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Ohio’s governor tested positive before a planned meeting with President Trump, but a second test was negative. India hit two million cases.
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China’s exports rose last month at their fastest pace of the year. Chinese factories ran at full throttle this summer, after the virus was brought almost completely under control.
Top Democrats and the White House clashed anew on Thursday over an economic recovery package as a jobs report loomed over stalled negotiations on the plan, raising the stakes of the talks even as a compromise appeared to be nowhere in sight.
After more than three hours in the Capitol Hill offices of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, negotiators emerged without an agreement and said stark divisions remained. Ms. Pelosi, of California, described a “consequential meeting” where “we could see the difference in values that we bring to the table.”
Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, offered equally pessimistic remarks after meeting with Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader. “We’re still a considerable amount apart,” Mr. Meadows told reporters.
“If the basis is getting an overall deal done, there would have to be significant compromises on some big issues tomorrow,” Mr. Mnuchin said, adding that he expected the negotiators to speak by phone the next day to “see if it makes sense to meet.”
The Labor Department will report Friday morning on how many jobs the economy created in July, as America climbs back from the depths of the pandemic recession. Forecasters expect fewer new jobs than in May, when the nascent recovery added 2.7 million jobs, or June, when it added 4.8 million. That’s because the resurgence of the coronavirus has cooled growth in consumer spending and business activity for much of this summer.
The economy remains down more than 10 million jobs from its pre-pandemic peak in February. If Friday’s report shows a drastic slowdown in job creation, pressure will rise on Mr. Trump and congressional leaders to cut a deal to provide additional aid for struggling small businesses, laid-off workers and state and local governments that face large shortfalls in tax revenue amid the crisis. New claims for unemployment benefits have exceeded 1 million a week for 20 straight weeks, the Labor Department reported on Thursday.
A better-than-expected report on Friday could sway Mr. Trump — who has said repeatedly that the economy would rapidly return to its pre-crisis state — against agreeing to Democrats’ demands on issues like extending the now-expired $600-a-week federal supplement for unemployed workers.
Mr. Trump escalated his threat on Thursday to walk away from the negotiations and act unilaterally instead. He told reporters he was considering issuing executive orders to forestall evictions, suspend payroll tax collection and provide extra unemployment aid and student loan relief, perhaps as soon as Friday or Saturday.
It is not clear that he has the legal authority for some of those moves, given that spending power lies with Congress. But a White House official said lawyers there believe Mr. Trump would be on solid ground to use money provided in the last stimulus measure but not yet spent. Democrats rejected the idea, calling it illegal and insufficient.
“Congress has the power of the purse, and President Trump has no authority to deviate from spending decisions the House and Senate made in previous coronavirus relief bills,” said Evan Hollander, a spokesman for the Democrats on the House Appropriations Committee.
Also on Thursday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Republicans against Ms. Pelosi that sought to block the House of Representatives from using a proxy voting system to allow for remote legislating during the pandemic.
Judge Rudolph Contreras, of the Washington, D.C., District Court, wrote in his opinion that “the House unquestionably has the authority, under the Constitution, to ‘determine the rules of its proceedings,’” and affirmed that legislative work undertaken by Ms. Pelosi and other top Democrats was “immune from suit under the speech or debate clause” of the Constitution.
Gov. Mike DeWine of Ohio tested negative for the coronavirus hours on Thursday, after a positive rapid-result test prevented him from welcoming President Trump to the state.
The whiplash of contradictory results reflects the country’s limited ability to slow the spread of the virus with widespread and accurate testing.
Governor DeWine’s test results came two days after he implored residents to avoid large gatherings because of the risk of spreading the virus to family and friends. He initially tested positive for the virus while being screened to greet President Trump in Cleveland on Thursday, his office said.
“The lesson that should come from this is, we’re all human,” Mr. DeWine, 73, said on Thursday afternoon, standing on the porch at his home while waiting for the results of his second test. “The virus is everywhere.”
But a second test, administered later in the day, came up negative. Mr. DeWine’s wife, Fran, and staff members also tested negative.
The first test was an antigen test, a new frontier of testing that allows for results in minutes, not days, but has been shown to be less accurate. The second was a more standard process known as polymerase chain reaction, or P.C.R., an accurate but time-intensive method that requires samples to be processed at a laboratory.
Most coronavirus tests in the United States have so far relied on P.C.R., but severe supply shortages have slowed the turnaround of results, stretching to more than a week — or three — in some parts of the United States. That has complicated, efforts to detect and track the spread of the virus.
The best chance to rein in the sprawling outbreaks, experts say, requires widespread adoption of less accurate tests, as long as they are administered quickly and often enough.
Mr. DeWine, a Republican who has stood out for his studious virus briefings and aggressive response, was tested as part of a standard protocol in order to greet Mr. Trump on the tarmac of Burke Lakefront Airport in Cleveland.
Mr. DeWine did not meet with the president, who was scheduled to speak about rebuilding the economy during a stop in Cleveland and then tour a Whirlpool plant in Clyde. While he was there, Mr. Trump signed a long-awaited executive order requiring the federal government to purchase certain pharmaceuticals and medical supplies and equipment from American factories.
Mr. DeWine was not experiencing symptoms, and was headed back to Columbus, where he plans to self-isolate for 14 days, his office said.
At least 26 new coronavirus deaths and 1,199 new cases were reported in Ohio on Wednesday. Over the past week, there have been an average of 1,202 new cases per day, a decrease of 11 percent from the average two weeks earlier. The state has recorded 96,305 cases and 3,596 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to a New York Times database.
Mr. DeWine is the second governor in the nation known to have tested positive. Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, a Republican, received a positive test result last month.
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