>> a look at the latest data on the spread of the coronavirus pandemic here in the united states tells us there are north of 1 million, 100,000 cases and added in the last 24 hours since just yesterday morning. on that note, welcome to america's news headquarters from washington d.c. we'll keep you updated on the latest stats all afternoon long. it's great to be with you at home. leland, it's great to be with you, i'm gillian turner.

leland: nice to be with you as well. i'm leland vittert. they're working to keep this contained at home, but a newly leaked dossier that might shed light into where and how this various first began. mark meredith at the white house they're keeping an eye on that, the president is at camp david. >> as you mentioned the president is at camp david. but the investigation into the origins of the coronavirus continues. one told john roberts, that most u.s. intelligence agencies believe that the virus originated in a chinese lab and the release was an accident, not intentional. the president this week said he could not go into detail about the intelligence gathered so far. the president was asked before he left for camp david if china could face additional economic issues over this crisis? >> a lot of things are happening with respect to china. we're not happy, obviously, with what happened.

this is a bad situation, all over the world, 182 countries. but we'll be having a lot to say about that. it's certainly an option. it's certainly an option. >> before he left for camp david, the president welcomed the head of gilead sciences to the oval office, granting emergency use of the drug remdesvir to treat covid-19 patients and showing that it shortened the recovery time in some cases. for those of us who worked in infectious diseases and pandemics for some time, it's the first positive step forward. >> and the house postponed the plans to returned. house democrats hoped to get dr. anthony fauci to testify before a committee and the white house is not going to let that happen. we heard a statement from the white house official and friday, while the trump administration continues the whole of government response to covid-19 including safely opening up america again and expediting vaccine development, it is

counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings. however, fauci is expect today head up to capitol hill later on this month and expected to testify before the senate in mid may. watch that as it develops. right now we just had the fly-by over the white house a few moments ago, an amazing sight to see, leland. leland: yeah, we have the thunderbirds and blue angels making their way down from baltimore and we could hear the roar over the white house. mark, thanks. >> you bet. leland: gillian. gillian: a look at the weekly jobless numbers, 30 million americans have filed for unemployment benefits since just mid march. we're now looking ahead to next week, anticipating the release of april's unemployment report. garrett tenney takes a look at that and he'll tell us what the numbers say about what to expect coming up next week. garre garrett. >> yeah, well, gillian administration officials are expecting next week's reports

could be one of the worst we've seen sips the great depression. last week alone, 3.8 million americans filed jobless claims. that's add to the six-week total, pushing it to more than 30 million according to the labor department. this morning, white house economist kevin hassett painted a bleak picture of the nation's short-term outlook predicting next week's jobless report will show unemployment rate between 16 and 19%. >> you're going to see some economic data over the next few months that's as bad as you've ever seen. now, we turned the economy completely off, which is something that's never happened before. we are going to see a very big increase in the unemployment rate, a very big decline as larry kudlow mentioned in the gdp, but most forecasters think the second half can rebound from that. the sooner we get going, the more likely it will be true. >> this next week 20 states will start the process of easing restrictions and reopening their

economy. officials across the board will keep a close eye on the economic impact those moves have, as well as the impact on public health, that some are opening too quickly and could cause the number of coronavirus cases to surge once again. despite the bashing our economy has taken, labor secretary eugene scalia believes it could make a quick turn around. >> i think our economy has a chance as we reopen now to get back to where it was. we were so strong a couple of months ago, we had to take this pause, but i think as we begin getting back, people are going to be pleased to be back at work and get that economy going again. >> this next week we'll get an even clearer picture of the impact the coronavirus has had on our economy, is more than a dozen major corporations are scheduled to release their first quarter earnings and again, foreclosures are saying, those numbers are expected to be very bleak. gillian. gillian: garrett, thanks for that.

leland. leland: all right. states have also been hard-hit by the coronavirus, especially when it comes to their budgets. tax revenues just are not coming in, creating massive budget shortfalls. joining us now, republican, cory gardner, who i believe has made it back to yuma, colorado after being in quarantine the last time we talked. we are glad to see you, sir. >> thank you, leland. leland: the front page of the denver post today, 228.7 million dollars cut from the colorado state budget. that's job losses, programs that don't happen, et cetera. should the federal government be in the business of making up those shortfalls to the state? >> of course, it depends what those expenses are, the federal government is going to be asked to reimburse. when it comes to covid-19, covid-19 related expenses, certainly the federal government should work with the states and help cover the costs they're

going to have and that's why support covid-19 related help to the state and governor polis and i sent a letter to senators mcconnell and mnuchin. we're not going to pay for trips to antarctica over bad decisions, but i think there's going to be a need for aid to help states, whether it's the fire department, emt's or others as relates to covid-19. leland: there's two issues here. there's the direct cost of covid-19, as you pointed out, the fire departments, hospitals, et cetera, and then there's the lost tax revenue and colorado's gotten a lot of lost tax revenue, ski resorts shut down during the busy time of the year, et cetera. this letter sent by rick scott among other colleagues to the president. we urge you, meaning the president, to reject states using tax dollars unrelated to coronavirus.

bree we believe that additional money will be used to bail out unfunded pensions and causing them to be more reliant to taxpayers. and you're not a signatory to that letter, why not? >> i believe we have faith in colorado we'll do the right thing with the dollars and let me give you an example of a covid-19 related expense, it's one small example-- actually one big example, but small in the number of times it's happened around the country already. there's a symposium in colorado springs, a very large symposium based on faith symposium, in the past. vice-president has attended in the past and it's a cancellation, it will cost colorado springs, $5 million. it was canceled because of covid-19. now, i think we can make sure that the city of colorado springs can be okay. we can make is sure that we have covid-19 cost related expenses

recovered and-- >> hold, senator, that's, okay. so covid-19 costs relates to the city of colorado springs, does that mean that for all the ski resort towns, you're going to make up their lost tax dollars as well, all the ski resorts that had to close? >> have no choice, but to help with certain revenues. is it going to be 100%? 50%? that's the case we are going to have. we tripped-- the federal government asked people to stop going to work, to shut their businesses down, to close their restaurants, that was the government's request and to turn around and say you're on your own and we're walking away, that's not right. leland: i hear you and certainly in colorado there are towns that have just been devastated. they are starting to open up parts of colorado now. jared polis, the governor, former member of congress on neil cavuto's show, take a listen. >> we're trying to figure out as everyone us the sustainable phase, how do we prevent a spike

in the virus that would exceed hospital capacity. at the same time how do we make sure that people can make a living, a psychological and health sustainable phase for a period of months. leland: fair to stay that colorado is one of the first blue states to open up. you've got texas, georgia, where brian kemp got a hard time for reopening. you're confident that things are going well in colorado. tell me why. >> look, our health care workers have done an incredible job, done the three things they have to do. we have to make sure we're addressing the health emergency to flatten the curve and stop the spread. our policies at the federal level are helping individuals with assistance they need and we're working together to get our businesses back hope so we can snap the economy back to what it was before the health emergency. i'm working each and every day with the governor and my congressional colleagues to make sure that happens to do it right. in colorado there are counties that have been able to open up more so than the rest of the state based on how well they

have done based on this response. leland: all right, senator, we really appreciate you being here. that sound bite we ran, jared polis the democratic governor of colorado, colorado is a purple state. and i i understand you're going back to d.c. for the senate to go into session. safe travels. >> thank you, leland. leland: good to see you as always. dr. deborah birx joins chris wallace tomorrow, and check your local listings for time and channel. and howard kurtz looks at the white house coronavirus response and allegations against former vice-president joe biden and the first briefing of the press secretary in a long time and that will be the tomorrowic on media buzz. gillian: i believe it was the first one in over a year, the first press conference. meanwhile, in other news, the f.d.a. issued emergency approval of a new drug to treat covid-19.

initial trials claims it helps patients recover faster. steve harrigan is in atlanta georgia with the latest. >> that was a fast track by the f.d.a. they issued emergency approval of the drug on friday. this drug, remdesvir shortens the stay in the hospital. officials say it's not a knockout drug. >> now we can actually ease the elk had system as well to have the patients out of the hospital days earlier, with all of this medical care and now we open the doors for other sick patients desperate to get into the hospital, especially in the situation in which the capacity is overwhelmed. >> the c.d.c. deputy director has issued a report saying the u.s. was actually slow to respond to the pandemic early on, especially in february. two key mistakes, the number two that the c.d.c. says were delay

in travel alerts and also a lack of testing. both of these contributed to a missed opportunity to slow the spread of the virus. in the meantime, the c.d.c. reported more than 4,000 workers in meat plants around the country have become infected by the virus. dozens of meat plants have closed. industry analysts say there's a real threat to the meat supply due to those closures and just this week, president trump signed an executive order making it easier for the meat plants to stay open, despite outbreaks of the virus inside some of those plants. gillian, back to you. gillian: thanks for that, steve. joining us now to break all of this down is infectious disease expert and johns hopkins center scholar, doctor, thank you for joining us today. first question for you is about, sure, the timing here. the key finding of this federal trial that was released this week seems to be, it helps patients recover more quickly. 11 days on average versus 15,

but that it doesn't overall redu reduce fatality rates, is that right? >> yes, the initial readout of the studies. there are different aspects. but the fact that it can get people out of the hospital faster is something that we need to really value because what this whole outbreak has been about and social distancing has been about is trying to preserve hospital capacity. if you can get people out of the hospital faster, that means you have more room to take care of other people and this does help with hospital capacity and that's motivating the emergency use authorization and the excitement about this drug. gillian: well, i was going to ask you why the four days were key and you answered that already. and ask you about what the f.d.a. said. they're issuing this emergency approval so hospitals can now start using the drug on patients, but only patients with severe cases. and i guess the question is, why only severe cases if the drug

works? doesn't it work on everybody? >> that's a key request he to ask. we need to know which patients it works best in. each person's experience with the coronavirus is going to be different. they're going to be people that have such mild symptoms they wouldn't benefit from this and they are going to be people that are severely ill that could benefit from this and you want to make sure you're giving to patients where there's maximal benefit. the clinical trial data they're using to make this decision, you want to try to mimic that with patients you're using it on. you want to have entry criteria and that the patient is similar to where the drug was studied and that's why the emergency use authorization is worded the way that it is. gillian: a key distinction.

