Reuters US Domestic News Summary

Following is a summary of current US domestic news briefs. Michigan governor extends state shutdown through April

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer on Thursday extended through April 30 the stay-at-home order she has in place in the state to slow the spread of the coronavirus. The executive order she signed limits gatherings and travel, and requires all workers who are not necessary to protect life to stay at home, while imposing more stringent limitations on stores to reduce foot traffic. New York City hires laborers to bury dead in Hart Island potter's field amid coronavirus surge

New York City officials have hired contract laborers to bury the dead in its potter's field on Hart Island as the city's daily death rate from the coronavirus epidemic has reached grim new records in each of the last three days. The city has used Hart Island to bury New Yorkers with no known next of kin or whose family are unable to arrange a funeral since the 19th century. Taco Bell mandates employee temperature checks, contactless payments at U.S. outlets

Taco Bell said on Thursday it was implementing temperature checks and contactless payments among other measures across U.S. restaurants over the next month, as it looks to address safety concerns among workers laboring through the coronavirus crisis. The company said it would require all employees in U.S. restaurants to wear gloves and masks or coverings mandated by local authorities. Exclusive: Michael Cohen, Trump's former lawyer, in solitary confinement

Michael Cohen, U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, has been placed in solitary confinement at a federal prison in New York state where he is serving time for violating campaign finance laws, according to his lawyer and two sources familiar with the matter. Cohen, 53, was transferred on Wednesday to a Special Housing Unit at Otisville Federal Correctional Institution, a disciplinary section of the prison, the sources said. U.S. coronavirus deaths top 15,000: Reuters tally

U.S. deaths due to coronavirus topped 15,700 on Thursday, according to a Reuters tally, although there are signs the pandemic might be nearing a peak. U.S. officials warned Americans to expect alarming numbers of coronavirus deaths this week, even as an influential university model on Wednesday scaled back its projected U.S. pandemic death toll by 26% to 60,000. 'You can't relax': Vigilance urged as New York sees signs of coronavirus progress

Americans must resist the impulse to ease social-separation measures at the first glimpse of progress now being seen in the coronavirus battle, state government and public health leaders warned on Thursday, as the U.S. death toll surpassed 16,500. Calls for heightened vigilance, countering talk from the Trump administration of reopening the economy next month, came as new evidence emerged that stay-at-home restrictions were working to flatten the arc of infections in New York state, the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic. New York sees drop in new hospitalizations, deaths keep rising

New York state saw a sharp drop in the number of people newly admitted to a hospital in the past 24 hours to the lowest level since the coronavirus outbreak began, a sign that social distancing steps were working, Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Thursday. But Cuomo also disclosed that the number of deaths increased to 799 on Wednesday, a record high for a third day, and talked about a growing economic toll on the state that he said far exceeded the impact of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Sign of the times: Mile-long line of cars outside California grocery giveaway

A pop-up food pantry in Southern California on Thursday drew so many people that the line of cars waiting for free groceries stretched about a mile (1.6 km), a haunting sign of how the coronavirus pandemic has hurt the working poor. Hundreds of other people, many wearing trash bags to shelter from the rain, arrived at the one-day grocery giveaway on foot, forming a blocks-long queue in Van Nuys, in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles. U.S. SEC settles with two traders over hack of its EDGAR filing system

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday it had settled with two traders who allegedly profited from hacking into its EDGAR electronic filing system by stealing files containing non-public earnings results and then trading on the information before it was made public. The traders, David Kwon and Igor Sabodakh, have consented to final judgments and to disgorge their profits as well as pay prejudgment interest in a settlement yet to be approved by a court. Sabodakh has also agreed to pay a fine, the SEC said. Trump family loses bid to move marketing scam lawsuit to arbitration

A federal judge in Manhattan rejected an effort by U.S. President Donald Trump and his adult children to send a lawsuit accusing them of exploiting their family name to promote a marketing scam into arbitration. In a Wednesday night decision concerning the American Communications Network, U.S. District Judge Lorna Schofield accused the Trumps of acting unfairly by seeking arbitration after first obtaining "the benefits of litigating in federal court," including the dismissal of a racketeering claim.

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