Berlin is trying to stop Washington from persuading a German company seeking a coronavirus vaccine to move its research to the United States, prompting German politicians to insist no country should have a monopoly on any future vaccine.German government sources told Reuters on Sunday that the U.S. administration was looking into how it could gain access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German firm, CureVac.Earlier, the Welt am Sonntag German newspaper reported that U.S. President Donald Trump had offered funds to lure CureVac to the United States, and the German government was making counter-offers to tempt it to stay.There was no comment immediately available from the U.S. embassy in Berlin when contacted by Reuters over the report.“The German government is very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe,” a Health Ministry spokeswoman said, confirming a quote in the newspaper.“In this regard, the government is in intensive exchange with the company CureVac,” she added.Welt am Sonntag also quoted an unidentified German government source as saying Trump was trying to secure the scientists’ work exclusively, and would do anything to get a vaccine for the United States, “but only for the United States.”CureVac issued a statement on Sunday, in which it said: “The company rejects current rumors of an acquisition”.The firm said it was in contact with many organizations and authorities worldwide, but would not comment on speculation and rejected “allegations about offers for acquisition of the company or its technology.”A German Economy Ministry spokeswoman said Berlin “has a great interest” in producing vaccines in Germany and Europe.She cited Germany’s foreign trade law, under which Berlin can examine takeover bids from non-EU, so-called third countries “if national or European security interests are at stake”.EXPERIMENTAL VACCINEFlorian von der Muelbe, CureVac’s chief production officer and co-founder, told Reuters last week the company had started with a multitude of coronavirus vaccine candidates and was now selecting the two best to go into clinical trials.The privately-held company based in Tuebingen, Germany hopes to have an experimental vaccine ready by June or July to then seek the go-ahead from regulators for testing on humans.On its website, CureVac said CEO Daniel Menichella early this month met Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force and senior representatives of pharmaceutical and biotech companies to discuss a vaccine.Karl Lauterbach, a professor of health economics and epidemiology who is also a senior German lawmaker tweeted: “The exclusive sale of a possible vaccine to the USA must be prevented by all means. Capitalism has limits.”CureVac in 2015 and 2018 secured financial backing for development projects from its investor the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working on shots to prevent malaria and influenza.In the field of so-called mRNA therapeutics, CureVac competes with U.S. biotech firm Moderna and German rival BioNTech, which Pfizer has identified as a potential collaboration partner.Drugs based on mRNA provide a type of genetic blueprint that can be injected into the body to instruct cells to produce the desired therapeutic proteins. That contrasts with the conventional approach of making these proteins in labs and bio-reactors.In the case of vaccines, the mRNA prompts body cells to produce so-called antigens, the tell-tale molecules on the surface of viruses, that spur the immune system into action.Companies working on other coronavirus-vaccine approaches include Johnson & Johnson and INOVIO Pharmaceuticals, Inc. 
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The case against Nassif Sami Daher and Kamel Mohammad Rammal, two Michigan men accused of food stamp fraud, hardly seemed exceptional. But the tool that agents used to investigate them was extraordinary: a secretive surveillance process intended to identify potential spies and terrorists.It meant that the men, unlike most criminal defendants, were never shown the evidence authorities used to begin investigating them or the information that the Justice Department presented to obtain the original warrant.The case is among recent Justice Department prosecutions that relied on the same surveillance powers, known by the acronym FISA, that law enforcement officials acknowledge were misused in the Russia investigation. Those errors have prompted a reckoning inside the FBI and debate in Congress about new privacy safeguards. The attention given to FISA has also cast a spotlight on cases such as the Michigan one, where surveillance tools used to investigate foreign intelligence threats end up leading to prosecutions for commonplace, domestic crimes.The department says it can’t turn a blind eye to crimes it uncovers when scrutinizing someone for national security purposes, even if those offenses weren’t the initial basis of the investigation. In recent years, inquiries that began with FISA warrants have yielded charges including child pornography and bank and wire fraud.Current and former officials say just because a FISA warrant produces charges other than national security ones doesn’t mean the target is no longer considered a national security threat. Sometimes, particularly when disrupting a terrorism plot, prosecutors may charge other crimes they find evidence of for fear of tipping the target’s conspirators to the investigation’s actual purpose.But critics say building routine cases on evidence derived from FISA warrants undermines constitutional protections against unreasonable searches. And if the original surveillance application is riddled with errors or omissions, they say, any resulting prosecution is tainted. Though some judges have raised concerns, no court has prohibited the practice, and the Supreme Court has never directly confronted the specific issue.Patrick Toomey, senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union national security project, noted that the Fourth Amendment requires the government to describe the type of criminal evidence it’s seeking before conducting a search.