Before COVID-19 killed thousands of nursing home residents, about 4 in 10 homes inspected were cited for infection control problems, according to a government watchdog report Wednesday that finds a persistent pattern of lapses.
In light of the pandemic, seemingly minor cutting of corners such as an employee caring for residents while battling a cold has taken on new significance.
Warning signs were ignored and nursing homes were unprepared to face a pandemic, said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on a committee that oversees Medicare and Medicaid. There need to be big changes in the way nursing homes care for seniors.
The report from the Government Accountability Office found that state inspectors who help enforce federal nursing home standards classified the overwhelming majority of violations as not severe, generally meaning there was no actual harm to residents.
The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services carried out enforcement actions for 1% of violations ...

Watchdog cites persistent infection lapses in nursing homes

PTI Automatic

President Jair Bolsonaro unveiled rules Wednesday expanding the prescription of chloroquine, the predecessor of an anti-malaria drug promoted by US President Donald Trump, for coronavirus patients despite a lack of clinical proof that it is effective.
Chloroquine was already being used in Brazil for COVID-19 patients who are hospitalized in serious condition, and under the new regulations, it can be given to people with lighter symptoms such as abdominal pain, cough or fever, according to the Health Ministry.
There is still no scientific evidence, but it is being monitored and used in Brazil and worldwide, Bolsonaro, who has likened the virus to a little flu and feuded with local governments over their stay-at-home measures, said via his official Facebook page.
We are at war: 'Worse than being defeated is the shame of not having fought.'
More than 291,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed in Brazil, the third most in the world after the United States and Russia, and the ...

Brazil expands use of unproven drug as virus toll rises

Beyond its hard-hitting rhetoric against China over its handling of the coronavirus, the White House on Wednesday issued a broad-scale attack on Beijing's predatory economic policies, military buildup, disinformation campaigns and human rights violations.
The 20-page report does not signal a shift in US policy, according to a senior administration official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the report and spoke only on condition of anonymity, but it expands on Trump's get-tough rhetoric that he hopes will resonate with voters angry about China's handling of the disease outbreak that has left tens of millions of Americans out of work.
The media's focus on the current pandemic risks missing the bigger picture of the challenge that's presented by the Chinese Communist Party, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday before the White House released its report.
China's been ruled by a brutal, authoritarian regime, a communist regime since 1949. For several decades, we thought .

White House report blasts Chinese 'malign activities'

The two astronauts who will end a nine-year launch drought for NASA arrived at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, exactly one week before their historic SpaceX flight.
It will be the first time a private company, rather than a national government, sends astronauts into orbit.
NASA test pilots Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken flew to Florida from their home base in Houston aboard one of the space agency's jets.
It's an incredible time for NASA and the space program, once again launching U.S. crews from Florida and hopefully in just a week from about right now, Hurley told reporters minutes after arriving.
Hurley was one of the four astronauts who arrived at Kennedy on July 4, 2011, for the final space shuttle flight, so it's incredibly humbling to be here to start out the next launch from the United States.
We feel it as an opportunity but also a responsibility for the American people, for the SpaceX team, for all of NASA," Behnken added.
The two are scheduled to blast off next Wednesday ...

Astronauts arrive for NASA's 1st home launch in decade

New York City will offer free coronavirus tests at the city's 169 nursing homes and will provide staff to replace nursing home employees who test positive for the virus, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday.
To me this comes down to, the seniors in our lives, what they have given us, what they mean to us, and what we owe to them, what we owe to them in terms of making sure they are healthy, making sure they are safe, always being there for them, de Blasio said.
The announcement comes after some 3,000 residents of nursing homes in the city have died of COVID-19, including those confirmed whose diagnoses were by lab tests and those for whom COVID-19 was the presumed cause based on symptoms.
De Blasio noted that the state is in charge of regulating nursing homes but said the city would start a two-week blitz to provide up to 3,000 tests a day to residents and employees at the facilities.
He said the city has already sent 240 fill-in staff members to replace nursing home employees who 

