New HHS spokesman made racist comments about Chinese people in now-deleted tweets  —  WARNING: This story contains graphic language.  —  (CNN)The new spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services in a series of now-deleted tweets made racist and derogatory comments about Chinese people …

Elizabeth Warren's oldest brother dies of coronavirus in Oklahoma  —  Donald Reed Herring, the oldest brother of Senator Elizabeth Warren, died on Tuesday night in Norman, Okla., about three weeks after testing positive for coronavirus.  —  Herring, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, was 86.

AP-NORC poll: Few Americans trust Trump's info on pandemic  —  WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has made himself the daily spokesman for the nation's coronavirus response.  Yet few Americans regularly look to or trust Trump as a source of information on the pandemic …

Fox News Poll: Biden and Trump in tight race in Florida  —  Florida voters narrowly prefer presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden over Donald Trump in the presidential race, as a majority says the White House was too slow in responding to the coronavirus outbreak.

In Wisconsin, Virus Creates New Front in Long-Simmering Partisan Wars  —  Protests planned for Friday continue a decade-long partisan cleaving in the state and serve as a stand-in for the general election battle to come.  —  Wisconsin had barely finished its fight over whether to hold …

Special Report: Former Labradoodle breeder was tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force  —  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - On January 21, the day the first U.S. case of coronavirus was reported, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services appeared on Fox News to report the latest on the disease as it ravaged China.

Facing furor, Ruth's Chris high-end steak chain returns $20 million small business loan  —  The restaurant chain has been under fire for accepting stimulus loans earmarked for struggling small businesses.  —  Ruth's Chris Steak House will return the $20 million coronavirus small business loan …

New data on Gilead's remdesivir, released by accident, show no benefit for coronavirus patients.  Company still sees reason for hope  —  The antiviral medicine remdesivir from Gilead Sciences failed to speed the improvement of patients with Covid-19 or prevent them from dying …

‘Sadness’ and Disbelief From a World Missing American Leadership  —  The coronavirus pandemic is shaking bedrock assumptions about U.S. exceptionalism.  This is perhaps the first global crisis in more than a century where no one is even looking for Washington to lead.

They lived in a factory for 28 days to make millions of pounds of raw PPE materials to help fight coronavirus  —  At his factory just off the Delaware River, in the far southeastern corner of Pennsylvania, Joe Boyce clocked in on March 23 for the longest shift of his life.

‘Wuhan Plague’ plaques found on Atlanta businesses, streets  —  Hodgepodge Coffeehouse owner Krystle Rodriguez received a text from her employee about the sign: a round plaque glued to her Moreland Avenue building outside her restaurant depicting Winnie the Pooh eating a bat with chopsticks below the words “Wuhan Plague.”

House creates new select coronavirus oversight committee over GOP objections  —  The House voted Thursday to establish a new investigative committee to monitor President Donald Trump's implementation of nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus relief measures, a step they said would safeguard …

Misunderstanding the math, Trump embraced a coronavirus death toll we'll soon surpass  —  When the White House announced its recommendation last month that Americans refrain from meeting in groups and take other steps to contain the spread of the coronavirus, it presented a chart suggesting …

Trump administration considers leveraging emergency coronavirus loan to force Postal Service changes  —  President Trump has railed for years against what he sees as mismanagement of the agency, which he argues has been exploited by sites such as Amazon  —  The Treasury Department …

Governor: Antibody survey shows wide exposure to virus in NY  —  NEW YORK (AP) — More evidence is emerging that far more New Yorkers have had the coronavirus than the number confirmed by lab tests, officials said Thursday.  —  A state survey of about 3,000 people found that nearly 14% had antibodies …

The GOP has reached its sad, inevitable destination  —  When I think I have reached the bottom of my dejection about the state of public health and of the economy, I can always turn to the state of the Republican Party and go lower still.  —  The Trump captivity of the GOP has reached its sad …

Kansas GOP chair asks Wagle and Lindstrom to drop out of Senate race for good of party  —  Kansas GOP chair Mike Kuckelman sent letters Thursday to two Republican candidates asking them to drop out of the race for U.S. Senate for the good of the party.  —  In nearly identical April 23 letters …

Murphy: McConnell's suggestion states declare bankruptcy ‘utterly irresponsible’  —  New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday blasted as “completely and utterly irresponsible” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's suggestion that state governments facing financial disaster during …

Trump Donor Hired Trump-Tied Lobbyists, Then Raked in Coronavirus Relief Cash  —  The real estate investment firm Ashford Inc. turned to big time fundraisers for the president to help it stave off financial ruin.  —  In late March, real estate investment firm Ashford Inc. was on the verge of financial ruin.