“Our view is that the types of broad searches for foreign intelligence information flips the Fourth Amendment on its head when the government repurposes those searches for domestic criminal prosecutions,” Toomey said .That’s what happened with Daher and Rammal. They were charged in August 2018 with defrauding the food stamp program in a scheme that investigators say was based at a Detroit service station.The next month, prosecutors told them that the government intended to use information collected under a warrant approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which authorizes law enforcement to eavesdrop on people it has probable cause to believe are agents of a foreign power.That meant that while Daher and Rammal could see government evidence about the fraud allegations, they were denied details about the reasons for the national security surveillance.Though the Justice Department has refused to disclose the application it submitted to the court, its filings make clear the case was part of a broader terrorism-related inquiry. Prosecutors produced a statement from Attorney General William Barr saying the FISA materials held classified information about counterterrorism investigations and that disclosing them would harm national security.Rammal, who was raised in Lebanon, has since pleaded guilty to fraud. Daher has fought unsuccessfully to see the FISA information and is awaiting trial. His lawyers contend Daher, a Muslim, was targeted in a post-Sept. 11 “mob mentality” Neither men faced terrorist-related charges.“Sami is a nerd with a big ego and imagination, but, he is not a terrorist or a National Security threat,” Daher’s lawyers wrote.The Justice Department says the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act explicitly permits law enforcement to use evidence from FISA warrants for domestic criminal prosecutions and that it makes obvious sense to do so.“Congress intended that you not ignore evidence of another crime while you’re doing foreign intelligence surveillance, and FISA itself reflects this,” Assistant Attorney General John Demers, the department’s top national security official, said in a statement. “It’s nonsensical to ignore evidence of a crime that we’ve lawfully gathered.”Nonetheless, defense lawyers see the department as straying beyond FISA’s original intent.Critics have long complained about the one-sided nature of the process. Targets of the surveillance, for instance, are consistently denied copies of FISA applications, making it hard for them to know the accuracy of the information given to the court, to learn why precisely prosecutors considered them a national security concern and to contest the legitimacy of the search.In the Russia case, details of the FISA warrant used on ex-Trump campaign adviser Carter Page became known only because of the highly partisan congressional fight over special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation. Later, the Justice Department inspector general found that the FBI omitted from its applications key information that should have been presented to the court.The FBI has since announced steps aimed at ensuring that its wiretap applications are more accurate. The House passed legislation Wednesday containing new privacy protections. The Senate left for the week without approving it, allowing certain FISA provision s to temporarily expire.Most FISA warrants don’t result in criminal prosecution. Page, for instance, has denied wrongdoing and was never charged. Those that do generally involve national security crimes, such as the recent espionage case against a military contractor accused of disclosing classified information.But other investigations with a classified or national security focus have ended instead with more routine criminal charges.In California, a small business owner named Abdallah Osseily was charged by national security prosecutors in 2018 with lying on bank documents and on his naturalization petition.Prosecutors produced evidence confirming he’d been eavesdropped on, but defense lawyers say the recordings didn’t come from conventional criminal wiretaps, leading them to believe they were from a FISA warrant. The Justice Department has refused to confirm if that’s the case but says the prosecution isn’t based on evidence from a FISA warrant warrant. Defense lawyers have nonetheless fought to see the original application for the surveillance.“He’s not given the opportunity to clear his name or to otherwise challenge the government’s accusations that he represents a national security threat,”′ said his lawyer, Bilal Essayli.Last August, federal authorities notified a think tank fellow and ex-State Department employee that they intended to use evidence from a FISA warrant in his mortgage fraud case.The man, David Tawei An, was being investigated for his ties to Taiwanese officials when FBI agents encountered what they said was evidence he had submitted a false loan application. An ultimately pleaded guilty to fraud.One prominent case concerns a former Boeing manager, Keith Gartenlaub, who was targeted with a FISA warrant because agents suspected him of having helped China acquire information on a C-17 military transport plane. Agents using that warrant to search his computer files said they found images of child pornography. Prosecutors charged him with that but not with spying for China, something he adamantly denies.He was convicted on the child pornography counts and recently released after nearly two years in prison, though he says the images weren’t his and were on an old computer multiple people who came in and out of his California beach house had access to. He has written the Justice Department inspector general asking for a review of his case and for help accessing the warrant application.“FISA has become a way to circumvent due process in the legal system,” Gartenlaub said. “Anybody in my situation cannot defend themselves because you can’t see anything.”A San Francisco-based federal appeals court upheld his conviction. But it also said a prosecution for “completely unrelated crimes discovered as a result of rummaging” through a computer “comes perilously close to the exact abuses against which the Fourth Amendment was designed to protect.”The ACLU sees an opening to narrow the government’s powers, saying courts are only now starting to grapple with the fairness of national security searches being used in ordinary prosecutions.“These searches,” Toomey said in an email, “upend bedrock constitutional protections.”
