. the "national inquirer" was a spy network. >> we'll know the story behind the story. >> things were -- >> the average american would have to read all about it. >> oprah sold a lot of papers. >> scandalous, tomorrow at 10:00. "operation warp speed," president trump hoping to get a coronavirus vaccine ready by the

end of the year. sobering new projection, the director of the cdc now predicting the death toll in the u.s. will top 100,000 by june 1. plus the american economy taking it on the chin. a historic collapse of retail sales while grocery stores prices recording the largest increase in almost a half century. we're coming to you live from cnn world headquarters in atlanta. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and all around the world. i'm natalie allen, "cnn newsroom" starts right now. thank you for joining us. ready or not, america is open for business. and that was the message friday from the trump white house. the president said that he is

optimistic a covid-19 vaccine will arrive in record time and he formally launched "operation warp speed" to make it happen. but even if it fails, mr. trump was adamant the u.s. would return to normal. as most states begin to relax restrictions and reopen businesses, there is no assurance that millions of laid off workers will get their jobs back. late friday, the u.s. house of representatives passed a new $3 trillion economic he rrelief package, but republicans who control the senate have called it dead on arrival. there are encouraging signs the rate of infection has slowed in many parts of the country, but the virus continues to take a heavy toll. u.s. disease officials now say they expect more than 10,000 additional deaths in the u.s. by the end of this month. in announcing "operation warp speed," president trump made some questionable assumptions.

among them, a suggestion that many americans already may be immune to the coronavirus. we get the details from jim acosta at the white house. >> reporter: as president trump introduced the two men who will lead the race for the coronavirus vaccine, he made one thing clear. he is ready to reopen the country even without a medical breakthrou breakthrough. >> i just want to make something clear. it is very important. vaccine or no vaccine, we're back. and we're starting the process. >> reporter: still one of the two leaders of what is being called "operation warp speed" said he is optimistic that the u.s. could have hundreds of millions of doses of vaccine ready by the end of the year. >> i have seen early data from a clinical trial with a coronavirus vaccine. and these data made me feel even more confident that we will be able to deliver a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the

end of 2020. and we will do the best we can. >> reporter: that is an ambitious time line and many health experts aren't so sure that it is achievable. dr. fauci is hopeful that the government can meet that goal but cautions that americans should be realistic. >> there is no guarantee that the vaccine is actually going to be effective. you can have everything you think that is in place and you didn't induce the kind of immune response that turns out to be protective given the way the body responds to viruses of this type, so i'm cautiously optimistic that we will with one of the candidates get an efficacy signal. >> reporter: mr. trump appeared at times to down play the importance of a vaccine. >> other things have never had a vaccine and they go away, so i don't think people to think that this is all dependent on a vaccine, but a vaccine would be a tremendous thing. >> reporter: and he speculated that many may already be immune even though the scientific community is not certain of is that. >> the vast majority, many people don't even know they have it.

they have it or they have sniffles or a minor sign and they not only recover, they probably have immunity, whether short term, long term. but they have probably immunity. >> reporter: mr. trump's comments came one day after he questioned the helpfulness of testing. >> could be that the testings, frankly, overrated. maybe it is overrated. when you test, you have a case. when you test, you find something is wrong with people. if we didn't do any testing, we would have very few cases. they did not want to write that. it is common sense. >> reporter: the president returned to his argument that schools should reopen in the fall but without older teachers. he didn't sound concerned that students could bring it home to their families. >> i don't think that you should have 70-year-old teachers back yet. they should wait until everything is gone. i don't think that you should have a professor that is 65 and has diabetes or a bad heart back necessarily or somebody that is older than that.

