WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shortly before Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman was forced out of his post on Friday, he refused to sign off on a letter from the U.S. Department of Justice blasting New York City’s mayor for imposing social-distancing rules on religious gatherings, a department official confirmed on Monday.

The letter, which was signed by the department's top civil rights attorney, criticized Mayor Bill de Blasio for limiting the number of people who could attend religious gatherings to prevent coronavirus spread, but failing to impose similar restrictions on individuals protesting the death of George Floyd.

The Wall Street Journal first reported Berman's refusal to sign the letter, citing his concern the letter was a political stunt.

"The message to the public from New York City’s government appears to favor certain secular gatherings and disfavor religious gatherings," the June 19 letter said.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr announced on Friday that Berman would be resigning next month as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York to pave the way for the appointment of Jay Clayton, who is currently chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Berman refused to step down, only to have U.S. President Donald Trump fire him on Saturday.

Berman's office, which is known for its high-profile prosecutions of terrorists and white collar criminals, has not shied away from probing people in Trump's inner circle.

Justice Department spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said Barr did not realize Berman had not signed the letter to de Blasio before he announced Berman's resignation.

Berman's office oversaw the prosecution of Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, indicted two of Rudy Giuliani associates and launched a probe into Giuliani's efforts to dig up dirt on Trump's political adversaries in Ukraine.

Berman ultimately agreed to resign after Barr pledged to install Berman's hand-picked No. 2, Deputy U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss, as Acting U.S. Attorney until a permanent replacement is put in place.

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; additional reporting by Karen Freifeld in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Bill Berkrot)

The FCC said the broadcast studio is used by Phoenix Radio, a company wholly owned by Phoenix TV, but not listed as an applicant. The FCC rejected the request as "deficient" but said the applicants - and Phoenix Radio - could refile the request.

In July 2018, to ensure continuity of service for XEWW-AM listeners, the FCC granted a temporary authorization to permit broadcasts pending FCC review. The following month, a group running a community radio station in southern California asked the FCC to deny the application, saying it might allow the government of the People’s Republic of China to "provide its own propaganda programming."

Senator Ted Cruz, a Texas Republican, praised the FCC's decision to reject the bid.

"Phoenix TV is a puppet of the Chinese Communist Party that broadcasts propaganda across the United States," Cruz said in a statement. “Today’s decision sends an important message to the world that the U.S. will not allow China to exploit FCC loopholes and spread its propaganda over our airwaves."

A lawyer for applicants GLR Southern California and H&H Group USA did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Chinese embassy in Washington also did not immediately comment.

Phoenix TV bills itself as the largest Chinese language television provider in the United States and Canada, transmitting programming to more than 200,000 subscribers on cable and satellite systems.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Dan Grebler)

"A subtropical depression appears to be forming," the NHC said. "This system is expected to move eastward and north-eastward away from the United States during the next couple of days," it added.

(Reporting by Sumita Layek in Bengaluru)

It is located about 310 miles (495 kilometers) southeast of Nantucket, Massachusetts, packing maximum sustained winds of 35 miles per hour (55 kph), the NHC said.

"Some slight strengthening is possible tonight and early Tuesday, and the subtropical depression could briefly become a subtropical storm," the Miami-based weather forecaster added.

It is not on course to make landfall on the western side of the Atlantic but may affect shipping.

(Reporting by Sumita Layek in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra Maler)

"The disparities in the data reflect longstanding challenges facing minority communities and low income older adults," said the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

(Reporting by Trisha Roy and Carl O'Donnell; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

The campaign said on Saturday hours before the rally, Trump's first since March, that six members of the campaign's advance staff had tested positive.

"After another round of testing for campaign staff in Tulsa, two additional members of the advance team tested positive for the coronavirus," spokesman Tim Murtaugh said. "These staff members attended the rally but were wearing masks during the entire event."

The White House and Trump campaign largely brushed away concerns ahead of the event about holding a rally with thousands of people despite warnings from health officials against gathering in large groups.

Most people at the rally did not wear masks.

