Michael Cohen will be released from prison due to pandemic  —  (CNN)The federal Bureau of Prisons has notified Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, that he will be released early from prison due to the coronavirus pandemic, according to people familiar with the matter and his lawyer.

My Wild, Totally Surreal Experience Covering a Trump Coronavirus Briefing  —  “Your forehead, please,” said the woman in a mask.  —  She was a medical technician sitting in a tent outside the northwest gate of the White House in the otherwise deserted section of Pennsylvania Avenue that is usually crammed with tourists in April.

Donald Trump's Greatest Escape  —  His audacity masked his desperation.  —  It was the spring of 1995.  Donald Trump was this close to finished.  He had spent the previous five years constantly, and barely, avoiding financial ruin and what he worried would be a permanent stain of personal bankruptcy.

Sen. Joe Manchin will back Biden for president  —  Sen. Joe Manchin will endorse Joe Biden for president, putting to bed any thought that he might not support the Democratic presidential nominee this time around.  —  The conservative West Virginia Democrat said in an interview on Thursday …

Influential Covid-19 model uses flawed methods and shouldn't guide U.S. policies, critics say  —  A widely followed model for projecting Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. is producing results that have been bouncing up and down like an unpredictable fever, and now epidemiologists are criticizing …

Trump's coronavirus self-protection plan: Spread responsibility to the states  —  President Trump's reopening plan includes lots of hurdles for states, but the key factor for him was that he got to fire the pistol, Axios' Jonathan Swan reports.  —  Why it matters: Even though he's delegating to governors …

Joe Biden's VP pick better be a Black woman - and it needs to be Kamala Harris  —  OPINION: At this point, Biden's not trying to break box office records - he just doesn't want to flop.  —  Some casting decisions make sense the moment the movie is announced.

Matt Gaetz rents office space from longtime friend and donor — at taxpayer expense  —  Florida GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz has spent nearly $200,000 in taxpayer funds renting an office from a longtime friend, adviser, campaign donor and legal client.  —  Both men said in separate interviews Gaetz …

Early peek at data on Gilead coronavirus drug suggests patients are responding to treatment  —  A Chicago hospital treating severe Covid-19 patients with Gilead Sciences' antiviral medicine remdesivir in a closely watched clinical trial is seeing rapid recoveries in fever and respiratory symptoms …

As testing outcry mounts, Trump cedes to states in announcing guidelines for slow reopening  —  President Trump released federal guidelines Thursday night for a slow and staggered return to normal in places with minimal cases of the novel coronavirus, moving to try to resume economic activity …

Small-Business Rescue Shows Not All States Are Created Equal  —  During the first 10 days of the federal government's small-business rescue program, the spigot was wide open in Nebraska.  Firms there got enough money to cover about three-fourths of the state's eligible payrolls.

Army Decides a Pandemic Is a Good Time to Give GOP Donors $569 Million to ‘Build the Wall’  —  What coronavirus crisis?  Big Republican donors get a half-billion dollar, no-bid deal that one watchdog calls “a travesty that must be investigated and audited immediately.”  —  BEAST INSIDE

Most Americans Say Trump Was Too Slow in Initial Response to Coronavirus Threat  —  Wide concern that states will lift COVID-19 restrictions too quickly  —  How we did this  —  As the death toll from the novel coronavirus pandemic continues to spiral, most Americans do not foresee a quick end to the crisis.

The Trump administration paid a bankrupt company with zero employees $55 million for N95 masks, which it's never manufactured  — The Trump administration has awarded a $55 million contract for N95 masks to a company with no experience producing medical supplies and whose parent company filed for bankruptcy protection last year.

Here's a state that's quietly reversing the tea party's damage  —  A decade ago, the tea party movement — remember them? — helped power a smashing Republican victory in the 2010 midterms, leading not just to GOP control of the House of Representatives, but also to a massive Republican takeover in state governments across the country.