NYC to provide virus tests, fill-in staff at nursing homes

The Federal Aviation Administration outlined steps to change how it approves new passenger planes, but lawmakers said they will push ahead with legislation to change the current system that lets aircraft makers including Boeing play a key role in the certification process.
The FAA has been under pressure to change its certification process after failing to catch problems with new flight-control technology on the Boeing 737 Max. Design problems have been blamed for two crashes that killed 346 people.
For decades, the FAA has relied on employees of aircraft makers to vouch for the safe design of components on planes. Prompted by criticism of its review of the Max, the Transportation Department created a committee to review the certification process, and on Tuesday, the FAA responded to that panel's suggestions.
The FAA defended the current system as safe but identified areas for improvement. For example, the agency said it will pay more attention to how pilots might respond to new ...

Lawmakers: FAA certification of new planes needs an overhaul

The British government pledged Wednesday to bring lawmakers back to the green benches of Parliament and have a test, track and trace program for the coronavirus in place by June 1, hoping to persuade the country that it's time to cautiously start to emerge from the COVID-19 lockdown.
It hopes the commitment can also pave the way for the reopening of schools for some younger children.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson made the contact-tracing pledge after more criticism of his government's failure to have a national system in place for the past 10 weeks. Being able to track the contacts of those who have contracted the virus is considered a central plank of the government's plan to ease further lockdown restrictions.
We're making fast progress in testing and tracing and I have great confidence that by June 1 we will have a system that will enable us, that will help us very greatly to defeat this disease and move the country forward, Johnson said.
Johnson said there will be 25,000 trackers ..

UK's Johnson in June pledge for rollout of contact-tracing

Greece's long-awaited tourist season will begin on June 15 with the opening of seasonal hotels, while international flights will begin flying directly to tourist destinations gradually as of July 1, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said Wednesday.
Speaking Wednesday in a televised address to the nation, Mitsotakis said visitors would be subject to sample coronavirus testing and our general health protocols will be adhered to, without them, however, overshadowing our bright sun or the natural beauties of Greece.
Mitsotakis noted Greece has managed to restrict the spread of the virus. ... We made our country an example to follow in the handling of the health crisis.
Mitsotakis' government imposed a lockdown very early in Greece's outbreak, which has been credited with keeping the number of deaths and critically ill people at very low levels. On Wednesday, health authorities announced one new death and 10 new confirmed coronavirus cases, bringing the total number of dead to 166 and the 

Direct flights to Greek tourist destinations to begin July 1

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday adamantly denied that he recommended firing the State Department's independent watchdog in retaliation for investigations into Pompeo's conduct as America's top diplomat. But Pompeo again declined to provide specific reasons for Steve Linick's dismissal as inspector general.
Pompeo took an unusually harsh shot at the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez. Pompeo accused the senator's office of being behind allegations that Linick's ouster was motivated by revenge. Pompeo said he would not take ethics lessons from Menendez, who was the subject of a now-dismissed criminal ethics investigation.
I don't get my ethics advice from Sen. Menendez," he said.
Menendez's office had no immediate comment on Pompeo's remark.  Pompeo told reporters that he was unaware of any inspector general investigation into allegations that he may have mistreated staffers by instructing them to run personal errands for him 

Pompeo denies retaliation in firing of State Dept watchdog

Sri Lanka's independent elections commission said Wednesday it cannot hold parliamentary elections on June 20 as planned because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Saliya Peiris, a lawyer representing the commission, told the Supreme Court that the elections can only be held 10 weeks after health authorities declare conditions are safe.
Several former lawmakers and civil groups had complained to the court that their fundamental rights were breached by the commission's earlier decision to hold the election on June 20.
The election was originally set for April 25 but the commission rescheduled it for June. Peiris said the commission chose that date expecting the country's lockdown would be lifted by the end of this month.
The petitioners also asked the court to annul President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's move on March 2 to dissolve Parliament and reinstate the old Parliament because the constitution says the country cannot run without a legislature for more than three months.
Parliament's term was ..