and now take a listen to dr. fauci and i'll get your reaction on the other side. >> although a 30% improvement doesn't seem like a knockout, 100%, it's a proven proof of concept because what it's proven is that a drug can block this virus. >> somewhere in there it sounds like the f.d.a. took the leap. dr. fauci saying it's a proof of concept. but the f.d.a. is now approving use for people whose lives may depend on it. >> 30% improvement on outcome getting people out of the hospital isn't a miracle, it's not a knockout punch. you have to remember before remdesvir, there were zero drugs effective against coronavirus. this is the first anti-viral against coronavirus shown in a randomized controlled trial to work. this is a big step. this proves the concept that you

can develop anti-virals for coronaviruses and i think that's what dr. fauci was talking about. is it a miracle drug? no, but it's going to be very helpful and an important tool as we move through this pandemic. gillian: so it's also fair to say that this was approved now, it was fast-tracked because this is a deadly, now global pandemic, right? i mean, under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have been fast-tracked like this, this drug? >> right because when a public health emergency is declared, that gives powers to the f.d.a. to do emergency use authorization and we've seen many diagnostic tests used in emergency. in 2009 we had tone as well. and this is to get needed drugs to people quickly. gillian: thanks for laying all of that out for us, doctor. we appreciate your expertise on this, thank you. >> thank you.

leland: this breaking late last night. new images reportedly show north korean leader kim jong-un his first appearance in weeks. we emphasize according to north korea state media he attended a ribbon cutting for a factory. what's being done to verify some of these pictures, hi, ryan. >> hi, leland. if the pictures are to be believed, if week verify them, we have not done that yet ourselves, then it would appear to end the conversation the speculation as to whether kim jong-un is alive or not, but it's only added to the speculation as to what is going on with his health and why kim jong-un disappeared in the first place for so long. alarm bells went off right around the world in capitals when kim jong-un failed to show up at a celebration commemorating his grandfather's rule. his grandfather was the founder of north korea. that was on april 15.

if there was any event he was going to show up at, that's it. may 1, may day, this factory opening is very important for the communist regime. and kim jong-un would normally be at an event like this. in the video he appears to be walking stiffly in some places and some eyewitnesses say that he did a lot of sitting during the photo op. generally he looks all right, but observers honed in on two facts, namely that he's driven around in part in a golf cart, around the factory, and that that golf cart appears to be the very same golf cart he used back in 2014 when he resurfaced from another lengthy absence when he was thought to have been unwell. also, if you blow the video up, you can see a mark just below his right wrist when he's waiving. some doctors have speculated that's from a medical proceed. some have said it looks like the kind of puncture doctors make to

access your arteries when they're replacing a stent. they say it's too big to be from an iv. that's speculation. it's the first time we've seen him since the polit bureau meeting. speculation that his sister might take over or that he might have been incapacitated. leland, i'm not sure if it's fair to say that kim jong-un gets the last laugh in this. as recently as yesterday we were hearing unconfirmed reports that kim jong-un may be dead and that the government may announce that today. well, obviously, we've moved on from that and i think it tells you, just how little we really know about what's going on in north korea. leland: very little, indeed. and the president was quite cryptic yesterday about kim jong-un and his whereabouts, we'll wait to see if we get anything from the white house, ryan. thanks.

gillian. gillian: democratic presidential candidate joe biden has now responded to allegations of sexual assault. we'll tell you about his team's strategy to combat those claims next. k from everyday life is critical to everyone's health, there is one thing we can all do together: complete the 2020 census. your responses are critical to plan for the next 10 years of health care, infrastructure, and education. let's make a difference, together, by taking a few minutes to go online to 2020census.gov. it's for the well-being of your community and will help shape america's future. ♪

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>> police helicopter crashed in houston, texas, killing one police officer and has left another in critical condition. the helicopter was headed to

assist for a search for bodies in a nearby bayou when it went down into a nearby apartment building. the cause of the crash is still under investigation. luckily, there were no other injuries on the ground. gillian: former vice-president joe biden's first interview with a sexual assault allegation from a former staffer of his is garnering swift condemnation from his critics and equally swift rebuttal from his political allies. and jacqui heinrich has what constituents and democrats are saying about it all. >> this morning, the lawyer who headed up president obama's vp vetting process says in her exhaustive vet of former vice-president joe biden there was never any allegation that came up against him and biden has called on the senate to find and make public any documentation related to this allegation, if it exists.

now, that answer has seemed to satisfy most democrats in biden's circle, former attorney general eric holder said while the matter should be taken seriously, it is consistent with the joe biden he knows. and house speaker nancy pelosi. >> i thought he dealt with the complete denial, support for women, has been a champion violence against women, but that's not the purpose of the call and i said that in my press conference yesterday. >> it seems biden's getting a green light from some women's groups. tina chen former obama white house appointee before turning to president trump. joe biden addressed the allegation with him with the seriousness it deserved, something that the current president has never done and added, we call for complete transparency into this claim and multiple claims against president donald trump. but republicans have not been so quick to close the book with

claims against justice brett kavanaugh not far in the rearview mirror. senator marsha blackburn on fox today. today. >> and they feel as if the@me too movement has served a purpose for daughters and granddaughters to say something wrong with done to me, but then they see the democrats usi usinusin using #metoo when convenient and dismissing it when not convenient. >> the editorial board says that biden's word should not be enough on its own and that the matter should be thoroughly investigated and added that the claims against president trump should be looked into as well. gillian. gillian: a lot of comparisons

between how this biden's accusers are being handled and how accusers of chief justice brett kavanaugh, to be supreme court justice brett kavanaugh was treated last year. thank you for the report. leland: there's a battle royale over california's beaches. why the lawmakers are turning on the governor.

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against the governor's order and that was denied the question. the beach looks different than last weekend, but there are still a handful of people here. there are surfers out and about and people biking by. people still out there, but yesterday a lot of people didn't hold back their frustration. many people taking to the streets to protest. between 2500 to 3,000 people poured out into the streets here near pch and main in huntington to protest the governor's order and push to ease the stay-at-home order. we have been at a stay-at-home order in california since mid march. city leaders in dana park and huntington beach filed injunctions to fight this, arguing it was unconstitutional. local lawmakers say although images appear to show crowded beaches last weekend during the heat wave, many people were social distancing at the beach. the sheriff's department says

they will not enforce beach closure orders by making an i rests, but about expect voluntary compliance. and here is the mayor on why the orange county beaches should stay open. >> i think our governor did, he looked at photographs that were showing a mile of beach condensed into a meter, it looked like everybody was on top of each other. he should have called me, i'm the mayor of newport beach and he should have asked what we're seeing the ground. >> governor gavin newsom called for the beaches to be closed after learning an estimated 80,000 people showed up to orange county beaches last weekend and many may have traveled to orange county because nearby l.a. county beaches are closed. >> the only thing that is assured to advance the spread of the virus is thousands of people congregating together, not practicing social distancing, or physical distancing. >> and i don't know if you could hear as i was speaking, there

was somebody here on an intercom just announcing to people here that the beach is still closed, but again, you can see people passing by. and yesterday governor gavin newsom says the state is days, not weeks away to making modification to the state's stay-at-home order, but he didn't give specific details. we'll have to wait and see what happens with all of that, leland. leland: very interesting, as you pointed out, starting to get adjudicated in the courts and a number of cities and their own governor. christina, thank you very much. gillian: with most schools across the country skill closed, many districts now are coming up with new and innovative ways to make sure their students are not missing out on good nutrition while they're stuck learning at home. one school district in missouri is stepping up to make sure that students still have access to breakfast and lunch. joining us now is superintendent bill nicely. thank you for joining us this afternoon. tell us about the program and

what you guys are doing for the kids, not just at, you know, at your school district, but everybody under 18 in the community. >> we went on spring break in mid march and never came back and we recognized right away that we needed an opportunity to provide meals for all of our students and so we mobilized our transportation service and we are -- we're a school district of about 100 square miles so we're a little bit suburban and we're also rural and we needed to reach those students that live out in the rural areas and so, with our transportation service and our volunteers, food service providers, we're rolling about 20 buses every single day containing a week's worth of food on a regular basis. we have 4,000 meals that we started off with and we're currently up to 8,000 meals.

