COVID-19 danger continues to drive joblessness in US

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans who sought unemployment benefits last week likely numbered in the hundreds of thousands with COVID-19 seeding broad economic damage nine months after the first case was confirmed in the United States. Economists believe that around 850,000 people sought jobless aid, down from 884,000 the week before. The pandemic has delivered an unprecedented shock to the economy. Until the pandemic upended the operations of American companies, from factories to family diners, weekly jobless aid applications had never exceeded 700,000 in the U.S. The U.S. Labor Department releases its report at 8:30 a.m. Eastern.