Trump expected to sign executive order that could threaten punishment against Facebook, Google and Twitter over allegations of political bias  —  The president is expected to sign the order on Thursday.  —  President Trump is preparing to sign an executive order Thursday that could open …

‘Sorry, no mask allowed’: Some businesses pledge to keep out customers who cover their faces  —  For 64 days, Kevin Smith had shut down the Liberty Tree Tavern to comply with government orders.  Now he was cleaning and disinfecting and removing stools to cut seating by three-quarters as he prepared to reopen the bar.

George Floyd protest turns violent, deadly; Minneapolis mayor requests National Guard  —  “We can have peaceful demonstrations,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said.  “But I also have to ensure the safety of everyone in the city.”  —  The mayor of Minneapolis has requested help …

‘Callous liars’: Pennsylvania Democrats say GOP put them at risk by hiding member's positive covid-19 test  —  Democratic state legislators in Pennsylvania accused their Republican counterparts Wednesday of keeping a GOP lawmaker's positive coronavirus diagnosis under wraps for days …

The Psychopath in Chief … Among the accomplishments Trump parades most proudly is that he has won eighteen golf club championships.  Like so many of his claims, this one is pure fiction.  When the sportswriter Rick Reilly investigated for his book Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump …

Trump is courting a landslide defeat  —  US president's bungled coronavirus response has alienated crucial older voters  —  Donald Trump's 2016 victory caught most people by surprise, including him.  The safest position since then has been to assume he will do it again.

Get Republicans to Vote Against Trump?  This Group Will Spend $10 Million to Try  —  A new organization, Republican Voters Against Trump, is testing the premise of whether there are really any persuadable voters left.  —  WASHINGTON — Four years ago, 50 of the country's …

‘We Loved Each Other’: Fauci Recalls Larry Kramer, Friend and Nemesis  —  In public, the activist berated the infectious disease expert for federal inaction on AIDS.  But their affection lasted decades and changed the course of the epidemic.  —  “How did I meet Larry?

New poll shows Sara Gideon leading Susan Collins by 9 points  —  Ethan: Did you take a look at the new poll on the U.S. Senate race I just sent?  It shows U.S. Sen. Susan Collins losing 51 percent to 42 percent to House Speaker Sara Gideon!  —  Phil: A-yuh.  Sobering news for Susan.

Americans on Unemployment Benefits Post First Drop of Pandemic  — Continuing claims fell to 21.1 million in week ended May 16  — Initial jobless claims totaled 2.12 million last week  —  U.S. states' jobless rolls shrank for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic …

Pence Chief Of Staff Owns Stocks That Could Conflict With Coronavirus Response  —  Audio will be available later today.  —  Marc Short, the chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, owns between $506,043 and $1.64 million worth of individual stocks in companies doing work related …

The Finance 202: The Fed has bracing news for anyone expecting a sharp economic rebound  —  The ongoing crisis brought on by the pandemic shutdowns has caused “steep” job losses, with activity “falling sharply” across the map, the central bank's latest survey of economic conditions on the ground finds.

Famed Democratic pollster: Warren as VP would lead to Biden victory  —  Stan Greenberg, one of the Democratic Party's longtime leading pollsters, urged Hillary Clinton in 2016 to pick Elizabeth Warren as her vice president.  He thinks Clinton would be president had she listened.

The Trump campaign's new chief of staff was arrested on campaign finance charges in 2016 after cops busted her boyfriend for cocaine and found incriminating texts on his phone  — Stephanie Alexander was named chief of staff of Donald Trump's re-election campaign on Tuesday.

Fact-checking Trump's recent claims that mail-in voting is rife with fraud  —  Twitter fact-checks Trump's tweets for the first time  —  Washington (CNN)As the coronavirus pandemic has brought much of normal life to a halt, more and more states are considering mail-in ballots.

Lights.  Camera.  Makeup.  And a Carefully Placed 1,246-Page Book.  —  ‘The Power Broker,’ a biography by Robert Caro has become a must-have prop for numerous politicians and reporters appearing on camera from home.  —  It is 46 years old, weighs nearly four pounds in paperback …

How the pandemic spread and contracted on its way to killing 100,000 Americans  —  The first coronavirus death in the United States wasn't the first coronavirus death in the United States.  —  We learned on Feb. 29 that someone had died of covid-19, the disease caused by the virus …

Don't Bother Learning to Code  —  Ruthless outsourcing will be the death of the American Dream.  —  The shotgun blast reverberated across the parking garage of Bank of America's Concord Technology Center in the Bay Area suburb of Walnut Creek, California.  In the front seat of a pickup truck sat …

Barr appoints Texas prosecutor to review Obama officials' ‘unmasking’ requests  —  Attorney General William P. Barr has appointed a U.S. attorney in Texas to scrutinize Obama-era officials who sought to identify anonymized names in government documents that turned out to be people connected …

Japan ends its COVID-19 state of emergency  —  Science's COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.  —  Japan yesterday declared at least a temporary victory in its battle with COVID-19, and it triumphed by following its own playbook.  It drove down the number of daily new cases …

Minneapolis venture capitalist loses office lease after viral video accuses him of racial profiling  —  Subject of video said he believed some of the men were not tenants.  —  TEXT SIZE  —  A Minneapolis venture capitalist's office lease has been terminated after a video went viral showing …

New FBI document confirms the Trump campaign was investigated without justification  —  Late last week the FBI document that started the Trump-Russia collusion fiasco was publicly released.  It hasn't received a lot of attention but it should, because not too long from now this document likely …

U.S. to Expel Chinese Graduate Students With Ties to China's Military Schools  —  The move is the latest in the Trump administration's efforts to impose limits on Chinese students.  But many university officials say the government is paranoid, and that the United States will lose out.

When hard data are ‘heartbreaking’: Testing blitz in San Francisco shows Covid-19 struck mostly low-wage workers  —  Early in the coronavirus outbreak, as the first infected patients trickled into Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, Diane Havlir noticed a troubling trend.

Trump's ‘Horrifying Lies’ About Lori Klausutis May Cross a Legal Line  —  The president's innuendo about the death of a congressional staffer in 2001 could lead to a costly court judgment against him.  —  Mr. Schuck is an emeritus professor of law at Yale and Darling Foundation visiting professor …

“Everyone Is Shocked”: CBS News Hit Hard by Layoffs  —  “I'm really sorry,” network president Susan Zirinsky said Wednesday on an all-staff Zoom meeting about the cuts.  “There is not a person who won't be missed.”  —  CBS News was hit hard by a round of corporate cost-cutting that saw …

GOP operatives worry Trump will lose both the presidency and Senate majority  —  Washington (CNN)A little more than three months ago, as Democrats cast their ballots in the Nevada caucuses, Republicans felt confident about their chances in 2020.  The coronavirus seemed a distant, far-off threat.

The N+1 Candidate  —  Nikil Saval wants to bring more democratic socialism to Philadelphia, as part of a leftist wave in American electoral politics.  —  Nikil Saval is a socialist candidate running for State Senate in Pennsylvania's 1st district, which encompasses a huge swath of Philadelphia.

Reducing transmission of SARS-CoV-2  —  1Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.  —  2Department of Chemistry, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan 804, Republic of China.  —  3Aerosol Science Research Center …