gillian: are you surprised by those numbers, by the numbers of families that are now relying on you guys to get their children nutritious breakfast and lunch? >> i think what has happened is our parents have said, our students are home, our children are home, we're going to go ahead and feed them, but as the pandemic has worn on, as the school closure has continued, that has created stresses in their lives and where families may not have originally opted to participate in the food service program they're now recognizing, hey, we could use a little bit of extra help. the meals are really good, within that week's worth of deliveries there's at least one hot meal delivered and then we also have our families that are -- have greater needs and maybe participate in a food pantry or a harvesters back snack program. our buses deliver those meals as well. so you guys saw this problem, this hole that needed to be filled during the pandemic,

getting kids who need it food. so it's really a great solution in that it's a community solution to a community-based problem, but it seems to me this program has a lot of potential for replication, not just across the school, your district and your state, but across states nationwide. do you feel that way? >> i do. and i think in some capacity most school districts are providing food to the extent that they can. we -- this is a great community, i'm so proud of our staff and our community who have stepped up and said, we want to volunteerment we want to assist in this effort. our paraprofessionals, our aides are riding on the buses and getting off with masks on and delivering meals to these homes. it's a great effort. gillian: we only have a couple seconds left, but what's your top piece of advice for other schools, other school districts looking to replicate this program, the one thing you've learned that's key? >> if you think that your

employees won't step up and participate to help kids, they will. they absolutely will every time. gillian: well, it's a wonderful lesson, it's a wonderful program that you're running. we wish you all the best moving forward and we will stay in touch with you. thank you very much, bill. >> thank you. gillian: leland. leland: they're doing great work there and we'll introduce you to a local farmer, a small little family farm that's trying to refill the giant need of local food banks when we get back. for what you need! [squawks] only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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every step of the way. bye bye. >> the line for food banks around the country are stretching for as far as the eye can see. this from chelsea, massachusetts, we've seen lines throughout the country. and these lines are creating a need well beyond what the food banks are able to provide which

brings us to whiffletree farm in virginia where customers are pre paying a farmer to make donations to the local food bank. >> there are more people coming to hadar in need and of course, a lot of food are coming from excess from local grocery stores and grocery stores don't have much excess, there's more need and less supply. so, yeah, i think there are a lot of people who are in a tough spot. leland: they are, indeed in a better spot because of jesse straight and the work he's doing because of the covid-19 challenge. it was mike emanuel who began it, as far as i could see, began it at fox news, challenged a number of us to do good deeds. we had griff jenkins and delivered to medical workers and

they made a number of donations, for some reason i think there's somebody else who has been challenged gillian and i haven't seen anything on social media about the response. who could that be? >> i don't know what-- i'm sorry, i don't know what you're talking about. leland: you must have missed that notification on your twitter feed. gillian: so when you get challenged, you fulfill the challenge and you nominate three other people, ideally your colleagues to take up the challenge, i've been passed the baton by leland and it's going to be tough to fill your shoes and live up know what you did. a creative solution what you did, i like what you did, it encouraging local farming and local customers service, a great thing, anyway, you know, forget about even during a pandemic, buying local is a much better thing for the environment and it's a much better thing for families across america, i really like what you did that. leland: talking with jesse, he

was talking about the problems that he had at the food bank and all the problems the food bank was having with the supply chain and restaurants and grocery stores and he said they don't have problems with me, i am the supply chain and we have put on my twitter. gillian: him and his truck. leland: gillian as well-- exactly, the way that you can donate. make a donation to whiffletree farms and this will provide the food and the monetary amount of your donation to the local food bank and that's on my twitter feed @lelandvittert. gillian: well, leland, you did good. leland: first time in a long time. got to start somewhere. gillian: exactly, exactly. we'll take it one step at a time, but so far, so good. leland: now for something completely different. the liberty council is pushing for churches across the country to open up by naming tomorrow sunday, reopen church sunday. fox news's chief religion correspondent, that's lauren green, takes a closer look. >> there are so many people

throughout the country and throughout the world that are helping us with their online donations. >> coronavirus social distancing means empty pews, no passing the offering plate, and canceled fundraisers for many houses of worship around the country. one national study found donations are down 50 to 75%. at greatest risk, small churches with poor and elderly congregations. they can apply for paycheck protection loans for small businesses, but that's only a temporary fix. >> from a catholic perspective we don't just have our churches, but we have our elementary schools, our high schools and those are all tuition based. >> large churches are stepping in to help smaller ones. >> and the people so far have given away $271,000 to ministries in need. >> pastor franklin jenson of free chapel church in georgia recently spoke with president trump on a conference call with other faith leaders.

>> he wanted to hear from each one of us. there was some concern about the overreach of government. >> the reason for concern, confusion. ten states have shut down religious gatherings of any kind. some states have limited restrictions in place, while a third have no limits. some churches have filed lawsuits for the right to reopen or offer drive-in services, prompting the u.s. attorney general to issue a stern warning that government may not impose restrictions on religious activity that do not apply to nonreligious activity. they say that safety must come first and once they can get back to work, that the church's finances would improve as well. lauren green, fox news. leland: pope francis has been praying today for world leaders dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. more on what those leaders are doing about the outbreak around the world, especially in italy when we come back. you doing okay?

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>> a handful of european countries are now starting to ease up on their lockdown restrictions at home. italy set to allow some citizens to return to work as early as monday morning. leaders that were warning

restrictions will be snapped back into place pretty quickly if covid-19 cases spike in the near future. amy kellogg joins us from florence with a breakdown. latest plans, amy. >> hi, gillian. yeah, there's a bit of jitteriness, in italy the death toll shot up by 474 people in the last 24 hours and that's the highest leap since april 21st. so in almost two weeks. yes, may 4th is supposed to be the day that a lot of people here go back to work, but the coronavirus czar said we're actually going to be entering the most difficult phase of this all now. and there's a trade-off between relative freedom, he said, and absolute health. and there is a bit of confusion about exactly what people are going to be allowed to do, how it's going to work. some regions have been sort of getting ahead of the federal government, essentially 4 million people go back to work in italy on monday. first factories, really, and the prime minister was pretty clear saying there would be no

parties, no gatherings. effectively you still need a reason to be out of doors if it's not work. takeout will be available in restaurants and then in two weeks' time the museums will open up and retail shops not opened now, nonessentials. june 1st, with social distancing and hair salons at that time, too. speculation is over another thing that the coronavirus czar said today. this, after they fixed the price for surgical masks at half an euro. and what you'll pay and authorized masks and medical equipment were confiscated by police. officials were suspicious of a man on medical trade and receiving stolen goods. there's been a lot of that since

the pandemic hit here. after seven weeks of lockdown, spanish adults got a chance to walk or jog today after letting kids out last weekend, now adults can exercise, too. with hours, early mornings and evenings for most and over 70's can take their strolls from noon to 7:00 p.m. while much of europe is easing lockdowns, russia is at the point are tightening the screws. they had 9,623 new cases, which is the most, again, that they've ever had and just in the past few days, gillian, we heard that russia's prime minister, along with dozens of people who live at star city, the formerly closed city where the cosmonaut training center is located, this latter bit of news accord to go the mayor of star city. gillian: it's a good reminder that the u.s. isn't alone. it's interesting to see how some of the countries and governments

across the world are grappling with the same challenges and answering the same question that the trump administration is facing here at home. amy kellogg, thanks for that. leland. leland: video of the blue angels and the thunderbirds above d.c. a couple of minutes ago. where they're headed next when we come back.

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gillian: parts of the united states are trying to get back to some semblance of business as usual, this weekend several states are beginning to reopen their economies or trying to reopen their economies by allowing certain sectors of the workforce back to work, opening up certain public spaces, though a lot of the hardest hit states are continuing to stay locked down. welcome to our second hour of america's news headquarters from washington, d.c. i'm gillian turner. leland: gillian, nice to be with you. in some cities, parts of the cities are open. >>some are not.i'm leland vitte. the president has been keeping an eye on the economy and the u.s. intelligence groups are working to figure out how the coronavirus pandemic first began. mark meredith has more on the search for those answers. >> reporter: president trump is spending the weekend up at camp david. the investigation into how the

coronavirus got started, that is ongoing. a senior intelligence official telling fox's chief white house correspondent john roberts that most u.s. intelligence agencies believe the virus originated in a chinese lab and the release was an accident. the president said this week he could not go into detail about the intelligence gathered so far but the new white house press secretary, kayleigh mcenany, said on friday, she had a list of reasons why she believes china has fallen short. >> they did not share the genetic sequence until a professor in shanghai did so on his own. the next day, china shut down his lab. they didn't let u.s. investigators in at a very important time. so we take displeasure with china's actions. >> reporter: back here in washington, the senate is expected to return to work next week. the house has postponed its

plans to return over concerns it would not be safe for members to get back to work. president trump had a tweet on this, writing there is tremendous coronavirus testing capacity in washington for senators returning to capitol hill on monday, likewise the house should return but isn't because of crazy nancy p. the house majority leader -- nancy pelosi. steny hoyer is asking for guidance on how best to reopen the capitol complex. he wrote, quote, in order to resume capital operations we need detailed plans in place for the provision of supplies to disinfect surfaces and protect individuals from exposure and information on how many staff may return first in each office during a phased return. that's been the big debate, about how quick congress can get back to work, will it be safe for staffers to return, it's not just lawmakers on capitol him. when they return, the focus is expected to bon the next

