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Despite the U.S. economy reeling from an unprecedented unemployment crisis, the collective wealth of the nation’s billionaires jumped by $931 billion, almost a third, since March, according to a new report. The total net worth of America’s 644 billionaires climbed from $2.95 trillion on March 18 to $3.88 trillion on October 13, Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF) and the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) found. This represented a 31.6 percent rise based on Forbes billionaires data....

The U.S players slept. After an overnight plane ride back from Natal that landed here at 3:30 a.m., they did not bounce out of bed and commence reliving the glorious moments from the night before. Clint Dempsey’s faster-than-Edwin Moses goal? Geoff Cameron’s stature at the center of the defense? Fabian Johnson fighting like Rocky to earn that vital corner kick? The improbable heroism of substitute defender John Anthony Brooks, whose headed goal gave the United States a tie-breaking victory to open play in the Group of Death?...

New York has the highest state death count in the country, followed by New Jersey (2,805 fatalities), Michigan (1,768), Louisiana (1,013) and Massachusetts (957). New York continues to see hundreds die from the virus every day, including 778 on Monday, Governor Andrew Cuomo confirmed at a press conference on Tuesday. Easter Sunday saw 671 new fatalities, which was “not as bad as it has been in the past,” Cuomo noted on Monday....

The number of new cases are rising in some U.S. states, including Texas, Arizona and Tennessee, according to analysis by The New York Times. But other states, including New Jersey, Florida and Connecticut, appear to be past the peak of the outbreak and are seeing a drop in the number of new cases each day. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy referenced the encouraging signs in an update posted to his Facebook page on Saturday night, but said his state was still losing “too many residents” to the virus....

Carstens, who is the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs and the government’s top hostage negotiator, took a chartered flight Tuesday to Caracas and returned Friday. Four people who knew of the visit said Carstens was able to visit the six executives, Tomeu Vadell, Jose Luis Zambrano, Alirio Zambrano, Jorge Toledo, Gustavo Cardenas, and José Pereira, who are held at El Helicoide prison, an infamous Caracas prison that was once a shopping mall....

With nearly two million cases confirmed globally, the U.S. is home to more than 30 percent of the total number of infections in the world. The country is the epicenter of the outbreak, with nearly three times as many cases as there are in Spain and Italy, which each have around 162,400 to 174,000 infections to date. New York has the largest portion of cases in the U.S., with at least 202,208 infections, including 10,834 deaths, as of Wednesday, according to the latest figures from the New York State Department of Health....

May saw 559,000 new jobs, well above the 278,000 added by employers in April, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The rise in job postings coincides with a rising demand for workers after the economy’s annual growth rate hit 6.4 percent last quarter. The unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent from 6.1 percent, the Associated Press reported. Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll company ADP, said that May’s job growth was “more lackluster” than what was expected, “given the strong state of economic growth....

U.S. Army Europe’s 41st Field Artillery Battalion began deploying a battery of multiple launch rocket systems Tuesday near Estonia’s village of Tapa to conduct training exercises as part of Operation Rail Rush. The drill, held jointly by about 70 personnel from U.S. Army 1st Battalion, 6th Field Artillery Regiment and Estonian Defense Forces’ 1st Infantry Brigade, is the U.S. battalion’s first outside of Germany and caught international attention. Hours after U....

The latest U.S. move comes amid tensions over American support for anti-Beijing protesters in Hong Kong, China’s oppression of Muslim residents in the western province of Xinjiang, and President Donald Trump’s ongoing trade war. The Senate’s TAIPEI Act, passed unanimously on Tuesday, directs the State Department to report to Congress periodically on American actions “to affirm and strengthen Taiwan’s international alliances around the world.” It also authorizes the department to adjust U....

