Summary The decision to shelve detailed guidance on reopening communities came from the highest levels of the White House, according to emailed obtained by the AP. The White House said that the CDC’s head had not approved the guidelines, but documents suggested that he had okayed them. Donald Trump said the coronavirus would go away without a vaccine, but offered no evidence to back the claim. Meanwhile, the US recovery lags way behind Europe, even as states reopen. Some California businesses on today began opening their doors for business – at least partially. The state also became the first in the country to commit to sending mail-in ballots to every voter in November. Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive for coronavirus. Miller is married to Donald Trump’s senior White House adviser on immigration, Stephen Miller, all of which led to concerns that everyone in the west wing has been exposed. A federal watchdog said that ousted government scientist Rick Bright may have suffered retaliation and should be reinstated during an investigation into his whistleblower complaint, according to Bright’s lawyers. Bright was reassigned after raising concerns that the Trump administration was hyping hydroxyquinoline despite a lack of research that it was effective in treating Covid-19. New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is “finally ahead of the virus” as the death toll and hospitalizations continue to come down in what became the world coronavirus hotspot. He warned the rest of the US that their numbers are still going up, and not to be hasty to reopen society and business. The Department of Homeland Security has come out strongly against internet voting in new draft guidelines, breaking with its longstanding reluctance to formally weigh in on the controversial issue, even after the 2016 Russian election hacking efforts. Kim Zetter reports for The Guardian: The move comes as a number of states push to expand the use of ballots cast online. The eight-page document, obtained by the Guardian, pulls no punches in calling the casting of ballots over the internet a “high-risk” endeavor that would allow attackers to alter votes and results “at scale” and compromise the integrity of elections. The guidelines advise states to avoid it altogether or restrict it to voters who have no other means of casting a ballot. The document primarily addresses a type of internet voting called electronic ballot delivery and return – where digital absentee ballots counties send to voters overseas via email or a web portal are completed and returned via email attachment, fax or direct upload – but it essentially applies to all forms of internet voting. No states currently offer full-on internet voting, but numerous states allow military and civilian voters abroad to receive and return ballots electronically, and some of these voters use an internet-based system that allows them to mark their ballot online before printing it out and mailing it back or returning it via email or fax. Controversial trials in which volunteers are intentionally infected with Covid-19 could accelerate vaccine development, according to the World Health Organization, which has released new guidance on how the approach could be ethically justified despite the potential dangers for participants. So-called challenge trials are a mainstream approach in vaccine development and have been used in malaria, typhoid and flu, but there are treatments available for these diseases if a volunteer becomes severely ill. For Covid-19, a safe dose of the virus has not been established and there are no failsafe treatments if things go wrong. Scientists, however, increasingly agree that such trials should be considered, and the WHO is the latest body to indicate conditional support for the idea. “There’s this emerging consensus among everyone who has thought about this seriously,” said Prof Nir Eyal, the director of Rutgers University’s Center for Population-Level Bioethics in the US. The prospect of infecting healthy individuals with a potentially deadly pathogen may sound counterintuitive, but according to Eyal the risk of death from Covid-19 for someone in their 20s is around one in 3,000 – similar to the risk for live kidney donation. In this case, the potential benefits would extend not to a single individual, but to thousands or millions who could be protected by a vaccine. 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. Some California businesses on Friday began opening their doors for business – at least partially. As states and counties across the nation contend with pressure to lift the stay-at-home measures that have destroyed local economies, California is taking an especially cautious approach, walking a fine line between political and economic pressure to reopen and the public health imperative to stop the spread of disease. Public health experts told the Guardian that while no US state was equipped with enough coronavirus testing and surveillance to feel fully confident reopening, California’s slow, piecemeal recovery plan – though far from perfect – seemed like the least risky option. Although the White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said guidance on reopening had not been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert Redfield, the new emails obtained by the AP found that Redfield did clear the guidance. More from the AP: On April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees including one for meat packing plants. “We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield’s initials are R.R.R.) Redfield’s comments contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light. Report: Decision to shelve reopening guidance came from highest levels of White House The decision to shelve a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with detailed advice to local authorities for reopening communities came from the highest levels of the White House, the AP reports. From the AP: A trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation. This new CDC guidance, a mix of advice already released along with newer information, had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including [Robert] Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30. According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press. Fact