The Cuomos' Corona Protocol, Week 3  —  Just as my husband, Chris, began to finally kick this, I was stricken with the coronavirus.  I spent a week in isolation battling COVID-19.  Here's what I learned—and what I did to push it out over the week.  —  On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day …

My Restaurant Was My Life for 20 Years.  Does the World Need It Anymore?  —  Forced to shutter Prune, I've been revisiting my original dreams for it — and wondering if there will still be a place for it in the New York of the future.  —  On the night before I laid off all 30 of my employees …

Officials probe the threat of a coronavirus bioweapon  —  The Pentagon and the intelligence community are more forcefully investigating the possibility that adversaries could use the novel coronavirus as a bioweapon, according to defense and intelligence officials, in a shift that reflects …

Coronavirus is invading Red America, new data show.  That's ominous for Trump.  —  The political geography of our pandemic is shifting.  And that's bad news for President Trump.  —  I don't mean that this is bad news for Trump's reelection chances, though that might prove the case.

Miami-Dade County misses out on 1 million N95 masks when feds scoop up shipment  —  Miami-Dade's emergency arm was close to taking possession of 1 million N95 masks last week, but the shipment was “taken” by the federal government, WLRN reported.  —  Frank Rollason, Miami-Dade's director …

Bernie Sanders' ex-press secretary explains why she's not endorsing Biden  —  The Bernie Sanders campaign's former press secretary Briahna Joy Gray told the Atlantic in an interview Thursday that Joe Biden has not done enough to secure her endorsement, or the votes of many progressive Democrats.

Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products  —  Contrary to assertions to Congress, employees often consulted sales information on third-party vendors when developing private-label merchandise  —  Amazon.com Inc. employees have used data about independent sellers …

Task force members sent Birx to convince Trump to denounce Kemp's Georgia reopening decision, source says  —  Trump: I told Georgia governor I disagree with decision to reopen  —  (CNN)Members of the coronavirus task force had to convince President Donald Trump to change his view …

Was Hockney RIGHT?  French researchers to give nicotine patches to coronavirus patients and frontline workers after lower rates of infection were found among smokers  — A French study found that only 4.4% of 350 coronavirus patients hospitalized were regular smokers and 5.3% of 130 homebound patients smoked

A Conservative Journalist Admitted To Taking $100,000 From A Financier Connected To A Controversial Chinese Billionaire  —  A conservative journalist who was fired from the Washington Free Beacon last year for what the publication called an “undisclosed financial transaction” …

Democrats plan to censure lawmaker who credited Trump for COVID-19 recovery  —  Detroit Democrats plan to vote Saturday to censure and bar any future endorsements of a Democratic lawmaker who credited President Donald Trump with advocating for the drug that she said cured her of COVID-19.

Trump chloroquine push came after talk with donor, source says  —  The official said he was instructed to implement a program aimed at expanding access to the drug after the president's conversation with a billionaire supporter.  —  WASHINGTON — A top Health and Human Services official …

Home Alone at the White House: A Sour President, With TV His Constant Companion  —  As his administration grapples with reopening the economy and responding to the coronavirus crisis, President Trump worries about his re-election and how the news media is portraying him.

Layoffs wreck the states that lifted Trump to the White House  —  Battleground states that handed Donald Trump the presidency four years ago are seeing higher-than-average layoffs amid an economic downturn wreaking havoc across the country — a dynamic that could hold major implications for November's election.

We Won't Do This for 12 to 18 Months  —  Economist Herb Stein was famous for a great many things, but most prominent among them was “Stein's Law.”  It is elegant in its simplicity: “If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.”  —  Stein's Law is particularly appropriate these days as we discuss plans for reopening the economy.

Hidden Outbreaks Spread Through U.S. Cities Far Earlier Than Americans Knew, Estimates Say  —  Hidden Outbreaks Spread Far Earlier Than Americans Knew, Estimates Say  —  New York, Boston, San Francisco, Chicago and Seattle had undetected outbreaks long before testing showed a major problem, according to a model.