The White House is looking to wind down its coronavirus task force in the coming weeks. Mike Pence said that the pandemic response may be transferred to federal agencies in late May or early June. As the president pivots to reopening the economy, the US coronavirus death toll has surpassed 70,000. In an interview with David Muir of ABC News, Trump acknowledged that deaths may rise as restrictions are scaled back. “As horrible as that is, I mean you’re talking about filling up Yankee stadium with death— it’s probably going to be higher than that” he said. Thanks to decisions by federal judges, Virginia voters will not have to abide by rules requiring a witness signature to vote absentee, and Bernie Sanders and other candidates will be back on the primary ballot in New York. Both states are holding primaries in June. The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the state’s reopening plan would not include a “trade-off” between the economy and public health. “To me, a human life is priceless,” Cuomo said. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, similarly warned that the state would need to continue observing social distancing restrictions until a vaccine is developed. “We’re not going back to normal,” Newsom said. A poll showed majorities of Americans oppose reopening most businesses. Despite the president’s push to reopen the economy, more than 7 in 10 Americans do not think movie theaters, gyms or nail salons should reopen at this time. Ousted government scientist Dr Rick Bright filed his whistleblower complaint with the office of special counsel. Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has claimed he was moved to a less important role for refusing to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment. Republican senators are set to fast track Trump loyalist John Ratcliffe’s confirmation as director of national intelligence. The congressman sat through Senate confirmation hearings today, only nine months after being forced to withdraw for having exaggerated his security experience. In these extraordinary times, the Guardian’s editorial independence has never been more important. Because no one sets our agenda, or edits our editor, we can keep delivering quality, trustworthy, fact-checked journalism each and every day. Free from commercial or political bias, we can report fearlessly on world events and challenge those in power. Your support protects the Guardian’s independence. We believe every one of us deserves equal access to accurate news and calm explanation. No matter how unpredictable the future feels, we will remain with you, delivering high quality news so we can all make critical decisions about our lives, health and security – based on fact, not fiction. Support the Guardian from as little as $1 – and it only takes a minute. Thank you. A judge has restored Bernie Sanders and other Democratic presidential candidates who have dropped out of the race to the New York ballot. New York is holding a primary on 23 June. Although Sanders has dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden, the Vermont senator urged supporters to vote for him in the remaining primaries, so that he can amass delegates and better influence the Democratic party platform. Report: Financial shocks of the coronavirus pandemic have hit Black and Hispanic Americans hardest In a report, the Pew research center found that 61% of Hispanic Americans and 44% of Black Americans said in April that they or someone in their household had lost a job or wages. Moreover, nearly three-quarters of Black (73%) and Hispanic adults (70%) said they did not have funds to cover three months of expenses. About half of white adults said the same. Explainer: Why is the White House ending the coronavirus taskforce? The Trump administration is poised to break up the White House coronavirus taskforce, the public face of the US response to the virus, even as experts warn that the worst is yet to come. Here is what we know so far about the taskforce and where the US stands in its response to Covid-19. What is the coronavirus taskforce? Days after public health officials announced the first confirmed case of Covid-19 on US soil on 21 January, the White House announced that it had formed a taskforce that would lead the federal government’s response to the pandemic. The group, it said, would work together to monitor, contain and mitigate the spread of the virus in the US and keep the public informed about important public health and travel guidance. By March, as the US reported thousands of new cases of Covid-19 every day, the taskforce gave daily press briefings, ostensibly to update Americans about the public health emergency. But at the end of April, the briefings stopped. The last press conference was held on 24 April. According to reports, Trump’s advisers said his daily appearances were hurting his chance of re-election in November, especially after he suggested – with no evidence – that disinfectant could fight the virus in human bodies. Why is the White House ending the coronavirus taskforce? Pence insisted that “it really is all a reflection of the tremendous progress we’ve made as a country”, despite data on the continuing public health risk. Recently