Repeated warnings, including a particularly grim one Thursday on Capitol Hill, have fallen on deaf ears as U.S. cities and states move to lift stay-at-home orders and business closures. Even with Covid-19 infection rates above guideline-ranges, a national death toll surpassing 85,000 and a majority of Americans in favor of  maintaining lockdowns, certain governors and even a state supreme court are intent on throwing open the doors. Now there may be a peek into what summer in America could look like. In Hong Kong, South Korea and China, where earlier outbreaks were contained via strict lockdowns and rapid testing (two things Americans are largely unfamiliar with), the coronavirus is resurging. —David E. Rovella

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Here are today’s top stories

The number of Americans seeking unemployment benefits remained in the millions for an eighth straight week, totaling 2.98 million. A total of 36.5 million applications for unemployment insurance have been filed since the coronavirus began shutting down businesses in mid-March.

While most Americans favor caution in lifting lockdowns, their attention span seems shorter when it comes to social distancing.

Republican Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina is temporarily stepping down as chairman of the Intelligence Committee amid a criminal investigation into whether he sold stocks based on secret briefings about the pandemic. The FBI even took his phone.

Emergency approval of the antiviral drug remdesivir as a Covid-19 treatment is the first good news of this pandemic. Bloomberg Businessweek reports how Gilead Sciences prepared for this moment.

Some more good news for all those tech workers who still have jobs and can work from home. Since many big internet companies are letting employees work remotely for the foreseeable future, some are trying to shed their pricey Silicon Valley digs.

Some more bad news for all those Americans in the service industry who aren’t as lucky. One in every four U.S. restaurants may go out of business because of the pandemic.

What you’ll need to know tomorrow

• Why is the World Trade Organization’s chief quitting? Chaos.
• Sanofi’s America first pledge goes over badly in France.
• Novartis’s CEO says any vaccine could take until the end of 2021.
• Guess what? Stocks are overvalued say these Wall Street bigwigs.
• Henry Ford III is rising to the top of a deeply troubled company.
• Armed far-right groups cause Michigan to cancel legislative session.
• When U.S. bars reopen, grabbing a beer will require a reservation.

What you’ll want to read in Bloomberg Pursuits

Ready-to-Drink Wins the Lockdown Booze Game

People have been drinking at home a lot more these days (for obvious reasons), and the living room bar seems here to stay. There’s a big new star when it comes to lockdown drinking, it turns out: pre-mixed or “ready to drink” (RTD) cocktails. Cheap and easy wins the day.

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