but we want to see our schools back. we want to see our could you ntt to work again. >> reporter: fauci said earlier this week that could be risky. >> we want to be careful in thinking that children are immune. >> reporter: and the president said that he would be willing to accept a vaccine from china even as he has been warning of halting trade talks with china. >> if it is china, will the u.s. still have access to the vaccine? >> i would say the answer to that would be yes. >> reporter: and he also touted a new high speed missile for his pet project the space force. >> i call it the super duper missile. space is going to be the future. we're now the leader in space. >> and in the united states the badger state is back open for business. on wednesday, the wisconsin supreme court ruled the state's stay-at-home order was overreaching and many of the bars and restaurants there have wasted no time reopening.

cnn's omar jimenez is there. >> reporter: what you're seeing is basically the new normal for the pandemic in this part of the country. people inside enjoying their drinks and food, almost like you would pre-pandemic. this is in withwisconsin and th particular county has no restrictions on businesses opening up. the responsibility on the health side is left in the hands of the business owners and the customers that show up to these places. and we spoke to the owner of this particular bar who says that he didn't necessarily want to open up, but given the opportunity, he felt like he had to. >> there is a lot of other businesses around that were opened up. and if this would have been -- if i would have been the lone wolf, i wouldn't have done it, you know. but i think that we're all trying to exercise as much caution and, you know, basically keep our livelihood. >> reporter: and every place is operating a little differently. another restaurant we went to

had masked waiters and waitresses waiting on people sitting down outside because they weren't comfortable enough to see the people inside. and remember, this is happening because the state supreme court struck down the stay-at-home order leaving to individual counties and jurisdictions to decide how they want to proceed. which creates a dynamic that is concerning to some because the rules can be different. so if someone feels their county's rules are too restrictive, they just go a county over and then they bring home the risks from that county. as for when we could see any form of statewide order, once again, that can only come from the democratic governor tony evers working with the legislatures to put that in place. but given the working relationship throughout this pandemic, a solution anytime soon may not be likely. omar jimenez, cnn, wisconsin. joining me now to talk more

about the developments is al edwards, associate professor in biomedical technology at the university of school of pharmacy. thanks for being with us. >> thank you. >> and we heard that wisconsin is joining other states in the u.s. almost all now which have reopened at some level. we heard the cautions that some businesses are taking there. but the other big story is the cdc forecasting 100,000 deaths by june 1. what level of concern do you have about restaurants, salons, beaches, most opening with caution and spacing, but reopening at this time? >> i mean, i think the science is clear and the medicine is clear that we know how fast the virus spreads. and we know that fair proportion of people get very severe disease. so i think what you can expect is if the levels of cases have leveled out, we can expect in a

few weeks time that they will probably start to go up again because that is the way these infections work. >> and to your point, i was going to follow up with saying that despite the cdc's grim forecast of that many deaths, johns hopkins says the number of new cases reported each day is going down in more than half of the u.s. states except texas. but georgia for example criticizing of opening earliest has seen its cases go down. so do you think this is a hopeful sign or as you just alluded to, is this a calm perhaps before a storm? >> two things. one, i think that everyone wants the deaths to be as low as possible. and so if there are forecasts and we are lucky enough not to have as many deaths as forecast, that is a brilliant outcome, exactly what we need. but the second point is, and this is really hard to get your head around, that the deaths and cases lag so far behind, so what

we're seeing now is a result of people's behavior two to five weeks ago. >> right. so we'll have to wait and see in a few days coming if that changes across the country. and meantime, president trump announced "operation warp speed," his plan to have a few hundred million doses of vaccine by the end of the year with the help of the military distributing. ifs administration gets researchers, drug makers and the military ramped up on this task, is it possible? >> so again, it is really exciting to see so much cooperation. we have the same thing in the uk where you have different groups coming together, the scientists coming together with the engineers, but there are two potential barriers that are being discussed a lot. forecast, there is a degree of uncertainty, so any of the vaccines may just not work.