The arena had thousands of empty seats on Saturday, a blow to Trump, who revels in large crowds, and his campaign, which had said demand outstripped the number of tickets available for the event.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Eric Beech; Editing by Peter Cooney)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump will suspend the entry of certain foreign workers, a senior administration official said on Monday, a move the official said would help the economy, but which business groups strongly oppose.

Trump will block the entry of foreign workers on H-1B visas for skilled workers and L-1 visas for workers being transferred within a company through the end of the year, the official said. Trump will also block seasonal workers on H-2B visas, with an exception for workers in the food service industry.

(Graphic: https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-IMMIGRATION/WORKERS/xklvyzkdxpg/h1b.jpg)

Businesses including major tech companies and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have said the visa suspension would stifle the economic recovery after the damage done by the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Critics of the measure say Trump is using the pandemic to enact his longstanding goal to limit immigration into the United States. Trump owned- or Trump branded businesses have used the H-2B program to hire seasonal guest workers.

The immediate effects of the proclamation will likely be limited, as U.S. consulates around the world remain closed for most routine visa processing. A senior Department of Homeland Security official said the proclamation will not affect valid visa holders already in the United States.

Republican Trump is running for re-election on Nov. 3 and has made his tough immigration stance a central pitch to voters, although the coronavirus, faltering economy and nationwide protests over police brutality have overshadowed that issue.

The visa suspension announced on Monday will open up 525,000 jobs for U.S. workers, the senior official said on a call with reporters, saying it was geared at "getting Americans back to work as quickly as possible." The official did not explain how the administration arrived at that figure.

The temporary visa suspension will include work-authorized J visas, which are available for cultural exchange opportunities in the United States, and visas for the spouses of H-1B workers.

BSA, The Software Alliance, whose members include Microsoft and Slack, strongly urged the administration to “refrain from restricting employment of highly-skilled foreign professionals”, adding that “these restrictions will negatively impact the US economy” and decrease job opportunities for Americans.

Doug Rand, co-founder of Boundless, a pro-migrant group that helps families navigate the U.S. immigration system, said the fact that H2-A visas used to bring in foreign farmworkers were exempt signals that "big agriculture interests are the only stakeholder with any sway over immigration policy in this administration."

Many other business groups were lobbying against a temporary visa ban before it was announced.

"The immigration restrictionists would like us all to believe that every single company bringing over foreign-born workers is nefarious and just wants to bring in people who are underpaid," said Rand. "That is a false premise."

Trump also will renew an April proclamation that temporarily blocks some foreigners from permanent residence in the United States, the senior administration official said on Monday. The official said that proclamation freed up roughly 50,000 jobs for Americans, but did not provide details.

An exemption for medical workers in Trump's April ban on permanent residence will be narrowed to people working on coronavirus research and care, the official said.

In addition to the new visa suspension, the Trump administration will take several other moves to tighten rules around temporary work visas.

The administration plans to rework the H-1B visa program so that the 85,000 visas available in the program each year go to the highest-paid applicants, instead of the current lottery system.

In addition, the administration plans to issue rules that make it harder for companies to use the H-1B visa program to train foreign workers to perform the same job in another country, the official said.

Both moves would likely require regulatory changes.

Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia will use the department's statutory authority to investigate abuse of the H-1B visa program, the senior official said.

The Trump administration also finalized a regulation on Monday that will lift a requirement to process work permits for asylum seekers within 30 days, a move that will likely result in longer waits for work authorization.

Trump rolled out new health-focused rules in March that allow for the rapid deportation of immigrants caught at the border and virtually cut off access to the U.S. asylum system.

At the same time, he announced the land borders with Canada and Mexico would be closed to non-essential crossings, a measure that has been extended several times.

(Reporting by Ted Hesson and Steve Holland in Washington; Additional reporting by Raphael Satter in Washington and Mica Rosenberg in New York Editing by Sandra Maler and Grant McCool)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. defense and spy agencies played a major role in creating the internet, and now the CIA is turning for the first time to online streaming services to recruit spies between the ages of 18 and 35.

"It only takes one new piece ... of foreign intelligence ... and everything can change in an instant," a CIA officer tells a classroom full of apparent recruits in the opening sequence of a new advert released by the agency on Monday.

