Confronting twin health and economic crises, President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will invoke emergency powers to marshal critical medical supplies against a coronavirus pandemic threatening to overwhelm hospitals and other treatment centres.
The Senate acted on the economic front, approving legislation to guarantee sick leave to workers sickened by the disease. Trump described himself as a “wartime president” as virus cases surged and the markets fell, and he took a series of extraordinary steps to steady a battered nation, its day-to-day life fundamentally altered.
Most immediately, Trump said he would employ the Defence Production Act as needed, giving the government more power to steer production by private companies and try to