BitGou: Monday Morning Briefing: Trump signs coronavirus relief orders after talks with Congress break down

What you need to know about the coronavirus today

President Trump signed executive orders on Saturday partly restoring enhanced unemployment payments to the tens of millions of Americans who lost jobs in the coronavirus pandemic, as the United States marked a grim milestone of 5 million cases.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said they were open to restarting COVID-19 aid talks, after weeks of failed negotiations prompted Trump to take executive actions that Democrats argued would do little to ease Americans’ financial distress. Discussions over a fifth bill to address the impact of the coronavirus pandemic fell apart on Friday, a week after the expiration of a critical boost in unemployment assistance and eviction protections.

Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map.

Australia says COVID-19 outbreak shows signs of peaking Australia recorded its biggest one-day rise in COVID-19 deaths although a slowdown in new cases gave hope that a second wave of new infections in the state of Victoria may have peaked. Nineteen people had died from the virus, all in Victoria, in the past 24 hours, a national daily record. However only 337 people had been diagnosed with COVID-19 across the country, the lowest one-day rise since July 29, officials said.

Philippine trash trawlers earn little from virus-boosted surge in plastics
Virgilio Estuesta has picked through trash in the Philippines’ biggest city for four decades, and is noticing an unusually large amount of plastics during his daily trawl of about 9.3 miles. Tough curbs re-imposed to combat a surge in daily coronavirus infections are squeezing income for the 60-year-old, as many of the junkyards and businesses in Manila that buy his recyclables have been closed since March.

Indian temple reports huge coronavirus outbreak as cases surge
A well-known Hindu temple in India has seen more than 700 cases of the novel coronavirus among its staff in the past two months, a temple official said, as cases in the country surged past 2.2 million. India has fewer cases than only the United States and Brazil, though it has reported a relatively low number of deaths, at fewer than 45,000, although epidemiologists say the peak of its outbreak could be months away.

The spread
In the latest unhappy milestone for the pandemic, the Reuters tracker shows the number of confirmed infections worldwide as the tally approaches 20 million.

From Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Qantas, London property, Belarus. Qantas’ retail share sale is grounded by Australia’s border controls, and a London home listed at 185 million pounds shows property developers’ pain. Catch up with the latest financial insights.

Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic.

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Top Stories

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai became the highest-profile person arrested under a new national security law, detained over suspected collusion with foreign forces as around 200 police searched the offices of his Apple Daily newspaper.

Lai, 71, was whisked away from his home early on Monday morning by national security police, part of a citywide operation that also saw eight other men arrested, including several of his senior executives. Who is Jimmy Lai, the media tycoon arrested in Hong Kong?

Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Nathan Law said the “crazy” arrest of Jimmy Lai marked the end of freedom of the press in the former British colony and the spread of the politics of fear. Here is what people are saying about the day’s events.

The United States has imposed sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam and 10 other top Hong Kong and Chinese officials over what Washington says is their role in curtailing political freedoms in the territory. China imposed sanctions on 11 U.S. citizens including legislators on Monday in response to the U.S. imposition of sanctions on 11 Hong Kong and Chinese officials accused of curtailing political freedoms in the city.

Lebanese called for protests outside Baabda palace to demand President Michel Aoun step down after a massive explosion that has ignited anti-government protests and resignations by several ministers, with the justice minister the latest to go.

As polls show Texans increasingly frustrated with President Trump’s response amid a massive resurgence in coronavirus cases, Democrats say they have a real chance to turn a long-held dream into reality: winning the state’s presidential contest for the first time in more than four decades.

World Health Organization

There is a “vast global gap” between funds needed to fight the coronavirus pandemic and funds committed, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, and the WHO was only “10% of the way” there. More than 19.92 million people have been reported to be infected by the coronavirus globally and 729,883 have died, according to a Reuters tally.

The coronavirus sweeping the world has shown no seasonal pattern and if health authorities take the pressure off fighting it, it will bounce back, the World Health Organization said.

The World Health Organization trusts powerful nations such as the Group of Seven to reach a consensus on how to approach health crises such as the coronavirus, head of WHO’s emergencies program Mike Ryan said.

Follow the money

Exclusive: Microsoft faces complex technical challenges in TikTok carveout

Microsoft’s bid to carve out parts of TikTok from its Chinese owner ByteDance will be a technically complex endeavor that could test the patience of President Donald Trump’s administration, according to sources familiar with the setup. A deal would be in line with Microsoft’s stance toward China where the firm has a sizeable presence - unlike fellow U.S. tech heavyweights such as Facebook and Google which appear to have given up on China’s consumer-facing market with its miscellany of government strictures.

10 min read

Top U.S. mall operator Simon faces pandemic pain

Surging COVID-19 infections in big states like California, Texas and Florida are scaring shoppers away from newly reopened malls, dealing a blow to an industry that was on the ropes even before the pandemic began.

5 min read

Senators urge U.S. to remove tariffs on EU foods, beverages

A bipartisan group of 13 U.S. senators have asked the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office to remove 25% tariffs imposed in October 2019 on European Union food, wine and spirits, according to a letter seen by Reuters. The tariffs, in retaliation for EU subsidies on large aircraft, hit French wine, Italian cheese and single-malt Scotch whisky, as well as cookies, salami, yogurt, olives from France, EU-produced pork sausage and German coffee.

3 min read