White House rjects CDC's coronavirus reopening plan . . . As President Trump rushes to reopen the economy, a battle has erupted between the White House and the CDC. The guidance includes sections for child care programs, schools and day camps, churches and other “communities of faith,” employers with vulnerable workers, restaurants and bars, and mass transit administrators. The recommendations include using disposable dishes and utensils at restaurants, closing every other row of seats in buses and subways, and separating children at school and camps into groups that should not mix throughout the day. But White House and other administration officials rejected the recommendations over concerns that they were overly prescriptive, infringed on religious rights and risked further damaging an economy. New York Times

Republican senators resist new round of stimulus checks . . . Senate Republicans are pouring cold water on including another round of stimulus checks in the next coronavirus relief bill. The record $2.2 trillion pandemic bill signed into law March 27 mandated one-time payments of $1,200 for people making up to $75,000 a year, but most of the checks have already been distributed. The White House and Democrats are signaling support for doing at least one more round of checks. GOP senators, however, say they aren’t sold yet on the need for a second round, and several said they are strongly opposed to the idea. The Hill

 

 

Tara Reade offers to take a lie detector test as long as Biden does too . . . Tara Reade says Joseph R. Biden should drop out of the 2020 presidential race and says she is ready to take a polygraph test under one condition: the former vice president does the same.

Mr. Biden last week publicly denied Ms. Reade’s accusation that he sexually assaulted her decades ago, saying it never happened.

Ms. Reade on Thursday pushed back, telling former Fox News host Megyn Kelly that Mr. Biden is lying and should pull the plug on his White House bid. Washington Times

 

 

Reade says Biden told her, "I want to f--k you . . . As Joe Biden pinned Tara Reade up against a wall, he told her “l want to f— you,” the former staffer says in a new interview with Megyn Kelly — giving her most graphic, detailed account yet of their 1993 encounter. Tasked with bringing Biden’s gym bag to him in his Senate office, Reade, who was then a junior staffer, rushed there in her high heels, and was greeted by the senator by name. What happened next “happened very quickly,” Reade said. New York Post

 

Obama discussed Flynn probe with Comey at White House meeting . . .  President Obama talked with then-FBI Director James B. Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates about former Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s infamous telephone calls with the Russian ambassador, according to a court filing Thursday.

Mr. Obama called the two aside during a Jan. 5, 2017, White House meeting. “Obama started by saying he had ‘learned of the information about Flynn‘ and his conversation with Kislyak about sanctions,” the FBI 302 report said. “Obama specified he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information.” Washington Times

 

Michelle Obama: Having kids forced met to give up "my aspirations and dreams"

 

Peter Strzok and Lisa Page pushed to keep FBI Flynn probe open . . .  Strzok learned that the case against Flynn would not be closed, and excitedly messaged Page. 'Razor still open,' he wrote, describing the news as 'serendipitously good'.  'Phew, but yeah, that's amazing that he is still open. Good I guess,' Page replied. 'Yeah, our utter incompetence actually helps us. 20% of the time I'm guessing :),' Strzok then responded. Appearing in a celebratory mood, Strzok also asks Page if she wants 'chips and Oreos'. Daily Mail

 

Video || Biden wastes no time screwing up his latest virtual appearance

 

Supreme Court overturns "Bridgegate" convictions of Christie aides . . . The Supreme Court overturned federal fraud convictions of two aides to then-Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, ruling Thursday that their move to punish a local mayor by causing a traffic jam for his constituents wasn’t fraud because they didn’t earn any money or property from their actions. The ruling was unanimous. In this case the justices ruled that the federal government wasn’t defrauded of money or property when Mr. Christie’s aides — including Deputy Chief of Staff Anne Kelly and Port Authority Deputy Director William Baroni — shut down access to lanes across the George Washington Bridge in 2013, causing four days of gridlock. Washington Times
 

 

Next crisis could be wave of suicides . . . The isolation, grief and economic hardship related to Covid-19 are creating a mental health crisis in the U.S. that researchers warn could make the already-rising suicide rate worse. A study released Friday tried to quantify the toll. The paper, which was not peer-reviewed, found that over the next decade as many as 75,000 additional people could die from  “deaths of despair” as a result of the coronavirus crisis, a term that refers to suicides and substance-abuse-related deaths. Bloomberg 

 

China adopts Russian dezinformatsiya tactics to undermine the US . . . Chinese officials are adopting Russian disinformation tactics to sow confusion in the United States and other Western countries, according to allied sources and analysts. “It started during the pandemic and makes the whole disinfo situation even worse,” a Baltic diplomat told the Washington Examiner. China’s decision to spread false information that the U.S. was responsible for the coronavirus pandemic angered President Trump, sparking a new round of finger-pointing about his decision to label the contagion the “Chinese virus.” U.S. officials and nongovernmental analysts believe it could be a milestone in China’s willingness to conduct the kind of influence operations that Russia has performed to exploit divisions in Western societies. Washington Examiner

 

