The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that 860,000 workers filed for unemployment compensation last week, a slight improvement from the week before but an indication that the coronavirus pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the American economy.   
 
Millions of workers remain unemployed in the United States, with the unemployment rate at 8.6% in early September, and economists saying the jobless figure could remain elevated for months. Only about half of the 22 million U.S. jobs lost in the pandemic have been recovered, with the world’s biggest economy adding 1.4 million jobs in August.  
 
Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits seemed to have stabilized somewhat below 900,000 in recent weeks. Last week’s 860,000 figure was down 33,000 from the week before.  
 
The recent weekly claims figures are well below the 6.9 million record number of claims filed in late March as the coronavirus swept into the United States but remain above the highest level before this year in records going back to the 1960s. 
 A ‘NOW HIRING’ is shown on the door of Padeli’s Street Greek restaurant, Sept. 10, 2020, in Salt Lake City.U.S. employers have called back millions of workers who were laid off during mandatory business shutdowns earlier this year, yet some hard-hit businesses have been slow to ramp up their operations again or have closed permanently, leaving workers idled or searching for new employment.  
 
In politically fractious Washington seven weeks from November’s presidential and congressional elections, President Donald Trump and Republican and Democratic lawmakers have been unable to reach an agreement on extending federal unemployment benefits and how much should be paid.  FILE – Motorists take part in a caravan protest asking for the extension of the $600 in unemployment benefits to people out of work because of the coronavirus in New Orleans, La., July 22, 2020.Until the end of July, the national government sent an extra $600 a week to unemployed workers on top of less generous state jobless benefits. The Republican-controlled Senate a week ago tried to win approval of $300-a-week payments through the end of the year, but Democrats blocked the proposal as too small and have continued to call for resumption of the $600 weekly payments.  
 
The rejected Republican coronavirus relief package would have cost between $500 billion and $700 billion, on top of the $3 trillion approved months ago at the height of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S. 
 
On Wednesday, Trump went against his Republican colleagues in Congress and urged them approve more spending in another coronavirus aid deal. He said on Twitter, “Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).” Democrats are “heartless”. They don’t want to give STIMULUS PAYMENTS to people who desperately need the money, and whose fault it was NOT that the plague came in from China. Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!).— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2020 
The top two congressional Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, praised Trump’s stance. 
 
“We look forward to hearing from the president’s negotiators that they will finally meet us halfway with a bill that is equal to the massive health and economic crises gripping our nation,” Pelosi and Schumer said.  FILE – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., joined by Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of N.Y., speaks during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 6, 2020.“By the end of the week, 200,000 Americans will have died from the coronavirus,” they said. “The lives and livelihoods of the American people depend on Republicans abandoning their obsession with doing as little as possible while the coronavirus rages through our nation.” 
 
Democrats have called for a $2.2 trillion relief package, but possibly could settle for less than that. Whatever figure, if any, is agreed on is likely to come in the next two weeks. Lawmakers want to leave Washington soon to return to their home states for a month of campaigning for re-election ahead of the November 3 presidential and congressional elections.  
 FILE – U.S. President Donald Trump shows signed executive orders for economic relief during a news conference amid the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), at his golf resort in Bedminster, New Jersey, Aug. 8, 2020.As the first round of unemployment payments expired in July, Trump signed an executive order calling for $400 a week in extra payments for a few weeks. But not all states delivered the reduced payments to jobless workers, and now that money is running out.  
 
The coronavirus pandemic has now killed nearly 197,000 people in the United States, according to Johns Hopkins University figures, and caused the economy to plummet.   
 
While the U.S. has been adding more jobs in recent months, the pace of the recovery seemed to slow as a second wave of coronavirus infections in the U.S. surged in June and rose still more by mid-July, forcing employers to close their businesses again.   
 
