Michael Flynn did something far worse than lie to the FBI. He betrayed the United States. That’s the major revelation of the just-released transcripts of the conversations he had during the presidential transition with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 

Up until now, the Flynn scandal has generally centered on his criminal case, in which Flynn, Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, was charged with—and pleaded guilty to—lying to FBI about his calls with Kislyak. Flynn told bureau agents that he had not discussed the sanctions imposed on Russia by the Obama administration in response to Vladimir Putin’s attack on the 2016 election. Well, he had. And Flynn had even encouraged the Russians to not retaliate severely, suggesting that when Trump took office things between Moscow and Washington could be smoothed over. The FBI knew this because US intelligence had intercepted those calls, presumably part of routine surveillance of the Russian official. Flynn took a deal, and he pleaded guilty to lying to avoid being charged for an unrelated crime (failing to register as a foreign agent for Turkey).

Read the rest of the story at Mother Jones.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday left his home for a site in Wilmington, Del., that has seen protests over the death of a black man at the hands of a white police officer.

It was his second time in a week he ventured outside after having elected to campaign from his house since coronavirus lockdowns went into effect. On Monday, Biden had attended a quick Memorial Day ceremony with his wife.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

The former Minneapolis police officer shown on video putting his knee on George Floyd’s neck for more than 8 1/2 minutes — as he pleaded for air and his mother — was arrested Friday and charged with murder, authorities said.

Derek Chauvin, who was fired on Tuesday along with the three other officers involved in the arrest of Floyd, was taken into custody Friday and faces charges of third-degree murder and manslaughter, Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman announced.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

A police precinct was burning in Minneapolis as protests over the death of George Floyd raged on for a third straight day.

Protesters late Thursday focused their attention on the police department’s 3rd Precinct, the base of four officers who were firedafter Floyd’s death in their custody Monday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Donald Trump went on a tear against Twitter after the social media platform flagged his tweets on mail-in voting as misinformation. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters this afternoon the president plans to sign an executive order “pertaining to social media.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

A cellphone video has gone viral and is sparking widespread outrage after capturing a white dog owner calling 911 and claiming an African American birdwatcher who told her to keep her pet leashed was “threatening myself and my dog” in New York City’s Central Park.

The confrontation occurred on Memorial Day in a wooded area of the urban oasis known as the Ramble, a popular destination for wildlife fans looking to spot rare birds. By Tuesday morning the dog owner had returned her pet to the rescue shelter she adopted it from, was fired from her job at the Franklin Templeton investment firm, and issued an apology for her behavior in an interview with CNN.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Four Minnesota officers have been fired following the detainment of a man who died Monday night after being pinned to the ground by an officer who put his knee on the man’s neck for about eight minutes.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said it was the “right call” to terminate the officers in a tweet announcing the decision Tuesday. The police department said the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the FBI would be independently investigating the incident.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Joe Biden ventured out of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, for his first brief public event in two months on Monday, to observe Memorial Day. Accompanied by his wife Dr. Jill Biden, he laid a flower wreath at Wilmington Memorial Park. The Bidens, who both wore black masks, placed the wreath of white roses before the Memorial Wall, which includes 15,000 names of men and women from Delaware and New Jersey who died in World War II and the Korean War, according to the Memorial’s website.

The two paused in front of the memorial for about a minute and then walked away, hand in hand. Biden also saluted a small group of veterans who were also at the memorial and thanked them for their service.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

Senior Joe Biden campaign adviser Symone Sanders positively steamrolled MSNBC’s Chuck Todd when Todd tried to ask a question about Biden’s controversial remark to radio host Charlamagne Tha God. At the tailed end of a lengthy interview Friday, Biden cracked “If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.”

In a clip that went viral on social media and was flagged here by Crooks and Liars’ Karoli Kuns, Todd played some video of former Obama adviser and longtime senior Democratic operative Patrick Gaspard criticizing Biden over the remarks.

Read the rest of the story and see the video at Mediaite.

Congress is moving toward another round of coronavirus relief as jittery Republican senators demand action and the Trump administration says more legislation is likely to be needed, with unemployment soaring and the U.S. death toll approaching 100,000.