but we hope they will. and then secondly, if we can get a vaccine that works, we need to do something equally unprecedented which is to skalt scale up the manufacture so that you can get many possible doses made in a short period of time. >> by all accounts, it is a long shot, but so many researchers around the world are all into try to somehow get this pushed through safely. and while the world looks to press on, this virus continues to perplex. more children fell ill this week. many in paris. and now a 9-year-old boy has died in france. how does the com poliplexity g ever-changing virus affect the search for a vaccine? >> there is caution there. there are so many cases that you would expect a few unusual outcomes. so what we're hopeful at the moment is that though there are

tragic cases with very young people having a serious outcome, what we hope is those are the rare people who are unlucky enough to have a combination of different factors. and what we seem to be seeing is the majority of those young affected with the virus aren't affected. so it is a really a matter of scale. you have so many people being affected in a shorts period, you will see some of these really scary cases, but they are in the minority. >> which is a bit of good news. as states and countries reopen, we still are in phase one of all of this. so we appreciate your insights. al edwards for us, professor, thank you. >> thank you. next here, the uk's death toll pushes past 34,000 as officials promise testing for all care home residents and their employees. we'll go live to london for the latest on this front. also russia reporting

thousands of new cases as questions swirl about its official numbers. we'll have a live report from cnn's moscow bureau chief. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the amazing services of the post office only cheaper

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the united kingdom is still seeing a rise in new coronavirus casualties. according to johns hopkins university, more than 34,000 people have died so far. that is out of more than 238,000 confirmed cases. the british government is trying to lessen the threat for some of the country's most vulnerable populations. the uk health minister says all care home residents and staff will be tested for the virus by early june. joining me now, nic robertson with more on this latest effort. good morning. >> reporter: and the health secretary in the uk is saying that they are putting a protective ring as he describes it around the care homes. the reason that there has been be so much controversy around the care home issue is two-fold, number one, how did the infections at such a high rate

begin there, statistically we know that between the beginning of march and the beginning of may, 46,000 people in care homes died. that is double the figure for the same period last year. so that gives you a very clear understanding that lot of people there have died through covid-19. there is that controversy. but there is also controversy emerging over the government's approach now. the idea to test care home workers and care home residents before early june, there are questions swirling about that. is that still going to be effective to protect the people in the care homes. the government is saying that it has committed $725 million additionally on top of the 3.9 3w billion that it already contributed. and care homes have been at the back end of supply chain for

protective equipment even for attention. and the concern is now that now when infections have become so high within care homes that what the steps that the government is putting into place now aren't enough to combat that and bring it back done. so this is one of the many areas at the moment where the government is being heavily criticized, but clearly a big focus on care homes, but is it enough to staunch the high death rate there. >> and that is the focus on the elderly. now let's talk about children. what is the latest on the uk's efforts to talk about wree opening schools? >> the government wants to reopen, have a phased reopening, of schools beginning june 1. and it would just be the reception the first two classes in school year. the teachers union has been

criticizing the approach. they met with the government scientific advisers yesterday. they say that there is not enough being done to ensure that these environments, the schools will be safe for teachers to move back into. teachers i've spoken to saying -- have been telling me it is not clear that they can keep the social distancing even though that the school -- the children in the school would be reduced to sort of half their normal numbers. but to keep them socially distanced would be very difficult, that there is concern that the teach hers would also while teaching children in their classrooms, only half their normal class, that they would have perhaps responsibilities to continue the distanced learning. so there is are a lot of unanswered questions but the main one is that the government is not instructing this go back to school in a phased and comprehensive way. they point to how it has been done in denmark and how it has been done in france where

regionally schools have opened. they have opened in regions where infection rates are low and at current times in the uk, the infection rate, if you will, is between 0.7 and 1. and that is very close to the government threshold, the infection rate being too high if it goes above 1. so there are serious concerns being raised. so the underlying things with the government, a serious pushback from several significant teachers unions. >> all right. we'll wait and see what happens there. thanks so much, nic robertson in london. thanks. and in italy, restaurants and shops in the country's hard hit lombardi region will open monday after a two month lockdown. italian museums will also open monday. but the world renowned gallery in florence will not open for another week. no word yet on when the vatican museums will open.