check: Voter fraud Trump himself voted absentee in 2018. Experts say that voter fraud is incredibly rare. In North Carolina, an election was overturned in 2018 after a Republican political operative was alleged to have directed workers to collect and mail in other people’s absentee ballots during the 2018 Republican congressional primary and during the 2016 general election. But states can avoid that sort of fraud by implementing ballot tracking, providing prepaid postage and setting ballot boxes and drop-off sites. Five states already conduct their elections entirely by mail, and have found ways to ensure the integrity of ballots. There is no evidence of widespread voting fraud. The Brennan Center for Justice found in 2017 that the risk of voting fraud is 0.00004% to 0.0009%. Moreover, Trump’s own voting integrity commission found no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud found. Trump’s campaign director Tim Murtaugh told CNN that California’s plan to mail every voter a ballot is a “tactic by Gov. Newsom to undermine election security, falsely implying, as the president has often done, that mail-in-voting begets fraud. Revealed: major anti-lockdown group"s links to America"s far right Jason Wilson and Robert Evans report: Leaked audio recordings and online materials obtained by the Guardian reveal that one of the most prominent anti-lockdown protest groups, American Revolution 2.0 (AR2), has received extensive assistance from well-established far-right actors, some with extremist connections. AR2 presents itself as a grassroots network, but the recordings and other materials reveal its allies include a well-connected Tea Party co-founder and a family of serial online activists who have rolled out dozens of “reopen” websites and Facebook groups. Its website was built and is hosted by a web designer long active in far-right circles online, and who runs a bespoke social media network for the militia movement. One of that website’s previous users bombed a mosque, and another user, now memorialized on the site, was recently shot dead by police in Maryland during a firearms raid. Josh Ellis is the leader of AR2, which has driven anti-lockdown protests across the country, and presented itself as a spontaneous uprising. In videos posted to YouTube, the AR2 website, and across anti-lockdown Facebook groups, Ellis has presented the movement as inclusive and bipartisan, and himself as a conservative everyman. House Judiciary Committee Democrats call for investigation of Barr The House Judiciary Committee Democrats have called on the Justice department’s inspector general to investigate Bill Barr after the DOJ dropped its prosecution of Michael Flynn. “By itself, the decision to dismiss charges against Mr. Flynn would smack of corruption and unacceptable political influence in an ongoing criminal matter: President Trump tweeted in defense of his former advisor, and one week later Mr. Flynn is poised to walk free,” the Judiciary Democrats wrote in a letter to the DOJ inspector general. “But this is hardly the first time that Attorney General Barr has appeared to reach into an ongoing criminal case to do the President’s political bidding,” they write. That the DOJ also sought a shorter sentence for Roger Stone in February was another example of Barr doing Trump’s “political bidding,” the Democrats said. Despite signals that the entire West Wing could have have been exposed to the coronavirus, after Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive for Covid-19, White House officials are inconsistent in their approach to wearing masks and maintaining a physical distance. As an event with World War II veterans to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe, defense secretary Mark Esper gathered with several men all over 95, took photos with them, and handed them coins from his pocket. Esper was not wearing a mask, nor were the veterans. Esper tested negative on Monday, a Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Post. The White House described the veterans as “choosing nation over self” by showing up to the event, according to the AP. “Of course, we presented to them the risk we are facing,” said Timothy Davis, director of the Greatest Generations Foundation, which helps veterans return to the countries where they fought. “They said, ‘It doesn’t matter, Tim,’” Davis, who helped organize the event, told the AP. Hi, there. I’m Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast. After Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for Covid-19, the White House offered tests to members of the press corps. Today so far Hello again US live blog readers, apologies for entirely forgetting the mid-day summary. It’s been another action packed day in US politics and coronavirus news and there is more to come. Handing over now to my west coast colleague Maanvi Singh in San Francisco. She’ll be with you for the next few hours, so thanks for reading and do stay tuned. So far today: Donald Trump says the coronavirus may go away without a vaccine, but offers no evidence to back this up. Ousted government scientist Rick Bright may have suffered retaliation and should be reinstated during an investigation into his whistleblower complaint, his lawyers reported that they had been informed by a federal watchdog. Bright was out after raising concerns that the Trump administration wanted to “flood” coronavirus hotspots like New York and New Jersey with a malaria drug that Donald Trump was pushing despite scant scientific evidence it helped. Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller has the coronavirus, it was revealed earlier today. Miller is married to Donald Trump’s senior White House adviser on immigration, Stephen Miller, all of which led to comments that everyone in the west wing has been exposed. New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is “finally ahead of the virus” as the death toll and hospitalizations continue to come down in what became the world coronavirus hotspot. He warned the rest of the US that their numbers are still going up, and not to be hasty to reopen society and business. Donald Trump said during an interview this morning that he likes to learn from disgraced president Richard Nixon. You’ve got to read it to believe it.