emergency stimulus bill and what will be needed to help keep the economy afloat, a lot of debate but no final decisions yet. leland: there is discussion about whether it would be a relief package, a stimulus package, infrastructure bill and what would be needed with that. mark meredith, thanks so much. >> reporter: you bet. leland: gillian. gillian: every state is on its own time line when it comes to reopening businesses and government. for more on how different areas are react, let's bring in amy pack and the mayor of logansport, indiana, chris martin. thank you for being with us today. amy, to you first. a lot of headlines yesterday saying that houston is back for business, houston is back online, but you say the key really to all of this is making sure that a phased reopening ensues. >> absolutely. right now, a lot of businesses are starting to reopen but in texas they are allowed to open up to 25% capacity and so it's a

phased reopening, not where everything is reopened and back to normal. gillian: tell us quickly about the breakdown, what is back to normal first and what's coming down the pike next? >> right now it's retail stores, grocery stores have always been open, and movie theaters, basically most businesses are coming back online, not all of them, but most of them are coming back online at 25% capacity. gillian: now, chris, indiana, the state is becoming somewhat of a coronavirus hot spot lately, over 1,000 cases, nearly 900 people infected just at that one tyson meat plant. are you reconsidering the reopening guidelines at this point? >> yeah, of course. the tyson plant, it was toured

on thursday and there are steps they're taking. the biggest thing that i think we really need to kind of pinpoint here is that we've got to trust the people to know what they're doing and dr. didi a n and the health department they've been amazing, making sure they're on top of things. the county and city started working together the beginning of march, getting things going, how we can fix things and get it where they need to be. i did an executive order this last week that strengthens the restrictions within our city and the county of course followed with the health emergency of those positive cases from tyson. gillian: amy, back to houston for a moment. so the city was one of the first in the country to really offer testing to anyone who wanted it, whether they are coronavirus symptoms or not, there's been some problems in executing that, fulfilling the promise. where are you guys today with testing? do you have all the test kits you want? do you need more.

>> we don't have all the testing kits we need. we absolutely need more tests every single day, but the city is working on that. we're getting more and more tests every single day and we did open it up to anyone who wanted the test, whether they had symptoms or not. so the city is really trying to get ahead of all of this and making sure that they put every measure in place to mitigate this. they're also looking at some other innovative ways to kind of test where there's hot spots to make sure that people are getting out -- make sure they're getting out ahead of it and mitigating it there as well. gillian: well, you mentioned innovative ways, one of the things i saw was the houston chronicle reported the city has begun testing human sewage and waste water, human feces to try to get a better sense of the spread of the virus. that's accurate? >> yes, absolutely. that's one of the way that's houston is getting ahead of this and they're looking at if there's hot spot areas that the

health department needs to address and get more tests to that area. gillian: okay. it will be interesting to see if you have success with that, whether other states and cities and counties are going to want to pick up on similar methods. chris, back to indiana for a moment. what is local government doing to step in to help support? you mentioned the tyson meat plant with the 900 infected employees. how do city and state government have a role to play here in helping support the private sector, support these employees? >> well, the governor has done an amazing job, he's given the mayors a lot more resources than i would have expected, obviously being in the pandemic. so i've got to definitely thank the governor for that. mayor moore in kokomo, they started a small business loan assistance program, other communities throughout the state have done just that. so that's what we're doing. we're trying to look at what these other communities have

done to assist those small businesses especially in the private sector to where we can come about and make sure they're back up on their feet in no time. gillian: what is the -- is there a silver lining? real quick. we have a couple seconds. when do you think they'll be back up and running, operational, this plant? >> right now, there's three counties within the state that aren't going to be allowed to be opening as much as others until may 18th. we are one of those counties. the light at the end of the tunnel is getting brighter as we come to the end of this thing. we have to keep remembering that. gillian: amy and chris thanks so much for taking time out of your afternoon to join us and lay out what's going on in the great states of texas and indiana. we appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. gillian: you bet. leland: fox news alert, new jersey governor phil murphy is giving an update on his state's coronavirus response. we're going to take a dip in.

>> field medical stations are not just there for this week or last week or next week, but in the likelihood, i hope low likelihood but in the likelihood this virus comes back and bites us, having capacities of beds, ppe, ventilators, healthcare workers, medicines will be extraordinarily important and that's something we look forward to working with our federal partners on as well. there were 1,715 patients reported in either critical or intensive care and this continues, bless you, the overall downward trend over the past week. not quite the same steepness of reduction but a reduction. ventilator use currently stands at 1,230 and that's a decrease from yesterday. there were 378 new hospitalizations yesterday, that's the lowest one-day count since last weekend. and on discharges, 525 live patients were released from our hospitals yesterday. and that's the sort of trend and gap you want to see.

all of the important metrics in our hospitals continue to show positive trends. we need to keep seeing these lines moving in these directions before we can put new jersey on the road back and before we're able to responsibly restart our economy. and remember, we're operating under two very simple ideals. first, public health creates economic health. that means that we need to build confidence that we are ready for our restart so you can have the confidence that you need as it begins. and second, data determines dates. that means that as we see the numbers unfold, we can have a better idea of the specific timetable for our restart. and again, this can never and must never be only about numbers. these are precious lives we have lost who are infected, who are hospitalized. leland: all right. there's the governor of new jersey giving an update as he has and taking time to highlight some of the victims of the

coronavirus epidemic. we'll keep listening to that and see if he has any updates on the reopening of the state of new jersey. the cdc is saying that there were definitely some missed opportunities that could have stopped the spread of the coronavirus a lot earlier. this as we are learning more about why the fda gave emergency approval to a new drug that could help those with the worst cases of the coronavirus. steve harrigan live in atlanta outside the cdc with more. hi, steve. >> reporter: leland, that's right. the deputy head of the cdc admitting mistakes were made especially at the start of the pandemic in the u.s., the u.s. made two key mistakes in its slow response to the pandemic. first, testing, not enough done early enough, especially in february. second, not enough travel alerts, especially travel from europe. more than 2 million people came to the u.s. from europe in february and that was a source of much of the spread. in addition the fda has given fast track approval for

remdesivir, that's an anticipate viral drug, a drug that can help in the healing process of those infected, it can speed the healing time. officials caution it is not a knock-out drug. >> with covid-19 infections, the virus revs up and eventually creates inflammation. with remdesivir, we can hopefully knock the virus down earlier but that inflammation may go on and so we want to use an immune modulator, anti-inflammatory medication to get that inflammation down as well. >> reporter: finally, the cdc has sent officials to meat packing plants all over the u.s. where there have been outbreaks, they recorded more than 4,000 cases of meat packers who have been infected, this poses a real threat to the nation's food supply. this week president trump issued an executive order making it easier for some of the meat packing fluents -- plants to remain open despite outbreaks of the coronavirus. back to you. leland: steve harrigan there in atlanta. we'll continue to monitor developments from there. steve, thank you.

gillian. gillian: the economic toll across the country so far has been devastating, 30 million americans are newly unemployed, economists tell us that's going to have rip martin luther king -- rippling effects for families for years, possibly decades. garrett tenney joins us with an economic forecast. garrett. >> reporter: gillian, we'll get a much clearer picture of the damage this pandemic has done to the economy next friday when the april jobs report is released and the administration officials are predicting it will show the worst unemployment numbers that we have seen since the great depression. last week, 3.8 million americans filed jobless claims, pushing the six week total to more than 30 million according to data from the labor department. there is hope things will start to turn around over the next few months as states begin lifting restrictions and reopening their economies, that will start to happen in at least 20 states this next week and this morning white house economist kevin hassett said depending on how the reopenings go, the

administration will decide what steps to take next to help the nation recover. >> so i think that right now we're monitoring it closely and watching the impact of the opening on things like cash flows for states and small businesses and i think in a week or two we'll have a better idea which path we need to take. >> reporter: health of icials expressed concern that some states may be reopening too soon and it could lead to a surge in new cases. while those decisions are up to the governors, president trump has been pushing for states to safely start the process of reopening and on friday he said once that happens, the economy will be able to get back on track. >> with new unity and resolve, our people will thrive, our industries will roar, our innovate rers will astonish and america will triumph like never before. >> reporter: even as states start to reopen, kevin hassett is warning it will take time to recover and over the next few months he's warning that we will

continue to see some of the worst economic data that we've seen in the last hundreds of years. if there's any type of silver lining here, though, it's that most forecasters are predicting the economy will start to turn around in the second half of this year. gillian. gillian: i guess thanks for ending with a silver lining, garrett. we appreciate it. leland. leland: if there is one in all of this. with that we bring in mitch roschelle. good to see you as always. in the beginning of the coronavirus everybody, republicans, democrats, some doctors, underestimated what the coronavirus' effect was going to be in terms of on the health of america, especially in january, and into february. is the same thing happening with the economic effects? is everybody sort of underestimating in march and april and now in the beginning of may what devastation this has caused? >> i think the challenge, leland, is how long we're in this devastated period. i don't think there was

