Monday, April 27

· Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said in an interview he would only consider another coronavirus response bill to help local governments if it included liability protections for businesses. McConnell said, “The next pandemic coming will be the lawsuit pandemic in the wake of this one. So we need to prevent that now when we have the opportunity to do it.”

Tuesday, April 28

· House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer dismissed McConnell’s offer of combining aid with liability protections in the next coronavirus response bill. Schumer called the proposal "subterfuge" and "wrong," urging McConnell to "stop putting barriers in the way" of relief funds for local governments.

· House lawmakers reversed course on plans to return to Washington, D.C., on May 4 due to the steadily rising number of coronavirus cases in the capitol. “We had no choice,” Pelosi said. “If the Capitol physician recommends that we not come back, then we have to take that guidance.” Meanwhile the Senate still planned to return.

· Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested the United States COVID-19-related death toll is far higher than reported due to the variable speed of data reporting from state to state, how some COVID-19-related deaths are being mislabeled as other causes and how unforeseen or underexplored externalities of the pandemic are also causing deaths.

· Two letters from congressional Democrats to two White House office personnel directors were made public, each pressing for details on how the White House plans to protect federal workers from the coronavirus once federal agencies reopen.

· President Donald Trump issued an executive order requiring meat-processing plants to stay open or reopen due to food shortage concerns despite many facilities being ravaged by coronavirus cases. Latino members of Congress led by Rep. Joaquín Castro urged the White House to investigate the working conditions in these plants.

· Trump suggested federally provided bailout money for state and local governments should hinge on whether these governments have immigration policies that align with Trump administration priorities. He singled out sanctuary cities in particular, saying, “I think sanctuary cities is something that has to be brought up where people who are criminals are protected… I think it’s one of the problems that the states have.”

· The Trump administration shifted its coronavirus communications effort from Vice President Mike Pence’s office to regular White House communications staff. Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany and Alyssa Farah, strategic communications director, both new recruits to White House staff, will now oversee the effort.

· Pence refused to wear a mask at the Mayo Clinic, an institution in Rochester, Minnesota, while visiting with staff and patients despite the hospital’s policy that all visitors cover their faces to reduce COVID-19 exposure.

Wednesday, April 29

· Pelosi appointed seven Democratic members to a new House panel meant to “put working families first” by providing oversight on the White House’s coronavirus response efforts: James Clyburn, Carolyn Maloney, Maxine Waters, Nydia Velazquez, Jamie Raskin, Bill Foster and Andy Kim.

· Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the House oversight subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, requested that companies marketing coronavirus antibody testing provide data supporting the accuracy of their tests through details of each company’s contact with the Food and Drug Administration and lists of facilities using each company’s test kits.

· House Democrats introduced the Congressional Power of the Purse Act, which would strengthen transparency requirements for the executive branch’s use of federal funding, intended to reign in the Trump administration’s abuse of its spending powers in cases like the Ukraine aid freeze and diverting funds to the border wall.

· An analysis from the Campaign Legal Center, a bipartisan watchdog group, found about 50 lawmakers, both Republican and Democratic, have bought and sold stocks about 1,400 times during the current pandemic. Many of these transactions brought lucrative investments in industries benefiting from the crisis and saw stock fly out of businesses that have tanked like restaurants, airlines and hotels.

Thursday, April 30

· Native American tribes across the U.S., already struggling with limited resources during the pandemic, joined to sue the Treasury Department for failing to provide the $8 billion in coronavirus relief as mandated in the $2.2 trillion stimulus package.

· The C.D.C. reported that the U.S. had its worst COVID-19-related death toll so far with about 3,000 deaths in one day, roughly equal to the death toll of 9/11.

· Dr. Brian Monahan, the capitol’s attending physician, said there are not enough available coronavirus test kits for staff and all 100 senators to safely reopen the Senate. McConnell planned to reopen the Senate on Monday anyway.

· The C.D.C. announced a national initiative to speed coronavirus research by collaborating with at least 75 public health, academic and commercial institutions to study the coronavirus genome, trace patterns of transmission and analyze outbreaks.

Friday, May 1

· Former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive 2020 Democratic nominee for president, denied the allegation of sexual assault made by Tara Reade, his former Senate aide, after a month of silence on the subject. “Believing women means taking the woman’s claim seriously,” Biden said. “But in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters. And in this case, the truth is, the claims are false.”

· The White House has blocked Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert and key member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, from testifying before the House Appropriations Committee next week. A White House spokesperson said it would be “counter-productive” to have individuals involved in the federal coronavirus response appear at a Congressional hearing about the federal coronavirus response.

· Federal Judge Brian Morris vacated 287 oil and gas leases on about 150,000 acres of land in Montana after ruling that the leases were improperly issued to energy companies by the Trump administration because they failed to take into account the environmental impacts of oil drilling.

Saturday, May 2

· McConnell and Pelosi rejected an offer from the White House to provide Congress with rapid results testing, instead saying resources should be directed to where they are most needed. A joint statement read, “Our country’s testing capacities are continuing to scale up nationwide and Congress wants to keep directing resources to the front-line facilities where they can do the most good the most quickly."”

Sunday, May 3

· The C.D.C. projected about 3,000 COVID-19-related deaths in the country per day by early June and about 200,000 new cases per day by the end of May.