Election commission says Sri Lanka poll not possible in June

U.S. health officials have quietly released more reopening guidance that was created more than a month ago but initially shelved.
As with other recently released guidance, religious organizations were not included. Instead, the document has advice for childcare facilities, schools, day camps, mass transit systems, restaurants, bars and other businesses and organizations that have workers at high risk of becoming sick from the coronavirus.
The guidance discusses different steps organizations can take as they reopen from closures aimed at stopping the virus's spread. On Sunday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention placed the information in a 20-page appendix to a document previously posted on its website.
For example, the CDC suggests restaurants might transition from take-out only to reopening dining rooms with customers spaced six feet apart.
Mass transit systems might shift from serving only essential workers to opening up to the general public with restrictions, such as ...

US health officials quietly release more reopening guidance

President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to hold up federal funds for two battleground states because they are trying to make it easier to vote during the coronavirus pandemic.
The president's tweets targeting Michigan and Nevada were his latest salvo against voting by mail, a practice that he has publicly worried will lead so many people to vote that Republicans will lose in November.
Trump began by targeting Michigan, erroneously describing Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's announcement Tuesday that she would send absentee ballot applications to every voter in the state.
Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election, Trump tweeted Wednesday. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path! Trump later made a similar threat against Nevada, which has actually sent ballots to voters for its June 9 

Trump threatens funds for states easing voting in pandemic

Vice President Mike Pence visited central Florida to meet with tourism officials Wednesday as the region's biggest tourist destination  Walt Disney World  began reopening a shopping and entertainment complex.
During his trip to Orlando, Pence was also scheduled to talk to the governor and drop off protective equipment at a nursing home as tourism, the state's biggest industry, continued taking steps toward reopening.
Some third-party shops at the Disney Springs complex opened Wednesday with new requirements and restrictions. All workers and visitors older than 2 must wear masks, temperatures will be checked at entrances to keep out anyone with a temperature higher than 100.4 and a limited number of people will be admitted to allow social distancing at the high-end outdoor shopping area with restaurants, movie theaters, a bowling alley and a Cirque du Soleil theater.
Walt Disney World and its crosstown rivals, Universal Orlando and SeaWorld, have been closed since mid-March in an ...

Pence visits tourism-reliant Florida as Disney shops reopen

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Wednesday that her government is in intensive talks with Lufthansa and the European Commission over a potential bailout for the airline, whose business has dwindled due to the virus outbreak.
Merkel said that an agreement could come shortly, but added that any deal has to be completed. The dpa news agency reported that Lufthansa shares rose in after-hours trading on the back of a media report that a deal had been reached, but the government and the company would not comment.

Merkel: "Intensive" talks over possible rescue for Lufthansa

President Donald Trump is celebrating a new addition to his immediate family: a lawyer.
His youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, recently graduated from Georgetown Law School.
Just what I need is a lawyer in the family. Proud of you Tiff! Trump said Wednesday in a congratulatory tweet. Tiffany, 26, is Trump's daughter with his second ex-wife, actress Marla Maples.
Tiffany Trump had to give up the traditional commencement ceremony after schools shut down and shifted to on online instruction because of the coronavirus outbreak.
Georgetown honored its Class of 2020 with weekend video tributes and a virtual ceremony during which degrees were conferred, according to its website.
Tiffany Trump is the first lawyer among the president's five children. Her older siblings  Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric  followed their father into the world of business.
Don Jr. and Ivanka are graduates of their father's alma mater, the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Eric is a Georgetown 

Trump congratulates daughter Tiffany on finishing law school

Apple and Google on Wednesday released long-awaited smartphone technology to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus.
The companies said 22 countries and several U.S. states are already planning to build voluntary phone apps using their software. It relies on Bluetooth wireless technology to detect when someone who downloaded the app has spent time near another app user who later tests positive for the virus.
Many governments have already tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to roll out their own phone apps to fight the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of those apps have encountered technical problems on Apple and Android phones and haven't been widely adopted. They often use GPS to track people's location, which Apple and Google are banning from their new tool because of privacy and accuracy concerns.
Public health agencies from Germany to the states of Alabama and South Carolina have been waiting to use the Apple-Google model, while other ...