On Thursday, the course was a thundercloud. On Friday, it was a swamp. Two full days’ worth of sunshine and heat have a way of fixing things, though, and there’s another on the way, so unless there’s a tie atop the leaderboard tonight, we’ll know who won right around the time Cavs-Warriors tips off. MORE: Live scores and leaderboard from Oakmont So, until then, kill some time and watch some golf....

NBER’s Business Cycle Dating Committee determined the recession’s end as April 2020 because that is when it said jobs and output were the lowest for the economy. The committee said the economy began rebounding in May 2020 as the pandemic’s recession is the shortest on record, the Associated Press reported. “In determining that a trough occurred in April 2020, the committee did not conclude that the economy has returned to operating at normal capacity,” the committee’s announcement said....

Asked on Thursday if U.S. officials had discussed with their Ukrainian counterparts the potential of Kyiv offering partial autonomy to the eastern Donbas region currently under the control of Russia-aligned rebels in an effort to de-escalate tensions with Moscow, a State Department official stated shortly after Biden’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that “there have been absolutely no deals cut, or concessions made, or even discussed.” “The President was very clear about his commitment to our core principles,” the State Department spokesperson said of the Tuesday call with the Russian leader....

The fight against COVID-19 is a tale of two worlds. In the United States, case counts have plummeted to the lowest level since March 2020, thanks to plentiful vaccines. Well over half the population has now received at least one vaccine dose. Meanwhile, cases are soaring in India, where only 18 percent of the population has received at least one dose. The world’s largest democracy is still recording roughly 50,000 daily infections, down from a May peak of approximately 400,000 daily cases but still much too high....

Online flight trackers recorded the apparent movements of a U.S. Air Force plane that probed the South China Sea ahead of a series of intensive live-fire exercises involving the People’s Liberation Army. A Chinese state media pundit said the PLA drills were likely in preparation for a conflict with the United States over the island of Taiwan. According to the South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative, a Peking University think tank tracking U....

Only these had nothing to do with numbers. MORE: Leaderboard | Li’s patriotic outfit Stacy Lewis found comfort in comparisons with U.S. Open champion Martin Kaymer. The No. 1 player in women’s golf studied Pinehurst No. 2 on her own a few weeks ago, formulated an idea how to play the golf course, and then watched Martin Kaymer follow the script she had in her head and win by eight shots....

Mohammad Sharifi (4’) converted an early penalty before Allahyar Sayyad gave Iran a two-goal cushion in the 11th minute. The deficit was reduced by Mexico’s Roberto de la Rosa in the 37th minute but a cat and mouse encounter would ensue, with the Iranians ultimately ending up the big winners on a hugely disappointing night for the North Americans, who see their winless tenure at the World Cup all but ended....

SYDNEY (Reuters) - United Arab Emirates coach Mahdi Ali resigned on Tuesday after a loss to Australia dealt an all but fatal blow to the country’s chances of reaching next year’s World Cup in Russia. Ali, who led the UAE to a third-place finish at the Asian Cup in 2015, called time on a highly successful stint in charge of his country in the wake of the 2-0 defeat by the Socceroos in Group B of Asian qualifying....

Overall, Microsoft’s presentation for E3 2013 was filled with many more reveals and first party exclusives, but their Gamescom presser was no slouch either. In fact, their presentation favored Kinect titles more than E3 did. One of those titles is The Fighter Within, a new Kinect game from Ubisoft that seeks to deliver on the motion control promise made back when the first Kinect was announced. The game was actually hinted at by some Microsoft domain registrations and a leaked game description last week, and now we know it’s real....

Ubisoft didn’t offer this Non-Fungible Token system inside its open-world shooter for all that long. Ubisoft announced the Quartz NFT system back in December, though there was almost immediately an outpouring of protest from the gaming public. At one point, the company even delisted the video announcing the move because it was getting so many down votes and negative comments. RELATED: Ubisoft Announces Rainbow Six Mobile Despite the backlash against the Quartz NFT system, Ubisoft persisted in selling them inside of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, but that’s coming to an end as the company moves on from the game entirely....