Thursday Morning Briefing: U.S. House poised for vote on Democratic police reform bill

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June 25, 2020 Reuters News Now U.S. U.S. House poised for vote on Democratic police reform bill The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives is expected to vote on sweeping police reform legislation on Thursday, amid concern that efforts to rein in police misconduct after the death of George Floyd could end in political stalemate. A day after Democrats blocked the Senate from moving ahead on a Republican bill, the House is due to consider legislation backed by Democrats including the Congressional Black Caucus, but opposed by President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress. Amid U.S. reckoning on race, Black candidates harness voters' fervor for change From New York to Virginia to Kentucky, Tuesday’s elections showed voters are favoring a new generation of minority candidates amid a national reckoning on racism after the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody last month. President Donald Trump’s campaign is considering a new approach to his signature rallies to ease fears about the coronavirus and has not ruled out staff changes after his disappointing return to the trail in Oklahoma, advisers say. What you need to know about the coronavirus today Tri-state quarantine The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut ordered travelers from eight other U.S. states to be quarantined for two weeks on arrival, as COVID-19 infections surged in regions spared the brunt of the initial outbreak. The unprecedented travel restrictions came as Disney announced it would delay the reopening of its theme parks, and Nevada's governor signed a directive requiring face coverings in casinos and all other public places from Friday. Track the spread of the virus with this state-by-state and county map. 4-billion dose vaccine push An influential foundation focused on preparation and response to epidemics that is backing nine potential coronavirus vaccines has identified manufacturers with capacity to produce four billion doses a year, the group's top manufacturing expert told Reuters. Oxygen concentrator shortage The world faces a shortage of oxygen concentrators, needed to support breathing of COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory distress, as the number of worldwide cases of coronavirus infection nears the 10 million mark, the World Health Organization head said on Wednesday. "Democracy under threat" The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a surge in authoritarian behavior by governments around the world, posing a growing threat to democracy, hundreds of former prime ministers, presidents, Nobel laureates and lawmakers have warned. Tourism with a difference in Paris The Eiffel Tower welcomed back visitors after the coronavirus outbreak forced the Paris landmark into its longest period out of action since World War Two. Visitors can access the 324 meters high tower only via staircases until early July. The Louvre Museum is getting ready to reopen, but visitors will find one feature missing: the heaving crowd jostling to get a view of the "Mona Lisa". From Breakingviews: Corona Capital - Lufthansa, Britain’s post offices Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe. Reuters reporters and editors around the world are investigating the response to the coronavirus pandemic. We need your help to tell these stories. Our news organization wants to capture the full scope of what’s happening and how we got here by drawing on a wide variety of sources. Here’s a look at our coverage. Are you a government employee or contractor involved in coronavirus testing or the wider public health response? Are you a doctor, nurse or health worker caring for patients? Have you worked on similar outbreaks in the past? Has the disease known as COVID-19 personally affected you or your family? Are you aware of new problems that are about to emerge, such as critical supply shortages? We need your tips, firsthand accounts, relevant documents or expert knowledge. Please contact us at coronavirus@reuters.com. We prefer tips from named sources, but if you’d rather remain anonymous, you can submit a confidential news tip. Here’s how. Emerging from lockdown Vaccine makers face biggest medical manufacturing feat in history. Developing a COVID-19 vaccine in record time will be tough. Producing enough to end the pandemic will be the biggest medical manufacturing feat in history. Any hitch in an untested supply chain - which could stretch from Pune in India to England’s Oxford and Baltimore in the United States - could torpedo or delay the complex process. Lockdowns are sharpening the knives in the cut-throat world of M&A banking. Stuck at home, armed only with a phone and a laptop, senior advisors are finding out just how strong their relationships with clients really are while frustrated juniors are left to crunch numbers in the shadows, deprived of the personal access to the rainmakers who could give their careers a boost. Japan's izakayas, once a staple of after-work socialising, crippled by pandemic. Japan’s after-work drinking scene has been disrupted by the coronavirus pandemic, forcing its often jam-packed “izakaya” dining bars to reinvent themselves to survive. COVID Science Last week's announcement that the cheap and widely used steroid dexamethasone significantly reduced deaths in severely ill COVID-19 patients generated both excitement and skepticism, because the British researchers announced the result without publishing full details. On Monday, they posted their data online, in advance of full peer-review. Dexamethasone reduced the death rate by one-third in patients who needed a ventilator to help them breath (from 40.7% to 29.0%) and by one-fifth in patients receiving supportive oxygen without an invasive ventilator (from 25.0% to 21.5%). See a Reuters graphic on vaccines and treatments in development. Follow the money U.S. layoffs remain elevated as weak demand persists after businesses reopened Weak demand is forcing U.S. employers to lay off workers, keeping new applications for unemployment benefits extraordinarily high, even as businesses have reopened, buttressing views the labor market could take years to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. 5 min read Wirecard collapses owing creditors $4 billion German payments company Wirecard collapsed on Thursday after disclosing a massive financial hole in its books, leaving creditors owed nearly $4 billion facing an almost complete wipeout. 3 min read Bayer bets on science in bid to prevent future Roundup lawsuits: legal experts Seeking to forestall further claims, Bayer is taking a risky bet that an independent scientific review will ultimately show that its widely used weed killer Roundup does not cause cancer, legal experts said. 4 min read Russia takes a leaf out the U.S. shale oil playbook Russia is taking a leaf out of the U.S. shale playbook so it can ramp up oil production quickly and hang on to its share of the global market when demand finally recovers after the coronavirus pandemic. 5 min read Top Stories on Reuters TV U.S. says 20 companies backed by China's military Asia   1:31 Harry and Meghan to hit the speaking circuit Entertainment   1:01 Real news for busy people More Newsletters Reuters News Reuters TV               © 2020 Thomson Reuters. 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