underestimation of how 3w5d it can get -- bad it can get, the question is how long it will take and whether or not it's a v or u shaped recovery and it depends on the consumer being able to consume. leland: is it being able to consume or wanting to consume. a good friend of mine, an economic advisor, he said the old joke is when a neighbor loses a job, it's a recession, when you lose your job, it's a depression. when it's a depression, you don't spend. each if you have 15% unemployment. it's going to be hard to see people out buying new cars and going to fancy dinners and planning vacations. >> i think the challenge here is this is so unprecedented. whenever we've had economic downturns before they've never been like this where the entire supply side of the economy has been shut off so you don't have

the opportunity to consume many things you want to consume. simply going to a movie with your family, you can't do that. there's some element of pent-up demand that even if you have less disposable income, people are going to be inclined to go out there and do something just because they've been locked up for so long. leland: what do you make, though, of what's happening across america? summertime is typically vacations, travel, summer communities, a time of great consumer spending, et cetera. you've got communities already canceling july 4th celebrations, shutting down beaches for a big part of this. these are communities that are made or broke in three months and it looks like those three months aren't going to even happen. >> yeah, that's the real thing, when you look at the ability of the economy to bounce back so you've got the demand side which we were just talking about/debating and then you've got the supply side. i think we can see situations like the 4th of july celebrations, me memorial day celebrations where the supply

side will be cut off. that's going to be one of the things that influences the ability of the economy to bounce back and i think you're going to start seeing more and more pressure from the lek director tore -- le electorate wanting to have the opportunities to get out there especially if the data continues to improve the way it's been improving. leland: we talked about this before, you can stimulate the supply side, the fed can buy bonds, you can have the ppp, et cetera. if there's not consumer confidence, you can't stimulate the demand side, you can't make people spend money, buy iphones, go to movies and the like. how concerned are you that when people see the economic data that's coming out in a couple of weeks and are looking at 30 million people unemployed and seeing the lines at food banks, et cetera, that the demand side is going to really shrink. you may go to a movie but you're not going to go to a movie and a dinner. >> yeah. i think that is the case. i think there's definitely going to be a curtailing. if you just look at the way the savings rate has shot up, some

of that is because people didn't have the opportunity and some of it is just people worried about the future and being more prudent. so there's -- we'll see the economy bounce back but restoring the levels that it's been at is going to really require the public health crisis to be completely behind us and people beginning to get wealth back that they lost or income back that they lost. leland: yeah, the unintended consequences and the unknowns unknowns continue to be discovered. mitch, appreciate it as always. thank you, sir. >> you bet. any time, leland. leland: gillian. gillian: new york's metro transit authority is cutting back the subway's hours beginning may 6th, the first time the subway in the city will not be running 24 hours a day and a lot -- in a lot of years. we'll tell you why they're making the change and how, coming up next. i'm your mother in law. and i like to question your every move. like this left turn. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? how did you make someone i love?

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xfinity. the future of awesome. gillian: coronavirus hot spots in u.s. cities like new york are getting a lot of attention but there are now new emerging concerns about hot spots developing across rural america. allysia acuna joins us to explain.

>> reporter: rural america is particularly vulnerable right now. rural hospitals have limited resources, patients are often geographically isolated and higher rates of chronic disease. in some places elective procedures are once again allowed in some places but that revenue comes after severe loss of income for the past two months. >> likely that our hospitals that were vulnerable before might be in kind of immediate jeopardy now. >> reporter: the department of health and human services earmarked nearly $155 million to assist rural communities during this time. that will help nearly 1800 hospitals. we checked back in with lincoln community hospital in hugo, colorado. they braced for a possible surge last month. the ceo says they've not had one but have had some success in convincing their patients to use telehealth. >> there's still some stigma to

whether or not i want to talk on the computer but it's a lot easier for them to do that than to jump in their truck and come to town and maybe be away from their farm or ranch for half a day because of the travel time and then the time for the appointment. >> reporter: folks who live 30 minutes or more from an emergency room or hospital are of great concern to healthcare providers. they are already operating with low bed counts, staffing and budget shortages. >> but in rural regions, a small surge could lead to quite a few deaths or people being real sick just because there's maybe only one doctor or a few nurses that can provide care for people in these regions. >> reporter: additionally, many of these regions are home to these workplace hot spots, gillian, like meat processing plants. gillian. gillian: allysia acuna live in denver. thank you. leland: earlier today, andrew cuomo announced preliminary results of the number of people

testing positive for covid-19 antibody as the new york city subway system is preparing for overnight closures to disinfect the trains. aishah hasnie live in new york with the details on that. hi. >> reporter: hi, leland. so, yeah, so the mta is going to start disinfecting those trains every 24 hours and that means that the subway system will have to shut down between the hours of 1:00 a.m. and 5:00 a.m. every single day. governor cuomo says this has to happen to protect thousands of those essential employees that use the subway system to get to the front lines every single day. >> we want people to know who need to use the subways and the busses, because they are working, that they are safe. and the essential workers who have kept this entire society functioning have done an extraordinary job. >> reporter: governor cuomo also announced the state will do antibody testing for all transit

workers. so far, 15,000 people across new york have been tested. 12% testing positive. new york will also distribute 7 million more cloth masks across the state to vulnerable communities like nursing homes and low income neighborhoods, the governor facing heavy criticism for the thousands of patients who died in governor. the former governor told the new york post cuomo's handling of nursing homes was, quote, a disaster and called for an independent investigation. the state is still getting about 900 new infections a day at new york area hospitals. here are the top three states in the northeast when it comes to deaths. new york will also start handing out about $25 million to food banks across the state. i saw firsthand yesterday in queens, new york, just how many people needed that. there was one food bank that was trying to get 200 people through per hour. leland. leland: we know you pitched in while you were there. aishah hasnie in new york, great

work on that as well. gillian. gillian: key women's groups are responding after joe biden commented publicly for the first time about sexual assault allegations he's faceing from a former staffer. jacqui heinrich has more on what those groups are saying. jacqui. >> reporter: gillian, democrats are being forced to answer whether they have a double standard when it comes to believing women's claims after their handling of rape allegations against supreme court justice brett kavanaugh. and republicans have not been quick to forget the phrase, believe all women. >> the joe biden i know, i've never seen anything -- believed that he would do anything like this until you convince me otherwise but i think you should reveal the records. but is there a double standard? of course. do most republicans understand what happened to brett kavanaugh was not about trying to right a wrong against dr. ford, it was

about trying to keep a seat open so they could fill it when -- if they could beat trump. >> reporter: biden has called on the senate to find and make public any documentation to back up tara reade's claim if it exists and democrats have largely praised biden's handling of the allegation, speaker of the house nancy pelosi saying she's satisfied with his answer and eric holder saying he believes biden. while biden strongly denied the allegations against him, he's also been careful not to attack his accuser or question her motives amid the me too movement. >> look, women are -- should be believed, given the benefit of the doubt, if they come forward and say something that they said happened to them, they should start off with the presumption they're telling the truth. then you have to look at the circumstances and the facts. and the facts in this case do not exist. they never happened. and there's so many

inconsistencies in what has been said in this case. so yes, look at the facts. >> reporter: this morning the lawyer who oversaw the vp vetting process for president obama said in her investigation into joe biden, no allegations came up over him. now, also this morning, the new york times editorial board called for a thorough investigation into tara reade's allegation and saying also that the university of delaware should release documents that are being held which may contain some information as to what her claims have alleged. they also added, though, the dozen or so sexual misconduct allegations against president trump should be investigated as well. jill january. gillian: for a long time, politicians in washington as you know seem to like to parrot the line that women should be believed unless they don't like what they happen to be claiming in that moment. jacqui, thanks so much. leland. leland: live pictures of downtown atlanta.

you can see folks getting out of their cars to look to the sky where the air force thunderbirds and navy blue angels are about to fly over in a tribute to that city's healthcare workers.

gillian: a rare delightful sight in the skies today, the thunderbirds and blue angels are flying over washington dc, baltimore, maryland and atlanta, georgia, the latest in an ongoing effort to help honor frontline workers, first responders and their families nationwide. lucas tomlinson joins us with what to expect. lucas. >> reporter: good afternoon, gillian. the jets are supposed to be overhead in the skies over atlanta any second now. this comes after the military did a host of flyovers in cities across the east coast, the head of pg county's hospital earlier today shows his prior united nations. >> -- prior united nations. >>appreciation.>> this is huge.

