Donald Trump wins key states, edges closer to White House

Washington, Jun 17: The United States is closely monitoring the situation following a fierce clash between Indian and Chinese forces in eastern Ladakh and hopes that the differences will be resolved peacefully, officials said here.

Twenty Indian Army personnel including a colonel were killed in the clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday night, the biggest military confrontation in over five decades that has significantly escalated the already volatile border standoff in the region.

"We are closely monitoring the situation between Indian and Chinese forces along the Line of Actual Control," a State Department spokesperson said.

"We note the Indian military has announced that 20 soldiers have died, and we offer our condolences to their families," the official said.

Both India and China have expressed their desires to de-escalate and the US supports a peaceful resolution of the current situation, the spokesperson said.

"During their phone call on June 2, 2020, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Narendra Modi had discussed the situation along the India-China border," the official added.

London, Apr 22: The toll from coronavirus in the United Kingdom has jumped above 18,000 after 759 more deaths were reported in the last 24 hours, the Department of Health and Social Care announced in a statistical bulletin on Wednesday.

In total, 18,100 people have died in the UK hospitals after contracting COVID-19 as of 16:00 GMT on Tuesday.

A further 4,451 new cases of the disease were reported over the preceding 24 hours up to 08:00 GMT on Wednesday, the ministry said. The total number of cases reported since the start of the outbreak now stands at 1,33,495.

On Tuesday, the Office of National Statistics published a report stating that the coronavirus disease death toll as of April 10, when accounting for deaths in care homes and private residences, was 41 per cent higher than the government's figures.

In parliament on Wednesday, Health Secretary Matt Hancock stated that the United Kingdom has reached the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, praising the social distancing measures enforced in the country.

Geneva, Mar 12: For the global economy, virus repercussions were profound, with increasing concerns of wealth- and job-wrecking recessions. U.S. stocks wiped out more than all the gains from a huge rally a day earlier as Wall Street continued to reel.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 1,464 points, bringing it 20% below its record set last month and putting it in what Wall Street calls a “bear market.” The broader S&P 500 is just 1 percentage point away from falling into bear territory and bringing to an end one of the greatest runs in Wall Street’s history.

WHO officials said they thought long and hard about labeling the crisis a pandemic — defined as sustained outbreaks in multiple regions of the world.

The risk of employing the term, Ryan said, is “if people use it as an excuse to give up.” But the benefit is “potentially of galvanizing the world to fight.”

Underscoring the mounting challenge: soaring numbers in the U.S. and Europe’s status as the new epicenter of the pandemic. While Italy exceeds 12,000 cases and the United States has topped 1,300, China reported a record low of just 15 new cases Thursday and three-fourths of its infected patients have recovered.

China’s totals of 80,793 cases and 3,169 deaths are a shrinking portion of the world’s more than 126,000 infections and 4,600 deaths.

“If you want to be blunt, Europe is the new China,” said Robert Redfield, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

With 12,462 cases and 827 deaths, Italy said all shops and businesses except pharmacies and grocery stores would be closed beginning Thursday and designated billions in financial relief to cushion economic shocks in its latest efforts to adjust to the fast-evolving crisis that silenced the usually bustling heart of the Catholic faith, St. Peter’s Square.