WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump signed into law a $2 trillion rescue plan Friday to salvage an economy crippled by coronavirus, after the historic measure that delivers cash to suffering Americans cleared Congress.
"I want to thank Democrats and Republicans for coming together and putting America first," the president said shortly before signing the historic bill in the Oval Office.
Trump enacted the largest federal economic intervention in US history on a day the nation saw a record 18,000 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection, and US deaths neared 1,500.
The number of coronavirus cases within the United States has now crossed the 100,000 mark, the Johns Hopkins University real-time tracker revealed, making it the country with the most number of confirmed cases in the world.
The number has now reached 100,717, according to the data updated on Friday, a day after the United States surpassed China in coronavirus case count.
Official COVID-19 tally is lower. According to the latest data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the US has 85,356 cases and 1,246 deaths.