AP News in Brief at 6:04 a.m. EDT

Coronavirus shakes the conceit of ‘American exceptionalism’

WASHINGTON (AP) — What if the real “invisible enemy” is the enemy from within — America's very institutions?

When the coronavirus pandemic came from distant lands to the United States, it was met with cascading failures and incompetencies by a system that exists to prepare, protect, prevent and cut citizens a check in a national crisis.

The molecular menace posed by the new coronavirus has shaken the conceit of “American exceptionalism” like nothing big enough to see with your own eyes.

A nation with unmatched power, brazen ambition and aspirations through the arc of history to be humanity’s “shining city upon a hill” cannot come up with enough simple cotton swabs despite the wartime manufacturing and supply powers assumed by President Donald Trump.

The crisis turned doctors in the iconic American shining city, New York, into beggars with hands outstretched for ponchos because they couldn’t get proper medical gowns. “Rain ponchos!” laments tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen. “In 2020! In America!”

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Pandemic job losses hit new high, antiviral tests disappoint

NEW YORK (AP) — Discouraging findings on a possible coronavirus treatment and fresh data showing one in six American workers have lost their jobs tempered relief Friday over the passage by Congress of a nearly $500 billion spending package to help businesses and hospitals.

In a trend seen around the globe, roughly 26 million Americans have filed for jobless aid in five weeks, pushing unemployment to levels last seen during the Great Depression of the 1930s and raising the stakes over how and when to ease shutdowns of factories and other businesses.

Dampening hopes for discovery of an effective treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, results of a Chinese study on the antiviral drug remdesivir (rehm-DEHZ’-ih-veer), found no positive effect, though the sample size was too small to draw scientifically valid conclusions.

The data came from documents published accidentally by the World Health Organization and reported Thursday by the Financial Times. The Foster City, Calif.-based company behind the drug, Gilead Sciences, said the data represented “inappropriate characterizations” of the China study. It is conducting tests in several places around the world.

The news cut short a rally on Wall Street powered by near-unanimous approval by lawmakers, many in face masks and bandannas, of the latest coronavirus spending package.

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Somber Congress delivers nearly $500B more in virus aid

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will be holding a signing ceremony Friday for a bill providing a nearly $500 billion infusion of coronavirus spending, rushing new relief to employers and hospitals buckling under the strain of a pandemic that has claimed almost 50,000 American lives and one in six U.S. jobs.

The measure passed Congress almost unanimously Thursday, but the lopsided tally belies a potentially bumpier path ahead as battle lines are being formed for much more ambitious future legislation that may prove far more difficult to maneuver through Congress.

The bipartisan measure passed as lawmakers gathered in Washington as a group for the first time since March 27, adopting stricter social distancing rules while seeking to prove they can do their work despite the COVID-19 crisis.

Lawmakers’ face masks and bandannas added a somber tone to their effort to aid a nation staggered by the health crisis and devastating economic costs of the pandemic.

“Millions of people out of work,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. “This is really a very, very, very sad day. We come to the floor with nearly 50,000 deaths, a huge number of people impacted, and the uncertainty of it all. We hope to soon get to a recovery phase. But right now we’re still in mitigation.”

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Immigrants, hard hit by economic fallout, adapt to new jobs

NEW YORK (AP) — Ulises García went from being a waiter to working at a laundromat. Yelitza Esteva used to do manicures and now delivers groceries. Maribel Torres swapped cleaning homes for sewing masks.

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated sectors of the economy dominated by immigrant labor: Restaurants, hotels, office cleaning services, in-home childcare and hair and nail salons, among others, have seen businesses shuttered as nonessential. The Migration Policy Institute found that 20% of the U.S. workers in vulnerable industries facing layoffs are immigrants, even though they only make up 17% of the civilian workforce.

And some of those immigrants, those without social security numbers, are unable to access any of the $2.2 trillion package that Congress approved to offer financial help during the pandemic.

The economic meltdown has forced many immigrants to branch out to new jobs or adapt skills to meet new demands generated by the virus. Those immigrants who are able to find new jobs say the possibility of catching the virus makes them nervous.

“I wonder sometimes if I should quit because I don’t feel comfortable working, when the virus is everywhere,” said García, a former waiter who now works at the laundromat in Brooklyn selling detergent, bleach or fabric softener.

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Staff count emotional cost as virus savages UK nursing homes

SELSTON, England (AP) — Lucy Dawson is haunted by a sense of powerlessness.

The nurse has equipment to treat the residents of the nursing home where she works when they become sick with the coronavirus — but it doesn’t seem to make any difference.

“We’ve got fluids, or we’ve got oxygen on the go. You know, you name it, we’ve got it,” said the nurse at Wren Hall, a small home for elderly people with dementia in the central England village of Selston.

