Valerie Richardson

CNN taps Greta Thunberg for coronavirus town hall expert panel

CNN's expert panel for a Thursday town hall on the novel coronavirus features two doctors, a former Health and Human Services secretary, and a teenage climate activist who has yet to graduate from high school.

May 13, 2020

Ohio traces first probable case of coronavirus to early January, not March

Ohio health officials have traced the state's first probable case of the novel coronavirus to Jan. 7, two weeks before the first confirmed U.S. "patient zero" in Washington state.

May 13, 2020

Anti-Defamation League reports anti-Semitism surge led by New York

The Anti-Defamation League reported Tuesday a record-setting surge in anti-Semitic incidents in 2019, led by dramatic increases in assaults and harassment against Jews in New York and New Jersey.

May 12, 2020

Kate Brown, Gavin Newsom, Western States Pact governors seek $1 trillion relief

Five Western Democratic governors on Monday asked Congress for $1 trillion in aid to plug the budgetary holes created by the novel coronavirus shutdown.

May 11, 2020

Tom Wolf threatens to cut funding for ‘cowardly’ Pennsylvania counties going rogue

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf sought Monday to head off a growing revolt against his cautious coronavirus restrictions, threatening to withhold funding from counties and licenses from businesses that seek to reopen ahead of his timetable.

May 11, 2020

Donald Trump calls for NBC’s Chuck Todd to be fired over heavily edited Barr video clip

President Trump unleashed a tweetstorm Monday calling for NBC "Meet the Press" host Chuck Todd to be fired after the show admitted that it erred in cutting short a sound bite of Attorney General William P. Barr.

May 11, 2020

Tom Cotton says China pressured WHO to downplay coronavirus

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, said Sunday there was "no question" that Chinese officials pressured the World Health Organization in December to downplay the risks of the novel coronavirus after it originated in Wuhan.

May 10, 2020

Chuck Todd accused of ‘deceptive editing’ William Barr NBC interview, DOJ say

The Justice Department on Sunday accused NBC's Chuck Todd of deceptively editing a sound bite from Attorney General William P. Barr to make it look as if he said nothing about upholding the rule of law, when in fact he did.

May 10, 2020

Steven Mnuchin: Reopening needed to avert ‘permanent economic damage’ to the public

Trump administration officials sought Sunday to lower short-term expectations on the cratering economy, predicting that unemployment will spike in the second quarter while promising a historic rebound in the latter half of 2020 -- right before the presidential election.

May 10, 2020

J.B. Pritzker, Illinois governor: Coronavirus restrictions needed ‘until we’re able to eradicate it’

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker defended Sunday his cautious economic reopening plan, which leaves schools and many businesses shuttered until the novel coronavirus is all but defeated, saying the state will be unable to return to normal "until we're able to eradicate it."

May 10, 2020

Kevin Hassett, White House economic adviser, expects 20% unemployment rate before recovery

White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett predicted Sunday that the economic news would get worse before it gets better, estimating that the unemployment rate will climb to 20% or higher in May or June as a result of the coronavirus economic fallout before rebounding.

May 10, 2020

Republicans more willing to risk coronavirus cases, deaths to reopen economy, poll finds

Most Republicans say it's time for America to reopen even if that means more novel coronavirus cases and deaths, while most Democrats say it's not worth the risk.

May 10, 2020

Karl Manke, Owosso, Michigan, barber: Gretchen Whitmer has ‘no concept of the damage she’s doing’

A Michigan barber said Sunday he plans to stay open in defiance of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's extended order on nonessential businesses, insisting that the Democratic governor "has no concept at all of the damage she's doing."

May 10, 2020

Harvard home-schooling crackdown hit by shutdown surge

No sooner had Harvard Law School touched off a campaign for a government crackdown on home-schooling than every student in America began learning at home, thanks to the coronavirus shutdown.

May 7, 2020

Jared Polis: Colorado first coronavirus case in January or February, not March

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said Wednesday it was "extremely likely" that the state had its first case of the novel coronavirus in January or February, well before the first official diagnosis on March 5.

May 6, 2020

Rand Paul leads anti-mask rebellion after coronavirus recovery

Leave it to Rand Paul, the Senate's top libertarian and a physician to boot, to lead the charge against tyrannical government leaders calling for their previously coronavirus-infected subjects to wear face masks.

May 6, 2020

Betsy DeVos moves to end Obama-era ‘kangaroo courts’ by protecting rights of accused on campus

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos made good Wednesday on her vow to restore due process on campus, seeking to end the "kangaroo courts" that sprung up under the Obama administration by protecting the rights of the accused while strengthening safeguards for accusers.

May 6, 2020

CBS denies faking scene of crowded Michigan testing clinic alleged in Project Veritas sting

CBS News has denied faking a scene of novel coronavirus testing in Michigan by padding the drive-thru line with clinic workers to make the health center look busier than it was, as alleged in a Project Veritas expose released Wednesday.

May 6, 2020

Dana Canedy, Pulitzer Prizes chief, defends New York Times Project 1619 honor

Pulitzer Prizes Administrator Dana Canedy defended Tuesday the decision to honor the widely disputed 1619 Project, which reframes the American Revolution as a battle to protect slavery, even as she acknowledged that "perhaps most historians" would disagree with its premise.

May 5, 2020

Harvard backtracks on air pollution-coronavirus deaths link

Harvard researchers publicly walked back Monday a key finding in a highly touted but hotly contested paper linking air pollution exposure to deaths from the novel coronavirus, slashing the estimated mortality rate in half.

May 4, 2020