Texas, Small Business, Vaccine
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Your Monday Evening Briefing |
Good evening. Here’s the latest. |
 | | Justin Lane/EPA, via Shutterstock |
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1. The U.S. passed a grim milestone: 50,000 people have died from the coronavirus, according to data from The Times, while the global toll passed 200,000. |
Those numbers do not include more than 5,000 people in New York City alone who died and are believed to have had the virus. Above, a funeral home in Queens, N.Y. last week. |
A snapshot of the gloom could be found in the greeting card aisle, where sympathy cards are nearly all sold out. “It seems like just about everyone knows someone who has died,” said one card maker. |
Our Obituaries desk has been writing about those we’ve lost. Today, we remembered Steve Dalkowski, a Baltimore Orioles pitcher known for his extraordinary fastball. |
 | | Paul Ratje/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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Gov. Greg Abbott also said retail stores, restaurants, movie theaters and malls could reopen then, at no more than 25 percent capacity to start. |
Texas joined Florida, Arizona as well as several other states, where stay-at-home orders expire this week, planning for phased-in reopenings, despite calls by residents for both more and fewer restrictions. Above, protests against the stay-at-home order in El Paso on Saturday. |
The shifts will likely create a patchwork of contradictory rules after weeks of messages urging Americans to stay home. |
Reopening plans in New Jersey and New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic, began to take shape, offering a glimmer of hope to residents as they look ahead to summer. |
 | | Bita Honarvar/Reuters |
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Workers who are college educated, relatively affluent and primarily white are more likely to be able to continue working from home and to minimize outdoor excursions, which reduces their risk of contracting the virus, economists and experts believe. |
But lower-paid workers without remote options, particularly black and Latino Americans, will face a dire choice: expose themselves to the pandemic or lose their jobs. Above, a tattoo parlor in Atlanta last week. |
 | | Mary Turner for The New York Times |
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The scientists are preparing for mass clinical trials of their vaccine after new tests show promising results in monkeys. They had an advantage, as they proved last year that similar inoculations, including one for an earlier coronavirus, were harmless to humans. |
The group is on track to test their vaccine by the end of next month, and they could have the first few million doses available by September if it proves to be effective. |
Separately, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added six new Covid-19 symptoms: chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and a new loss of taste or smell. |
 | | Erin Schaff/The New York Times |
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The decision, which made New York the first state to cancel its primary, came as a blow to supporters of Senator Bernie Sanders who had hoped to use the event to influence the party platform, even though he is no longer running for the presidential nomination. Above, former Vice President Joe Biden and Mr. Sanders at a debate in March. |
In other campaign news, Speaker Nancy Pelosi endorsed Mr. Biden, describing him as “a leader with the humility to seek expertise and science, and the confidence to act upon it.” |
 | | Andrew Parsons/10 Downing Street, via Reuters |
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6. Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain returned to work after being sidelined for several weeks by the coronavirus. |
It comes as his country reports 20,000 confirmed deaths from the illness. Though Britain was beginning to “turn the tide,” he said, it was still too soon to remove lockdown measures. His government faces mounting pressure from some lawmakers to at least outline a strategy for reopening. |
In other international news, South Korea is confident that Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, is not gravely ill, as has been reported. The South’s chief policymaker on the North addressed the rumors during a forum. |
 | | Jeff Haynes/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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7. Dennis Rodman’s college coach recruited the basketball star over a game of H-O-R-S-E. |
“He was raw but very athletic and he had a motor that I had not seen,” the coach, Lonn Reisman, told our reporter about Rodman before his arrival at Southeastern Oklahoma State. Rodman is back in the spotlight because of his role in “The Last Dance,” ESPN’s 10-part documentary on Michael Jordan’s final season with the Chicago Bulls. |
 | | Krista Schlueter for The New York Times |
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8. If you have doubts about your writing, know that you’re in good company — even Stephen King worries that some of his stories won’t come together. |
Separately, our writer checked in with Cheryl Mendelson, the author of “Home Comforts,” a ’90s cultural touchstone about keeping house. Much of the advice in her book still holds true. |
 | | Broadway.com |
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9. Songs written for big Broadway stages can also succeed in close quarters, it turns out. |
Despite tech problems, the at-home performances from a cavalcade of singers — including Meryl Streep, Patti LuPone and Neil Patrick Harris — brought theater fans a moment of comfort and reflection. |
 | | Christopher Furlong/Getty Images |
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Songbirds sing louder; coyotes are spotted on the streets of San Francisco; mountain goats, above, forage through towns in Wales. |
The pause in human activity is “allowing us to see with our own eyes how ready the natural world stands to reclaim the planet,” writes an Opinion contributor. And maybe, she adds, we can resolve to change our lives as we ponder what it truly means to share the planet. |
We hope you ramble (safely) tonight. |
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