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U.S. President Donald Trump has called more than two dozen grocery store and supply chain executives around the country to thank them for their extra efforts during the coronavirus outbreak.   As state after state reports new cases of COVID-19 infections, shoppers rush to stores to stock up on supplies, leaving the shelves empty. There is already a shortage of hand sanitizers, cleaning products and toilet paper in many stores and some retailers have resorted to limiting their sales.Trump spoke to the executives Sunday, praising their commitment to the communities they serve. The White House statement issued Sunday says the president has reminded suppliers that store shelves stocked with much needed items help Americans feel calm and safe.   He also reminded the American public that it is not necessary to hoard daily essentials.But as health authorities mull the possibility of a nationwide shutdown to prevent the spread of the virus, many people want to be sure they have everything they need. 
 
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As the two remaining Democratic presidential candidates return to the debate stage, their party, the stakes, and the world look much different than in their last meeting less than three weeks ago.The fast-moving coronavirus was something of an afterthought in that debate; now the escalating crisis is likely to dominate Sunday’s contest. Rising infections in the United States and around the world have prompted a dramatic slowdown of global travel, upended financial markets, and raised questions about President Donald Trump’s ability to lead the nation through a prolonged period of uncertainty.Just two Democrats — former vice president Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders — remain to make the case that they are best-positioned to challenge Trump in November. Five other candidates who joined them on stage in the Feb. 25 debate in South Carolina have dropped out, with many rallying behind Biden’s surging candidacy.For both Biden and Sanders, the debate is a moment to display their leadership skills in front of what could be one of the largest audiences of the primary. They’ll aim to draw a contrast with Trump, but also with each other, arguing that they have the right experience, temperament and policy prescriptions to lead the nation through a crisis.“Moments like these don’t come around often in campaigns and this is a perfect opportunity to show millions that you have what it takes,” said Robert Gibbs, former White House press secretary and campaign adviser to President Barack Obama. “They must show voters they are the answer to what is missing right now by being calm, honest, ready to lead and empathetic.”The coronavirus crisis rapidly upended plans for Sunday’s debate. First, the Democratic National Committee announced that it would hold the contest without a live audience. Then the debate was moved from a large venue in Arizona, one of the states holding a primary Tuesday, to a television studio in Washington because of concerns about cross-country travel. One of the moderators had to withdraw because of potential exposure to a person who tested positive for coronavirus.It is Biden who will step on stage as the front-runner, a distinction that seemed unlikely just a few weeks ago. After disappointing showings in the early contests, Biden roared back with a commanding victory in South Carolina and has continued to rack up wins across the country, winning broad and diverse coalitions of voters. Moderate Democratic leaders, including former rivals Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg, have rallied behind his candidacy and voters have done the same.Advisers say Biden will aim in Sunday’s debate to show voters who backed Sanders or other liberal candidates that they have a home in his campaign. In one overture to liberals, Biden announced his support for a bankruptcy plan championed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who ended her campaign earlier this month and has yet to endorse.In a virtual town hall on Friday, Biden said his support for Warren’s proposal, which aims to simplify the bankruptcy process, is “one of the things that I think Bernie and I will agree on.”Biden holds a solid lead over Sanders in the all-important delegate race, and a strong showing in Tuesday’s primary contests could effectively guarantee his nomination. Four big states will be up for grabs: Illinois, Ohio, Arizona and Florida, a perennial general election battleground where Biden appears to have an edge over Sanders.After a strong start, the race has moved rapidly away from Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist with a loyal following among young voters and liberals. But he’s failed to expand his appeal, particularly among black voters, and his calls for a sweeping political and economic revolution have also fallen flat with suburban voters.Sanders is facing some pressure from within the Democratic Party to step aside and allow Biden take Trump on one-on-one. Several Democratic groups that were waiting to endorse until after the primary have consolidated around Biden, including super PAC Priorities USA.Sanders’ advisers say he is a realist about his current standing and the difficulty of the path ahead. Yet the senator is pledging to grill Biden in Sunday’s debate on his plans for tackling college debt, for his past support of the Iraq war and for his backing of multilateral trade agreements.