| THE BIG STORY The next round of relief money
House Democrats unveiled a new $3 trillion coronavirus relief package yesterday, calling for another round of direct cash payments to most Americans, an extension of the $600-a-week unemployment payments to the end of the year, as well as a $200 billion fund to provide hazard pay to essential workers and $900 billion of support to state governments.
Republicans said the bill is “dead on arrival” and will not pass the Senate, where the two parties are not currently negotiating on a new round of relief. Senate Leader Mitch McConnell said a top priority for Republicans in any future deal would be new laws shielding businesses from liability lawsuits if their workers contract the coronavirus. “This is not a time for aspirational legislation, this is a time for practical response to the coronavirus pandemic,” he said.
It is likely that the two sides will haggle over a package that includes priorities from both parties, but right now each is pretty dismissive of the other’s main requests. “We have people starving,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of the proposed liability shield law. “We have people being kicked out of their homes and he’s worried about a big businessman being sued because he’s let one of his workers be susceptible to COVID? Come on.”
STAYING ON TOP OF THIS The doctor and the senator
Yesterday’s senate hearing on ways to safely open schools and businesses across the country quickly became a lengthy Q&A session for Dr. Anthony Fauci, the scientist who has become one of the most visible figures on the White House coronavirus team.
Fauci said he is “cautiously optimistic” that a coronavirus vaccine will be available by the fall or winter, and that it could make sense to reopen schools in states where infections are low. But he warned against doing things prematurely, especially in states that don’t have the virus under control. "There is a real risk that you will trigger an outbreak that you may not be able to control,” he said. "We will almost turn the clock back rather than going forward. That is my major concern."
The hearing included a tense exchange between Fauci and Republican Sen. Rand Paul, who has criticized public health experts over their cautious advice on reopening businesses. “"As much as I respect you, Dr. Fauci, I don’t think you’re the end-all," Paul told Fauci. "I don’t think you’re the one person that gets to make a decision.”
"I have never made myself out to be the 'end-all' and only voice in this. I’m a scientist, a physician, and a public health official,” Fauci replied. “I give advice according to the best scientific evidence. ... I don’t give advice about economic things. I don’t give advice about anything other than public health."
Rand Paul at yesterday's Senate hearing. (Win McNamee/Pool via AP) SNAPSHOTS New York and New Jersey received ventilators from Russia at the height of the coronavirus crisis, but never needed to use them. That may have been lucky: two of the same models caught fire in Russian hospitals this week, killing six people.
The international organization Doctors Without Borders has sent a team to work on coronavirus relief in the Navajo Nation in the US. "Our relationship with the federal government has never been great,” one Navajo business owner said, “so it's not a surprise to us that we have to look for outside help."
Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus originated, plans to test all 11 million of its residents. A number of new cases were recently reported, the first to be officially acknowledged since the city began reopening.
California police say they questioned a man who wore his Ku Klux Klan hood instead of a mask when grocery shopping, but he committed no crime. “He said that wearing the hood was not intended to be a racial statement.”
Coronavirus testing outside of the Monument Valley Health Center in Oljato–Monument Valley, San Juan County. (Kristin Murphy / AP) HELP US KEEP QUALITY NEWS FREE FOR ALL
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WFH FOREVER
Buy more sweatpants
With the great reopening debate underway and nobody quite sure how things will look in a few months’ time, two influential employers in California made news yesterday by announcing things are not going back to normal for the foreseeable future.
Twitter, one of the best-known employers in downtown San Francisco, said its staff can continue working from home...forever. In an email to staff, CEO Jack Dorsey — who was talking about his interest in a more “decentralized” company long before the coronavirus pandemic — said it’s unlikely Twitter would open its offices before September, and even then, it would be purely optional for people to come in.
And the California State University system, which has about 500,000 students across its 23 campuses, said most in-person classes will not happen when school returns this fall, with online-only education likely in the majority of cases. Some campus activity may continue, Chancellor Timothy P. White told the university’s trustees, but “anything done on a campus this fall won’t be as it was in the past.”
Twitter's San Francisco headquarters (Sipa via AP Images) SURPRISINGLY GOOD INSTAGRAMMERS Five follows
You probably have a bit of extra time on your hands these days. Obviously some amount of that is spent Doomscrolling, but for the rest of it, here’s five Instagram faves from the BuzzFeed News culture team.
January Jones: Like “an alien comes to Earth and decides to disguise themself as a hot girl to confuse everyone. She's so deeply, unexpectedly, wonderfully weird.
Ina Garten: Her now-legendary giant cocktail video had “delightful zany-mom-stuck-at-home energy” and her recent dinner of hot dogs wrapped in puff pastry was “an aspirational Gourmet Dirtbag meal that I might have to make it myself.”
Brad Barket / Getty Images, Instagram / Via screenshot Arnold Schwarzenegger: There’s a mini pony and a donkey wandering his yard. And he’s still working out like a champ, saying things like “we cannot control the virus, but we can control our fitness.”
Paige Desorbo: “She gives me what I want from my lifestyle influencers: a nice little distraction from the world that I can get lost in for a few minutes, then move on with my day.”
Rihanna: “When she’s not clapping back at thirsty Drake... she’s posting snippets of her YouTube makeup tutorials, which are a relaxing, endearing mess.”
Be a relaxing, endearing mess today,
Tom P.S. If you like this newsletter, help keep our reporting free for all. Support BuzzFeed News by becoming a member here. (monthly memberships are available worldwide) 📝 This letter was edited and brought to you by Tom Gara and BuzzFeed News. You can always reach us here.
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