House passes $484 billion coronavirus aid package as U.S. jobless figures soar

The Treasury Department is considering taking unprecedented control over key operations of the U.S. Postal Service by imposing tough terms on an emergency coronavirus loan from Congress, which would fulfill President Trump’s longtime goal of changing how the service does business, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Officials working under Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who must approve the $10 billion loan, have told senior officials at the USPS in recent weeks that he could use the loan as leverage to give the administration influence over how much the agency charges for delivering packages and how it manages its finances, according to the two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks are preliminary.

Farmers in the upper Midwest euthanize their baby pigs because the slaughterhouses are backing up or closing, while dairy owners in the region dump thousands of gallons of milk a day. In Salinas, Calif., rows of ripe iceberg, romaine and red-leaf lettuce shrivel in the spring sun, waiting to be plowed back into the earth.

Drone footage shows a 1.5-mile-long line of cars waiting their turn at a drive-through food bank in Miami. In Dallas, schools serve well north of 500,000 meals on each service day, cars rolling slowly past stations of ice chests and insulated bags as food service employees, volunteers and substitute teachers hand milk and meal packets through the windows.

Matt Mendelsohn is a Washington photojournalist who has covered campaigns and wars, football games and the red carpet. But last week, amid a pandemic that has shuttered the nation’s schools, he set out to do something completely different: shoot 500 portraits of seniors at one Virginia high school — a project that photographers across the country are now following.

The power in the images Mendelsohn is making of the Yorktown High School Class of 2020 isn’t what the subjects are doing in them, but what they’re not doing.

Cristina Cuomo, wife to CNN anchor Chris Cuomo and sister-in-law to New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, recently revealed she bathed in Clorox bleach while recovering from the coronavirus, along with using multiple other holistic methods.

Bleach is poisonous if inhaled or swallowed and is a skin irritant. Clorox’s website states bleach “is not recommended for personal hygiene of any kind” and “consumers should always avoid direct skin and eye contacts with both undiluted bleach, as well as prolonged contact with the various bleach solutions we recommend for household cleaning and laundry.”

With a white scarf wrapped around her face, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) swooped into the well of the House and took out a green card, signed her name and voted yes. She then headed toward the back of the chamber, serving as a stern enforcer giving orders.

When Rep. Rosa L. DeLauro (D-Conn.) lingered after casting her vote, Pelosi waved her hands, gloved in medical blue, at her close friend, ordering her to leave quickly.

“Don’t stand there,” she yelled at DeLauro.

So began one of the strangest set of votes in congressional history.

President Trump and Vice President Pence showcased emerging laboratory evidence that found the coronavirus is not as durable when exposed to ultraviolet light and hot and humid conditions.

The experiments, carried out by the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate at the Army’s high biosecurity lab at Ft. Detrick, Md., largely match other laboratory studies conducted elsewhere showing that the novel coronavirus, like many other viruses, does not survive as long on certain surfaces when exposed to high ultraviolet light and warm and humid conditions.

For several days, President Trump has refused to answer questions about a study that showed poor outcomes for a drug combination that he previously hailed as a “game changer” for treating covid-19.

Reporters have tried to ask the president about hydroxychloroquine in the daily White House briefings this week, but each time it comes up, Trump moves quickly to the next question — a stark departure from previous briefings, when he would promote the drug unprompted. On April 13, for example, Trump boasted that his administration had “deployed roughly 28 million doses of hydroxychloroquine. . . . We have millions of doses that we bought, and many people are using it all over the country.”

The NFL draft began Thursday night with Commissioner Roger Goodell, the general managers and coaches from the 32 teams and dozens of draft-eligible players participating remotely.

Goodell, speaking from his home in New York state, opened the remote version of the NFL draft. “This is different for us and it’s different for you,” Goodell said, “because it has to be.”

Goodell wore a sports coat and no tie. He stood in front of two screens with NFL Draft 2020 logos. “We will get through this together,” Goodell said. “And when we do, we will be here for you.”