"Start a career at the CIA and do more for your country than you ever dreamed possible," the officer concludes the pitch reminiscent of Hollywood films.

The online recruitment campaign was conceived before social distancing measures were needed during the novel coronavirus pandemic, Central Intelligence Agency spokeswoman Nicole de Haay said. The agency has typically sought out future spies by targeting college students through "traditional" methods such as job fairs, she said.

The agency said in a statement it had cut 90, 60 and 15-second versions to run nationwide on entertainment, news and lifestyle streaming services.

More than 70% of U.S. households subscribe to at least one of Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime, according to Leichtman Research Group.

"To get the top talent we can't just rely on traditional recruiting methods," said de Haay.

In a speech at Auburn University last year CIA director Gina Haspel said it had the best recruiting year in a decade and wanted to make the agency "an employer of choice for all Americans."

While the target audience for the streamed video spots is 18-35, all potential recruits would be considered, de Haay said.

Some of the CIA's most famous foreign allies, including British spy agencies MI5 and MI6, have historically recruited officers through social connections, although more recently they have also turned to online recruitment pitches.

(Reporting By Mark Hosenball; editing by Michelle Price and Grant McCool)

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the move was made to make way for U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton to take the job.

Trump initially told reporters on Saturday that he had not had been involved in the effort, despite Barr's statement that he had. McEnany said Barr took the lead but the president was involved.

The firing of Geoffrey Berman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, was the latest in a series of moves by Barr that critics say aim to benefit Trump politically and undermine the independence of the Justice Department.

Berman’s office, known for prosecuting the most high-profile terrorism cases, Wall Street financial crimes and government corruption, has not shied from taking on figures in Trump’s orbit, including Rudolph Giuliani, the president's attorney.

The dispute began late on Friday when Barr announced Berman was stepping down and would be replaced by Clayton, prompting Berman to issue a statement saying he refused to resign.

"When Berman chose to respond in the way that he did, he (Barr) came to the president and the president agreed and fired this individual, Mr. Berman," McEnany said.

Trump told Fox News on Saturday he approved Barr's request, and said he did not know Giuliani was being investigated by Berman, although he had read that recently.

Asked if Barr said why he wanted to fire Berman, Trump said: "We spent very little time talking about it, but I have a lot of respect for Attorney General Barr."

Berman agreed to step down on Saturday after Barr backtracked from his plan to hand pick the acting U.S. attorney, allowing Berman’s deputy, Audrey Strauss, to take the reins.

(Reporting by Steve Holland and Jeff Mason; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Dan Grebler)

The CDC reported its tally of cases of the respiratory illness known as COVID-19, caused by a new coronavirus, as of 4 pm ET on June 21 versus its previous report on Sunday.(https://bit.ly/30XDNtF)

The CDC figures do not necessarily reflect cases reported by individual states.

(Reporting by Vishwadha Chander in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)

GENEVA/ZURICH (Reuters) - Coronavirus cases are soaring in several major countries at the same time, with "worrying increases" in Latin America, especially Brazil, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday.

The world recorded more than 183,000 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, the most in a single day since the outbreak started in December, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

"Certainly the numbers are increasing because the epidemic is developing in a number of populous countries at the same time and across the whole world," WHO's top emergencies expert, Mike Ryan, told an online briefing.

"Some of that increase may be attributed to increased testing ... And certainly countries like India are testing more. But we do not believe that this is a testing phenomenon."

Global cases surpassed 9 million on Monday, with the United States, China and other hard-hit countries also reporting new outbreaks, according to a Reuters tally.

Ryan said there had been a jump in cases in Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Panama, Bolivia and Guatemala, as well as Brazil, which had passed the 1 million mark - second only to the United States - and reported a record 54,000 cases in the previous 24 hours.

He said some of the jump in Brazil might reflect changes in the reporting system, but added:

"There still are relatively low tests per population, and the positivity rates for testing are still quite high overall. From that perspective, we would say that this trend is not reflective of exhaustive testing, but probably under-estimating the actual number of cases."