The 1.4 million jobs added in August includes the Census Bureau’s temporary hiring of about 240,000 workers to help conduct the once-a-decade count of the U.S. population.    
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The smoke from dozens of wildfires in the western United States is stretching clear across the country – and even pushing into Mexico, Canada and Europe. While the dangerous plumes are forcing people indoors along the West Coast, residents thousands of kilometers away in the East are seeing unusually hazy skies and remarkable sunsets.The wildfires racing across tinder-dry landscape in California, Idaho, Oregon and Washington are extraordinary, but the long reach of their smoke isn’t unprecedented. While there are only small pockets in the southeastern U.S. that are haze free, experts say the smoke poses less of a health concern for those who are farther away.The sun was transformed into a perfect orange orb as it set over New York City on Tuesday. Photographs of it sinking behind the skyline and glinting through tree leaves flooded social media. On Wednesday, New Jersey residents described a yellow tinge to the overcast skies, and weather forecasters were kept busy explaining the phenomenon and making predictions as to how long the conditions would last.Fire crews still workingOn the opposite coast, air quality conditions were among the worst ever recorded. Smoke cloaked the Golden Gate Bridge and left Portland and Seattle in an ashy fog, as crews have exhausted themselves trying to keep the flames from consuming more homes and even wider swaths of forest.Satellite images showed that smoke from the wildfires has traveled almost 8,000 kilometers to Britain and other parts of northern Europe, scientists said Wednesday.A runner descends a trail on Pilot Butte, a lava dome overlooking the city of Bend, Ore., Sept. 15, 2020. Wildfires have created hazardous air quality in Bend and other cities across the U.S. West.Westerly winds, up highThe current weather system, which favors a westerly wind across the higher levels of the atmosphere, is to blame for the reach of the smoke, experts explained.”We always seem, at times, to get the right combination of enough smoke and the upper-level jet stream to line up to bring that across the country, so we’re just seeing this again,” said Matt Solum with the National Weather Service’s regional operations center in Salt Lake City, Utah. “It’s definitely not the first time this has happened.”There could be some easing of the haze this weekend as a storm system is expected to move into the Pacific Northwest and could affect the conditions that helped the smoke travel across the country. But Solum said there’s always a chance for more smoke and haze to shift around.”Just due to all the wildfires that are going on, this is likely going to continue for a while,” he said. “You might have ebbs and flows of that smoke, just depending on how the upper-level winds set up.”Making health problems worseKim Knowlton, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City, said she woke up Wednesday to a red sunrise and more haze.She said millions of people who live beyond the flames can end up dealing with diminished air quality, as it’s not uncommon for wildfire smoke to travel hundreds of miles.Although the health impacts are reduced the farther and higher into the atmosphere the smoke travels, Knowlton and her colleagues said the resulting haze can exacerbate existing problems such as asthma and add to ozone pollution.
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The United States vowed to assert a “snapback” of all prior international sanctions on Iran, effective 8 p.m. Eastern Time on September 19, with more announcements to be made this weekend and next week as to exactly how Washington is planning to enforce the “returned U.N. sanctions.”“We will return to the United Nations to reimpose sanctions so that the arms embargo will become permanent next week,” said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo Wednesday during a joint press conference with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab.“I think we absolutely agree that Iran must never be — never be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon,” said Raab. “We also, I think, share the view that the diplomatic door is open to Iran to negotiate a peaceful way forward. That decision, that choice is there for the leadership in Tehran to take.” He stopped short of saying whether or not and how Britain will implement the snapback sanctions.Britain, France and Germany, the so-called E3, said in August that they cannot support the U.S. move to restore U.N. sanctions on Iran, saying the action is incompatible with efforts to support the Iran nuclear deal.U.S. special envoy for Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, Aug. 4, 2020.“Whether those countries will in fact ignore the U.N. sanctions [under U.N. Security Council resolution 2231] remains to be seen,” U.S. special envoy for Iran and Venezuela Elliott Abrams told reporters in a Wednesday phone briefing. He added the E3 and other European countries had told Washington that they don’t want the Iran arms embargo to end, but they were unable to take any action that kept the UN arms embargo in place.Abrams said the returned sanctions include “a ban on Iran engaging in enrichment and reprocessing-related activities, the prohibition on ballistic missile testing and development, and sanctions on the transfer of nuclear and missile-related technologies to Iran.”U.S. officials warn that an Iran free from restrictions would lead to further regional destabilization, intensified conflicts and a regional arms race.Iranian armed forces members march in a military parade in Tehran, Sept. 22, 2018.The U.S. tried but failed on August 14 to extend an expiring arms embargo against Iran through a resolution at the United Nations Security Council.The embargo against the sale or transfer to or from Iran of conventional weapons is set to expire on October 18, under the 2015 nuclear deal, known formally as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).With the extension blocked, Washington saw triggering a snapback of U.N. sanctions under Security Council Resolution 2231, which implemented the Iran nuclear agreement, as the only path for restoring the arms embargo.As the U.S. prepares to snap back sanctions against Iran this weekend, E3 nations are largely seen as likely to ignore them. Some experts said there would be a limited impact on European economies, unless the U.S. punishes those nations with secondary sanctions.“The immediate U.S. goal in trying to re-impose sanctions is to prevent the end of the U.N. arms embargo in mid-October. But even if the Europeans recognize the U.N. embargo ends next month, British and EU companies are not going to start selling tanks to Tehran. The U.S. expects Chinese and firms to look for arms deals, and they will probably sanction those companies bilaterally. But that doesn’t bother the Europeans very much,” said Richard Gowan, U.N. director of International Crisis Group (ICG).“Overall, the U.S. has realized that this is not a useful fight to pursue,” Gowan told VOA on Wednesday. “Equally, E3 diplomats say that they would prefer to avoid a big public row over snapback too, to limit the harm to relations with Washington.”Under the JCPOA concluded on July 14, 2015, the five permanent U.N. Security Council members, plus Germany, agreed with Iran to gradually lift international sanctions in return for limits on Tehran’s nuclear activities, to prevent it from making a nuclear bomb. It also opened Iran’s markets back up to many foreign investors.The United States withdrew from the deal in May 2018, re-imposing unilateral sanctions on Iran. In response, Tehran resumed some of its nuclear activities, and in July 2019, it breached the deal by exceeding limits on both uranium enrichment and stockpile levels. Iran denies that its nuclear activities are for military purposes. 
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