Evening Briefing

The Trump administration has already spent more than half of the $3 trillion in economic rescue funds passed by Congress—with almost none of the oversight intended to ensure the money goes where it should. Some of the oversight bodies are barely functional: A special inspector general was only recently sworn in, a congressional panel still lacks a chairman and staff, and President Donald Trump quickly removed the official who was going to lead a separate accountability committee. The sheer size of the pandemic response means there’s already a wide swath of potential wrongdoing to investigate. —Josh Petri

Here are today’s top stories

John R. Bolton, the former national security adviser, said in his new book that Trump sought to intervene in law enforcement matters for political reasons and overtly linked China trade negotiations to his own re-election. Trump just signed a measure punishing Chinese officials for imprisoning one million Muslims, a widely condemned policy condoned by Trump when he encouraged Beijing to build the prison camps, Bolton said. The book, which Trump has now sued to block, is yet another brick of bad news for the embattled Republican president. His Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, maintains a more than 8 percentage point lead in an average of national polls.

Texas reported a record number of hospitalizations and Arizona hospitals may become overwhelmed as coronavirus cases surge in two states where governors reopened earlier than experts said was wise. New cases in Florida and Oregon also rose to the highest level since the pandemic began. States that were eager to reopen despite the risk of more American dead now face increasing pressure to close down again, something critics note would not have been necessary had they followed the lead of New York, the hardest hit state. Once the global epicenter of Covid-19 deaths, New York City is on track to ease restrictions even more on Monday: Restaurants will be able to serve diners outdoors and hair salons can resume operations.

Lowndes County, Alabama, exemplifies the kind of place where the coronavirus continues to spread unchecked: It’s among the nation’s poorest counties, is majority Black, rife with preexisting illnesses and starved for health-care resources. It doesn’t even have a hospital. Its sole doctor, George Thomas, is now battling an infection rate that rivals the worst-off zip code in New York City at its pandemic peak.

Sweden, which has been widely assailed for allowing schools, shops and restaurants to stay open in the hope of achieving herd immunity, has made less progress than it expected. The nation also still has one of the worst Covid-19 death rates in the world. New Zealand, which succeeded in eradicating the virus with fast, strict measures, announced two new cases in an apparent failure of its quarantine system. There have been over 8.2 million confirmed cases and 445,500 deaths worldwide. Here's the latest.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell urged Congress not to pull back too quickly on federal relief for households and small businesses amid increasing debate over whether to extend temporary bailout programs.

The Trump administration withdrew from international talks over a digital tax deal, which may leave American tech giants like Amazon, Alphabet and Facebook subject to a wave of foreign taxes. Apple, meanwhile, is facing a renewed attack from antitrust regulators and exasperated developers.

A group of Republicans opposed to Trump is launching a super PAC to mobilize disaffected GOP voters to back Biden instead come November.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

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What you’ll want to read tonight in Businessweek

The Case for the Return of the American Milkman

The argument for buying locally produced food is stronger than ever. When the pandemic shut down the U.S., it sped up the trend toward online grocery shopping and highlighted shortcomings of industrial food conglomerates, which value efficiency and scale over taste, nutrition and the livelihoods of farmers. (Those producers get only 8¢ out of every dollar spent by consumers, on average.) Portland, Oregon-based MilkRun’s mission is straightforward: Making it as easy to buy from local farmers as it is to book a ride with Lyft.

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