Apple, Google release technology for pandemic apps

Washington state's unemployment rate shot up to 15.4% in April and the state's economy lost 527,000 jobs in the month as a result of the economic downturn from the coronavirus pandemic.
That's the highest jobless rate the state has seen since it started keeping records in the 1970s. The previous record was 12.2% in November 1982, said Paul Turek, an economist for the state's Employment Security Department.
April's rate, released Wednesday, is a significant jump from March's 5.1%, though officials had warned April's numbers would more truly reflect the widespread closing of restaurants and other businesses, which began in mid-March.
February's unemployment rate was 3.8%.

Washington state records record unemployment

The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization says an end to U.S. funding for the U.N. health agency would have a major implication for delivering essential health services to the most vulnerable people in the world.
Dr. Michael Ryan was responding to questions from reporters about a letter sent by U.S. President Donald Trump threatening an end to funding from the United States, its biggest donor, unless the agency reforms.
The comments came on a day when a total of 106,000 COVID-19 cases were reported to WHO over a 24-hour period, the most in a single day since the outbreak began.
Ryan said the U.S. funding that reaches the WHO emergencies program was on the order of $100 million a year and much of it goes to humanitarian health operations all over the world, in all sorts of fragile and difficult settings. Ryan expressed concern about any such funding cuts and said, if necessary, the agency would have to work with other partners to make sure the money is there.

WHO doctor says no U.S. funding would be hurtful

A Pakistani man accused of killing his two teenage cousins after a video of the sisters surfaced on social media showing them kissing a man was arrested Wednesday, a local police official said.
The killings took place last week in North Waziristan, a former tribal area that served as a Taliban stronghold until recent years. The video, filmed about a year ago, went viral last week and allegedly angered the sisters' cousin, who accused them of damaging the family's honor.
The arrest came following a five-day manhunt launched in the region to find and arrest Mohammad Aslam, who fled after allegedly killing the sisters last week, said Shafiullah Gandapur, a district police chief in North Waziristan.
Police had arrested the man seen in the video kissing the two sisters and he is suspected of posting the video on social media. Gandapur said the video angered the girls' cousin Aslam, who is now accused of shooting the girls dead.
We are also questioning the father and brother of the two ...

Pakistan police arrest suspect in honor killing of 2 cousins

Johnson & Johnson is ending sales of its iconic talc-based Johnson's Baby Powder in the U.S. and Canada, where demand has dwindled amid thousands of lawsuits claiming it has caused cancer.
The world's biggest maker of health care products said Tuesday the talc-based powder will still be sold outside the U.S. and Canada.
Demand for talc-based Johnson's Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising, the company said.
J&J faces about 19,400 cases alleging its talcum powder caused users to develop ovarian cancer, through use for feminine hygiene, or mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs.  Of the cases that have been tried, J&J has had 12 wins, 15 losses and seven mistrials. All of the losses have either been overturned on appeal or are still being appealed.
The company insists, and the ...

J&J to stop selling talc-based baby powder in US, Canada

Police in Bangladesh's capital fired tear gas and swung batons to disperse more than 1,000 garment factory workers who were demanding that they be paid salaries and bonuses ahead of Islam's biggest holiday, witnesses and an industry official said.
The workers at Civic Apparels Ltd. in Dhaka's Shyampur area took to the streets after demanding that they be paid their salary in advance for May and a 100% bonus for Eid-al Fitr, the festival marking the end of the fasting month of Ramzan, said Rubana Huq, president of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association.
Huq said the workers had been paid until April, but some protesters said they had not received their salaries for three months. Some said they were attacked without provocation.
Huq accused the workers of vandalizing the factory, taking the owner hostage and blocking streets outside the factory, prompting police to take action.
Witnesses said the workers threw stones at the police and about a dozen people were ...

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