we have almost 3,000 members of our workforce here and they have been going full-bore for several weeks now and just the acknowledgement and the honor of an event like this for them is huge. >> reporter: the blue angels and thunderbirds fl flew over baltie an the nation's capitol over a few years, it is a salute to the first responders. the air force flew over kansas city earlier this week and t38 training jets from whiteman air force base in missouri. nurses and doctors in suburban maryland showed their appreciation earlier today. >> i'm so excited. it is such a beautiful day. i'm so excited to be outside for a little bit and just -- it's really nice to be appreciated and to get some recognition. it's a hard job but we love what

we do. >> reporter: earlier this week, about 8600 miles away, the air force launched another fly-over, this one meant to send a different kind of message, one directed at china, north korea and perhaps russia. bombers flew over 30 hours nonstop round-trip to the south china sea, a separate flight of bombers landed on guam on friday along with 200 airmen to carry out operations. they flew from texas. a pair of u.s. navy war ships cruised by some of china's contested islands in the south china see earlier this week, gillian. gillian: the blue angels is quite a beautiful sight. it's nice to see service men and women paying tribute to frontline medical workers, something we don't see a lot. quite beautiful. i think we're getting a couple live pictures. stick by, lucas. here they are flying over

atlanta. >> reporter: you're seeing right there -- gillian: what a formation. >> reporter: what a formation. you're seeing the blue angels, those are the jets painted blue and the air force thunderbirds, in white, to the left of the blue angels flight. gillian: it's quite a sight. we'll continue to bring you pictures today as we get them. >> reporter: there's been some criticism -- gillian: do you know anything about -- sorry, lucas. do you know how long they're in the air relatively? >> reporter: they've been doing shows about 20 minutes over each city, so about 20 minutes over the nation's capitol, 20 minutes over baltimore, another 20 minutes over atlanta. there's been a little bit of criticism over the flights but military officials say the money's been budgeted, the flight testimony nation teams -- demonstration teams have been sitting idle for the last few weeks, they're not doing the crazy acrobat ex. dozens of air shows have been

canceled. the budget and flights are there. the doctors and nurses, pretty much all that we've spoken to, have shown their appreciation. it's nice to be appreciated. many of the doctors and nurses are saying thank you for honoring us. these are the nation's new heros. i wouldn't be surprised if we go to baseball, hockey and basketball games, we'll be standing up salute the first responders, not just the firemen and police, but the healthcare workers as well. gillian: it's great to have information to back the visuals. the sight is quite stunning on its own, the tribute to medical frontline workers. thanks so much. leland: we'll keep an eye on the skies and bring you the pictures. demand at on-base food banks is at record levels. we're joined by retired vice admiral, bill french. admiral, good to be with you.

as we were e-mailing about this story, it initially made no sense to me because military families, if you work for the military, either enlisted, officer, civilian, you're getting your paycheck so why the huge demand at food banks? >> thank you very much for having me. i can't think of a better time to be in washington, d.c. than today with the blues flying and the thunderbirds flying. the challenge -- we focus pry p- primarily on junioren lissed members. those spouses, it's so important that they have a job, so you have two incomes coming in. the problem for the military is spouse employment is at about 2 shall -- unemployment is about 25%. five to six times what we saw before covid across the country. so as you know, it's tough to make ends meet. you need two salaries. and then covid comes along and now many of the spouses that had jobs don't have jobs and many of

the kids, about 30% of the military kids that go to class are eligible for either full lunch or reduced lunch discounts. they're at home. so you have both of those dynamics in addition to a challenging environment where we have young military families where the spouses really need jobs are without them and so we're seeing about a four-fold increase in the amount of distribution that we're doing at our eight locations across the country. leland: i'm just looking this up in terms of pay, when you think about somebody who is an e-5, you said e-5 and below, they're lucky to be making $36,000 a year. you needed that second income as you point out and it's difficult to make ends meet without it, difficult to makes ends meet with it. when you talk about the four-fold increase in the demand you're seeing, are you also seeing a four-fold increase in supply at these food banks or is your guys' supply going down as well? >> we're partnering with a lot of different organizations and so we're able both through

donations and for contributions from places like feeding america that have given the food that we need to be able to distribute it to the folks that need it. so a real challenge. one of the surveys done only about two years ago is that over 27% of those military families have $500 in -- $500 or less in savings to be able to address near term emergencies. so it's not unexpected when something like this happens that we're going to see the need for some additional food support. leland: this might seem to be a little bit of a trite question but where is the military in this? these are their men and women who are in uniform to take care of, they may be deploying and worrying about whether their kids are going to be eating or not or where their wife is going to get diapers and the military isn't there to step up? >> no, we're integrated with the military. the military is doing quite a bit in order to provide services, programs, oversight. we work closely with the

military to ensure that we're addressing the right issues. we have programs that supplement what they do and complement what they do. i think if we all deal with covid-19, there are some challenges that we need to all work towards solving together and it's the military support organizations, working alongside the military. i can tell you, all parts of the military, all the services are working hard to ensure that their people are taken care of. whether it's covid-19 or whether it's steady state operations. leland: we've got the website there on the screen right now, asymca.org. if you want to make a donation. i knows you all will put that to good use. i said it on-air a couple of weeks ago, as the lockdown began, that it gives us all a newfound respect for those like you who spent so many months under water in the submarines protecting us through some very long days and nights so we appreciate your service and your continued service trying to take care of these families, sir. good to see you. >> leland, thank you very much. leland: all the best.

gillian. gillian: reports of a leaked intelligence document is making claims about china and coronavirus' origins. we'll bring you the latest on that, coming up next. with social distancing. overcoming challenges is what defines the military community. usaa has been standing with them, for nearly a hundred years. and we'll be here to serve for a hundred more.

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leland: 5.5 magnitude earthquake struck seven miles sort of puerto rico, impacting the southern coastline, you can see the u.s. territory. so far, no reports of casualties. the island was hit by an earthquake earlier this year that caused major damage. puerto rico is currently on lockdown because of the coronavirus. and then there's this, tesla's ceo, elon musk, on a tweet rampage yesterday about all sorts of things. it tanked his stock. we'll tell you why when we come back. technologies advisor.

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gillian: an australian newspaper claims to have an intelligence dossier from what's known at the five eyes, the u.s. and european allies joint intelligence sharing group. the document reportedly lays out the extent to which china's government covered up the true nature and the extent of the coronavirus outbreak from the earliest days in wuhan, this is

a story that fox news was first to break two weeks ago. joining us is the president and ceo of the center for security policy, he's also a former white house national security council chief of staff in the trump administration, fred flights. thanks so much for your time today. i want to ask you first up about this dossier. it doesn't contain anything, from what we can tell, that's new, that goes beyond what fox news has reported about what china knew and when. but it is, if verified, an upon confirmation that other countries in the international community, the u.s.'s key allies, agree with us in terms of an assessment of what the chinese government knew and when. >> that's right, gillian. this is a joint intelligence assessment by five western nations that closely cooperate on intelligence, the u.s., u.k., canada, australia and new zealand and you're right, there's nothing new in it but

what's significant here is that it helps us make the point that accusations that china is guilty of very serious misconduct, possibly criminal mention in handling the virus, this is not congressional republicans and president trump saying this, there is a growing international consensus, not just that china mishandled this but a serious chinese wrong-doing, of the government retaliating against scientists and doctors who tried to warn about the seriousness of the virus in december of 2019, of destroying samples, of lying about human to human transition and most important and this is the in document, that although the chinese government shut down wuhan in january of 2020 to stop the virus from spreading across china, it did not cut off international air flights which allowed this virus to seed itself around the world. and i think this is going to have a devastating effect on china's global reputation. gillian: yeah, and we now know that as a result of failing to

shut down international travel during the earliest weeks of the outbreak, tens of thousands of potentially i'm expected chai -- infected chinese citizens from wuhan traveled to other nations around the world including the united states and europe. fred, what do you think now -- when we look forward here, what do you think is the best way for president trump's national security team to hold the chinese government accountable? is there a way to really do that? >> well, the president does not want to destroy relations with china. he would like to keep good relations and to protect the gains he's made in trade talks but the evidence has become so overwhelming of misconduct by the chinese government, the nse right now is considering whether maybe we should push for repar ations, whether we should remove sovereign immunity limitations.

i think we need to use this pressure to get china to cooperate in an international investigation of what happened at the virology labs in wuhan, what happened at the wet markets and agree to international supervision of dangerous biological research. gillian: fred, in five seconds or less, can you tell us if you agree with the president's decision to cut off funding temporarily from the world health organization? >> i think it was the right move and it's having an effect. the world health organization is asking for an international investigation of what happened in wuhan, something that china has refused to cooperate with. gillian: we've got to leave it there but fred flights from the center for security policy, thanks so much. >> good to be here. it's the next one. you always drive this slow? how did you make someone i love? that must be why you're always so late. i do not speed. and that's saving me cash with drivewise. my son, he did say that you were the safe option. and that's the nicest thing you ever said to me.