1,000 DEATHS A DAY

Latin America's largest country has frequently recorded more than 1,000 deaths a day over the last month.

President Jair Bolsonaro, sometimes called the "Tropical Trump", has been widely criticised for his handling of the crisis. The country still has no permanent health minister after losing two since April, following clashes with the president.

Bolsonaro has shunned social distancing, calling it a job-killing measure more dangerous than the virus itself. He has also promoted two anti-malarial drugs - chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine - as remedies, despite a lack of evidence that they work.

Ryan said he thought there had been "great upticks" in cases in a number of U.S. states.

"I'm not 100 percent sure about the age profile, but I've seen the reports that some of this is amongst younger people. That may reflect the fact that younger people are more mobile and they are getting out and taking advantage of the reductions in restrictions of movement ...

"What is clear is that the increase is not entirely explained through just increased testing."

The WHO also said it was worried about Germany, where the reproduction rate of the virus hit 2.88 on Sunday, well above the maximum level of one transmission per person needed to contain the disease over the longer term.

Tedros said a lack of global leadership and unity in fighting the virus was a bigger threat than the outbreak itself, and that politicisation had made the pandemic worse.

The WHO has been criticised by some member states, especially the United States, which says it was too weak, too slow and too "China-centric" in tackling the disease at the outset.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, Emma Farge in Geneva, John Revill in Zurich and Alexander Cornell in Dubai; Writing by Nick Macfie; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump has not directed any slowdown in coronavirus testing and does not regret using the term "kung flu," which many consider to be offensive, to describe the virus, the White House said on Monday.

The Republican president said at a political rally in Oklahoma on Saturday that he had directed his people to slow down testing for the virus because the process had led to an increased number of known COVID-19 cases.

The White House said at the time that he was kidding and made clear on Monday that no such request was made.

"It was a comment that he made in jest," White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a news briefing. She said Trump had not told officials to slow the rate of testing. "He has not directed that," she said. "Any suggestion that testing has been curtailed is not rooted in fact."

Trump sees numerical measures as signs of victory or failure. He has repeatedly lamented the fact that better U.S. testing has led to a higher known number of identified coronavirus cases across the country.

Trump has also sought to reinforce that the virus originated in China.

But he has faced criticism for referring to the virus as Chinese. He refrained from that characterization for a time but at the rally on Saturday used "kung flu" to describe it, despite criticism that the use of such terms had led to acts of discrimination against Asian Americans.

Asked by a reporter why the president was using racist language, McEnany said he was not.

"He is linking it to its place of origin," she said. "I think the media is trying to play games with the terminology of this virus where the focus should be on the fact that China let this out of their country."

(Additional reporting by Doina Chiacu; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

The study suggests that patients may be delaying or avoiding seeking care because of fear of COVID-19, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

A CDC study in May showed that the number of deaths in New York City from causes other than COVID-19 rose by more than 5,000 people above the seasonal norm during the first two months of the pandemic

After the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a national emergency in the United States, public health authorities recommended that hospitals delay non-urgent medical procedures such as surgeries.

Visits to the emergency department because of heart attacks fell 23%, ten weeks after the pandemic was declared a national emergency, compared with ten weeks before the emergency declaration.

Similarly, emergency departments recorded a 20% decline in visits because of stroke, and 10% less visits for hyperglycemic crisis, which arises because of uncontrolled diabetes.

"A short-term decline of this magnitude in the incidence of these conditions is biologically implausible," the researchers said in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly report.

The study authors said that health officials should make sure the public is aware that emergency departments are implementing infection control guidelines so that people seek emergency care when needed.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Alistair Bell)

(Reuters) - The death toll from the novel coronavirus reached over 120,000 in the United States, according to a Reuters tally on Monday, as new cases spike in several states.

More Americans have now died from COVID-19 than were killed fighting in World War One.

About 800 Americans have died on average each day so far in June, down from a peak of 2,000 a day in April, according to the tally of state and county data on COVID-19 deaths. (Reuters interactive: https://tmsnrt.rs/2w7hX9T)

Total U.S. coronavirus cases are over 2.2 million, the highest in the world, followed by Brazil with more than 1 million cases, and infections are rapidly rising in India.

