The president has called three prominent black journalists dumb in the last month alone.

He has also been particularly aggressive in his attacks on women in the White House press corps during the pandemic:.

The president is spending Friday evening attacking his former attorney general, Jeff Sessions:.

The coronavirus is tearing through Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islander communities in California, fanning longstanding health disparities and killing community members at a higher rate than any other racial group in the state.

The pattern extends beyond California.

Public health experts have often said the group’s relatively small size can skew the numbers, making percentages appear outsized.

The Safe Sleeping Village is one of San Francisco’s new officially sanctioned homeless encampments, a rare initiative announced by Mayor London Breed in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Trump administration has sent a letter to the mayor of Los Angeles saying the federal government is concerned that the city’s “arbitrary and heavy-handed approach” to shelter-in-place regulations could be “unlawful”.

LA and the surrounding region remain the state’s primary hotspot for Covid-19 cases, and the DoJ letter came the same day that the White House coronavirus task force resource coordinator Deborah Birx said she was concerned about persistent high numbers of cases in LA, Washington DC and Chicago.

Following questions today about Trump’s lack of an annual physical exam, despite the fact that he’s taking hydroxychloroquine (an anti-malaria drug linked to heart irregularities), here’s a look back at November 2019 when Trump had an unscheduled visit to the hospital:.

The US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has treated 1,300 coronavirus patients with the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, which a study has tied to an increased risk of death

The Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, who received the information from the VA in response to questions he submitted on the issue, said he was “deeply troubled” by the data

Trump has urged use of hydroxychloroquine against the virus and recently said he has been taking it himself, despite evidence that the treatment could be harmful

Trump still hasn’t completed his annual physical six months after he started it, and the White House is declining to explain why, according to an NBC News report

Some are raising questions about the lack of a physical after the president has continued to assert that he is taking the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as protection against coronavirus despite federal regulators warning of potentially serious, even fatal, dangers

The White House declined to explain why President Trump hasn’t completed an annual physical yet, despite questions this week over his use of a potentially dangerous drug after being exposed to an aide with coronavirus

In early March, when Trump was asked about his physical, he suggested he would complete it in the next three months, telling reporters, “I’m so busy, I can’t do it.”

A report from our west coast office, on California governor Gavin Newsom’s reopening plans in light of Donald Trump’s demand to open houses of worship:

On Friday, speaking from a veteran’s home in Napa county, one that operated through a deadly influenza epidemic a century ago, Gavin Newsom said California was moving quickly but with diligence

Newsom said he and his team have been working with faith leaders to craft plans to welcome back parishioners, depending on church size and other factors

But with California just days away from releasing that guidance, Trump muddied the water, deeming houses of worship “essential” and threatening to “override” governors who don’t approve

This week, more than 1,200 pastors in California said they would resume in-person services this month in defiance of Newsom’s stay-at-home order

Last week, Newsom said, the county was using more than 70% of its ventilators

Plans are in motion to dispatch a 125-bed field hospital to help alleviate pressure, Newsom said

Vote by mail is not novel in the state of California, nor was it in the recent special election” said Newsom

Joe Biden has apologised for his comment earlier today that if African Americans “have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black”

At the same time, Donald Trump is seeking to press home Republican attacks on the matter

“I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, said on a call with the US Black Chambers, an African-American business group

The president, meanwhile, retweeted Senator Tim Scott’s view that Biden’s comments “are the most arrogant and condescending thing I’ve heard in a very long time” and commended an African American Fox News host, Harris Faulkner, as “A GREAT AMERICAN”

She then read a statement from Black Voices for Trump

The statement was authored by Katrina Pierson, a Trump spokeswoman who spoke to reporters with Senator Scott earlier and according to the New York Times “grew defensive in response to questions about Mr Trump’s own history of racist remarks”

I know the president and I know his heart and I know his intent,’ she said, accusing the news media of taking Mr Trump ‘out of context’

At the White House earlier, Donald Trump cited “liquor stores and abortion clinics” as services some governors have deemed essential and allowed to stay open during the coronavirus pandemic

“It’s not right,” the president said, announcing his decision to “call houses of worship essential” and call upon governors to allow such places “to open right now”

“Such an interesting question,” Trump told Maureen Dowd

There’s also the perennial question of just how religious Trump is, and what support for him says about evangelical Christians in particular