and in spain, they are expanding its first deescalation phase to almost 70% of the population. and that allows for larger stores and other businesses to reopen in some capacity. however, barcelona and madrid still have not been given the green light to move forward. the government also has issued a 14 day mandatory quarantine for international passengers entering the country. in france, the national health agency is reporting there are now fewer than 20,000 people in the hospital with coronavirus. but 2200 of them are in intensive care. from thursday through friday, 104 people in france died of covid-19 taking the total death toll there to more than 27,500. coronavirus is spreading fast through russia's 11 time zones. on saturday alone, the country reported more than 9,000 new

cases. still, that is fewer than the day before. russia though now has the second highest number of confirmed cases in the world. more than 272,000. but the country has recorded a relatively low number of covid deaths. a little more than 2500. let's get more perspective on this from cnn's nathan hodge joining me from london with the very latest. good morning, nathan. >> reporter: good morning, natalie. and as you had noted, there have been a lot of questions as russia passed that grim milestone this week, now occupying second place in the world in terms of the overall number of confirmed coronavirus cases. but many observers both inside and outside of russia are asking questions on why the death rate seems to be so low relative to other countries. nic robertson was just speaking about the united kingdom with

over 30,000 deaths. russia with more confirmed cases has had just over 2500. so for weeks now, both critics inside of russia and observers outside have been asking whether or not russia is using some fuzzy math here to account for all of the deaths for coronavirus. and the debate was further given fuel this week when moscow authorities said that in about 60% of the cases of suspected coronavirus tests, that is where they have carried out autopsiea, that they are attributing the cause of death to coronavirus only in cases when it is directly called by coronavirus. so in many other cases, they will attribute to it could be heart attack or renal or stage four cancers. so this has raised a lot of questions of whether or not there is underreporting of covid-related numbers. and russia seems to be at a

point where they are not easing lockdown. vladimir putin did say earlier this week that they would be looking sort of on a conditions basis to ease some of the lockdown and some of the restrictions around the country, but in moscow, the hardest hit part of the country, the mayor has said certainly until the end of the month that they won't be easing any of the restrictions. in fact that they will be strengthening some of them. >> all right. nathan hodge for us in london, thank you. and here is a sad complication, another part of this coronavirus outbreak. dozens of newborn babies awaiting adoption in ukraine are stranded. a nationwide lockdown is preventing parents in the u.s., europe and elsewhere from traveling to ukraine to pick up their babies. about 50 babies born to surrogate mothers are currently at a hotel in kiev and several other infants are at a clinic.

a lawmaker is trying to helpper the country, but the issue has raised concerns who want ukraine to ban commercial surrogacy. ukraine is not the only country dealing with this issue as parents can't get to their babies born to surrogates. and president trump hopes for a coronavirus vaccine by the end of the year. but even if it doesn't happen, many americans are willing to take their chances as the country begins to reopen. we'll have the latest from around the united states next here. plus the blame game continues. did the virus begin in a wet market or a chinese lab? we're following the facts next.

welcome back to our viewer hes here in the united states and all the around the world. i'm natalie allen. you're watching "cnn newsroom." u.s. president donald trump has officially unveiled the government's effort to fast track the covid-19 vaccine. the rate of infection has been falling in much of the u.s., but the number of overall deaths is still climbing. the government now expects the u.s. death toll to top 100,000 people by june 1. retail sales in the u.s. collapsed to a historic low in april with millions of americans staying home. the census bureau reported that 16.4% drop, clothing stores dropping almost 80% from march.

