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Before he abruptly took up residence in Florida, Donald TrumpDonald John TrumpDefense industrial base workers belong at home during this public health crisis Maduro pushes back on DOJ charges, calls Trump 'racist cowboy' House leaders hope to vote Friday on coronavirus stimulus MORE was a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker. He was born and grew up in the bedroom community of Jamaica Estates, Queens. New Yorkers think of Queens as a low- to middle-income melting pot community with blacks as well as Latinos, Indians and other foreign-born people comprising its swelling populations. When Donald Trump was young, Jamaica Estates was more monolithic. It was then almost exclusively white. Minorities, Italians, Jews and people of color would have had difficulty purchasing homes.

Donald Trump doesnt seem to like New York anymore. Its not where his votes are. He has trashed New York as a high-tax state, blamed it for being hot with disease, a haven for undocumented immigrants and a sanctuary city protecting immigrants from the wrath of family-separating ICE agents.

Trump hates New York so much that he eliminated the federal tax deduction for paid New York State and City taxes that Republican Sen. Al DAmato once fought so hard to leave in place. As a result, the state comptroller says New York gave the federal government $26.6 billion more than it got back. Incongruously, it stands last in line for federal benefits.

Trumps seminal roots are in New York. Trumps father, Fred C. Trump, to whom Donald owes his fortune, started a garage-building business, which morphed in the 1920s into single-family row houses principally in Brooklyn and Queens. As World War II loomed, Fred Trump procured government contracts for apartments and barracks for servicemen. After the war he constructed 27,000 FHA subsidized apartments in Brooklyn and Queens from which Donald Trump derives income to this day. Trumps father was successful beyond fantasy and passed on to his children $1 billion tax-free.

Trumps children were educated in New York. His mother, Mary MacLeod Trump, an immigrant from Scotland, is buried beside her husband and Trumps older brother in Middle Village, Queens.

For Trump, it all happened in New York. The monument to his auto-deification, Trump Tower at Fifth Avenue and East 54th Street, was built in the 1980s at the epicenter of Manhattan, now the national epicenter of the coronavirus. On the debit side of the ledger, New York also was the site of his many business failures. And, when Trump went down, he allegedly left some of his New York creditors hanging.

Today, New York is in coronavirus crisis and desperately needs federal help. The figures have become painfully familiar. At last report, more than 30,000 COVID-19 cases have sprawled across the state, accounting for more than half of all confirmed cases in the country. New York City may have to close parks, playgrounds and some streets to reduce density. Serious stuff.

According to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who gets high marks from many for his leadership in this crisis, the states hospitalization rate is moving faster than initial estimates, and health officials project that 140,000 people will be hospitalized over the next 14 to 21 days. The state previously said it would need 110,000 beds for COVID-19 patients by early to mid-May. Elmhurst Hospital Center, a 545-bed public hospital in Queens located only eight miles from Jamaica Estates, Trumps childhood home, is becoming exclusively a COVID-19 facility. The situation there smacks of the macabre. In a recent 24-hour period, 13 people perished at Elmhurst, some in the emergency room while waiting for assignment to a bed. A refrigerated truck waits outside to receive the bodies of the dead. A resident physician declared, Its apocalyptic.

The U.S. Senate passed a $2 trillion bail-out bill that, according to Cuomo, would really be terrible for the State of New York. Only $3.8 billion, or possibly less, would go to New York, with only $1.4 billion headed for New York City. Sounds like big bucks but That is a drop in the bucket compared with what New Yorkers need, Cuomo argues. How do you plug a $15 billion hole with $3.8 billion? You dont.

New York has on hand 30,000 ventilators short of what will be required. Ventilators are essential to save the lives of the afflicted. I always understood Trump and his followers to be pro-life but I guess the doctrine applies only when fetal life is threatened by abortion clinics. New York is short on surgical masks and protective equipment, so health care providers may be at heightened risk of getting sick. The strategic national reserve may have masks but they are reportedly falling apart because of worn elasticity. FEMA said it would send the state 400, and Vice President Pence later said he would send 4,000 from the stockpile. Its a joke. None of this is enough to save the lives in peril.