Lawmakers are far from a deal, but the battle lines are emerging in what is likely to be the most contentious negotiations yet after trillions of dollars have already been spent to ease the economic and public health devastation wrought by COVID-19.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by 11 points in a new national poll of registered voters focused on November’s presidential election. The survey from Quinnipiac University shows Biden with 50% to Trump’s 39%, up from the 49% to 41% lead Biden held in an April 8 poll by the same university. The survey noted that more than two months into the coronavirus crisis in the U.S., Trump’s job approval rating is ticking lower. In an average of national polls from RealClearPolitics, Biden leads Trump by 5.6 points. That average includes the Quinnipiac poll, which was taken May 14-18 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.

Read the rest of the story at MarketWatch

President Donald Trump shut down a reporter who asked why he hadn’t yet revealed a plan to get unemployed Americans back to work following the coronavirus pandemic, calling her a “rude person” on Tuesday.

“Mr. President, why haven’t you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back to work. You’re overseeing historic economic despair. What’s the delay?” questioned the reporter, prompting President Trump to reply, “Oh, I think we’ve announced a plan. We’re opening up our country.”

“Just a rude person, you are,” he snapped.

Read the rest of the story and see the video at Mediaite.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., chastised President Donald Trump on Monday for his decision to take hydroxychloroquine, saying that health experts have warned about its effects and that it could be harmful to the president because she said he’s “morbidly obese.”

“As far as the President is concerned, he’s our president and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and in his, shall we say, weight group, morbidly obese, they say. So, I think it’s not a good idea,” Pelosi said in an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

President Donald Trump on Monday threatened to make the freeze on U.S. funding for the World Health Organization permanent.

He also laid out allegations of “missteps” in the way the agency responded to the coronavirus in a letter he said he sent to the WHO’s leader.

The letter, which was posted to Trump’s Twitter account and comes midway through the World Health Assembly, is addressed to WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. It accuses the organization of an “alarming lack of independence from the People’s Republic of China.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The State Department inspector general who was removed from his job Friday was looking into whether Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made a staffer walk his dog, pick up his dry cleaning and make dinner reservations for Pompeo and his wife, among other personal errands, according to two congressional officials assigned to different committees.

The officials said they are working to learn whether former Inspector General Steve Linick may have had other ongoing investigations into Pompeo.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

One of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s early response to the coronavirus spread Sunday, telling NBC’s “Meet the Press” the CDC “let the country down” initially with testing problems.

When asked whether Trump had faith in the CDC, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and coordinator of the Defense Production Act response, said that is a question for the president before criticizing the federal health agency’s initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Independent Michigan Congressman Justin Amash has abandoned his flirtation with a third-party presidential run, announcing his decision in a Twitter thread Saturday afternoon.

In a lengthy Twitter thread, Amash cited, among other things, the challenge of campaigning during the coronavirus pandemic.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

President Donald Trump demanded that GOP Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell ‘get tough and move quickly’ to get back at Democrats for launching the ‘Russia Hoax’ during a Saturday morning Twitter rant.

“Mitch, I love you, but this is 100% true,” Trump said quote tweeting a user advocating for going after Democrats for “Russian collusion hoax.” “Time is running out. Get tough and move quickly, or it will be too late. The Dems are vicious, but got caught. They MUST pay a big price for what they have done to our Country.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

President Donald Trump on Friday removed a watchdog critical of personnel moves in the State Department.

Trump informed Congress of the move in a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, in which he gave no specific reason for firing State Department Inspector General Steve Linick.

Trump wrote he “no longer” had full confidence in the State Department’s inspector general.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., admitted he was wrong when he that the Obama administration never left a plan for President Donald Trump for how to handle a pandemic.

“I was wrong — they did leave behind a plan. So I clearly made a mistake in that regard,” McConnell said in a Thursday evening interview with Fox News’ Brett Baier when asked about his initial comments.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Coronavirus infection rates are spiking to new highs in several metropolitan areas and smaller communities across the country, according to undisclosed data the White House’s pandemic task force is using to track rates of infection, which was obtained by NBC News.

The data in a May 7 coronavirus task force report are at odds with President Donald Trump’s declaration Monday that “all throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the state’s stay-at-home order during the coronavirus pandemic as “unlawful, invalid, and unenforceable” after finding that the state’s health secretary exceeded her authority.

In a 4-3 ruling, the court called Health Services Secretary Andrea Palm’s directive, known as Emergency Order 28, a “vast seizure of power.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

A new poll out Wednesday reveals a whole lot of good news for former Vice President Joe Biden, and bad news for President Donald Trump.

