TOP STORIES

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Wednesday, May 13

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FAUCI COLD WATER: 'SERIOUS RISK' FROM RUSHED REOPEN Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, told the Senate Health Committee that the true coronavirus death toll is "certainly" higher than what has been reported and cautioned Americans that going back to normal life too soon could lead to major spikes in cases. “If you think we have it completely under control, we don’t,” he said, contradicting President Donald Trump’s assertion that the virus is “well contained.” [HuffPost]

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ADMINISTRATION TELLS STATES TO YANK BENEFITS FROM THOSE WHO WON'T RETURN TO WORK Congress created special unemployment benefits so that laid-off workers could stay home while the coronavirus pandemic rages outside, but the Trump administration wants states to make sure that nobody’s getting benefits if they could be at work. The U.S. Department of Labor has told states, which implement unemployment insurance programs according to federal rules, that they should ask employers to notify the state if someone turns down an offer to come back to work. [HuffPost]

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JUDGE SIGNALS HE'S NOT READY TO DISMISS FLYNN CASE A federal judge isn’t ready to toss out the case against Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI, after the Justice Department under Attorney General William Barr said it would drop all charges against Flynn. U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan issued a terse order saying that he believed “individuals and organizations” would seek to weigh in on the case. It’s highly unusual for federal prosecutors to withdraw a case after a defendant has already pleaded guilty -- and Flynn did so twice. [HuffPost]

• Muslims struggle to honor funeral rituals during the pandemic.
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• Five stocks that are thriving during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Spain's oldest woman survives coronavirus, says humanity needs a "new order."
• Activists leave body bags in state capitals to protest reopening.
• One ill choir member infected 52 others.
• Seven essential pieces of relationship advice for couples in quarantine.

Get the latest coronavirus updates on our dedicated page

DEMS UNVEIL MASSIVE NEW CORONAVIRUS RELIEF BILL 

Democrats released another proposal for a coronavirus economic relief package on Tuesday — a $3 trillion bill with more money for enhanced unemployment benefits, and funds for state and local governments. Of importance to most Americans: The bill, called the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions, or HEROES, Act, includes a second wave of $1,200 payments to the vast majority of U.S. households — this time with even more inclusive eligibility rules than the previous payments. [HuffPost]

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ANTI-SEMITIC INCIDENTS REACHED RECORD HIGH IN 2019 Anti-Semitic incidents hit a four-decade high last year, according to an Anti-Defamation League report. The ADL recorded 2,107 incidents of assault, vandalism and harassment against American Jews in 2019 ― higher than in any year since the group began tracking anti-Semitic incidents in 1979. The uptick included a 56% increase in assaults from 2018, a surge marked by deadly attacks at a synagogue in Southern California, a kosher market in New Jersey and a rabbi’s home in New York. [HuffPost]

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FBI REVEALS NAME OF SAUDI OFFICIAL SUSPECTED OF SUPPORTING 9/11 HIJACKERS The FBI inadvertently revealed one of the U.S. government’s most sensitive secrets about the Sept. 11 terror attacks: the identity of a mysterious Saudi Embassy official in Washington who agents suspected had directed crucial support to two of the al Qaeda hijackers. The disclosure came in a new declaration filed in federal court by a senior FBI official in response to a lawsuit brought by families of 9/11 victims that accuses the Saudi government of complicity in the terrorist attacks. [HuffPost]

WHAT'S BREWING

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SCOTUS COULD RESTRAIN CONGRESS WHILE UPHOLDING SUBPOENAS FOR TRUMP'S TAXES For over a year, Congress has wanted to investigate personal financial records that Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal. A court fight over subpoenas for those records reached the Supreme Court on Tuesday in Trump v. Mazars. This case could result in a major separation-of-powers ruling that changes whether, or how, Congress can investigate the president. The main question that arose Tuesday was what limits could exist when Congress subpoenas personal records. [HuffPost]