“I’m going to ask Joe Biden, I mean Joe is part of the establishment for a very long time, ‘Joe, what role have you played in trying to make sure that we end this massive level of income and wealth inequality where three people own more wealth than the bottom half of America?” Sanders said Saturday during an online “fireside chat” with supporters.Yet it’s unclear if the issues Sanders is aiming to highlight will resonate with voters at a time when much of the nation’s focus has shifted to the growing toll of the coronavirus and put a spotlight on the need for presidential leadership. Schools and businesses across the country are closed, and many hospitals and clinics are struggling to obtain tests for the coronavirus.For Biden, the outbreak of a global pandemic has been a moment to bolster the central argument of his candidacy: that his eight years as vice president give him the experience, as well as the relationships in Washington and around the world, that are needed in the Oval Office during turbulent times.With campaign rallies halted because of warnings against large gatherings, Biden delivered a speech in front of reporters and advisers on his proposal for combating coronavirus, including guaranteeing free testing. Sanders’ later announced his own speech, which focused largely on advocating for his call to overhaul the nation’s health insurance system and replace it with a Medicare for All program.After Sunday’s debate, it’s unclear where the candidates and the campaign go from here. Neither Biden or Sanders has announced any public rallies for next week or given any indication of when they may be able to appear in person for voters again.
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It took 15 minutes for the coronavirus to wreck Shelley Hutchings’ carefully calculated financial plans.Hutchings, a bartender and performer, had lined up gigs in advance of the South by Southwest film, music and technology festival, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to Austin each year. She’d expected to earn about $3,000 — enough to pay her taxes and buy a new sewing machine for a tailoring business she runs.Relaxed, she sat down to watch a movie. Then her phone started vibrating. Cancellations rolled in. One by one, the jobs she’s been counting on were gone. In the face of the spreading coronavirus outbreak, Austin officials had called off the festival just as the first attendees had begun to arrive.”In 15 minutes, things fell apart,” Hutchings said. “To watch it vanish, all at once, was shocking.”As Hutchings and hundreds of millions of Americans can attest, damage from the coronavirus has pummeled the U.S. economy with breathtaking speed and force. Hour by hour, day by day, the activities that households take part in and spend money on — plane trips, sporting events, movies, concerts, restaurant meals, shopping trips for clothes, furniture, appliances — are grinding to a halt.And so, it seems, is the U.S. economy.Just a month ago, experts had expected any severe economic pain from the outbreak to be confined mainly to Asia and Europe. The U.S. economy, enjoying a record-breaking 11-year-long expansion, would likely keep cruising, it was thought — a bit bruised but not seriously damaged.Now, forecasters can’t downgrade their outlook for the American economy fast enough.”The expansion is under threat,” said Philipp Carlsson-Szlezak, chief economist at the Boston Consulting Group. “There’s a very plausible risk this will amount to a recession.”On Wednesday, Wells Fargo Securities had predicted a slight drop in the nation’s gross domestic product — the broadest measure of economic output — in the April-June quarter. The next day, as the American stock market endured its deepest plunge since 1987, Wells Fargo economist Jay Bryson wrote that it was “painfully obvious that we need to rethink this forecast” and further downgrade the outlook. How did the picture darken so sharply, so quickly? The speed of the virus’ spread appeared to surprise economists as it hopscotched to 117 countries, including the United States, infecting a documented total of roughly 150,000 people worldwide and killing more than 5,500. And what health experts agree was the U.S. government’s fumbling early response to the crisis has undermined the confidence of consumers, investors and businesses. Anxieties have escalated.U.S. officials are bracing for a dramatic acceleration of cases — beyond the roughly 2,200 that have been documented so far in 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.For most people, the coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, like fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. The vast majority of people recover. According to the World Health Organization, people with mild illness recover in about two weeks, while those with more severe illness may take three to six weeks to recover.Yet as the gravity of the crisis had seeped into public consciousness, suddenly everyone is shrinking from public gatherings of any real size for fear of contracting the virus, and organizers can’t call off events fast enough.The NBA and the NHL