4 years ago / 10:35 AM EDT

NYC mayor rips Trump for 'stabbing his hometown in the back'

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio on Tuesday railed against President Donald Trump for saying it would be unfair to Republicans if Congress passes coronavirus bailouts for states because he said the states that would benefit from that funding are run by Democrats.

"The president is playing politics while people are suffering," de Blasio said. 

“Who cares who runs the states? The people need help! There are American that need help right now," the mayor said. "Do you not care about that firefighter, that EMT, that paramedic, that police officer, that health care worker because they live in a state run by a democrat, or a city run by a democrat? Does that make them less American in your view Mr. President?" 

De Blasio said Trump "seems to enjoy stabbing his hometown in the back," and added that it was hypocritical that the president is against bailouts "given how much money he’s put in the hands of the corporations and the wealthy." 

Trump said in his interview with the New York Post Monday that "Florida is doing phenomenal, Texas is doing phenomenal, the Midwest is, you know, fantastic." But de Blasio on Tuesday held up a letter signed by 111 Democrat and Republican Texas mayors asking for more federal coronavirus aid. 

4 years ago / 10:32 AM EDT

Face mask fashion exhibit kicks off in Lithuania

Elizabeth Kuhr

Lithuania opened an outdoor face mask fashion week Tuesday. People in Vilnius, the country’s capitol, can walk, bike or drive to see the 21 face mask designs.

“People were walking around and laughing,” said co-organizer and designer Julija Janus of opening day. “People are really longing for some cultural events and something more than just talking about COVID-19.”

Designer Egle Ona Ziemyte.Go Vilnius

The open-air experience was inspired by a Facebook group Mask Your Fashion that Janus created inviting “people to get their creativity out.” Instead of in-person models, the masks are on display in high resolution images around the city to ensure residents can enjoy the fashion and follow social distancing guidelines, Janus said. Even the mayor agreed to model a mask.

The exhibit is up until May 10. The city website reminds residents to wear their own masks and stay socially distant while enjoying the fashion.

4 years ago / 10:21 AM EDT

Elite hackers are trying to steal COVID-19 research, U.S. and U.K. warn

Hackers affiliated with foreign governments are currently engaged in widespread campaigns to steal American and U.K. medical research related to COVID-19, those countries' governments announced Tuesday.

The two countries "are currently investigating a number of incidents in which threat actors are targeting pharmaceutical companies, medical research organizations and universities," according to a U.S. alert.

The U.K.'s counterpart noted that: "The pandemic has likely raised additional requirements for APT actors to gather information related to COVID-19," referring to the term Advanced Persistent Threat, a designation given to skilled and devoted hacker groups aligned with particular government intelligence agencies. "For example, actors may seek to obtain intelligence on national and international healthcare policy or acquire sensitive data on COVID-19 related research."

The alerts don't specify any countries as the culprit in their alerts. The U.S. Justice Department has previously charged hackers working for Chinese and Iranian intelligence for allegedly stealing sensitive research.

4 years ago / 10:18 AM EDT

Play ball! South Korea's season gets underway behind closed doors

4 years ago / 10:16 AM EDT
Reuters

The group representing global airlines came out against leaving middle seats empty on aircraft on Tuesday, as debate intensifies over how to get airlines flying while respecting social-distancing rules in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Brian Pearce, chief economist at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said most airlines would have been unable to make money last year if a third of the seats had been removed on the industry’s most-flown models.

In April, IATA Director General Alexandre de Juniac said leaving the middle seat empty was among the likely conditions for a resumption of air travel to be discussed with governments around the world.

4 years ago / 9:57 AM EDT

Singapore sees rising number of cases, majority in foreign workers

Ed Flanagan
Reuters
Ed Flanagan and Reuters

Singapore reported 573 new coronavirus cases Monday, of which 560 were foreign workers living in dormitories, its health ministry said. Only eight cases were found in foreign workers living elsewhere. 

Last Friday, 932 new cases were recorded, with 905 coming from foreign workers living in dormitories and only 16 cases in foreign workers living elsewhere. 

At 18,778 infections, the city-state has among the highest caseloads in Asia, because of mass outbreaks in migrant-worker dormitories.

4 years ago / 9:46 AM EDT

U.K. trials coronavirus tracking app on island off England's south coast

4 years ago / 8:54 AM EDT

Epidemiologist believes coronavirus may have been in Sweden as early as November

Annie Hill

Sweden’s chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said he believes it is likely that there were cases of coronavirus in the country as far back as November.

In an interview with Swedish news agency TT, Tegnell said "it would not be strange" to see cases of travelers from the Wuhan area in Sweden who were carrying the virus in November or December.

This comes after reports that a man with pneumonia in Paris had the coronavirus on Dec. 27, four days before the first case was confirmed in Wuhan. Testing and tracing those who may have had the virus in 2019 would not be relevant at the moment, according to Tegnell, who said that would be an unnecessary burden on Sweden’s health care system. 

4 years ago / 8:52 AM EDT

'The new normal': Ex-FDA chief warns U.S. may not be able to lower coronavirus infection rate

Rebecca Shabadis in Washington, D.C.

As states begin to reopen their economies, former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb warned Tuesday that the U.S. might not be able to lower transmission of the coronavirus much more than the current rate, which has resulted in about 30,000 new cases a day.

“I think that we need to understand this may be the new normal," Gottlieb said in an interview with Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s “TODAY” show. "We may not be able to get transmission down much more. I hope we can.”

"The most likely scenario is that cases go up, not down," Gottlieb added. "And so we need to think about what it looks like in the country if we have transmission of this virus and we try to get back to some sense of normalcy.”

Gottlieb's comments come after a new Trump administration report obtained by The New York Times projected that deaths from the coronavirus could reach 3,000 a day on June 1. The document said that the administration’s forecast could reach 200,000 new COVID-19 cases a day by the end of the month.

Read the full story.

4 years ago / 8:06 AM EDT

Irish donations flood in to help Native Americans hit by coronavirus

Annie Hill

Donations from Ireland have flowed in to a GoFundMe fundraiser to support the Navajo Nation and Hopi Reservation communities hit hard by coronavirus.

Grateful donors in Ireland wrote on the site that it was "their turn" to repay the kindness Native Americans showed Ireland during the Great Famine in the 1840s, when members of the Choctaw Nation donated $170 to Irish famine relief. The fundraiser has raised over a million dollars already, with thousands coming from Ireland bearing messages of thanks and hope.

"Once upon a time you helped us as much as you could with what little you had. An island far away and apparently unrelated. Now it's our turn. Thank you," wrote donor Carol Conway from Cork, Ireland. Organizers of the GoFundMe thanked Ireland for the "solidarity" and recognized the "acts of kindness from indigenous ancestors passed being reciprocated nearly 200 years later."