A friend in a position to know told me that a large hospital in New York, where beds might be available for coronavirus patients, has a paucity of masks and gowns. The private sector is producing masks, but delivery will be delayed until as early as summer. There is a supply of masks available from China, but the center of production is the very province where the pandemic originated. There is clearly a role for the federal government.

Without equipment, untold numbers of New Yorkers will die effectively untreated in makeshift field hospitals. Nevertheless, Trump says he is itching to re-open the country. Yet, Cuomo reminds us that the number of deadly coronavirus cases is increasing at a faster clip than had been projected, doubling every three days. The apex is higher than we thought, Cuomo said. And the apex is sooner than we thought. That is a bad combination

Trump is a recent immigrant to Florida. Did he do it to save taxes? Or did he conclude correctly that Florida is where the votes reside? Or is he thinking ahead to his legal exposure after he leaves office? Whatever the reason, why turn his back on New York to which he owes so much? King Lear had it right: How sharper than a serpents tooth to have a thankless child.

James D. Zirin, a retired partner of the Chicago-headquartered law firm of Sidley Austin, is the author of the recently published book, Plaintiff in Chief A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3,500 Lawsuits. He is a former assistant United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

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Donald Trump: New York's thankless child | TheHill - The Hill

During a White House press conference on Thursday afternoon, President Donald Trump addressed the grim projections by the National Restaurant Association that, in addition to the 3 percent of restaurants already shuttered, 11 percent of restaurants nationwide anticipate that theyll close permanently in the next 30 days due to the economic impact of novel coronavirus. His answer, characteristically bullish, was that restaurants will open and thrive again...but maybe not under the current ownership.

Citing the data from the National Restaurant Association survey, McClatchy reporter Michel Wilner asked, What do you say to a restaurant owner who is looking at his sheets and thinks he has to close within the next 30 days?

The president responded with a tangent boasting his knowledge of the restaurant industry, saying, I know the business very well, I understand the restaurant business, its a very delicate business, its a business that is not easy. I always say in the restaurant business you can serve 30 great meals to a person or a family and they love it. One bad meal, No. 31, they never come back again. Its a very tough business. But theyre great people that run restaurants.

Circling back to the original question, Trump continued, Ive heard 3 percent could be lost, and you could go as high as 10 or 11 percent, but theyll all come back in one form of another. Might be a different restaurant. But its gonna be a great business for a lot of people. Were making it easy for people look, what were doing in terms of loans, what were doing in terms of salaries, theyll all come back. It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but theyll all be back. (Emphasis ours.)

That the concept of restaurants would continue to exist after the pandemic was never really a question. The concern, rather, is that people will lose their jobs and businesses, and with that, the incomes that they circulate back into the economy. As Eaters Hillary Dixler Canavan wrote, surviving restaurants will reopen their doors to a new world of challenges, not least of which is facing a dining public likely either coming out of or in the midst of a global recession. Which doesnt bode well for these imagined new restaurants or their new ownership, either.

The freshest news from the food world every day

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Trump: Restaurants Will Survive, But It May Not Be the Same Ownership - Eater

Trump news live: Latest updates as China offers to help US tackle coronavirus | The Independent LiveUpdated Friday 27 March 2020 20:24

Donald Trump has ranted at General Motors over a delay in its production of ventilators to tackle the coronavirusoutbreak and raged at Kentucky Republican congressman Thomas Massie after he indicated he would move to delay FridaysHouse of Representativesvote on approving a $2.2trn (1.85trn) economic stimulus package.

Trump himself dismisseddemands fromgovernors for more ventilators in hospitals only last night, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity in a phone interview the equipment is unnecessary and that states shouldnt be relying on the federal government.

With the US now the global epicentre of the virus having contracted 85,000 cases and seen over 1,200 deaths, the president has received an offer of help from hisChinesecounterpartXi Jinpingas task force co-ordinator Dr Deborah Birx is accused of making fundamental scientific errors as part of the administrations rush to reopen the economy.