Yair Netanyahu tweets leftists will die of coronavirus following protest  —  “I hope the elderly people who die following this protest will be from your bloc,” the younger Netanyahu junior wrote on Twitter.  —  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's son Yair Netanyahu caused controversy Thursday night …

Trump is lying — keeping the lockdown won't kill more people than coronavirus, and I have the economic proof  —  At 2,800 deaths a day from Covid-19, that ain't in the cards.  So stop whining and fix this  —  {{^moreThanTen}}  —  {{/moreThanTen}}  —  Never at a loss for words …

China's Economy Shrinks, Ending a Nearly Half-Century of Growth  —  The contraction comes at a time when the rest of the world needs an economic boost, underscoring how momentous the task of reviving the global economy will be.  —  The Americans Who Straggled in Good Times, and Now Struggle in a Crisis

Coronavirus could complicate Trump's path to reelection  —  NEW YORK (AP) — The coronavirus is poised to reshape the political map, pummeling battleground states and alarming Republicans who see early signs of an election that could be a referendum on President Donald Trump's management of the crisis.

He risked his life photographing the 1961 Freedom Riders.  Theodore Gaffney just died from the coronavirus at 92.  —  In the spring of 1961, Jet magazine asked Theodore Gaffney, a Washington freelance photographer, to travel with the Freedom Riders, a group of activists from across the country …

Don't whitewash the GOP's extremism on full display during Whitmer protest  —  We were promised it wasn't a Republican protest.  We were promised people were just upset they couldn't golf or buy seeds (in stores) during a pandemic that's already killed 2,000 of their neighbors.

Why Michael Savage is blasting Sean Hannity and the right-wing media on the coronavirus  —  There are a lot of people who are ruining the country right now, according to Michael Savage.  Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  Liberal mayors in big cities like San Francisco.  Undocumented immigrants.

Country grows more pessimistic about a return to normalcy post-coronavirus: POLL  —  Ideological allegiance extends to nearly every aspect of the crisis.  —  The country is growing more pessimistic about a timeframe for a return to normalcy, with ideological allegiance extending …

Trump bows to bureaucrats, unveils a never-ending 3-phase program to end shutdowns … The house arrests will continue indefinitely: Though the country's fifty governors are in charge of the nationwide house arrest and the only ones who can really end it, President Trump today unveiled …

‘Ellen’ Crew Furious Over Poor Communication Regarding Pay, Non-Union Workers During Coronavirus Shutdown (EXCLUSIVE)  —  Endeavor Content, Keller/Noll Launch Game Show Podcast With ‘American Ninja Warrior’ Host Matt Iseman  —  Crew members from Ellen DeGeneres' long-running daytime talk show …

Coronavirus testing must double or triple before U.S. can safely reopen, experts say  —  “We are an order of magnitude off right now from where we should be,” said an expert in infectious disease modeling who advised the Obama administration.  —  Testing for the coronavirus …

Time to fire Jared and Ivanka  —  / AFP PHOTO / MANDEL NGAN (Photo credit should read MANDEL NGAN/AFP/Getty Images)  —  Peter Bergen is CNN's national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University.

We Are Making American Kids Pay For Coronavirus Shutdowns, And That's Unfair  —  Our nation's leaders are demanding that American children pay for this crisis through debt-financed spending, while depriving them of the education they need to make that even remotely possible.

Does the King of the COVID-19 Contrarians Have a Case?  —  Alex Berenson, thriller writer, former Timesman and marijuana alarmist, thinks scientists, politicians, and the media are fueling coronavirus hysteria.  Some scientists think he's dead wrong.  “He should go back to school and learn some science,” says one.

US alerted Israel, NATO to disease outbreak in China in November — report  —  Israeli officials said to have debated threat five months ago, before public was aware of coronavirus, but ‘nothing was done’ by Health Ministry  —  US intelligence agencies alerted Israel to the coronavirus outbreak …

Coronavirus clue?  Most cases aboard U.S. aircraft carrier are symptom-free  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Sweeping testing of the entire crew of the coronavirus-stricken U.S. aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt may have revealed a clue about the pandemic: The majority of the positive cases …

Trump Is Already Trying to Get Around CARES Act Oversight  —  Slate is making its coronavirus coverage free for all readers.  Subscribe to support our journalism.  Start your free trial.  —  As Congress negotiates additional measures to respond to the COVID-19 crisis …

The WHO doesn't only have a China problem — it has a dictator problem  —  This week, President Trump announced that he is suspending U.S. funding for the World Health Organization.  He accused the organization of taking “China's assurances at face value” and pushing “China's misinformation” about the coronavirus outbreak there.