After weeks of declining, U.S. coronavirus cases nationally are rising again with 12 states reporting record increases in cases last week as all states moved forward with reopening their economies. On Saturday, over 30,000 new cases were reported, the highest daily total since May 1, according to a Reuters tally.

Among states with record increases was Oklahoma, where President Donald Trump on Saturday addressed a less-than-full indoor arena in Tulsa, where only a handful of attendees wore masks.

In remarks that his campaign said later were a joke, he told cheering supporters he had asked U.S. officials to slow down testing for COVID-19, calling it a "double-edged sword" that led to more cases being discovered.

A White House official said Trump was "obviously kidding. We are leading the world in testing and have conducted 25 million-plus in testing."

Health experts say expanded diagnostic testing accounts for some, but not all, of the growth in cases. They also call it a key tool in fighting the spread of the disease.

Of the 20 most severely affected countries, the United States ranks seventh based on deaths per capita, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has 3.6 fatalities per 10,000 people. Belgium is first with 8.5 deaths per 10,000, followed by the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy and Sweden, according to the Reuters analysis.

(Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Asked if he backed another payment to individual Americans, Trump told Scripps Networks in an interview that he supported the idea of sending out a second check.

"We will be doing another stimulus package" with the U.S. Congress, he added, saying the bipartisan measure would come "over the next couple of weeks probably."

Republicans and Democrats in Congress agreed to provide direct payments of up to $1,200 each to millions of Americans, with additional payments of $500 per child, in legislation that Trump signed into law in March.

Another $3 trillion bill that passed the House of Representatives on May 15 contains a second round of economic stimulus payments of up to $6,000 per U.S. household.

But the Republican-controlled Senate has not taken up the House package and lawmakers are not expected to move toward another coronavirus bill until sometime in July.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey and David Morgan; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

White House spokesman Judd Deere said the decision was prompted by the city of Washington entering the second phase of its reopening, which allows for more activity.

"In conjunction with Washington, D.C. entering Phase Two today, the White House is scaling back complex-wide temperature checks," Deere said.

For the last three months visitors to the White House had undergone a temperature check before entering the grounds.

"In addition to social distancing, hand sanitizer, regular deep cleaning of all work spaces, and voluntary facial coverings, every staff member and guest in close proximity to the president and vice president is still being temperature checked, asked symptom histories, and tested for COVID-19," Deere said.

(Reporting by Steve Holland in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - New York Police Commissioner Dermot Shea testified on Monday that officers who drove their cars into protesters were complying with department standards, and he defended the arrests of legal observers monitoring police conduct at demonstrations.

Shea's testimony was part of a series of online public hearings held by New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is investigating the police response to widespread protests following last month's killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis.

Last week, scores of protesters testified that New York Police Department officers kicked or shoved them, hit them with night sticks, doused them with pepper spray or cuffed wrists so tightly that hands turned blue.

In his opening statement, Shea called protesting on the streets a "tradition that is as old as New York" but said the recent demonstrations were unusually violent, demanding a more-forceful response.

"This was some of the worst rioting that occurred in our city in recent memory," he said, saying people had thrown bricks, bottles and trash cans at police, injuring some.

During nearly an hour of sometimes contentious questioning, James asked Shea about widely seen videos from May 30 showing two police cruisers deliberately driving into protesters gathered in a Brooklyn street.

"Was that in violation of your use of force policy?" James asked.

"No," Shea replied. "We have officers in a situation where they're essentially being penned in by protesters."

The videos show protesters gathering at the front end of only one of the vehicles.

"The officers were set upon and attacked, and thankfully they were able to get out of that situation with, to my knowledge, no injuries to anyone," Shea said.

The National Lawyers Guild has said that eight of its accredited legal observers, who wear distinctive neon-green hats and other identifiers as they record information about arrestees and police conduct, were zip-tied and detained at a protest in the Bronx.

"Having a shirt or a hat that says 'legal observer' does not mean that person is an attorney," Shea said. "It does not mean that they're actually performing any legal function."