According to the latest Retuers/Ipsos survey, Biden — the presumptive Democratic nominee — has surged to an eight point lead in the race. The same poll showed Biden ahead by only two points just last week — well within the four point margin of error.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

The very nature of the presidency was under scrutiny at the Supreme Court on Tuesday, as the justices heard more than three hours of arguments on whether House committees and prosecutors may obtain troves of information about President Trump’s business affairs.

The court’s ruling, expected by July, could require disclosure of information the president has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect. Or the justices could rule that Mr. Trump’s financial affairs are not legitimate subjects of inquiry.

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times

The Department of Justice said Monday it will consider a request by Georgia’s attorney general to review the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery and assess whether federal hate crime charges should be pursued in the high-profile case.

The federal government’s further involvement would underscore a larger demand by Arbery’s family and civil rights groups for another law enforcement agency to closely examine the handling of the case since Arbery was killed on Feb. 23. Also on Monday, the state’s top prosecutor, Chris Carr, appointed a new district attorney — the fourth since Arbery’s death — to take over the case.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Coronavirus infection rates are spiking to new highs in several metropolitan areas and smaller communities across the country, according to undisclosed data the White House’s pandemic task force is using to track rates of infection, which was obtained by NBC News.

The data in a May 7 coronavirus task force report are at odds with President Donald Trump’s declaration Monday that “all throughout the country, the numbers are coming down rapidly.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Vice President Mike Pence was putting “a little distance” between himself and others this weekend after a staffer tested positive for COVID-19, a senior administration official told NBC News.

The official said that Pence would take the advice of the White House medical unit and that he continues to test negative for the virus. The vice president chose not to attend a national security meeting Saturday, the official said, adding that there is “no restriction” on his activities.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Just two months ago, American workers were enjoying the fruits of the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. But Friday’s jobs report, reflecting April’s official unemployment rate, is expected to show just how thoroughly the economic collapse caused by the coronavirus has eviscerated the U.S. labor market. 

Glassdoor economist Daniel Zhao bluntly predicts “the single worst jobs report in history” when the Labor Department on Friday releases employment numbers for April. Forecasters expect the nation’s jobless rate, which was at 4.4% in March, to skyrocket to an annualized unemployment rate of 15% to 20% for the April period, based on a survey of workers during the week of April 12. 

Read the rest of the story at CBS News

A white man and his son who are accused of killing an unarmed black man in Georgia in February have been arrested after video of the incident sparked widespread outrage.

Gregory McMichael, 64, and Travis McMichael, 34, were arrested in the death of Ahmaud Arbery, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation announced. Both men face charges of aggravated assault and murder.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

One of President Donald Trump’s personal valets, who works in the West Wing serving the president his meals, among other duties, has tested positive for the coronavirus, the closest the virus is known to have come to the president, a White House official said.

Since the White House medical unit was made aware of the case, Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have both tested negative, White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said Thursday. The White House did not say when the valet developed symptoms or when the president was last exposed to the individual.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was treated Tuesday for a gallstone that was causing an infection, the court said in a statement.

She underwent nonsurgical treatment for a benign gallbladder condition at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The condition was detected Monday after the court’s historic telephone session for oral arguments. Tests confirmed that a gallstone had migrated to her cystic duct, causing a blockage and infection.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

President Donald Trump’s coronavirus task force is in the early stages of winding down, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The meetings in the Situation Room of the White House have been shorter, and the task force no longer meets every day, according to the two people. Drs. Deborah Birx and Anthony Fauci are still expected to be at the White House daily, but other members of the task force may be present less frequently. However, two separate sources familiar with the matter noted that the task force met Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Watch the latest video from The Lincoln Project.

The Senate will gavel in Monday as the coronavirus rages, returning to an uncertain agenda and deepening national debate over how best to confront the deadly pandemic and its economic devastation.

With the House staying away due to the health risks, and the 100 senators convening for the first time since March, the conflicted Congress reflects an uneasy nation. The Washington area remains a virus hot-spot under stay-home rules.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, says she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.

“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said in an interview Friday with The Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”

Read the rest of the story at The Associated Press

Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said Sunday that anti-lockdown protests are “devastatingly worrisome” because demonstrators who do not practice social distancing measures could contract the illness and pass it on to others back home.

“It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally, because if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very … unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of [their] lives,” Birx said. “So we need to protect each other at the same time we’re voicing our discontent.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

April was Sexual Assault Awareness Month. Every year, at this time, we talk about awareness, prevention, and the importance of women feeling they can step forward, say something, and be heard. That belief — that women should be heard — was the underpinning of a law I wrote over 25 years ago. To this day, I am most proud of the Violence Against Women Act. So, each April we are reminded not only of how far we have come in dealing with sexual assault in this country — but how far we still have to go.

