Donald Trump says he will unveil overhauled immigration order next week

February 17, 2017

Washington, Feb 17: U.S. President Donald Trump said he will issue a new version next week of his executive order banning citizens of seven mostly Muslim countries and all refugees from traveling to the United States.

Donald

At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Trump once again blasted federal courts that blocked the implementation of his travel ban.

“We had a bad court, got a bad decision,” Mr. Trump said of the judicial actions that temporarily stopped his immigration ban.

The immigration order, issued on Jan. 27, led to confusion in U.S. airports and prompted international protests and complaints from businesses.

The Mr. Trump administration asked for a pause on Thursday in proceedings by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which had sided with a lower court in halting Mr. Trump's immigration ban.

He said his new order would seek to address the issues raised by the court, even as he attacked its reasoning.

“The new order is going to be very much tailored to what Iconsider to be a very bad decision,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Trump's decision to issue a new executive order plunges court proceedings over his actions into further uncertainty. Separate from the appeals court proceedings, a Seattle federal judge on Wednesday ordered both Washington state and the Justice Department to submit initial plans for discovery in the case by next month.

Washington state Attorney-General Bob Ferguson has said he wants to depose Trump officials about their motives for the travel ban, which could help the courts decide whether it violates constitutional protections for religion. The Justice Department said it opposes discovery at a hearing last week.

Mr. Ferguson claimed a victory in the case on Thursday, after the Justice Department made a court filing announcing that there would be a new, rewritten order.

“Today's court filing by the federal government recognizes the obvious — the President's current executive order violates the Constitution,” Mr. Ferguson said, in a statement. “President Trump could have sought review of this flawed order in the Supreme Court but declined to face yet another defeat.”

Whenever Mr. Trump issues a new order, Washington state could revise its lawsuit if it believes that directive is unconstitutional as well.

Mr. Trump has said his directive was necessary to protect the United States from attacks by Islamist militants. It barred people from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen from entering the country for 90 days. Refugees were banned for120 days, except those from Syria, who were banned indefinitely.

The abrupt implementation of the order, however, plunged the immigration system into chaos, sparking a wave of criticism from targeted countries, Western allies and some of America's leading corporations, especially technology firms, which lean heavily on immigrant talent.

But Mr. Trump said the rollout had been “very smooth.” He said the order was needed to keep the country safe and that was the reason for its quick implementation.

If the administration had decided to spend a month crafting the order, “everything would've been perfect,” Mr. Trump said.

“The problem is we would've wasted a lot of time, and maybea lot of lives because a lot of bad people would've come in to our country,” he added.

The Justice Department court filing on Thursday said Mr. Trump's order would be “substantially revised” but did not provide details. Last week an congressional aide who asked not to be identified told Reuters that Mr. Trump might rewrite the original order to explicitly exclude green card holders, or permanent residents.

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Agencies
March 29,2020

A shrimp seller at the wet market in the Chinese city of Wuhan believed to be the centre of the coronavirus pandemic, may be the first person to have tested positive for the disease, a media report said on Saturday.

The report by the London-based Metro newspaper said that 57-year-old woman, named by the Wall Street Journal as Wei Guixian, was selling shrimp at the Huanan Seafood Market when she developed what she thought was a cold last December.

Chinese digital news outlet, The Paper has said that she may be epatient zero'.

Wei was told by doctors her illness was "ruthless" and other workers at the market had come to the Wuhan Union Hospital with the same symptoms, the Metro newspaper report quoted the outlet as saying.

"Every winter, I suffer from the flu, so I thought it was the flu," the woman was quoted as saying by The Paper news outlet.

The shrimp seller added that she believed she contracted the coronavirus from the shared toilet in the market.

She said the fatal disease would have killed fewer people if the government had acted sooner.

Wuhan Municipal Health Commission has confirmed that Wei was among the first 27 people to test positive for the coronavirus.

It said she was one of 24 cases with direct links to the market, the Metro newspaper reported.