Amid pandemic, world's working poor struggle to survive . . . From India to Argentina, untold millions who were already struggling to get by on the economic margins have had their lives made even harder by pandemic lockdowns, layoffs and the loss of a chance to earn from a hard day’s work. More than four out of five people in the global labor force of 3.3 billion have been hit by full or partial workplace closures, according to the International Labor Organization, which says 1.6 billion workers in the informal economy “stand in immediate danger of having their livelihoods destroyed.” The toll for families is hunger and poverty that are either newfound or even more grinding than before. Associated Press

Worst job losses since Depression expected . . . The unemployment rate likely rose in April to a record as employers shed millions of jobs, evidence of the economic destruction wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal forecast the April unemployment rate climbed to 16% from 4.4% in March, which would be the highest jobless rate for records tracing back to 1948. They also expect the economy lost nearly 22 million jobs from business closures and other disruptions triggered by the coronavirus pandemic. By comparison, the steepest monthly loss on record back to 1939 was 1.96 million jobs in 1945, at the end of World War II. Wall Street Journal

 

Mortgage lenders tighten the screws . . . Mortgage rates are at record lows, but borrowers hoping to take advantage are running into the toughest loan-approval standards in years. Over the past month, lenders have put in place higher credit-score and down payment requirements, and in some cases stopped issuing certain types of loans altogether, in effect shutting down a large swath of the mortgage market. The triggers, industry executives say, include lenders becoming risk-averse during the coronavirus crisis, knock-on effects of Congress allowing millions of borrowers to delay their monthly payments. Bloomberg

 

Companies got emergency aid despite having months of cash on hand . . . Forty-one publicly traded companies that got the emergency aid already had enough to cover basic expenses for two months or more when they applied for the funds, a Reuters analysis found — even if their revenue dropped to zero. Thirty had three months or more of cash. Six had enough to last at least until December, according to the review, which was based on average monthly operating expenses from 2019. All told, these relatively flush 41 companies were able to secure $104 million in government aid, at a time when legions of smaller companies with little in their coffers were being turned down. Seventeen of the 41 recipients had market capitalizations of at least $100 million. Reuters

 

Ex-cop and son arrested for murder of unarmed black jogger . . . Exclusive photos show the moment the father and son 'vigilantes' accused of shooting dead unarmed black jogger Ahmaud Arbery were arrested by heavily-armed officers in Georgia.  

A four-vehicle convoy from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation pulled up outside the home of Gregory and Travis McMichael at 7.50pm Thursday to take the men into custody on charges of murder and aggravated assault.  

The dramatic arrests come days after leaked cellphone video of the McMichaels' fatal confrontation with Arbery on February 23 made headlines nationwide, sparking fevered outrage and demands for justice in what the victim's family called a 'lynching'. Daily Mail

 

Dallas salon owner who defied stay-at-home order has no regrets . . . The Dallas salon owner who was jailed for refusing to close her business during the coronavirus pandemic has described her two-day stint in lock-up as 'not pleasant' - but says she doesn't regret the decisions that landed her there. The owner of Salon A La Mode was sentenced to seven days in jail on Tuesday for refusing to shut down her business in accordance with the state's stay-at-home orders. District Judge Eric Moye, who handed down the sentence, had given Luther the option of avoiding jail if she apologized for what he described as her 'selfish' behavior, paid a fine and kept her doors closed until salon restrictions were lifted. She refused. Daily Mail

 

Social media remove pandemic conspiracy video . . . Social media networks are working to remove or stop the spread of a viral pandemic conspiracy video that contains false, misleading or unproven claims about Covid-19. The roughly 26-minute “Plandemic Movie” video claims to be an excerpt of a larger documentary to be released this summer and contains claims about the origins of the virus and how it spreads. The video tries to argue that the coronavirus pandemic was created to make profits off vaccines. Among other claims that defy advice of medical experts, it suggests that sheltering in place harms consumers’ immune systems and that masks can make people sicker. New York Post

 

Barry Farber, pioneer of conservative radio, dead at 90 . . . Barry Farber, a longtime conservative radio host in liberal New York City, died of natural causes Wednesday, a day after turning 90, according to his family. Farber, who blazed a trail later followed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity, was still hosting a digital show for CRN up until last week. He had recently suffered injuries in a fall, his daughter, Celia Farber, told The Associated Press. “He told me recently that his concept of death was ‘going somewhere I’ve never been before, like Finland or Estonia,” his daughter wrote on Twitter. “May God rest his soul.” Fox News

 

Conn. man throws rocl through McDonald's window, steals panties . . .  A man was arrested last week after he threw a large rock into the front window of a Connecticut McDonald’s last week after he was refused service for not wearing a face mask inside the restaurant. Jason D. Daddario, 37, was charged with criminal mischief and breach of peace and taken into custody after briefly trying to flee state troopers, police said. Daddario threw a large rock into the restaurant’s window and ran away to the nearby Walmart, where police say he then stole several pairs of “ladies underwear,” according to a state police report. Hartford Current