Read the rest of Joe Biden’s statement at Medium

The Federal Reserve is holding its benchmark short-term interest rate near zero in an effort to offset the crushing economic impact of the coronavirus. The U.S. central bank said Wednesday it would keep rates low until there are “signs the economy has recovered from coronavirus and shutdown.”

In a press conference following the policy decision, Fed Chairman Jay Powell said he expects an “unprecedented” drop in economic activity over the next few months. He also hinted at the need for more government stimulus.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

Infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci on Wednesday touted the results of trial examining an experimental drug treatment for the novel coronavirus, calling it “good news” as he spoke in the Oval Office alongside President Donald Trump.

A randomized, international trial of the drug remdesivir had resulted in “quite good news,” shortening the period patients experienced symptoms and potentially slightly reducing the mortality rate, according to Fauci, a member of the White House’s coronavirus task force and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which sponsored the trial.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

Vice President Mike Pence went on a tour of the Mayo Clinic’s coronavirus testing labs Tuesday — and ignored the prestigious Minnesota hospital’s rules that all occupants wear masks.

“Mayo Clinic had informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today,” the clinic tweeted while Pence was still inside meeting with doctors and patients.

The tweet was later deleted. Asked for comment, the clinic said only that it had “shared the masking policy with the VP’s office.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Donald Trump got on the presidential Twitter machine on Sunday to go on an enraged rant against The New York Times and their report on his activities in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

See the tweets and read the story at Mediaite.

After nearly 50 coronavirus press briefings in March and April, President Donald Trump’s aides and allies are increasingly worried that his lengthy appearances are backfiring politically and White House officials say they are evaluating whether to reduce his participation in news conferences in the weeks to come.

Concerns that the briefings are hurting the president reached an inflection point Thursday evening when Trump suggested that people might be able to inject household cleaning items or disinfectants to deter the coronavirus, sparking immediate and universal backlash from the medical community.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Unemployment around the U.S., near a 50-year low before the coronavirus struck, will surge to 16% by September as the economy withers under the impact of the outbreak, the Congressional Budget Office said Friday. 

That would far exceed the hit to the labor market during the Great Recession, when the jobless rate peaked at 10%. Unemployment will likely remain in double-digits into 2021, according to the agency.

Read the rest of the story at CBS News.

A day after he floated the idea of using disinfectants and light to treat COVID-19, President Donald Trump declined to take any questions at his daily coronavirus briefing at the White House.

The briefing — which can sometimes last about two hours — was over in just over 20 minutes, following remarks from Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and FDA head Stephen Hahn. The two top government doctors charged with combating the coronavirus crisis, Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx, were not in attendance.

On Thursday, Trump drew widespread criticism for suggesting light, heat and injecting disinfectants could be used to treat coronavirus patients.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Thursday predicted President Donald Trump will try to delay the 2020 presidential election in a ploy to snag a reelection victory.

“Mark my words, I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Biden said, according to a pool report of an online campaign event. “That’s the only way he thinks he can possibly win.”

Read the rest of the story at Politico.

Traditionally, Las Vegas has been a place where Americans go to forget about statistics, but in an appearance on Anderson Cooper 360, Mayor Carolyn Goodman stressed the need for a control group to determine if social distancing measures are the tool that have kept American deaths below the early, catastrophic estimates. Generously for the United States — and unfortunately for the people of her neon city — she offered that Las Vegas be that control group, allowing a return to normal to see if an intensified outbreak would occur.

Read the rest of the story at New York Magazine.

Calling the 1,200 mid-sized to large jails in the nation “veritable volcanoes for the spread of the virus,” the American Civil Liberties Union released results on Wednesday of its own epidemiological model projecting a coronavirus death toll in the United States that more than doubles estimates from the federal government.

The ACLU teamed with academic researchers from the University of Tennessee, Washington State University and the University of Pennsylvania to create the model based on data from jails boasting populations of more than 100 and estimating the number of deaths from the contagion is 100,000 more than what the White House Coronavirus Task Force models are projecting.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News.

As the coronavirus public health crisis wears on, lawmakers scrambled back to the nation’s capital for a House vote Thursday on the $484 billion relief package that will boost the exhausted small business loan program – even as the city of Washington remains under a strict stay-at-home order until at least mid-May.

