Coronavirus Update, US Congress Response & Legislation

Coronavirus Update, US Congress Response & Legislation | US Politics In :60 | GZERO Media

Ben White, Chief Economic Correspondent for Politico, provides his perspective on the coronavirus-related news in US politics: What's the coronavirus update?

Well, we've gotten at least a little bit of good news that perhaps the rate of deaths in New York City is plateauing and may start to come down. God willing, we'll see if that comes to pass. Also, some indications that if we keep social distancing in place through the end of May, we could see fewer deaths than we worried about and fewer hospital beds need it. So, God willing, that happens.

Do I expect to see any significant movement in the coming weeks that would impact the economy?

I think yes, Congress will at some point come back with another coronavirus package that would be more money for small businesses, more money for states, possibly some infrastructure, but I doubt it.

Is there any other legislation coming out of Washington besides coronavirus?

No, there's not. Congress isn't even in D.C. They'll come back just to do another coronavirus package. But nobody is particularly interested in anything else at this point.

More from GZERO Media

A robot waiter, serving drinks at the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair, in Paris, on May 24, 2024.

  • Magali Cohen / Hans Lucas via Reuters Connect

Imagine sitting down at a restaurant, speaking your order into your menu, and immediately watching a robot arrive with your food. Imagine the food being made quickly, precisely — and without a human involved, because the entire restaurant is fully roboticized.

- YouTube

Forget the fancy cars, futuristic gadgets, and martinis “shaken, not stirred.” In his book "Sell Like a Spy: The Art of Persuasion from the World of Espionage", Jeremy Hurewitz tells GZERO's Tony Maciulis that intelligence officers are a lot more like therapists than James Bond-style action heroes.

ZOHRAN MAMDANI, Rama Duwaji, MIRA NAIR, MAMOOD MAMDANI during an election night event at The Brooklyn Paramount Theater in the Brooklyn borough of New York, US, on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025.
(Photo by Neil Constantine/NurPhoto)

Last Tuesday, a self-identified democratic socialist who ran on making New York affordable for the 99% won the city’s mayoral race in a landslide, defeating former Governor Andrew Cuomo. And the reactions have been predictably hysterical.

A fruit and vegetable stall is lit by small lamps during a blackout in a residential neighborhood in Kyiv, Ukraine, on November 6, 2025, after massive Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in October.
(Photo by Maxym Marusenko/NurPhoto)

As a fourth winter of war approaches, Russia is destroying Ukraine’s energy grid faster than it can be rebuilt.