Churches and the faithful are both getting anxious to get back to in-person services both here in California and around the country. Some churches here plan to open up their doors soon and before Governor Newsom wants them to. 

President Trump has been maligned and criticized for wanting to reopen the economy and get people back to work. He's also been slammed for touting hydroxychloroquine and comparing this pandemic to a bad flu season. But has the president actually been right all along? 

Despite calls to unite and help each other out, people are still being jerks to each other. Arguments are still erupting on social media and in-person about wearing masks and reopening the economy. Why can't we all just be nice and get along? 

 

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President Trump is standing by his personal use of the antiviral drug hydroxychloroquine.....This has been met with controversy. So is the president wading in dangerous medical waters....or could he actually be onto something? 

Reports of possible manipulation of COVID-19 data in Florida and Georgia --  politically-motivated manipulation --  has led to bigger questions about the reliability of the numbers we're seeing on the spread of coronavirus.  Whether it's nefarious or just incompetence, is the data trust worthy?

One silver lining of this near global sheltering in place: an unprecedented drop in greenhouse gas emissions.  New research shows a drop in carbon levels unlike anything ever seen in the modern era........but is that sustainable after we all go back to work?

Speaking of work, college grads will be venturing into an economy that's at near depression-levels.  And it may take them a  lifetime to overcome this unfortunate start to their careers.

And there are massively complicated legal fights heading for businesses and their insurance carriers over finding coverage in the midst of a pandemic.

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Mark Cuban, the billionaire owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, co-host of "Shark Tank" and one of the richest people in the world, says we're doing this all wrong.  Cuban argues the Small Business relief programs, while well intentioned, missed the mark; he says the one time payments to individual Americans weren't nearly enough.  So we're bringing Mark Cuban to In Depth to hear his case for a smarter reopening of the economy.

Speaking of....there's new modeling out of Harvard that shows a national quarantine policy doesn't have to be an "all or nothing" prospect.  There's a more strategic way to lock some areas down, while allowing others to reopen.

The weather this weekend was gorgeous, and the weather for the upcoming Memorial Day weekend is supposed to be even better, which means many of us will be heading outdoors.  Are your risks of contracting coronavirus much smaller outside.......and should we all still be wearing masks?

And promising news of a clinical trial in humans of a new COVID vaccine.........but, temper  your excitement; even with that potential, we're still a long way off from having something viable that's ready for the market.

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Go ahead and give yourselves a pat on the back: the sheltering in place, the social distancing, the economic hardships we've had to endure over the past three months.........well, new research shows that it had the desired effect: staying home and staying apart dramatically slowed the transmission of coronavirus.  But now with economies reopening across the country, can we keep those infection rates going down?

These next two weekends are going to present a big challenge to our discipline and willpower, especially with images of reopening stores and restaurants flashing across our screens.  Is it ok to hang out with friends again........can you host that backyard BBQ for Memorial Day?

 Democrats in the House are on the verge of passing a 3-trillion dollar economic relief package, the latest round in an effort to prop up the economy during this pandemic. 

And the Anti-Vaxxer movement has a new target in its sights: the future coronavirus vaccine.  Skeptics of the as-of-yet-undeveloped vaccine are already mounting an effort to cast doubt on it.........we'll take a look at a very interesting mix of political motivations in opposing the future COVID vaccine.

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The man who led the federal government's vaccine development efforts, before he was ousted by the Trump administration, told Congress today that valuable time was wasted in preparing for the response to the coronavirus outbreak here in the U.S.  He says, months later, there still is no coordinated plan to combat the virus. 

Restaurants across the country are preparing for at least a partial reopening of their dining rooms, and in some cases that means moving dining rooms outside to sidewalks, parking lots and even streets.  What will your next restaurant dining experience look like?

Then there are the airlines, grappling with its plans for air travel during pandemic.  More expensive tickets, crowded planes and lots of masks seem to be givens; how many brave souls will actually venture back to airports is not. 

Doctors are being told to prepare for more children infected with COVID-19 to present with mysterious inflammation symptoms.  And as reports of these cases increase, it puts plans for safely reopening schools in jeopardy.

And new research confirms that yes, you can infect your cat with coronavirus.......and cats can infect other cats..........but can your cat infect you with the virus?