but not surprisingly, sales for grocery stores and online shops increased. the u.s. house of representatives has passed a new relief package, it includes $500 billion in aid to state government, another round of stimulus checks to individuals and families. and hazard pay for frontline workers. the republican dominated senate though is expected to block the bill. trump administration officials have said that they do not believe a fourth economic stimulus package is needed right now. for the very latest on the reopening efforts around the united states, here is cnn's nick watt in los angeles. >> reporter: across louisiana, dinner and a movie is now an option once more. but your server might be masked. >> we really have, you know, kind of crushed the curve. and it is due to our residents really. they stayed at home. >> reporter: 48 states now have

an opening plan under way, today half of new york state begins its long road back. >> all i can do is get back to work and hope that they will come. >> reporter: beaches in new york, new jersey and connecticut will we're told be open in time for memorial day. but new york's pause order extended another two weeks including everyone in new york city unless numbers improve. >> we need a massive city-wide apparatus, testing, tracing. >> reporter: meanwhile in michigan, resistance to regulations goes on. the blue governor says that they're red protestors. >> these are not just citizens unhappy about having to stay home, this is a political rally essentially. >> reporter: that might actually delay reopening. >> the congregating of big groups of people who aren't wearing masks, who aren't staying six feet apart that will perpetuate the community spread. >> reporter: and april's retail

numbers are out, sales down 16.4%. clothing sales down nearly 90%. >> most of the 50 states are going back to work in some form. so i like to look forward. >> reporter: ford will start making cars again money and restaurants will reopen in hard hit miami as the county rolookso hire up to 1,000 contact tracers. texas just set a record, most recorded covid deaths in 24 hours. gyms and offices still scheduled to's open monday. and in north carolina, big box stores can reopen, but church gathering still limited to just ten people. >> i've not enforced it and i don't intend to enforce it. >> reporter: others say the same. >> i would rather you turn it towards the lord than the liquor store. >> reporter: and now in sin city, you can buy a mask from a vending machine at the airport. >> in the new world, there will only be three chairs and nobody will be able to be within six feet. >> reporter: and from l.a., the

mercy hospital ship just left after sevens supporting the fight. and the curve has flattened. so the beaches will be open soon in new york state, but not new york city and the mayor explained why, he said people don't really drive in new york city. so they might all go out to coney island and you just have a crush of people there. here in l.a., this weekend will be the first weekend with beaches open. a big test. can we social distance in the sand? nick watt, cnn, los angeles. on friday during that media event at the white house rose garden, president trump again blamed china for the coronavirus pandemic. >> this came from china. it should have been stopped in china. should have been stopped right at the source. but it wasn't. >> trump claims that he has seen evidence which suggests that the coronavirus may have originated

in a lab in wuhan, china, but his own intelligence community says that it has made no such assessment. alex marquardt follows the facts for us. >> reporter: the pandemic now blanketing the globe is universally accepted to have exploded out of the chinese city of wuhan. what is not known or agreed upon is the exact origin. now less a scientific question than a political one. >> i think that they made a horrible mistake and they didn't want to admit it. >> reporter: the trump administration is stepping up the blame leaning hard on the theory that the virus known as sars-cov-2 may not have come from a wet market which china claims but leaked accidently from a government of a affiliated lab. >> i've seen evidence that this likely came from the wuhan institute of veirology. >> reporter: and secretary of state mike pompeo points to the security risks at the wuhan lab. according to cables reported by the "washington post," the state

department warned in 2018 about safety and management issues. the body of evidence is circumstantial. u.s. intelligence agencies say that there is no smoking gun, but they believe that the virus was not manmade and not released purposefully. the trump administration is not ruling out that the virus came from elsewhere, but it has been much more aggressive than other countries in pushing the lab theory which foreign intelligence partners dispute. >> there is nothing that we have that would indicate that that was the likely source. but you can't rule anything out in these environments. >> reporter: and that lack of certainty mahas allowed the tru administration to use the lab theory to be more critical of the chinese government. >> it makes a more compelling case of malfeasance and coverups and foisting this on the globe basically which helps i think the administration shift blame to some degree. >> reporter: without more evidence, the world health organization which has been blasted by the trump

