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The United States, citing Brazil’s surging coronavirus crisis, has banned flights from the nation, delivering a blow to its embattled leader, who has tried to use his warm relations with President Trump to bolster his political standing. In recent weeks, coronavirus cases and deaths have exploded in Brazil, Latin America’s most populous country. Its president, Jair Bolsonaro, a pandemic skeptic, had ignored the warnings of health experts and mocked social distancing measures. (Casado and Kurmanaev, 5/24)

The White House did not give a reason for bringing the travel restriction forward. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration issues, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The travel ban was a blow to right-wing Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who has followed the example of U.S. President Donald Trump in addressing the pandemic, fighting calls for social distancing and touting unproven drugs. (5/25)

The announcement Sunday follows other travel bans implemented by the U.S. National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien said earlier Sunday on CBS that he thought a decision on a Brazil travel ban could come that day. “We hope that’ll be temporary. But because of the situation in Brazil, we’re going to take every step necessary to protect the American people,” he said. (Lucey, 5/24)

As the white van approached Perfect Love Street, one by one chatting neighbors fell silent, covered their mouths and noses and scattered. Men in full body suits carried an empty coffin into the small, blue house where Edgar Silva had spent two feverish days gasping for air before drawing his last breath on May 12. “It wasn’t COVID,” Silva’s daughter, Eliete das Graças insisted to the funerary workers. She swore her 83-year-old father had died of Alzheimer’s disease, not that sickness ravaging the city’s hospitals. (Brito, 5/26)