Tesla worker: 'We’re extremely frustrated, angry, scared, that Elon is putting his cars before his workers.'

Tesla's chief executive said he reopened production at the company’s Fremont, California factory Monday, which Musk said he knew was a violation of public health orders. Read the rest

Vladimir Putin's spokesman says he is hospitalized with the coronavirus. Read the rest

• Dr. Anthony Fauci is expected to warn states Tuesday in Senate testimony prematurely reopening economies will cause “needless suffering and death.”

Donald Trump is having a very anxious day. Read the rest

Elon Musk just said he was planning to break the law. Read the rest

Yet another medical study says hydroxychloroquine, the drug much hyped by Donald Trump, is not effective against COVID-19 and could also cause deadly heart problems. Read the rest

Elon Musk told employees at Tesla's California factory that they are back to normal in a company email. Governor Gavin Newsom says he's looking into the electric car company's reopening as a potential violation of a public health order. Read the rest

The Moscow Times reports that at least 376 Russian cadets have been infected with COVID-19. They were practicing for a parade to be held in Moscow's Red Square.

The last rehearsal for the parade took place on April 16, the day when Putin postponed the event and vowed to hold it later in 2020, an unnamed participant told Proekt.

The virus broke out among officers and cadets in at least five elite Russian military academies and one regiment — out of the more than 40 involved — following the parade rehearsals, Proekt cited participants and their relatives as saying.

Marcel Salathé (epidemiologist) and Nicky Case (art/code) created this fun(?) way to visualize the spread of COVID-19 through a series of increasingly sophisticated playable simulations. The takeaway: "A lockdown isn't a cure, it's just a restart." Read the rest

At least one of the older white men in this photograph has had close repeated exposure to a person with COVID-19. Read the rest

The stupid is what hurts the most. The stupid will eventually break me. Must. Not. Break.

Yet again, impeached president Donald Trump has tweeted something obviously untrue and unbelievably dumb. Read the rest

After six weeks of negotiating, the UN Security Council was close to agreeing on a resolution for a global ceasefire during the Covid-19 pandemic. Seems fair, right? Let's agree to stop killing each other for a while, so we can focus on the virus that's killing us instead?

China proposed that the text explicitly mention a commitment by member nations to support the efforts of the World Health Organization — who Donald Trump has blamed (without evidence) for withholding information on the coronavirus outbreak.

So the US looked at the resolution and said "LOL no," despite last minute efforts to reach a compromise. As The Guardian reports:

On Thursday night, French diplomats thought they had engineered a compromise in which the resolution would mention UN “specialized health agencies” (an indirect, if clear, reference to the WHO).

The Russian mission signaled that it wanted a clause calling for the lifting of sanctions that affected the delivery of medical supplies, a reference to US punitive measures imposed on Iran and Venezuela. However, most security council diplomats believed Moscow would withdraw the objection or abstain in a vote rather than risk isolation as the sole veto on the ceasefire resolution.

While everyone else seemed game to go along with these compromises, the US insisted it was one big Chinese trick. As one diplomat told CNN:  "This discussion has been taken hostage by issues that do not have to do with the real issues at stake. Instead it has been transformed into a fight between the US and China. Read the rest

"[F]lying during a pandemic turned out to be more stressful—and surreal—than I’d planned for," writes McKay Copkins in The Atlantic. After two months of social distancing Copkins went on a reporting trip that required a plane flight. He was looking forward to the trip, but as soon as he got on the plane he realized that air travel is no fun during a pandemic.

I arrived at my assigned row, and found a stocky, gray-haired man in the seat next to mine. When I moved to sit down, he stopped me. “Sit there,” he said gruffly, pointing to the aisle behind us. “Social distance.”

Not eager for a confrontation, I decided to comply. Within seconds, though, a flight attendant materialized and ordered me back to my assigned seat. My recalcitrant would-be seatmate, vigorously objecting to this development, responded by blocking my entrance to the row with his leg.

Photo by Ethan McArthur on Unsplash Read the rest

CNBC reports that an aide to Pence has tested positive for COVID-19. This follows yesterday's report that Trump's personal valet tested positive for the virus.

A spokeswoman for Pence did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

Pence was scheduled to travel to Des Moines, Iowa, in the morning, but his departure from Andrews Air Force Base was delayed by nearly an hour as staff dealt with news of the diagnosis. Reporters traveling with Pence said several staffers disembarked from Air Force Two just before takeoff.

Photo of Pence: Know Your Meme Read the rest

• Fox News personality who once proudly boasted on TV of not having washed hands in 10 years tells Americans to go out and get coronavirus on purpose

In this clip, Fox News' Pete Hegseth calls for people to go out and get infected by coronavirus. Read the rest

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist who leads the country's no-lockdown plan, said Sweden's high death rate from Covid-19 compared to neighboring countries has "come as a surprise."

From Business Insider:

Dr. Anders Tegnell, Sweden’s state epidemiologist, appeared on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah” on Tuesday, when he described the country’s controversial approach.

“We never really calculated with a high death toll initially, I must say,” he said.

“We calculated on more people being sick, but the death toll really came as a surprise to us.”

As of Tuesday, Sweden reported more than 2,700 COVID-19 deaths and more than 23,000 infections. That death toll is far higher than its Nordic neighbours’ and many other countries that locked down.

One of Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus, CNN reports. Read the rest