Monday, April 20

· The White House reversed a policy granting inmates eligibility for early release during the coronavirus pandemic if they have served over half their sentence. A Justice Department spokesperson explained the reversal by suggesting officials at the Bureau of Prisons were given misinterpreted or inaccurate guidance on policy directives from Attorney General William Barr.

· The Supreme Court banned non-unanimous jury verdicts in cases involving serious crimes by finding these verdicts unconstitutional. Louisiana and Oregon are the only states to have allowed such verdicts recently.

Tuesday, April 21

· A new review by the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee backs intelligence community findings that Russia interfered in the 2016 election in President Donald Trump’s favor.

· Dan Scavino, the White House’s director of social media, was promoted to deputy chief of staff for communications.

· Education Secretary Betsy DeVos issued guidance blocking undocumented college and university students from receiving federal cash assistance out of a new $6 billion economic rescue law for higher education institutions affected by the coronavirus pandemic.

· The Senate passed a nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief deal after weeks of deadlock on partisan lines. The bill includes $380 billion for small businesses, $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for disease testing. Democratic Senators blocked passage of earlier versions of the bill for not being broad enough. Senators reached an agreement after expanding the amount of money to be provided to small businesses and for healthcare.

Wednesday, April 22

· As an immigration prevention measure, Trump ordered a temporary halt on issuing green cards, although the order includes exceptions for overseas spouses, young children of American citizens and others. He also shied away from suspending guest worker programs following blowback from business groups who don’t want to lose access to cheap exploitative foreign labor.

· Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said state and local governments should go bankrupt rather than receive aid from the federal government. "We’re not interested in rescuing [state and local governments] from bad decisions they’ve made in the past,” McConnell said. “We're not going to let them take advantage of this pandemic to solve a lot of problems that they created themselves and bad decisions in the past.”

Thursday, April 23

· The House approved the nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief package passed by the Senate on Tuesday.

· The House voted to establish an investigative committee monitoring Trump's implementation of about $3 trillion in coronavirus relief measures as a means to safeguard the funds intended for businesses, hospitals and individual taxpayers. Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “It will be laser-focused on ensuring that taxpayer money goes to workers’ paychecks and benefits and it will ensure that the federal response is based on the best possible science and guided by health experts — and that the money invested is not being exploited by profiteers and price gougers.”

Friday, April 24

· Trump suggested ingesting household disinfectants as a coronavirus remedy, a potentially lethal course of action widely pleaded against by the healthcare community, cleaning product companies and common sense. Trump later falsely said the suggestion was intended to be sarcastic, going against earlier comments by Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany who defended his claims as genuine but taken out of context.

· Top Navy officials recommended Capt. Brett Crozier be restored as commander of the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt after he was removed from his post for a letter pleading for assistance in combating a coronavirus outbreak on the aircraft carrier.

· An investigation by the Department of Health and Human Services found federal health employees risked community spread of the coronavirus after interacting with quarantined people at a military base in California with inadequate protective gear or training.

Saturday, April 25

· The New York Times reported on how first-time prescriptions for the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine — touted by Trump as coronavirus remedies as early as March, despite most lab tests indicating no effectiveness — jumped by 46 times the rate of an average weekday. People who use the drugs to treat lupus and malaria were told to ration their supplies to make way for coronavirus patients.

Sunday, April 26

· Politico reported on how the U.S. Department of Agriculture is letting millions of pounds of food rot while the need for food banks soars by about 70%, when it could take action to procure the food. The news sources described the situation as “a two-pronged disaster that has deprived farmers of billions of dollars in revenue while millions of newly jobless Americans struggle to feed their families.”

· Trump dismissed reports that White House officials are deliberating whether to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.