Vox Sentences - “An incalculable loss”

The US nears 100,000 Covid-19 deaths; SpaceX prepares to send astronauts to the International Space Station.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Cameron Peters.

• This week, the United States will likely surpass 100,000 confirmed Covid-19 deaths, a tragic milestone as the coronavirus pandemic continues to ravage the country. [New York Times]
• That’s more deaths than the next three countries on the list — the UK, Italy, and France — combined. New York alone has seen almost 30,000 deaths, and the US leads the world with more than 1.6 million confirmed coronavirus cases. [Johns Hopkins]
• Over the weekend, the New York Times memorialized the loss with a project gathering details from obituaries around the country. “The immensity of such a sudden toll,” the Times wrote, “taxes our ability to comprehend, to understand that each number adding up to 100,000 represents someone among us just yesterday.” [New York Times]
• Flags were lowered to half-staff across the country for Memorial Day weekend in a “national expression of grief.” President Trump announced the move following a request by Democratic leadership in Congress. [NPR / Bill Chappell]
• But the US is nonetheless moving gradually toward reopening, if not back to life as usual. On Friday, Trump called for governors to allow churches to reopen in their states, and threatened to override them if they didn’t (though he likely did not actually have the power to do so). [Vox / Ian Millhiser]
• Trump also spent the weekend golfing, tweeting attacks, and making baseless murder accusations against Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough. [Vox / Zeeshan Aleem]
• As of last week, every state was on the path to reopening, in some cases contradicting Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines calling for 14 straight days of declining coronavirus cases. [BBC]
• The markets are feeling optimistic too: The New York Stock Exchange reopened floor trading Tuesday after going entirely electronic in March. [CNN / Anneken Tappe]
• But on Monday, the World Health Organization warned that countries that abandon social distancing measures and other precautions too soon could face an “immediate second peak” in infections. [Reuters / Emma Farge]
• And as the Washington Post reported Sunday, coronavirus infections are surging in rural parts of the US even as the situation improves in major metropolitan areas. [Washington Post / Reis Thebault and Abigail Hauslohner]

• If everything goes according to plan, the first manned space launch on US soil in nearly a decade will take place on Wednesday. Two astronauts will head for the International Space Station from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. [The Verge / Loren Grush]
• Since the last US space shuttle was retired in 2011, US astronauts have traveled to and from the ISS using Russian Soyuz spacecraft. Wednesday’s launch will change that. [NPR / Nell Greenfieldboyce]
• But this time, it won’t be a NASA shuttle heading into space. The astronauts will be aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon vehicle — the first crewed spaceflight by a private company — and, as Recode’s Sara Morrison writes, the future of the US space program could be riding on its success. [Recode / Sara Morrison]
• The launch is scheduled for 4:33 pm Eastern time Wednesday, but that could change depending on the weather. As of Tuesday, forecasters say there’s about a 40 percent chance that weather could postpone the launch. [Washington Post / Christian Davenport]
• If that happens, a second launch attempt would take place on Saturday afternoon. Still, the weather outlook for Wednesday has improved since this weekend, and hopes are high. [CBS News / William Harwood]

[WSJ / Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman]

• After almost 19 years in Afghanistan, US troops are beginning to leave. The Taliban isn't going anywhere. [NYT / Mujib Mashal]
• “We see very few voters as off the table”: Joe Biden’s potential path to 2020 victory. [Vox / Ella Nilsen]
• “I don’t get the hype either”: the mystery of TikTok’s biggest star. [Washington Post / Travis M. Andrews]

[NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine on Wednesday's mission to the ISS / NASA]

Carly Rae Jepsen's newest collection of previously unreleased music fluidly crosses decades of musical history and spans a vast emotional range. [Spotify / Nate Sloan and Charlie Harding]