WTF Just Happened Today

Tuesday, April 28, 2020

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• ???? Daily Damage Report.

• ???? Global: Total confirmed cases ~3,095,000; Total deaths: ~216,000; Total recoveries: ~920,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

• ???????? U.S.: Total confirmed cases ~1,005,000; Total deaths: ~58,000; Total recoveries: ~115,000

• ???? Markets: Dow ????; S&P 500 ????; Nasdaq ????

• U.S. reported 1 million confirmed coronavirus cases — nearly a third of the global total. The U.S. also has the world’s highest death toll from the virus, with more than 56,700 deaths reported by Tuesday afternoon — more than one-quarter of the 213,000 deaths confirmed around the world. (CBS News / Wall Street Journal)

• The U.S. consumer confidence index plunged to its lowest point since June 2014 – to 86.9, down from 118.8 in March. (CBS News)

• Trump is expected to invoke the Defense Production Act to classify meat-processing plants as essential infrastructure that must remain open to head off a disruption to the food supply. The government will provide additional protective gear for employees as well as guidance. (Bloomberg / Washington Post / Politico / New York Times)

• ???? Live Blog: New York Times / Washington Post / NPR / NBC News / CBS News / ABC News / CNN / The Guardian / Wall Street Journal / CNBC

• ???? Portrait of a President.

• Inside Donald Trump and Jared Kushner’s two months of magical thinking. Obsessed with impeachment and their enemies and worried about the stock market, the president and his son-in-law scapegoated HHS Secretary Alex Azar, and treated the coronavirus as mostly a political problem as it moved through the country. (Vanity Fair)

• Briefings were “not worth the time,” but Trump couldn’t stay away. Just hours after his own White House officially canceled his planned appearance, the lure of the cameras in the Rose Garden proved too hard to resist. (