“We are asking every member to return who can return, and we hope that is a large number,” House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters on Tuesday.

Read the rest of the story at ABC News

Attorney General William Barr said Tuesday that the need for strong restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus may be passing and that the Justice Department might consider taking legal action against states that go too far.

“There are very, very burdensome impingements on liberty,” he told radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt, “and we adopted them for the limited purpose of slowing down the spread. We didn’t adopt them as the comprehensive way of dealing with this disease. We are now seeing that these are bending the curve, and we have to come up with more targeted approaches.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Medical officials in California’s Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley, indicated late Tuesday that the first U.S. death connected to the coronavirus happened weeks earlier than previously believed.

Two deaths on Feb. 6 and Feb. 17 were not initially thought to have been COVID-19-related, but further testing has revealed that they were, the county medical examiner said Tuesday.

“Today, the Medical Examiner-Coroner received confirmation from the CDC that tissue samples from both cases are positive for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19),” the Santa Clara County Medical Examiner-Coroner said in a statement.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Congressional Democrats slammed President Donald Trump after he announced that he plans to suspend immigration to the United States, arguing that such a move does nothing to protect Americans from the coronavirus and deflects attention away from his handling of the outbreak.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., tweeted that Trump is the “xenophobe. In. chief.”

“This action is not only an attempt to divert attention away from Trump’s failure to stop the spread of the coronavirus and save lives, but an authoritarian-like move to take advantage of a crisis and advance his anti-immigrant agenda. We must come together to reject his division,” tweeted Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

Some governors in the South have begun loosening restrictions put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp on Monday granted businesses across the state permission to reopen later this week, an announcement echoed by a handful of other Republican governors who are beginning to lift stay-at-home orders.

Kemp’s decision, which will apply to barbershops, gyms and other businesses that include close contact, comes days after President Donald Trump issued guidelines to reopen state economies. Protesters across the country have been gathering at rallies outside state capitals demanding an end to shutdown orders.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Airlines, restaurants, retailers, farmers and a slew of other industries are getting billions of dollars in bailouts as the U.S. economy contracts because of the coronavirus pandemic — but America’s oil companies are hitting a dry hole.

U.S. oil futures prices fell to their lowest-ever level by far on Monday, at -$37.63 per barrel, meaning owners of the futures contracts were paying to offload them. It broke the previous low price record near $10 a barrel set in 1986 and comes as policymakers struggled to address the glut of crude that has seen the industry reverse a decade-long boom and sink into a deep recession that threatens to push dozens of companies into bankruptcy.

Read the rest of the story at Politico.

The World Health Organization chief warned Monday that “the worst is yet ahead of us” in the coronavirus outbreak, reviving the alarm just as many countries ease restrictive measures aimed at reducing its spread.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus didn’t specify why he believes the outbreak that has infected some 2.5 million people and killed over 166,000 could get worse. He and others, however, have previously pointed to the likely future spread of the illness through Africa, where health systems are far less developed.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Opposition to COVID-19 stay-at-home orders has continued to build from coast to coast, with at least five states the site of protests Sunday.

Protesters sporting masks and signs took to their state capitols, while others honked their car horns during gridlock demonstrations calling on their governors to open up their states.

Almost 60 percent of American voters are worried that lifting restrictions on public behavior too soon will lead to a spike in coronavirus cases and deaths.

According to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, 58 percent of registered voters expressed concern about a loosening of restrictions, compared with 32 percent who worried that the restrictions would stay in place for too long. Three percent said they were concerned about both scenarios.

Read the rest of the story at Politico

While mom-and-pops struggle to get a loan through the Payroll Protection Program (PPP), a number of sizable restaurant chains are cashing multimillion-dollar checks from the relief initiative, a cornerstone of federal efforts to help small businesses through the COVID-19 crisis.

The parent of the Ruth’s Chris steakhouse chain collected $20 million by applying through each of two subsidiaries. Taco Cabana qualified for a $10 million loan, and Potbelly Sandwich Shop landed a $10 million loan, the largest advance permitted per applicant under the PPP.

Kura Sushi, a 25-unit sushi chain, qualified for a loan of just under $6 million. CEO Hajime Uba told investors Tuesday that a portion of the money will be used for owed rent, as permitted under the PPP program.

Read the rest of the story at Restaurant Business Online.