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

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Trump declines to invite Democratic leadership to Oval Office signing

The president is not inviting Chuck Schumer or Nancy Pelosi to the Oval Office signing of the CARE Act, CNN has reported.

Trump orders GM to make ventilators

The president has officially announced he is implementing the Defence Production Act-

Trump touts military vessel helping hospitals amid coronavirus pandemic

The president has retweeted the following video as the USNS Mercy was set to begin assisting patients who have not contracted Covid-19 but require medical work during the surge of coronavirus patients -

President says he will sign the CARE Act at 4pm

Donald Trump has posted a tweet teasing an apparent signing ceremony of the Coronavirus Aid Relief & Economic Securities bill in the Oval Office -

Donald Trump Jr shares racist meme depicting father as 'Kung Flu Kid'

New York and Los Angeles to remain closed through May

The Independent's Graig Graziosi has this report:

The mayors of New York City and Los Angeles have issued grim predictions about the coming weeks as their cities face rising numbers of residents infected with the coronavirus.

New York Mayor Mike De Blasio appeared onGood Morning America on Friday morning, suggesting the city would be shut down until the end of May and nearly half of its denizens will become infected withcoronavirus.

I think we need to be ready for that, Mr De Blasio said. Unfortunately we think its going to go through April and in to May. Its just a blunt reality.

He went on to say that more than half the people in this city will ultimately be infected.

New York governor slams Trump tweet about stockpiling

Governor Andrew Cuomo called the president's tweet 'incorrect and grossly uninformed' in an interview with CNN, adding: "It's ignorant."

Grieving parent Kevin Moran is in dispute with the state's governor, John Bel Edwards, over the precise cause of his son's death.

Gino Spocchia has this report.

The war-torn Middle Eastern state faces a crippling coronavirus outbreak of its own, of course.

Nice to see a spirit of bipartisan brotherhood blossoming in DC during this blighted spring.

As New York City struggles to cope with the surging number of Covid-19 cases, a doctor has released footage of the dire conditions inside her Queens hospital raising the alarm about the scale of the epidemic and the shortage of critical equipment needed to save lives.

Dr Colleen Smith works at Elmhurst Hospital, which this week saw 13 coronavirus-related deaths in a single day. The hospital has begun transferring out non-Covid patients to other hospitals in order to clear space for the sheer number of people arriving needing urgent treatment.

In the film, which she released to The New York Times, Dr Smith walks through a packed ICU unit, saying all the patients that you see, they all have Covid. It feels like its too little too late. We knew it was coming.

Today is kind of getting worse and worse. We had to get a refrigerated truck to store the bodies of patients who are dying. We are right now scrambling to try and get a few additional ventilators, or even CPAP machines. If we got CPAP machines, we could free up ventilators for patients who need them.

My my my, he's clearly feeling the pressure:

I wonder how long it took him to come up with that bright little witticism?

Aaand we're back to New York withholding ventilators.

New Orleans mayor says Trump made her think it was safe to go ahead with coronavirus-hit Mardi Gras

Leaders on the ground, we rely on the facts to make decisions for the people that we serve,she said, adding:In hindsight, if we were given clear direction, we would not have had Mardi Gras, and I would have been the leader to cancel it.

The president is seething at General Motors now for apparently letting him down on the delivery of a batch of ventilators he was telling Sean Hannity only last night the country's hospitals don't actuallyneed.

GM apparently no longer owns that facility and he himself cancelled an earlier deal for the devices from the company on cost grounds!

Here's Clark Mindock to clean up this hot mess.

Alabama Medal of Honour recipient Bennie Adkins, 86, has been hospitalised with coronavirus, his foundation announced on Thursday evening.

The Covid-19 pandemic has hit home, the Bennie Adkins Foundation said onFacebook. Bennie has been hospitalised and is critically ill with Covid-19 respiratory failure. We ask for your thoughts and prayers.

Adkins, a retired command sergeant major, received his medal from Barack Obamain September 2014 in tribute to his service during the Vietnam War.

