States reopen in US as coronavirus pandemic persists
Updated 9:57 p.m. ET, May 4, 2020
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8:06 a.m. ET, May 4, 2020
J.Crew files for bankruptcy
From CNN Business' Chris Isidore and Nathaniel Meyersohn
A person walks by a J.Crew store on Madison Avenue in New York on May 1. Jeenah Moon/Getty Images
J.Crew Group, which operates the J.Crew and Madewell brands, has become the first national US retailer to file for bankruptcy protection since the coronavirus pandemic forced a wave of store closures.
The clothing retailer said Monday it had filed to begin Chapter 11 proceedings in federal bankruptcy court in the Eastern District of Virginia. The company also said it had reached a deal with its lenders to convert about $1.65 billion of debt into equity.
The retailer expects to stay in business and emerge from bankruptcy as a profitable company. Madewell, the fast-growing denim brand that had been slated for an IPO, will remain part of the business.
"We will continue all day-to-day operations," J.Crew Group CEO Jan Singer said in a statement.
6:21 a.m. ET, May 4, 2020
Here's why you can't find flour in grocery stores
From CNN's Zachary B. Wolf
Shelves in the flour section are largely empty save for a few organic options at the Hannaford supermarket in Scarborough, Maine, on March 27. Gregory Rec/Portland Press Herald/Getty Images
Despite meat processing plants across the US shutting down due to coronavirus concerns, for now, you can still find plenty of meat in the grocery stores.
One thing you can't find on the shelves is flour. Stores are cleaned out and it's not currently available on most websites. But why is that?
Carey Underwood, who is director of mission-driven partnerships and programs at King Arthur Flour, said it's because people have been baking a lot.
"People who were baking monthly are now baking weekly, and people who were baking weekly are baking daily," she said. "We expect this increase in baking to continue for the foreseeable future as trends show more in-home eating compared to dining out and people choosing to bake the food staples they cannot find in their grocery stores."
Underwood said the shortage in grocery stores is because of the spike in demand for flour, not because there is a shortage of wheat.
"The demand for all signature flours, but especially all-purpose and bread flours, is simply unprecedented and is outpacing the inventory in our warehouses," she said.
Underwood added: "The wheat is available, but it must be milled, bagged, and transported to warehouses. These steps simply take time and the flour is selling out again as quickly as it reaches shelves."
Big cities were already seeing their populations dip. Then coronavirus hit.
From CNN's Catherine E. Shoichet and Athena Jones
A street with closed businesses is seen in New York's Meatpacking District on April 30. Stephanie Keith/Getty Images
The streets of New York -- and many major cities across the US -- are hauntingly empty as the pandemic leaves most of the country on lockdown.
This chilling sign of the times brings to mind a big question: After the pandemic passes, will some people choose to leave big-city life behind?
That trend was already starting to emerge in parts of the country, even before coronavirus hit. Now the pandemic is changing the way we talk about city life. And some experts say it could change who opts to live in them.
"It's hard to think about living in New York when we don't have our existence and our careers there," says Ashley Arcement, a dancer, singer and actor who headed to a friend's house in Florida with her boyfriend, a pianist, after Broadway shut down in March.
Before this, we weren't the kind of people who wanted to live outside the city and commute in ... Now it's like, will it ever be the same?" Arcement adds.
With Broadway closed, restaurants open only for takeout and many working from home -- if they still have a job -- the city that never sleeps is looking downright dormant.
"Why New York? Why are we seeing this level of infection? Well, why cities across the country?" said New York Governor Andrew Cuomo at a news briefing last month.
"It's about density. It's about the number of people in a small geographic location allowing that virus to spread ... Dense environments are its feeding grounds."
The executive director of the Houston-based Urban Reform Institute, Kotkin says that cities were already in trouble. And in the age of social distancing, he says, dense cities particularly have a lot going against them.