But still, “it’s bereavement after bereavement,” said Dawson, who has worked at the home for two decades. “We’re losing people that we’ve loved and looked after for years.”

The coronavirus pandemic is taking a huge emotional and physical toll on staff in Britain’s nursing homes, who often feel like they're toiling on a forgotten front line.

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Africa dangerously behind in global race for virus gear

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — As Africa braces for a surge in coronavirus cases, its countries are dangerously behind in the global race for scarce medical equipment. Ten nations have no ventilators at all.

Outbid by richer countries, and not receiving medical gear from top aid donor the United States, African officials scramble for solutions as virus cases climb past 25,000. Even in the best scenario, the United Nations says 74 million test kits and 30,000 ventilators will be needed by the continent's 1.3 billion people this year. Very few are in hand.

“We are competing with the developed world,” said John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “The very future of the continent will depend on how this matter is handled.”

Politicians instinctively try to protect their own people and “we know that sometimes the worst in human behavior comes out,” said Simon Missiri, Africa director with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, urging an equitable approach to help developing nations.

The crisis has jolted African nations into creating a pooled purchasing platform under the African Union to improve negotiating power. Within days of its formation, the AU landed more than 100,000 test kits from a German source. The World Health Organization is pitching in, approaching manufacturers for supplies.

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Republicans leap to reopen economy; Democrats more cautious

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Announcing plans to begin reopening his state, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster cited the ongoing economic damage from the coronavirus pandemic.

“South Carolina’s business is business,” he declared this week as he lifted restrictions on department stores, florists, music shops and some other businesses that previously had been deemed nonessential.

At the same briefing, the state's chief epidemiologist, Dr. Linda Bell, seconded the importance of economic recovery but quickly inserted a note of caution: "The risk of exposure remains for everyone,” she said.

It is a scenario playing out across the country as governors wrestle with weeks of quarantine-fueled job losses and soaring unemployment claims and the simultaneous warnings of public health officials who say lifting stay-at-home orders now could spark a resurgence of COVID-19.

Meanwhile, as scattered groups of protesters have staged loud demonstrations in favor of rescinding quarantine orders, a recent public opinion poll finds that a majority of Americans believe it won’t be safe to stop following social distancing guidelines anytime soon.

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China's diplomats show teeth in defending virus response

BEIJING (AP) — From Asia to Africa, London to Berlin, Chinese envoys have set off diplomatic firestorms with a combative defense whenever their country is accused of not acting quickly enough to stem the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

They belong to a new generation of “Wolf Warrior” diplomats, named after patriotic blockbuster films starring a muscle-bound Chinese commando killing American bad guys in Africa and Southeast Asia with his bare hands.

The tougher approach has been building for several years under President Xi Jinping, who has effectively jettisoned former leader Deng Xiaoping’s approach of hiding China’s ambitions and biding its time. His government has urged its diplomats to pursue “major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics” — a call for China to reassert its historic status as a global power.

“The days when China can be put in a submissive position are long gone,” said an editorial in the Global Times, a state-run newspaper known for its outspoken views. The Chinese people, it said, “are no longer satisfied with a flaccid diplomatic tone.”

Ambassador Gui Congyou has belittled journalists in Sweden, comparing them to a lightweight boxer seeking to go toe-to-toe with a heavyweight China. A commentary on the embassy website last month assailed a Swedish reporter for an article on the impact of China’s one-party political system on its virus response.

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5 things to know today - that aren't about the virus

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that are being talked about today:

1. MOTIVE ESTABLISHED IN CANADA MASS SHOOTING Police say an argument between the gunman and his girlfriend preceded a weekend rampage in Nova Scotia in which at least 22 people were killed.

2. ‘ONEROUS AND CONVOLUTED’ A federal judge blocks a California law requiring background checks for people buying ammunition, stating that the regulations violate the Second Amendment.

3. WHERE VENEZUELA IS TURNING FOR HELP Venezuela’s socialist leader asks Iran for help jump starting an aging refinery to prevent it from running out of gasoline.

4. MEGHAN MARKLE TO HAVE LAWSUIT HEARD The Duchess of Sussex is challenging a British newspaper’s publication of a letter she wrote to her father.

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Empty stadiums for soccer games? It's not quite that simple

It will soon be the new norm, a cold and often unnerving sight that soccer and many other sports will have to get accustomed to over the coming months.

Games taking place in empty stadiums.

But will these stadiums actually be empty? Far from it.

“It’s not about 22 players walking onto a pitch and (kicking) a ball about,” FIFA vice president Victor Montagliani told The Associated Press, referring to what he called the “phased-in approach” that soccer — and society as a whole — will need to take to get back to normal following the coronavirus outbreak.

Some teams in Europe have experience in staging games without flag-waving and loudly cheering fans — be it while serving a punishment for crowd trouble or, as was the case in February and March, because of a rapidly spreading virus that turned into a pandemic.