US President Donald Trump abruptly ended his coronavirus press briefing on Monday after getting into a testy exchange with an Asian-American reporter. CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang asked Trump why he continued to insist that the US was doing better than other countries when it came to testing for the virus.
The World Health Organization's director-general has no mandate to invite Taiwan to take part in its assembly next week, the body's lawyer said on Monday, adding member states had divergent views on the self-ruled island's participation.
White House staff have been ordered to wear masks when entering the West Wing after two aides tested positive for coronavirus. The White House personnel office has said that staff must cover their faces at all times except when seated at their desks, socially distant from colleagues.
Moisés Escamilla May, a notorious Mexican gang leader, has died in prison after contracting coronavirus. Escamilla, 45, was the leader of a group within the feared criminal cartel Los Zetas. He was serving a 37-year sentence for organized crime, including his role in the decapitation of 12 people in Yucatán.
Brazil, the hardest-hit Latin American country in the coronavirus pandemic, has surpassed 11,000 deaths, according to figures released on Sunday by the Ministry of Health.
Oil prices opened about one percent lower on Sunday as a persistent glut continued to weigh on prices and COVID-19 eroded global oil demand even as some governments began to ease lockdowns.
After 50 days in mandatory lockdown, Argentina's President Alberto Fernández announced on Friday that the quarantine will be extended until May 24th.
The governor of Sao Paulo, the Brazilian state at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in Latin America, said on Friday he was extending stay-at-home measures until May 31, ignoring opposition from far-right President Jair Bolsonaro.
Argentina's Economy Minister Martin Guzman has given the country's biggest bondholders until this Friday to accept the offer he has put on the table to suspend payments until 2023 and reduce interest rates thereafter. One of the largest of those creditors, the investment management firm BlackRock, rejected Guzman's proposal and immediately presented a counteroffer.
The World Bank Board of Directors approved a flexible US$500 million loan to help cover Ecuador's budget needs during the Covid-19 emergency and to promote economic recovery. The loan is the second in a series of three Development Policy Financing (DPF) operations. The first loan of this series was disbursed in June 2019. The operation has been adapted to the current context and to the country’s needs during the pandemic.