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CDC REOPEN ADVICE VASTLY DIFFERS FROM WHITE HOUSE PLAN Advice from the nation’s top disease control experts on how to safely reopen businesses and institutions amid the coronavirus pandemic included detailed instructive guidance and some more restrictive measures than the plan released by the White House last month. The guidance, which was shelved by Trump administration officials, also offered recommendations to help communities decide when to shut facilities down again during future flareups of COVID-19. [AP]

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CALIFORNIA CHURCH PLEDGES TO REOPEN DESPITE ORDERS 

Several California pastors have pledged to reopen their churches on May 31 “or sooner,” regardless of whether their plan lines up with a schedule put forth by Gov. Gavin Newsom.The pastors released a letter arguing that churches are “essential” during the pandemic and that people of faith have a right to worship in person. Dan Carroll, the senior pastor of Fontana’s 20,000-member Water of Life Community Church, said he thinks Californians of faith feel like they’ve been “kicked to the curb” and “marginalized.” [HuffPost]

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FALL CLASSES GO ONLINE AT CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY California State University said its 23 campuses will officially be conducting classes online this fall semester, with a few possible exceptions, because of the coronavirus pandemic. CSU is the nation’s largest four-year public university system, with around 480,000 students enrolled in schools that stretch the state and include San Francisco State, Cal State Los Angeles, and San Diego State University. Courses will be “primarily delivered virtually” during the fall term. [HuffPost]

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ARREST MADE IN 1988 HATE CRIME AGAINST GAY MAN After more than 30 years, authorities in Australia have announced an arrest in the notorious cold-case murder of an American man who it’s believed was forced off a cliff for being gay. Scott Johnson was a 27-year-old mathematician earning his doctorate in Canberra when in December 1988 he was found naked and dead near the base of a cliff near Sydney. In 2017 an Australian coroner found that Johnson had fallen due to actual or threatened violence. The coroner ruled his death a hate crime. [HuffPost]

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THE LONG, STRANGE HISTORY OF BILL GATES CONSPIRACY THEORIES Three months into the global coronavirus pandemic, Bill Gates has displaced George Soros as the chief bogeyman of the right. Gates, who has announced that his $40 billion-foundation will shift its “total attention” to fighting COVID-19, has been accused of a range of misdeeds, from scheming to profit off a vaccine to creating the virus itself. On April 8, Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Attorney General Bill Barr speculated about whether Gates would use digital certificates to monitor anyone who got vaccinated. [HuffPost]

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TRUMP RAILS AGAINST BALLOT FRAUD, BUT THAT'S WHAT HE DID The definition of election fraud embraced by Trump and his GOP enablers shows it's been happening at the nation's most prominent address: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Trump and his wife marked ballots that an intermediary had received from elections officers in Florida. Those ballots were then hand-delivered back to West Palm Beach for tabulation — a process that is legal under Florida law, but which Trump himself has equated to a fraud called ballot harvesting. [HuffPost]

• Manhattan real estate faces a reckoning if working from home becomes the norm. 
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• I escaped India's COVID-19 nightmare -- in Antarctica.
• When will we want to be in a room full of strangers again?
• How one couple opened their first restaurant during the pandemic.
• It's worth taking a risk over COVID-19.
• Jared Kushner won't rule out delaying the 2020 election.

Illustrated PSA

The world is trying to cope with the coronavirus, from the serious to the mundane. We’re dealing with jamming full lives into one apartment or house, and trying to stay calm about a world full of an invisible virus. We’re trying to learn how to homeschool our kids, or to make bread for ourselves. It’s a whole new world, and HuffPost is launching a new illustrated series about how to live in it.

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Each week, we’ll feature an artist offering their vision for how to handle the world as it is today. We hope they make you think, make you smile, or just offer something to do other than staring wistfully out the windows.

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Click on the image to see a full-size version. See previous entries in the series here.

Illustration by Erik Carter

BEFORE YOU GO

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