Judge Thomas Griffith denied allegations that he was pushed to step down to allow Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to fill his seat with a longtime ally, Justin Walker.
The governor celebrated the good news, which came after Florida reported two notable rises in the day-to-day number of new cases. The state is in the first phase of its reopening.
Texas Republican Rep. John Ratcliffe assured the Senate Intelligence Committee that, if confirmed, he would not apply a partisan filter to reporting or shade conclusions to please the president.
Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema sported a purple wig on the floor of the Senate to make a point about social distancing from hair salons during the coronavirus pandemic.
Dr. Anthony Fauci and other members of the coronavirus task force will testify before a GOP-led Senate committee next week but have been blocked from making similar appearances in the House so far.
"Today the world showed extraordinary unity for the common good," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said. The U.S. was conspicuously absent from the event.
The administration pushed back against an internal government report, obtained by The New York Times, predicting the daily coronavirus death toll could nearly double in the U.S. by early June.
Some 53,000 of the Social Security Administration's employees are working from home. And the agency's backlog of pending cases has fallen by 11% since March 23.
While the trip to the battleground state is in part meant to tell a positive story about the administration's response to the pandemic, it also highlights the challenges of the moment.