On two phone calls with President Donald Trump, congressional Democrats on Thursday pressed him to wait until widespread coronavirus testing is available before issuing federal guidance to reopen the country economically, two lawmakers on the teleconferences told NBC News.

But the president insisted that the economy would have to be reopened before broad testing can be available, Sen. Mike Braun, R-Ind., told NBC News.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

U.S. retail sales plummeted 8.7% in March, an unprecedented decline, as the viral outbreak forces an almost complete lock down of commerce nationwide.

The deterioration of sales far outpaces the previous record decline of 3.9% that took place during the depths of the Great Recession in November 2008.

President Trump directs halt to payments to World Health Organization while US reviews virus warnings regarding China.

Read the rest of the story at The Washington Post.

President Donald Trump’s grievances with the media and his political opponents took center stage Monday during the daily White House coronavirus briefing after a weekend of tough reporting on his administration’s handling of the pandemic.

“Everything we did was right,” Trump told reporters after playing a campaign-style video defending the White House’s response to the crisis.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and his counterparts in Washington and Oregon announced “a regional pact to recovery” from the coronavirus crisis on Monday and agreed to work together to develop a plan to lift restrictions on daily life and reopen economies along the West Coast.

The announcement comes as six states in the Northeast — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island — also agreed to coordinate regional efforts to gradually ease restrictions adopted to prevent the spread of the virus.

Read the rest of the story at The Los Angeles Times.

President Donald Trump was clearly annoyed by Dr. Anthony Fauci‘s comments on CNN today regarding the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, retweeting a former congressional candidate’s post that criticized Fauci and used the hashtag “#FireFauci.”

Earlier in the day, Fauci had appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper, and made several comments that may have raised Trump’s ire, including saying that if America had adopted coronavirus mitigation measures earlier, we could have saved lives, and that he had doubts that the pandemic would be sufficiently resolved by November in order for voters to be able to safely go to polling stations in person.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, said Sunday that earlier efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus in the U.S. “obviously” could have saved lives but that top health officials faced “a lot of pushback about shutting things down.”

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was responding on CNN’s “State of the Union” to a New York Times report saying President Donald Trump’s top public health officials concluded by the third week of February that they should recommend to the president a new approach to COVID-19that included social distancing steps. But according to The Times, the White House “focused instead on messaging and crucial additional weeks went by before their views were reluctantly accepted by the president — time when the virus spread largely unimpeded.”

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

U.S. spy agencies collected raw intelligence hinting at a public health crisis in Wuhan, China, in November, two current and one former U.S. official told NBC News, but the information was not understood as the first warning signs of an impending global pandemic.

The intelligence came in the form of communications intercepts and overhead images showing increased activity at health facilities, the officials said. The intelligence was distributed to some federal public health officials in the form of a “situation report” in late November, a former official briefed on the matter said. But there was no assessment that a lethal global outbreak was brewing at that time, a defense official said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

The White House’s Office of Management and Budget is working on a possible plan to cut U.S. aid to the World Health Organization, administration officials said Wednesday, as President Donald Trump tries to deflect blame for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Administration officials said they also plan to look into the timeline of the WHO’s reaction to the coronavirus after it first appeared in China, as well as “links” to China.

“What the WHO knew and how it reacted to that knowledge is relevant to the U.S. government’s response to the crisis,” a senior administration official said.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

After less than a year on the job, White House press secretary and communications director Stephanie Grisham is stepping down, according to senior Trump administration officials.

Grisham is returning to the East Wing to start immediately as first lady Melania Trump’s chief of staff and spokesperson, her office announced Tuesday. She previously served in the East Wing as communications director and deputy chief of staff.

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has resigned, two defense officials said, a day after he ridiculed and then apologized to a captain he had ousted for raising concerns about a coronavirus outbreak on his aircraft carrier.

Modly offered to quit in a Tuesday morning conversation with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, the officials said. Esper accepted his resignation and has selected Under Secretary of the Army James McPherson to replace Modly as acting Navy secretary, according to the officials.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News

President Donald Trump has upended the panel of federal watchdogs overseeing implementation of the $2 trillion coronavirus law, tapping a replacement for the Pentagon official who was supposed to lead the effort.

A panel of inspectors general had named Glenn Fine — the acting Pentagon watchdog — to lead the group charged with monitoring the coronavirus relief effort. But Trump on Monday removed Fine from his post, instead naming the EPA inspector general to serve as the temporary Pentagon watchdog in addition to his other responsibilities.

