Stories for April 2nd 2020

Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 09:43 UTC
Trump orders sanitary evacuation of Zaandam and Rotterdam passengers

US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that US authorities will evacuate passengers from a stranded cruise ship due to dock in Florida after being barred from several South American countries because of a coronavirus outbreak aboard.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 08:55 UTC
Wild animals are slipping to explore empty streets of lock-downed cities

With humans retreating into their homes as more and more countries go under coronavirus lockdown, wild animals are slipping cover to explore the empty streets of some of the biggest cities. Wild boar have descended from the hills around Barcelona in Spain while sika deer are nosing their way around the deserted metro stations of Nara in Japan.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 08:50 UTC
One million Brits claimed “universal credit” welfare payments in two weeks

Almost one million people have claimed “universal credit” welfare payments in the UK in the past two weeks, exposing the massive economic hit from Boris Johnson's coronavirus lockdown.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 08:39 UTC
With lockdown, Spain's helpline for victims of gender violence shoots up

Calls to Spain's governmental helpline for victims of gender violence shot up in the first two weeks of a state of emergency lockdown imposed to combat the spread of coronavirus, the government said on Wednesday.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 08:23 UTC
Indigenous woman in the Brazilian Amazon tests positive for coronavirus

An indigenous woman in a village deep in the Amazon rainforest has contracted the novel coronavirus, the first case reported among Brazil's more than 300 tribes, the Health Ministry's indigenous health service Sesai said on Wednesday
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:58 UTC
Growing opinion in US that China's coronavirus figures are a “major cover-up operation”

President Donald Trump cast doubt on Wednesday on the accuracy of official Chinese figures on its coronavirus outbreak after US lawmakers, citing an intelligence report, accused Beijing of a cover-up.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:55 UTC
Antarctica some 90 million years ago was a temperate, swampy rainforest

Antarctica is now a harsh land of ice and snow but has not always been that way. Earth's southernmost continent long ago was home to temperate, swampy rainforests teeming with life, scientists said on Wednesday based on pristinely preserved forest soil they retrieved by drilling under the seafloor off Antarctica's coast.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:51 UTC
Carnival Cruises raises US$ 6,25bn in new debt and equity but at very high cost

Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator, said it has raised US$6.25 billion by issuing new debt and equity on Wednesday, borrowing at a high cost to weather the economic storm of the coronavirus pandemic.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:50 UTC
US unemployment claims expected at record high: 80% Americans under some form of lockdown

The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits likely shot to a record high for a second week in a row as more jurisdictions enforced stay-at-home measures to curb the coronavirus pandemic, which economists say has pushed the economy into recession.
Thursday, April 2nd 2020 - 07:49 UTC
Two US babies coronavirus deaths surprise the medical community

A six-week-old infant has died of complications relating to COVID-19, the governor of the US state of Connecticut said on Wednesday, in one of the youngest recorded deaths from the virus. Governor Ned Lamont tweeted that the newborn was “brought unresponsive to a hospital late last week and could not be revived”.