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leland: more than 65,000 americans have been killed by the coronavirus, this accounting for more than a quarter of the known global covid-19 deaths. with that, welcome to america's news headquarters from washington. i'm leland vittert. gillian, it feels important that every time we put the numbers as relates globally you have to put an asterisk by all of china's numbers in terms of whether or not they're telling the truth on this. gillian: absolutely. no reason given from the chinese government yet that would lead us to take the numbers at face y'alvalue. they keep correcting themselves. great to be with you. i'll gillian turner.

the u.s. intelligence community is investigating the rory ins of the virus in wuhan, china. now an australian newspaper is claiming to have a leaked intelligence dossier from a group known as the five eyes, includes the u.s. and our key allies around the world, that makes claims about exactly where the virus originated and when. mark meredith joins us from the white house with the latest. mark. >> reporter: good afternoon, gillian. president trump is spending his weekend up at camp david. before he left dc he said he would speak with world leaders by phone. it's possible those discussions will focus on what you were talking about, the latest intelligence about how this outbreak began. a senior u.s. intelligence official tells our chief white house correspondent, john roberts, that most u.s. intelligence agencies believe the virus originated in a chinese lab and the release was an accident. the president said he could not go into detail about what the intelligence gathered so far looked like, although the president was asked on friday if

china could face additional economic tariffs or sanctions over this crisis. >> a lot of things are happening with respect to china. we're not happy, obviously, with what happened. this is a bad situation, all over the world, 182 countries. but we'll be having a lot to say about that. it's certainly an option. it's certainly an option. >> reporter: back here in washington, house lawmakers hoped to question dr. anthony fauci next week. the democratic controlled appropriations committee says his testimony is being blocked by the white house. now we know what's going on with the administration is saying why they put out a statement saying, quote, the while the trump administration continues its whole of government response to covid-19 including safely opening up america again and expediting vaccine development, it is counter productive to have the individuals involved in the efforts appearing at congressional hearings. but it's important to point out that fauci is expected to testify before the senate later on this month. meantime, up on capitol hill, debate is getting underway about

what the next stimulus bill should and should not include. the jobs report for april is due out on friday. a presidential advisor said they believe the unemployment rate could be between 16 and 19%. we'll get a better idea of what the jobs recor report is when te report comes out. president trump will be back in dc on sunday, will be participating in a fox news town hall on sunday evening and then he'll be heading out of town this week coming up, going out to arizona to tour a facility that's making some of the personal protective equipment, something the white house has been working very hard to show that the president is involved with the response to this outbreak. gillian. gillian: one of only very select few trips the president's made in the last couple months. mark meredith from the north lawn. thanks so much. leland. leland: big part of the town hall will be about reopening america. speaking of reopening, waffle house reopened a number of locations this week, restoring dine-in services at hundreds of

restaurants in georgia and tennessee. things will look a little bit different inside waffle houses for now. we bring in the company's ceo walt emer. good to see you. we appreciate it. how is business in the places you've been able to reopen? >> leland, thank you for having me on the show. business has picked up a little bit. it's almost met our expectations exactly. we think that some of the customers who are coming in to get food from us and take it to go are now choosing to sit at a safe distance from other people. but there's a few more people coming into our restaurants. we're encouraged that it's the first step of what seems to be a slow process to bring us back. leland: as we're looking inside waffle houses and you mentioned the safe distance, there's bar stools that are covered to keep people away from each other, there's certain tables you've had to block off. is this a sustainable business model long-term or are you like other businesses saying we have

to be able to open up like the way things used to be. >> we don't expect it the way it used to be any time real soon. we wanted to begin to take a step forward and a year from now would that be a sustainable business model? probably not. but right now we're pretty good about moving people in and out of our restaurants pretty quickly. we like to have quick table turns and so what i've seen today in the restaurants i've been in is that people are coming in, they're happy to be there. they're eating their food, getting up and leaving and saving seats for other people. leland: i've never known somebody to be in a waffle house, being able to eat their food. in both the waffle house waffle mix was for sale and the hash browns as famous as they are were for sale. tell us about what sparked the change to decide that we're going to sell this stuff, how it's done, what it's allowed you all to do, what the response has been. >> i actually talked to the guy who makes our hash browns earlier today, was giving him an

update. honestly, leland, we were in a mode of survival and we were trying to think of anything creative we could to create any dollar of revenue. we lost almost 80% of our revenue overnight. and trying to sustain a business with no revenue and no customers is, as can you imagine, impossible. so we were selling waffle mix. we've been selling hash browns. we had waffle games. we found anything we could to sell and our customers love a lot of our food products and they've had a lot of fun cooking it at home. we've actually had a lot of fun with it. leland: is that going to continue, will people be able to continue to buy waffle mix online or will you say you have to come to waffle house to get it. >> it's like the secret sauce. i don't know if we let the genie out of the bottle. leland: how do you put that back in. we saw video of you with the president a couple days ago. you were in a suit and not wearing your name tag which is something i've never seen before. tell us about your visit to the white house and what you thought

the most important take-aways for the president was. >> i actually have my -- had my name tag on, it was underneath my jacket. i had my waffle house tie, my name tag on, felt a little uncomfortable. it was a good meeting with some other business leaders and i was encouraged that the administration was wanting to listen to what our plans were and the things that we were doing and the things that we had seen so far. so my objective was really to help them understand what we were doing to try to keep our customers safe and our associates safe and to begin to get the economic wheels of our engine turning a little bit so we could protect people's jobs and then i also wanted to give him an update on how it was going and lastly i really wanted to call attention to the plight of the people in the restaurant industry. i told him it's the second largest private employer in the country and no other industry has been hurt as well in terms of job and revenue loss by the companies.

i was encouraged they were willing to listen. leland: real quick, i want to ask you about this. there's few ceo whose are as dedicated to employees and associates as you have been. what have you been able to do as your revenue dropped by 80%? what are you guys doing now and what's the plans for the future for them? >> all of our folks we have helped them get unemployment benefits that the federal government set up for them. from an under-employment standpoint, the country did a great thing. we're sharing hours. i've been in seven or eight restaurants today, attitudes are great. we want everyone to come back. we want to protect everybody's jobs. we need to get restaurants open to do that and it's going to take some time. leland: they're opening in georgia and tennessee and as they reopen we hope to have you back on the show, perhaps sometime sitting at a waffle house counter. sir, good to see you. >> thank you. appreciate it. leland: all the best. gillian. gillian: meat supply chains are facing a major challenge and meat packing plants are struggling to stay operational

as workers across the nation are becoming infected. small town farmers are really feeling the economic impact, getting the brunt of this. to give us a better look at the difficulty this are facing, national pork producer's council president and hog farmer howard avross join us. thanks so much for taking time to come on the program and talk to us today. >> thank you very much for the opportunity to be able to talk to you. gillian: so you say that this is not so much a pork crisis in the sense that farmers are producing hogs, they've got plenty of hogs, it's more a demand side with restaurants being closed, people eating out less. you're saying there's supply chain issues and challenges in terms of what to do really with the hogs that exist. >> yes, absolutely. the pigs that we're producing right now, there was plenty of

supply in the chain and the chain was working fine until covid-19 came along. with those employees that are getting sick in the plants, it's a question of whether it's coming from the plants at all. but those processors are doing everything they possibly can in those plants to make sure that those workers are safe. just like we do on the farm. and those plants, it's disinfected after every shift, they're giving them personal protection gear, they're taking their temperature. but the problem that we have as producers is on our farms with the slowdown of the processing plant and the pork chain, the hogs are starting to back up on the farm and us as producers have a grave, grave decision to make. once our pigs get too big for the processing plants which happens at about 340 pounds, plants can no longer take them and that producer has to worry about what am i going to do with this animal. we need -- we need the government to step in, we need

them to help with this situation. we need dollars. you know, once that grave decision is made -- gillian: one of the reasons i wanted to talk to you, howard, is because you also acknowledge something really key here which is that there's this looming animal welfare crisis. a lot of farmers don't like to talk about it but you say that because of this supply chain issue, now a lot of -- hundreds of thousands, millions of hogs are living in sort of stressed conditions, you say a lot of them might have to be slaughtered needlessly, meaning they won't go on to be consumed by americans. tell us about that. >> so that was a worry that the pork producers have. so these animals -- farmers care so very much to their animals. they have done everything in their entire lives to make sure these animals stay alive, stay productive, stay part of the solution. we as a farmer, our dream is to make sure that we put meat not only on your table, but on

america's table, and the world's table. and when it comes to those grave decisions, that is the conversation that that farmer and their vet have, what is the best solution for these animals and for my farm. and they need -- once they have to make that decision, that's when we need government to come in with dollars. we don't want that blood of those animals on the farm to also be in the blood of that farm, that farm going under. when the president came through i was so excited when he came through and did the defense production act. that gave those farmers hope that they again will be able to produce meat, going through the pork chain and we care about our employees. the people that we work with tremendously. we care about all of those things. gillian: so howard, you mentioned the defense production act. so president trump has now basically mandated that meat plants stay open even during the

pandemic which is good for business but rubs up against the issue that we're seeing, plants like the tyson plant in indiana where 900 employees have tested positive for coronavirus. how are farmers kind of balancing those public health concerns, the priorities of the employees against the need to keep on doing business? >> so we care about the people that we work with. all of them. the last thing we want is for them to get sick and we know just like on the farm what if someone gets sick, they go home. they're quarantined for 14 days. we want them to be healthy. but we need these open. when president trump declared the defense production act, it made sure that people like you are going to be able to choose pork chops in your grocery store. we needed that so desperately. now, we care about the processing plants, we care about

them, we care about their workers and they're doing everything they possibly can. i talked to many of them and they are taking temperatures, all the things they're doing, they're giving out bonuses for the people. if they have covid-19 u they're home. they're going home for 14 days. now, we want to make sure that those plants stay open, they want to make sure that their employees are healthy but we want to make sure that you are able to enjoy a pork chop today. gillian: all right. well, howard, we've got to leave it there. thanks for joining us and sharing your perspective. we appreciate it. >> thank you very much. we just need this help for the farmers. gillian: you bet. leland. leland: senior cdc official now says the u.s. missed some chances to slow the spread of the virus. steve harrigan live in atlanta with the very latest. there's questions about the cdc as well. hi, steve. >> reporter: leland, that's right. the cdc has sent out investigators across the country to meat packing plants, there

