The Washington Post
CORONAVIRUS

Boom-and-bust federal funding after 9/11 undercut hospitals’ preparedness

Congressional funding for hospital preparedness for national health emergencies peaked in 2004 and has plummeted since then. Of the more than $118 billion the federal government invested from 2001 through 2017 to protect U.S. citizens from health threats, less than $6 billion went to assisting the nation’s network of hospitals, records show.
LIVE UPDATES
Access to these updates is free

Trump tries to project return to normalcy while relying on testing that public lacks

President Trump, Vice President Pence and their aides are tested regularly, and all who enter the White House campus to meet with them are required to undergo on-site rapid tests.

White House blocks Fauci from testifying before House panel next week

The administration said it would be “counterproductive” for him to appear next week while in the midst of participating in the government’s responses to the pandemic.
Ward 8 Councilman Trayon White, Sr., center, greets constituents while helping Martha's Table to hand out food in Washington. (Bill O'Leary/The Post)
Ward 8 Councilman Trayon White, Sr., center, greets constituents while helping Martha's Table to hand out food in Washington. (Bill O'Leary/The Post)

From smallest caseload to biggest death toll: Virus decimates D.C.’s poorest ward

In a deeply struggling part of Washington, the pandemic adds a new layer of pain.

Protests spread, fueled by economic woes and Internet subcultures

Crowds demanding a relaxation of restrictions gathered in several cities with more protests planned for the weekend.
Video

The novel coronavirus is a master of disguise: Here's how it works

4:00

They got married in a parking lot instead of the beach, but it was just as special

  • By Lori Rozsa
  • 17 hours ago

Guide to the pandemic

There have been more than 3.2 million confirmed cases of covid-19. The virus has killed more than 230,000. Access to the following stories is free:
U.S. deaths reported per day
Video
(Brian Monroe/The Washington Post)
The novel coronavirus is a master of disguise: Here's how it works
A few of the best callbacks from the 'Parks and Recreation' coronavirus special
Play Video 3:07
Museums share art online while their doors remain closed
Play Video 4:36
Natasha Trethewey: I find myself longing for slower ways of connection
Play Video 4:05
What we know about Tara Reade's allegations against Joe Biden
Play Video 4:31
Opinions
The path to reopening is clear. Our national strategy is not.
The administration must release all approved funds to help Palestinians fight covid-19
  • By Rashida Tlaib and Alan Lowenthal
McConnell commits an irresponsible act of selfishness just to ram through judges
Anti-vaxxers will fight the eventual coronavirus vaccine. Here’s how to stop them.
Trump’s supporters can’t decide what to do. No wonder they reach for their guns.
Let's engage in an uncomfortable thought experiment about the Biden allegations
Stories You’ll Want to Hear

Curators were wading through 750 Louis Armstrong tapes. Then the pandemic hit.

Play the latest episode of Post Reports, the premier daily podcast by The Washington Post.
Listen
| Add to Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher
Most Read
Live Discussions
Ask Boswell: Redskins, Nationals and Washington sports
  • Monday, May 04 at 11AM EDT
Talk about Travel
  • Monday, May 04 at 2PM EDT
Petri Dishes
  • Tuesday, May 05 at 11AM EDT
Weekly schedule, past shows
More Top Stories
President Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn at the White House on Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Post)
President Trump talks with reporters on the South Lawn at the White House on Friday. (Jabin Botsford/The Post)

Trump undercuts his campaign’s focus on Biden accuser by painting powerful men as victims

The president’s comments underscore the challenge Republicans will have in criticizing the former vice president on an issue that dogged Trump’s 2016 campaign and on which he remains vulnerable.

Video of North Korea’s Kim opening fertilizer factory quashes rumors

Kim was seen walking, standing, joking and smoking in extensive footage of his visit. His three-week absence from the public eye appears to have been linked to coronavirus.
The Fix
Analysis

White House press secretary makes very Trumpian debut

Trending

Early warning system for coronavirus infections could be found in toilets

Retropolis

The last time the U.S. sought a ‘warp speed’ vaccine, it was a fiasco

In Case You Missed It

Sports leagues want to play games again. They just can’t figure out how.

Biden denies he sexually assaulted former Senate aide

His campaign statement, released shortly before he appeared on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ on Friday, is the first he has made about the allegation by Tara Reade, who worked in his Senate office for nine months ending in 1993.