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Wisconsin’s controversial election is back on for Tuesday, and voters will get no extension on the deadline to return absentee ballots despite the coronavirus crisis, thanks to two top courts that sided with Republicans on Monday.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, issued an executive order Monday afternoon postponing the election to June 9, citing the public health risk. But the state Supreme Court hours later overturned the governor, siding with the Republican-controlled Legislature, which had challenged his order.

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President Donald Trump on Friday said new guidance from the Centers for Disease and Prevention urges Americans to wear cloth face coverings in public to prevent the spread of the virus.

“The CDC is advising the use of nonmedical cloth face covering as a voluntary health measure,” Trump said during his Friday briefing. “It is voluntary. They suggested for a period of time. This is voluntary.”

“The CDC is not recommending the use of medical grade or surgical grade masks,” he added, noting things such as the N95 respirators need to be saved for medical professionals.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

President Donald Trump has fired Michael Atkinson, the Intelligence Community Inspector General, who brought forward the whistleblower complaint to Congress in light of President Donald Trump’s conversation with Ukraine’s president – which later led to the impeachment proceedings.

The news comes late Friday night, in a letter obtained by CNN, which states Atkinson is set to be booted in 30 days from his post.

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., announced Thursday that a bipartisan House committee will investigate the federal response to coronavirus pandemic and ensure that congressional funding is spent wisely.

“The committee will be empowered to examine all aspects of the federal response to the coronavirus, and to assure that the taxpayer dollars are being wisely and efficiently spent to save lives, deliver relief and benefit our economy,” Pelosi said during a conference call with reporters.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday issued a stay-at-home order for the entire state as it grapples with a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak.

The order goes into effect Thursday at midnight and will last for at least 30 days, DeSantis said at a briefing on Wednesday. DeSantis said at Wednesday’s briefing that the order would limit movement within the state. Unless residents are pursuing “essential” services or activities they should stay indoors, he said.

DeSantis had been previously criticized for refusing to implement statewide social distancing guidelines, particularly as beach-goers and students on spring break continued to gather in large groups. DeSantis refused to close the state’s beaches even as other states were shutting down schools and nonessential businesses.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

The White House will not reopen the Obamacare exchanges to allow uninsured Americans to purchase health care coverage during the coronavirus pandemic, NBC News has confirmed.

Last month, President Donald Trump signaled that he was considering a special enrollment period that would reopen federal insurance exchanges, which shuttered in December after the end of the annual open enrollment period.

“It’s something we’re talking to a lot of people about. We’ll see what happens,” Trump said in March.

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A chorus of governors from across the political spectrum is publicly challenging the Trump administration’s assertion that the United States is well-stocked and well-prepared to test people for the coronavirus and care for the sickest patients.

In New York State — the center of the nation’s outbreak, with at least 1,550 deaths — Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Tuesday that the country’s patchwork approach to the pandemic had made it harder to get desperately needed ventilators.

“You now literally will have a company call you up and say, ‘Well, California just outbid you,’” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said in his daily news briefing. “It’s like being on eBay with 50 other states, bidding on a ventilator.”

Read the rest of the story at The New York Times.

Wall Street just ended one of the worst quarters in stock market history, with all three major averages reflecting the devastating economic impact of the pandemic that has ground global activity almost to a halt.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down by just over 400 points by the closing bell on Tuesday, a quarterly loss of 22 percent for the blue-chip index and its worst Q1 performance ever.

The S&P 500 ended the day lower by around 1.85 percent, its worst first quarter since 1938, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq closed down by just under 1 percent.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on Tuesday suggested that the January Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump distracted from crucial early efforts to respond to the emerging coronavirus pandemic.

During an appearance on conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt’s radio show, McConnell was asked about a POLITICO articlepublished Monday that pointed to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., as one of the first people on Capitol Hill to sound warnings on coronavirus. The article quoted Cotton as blaming impeachment for diverting the government’s focus away from the threats.

Read the rest of the story at NBC News.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning, said that President Donald Trump’s “denial at the beginning” with respect to coronavirus was “deadly.”

Pelosi told Jake Tapper, “The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly. His delaying of getting equipment to where it continued — his continued delay in getting equipment to where it’s needed is deadly. Now the best thing to do would be to prevent more loss of life rather than open things up, because we just don’t know. We have to have testing, testing, testing.”

Read the rest of the story at Mediaite.