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Good morning.
We’re covering President Trump’s plan to suspend immigration to the U.S. amid the coronavirus pandemic, the loosening of restrictions in some states, and questions about the health of North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un.
A formal order temporarily barring the issuance of new green cards and work visas could come within days, according to several people familiar with the plan, although it was unclear what legal basis Mr. Trump would invoke to justify the move.
We’re also tracking the virus’s growth rate in U.S. metro areas.
In other developments:
The governors of Georgia, South Carolina and Tennessee said they would start relaxing restrictions intended to curb the spread of the virus. Plans to reopen were also moving forward in Ohio, where a state prison has become the country’s largest-known source of coronavirus infections.
At least 26,000 more people have died over the past month than have been officially reported, a review of mortality data in 11 countries shows. The totals include deaths directly caused by Co-19, as well as those stemming from other illnesses that couldn’t be treated by overwhelmed health care systems.
A dispute between Democrats and the White House over virus testing has stalled a nearly $500 billion bipartisan agreement to replenish a loan program for small businesses and proe more financing for hospitals.
The benchmark price for crude oil in the U.S. fell below zero on Monday for the first time. It was the result of a quirk in the market, but Neil Irwin, our senior economics correspondent, explains that it’s also an example of the pandemic’s deflationary effect on the economy.
The fast-food chain Shake Shack said it would return a $10 million stimulus loan amid criticism that big outlets were getting relief funds meant for small, struggling businesses.
Ramadan begins this week. Our Cairo bureau chief reports on how the pandemic has cast a shadow over the holy month of fasting for the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims.
Queen Elizabeth II turns 94 today. For the first time in her nearly seven-decade reign, her birthday will not be commemorated by a gun salute — another longstanding ritual halted by the pandemic.
The Times is proing free access to much of our coronavirus coverage, and our Coronavirus Briefing newsletter — like all of our newsletters — is free. Please consider supporting our journalism with a subscription.
New York’s long, hard road
The city has bounced back from other calamities — the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the 2008 Lehman Brothers collapse, the 1970s fiscal crisis — but none of them shut down New York as profoundly, or for as long, as the coronavirus pandemic has.
The Times interviewed more than two dozen business executives, city and state officials, and industry groups to find out more about the challenges facing New York, where hundreds of thousands have lost their jobs and at least $7.4 billion in tax revenue is projected to be lost by the middle of next year.
“I don’t think the New York that we left will be back for some years,” said Gregg Bishop, the commissioner of the city’s small businesses agency. “I don’t know if we’ll ever get it back.”
Closer look: Coogan’s, an Irish pub that opened in Upper Manhattan in 1985, said on Monday that it was closing permanently. Our Metro columnist Jim Dwyer remembers a place that was “the promise of New York incarnate: multiethnic, friendly, welcoming, smart.”
If you have 7 minutes, this is worth itA deadly undersea mystery
Few people talk about what a Russian submarine, the Losharik, was doing near Norway’s coast last year when a fire killed 14 sailors, including some of the most decorated officers in Russia’s submarine corps. Moscow has said the submarine was merely a research vessel, and the Norwegian military refuses to say what it may have seen.
Our reporters James Glanz and Thomas Nilsen write: “The extraordinary incident may offer yet another clue to Russia’s military ambitions in the deep sea, and how they figure into a plan to leverage Arctic naval power to achieve its strategic goals around the globe — including the ability to choke off vital international communication channels at will.”
Here’s what else is happening
Uncertainty about North Korean leader: South Korean officials today disputed a news report that Kim Jong-un was receiving treatment after undergoing heart surgery. Mr. Kim was last seen in public on April 11, and he missed an event last week honoring the birthday of his grandfather, North Korea’s founder.
Michael Jordan’s spin move: The former basketball great, ever image conscious, seems to be using a new 10-part documentary series to reaffirm his legacy in the LeBron James era, our columnist writes.
Late-night comedy: After protesters called for the end of stay-at-home orders, Jimmy Kimmel said, “It’s like if the Titanic was headed towards the iceberg, and half of the passengers were like, ‘Can you please speed this thing up?’”
What we’re reading: This article in The New Yorker. Jennifer Steinhauer, a reporter in our Washington bureau, says: “I am often awake these days at 2 a.m., which has become my time for reading The New Yorker. This piece covers a topic I thought I knew well — the origins of the ‘Never Trump’ movement — but unpacks it with immense detail.”
Now, a break from the news
Francesca Donner, who leads our Gender Initiative, spoke with Caroline Criado Perez, the author of “Invisible Women,” and Alisha Haridasani Gupta, a reporter for The Times. Their conversation is excerpted from the In Her Words newsletter:
Francesca: We know differences between male and female immune systems exist, yet we know very little about them.
Caroline: The reason we don’t know that much is that, historically, we’ve preferred to study the male body.
We do know the female immune system is more active than the male immune system. The hypothesis is that it’s because women give birth and the female immune system has evolved around that. That can be bad for women in that women make up 80 percent of those with autoimmune diseases. Women also tend to have more frequent and more adverse reactions to vaccines.
The result is that we are less good at diagnosing diseases in women. If you look at something like heart disease in Britain, women are 50 percent more likely to be misdiagnosed than men. One outcome is that in the U.S. and Britain, women are more likely than men to die following a heart attack. And yet you still encounter resistance in the research community, who say things like, “The female body is too complicated, the menstrual cycle will interfere with the results.”
Francesca: Alisha, give us a little background on the sex data being collected.
Alisha: The U.S. is one of 11 countries that aren’t systematically tracking infections and deaths by men and women. Since we published the sex-data article, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did release a report that included a race and a sex breakdown. But even that was a snapshot, drawing information from hospital networks in parts of 14 states.
Francesca: What implications does this have in our search for a vaccine?
Alisha: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is already in phase one human trials for a potential vaccine on 45 healthy adults. It said it would need a larger number of participants to be able to disaggregate data by sex. That’s not to say that it’s impossible to have disaggregated data right from phase one — because Johnson & Johnson said that’s what it’s going to do as it heads into human trials in September.
That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.
— Chris
Thank youTo Melissa Clark for the recipe, and to Theodore Kim and Jahaan Singh for the rest of the break from the news. You can reach the team at [email protected].
P.S. We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about coming rulings from the Supreme Court. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Currency of Poland (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. Today at 4 p.m. Eastern, our Adolescence columnist, the psychologist Lisa Damour, will discuss how to help young people cope during coronavirus-related lockdowns. R.S.V.P. here for the free call.
