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The decades-old drug that President Donald Trump has persistently promoted as a potential weapon against COVID-19 has within a matter of weeks become a standard of care in areas of the United States hit hard by the pandemic — though doctors prescribing it have no idea whether it works.

Doctors and pharmacists from more than half a dozen large healthcare systems in New York, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Ohio, Washington and California told Reuters they are routinely using hydroxychloroquine on patients hospitalized with COVID-19. At the same time, several said they have seen no evidence that the drug, used for years to treat malaria and autoimmune disorders, has any effect on the virus.

Continue reading “Special Report: Doctors embrace drug touted by Trump for COVID-19, without hard evidence it works”

Americans who have lost their jobs due to the new coronavirus will start getting enhanced jobless benefits as soon as this week as states deploy hundreds of billions of dollars in federal aid, state officials said on Tuesday.

Congress approved an additional $600 weekly payment for jobless workers as part of an unprecedented $2.3 trillion rescue package signed into law by President Donald Trump on March 27. Continue reading “Jobless Americans to see extra payments as soon as this week”

The White House, under pressure to escalate national action to combat the coronavirus, urged Americans on Monday to avoid gatherings of more than 10 people and called for closing bars, restaurants and other venues in states where local virus transmission exists.

But President Donald Trump refrained from ordering sweeping public quarantines, lockdowns or curfews for the time being, even as some state and local authorities independently imposed mandatory restrictions on eateries, movie theaters and other places of leisure in a bid to contain the respiratory virus.

Continue reading “Trump and U.S. states ramp up drive to slow spread of coronavirus”

Apple Inc has agreed to pay up to $500 million to settle litigation accusing it of quietly slowing down older iPhones as it launched new models, to induce owners to buy replacement phones or batteries.

The preliminary proposed class-action settlement was disclosed on Friday night and requires approval by U.S. District Judge Edward Davila in San Jose, California.

It calls for Apple to pay consumers $25 per iPhone, which may be adjusted up or down depending on how many iPhones are eligible, with a minimum total payout of $310 million.

Continue reading “Apple to pay up to $500 million to settle U.S. lawsuit over slow iPhones”

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a politically explosive case on whether Obamacare is lawful, taking up a bid by 20 Democratic-led states including New York and California to save the landmark healthcare law.

The impetus for the Supreme Court case was a 2018 ruling by a federal judge in Texas that Obamacare as currently structured in light of a key Republican-backed change made by Congress violates the U.S. Constitution and is invalid in its entirety. The ruling came in a legal challenge to the law by Texas and 17 other conservative states backed by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Continue reading “U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Democratic bid to save Obamacare”