Technology used to combat ISIS propaganda is enlisted to counter Trump’s coronavirus messaging

A new initiative from a Democratic group advised by retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal seeks to compete with the president’s online megaphone.
Protesters gather inside Lansing's Capitol after the American Patriot Rally on Capitol Lawn on Thursday. (Nicole Hester/MLive.com/Ann Arbor News via AP)
Protesters gather inside Lansing's Capitol after the "American Patriot Rally on Capitol Lawn" on Thursday. (Nicole Hester/MLive.com/Ann Arbor News via AP)

President expresses support for angry anti-shutdown protesters as more states lift coronavirus lockdowns

As researchers estimated that the coronavirus pandemic could stretch on for two more years, President Trump described the armed protesters who stormed the Michigan Capitol as “very good people.”

Europe is starting to lift restrictions. But might seniors be left out?

The loneliness of lockdown could increase if it only applies to some.

The U.S. wants Mexico to keep its defense and health-care factories open. Mexican workers are getting sick and dying.

Closures of Mexican factories have shaken U.S. government contractors, whose work is deemed essential north of the border, but not south of it.
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, center, with his son Nikolai, right, talks with worshipers during the Orthodox Easter service at a church in a village outside Minsk, Belarus, on April 19. (Nikolai Petrov/AP)
Belarus President Alexander Lukashenko, center, with his son Nikolai, right, talks with worshipers during the Orthodox Easter service at a church in a village outside Minsk, Belarus, on April 19. (Nikolai Petrov/AP)

Coronavirus is spreading rapidly in Belarus, but its leader still denies there is a problem

The country has one of the fastest-rising infection rates in Eastern Europe. People are taking measures on their own.
Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” (Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967). The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection)
Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks.” (Edward Hopper (American, 1882–1967). The Art Institute of Chicago, Friends of American Art Collection)

Those who say Edward Hopper is the artist of social distancing may be wrong

  • By Menachem Wecker
  • 5 days ago
Perspective

Restaurants matter for reasons more than dinner. The Post’s food critic on what we’re in danger of losing.

This museum curator is an expert on dogs — and their presidential partners

  • By Cathy Alter
  • 4 days ago
Date Lab

Update: He wanted to meet someone the old-fashioned way

  • By Neil Drumming
  • 2 days ago
Chris Harkins speaks with a medical worker Tuesday at a coronavirus testing site outside a hospital in Somerville, Mass. (AP)
Chris Harkins speaks with a medical worker Tuesday at a coronavirus testing site outside a hospital in Somerville, Mass. (AP)

In educated and affluent Massachusetts, coronavirus cases surged. The decline has yet to come.

The state’s struggle to combat the virus reflects just what a tenacious adversary it really is. Even for a place that has a lot going for it, the toll has been severe — and it is growing by the day.

Severe weather outlook for May features a backloaded tornado season

While a quiet start to peak severe storm season is likely, tornado chances look to pick up by the end of the month.

FDA authorizes remdesivir for severely ill patients with covid-19

The drug was shown in a clinical trial to shorten the time to recovery in some patients.

Dow falls more than 600 points as tech, energy sectors fuel Wall Street retreat

The optimism that fueled stocks to their best month in decades all but vanished.

Public companies received $1 billion in stimulus funds meant for small businesses

Nearly 300 public companies have received loans from the program, though some have returned it.
(Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)
(Mark Felix/AFP/Getty Images)

Malls are reopening, with masks, social distancing and hand sanitizer-spritzing doormen

More than a dozen states began emerging from their coronavirus lockdowns, leaving business owners, workers and consumers to decide what normal means now.
(Salwan Georges and Melina Mara/The Post; Matthew Staver, Kathryn Gamble, Eamon Queeney, Maddie McGarvey and Callaghan O’Hare for The Post)
(Salwan Georges and Melina Mara/The Post; Matthew Staver, Kathryn Gamble, Eamon Queeney, Maddie McGarvey and Callaghan O’Hare for The Post)
Workers prepare the set for the NBA basketball draft lottery in 2018. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Workers prepare the set for the NBA basketball draft lottery in 2018. (Charles Rex Arbogast/AP)
Analysis

NBA postpones draft lottery, leaving rebuilding teams in limbo

Friday brought another major calendar casualty when the National Basketball Association indefinitely delayed its draft lottery drawing and combine, which were slated for later this month in Chicago.
Perspective

The Alex Smith story sheds light on the drive that separates athletes from the rest of us

Some see ban of coach as progress for USA Gymnastics but question the timetable

D.C., Maryland and Virginia pass 2,000 covid-19 deaths; disclose most infections in one day

But the Washington region is also seeing hospitalizations trend in the right direction.

Truckers blast horns near White House to protest low rates during pandemic

Drivers said shipping rates have fallen below the cost of keeping their trucks on the road.