administration says that the lab theory is speculative. >> the markets must have played a role somehow, either the source of the outbreak or a setting where the virus was introduced. >> reporter: the virus could have been carried to the market or the lab which are 8 miles apart. what is clear health experts say, at some point last year the virus moved in nature from an animal to humans. dr. anthony fauci told "national geographic" everything indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species. that doesn't discount the lab theory. the trump administration and republican allies in congress argue that the delay of china's warnings and alleged spock spto spiling of protective equipment bolsters that it escaped the lab since they would have known sooner. still if it leaked from the lab

and the government knew, chris johnson says that u.s. intelligence would likely have picked up on it. >> the u.s. is trying to make it hard. they would leak it if they had it and it hasn't been leaked so they probabilily don't. >> reporter: one big thing that the trump administration can point to is that it has happened before. multiple times in fact. in 2004, two lab workers this beijing were infected with sars and the year before in singapore, a student was also infected with sars through accidental contamination. but for now, outside of the u.s., most everybody is saying that it is highly unlikely that this virus came from the lab in wuhan. china for its part has called the idea absurd and said that secretary of state mike pompeo is insane for pushing it. alex marquardt, cnn, washington. president trump has fired another watchdog whose job is to

hold government officials accountable. he has been the u.s. state department inspector general since 2013. mr. trump did not spell out why he was being let go, but there is word from capitol hill that he had opened an investigation into u.s. secretary of state mike pompeo. a democratic aide says that it concerns possible misuse of a political appointee to perform personal tasks for pompeo and his wife. at a time when many are struggling to afford food, shoppers are paying more for groceries. what is driving the record spike at prices at u.s. supermarkets? we look into that. and the pandemic is hitting the service industry hard. we'll meet one owner who is closing his restaurant in texas but not because of the virus. we'll explain. want to brain better?

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many restaurants are shutting their doors for good because of the financial hardship the virus has brought. but the pandemic is forcing one texas restaurant to close if a different reason. our ed lavendera has this story from san antonio. >> reporter: life is throwing a flurry of pinches at mike wynn. last year the 32-year-old opened his dream restaurant, noodle tree, in san antonio, texas, just after he was diagnosed with cancer. and then the coronavirus pandemic up ended everything. two weeks ago he said he couldn't take the health risk of opening his dining room to customers. >> at the end of the day, it was that the money was not worth losing lives over, losing, you know, the people that assumed mm supported me, it wasn't worth it. >> how are you feel something. >> febds depends on the day.

>> reporter: this week he learned that his lymphoma diagnosis took a turn for the worst. >> my mind is saying go, go, go, but my body is saying no. >> reporter: he made the painful decision to surety tshut the restaurant down. each takeout order he walks out is a chance to see loyal customers one last time. >> when you walk out of here this weekend, you don't really know for sure if you are coming back. >> i don't. worst case scenario, we don't ever open the doors up. i can say that, you know, i didn't fail because the food or service wasn't good, i failed because of something that is out of my control. >> reporter: mike wynn was diagnosed with cancer in 2018. instead of sitting back, wynn decided to open the restaurant. he wasn't going to let lymphoma take this dream away. noodle tree thrived. but when the pandemic struck, he had to let go of his workers.

>> this restaurant is very near and dear to my heart. i fought for it. and so it is more than just a restaurant. you know, it is a symbol of just like fighting. and that is why it kind of heartbreaking that i have to clo close. it means that i have to step away from the fight for now. >> reporter: and with one assistant, mike is cooking what could very well be the last meals of his treasured restaurant. if he survives, the restaurant survives. >> i'm going to fight and fight and fight for this, you know, for not only my bout with cancer, but the restaurant. i'll go down swinging if i have to. >> reporter: but for now, the lights of noodle tree will be turned off. he remains hopeful that one day that he can reopen his restaurant. he says that he has been battle tested in life and that he is a big believer in adversity and how you respond to adversity says a lot about who you are. and that is what he is counting on right now. ed ed lavendera, cnn, san

