Battle against the virus with the numbers continuing to rise essential workers are putting their lives at risk well tell you all about it all right its time to boost your news i q. U. S. Navy warships are heading to the caribbean and off the coast of venezuela in what could become dangerous new escalation between both countries the u. S. Claims its navy present in the region is to counter narcotics operations meantime the venezuelan government says theyre preparing for any battle r. T. Correspondent john hardy has more from miami. Americas war on drugs is taking aim at venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his socalled cartel of the sons the Trump Administration indicted majeure and several others on Drug Trafficking and narco terrorism charges march 26th an extraordinary announcement that diverted attention at least briefly anyway from another ongoing war the coronavirus war then last week President Trump announced u. S. Navy ships were heading to the caribbean and the coast of venezuela to beef up americas anti drug operations in the region were deploying Additional Navy destroyers combat ships aircraft and helicopters coast guard cutters and air force Surveillance Aircraft doubling our capabilities in the region. In response to the indictment called President Trump a quote racist supremacy cowboy and announced last week he was preparing his military for battle the calling for a cease fire during the coronavirus pandemic in this tweet he blamed us and colombian conspiracies to quote fill venezuela with violence but dural has long been accused of being involved in venezuelan Drug Trafficking along with the cartel of the sons a reference to Venezuelan Army generals who wear the sun insignia on their shoulders and are also accused of providing safe haven and support to the colombian antigovernment Guerrilla Army organization fark venezuela has become a major cocaine distribution route used by drug traffickers flying through Central America or by sea and going through the bahamas and then on to destinations here in the United States like miami or new York New Jersey baltimore and philadelphia among other ports like the us invasion of panama and arrested men well noriega also accused of Drug Trafficking in 1989 the trip administrations indictment among dural is being seen as an effort to remove him from power perhaps even by force whether or not the u. S. Indictment of maduro and the naval. Presence in that region is a precursor to an invasion remains to be seen but it is clearly shining a spotlight on maduro and venezuelas socalled cartel of the sons for our t. V. John honey. So while much of the u. S. Is living on lockdown to minimize the spread of coronavirus essential workers like doctors and nurses remain at the front lines but other essential workers like Grocery Store employees are also filling critical needs putting their lives at risk as well and in some cases paying the ultimate price arties Trinity Chavez brings us that part of the story and the new numbers coming from new york today as a proto virus pandemic continues to unfold new concerns are surfacing for Grocery Store and Online Service workers as they remain on the front line people coughing and sneezing as youre walking and it just needs to be major supermarket chains reporting coronavirus related employee deaths as Grocery Stores remain open due to the pandemic according to the Washington Post workers at trader joes in new york a giant store maryland and 2 walmart employees in chicago have died in recent days due to covert 191 family filing a wrongful death lawsuit against the retail giant and while most americans have great appreciation for these workers many of these store employees work low paying jobs putting their lives at risk by exposing themselves to the public and others around them. To make an average of 200. 00. Im. Just saying. Any and i mean time in new york the total number of poor virus cases continues to climb now surpassing 130000 infections with over 5400 deaths 731 of them occurring in just one day but while this is the single biggest daily increase the governor says there are some. As the curve may be leveling off and were projecting that we are reaching a plateau in the total number of hospitalisations and you can see the growth and you see it starting to flatten again this is a projection it still depends on what we do and what we do will affect those numbers. The mare no zeroing in on economic challenges as projections show that at least a half a 1000000 residents are already out of work or soon will be a. Human and economic distress the only. That is the Great Depression which scares me to death even say that this as construction is underway at the famous queens Tennis Center thats home to the u. S. Open as it transforms into a hospital facility to treat noncode patients to be the 1st phase of construction for the ultimate would be 350 hospital beds in the Indoor Training Center the Louis Armstrong stadium in queens will also be transformed and be used as a food prep and Distribution Center where staff will prepare up 225000 packages of meals daily to help alleviate some of the strain off hospital possibly the hardest hit facility in the city well hurst hospital has hit capacity and theres about 545 beds a year and theyre all filled with cold with patients but now a sign of hope. New video capturing the moment 19 year old and a 14 nato was wheeled out of the hospital after spending 2 weeks fighting covert 19 and today she has a powerful message for all of us i want to say to them if i do you can go and. Get your. Reporting in new york Trinity Chavez