He was first drafted into the Army in 1956 and went on to serve with the Special Forces for 13 years,complete three tours in Vietnam.

You can read a moreextensive account of his illustrious career over at Army Times.

Get well soon sir.

As the US overtook China and Italy to become the worst hit country in the world by coronavirus, the president's eldest sonwas busy posting racist memes on social media because what else is new?

You can see it via the tweet below, if you feel you must:

Don Jr also badly undermined his old man's attempt to reset relations with China last night in a separate but equally dumb and unwelcome tweet:

An ABC News/Washington Post poll released on Friday reports that 51 per cent of Americans take a favourable view of the president's response to the coronavirus disaster.

Evidentally more people need to watch this:

The big man is pleased though and has been crowing abour it on Twitter just now:

Uh oh. I do not like where this conversation is going...

Here's Andrew Feinberg with the word from Capitol Hill.

Its worse than 9/11, its worse than Pearl Harbor," one official told him."[Trump] had the information and he ignored it because he saw the measures they were recommending at the time [when] Singapore and South Korea got the virus and he didnt want to do that because it was going to hurt the economy. But by waiting he hurt the economy more and made more people from this disease.

As we touched on earlier, GOP congressman Thomas Massie has said he is considering voting against the stimulus package in the House today on idealogical grounds.

Trump does not like that, and uses his first tweets of the day to label him "a third rate Grandstander", repeating a new favourite insult also served up to AOC yesterday.

Oh look, there's more.

Here's Oliver O'Connell with a full report on Massie.

No hype, just the advice and analysis you need

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Trump news live: President succumbs to pressure to invoke emergency powers ahead of White House coronavirus update - The Independent

This may be the scariest news conference about the coronavirus to date, because Donald Trump has all but said he is going to do what he can to break the mandatory quarantines and get people back to work, and he says it will happen "quickly."

His statement flies in the face of people who have devoted their lives to infectious diseases -- like Dr. Anthony Fauci -- who has said the virus and not people [politicians] set the timeline.

Trump said later in his news conference when he first learned of the disease, he thought the death toll would be way higher than it is. Yay?

And, there's this ... he said when people go back to work, they can still practice as much social distancing as possible. This suggests at times, we all have to come in close contact ... which is probably true and almost certainly dangerous.

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Donald Trump Says We Have to Get Back to Work ... Quick - TMZ

An NPR station in Seattle said that it no longer will carry live coverage of President Donald Trumps coronavirus briefings because of concerns that they feature unchecked misleading or false information.

KUOW is monitoring White House briefings for the latest news on the coronavirus and we will continue to share all news relevant to Washington State with our listeners, the station tweeted. However, we will not be airing the briefings live due to a pattern of false or misleading information provided that cannot be fact checked in real time.

Most recently, Trump has called for lifting of social distancing guidelines in the near future, perhaps by Easter, even though public health professionals are still grappling with the spread of the virus. He also has made false claims about the availability of tests, the timeline for finding a vaccine and the potential benefits of a treatment that includes the ingredient chloroquine. While there is some promising study of its potential use, it has not it has not been approved for treatment. NBC News reported on one Arizona man who died after ingesting chloroquine phosphate, and his wife said that they learned about its use after watching a briefing. The chloroquine they used was part of a product use to clean fish tanks, not for medical purposes.

The news networks have been covering the briefings live, but CNN and MSNBC cut away from them on Monday, as the event stretched beyond an hour.

Related StoryCoronavirus In L.A. County: Beaches, Piers, Trails & Bike Paths Closed; Five More Deaths In 24 Hours - Update

Deputy White House Press Secretary Judd Deere criticized the channels for the decision asdisgraceful, but an MSNBC spokesperson said that after airing the press conference for over an hour we cut away because the information no longer appeared to be valuable to the important ongoing discussion around public health. A spokeswoman for CNN said, If the White House wants to ask for time on the network, they should make an official request. Otherwise we will make our own editorial decisions.

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Seattle NPR Station Says It Will No Longer Carry Donald Trumps Coronavirus Briefings Live Because Of Misinformation - Deadline