there has been some tension in messaging about the virus from key members of the group. Fauci has cautioned that the US needs to have enough testing capacity to reopen safely, and is not yet at that stage. Fauci said the US will need to double its current level of testing within several weeks. “I don’t think there’s a chance that this virus is just going to disappear,” he told National Geographic. “It’s going to be around, and if given the opportunity, it will resurge.” But acknowledging that the US is still behind on testing does not chime with Trump’s messaging. In recent days, Trump has started to amp up talk about reopening the economy, saying Tuesday morning that it was “going to happen pretty fast”. Virginia voters will not have to obtain a witness signature to vote absentee In a victory for voting rights advocates, a federal judge approved a partial settlement challenging a requirement that Virginia voters who want to vote by mail have to open their ballot in front of a witness and have the witness sign the sealed envelope after voting. Now, voters who can’t safely find a witness won’t have to comply with the requirement for the state’s primary on 23 June. Trump: "Probably" more than 70,000 Americans will die The president said that. that 60,000 to 70,000 Americans dying “as horrible as that is, I mean you’re talking about filling up Yankee stadium with death— it’s probably going to be higher than that.” The US death toll has already topped 70,000, and experts warn that the worst is yet to come. Recently, an influential model that the White House coronavirus task force references shifted up its projection. The model itself has been criticized for being overly optimistic. But Trump has often pointed to the projections to highlight that the US has not reached the worst-case scenarios modeled by early projections. The president’s recent assertions that the country should reopen for businesses despite the risks Have come under fire. Read more: The president is repeating some of the same misleading claims he’s made during daily task force briefings. Just now, he said that his administration inherited “broken tests”. Fact check: The novel coronavirus did not exist during the Obama administration, and they could not have made a test for the infection back then. The Democratic National Committee’s War Room director has condemned the president’s assertion that the country should reopen for business even though people could be “affected badly”. “Donald Trump is knowingly putting American lives at risk to further his political interests, it’s as simple as that,” said Daniel Wessel. “Trump has declared ‘mission accomplished’ while the virus continues to spread, and he just admitted that a rush to reopen the country too quickly could cause unnecessary deaths. This level of neglect is astonishing even for a president who has always put himself first.” The president has wrapped up a speech at the Honeywell mask facility in Arizona. Opinion: Will Americans ever forgive Trump for his heartless lack of compassion Francine Prose writes for The Guardian: To exist at this moment is to navigate (or try to fend off) the flood of grief that threatens to submerge even our rare, buoyant moments. We mourn the death of friends and relatives, the absence of human contact and the everyday pleasures we once took for granted. We can’t stop thinking about the tens of thousands of families facing hunger, bankruptcy and homelessness even as they struggle to endure the loss of someone they dearly loved. What’s striking, if not surprising, is that this deluge of sorrow has run dry at the door to the Oval Office. One’s heart goes out to the reporters who have sifted through the Donald Trump’s press briefings on the current pandemic – hour after hour of bombast, self-promotion, vitriol, lies and recklessly unscientific speculation – for any evidence of sympathy for those who are in pain. It’s hardly a shock to learn that our president’s expressions of care and compassion have occupied a total of less than five minutes, out of all that time. After all, a man who mocked a disabled journalist and boasted about grabbing women wasn’t elected for the depths of his kindness and the purity of his moral conscience. And it seems unrealistically optimistic to have hoped that the extremity of this crisis should have inspired, in our leader, a deep and essential change of heart. Arguably, few politicians seek (and are elected to) office out of an excess of compassion. Even those who respond to catastrophe in more appropriately “human” ways – George W Bush mourning the victims of 9/11, Obama tearing up at the site of the Sandy Hook school shooting – have been parochial in their sympathies; there was little ceremonial grieving for the innocent child-casualties of our bombing and drone strikes in the Middle East. And yet we can’t help thinking how much less worried we would be if a humane, competent, well-informed adult was making the decisions that affect us all. Though we’ve learned that Franklin Delano Roosevelt turned away refugees from Hitler’s Europe, we can still imagine how comforting it was, for those who lived through the Great Depression, hearing his radio speeches: absorbing their message of reassurance and hope, his determination to comprehend and mitigate the sufferings of our nation. Trump struck a similar tone while speaking with ABC. “It’s possible there will be some” deaths, the president said, but “we have to get our country back.” Trump: "Will some people be affected badly? Yes." Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the west coast. Donald Trump, speaking in Arizona, said it’s time to reopen businesses. “Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon,” he said. “I’m viewing our great citizens of this country to a certain extent and to a large extent as warriors,” the president said. Today so far That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours. Here’s where the day stands so far: Vice-president Mike Pence said the White House is looking to wind down its coronavirus task force in the coming weeks. The potential disbanding of the group is being discussed even as one projection warns the country’s daily coronavirus death toll could reach 3,000 by 1 June. The US coronavirus death toll has surpassed 70,000. The country’s death toll continues to steadily rise, even as Trump attempts to pivot to focus on reopening the economy. The New York governor, Andrew Cuomo, said the state’s reopening plan would not include a “trade-off” between the economy and public health. “To me, a human life is priceless,” Cuomo said. California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, similarly warned that the state would need to continue observing social distancing restrictions until a vaccine is developed. “We’re not going back to normal,” Newsom said. A poll showed majorities of Americans oppose reopening most businesses. Despite the president’s push to reopen the economy, more than 7 in 10 Americans do not think movie theaters, gyms or nail salons should reopen at this time. Dr Rick Bright filed his whistleblower complaint with the office of special counsel. Bright, the former director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, has claimed he was moved to a less important role for refusing to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment. Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned. The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California: California governor Gavin Newsom announced this week that retailers will be allowed to reopen their businesses starting on Friday, more than six weeks after the governor issued a statewide stay-at-home order. As the state enters “phase 2” of reopening, shops selling books, clothing, sporting goods, flowers or anything else that a customer can purchase through curbside pickup will be able to open again, if they implement certain modifications. Newsom had words today for rural Yuba and Sutter Counties, north of Sacramento, which last week issued a measure in defiance of the statewide order that allowed restaurants, salons and tattoo parlors to reopen. “They’re making a big mistake, they’re putting their public at risk” and undermining the state’s progress, said Newsom. The overwhelming number of Californians are “playing by the rules” and complying with state guidance, the governor added. Deals have been reached with three beach communities in southern California — Huntington Beach, Dana Point and Seal Beach — that will allow beaches to reopen as long as physical distance is maintained and other precautions are in place. In the meantime, California continues to build its army of contract tracers, or “disease detectives” as Newsom has called them, which the governor expects will allow the state to have access to real-time data and move toward reopening in an informed way. California is aiming to enlist 20,000 tracers in the months to come, and training for the first cohort is now underway. Newsom: "We’re not going back to normal" The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California: California is looking to gingerly ease restrictions up and down the state, but state and local leaders say this is no time to do away with physical distancing and other precautions that have played a part in keeping coronavirus case numbers steady, relative to states like New York. “This cannot be a choice between public health and reopening the economy,” said Sacramento mayor Darrell Steinberg, who joined California governor Gavin Newsom for today’s press conference. In terms of reopening the state, “It is not a question of if, it is not a question of when, it is a question of how,” Steinberg said. Public safety must continue to be part of the equation as the state heads toward a “new normal” where businesses begin to reopen, with conditions, he added. “We’re not going back to normal,” Newsom said. “It’s a new normal with adaptations and modifications, until we get to immunity and a vaccine.” The cautionary comments from Newsom and Steinberg come as the White House looks to wind down its coronavirus task force in the coming weeks, even though the country’s death toll continues to steadily rise. Meanwhile, California tallied 1,275 new cases in the past 24 hours, which the governor said was encouraging. Despite the state’s expanded testing capacity — 100,000 tests have been performed in just three days — he described the numbers as holding relatively steady.