IRS tells parents still waiting for their $500 stimulus child benefit it won’t arrive until next year

Jamie Jones, a Virginia widow and mother receiving Social Security survivor benefits, got her $1,200 stimulus check, but it was missing the extra $1,500 for her three children. She is far from alone.
Stephen Safoschnik, left, and Claude DeHart met when they ended up sharing a room at the SERVE Family Shelter in Manassas. (Northern Virginia Family Service)
Stephen Safoschnik, left, and Claude DeHart met when they ended up sharing a room at the SERVE Family Shelter in Manassas. (Northern Virginia Family Service)
Perspective

They share a bunk in a homeless shelter. When the pandemic ends, they will move into neighboring apartments.

The men, who are in their 60s, have been cleaning doorknobs and floors at the Virginia shelter to stay safe until their move date.
Known deaths and cases in the region
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
How the capital region is being affected
Schoolchildren are evacuated from London in preparation for war on Germany in 1939. The psychologist John Bowlby observed the damaging effects of separation on the children who had been removed from their parents. (AP)
Schoolchildren are evacuated from London in preparation for war on Germany in 1939. The psychologist John Bowlby observed the damaging effects of separation on the children who had been removed from their parents. (AP)
Retropolis
The Past, Rediscovered

The discovery of germs changed American life, especially parenting. Will covid-19 do the same?

The 19th-century discovery that microorganisms such as bacteria and viruses caused disease had a profound impact on child-rearing and other aspects of American life — and not always in a good way.

Exercise can be hard to get now. Here’s what that means to your body.

  • By Amanda Loudin
  • 2 hours ago

Reopened restaurants reveal the ‘new normal’

Restaurants in Georgia, Tennessee and Alaska were given the go-ahead to resume serving patrons in-house, weeks after the coronavirus shuttered eateries.
From clockwise: Jay O. Sanders, Maryann Plunkett, Sally Murphy, Laila Robins, and Stephen Kunken in the live-streamed world premiere of “What Do We Need To Talk About?” (Public Theater)
From clockwise: Jay O. Sanders, Maryann Plunkett, Sally Murphy, Laila Robins, and Stephen Kunken in the live-streamed world premiere of “What Do We Need To Talk About?” (Public Theater)
Review

A play premieres online — and it couldn’t be more relevant to how we are right now

In 60 lyrical minutes, author-director Richard Nelson and five veteran stage actors show us how potently a digital conferencing platform can work as a space for a play.
Perspective

For a lot of book lovers, rereading old favorites is all they can manage now

  • By Sarah Wendell
  • 3 hours ago
Book Review

Mark Doty looks at Walt Whitman through autobiographical lens

In "What Is the Grass," he does what traditional academic criticism often fails to do: Make poetry part of how we live and how we think about living.
  • By Scott Bradfield
  • 3 days ago
(Tom McCorkle for The Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Post)
(Tom McCorkle for The Post; food styling by Lisa Cherkasky for The Post)

Baseball season always means my mom’s chicken. Without the games, it’s filling a void.

I jostled the pieces in a paper bag with flour and spices, then baked — and the result took me back to my childhood and the sights and sounds of the game.

8 of our most popular pantry-friendly recipes to simplify your cooking

Home alone? 7 dishes that won’t leave you with leftover-itis

(Marissa Voo for The Post)
(Marissa Voo for The Post)

Getting antsy? Try quarantine bingo!

While road-trip bingo is out, try this adaptation for time spent indoors or on neighborhood walks.
  • By Elizabeth Chang and Illustrations by Marissa Voo for The Washington Post
  • 1 day ago

Congress probing Carnival Corp. after coronavirus outbreak

You may not be able to travel right now, but these 9 iconic regional foods will come to you

Visual Stories
(Sasha Maslov)In Sight
(Sasha Maslov)
Meet the female railroad traffic controllers living in quirky houses alongside Ukraine’s railroad system
(The Washington Post)Graphic
(The Washington Post)
The iconic brands that could disappear because of coronavirus
(The Washington Post)Graphic
(The Washington Post)
Ten newspapers made by kids during the coronavirus
(Lucy Engelman for The Post)Visual Story
(Lucy Engelman for The Post)
A token of our love: A memorial for those lost to covid-19
(Matt McClain/ Post)Story
(Matt McClain/ Post)
As the country moves to reopen, Americans weigh risk against necessity, longing and fear
From Our Advertisers
This content is paid for by the advertiser and published by WP BrandStudio. The Washington Post newsroom was not involved in the creation of this content. Learn more about WP BrandStudio.