Trump Halts WHO Funding

US President Donald Trump cut off funding to the WHO, accusing the UN body of mishandling the COVID-19 crisis as governments grapple with how and when to get their struggling economies back to work.

The deadly pandemic has already killed over 125,000 people and infected nearly 2 million worldwide since it first emerged in China late last year.

The novel coronavirus has also upended the lives of billions of people as nations imposed lockdown measures to curb its spread- undoubtedly reducing the death toll but also sending the global economy into a tailspin.

As the tally of deaths and new infections appears to begin to level off, world leaders and citizens are fiercely debating when to lift stay-at-home orders.

Trump said he could see "rays of light" on the horizon for the world's largest economy, but launched a virulent attack on the WHO for "severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus."

"We have deep concerns whether America's generosity has been put to the best use possible," Trump told reporters at the White House as he announced a halt to WHO funding.

He accused the Geneva-based agency of propagating "false information about transmission and mortality," and charged that its reliance on Chinese data had "likely caused a 20-fold increase in cases worldwide."

The US contributed $400 million to the WHO last year. Trump had made no secret of his contempt for what he calls a "China-centric" institution, but his caustic barbs were sure to raise hackles- especially when the crisis is far from over.

Some shops in Austria and Italy reopened, but France extended its nationwide lockdown for another month, and India extended confinement orders for its 1.3 billion people until at least May 3. And dire economic forecasts poured in throughout the day. The International Monetary Fund predicted the "Great Lockdown" would spark the worst global downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s.