antonio, texas. >> we wish him the very best of course. the largest supermarket chain in the u.s. is ending its hero pay for workers this sunday. kroger gave employees working through the pandemic an extra $2 an hour. meanwhile, the price of just about everything at u.s. grocery stores has gone up. have you noticed? diane gallagher explains why. >> reporter: if it felt like you were paying more on the grocery shopping trips last month, it wasn't your imagination. grocery store prices spiked the most that they have in one month since 1974. nearly 50 years. and look, we're talking everything here. fruits, vegetables, cereal, meat, dairy, eggs jumped by 16%. and this is as unemployment sky rocketed. many americans are dealing with much smaller budgets right now and for some of them, food insecurity for the very first time. now, economists tell cnn that

the grocery store sicker shock stems mostly from the explosion in demand and a supply chain that was really slow to react. so as the stay-at-home orders went into effect, schools and restaurants started closing. people started cooking at home a lot. at the same time, the meat processing plants started shutting down because the workers who are mostly black and brown, immigrants, refugees, became sick at an be alarming rate with covid-19. more than 30 of them have died from the virus so far. and the nation's top union has blasted kroger's decision to end its hero bonus pointing out the pandemic is not over, at least 65 grocery store workers have died from covid-19. that extra $2 per hour that employees were getting for being on the front lines, that ends this weekend, but kroger said that it is instead offering an up to $400 thank you payment. now, restaurant owners are also dealing with this sticker shock as they work to reopen.

wholesale beef prices hits this. one told us that if i can reopen, i'll probably have to increase my menu prices which doesn't bode well in this economy for an already struggling industry. diane gne gallagher, cnn, atlan. and if you're wondering about the future of live music and concerts amid the pandemic, keith urban may have shown us what the real life experiment, that is coming up. ♪

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covid lockdowns have forced theaters on broadway to go dark, the hiatus costing the industry more than $1 billion in projected revenue.

♪ let it go >> and now disney's frozen mass xwk t mass become the first muts csico take its bows permanently. it was struggling in its run before it was canceled. and two others have also been scrapped, hangman and also the classic who is afraid of virginia wolf. and who doesn't love that one. producers are still considering whether the musical comedy beetlejuice could return to the great white way after it had its final performance march 11. country music star keith urban has demonstrated that socially distanced concerts are possible. the grammy award winner organized a private thank you concert at a drive-in movie theater. thursday night outside nashville, more than 200 medical workers were able to enjoy

urban's music live from the safety of their cars. ♪ all that wasted time, swinging it on the line, looking at all that wasted time ♪ >> god bless 9 u.the u.s. and g bless the health care workers and god bless the drive-ins. >> great idea. keith urban spoke with cnn friday about the show and the future of live music. here he is. >> first of all, we have to play somewhere. it is what we do. so i think that the idea of playing to people in vehicles is a bit of a no-brainer, figuring out how to scale that up to play to more people, doing it, you know, in a safe way with the guidelines. we spent a month putting this particular concert together even though it wasn't for a paying

public, it was specifically for vanderbilt university medical center. but all the people there last night were doctors, nurses, health care workers, emergency response e responders. and we gave every tickle tet to them. but it is definitely a potential. i think that you could see potentially in massive park being lots, you know, country concerts are renowned for their tail gate parties so i think the concert is the tailgate party now. >> we hope so. that wraps this hour of "cnn newsroo newsroom". i'm natalie allen. you are welcome to follow me on instagram or twitter. i'll be back in a moment with another hour of news. "the return of drifting"

"drafting" "the return of the slide job" "ripping the wall" "gas-n-go" "bump-n-run" "the return of loud" "nascar is back, and xfinity is bringing you the best seat in the house."

u.s. president donald trump unveils his plan to develop the coronavirus vaccine but says the country will be back with or without one. this, as most u.s. states begin taking steps to lift lockdowns, but it is a missed picture as new cases appear to rise in some states but decrease in others. we'll talk about that. >> also in a bid to save europe's summer, the european union is allowing some regions to open their borders as infection rates slow. we've got much ahead this hour. live from cnn headquarters in atlanta. welcome to our viewers h