The White House announced that the CDC is recommending Americans wear cloth masks or face coverings in public to help stop the spread of the coronavirus, President Trump said at a press briefing on Friday — emphasizing the guidance is "voluntary."
Why it matters: The use of face coverings could stop people who have the virus, whether they have symptoms or not, from spreading it further when they go out in public.
Websites have crashed, phones are jammed and confusion reigns as businesses rushed at today's kickoff to get their chunk of the $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program.
Why it matters: This is a race to save jobs in the present and the future, and to ensure that as many workers as possible keep their benefits and paychecks during the coronavirus lockdown.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers is moving to replace in-person voting in his state's primary election, slated for Tuesday, with an all mail-in election.
Details: Evers is calling the state lawmakers into a special session on Saturday to take up legislation on the issue, which would adopt a May 26 deadline to return ballots. The announcement comes after a judge declined to delay the primary, saying he doesn't have the authority to do so.
Businessman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban revived talk of an improbable 2020 presidential bid during an Axios virtual event on Friday.
"Everything's a reset right now," Cuban told Axios CEO Jim VandeHei from Dallas. "If this would would've been a month ago, I would have said absolutely not. But obviously things are crazy, things are changing. So I'll keep an open mind. But I seriously doubt it."
The language on the federal government's public health emergency website has been edited to match statements made by White House adviser Jared Kushner on Thursday in which he said the national stockpile is "not supposed to be state stockpiles that they then use.”
The state of play: Kushner recently joined the administration's coronavirus task force, working with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to oversee the distribution of medical supplies to states.At Thursday's White House press briefing, he said local and state officials are requesting medical supplies without understanding what they need, the Washington Post writes. Kushner added, "The notion of the federal stockpile was it’s supposed to be our stockpile ... What you have all over the country is a lot of people are asking for things that they don’t necessarily need at the moment."
Former 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg is launching a political action committee and an affiliated nonprofit, according to sources cited by the New York Times.
The big picture: The PAC, named Win the Era, is expected to endorse young candidates in down-ballot political races to build a "pipeline" for the Democratic Party. The groups will focus on issues such as climate change and cybersecurity. The ex-mayor of South Bend, Ind. is asking donors to roll over the leftover $2.8 million from his general election funds to the PAC.
Congress passed a $2.2 trillion stimulus bill to help struggling Americans and businesses hit hard by the coronavirus. Now, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle worry the agencies responsible for delivering the aid may not be ready for the task.
Why it matters: People are desperate for federal help to dig them out of the economic hardship brought on by the pandemic.
New data provided to Axios spells out just how outsized a role immigrants play on the high- and low-skilled ends of the economy keeping Americans alive and fed during the coronavirus crisis.
By the numbers: Immigrantsmake up an estimated 17% of the overall U.S. workforce. But the analysis by New American Economy (NAE) shows they're more than one in four doctors, nearly half the nation's taxi drivers and chauffeurs and a clear majority of farm workers.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has privately discussed bringing on Pentagon spokesperson Alyssa Farah or Trump campaign spokesperson Kayleigh McEnany as a new White House press secretary, two sources familiar with the talks tell Axios.
