Top nine brick-and-mortar retailers now require coronavirus masks in U.S. stores

The United States on Friday reported another record for daily coronavirus cases, eclipsing 76,000 confirmed infections, according to Washington Post data tracking.

The country has continued to see records for daily cases in the months of June and July, and surpassed 70,000 new infections for the first time Thursday. The United States also reported 963 new deaths related to the virus Friday — the highest one-day total since June 3.

Texas reached new single-day records for cases (14,916) and deaths related to the virus (174). Ohio also reported 1,679 new cases Friday, an increase of 154 from the state’s previous high on July 10.

Thirty-six coronavirus cases in Kentucky have been linked to one football team’s gathering in a weight room without masks, Gov. Andy Beshear (D) said in a news conference Friday, describing the cluster as an example of rampant community spread and why face coverings, now mandatory statewide, are necessary.

The infected include 18 players, three coaches and 15 family members, Beshear said. He did not name the team.

The coronavirus’s continued surge in much of the United States has thrown football season into doubt at both the pro and school levels.

A top Trump administration health official broke federal contracting rules by using more than $5 million in taxpayer money to pay politically connected contractors and subcontractors, according to an inspector general report released Thursday.

Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) within the Department of Health and Human Services, brought in high-paid contractors from June 2017 to April 2019 to provide strategic communications advice to boost her personal profile, spending that was first reported by Politico. The inspector general’s finding details how Verma leveraged personal and political relationships to award personal contracts for work that should have been done by government employees, adding that the agency “paid some questionable costs.”

A man from Norfolk was arrested Friday and accused of sending dozens of harassing, threatening messages to the mayor of Tulsa for acquiescing to President Trump’s rally in Oklahoma last month.

In the messages sent to G.T. Bynum and his wife, Susan, Adam Donn claimed to be an emergency room doctor in Tulsa and said the mayor was “putting healthcare workers like myself at risk,” according to the papers. In fact, he lives in Norfolk and is not known to have practiced medicine.

In profane emails and voicemails sent in the days leading up to Trump’s rally, prosecutors say, Donn told Bynum that he, his wife and his children all deserved to contract the novel coronavirus. He threatened to post their personal information online and show up at their home, according to prosecutors. He is also accused of sending inappropriate emails to Susan Bynum’s colleagues at her law firm, pretending to be her.

After more than a week of twists and turns, a federal judge ruled Friday that the Republican Party of Texas can hold its convention in-person in Houston, lawyers involved in the decision told news outlets in the state.

Judge Lynn Hughes of the Southern District of Texas ruled that the city of Houston could not interfere and permitted the party to hold an in-person convention this weekend or next, the Houston Chronicle reported. According to the outlet, the judge argued that the city had violated the party’s constitutional rights by canceling it in the first place. The news of the decision comes as coronavirus cases in Texas have continued to soar since June.

Masks mandates have taken effect in more than half of U.S. states as the country’s top health officials increasingly frame them as key to containing the coronavirus — but President Trump, long a skeptic, affirmed in a Fox News interview he does not favor requiring face coverings nationwide.

“I want people to have a certain freedom,” Trump told Chris Wallace in an interview set to air in full on Sunday.

Wallace asked Trump about Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield’s claim earlier this week that the virus could be brought “under control” within four to eight weeks if “we could get everybody to wear a mask right now.”

The nine largest brick-and-mortar retail companies, which the National Retail Federation ranks on the basis of global sales, are requiring customers to wear masks inside their U.S. stores.

Seven of the largest brick-and-mortar retailers in the United States — Kroger, CVS Health, Walgreens, Target, Albertsons Companies (which owns Safeway, Tom Thumb, Acme and other brands), Lowe’s and Home Depot — announced mask mandates Thursday and Friday.

The top retailers’ restrictions come two months after Costco started enforcing a mask mandate on May 4. Walmart Inc. announced earlier this week that masks would be required in its Walmart and Sam’s Club stores.

The Washington Nationals will play this season at Nationals Park after the city approved a tweak to its novel coronavirus regulations for the team. Doubt arose because of D.C.’s strict self-quarantine rules, and the Nationals had explored alternate sites in Fredericksburg, Va., and, as a last resort, their spring training facility in West Palm Beach, Fla.

But in a letter to the Nationals on Thursday night, Christopher Rodriguez, director of the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency, approved reworked guidelines for the team. Rodriguez stated that, in Washington, “close contacts of individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 are directed to self-quarantine for 14 days.” The Nationals were unsure whether they could be competitive under that restriction, because contact tracing could force the entire team into self-quarantine in the middle of a 60-game season that starts July 23.