Though Wei may be "patient zero", it does not mean she is the first person to have contracted the virus, added the Metro report.

Chinese researchers have claimed that the first person diagnosed with the airborne virus had no contact with the seafood market and was identified on December 1, 2019.

Wei was later quarantined when a connection was made between the bug and the market before recovering in January.

As of Saturday, the global number of coronavirus cases stood at 104,837 with 27,862 deaths, according to the latest update by the Washington-based Johns Hopkins University.

The US has the highest number of cases at 104,837, followed by Italy 86,498 and China 81,948.

Italy has recorded the highest number of fatalities with 9,134 deaths, followed by Spain and China, at 5,138 and 3,299, respectively.

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Agencies
March 8,2020

Washington, Mar 8: An attendee at last week's Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), which also saw the participation of US President Donald Trump, has tested positive for COVID-19, the American Conservative Union (ACU) said.

The exposure occurred prior to the conference held in National Harbor, Maryland, just south of Washington D.C., Xinhua news agency quoted the ACU as saying in a statement on Saturday.

A New Jersey hospital tested the person, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) confirmed the positive result, said the statement.

"The individual is under the care of medical professionals in the state of New Jersey, and has been quarantined," it said.

Trump and Vice President Mike Pence spoke at the gathering, which took place from February 26-29.

Also present at the event were a number of administration and cabinet officials, including Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, and newly-appointed White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement Saturday that the White House was aware of the development.

"At this time there is no indication that either President Trump or Vice President Pence met with or were in close proximity to the attendee," Grisham said in a statement.

"The President's physician and US Secret Service have been working closely with White House Staff and various agencies to ensure every precaution is taken to keep the First Family and the entire White House Complex safe and healthy."

The news emerged as Washington D.C. and neighbouring state of Virginia respectively confirmed their first cases of COVID-19 on Saturday.

In a press conference on Saturday night, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said a resident in his 50s showed symptoms of a respiratory virus in February. He was admitted to a hospital in the District on March 5.

The patient had no history of recent international travel, nor had he been exposed to anyone who was confirmed to be infected, according to Bowser.

The Mayor said D.C. health authorities were investigating the man's contact with other people before he went to the hospital.

A US Marine assigned to Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia, tested positive on Saturday for COVID-19 and is currently being treated at Fort Belvoir Community Hospital, according to a Pentagon spokesman.

"The Marine recently returned from overseas where he was on official business," tweeted Jonathan Rath Hoffman, adding that Secretary of Defence Mark Esper and the White House have been briefed.

As of Saturday night, more than 420 cases of COVID-19 were reported in the US with 17 deaths, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University.

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News Network
June 15,2020

Jun 15: Oil prices fell on Monday, with U.S. oil dropping more than 2%, as a spike in new coronavirus cases in the United States raised concerns over a second wave of the virus which would weigh on the pace of fuel demand recovery.

Brent crude futures fell 66 cents, or 1.7%, at $38.07 a barrel as of 0016 GMT, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures fell 81 cents, or 2.2%, to $35.45 a barrel.

Both benchmarks ended down about 8% last week, their first weekly declines since April, hit by the U.S. coronavirus concerns: More than 25,000 new cases were reported on Saturday alone as more states, including Florida and Texas, reported record new infection highs.

"Concerns about the recent uptick in COVID-19 infections in the U.S. and a potential 'second wave' are weighing on oil at the moment," said Stephen Innes, chief global market strategist at AxiCorp.

Meanwhile, an OPEC-led monitoring panel will meet on Thursday to discuss ongoing record production cuts to see whether countries have delivered their share of the reductions, but will not make any decision, according to five OPEC+ sources.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, have been reducing supplies by 9.7 million barrels per day (bpd), about 10% of pre-pandemic demand, and agreed in early June to extend the cuts for a month until end-July.

Iraq, one of the laggards in complying with the curbs, agreed with its major oil companies to cut crude production further in June, Iraqi officials working at the fields told Reuters on Sunday.

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