r. T. The president has removed a top pentagon official chosen by a panel of federal watchdogs to oversee the implementation of that 2 trillion dollar coronavirus law trump replaced glenn fine with e. P. A. Inspector general Sean Odonnell who will temporarily hold that position the president s decision to remove fine comes just days after he fired Michael Achatz an Inspector General of the Intelligence Community who is handling a whistleblower report led to trumps impeachment hearings. And happened just moments ago acting Navy Secretary thomas mildly resigned from his post might be created an uproar after he fired the captain of the u. S. S. Roosevelt last week saying the captain demonstrated poor judgment after distributing a letter via email calling for urgent help. With the Virus Outbreak aboard the ship loudly then went on to say the captain was quote too naive or too stupid to be in charge of an aircraft carrier. Right there is no doubt a coronavirus is impacting every facet of our daily lives social distancing has become the new norm across the globe and another trend is occurring in every country where women are allowed to work and that is since the coburg crisis began the gender pay gap has actually widened here in the u. S. Women tend to earn about 0. 81 on the mans dollar meaning a male colleague in the same job is paid almost 20 percent more so why is the coronavirus impacting the pay gap here to explain. She is the director of labor market policy at an economist at the Washington Center for equitable growth kate good to see you thanks for being with us so 1st can you can you explain to us how this Global Pandemic will disproportionately impact us women and hit us in our pocketbooks yeah sure so theres a couple different factors that are all intersecting. Women and we see in the labor market 2 big factors is that women tend to be a lot of front line workers were in healthcare particular and just in time women are a lot of their jobs women in service for jobs like hospitality. Workers reducing the jobs most are also really low key jobs in the 1st place and on top of the labor market factors we have the fact that theyre going up right now what the children are risk pool families maybe take care of her Family Member and these are really strapping women so they are all facing a lot in the labor market and in the economy in their missing all these missions in their home that make it harder for them. And given that in most countries around the world i mean women usually tend to make up the majority of Health Care Workers right i mean thats just a fact and recently President Trump has been criticized for not really having a lot of women in leadership roles and his Coronavirus Task force dr Deborah Burkes is is the woman that we tend to see most frequently up there is it because these tend to be and women tend to be nurses and is that criticism fair of his task force. Their older generation is there is that this portion of lot of men that is not sure if younger doctors for the most part especially not her cohort the doctors are pretty gender balance on top of that is you know im a lot of nurses and other workers are women and lot of atlanta not in the type of expert you want in this race that are. Not there if you care that women are like majority and theres a lot of women who. Are shipped to this work yeah so definitely the criticism is stemming from facts obviously he doesnt have a lot of women assigned to leadership roles that that we can see like we see dr burks so how do you see the long term impacts of coronavirus on the pay gap will women take you know the women of this generation are we going to go back a whole generations worth of the pay gap because of current virus and how do we as a society prevent this from going backwards. Youre right there can be really long term effects we know from research on other or you know downturns like the Great Recession sometimes these temporary economic shocks are really long term effects on workers that they produce earnings for up to 10 years and so the gender wage gap in particular theres a couple different factors that lead to the generation of me when it is Occupational Therapy nations that women tend to work in jobs that can be lower and those are the job of job losses that we are going. Well right there be pretty muted or low levels of wage growth there just because of your losses now another factor. To be discrimination ridiculous dont let the color. Remember color a lot more discrimination and that is a big reason they are unless previous recessions to the discrimination also played a role in the long term consequences players are more likely to lay off workers of color even if they are not necessarily the last hired worker and for all really. Long term expertise for women of color or working wow and lastly kate what do you say to those who are watching right now that might be saying well yeah women should get paid less because they take time off to have babies. The reasons that we need to women lower paying a big piece of that is a disproportionate share of the day that youre talking about this not justified its just a reason behind it and so this i think can all be an opportunity a question that i think a lot of reasons that is under norms that make us think that things that mark a lemon or work or not or allow you to be able to stay home and need that work requirement. Would affect. Their kids i think this is an opportunity as really everything is not. In the center norm think that it could potentially be justified where women are unless there were a responsibility im with you on that as a working mother myself and also somebody has to keep the human race going and i mean i guess only so far right now as far as science is concerned only one of us can do that. Well leave it right there cape on please come back and share your expertise with us again thank you and we happy to think. Koeppen 1000. 