suspended the rest of their seasons. The NCAA dropped its wildly popular March Madness basketball tournament. Broadway is closed. St. Patrick’s Day parades are scrubbed. Hunkered down at home, Americans are leaving restaurants empty, hotels vacant and jetliners unoccupied.The danger to the U.S. economy stems from a fundamental reality: Consumers drive roughly 70 percent of growth. When spending halts, the economy can’t grow. And while online shopping will likely surge as people sequester themselves at home, such purchases still account for just a small fraction of overall consumer spending. “The economy is doomed to recession if the country stops working and takes the next 30 days off,” Chris Rupkey, chief economist at MUFG Union Bank, wrote in a research note this week.Compounding the threat, the very measures that are required to contain the outbreak — quarantines, reduced travel, an avoidance of crowds and gatherings — are sure to stifle economic activity. The resulting slowdown across the globe has undercut the price of oil, intensifying pressure on energy producers and likely reducing business investment. And many U.S. companies, especially in the airline and energy industries, are heavily indebted and might have to respond to financial pressures by cutting expenses — including jobs.Despite rebounding Friday on President Donald Trump’s declaration of a national emergency to try to help stem the health crisis, the stock market remains in a bear market — the Dow Jones Industrial Average has shed nearly 22% in just a month — which stands to further dim the confidence of consumers. Investors whose stock market wealth shrinks typically become less likely to spend much.”You can take to the bank that we’re going to have negative growth in the second quarter,” said Nathan Sheets, chief economist at PGIM Fixed Income.Recessions are defined informally as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction. It isn’t yet clear whether the coronavirus inflicted enough economic damage from January to March to turn GDP negative for the quarter or how deeply the harm will spread into the April-June quarter. “It’s pretty close now to a 50-50 proposition as to whether we see two quarters of negative growth,” Sheets said. “Even if that condition is not technically satisfied, it’s going to feel pretty bad. It’s going to feel recessionary.”Officially, the U.S. unemployment rate remains just 3.5%, a half century low. During the Great Recession of 2007-2009, companies responded to a deteriorating economy by aggressively slashing jobs. This time, Sheets suspects that most of them will hold off on layoffs in hopes that the virus and its economic damage will subside in just a few months. If, however, many companies across the country were to cut jobs, the blow to the economy would worsen. In addition, the slowdowns in Asia and Europe, which are closely intertwined with the U.S. economy, are sure to weaken growth in the United States.Intervention by the Federal Reserve, by slashing interest rates, and Congress, by moving toward approving financial aid to people affected by the crisis, could help mitigate the economic hardship. So would a relatively swift containment of the virus.For now, though, the uncertainty is distressing businesses across the country. When Austin’s South by Southwest gathering was canceled, Brent Underwood’s 20-bed hostel lost about 20% of its annual income.”I’m not sure how we’ll keep our employees,” Underwood said. “I’m not sure how we’ll keep our manager of four years. I’m not sure how we’ll keep the business open.” Normally, the hostel also receives bookings from people attending events at the University of Texas, and in the fall, from the annual Austin City Limits music festival. Underwood fears his income will suffer further if the university’s graduation and the festival are canceled. He would like to cut expenses. But most of his costs are fixed, including a property tax bill due this month.Andy Cooley has already had to cut the hours of three of the six workers at his printing company, Central Press in Millbrook, New York, because the foundations, hospitals and schools that are some of his major customers are canceling events. He’s lost orders for printing invitations and programs.”Earlier today, I received a call cancelling all printing related to a fundraiser happening in May,” Cooley said. “I understand they have to do what they have to do, but the ripple effect is exactly that — we all feel the effect.”Economists say the U.S. economy has never faced a moment quite like this one. The 9/11 terrorist attacks 19 years ago, devastating as it was, caused only a short-lived downturn. And it presented consumers with starkly different challenge: “Then the patriotic thing was go out and spend,” said Louise Sheiner, policy director for the Brookings Institution’s center on fiscal and monetary policy and a former Federal Reserve economist. “Now, the patriotic thing to do is not go out… It’s like something we’ve never seen.”Thomas Grech, CEO of the Queens Chamber of Commerce in New York, urged residents who aren’t quarantined to patronize neighborhood restaurants and corner stores.”You’ve got to eat,” Grech said. “Keep these guys alive because my fear is, if they close, they may not reopen.”
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