 

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In the standoff between Elon Musk and the state of California, the Golden State blinked first.  Musk restarted operations at his Tesla manufacturing plant up in Alameda County this week, in defiance of shelter in place orders, but won't face any punishment after reaching a deal with state and county officials. 

The reopening efforts probably won't save at least 100-thousand small businesses across the country, which are likely closed for good.  We'll talk with a pair of small business owners who are barely hanging on, and don't have too many good things to say about the government's assistance programs meant to help them.

Consumer prices are supposed to be going down.......right? Demand for just about everything is at all time low with most of us stuck at home; but the one place we all have to go these days......the grocery store........is in the midst of price spikes.  Why your food shopping is getting more expensive.

And there's a new app available for download onto our smartphone right now: it's a COVID symptom study out of Harvard, and by getting people to enter in some really basic information, it could be able to predict where the next coronavirus outbreak will happen.

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The analysis from Dr. Anthony Fauci at a Senate hearing today was sobering and realistic:  no, this country does not have the coronavirus outbreak under control.  And his warning comes at a time when more segments of the economy are starting to reopen, as COVID-19 infections and deaths continue to mount. 

When workers do return to offices, restaurants and stores, they'll likely be greeted by new tracking technology, meant to determine if they're infected.  This brings up all kinds of privacy and accuracy issues, we'll look into all of them.

Speaking of restaurants, some will be allowed to reopen for in-house dining here in California, but with a lot of restrictions and a lot of precautions.

Another industry eager to reopen........film and TV production.  But how can you safely gather crews of hundreds of people, in close quarters, while a  highly contagious virus continues to circulate?

And the demands for President Trump's tax returns and financial documents were up for argument in front of the Supreme Court today, we'll review the cases in question.

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We're into a new week .... and an experiment, of sorts .... unlike anything we've seen before here in the United States:  even with coronavirus infections and deaths continuing to spread and mount, the country is increasingly back open for business.  What's the plan if the infection curve, which has mostly flattened but not decreased, shoots back up? What would a second economic shutdown look like?

Of course, not everyone believes that this pandemic is as dire as it has been made out to be.  We'll talk with an epidemiologist at Stanford who has taken an aggressively contrarian view on outbreak........he believes the shutdown, the masks, all of it.......has been a major overreaction.

Several months into this, we've got some good reporting on people who have been infected with COVID and have since made their recovery; the problem is .... recovering from this virus is not easy and not straight forward.

And just as President Trump is encouraging people to go back to work, schools and businesses, he's got a COVID hot spot right at home: we'll go to the White House which is suddenly taking coronavirus prevention measures more seriously.

 

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We didn't need further confirmation that the American economy has taken an absolute beating from the nearly two months of sheltering in place to slow the spread of coronavirus, but we got it today in the form of historically bad job losses for the month of April.  Over 7 weeks, with over 30-million jobs lost, decades of economic gains in this country have been wiped out. 

Much of the activities of the country's district and county court systems have been suspended for two months, and restarting them--just like reopening the economy--is going to present a massive challenge.  How can proceedings be carried out in cramped courtrooms when infections are still spreading? We'll ask if there's a plan in place. 

Today marks the first day of a partial reopening for some businesses in the city of Los Angeles, and a start...of sorts....to our new normal.  We're talking with Mayor Eric Garcetti about how curbside retail is going to work, how they'll keep the crowds under control at the city's reopened parks and trails and how the city's finances are holding up.

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Frontier Airlines wanted to do you a favor, for a small fee of course. The budget carrier was planning on offering what they called a "more room" feature, which for 39-bucks would've guaranteed an empty middle seat.  After being heavily criticized, Frontier ditched that idea; but beware, because pandemic profiteering is coming.

And, how upside down is the U.S. economy right now? Even after news that over 3-million more Americans filed for unemployment within just the past week, the stock market surged up. So we'll ask just how deep of an economic hole we have to climb out of in the weeks ahead.

You may never look a llama the same way again: turns out that the fluffy, and sometimes spitting, members of the camel family produce some very robust viral antibodies, that could prove key to developing treatments for COVID-19. 

And just in time for Mother's Day.......if you thought all of the fathers working from home these past few months would re-balance household chores and take some of the load off of mothers........think again.

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