More than 300 officers have been injured in the protests since late May, Shea said, although it was unclear how many injuries were caused by civilians.

He promised that officers found to have breached the department's standards in using force against New Yorkers will face consequences. Fewer than 10 officers are being disciplined, Shea testified.

James opened her investigation in late May at the request of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who said he was alarmed by "disturbing violent clashes" between NYPD officers and protesters.

In 17 hours of testimony last week, many protesters, including elected officials, said the protesters were largely peaceful and found themselves being arrested or hurt by the police with minimal provocation.

Shea said his department was being vilified.

"No one will come out and support the police right now because they are scared because they will get shouted down," Shea said. "And I think that's really sad."

(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell and Dan Grebler)

(Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Republican-led U.S. Senate and Democratic-led House of Representatives will vote this week on separate bills aimed at addressing police misconduct following George Floyd's death in police custody, but neither measure is likely to become law.

The Senate would move to a procedural vote on a Republican bill on Wednesday, according to documents filed on Monday by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The House is due to vote on more sweeping Democratic legislation on Thursday.

Nearly a month after Floyd's death in Minneapolis with a police officer's knee on his neck that set off weeks of protests, neither measure, as written, appears to have enough bipartisan support to win approval from both chambers and be signed into law by Republican President Donald Trump.

With strong public sentiment for stopping excessive force by police, especially against African-Americans, many are urging Congress to seize the opportunity to quickly pass legislation.

Last week Trump signed an executive order aimed at guiding police reforms (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-minneapolis-police-congress-legislati/factbox-whats-the-difference-between-three-u-s-plans-for-police-reform-idUSKBN23O3KW).

Some hope a bipartisan alternative can emerge by amending the Senate measure or by reconciling the bills through negotiation.

Democrats have largely denounced the Senate Republican bill, saying it relies heavily on incentives to encourage police reforms rather than mandating changes in law and policy, as the Democratic bill does. Some Senate Republicans also are seeking tougher provisions.

"This is a national problem of police violence that we have. It requires a national solution. And the only way to bring that about is with a strong piece of federal legislation," Representative Hakeem Jeffries, who leads the House Democratic Conference and helped write the Democratic bill, told MSNBC on Monday.

Republicans regard the Democratic measure as a "poison pill," partly because it would allow misconduct victims to sue police, which critics say would have a chilling effect on law enforcement.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Lisa Lambert; editing by Grant McCool)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Italian fashion company Valentino SpA has sued the landlord of its American flagship store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue, seeking to void its lease because the coronavirus pandemic has made keeping the store open impossible.

In a complaint filed on Sunday, Valentino said the store, located two blocks south of Trump Tower, can no longer operate "consistent with the luxury, prestigious, high-quality reputation" of its neighborhood, as the lease contemplated.

Valentino told its landlord Savitt Partners it planned by year end to quit its lease, which began in 2013 and expires in 2029, but said the landlord wrote on Friday that it would not accept a surrender.

Savitt's lawyer Robert Cyruli declined to comment on the lawsuit, saying: "My client does not elect to litigate through the media." Valentino and its lawyer also declined to comment.

The lawsuit in a New York state court in Manhattan is one of several between retailers such as Gap, H&M, Victoria's Secret and the National Basketball Association and their Manhattan landlords after the pandemic forced store closures.

Valentino's store is at the midpoint of a half-mile (0.8 km) stretch of Fifth Avenue from Rockefeller Center to the corner of Central Park containing many luxury retailers, with high rents.

Much of that stretch became dormant in mid-March, when New York officials closed "nonessential" businesses to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Some restrictions were lifted on Monday, and some in-store shopping is now allowed.

But Valentino said shoppers have grown fearful of "in person, 'non-essential' luxury retail boutiques," and that "even in a post-pandemic New York City (should such a day arrive)" the Fifth Avenue location was irreparably damaged.

Keeping the store open is "impractical, unfeasible and no longer workable," it said.

On June 8, Victoria's Secret, part of L Brands Inc, filed a similar case to void the $938,000-a-month lease for its flagship store in Manhattan's Herald Square.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Silvia Aloisi in Milan; Editing by Dan Grebler)