The novel coronavirus has infected more than 3.5 million people worldwide and killed at least 247,000. If you're just joining us, here are the latest developments:
US death toll could rise to 90,000: President Trump has raised his estimates of the possible Covid-19 death toll in the country, saying between 80,000 and 90,000 people could die as a result of the pandemic. Asked why he had previously said 65,000 people would die, Trump said "it goes up rapidly." The US death toll currently stands at 67,682, according to Johns Hopkins University; more than 1.1 million cases have been recorded.
Mike Pompeo points finger at China: The US secretary of State on Sunday stepped up the administration's claims that China mounted efforts to hide the extent of the coronavirus' spread, including concealing the severity of the disease, while stockpiling medical supplies.
President believes coronavirus was "a horrible mistake": Asked whether he thought the coronavirus was the result of nefarious actions or a mistake, President Trump said he believes it was “a horrible mistake.” During a Fox News town hall on Sunday, he said China “didn’t want to admit it,” because it was embarrassed by the problem and was unable to “put the fire out.” Trump and Pompeo have both said they believe the virus had its origins in a lab in Wuhan, China and not at a market in the city, but neither has provided evidence to support those claims.
5:35 a.m. ET, May 4, 2020
Lincoln got better press treatment, Trump claims, as he ups pandemic death estimate
Analysis by CNN's Stephen Collinson
President Donald Trump speaks during a Fox News virtual town hall from the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on May 3, co-moderated by anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Evan Vucci/AP
After admitting US coronavirus deaths could hit 90,000, President Donald Trump is bemoaning his own plight -- complaining that he has been treated worse by the press than Abraham Lincoln.
Trump's comments, at the memorial in Washington to a president assassinated after emancipating the slaves during the Civil War, are likely to further polarize the raging politics of a current crisis that is stretching national unity.
"I am greeted with a hostile press the likes of which no president has ever seen," Trump said at the Fox News town hall Sunday night. "The closest would be that gentleman right up there," Trump said, pointing to the 16th President's statue. "They always said nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse."
Trump was speaking at the time of a widening divide between states that are opening economies and others that are warning of premature declarations of victory amid soaring tensions fomented by weeks of coronavirus lockdowns.
His statement was classic Trump, not just in his audacity of comparing himself to the man many historians rate as the greatest president, but in his tendency to make every issue -- even in the midst of a national tragedy in which tens of thousands of Americans have died -- about himself.
Birx says a coronavirus vaccine by January is possible "on paper"
From CNN Health’s Arman Azad
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, listens during a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House on May 1. Alex Brandon/AP
Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said on Fox this weekend that having a coronavirus vaccine by January is possible “on paper” but will require the proper execution.
Birx was asked whether it was realistic to have a vaccine by the start of next year, given other estimates that it will take at least 12 to 18 months to develop.
“The way that it’s possible is if you bring forward five or six different classes of candidates, which the Operation Warp Speed has done,” Birx said. “And so it’s not relying on a single vaccine platform. It’s relying on several different candidates that are made differently and act differently.”
The vaccine would also require speeding up clinical trials, she said.
“And so, on paper it’s possible. It’s whether we can execute and execute around the globe, because you also, for phase three, have to have active viral transmission in a community in order to study its efficacy," Birx said.
CNN previously reported that the goal is to make 100 million doses of a vaccine available by November, 200 million doses by December and 300 million doses by January, according to a senior administration official.
On remdesivir: Birx described the investigational drug remdesivir as a “first step forward."
In early results from a trial sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, the drug was found to shorten the duration of illness in severely affected patients, but it had no statistically significant effect on mortality.
Birx said we’ve only seen “half the data,” but she said an independent monitoring board thought the improvement was significant enough to start giving remdesivir to patients who were previously receiving a placebo.
“So it’s a first step forward. In parallel, we have a whole series of therapeutics including plasma, and also monoclonal antibodies being worked through,” she said, referring to lab-made antibodies targeting the virus.