00 is obviously taking a toll on the economy and we just covered that in terms of here in the u. S. But were going to take a look at how this is happening across all of the americas with an expert from paho and then later at the sports h. Q. Regina hamm is joining joining in an exclusive interview with tennis superstar frances for a discussion on how crowded virus is impacting his sport and be right back. Thanks guys are Survival Guide look stacey just like more of the stores simply the leaves are. You sure its still there you go im going to. Call it. Repatriations to look at the list the 70 or. So of the 7 treasures for. The world is driven by a dream shaped by one person those but. The dairy thinks. We dare to ask. Its election day in wisconsin and polls are open on a most unusual turn of events in the past 48 hours thats because on monday gov tony evers tried to stop in person voting with an executive order but the state Supreme Court then stepped in and ruled that it has to go on as scheduled and now cities have consolidated the number of polling sites due to a shortage of workers willing to interact with the public because of corona virus appears so precincts are down from 180 to just 5 in addition some 2500 National Guard troops have been called to staff those few polling sites so earlier today i was joined by arties verio scotty no he was to discuss the challenges that the state officials are facing for todays election right now whether to move the wisconsin primary has become so intense its going all the way up to the Supreme Court were just late last night united Supreme Court held with a 54 ruling upheld the state Supreme Court of wisconsins decision to not allow an extension of the absentee votes by a week now earlier yesterday as you mentioned in your tas democrat governor tony ever issued an executive order postponing the election for 2 months or that was almost immediately struck down by the state Supreme Court saying guess what governor you dont have the authority to postpone election especially the day before so it was maybe a little short notice now its got a 77. 00 delegates are up for grabs today but the democrat president ial race is not the only race on that ballot what else is there well thats a thing everybody obviously is still trying to figure out whos going to be the nominee on the democrat ticket and thats very important but theres actually a big race thats right now motivating a lot of people to the polls and that is actually the Supreme Court race for President Trump even just the. Last 24 hours not once but twice treated in a doors meant for a state Supreme Court judge whos an incumbent which is very rare for him to do the main reason why is this important for the d. N. C. Is going to be held later on this summer in milwaukee so this is very important on several Different Levels of elected officials that are looking at wisconsin and how it turns out so theres always a reason right and its got to how are are the wisconsin voters responding today at the polls i mean arent they scared because of coronavirus are they still showing up well thats the thing since the very beginning because they open this morning theres been a long long line cell lines have been long because its narrowed down from 180 precincts to 5 across the state the size of wisconsin and 2500 National Guard troops have been brought in because they couldnt find poll workers to staff these poll locations now there were 1300000 absentee ballots as of monday that had been requested only 57 percent of those had been returned and we still dont know where those 539000 ballots when they will be returned however they have to be postmarked by today in manila for them to count so the truth is the only thing that we do know is theres probably a good chance were not going to know the winner of any of the elections or those delegates by the close of the polls tonight i can imagine so and scottie you know theres been a lot of talk about how coronaviruses really impacting minority groups and poor communities i mean there are a lot of poor communities in wisconsin as well in wisconsin is very spread out anyone thats been there and its a very vast state so could coronavirus be impacting ethnic voters in wisconsin as well given that 180 polling places down to just 5 theres a lot of these people that are that are in poor communities that dont have a means to get their. Well obviously manila that was one of the concerns even before the events of the last week in fact there were 4 federal lawsuits filed saying that we need to extend the absentee availability the problem with this is obviously to get an absentee ballot you have to request it mainly on line and a lot of people dont have access to the internet so that was the main concern so yes theres a lot of worry right now that latino voters as well as africanamericans in these communities were not going to get the absentee ballots hence why today a lot of those long lines that are standing 6 feet apart are filled with minorities because this is their only option and they want to make their vote count so the vote still continuing today we have to bring you a date to it but like i said it might not be a week monella before we know where those 77. 00 delegates fall and in a race between bernie and joe biden that every vote counts especially