in Wuhan.However, Australia has now joined calls for an independent investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and how it spread around the world with such devastating speed.Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne has told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that China’s actions should be thoroughly investigated.“The key to going forward in the context of these issues is transparency, transparency from China most certainly, transparency from all of the key countries across the world who will be part of any review that takes place,” said Payne. “I think it is fundamental that we identify, we determine an independent review mechanism to examine the development of this epidemic, its development into a pandemic, the crisis that is occurring internationally.”The government in Canberra is adamant that any global review should not be undertaken by the World Health Organization.Australian officials have said some of its response to the coronavirus outbreak “was not helpful.”Australia went against WHO’s advice in early February when it banned travelers arriving from mainland China.  Canberra later closed Australia’s borders and imposed strict lockdown measures.  Health Minister Greg Hunt said Australia was winning in its campaign against COVID-19 but the battle was far from over.WHO has called for countries to work together to fight the pandemic.There are now more than 6,600 cases of the new coronavirus in Australia and 70 people have died from the virus. 
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In line with Chinese government and Communist Party officials, the director of Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory has aggressively dismissed claims that it could be the source of the coronavirus outbreak, calling it “impossible” and labeling them as “conspiracy theory.”In an interview Saturday with the English-language state broadcaster CGTN, Yuan Zhiming said “there’s no way” the virus spread from the Wuhan Institute of Virology, specifically its P4 laboratory, which handles dangerous viruses.”From my personal understanding of virology, there is no evidence to prove that the virus has trace of artificial or synthetic origins,” Yuan said. “Besides, some scientists believe that to synthesize a virus requires extraordinary intelligence and workload, which exceed the intelligence of normal humans and exceed what the current human society can handle. So, I have never believed that we humans now have the capability at this time to synthesize such a virus.”None of the institute’s staff had been infected, Yuan said, adding the “whole institute is carrying out research in different areas related to the coronavirus.”Beijing has been criticized for lack of transparency in its handling of the pandemic, with the United States investigating whether the virus originated in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, a high-security biosafety laboratory, where Yuan is also a researcher.The official tally of infections in Wuhan has been questionable from the very beginning, with the government frequently changing its counting criteria at the peak of the outbreak. Finally, last week, Wuhan authorities admitted mistakes about counting the death toll and raised the figure by 50 percent.Although the origin of COVID-19 is yet to be determined, some scientists suspect the virus was transmitted to humans from animals at a wet market in Wuhan.   
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The U.S. government encouraged American companies to send masks and personal protection equipment, or PPE, worth millions of dollars to China earlier this year, according to a Washington Post report Saturday.The newspaper’s report said the White House was oblivious to the danger the coronavirus posed to the U.S. and the rest of the world.The move, the newspaper said, “underscores the Trump administration’s failure to recognize and prepare for the growing pandemic threat.”The Post said its findings are based on a “review of economic data and internal government documents.”The newspaper said an analysis of the value of the masks and other items sent to China in January and February showed it grew by more than 1,000 percent in comparison to the same time last year, jumping from $1.4 million to approximately $17.6 million. There was also three-digit inflation for the shipments of ventilators and protective garments.“People right now, as we speak, are dying because there have been inadequate supplies of PPE,” Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, told the Post.In early February, the U.S. State Department announced it had shipped more than 17 tons of donated medical supplies to China that front-line U.S. medical workers are now requesting as they battle COVID-19 disease, including masks, gowns, respirators and more, the Post reported.In late February, when the Chinese death toll had reached nearly 3,000, the U.S. Commerce Department published a flyer telling U.S. companies how to sell “critical medical products” to China and Hong Kong. The quick selling process was shut down March 4 as the pandemic continued to grow, according to the Post.The newspaper account said “some White House officials” believe China deliberately played down the seriousness of the outbreak because it wanted to “corner the market” on masks and PPE.The Post report says, however, that the U.S. is facing “severe shortages” of testing kits and PPE, forcing doctors and nurses “to resort to makeshift gear” that increases their odds of exposure to the virus.China has denied hoarding equipment.  The Post reports that China “has provided 120 countries and four international organizations with surgical masks and other forms of equipment.”
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Australian researchers are developing a new sewage test that could help identify coronavirus hot spots.They believe the sewage test could be a reliable early warning system to detect cases of COVID-19, highlighting not just specific areas where the disease is present, but the approximate number of people infected.Samples of raw effluent at two wastewater plants in the state of Queensland were found to contain genetic fragments of the disease.It’s hoped the study will help officials when they start to wind back restrictions on public movement by highlighting coronavirus hot spots.Australia has closed restaurants, bars and many shops, while imposing fines on those who flout rules on public gatherings of more than two people.Professor Kevin Thomas, an environmental health scientist at the University of Queensland, says the test would give a broad indication of how well the pandemic is being contained.“We think some of the advantages and benefits of also using wastewater testing alongside conventional testing is that it can tell us whether COVID (19) has infected a community at a very early stage, and at the same time it can tell us when a community is relatively free of COVID-19,” he said.  “Then we can, of course, monitor changes over time to evaluate whether the measures that we are all placed under at the moment to try to flatten the curve.”Research published by the journal Nature Medicine recently found people excrete traces of COVID-19 two to three days before they show symptoms.  The analysis of sewage could potentially allow the authorities to identify clusters of the new coronavirus before those infected have even realized they are unwell.Federal health minister Greg Hunt says the sewage surveillance scheme is “extremely encouraging” and has the potential to further strengthen Australia’s response to the global COVID-19 pandemic.The sewage test study is a collaboration between the University of Queensland and the government’s science agency, the CSIRO, and builds on research in the Netherlands and the United States.Widespread testing could begin within weeks.There are more than 6,500 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia, and so far 69 people have died with the virus.   
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