are real concerns about huge outbreaks among meat pro procesg workers at different plants. the cdc found more than 4,000 meat processing workers have been affected. an industry analyst says there's a potential threat to the nation's food supply. >> if we're going to do this job safely in this environment of the coronavirus environment, we have to slow production down. so yes, i believe there will be shortages, some spot shortages here or there. but give us the tools to do our job safely and we will produce the best quality meat products in the world right here and we'll do it. >> reporter: in addition the cdc is admitting mistakes have been made in the u.s. response to the coronavirus outbreak, that there was a slow response by the u.s. initially, particularly in february. two key mistakes cited by the deputy head, one, a lack of testing early on especially in

february, and also a lack of travel alerts especially from europe, more than 2 million people came to the u.s. from europe really speeding up the spread of the virus inside the u.s. finally, the fda has fast-tracked approval for remdesivir, this is an anti-viral drug that can speed up the healing time of someone with the virus. it can cut it from 11 to 15 days. but the drug is still not a knock-out drug, it has no effects on fatalities. leland, back to you. leland: and the search for that knock-out drug and a vaccine continues. thank you. gillian. gillian: new images reportedly show north korean leader kim jong un making his first public appearance in nearly three weeks. this according to north korea's state run media. so we've got to take it with a grain of salt. they are claiming he attended a ribbon cutting ceremony at a factory. ryan chillcot joins us from london with the details. ryan. >> reporter: hi, gillian. look, we can't verify that video

but it appears to be genuine and if it is genuine, obviously this would bring an end to the now three-week long conversation as to whether kim jong un is alive or not. that said, the video is speculating, is prompting a lot of speculation about kim jong un's health and exactly why he disappeared for so long in the first place. i have to say, if there was a place in time to appear, it was yesterday, may 1, labor day in north korea at that factory. kim jong un would normally every year be at some kind of labor event so if he wasn't there, that would have been an issue. two weeks ago alarm bells went off in capitols around the world when kim jong un didn't show up for an event commemorating his grandfather's birthday, an event that is bigger in the north korean political calendar. at first glance, he looks all right, aside from appearing to walk a little stiffly in some

places. observers are honeing in on a couple details, including the fact that he's driven around in a golf cart for part of the time. they reckon that's the same golf cart he used in 2014 when he resurfaced from another lengthy absence. also, when he's waving, you can see a mark below his right wrist. some doctors speculated that's from a medical procedure, perhaps even a puncture a doctor might have made to access his arteries while replacing a stent. that of course is all speculation. all we know for sure is that this is the first time we've seen him since he appeared at a meeting on april 11th, 20 days ago. his absence as you know from the public eye prompted a lot of speculation including that his sister may take over and that he's been incapacitated. it has been really an information void, just as recently as yesterday, there were unconfirmed reports that the government of north korea could come out to tell us that

he's dead. well, that is not the case. i think it goes to show how little people outside of north korea really know about what's going on inside the country. gillian: yeah, it's worth noting, ryan, that south korean media has said over the course of this week they were flagging that they believed there was going to be some kind of proof of life forth coming. if this is video is verifyable, this is what they've been flagging for us for a couple of days. ryan, thanks so much. leland: new information on the condition of a houston police officer injured in a helicopter crash when we come back. tv just keeps getting better.

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gillian: one police officer is now dead, another critically injured after their helicopter crashed into an apartment complex in houston, texas overnight. the helicopter was headed out to assist with ongoing search for bodies in a nearby bayou when the crash happened. the cause so far not known. it is under investigation and there were thankfully no reports of anyone on the ground nearby being injured. leland: elon musk tweeted up a storm yesterday on everything from tesla stock to selling his

house. i am selling almost all physical possessions, he wrote. will own no house. then, tesla's stock price is too high in my opinion, the market paid attention to that. the stock price of tesla crashed. and then he tweeted now give people their freedom back. as we noted, tesla stock took a dive after those tweets and news of continued furloughs. musk is no stranger to couldn't veecontroversial tweetses. at this point, the only point i would ever compare you to any other colleague to be on the anchor desk with, which is we need noted elon musk enthusiast kristin fisher to defend him while i rip on elon musk. gillian: i think when a company wants to send a message to shareholders that it is over-valued it would do so by presenting a set of facts, some

data, some risk analysis, some information about risk factors here. it's a little unusual that he's doing it i'm self in the -- himself in the way that he did it. leland: it is. gillian: i'm sorry, kristin. leland: that was a valiant attempt at an elon musk enthusiast impression. gillian: i'm trying to not go too hard on him so that kristin doesn't get upset with me. [ laughter ] leland: well, we'll see if she watching when we look at our twitter feed coming up. gillian: but it was strange. leland: it wouldn't be the first time for him. gillian: it was strange. leland: now this. scwhr go ahead. leland: governors are giving the green light for some businesses to reopen. not all business owners are on board. we'll speak with a panel of small business owners on their decision to open or not. - hey, can i... - safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!!

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leland: california governor gavin newsom ordered the beaches closed to keep people at home and a number of local lawmakers are fighting back including with lawsuits. christina coleman is live near one of the closed beaches. >> reporter: i'm at huntington beach where there's a small handful of people on the beach, all of them surfers. law enforcement was out here, reminding them the beach was closed. this looks much different than last wee weekend. between 2500 to 3,000 people protested in huntington beach against the governor's order to shut down orange county beaches yesterday, many wanting an ease on the state's stay at home order. we've been under a stay at home order in california since mid-march. city leaders in orange county and huntington beach filed injunctions against the governor's order, arguing the move is unconstitutional.

local lawmakers say although images appear to show crowded beaches in orange county last weekend during the heat wave, many people were still social distancing at the beach. here's the mayor of newport beach on fox last night. >> our police chief, our fire chief, our lifeguards, even our local sheriffs all said university ' universally -- universally the vast majority of people were families on the beach and were social distancing. there were some people who weren't, they talked to law enforcement, making sure they understood what social distancing really means. >> reporter: as for the legal fight to keep the beaches open, late yesterday a judge denied huntington beach's request for an injunction against the order, the call for the beach toss be closed in orange county came after an estimated 80,000 people showed up to orange county beaches last weekend. nearby la county beaches have

been closed. >> we can scroll that up, we can set it back by making bad decisions. when we see the images we saw last weekend, concentration of thousands of people, we could start to see a spread again. >> reporter: now, the orange county sheriff says his department will not be enforcing the order of the beach closures by arresting people. he says instead, they will be focusing on education and voluntary compliance. leland. leland: as we can see from behind you, a lot of people have voluntarily complied. christina, thanks so much. gillian. gillian: well, as more states lift lockdown restrictions, many businesses are taking advantage and moving full steam ahead in an attempt to get back to some semblance of normal. others, though, are choosing instead to stay shuttered for now. joining us now are two georgia business owners facing this choice to tell us how they're navigating amid all the uncertainty. we're joined by chef and former celebrity top chef judge, hugh

atchison. we are joined by the owner of salon gloss, tim timins. his hair salon has been running since last friday. hugh, tell us what went into your decision to stay closed for now. >> you know, we're a business of fine dining and first things first is it may not be the right time for fine dining. i'm a chef. my dad taught me you need to have demand and i don't think if reopened at half seating i would have much demand right now. not many people are going out for dinner many it's not economically viable. restaurants have thousands of points of contact that we need to really create plans with for -- to provide sanitation and i need to get a good, solid plan together to assure myself, my family, my staff, and my

customers that this is safe to do. gillian: do you have a sense yet, looking into the future, of when that might be for you? or is it -- you know, is it weeks? is it months? do you have a guess yet or not really? >> i'm hoping before ppp runs out because we're on the clock on the eight week clock for that which we successfully got but we're on the clock. georgia tested 1.5% of the population. we've got 26,661 cases. we've got 1153 deaths. and i just don't think we properly have the em pir call data -- empirical data to get the assurance to people. my restaurant is a fine dining restaurant, we appeal to a lot of people who have 65 and older. i want to make sure i'm not bringing them into a situation that would endanger them. gillian: so tim, i want to ask

you about -- you know, there's lots of americans who during this pandemic have been trying to make the case that hair salons constitute essential services, they want them to get back up and running. how did you come by the decision to reopen at the earliest possible opportunity and tell us about the challenges you're running into in doing that and then also trying to make sure your staff and all your customers are staying safe. >> well, my main priority was -- as everybody, we've been very affected and several of my staff just had no resources coming in, like many people. there was an issue with getting unemployment, took them about four weeks. we've been closed five. so they really just started getting it about a week and-a-half ago. i didn't get any of the ppp money at that point. so i was helping out where i could. it wasn't enough. and they didn't have essentials. they couldn't get food on their tables, they couldn't buy gas

for their cars. so my main priority was to try to help my staff get back to where they could get the essentials and it can be okay. we got together. we had a zoom meeting when we first heard and i asked everyone's input and everybody wanted to come to work. i made it clear that if we decided to do this, because i also had my own concern about coming back to work, i didn't want to expose my staff, myself, my family, our community. so we had a meeting and decided that if we were going to come back, we would have to be under strict measures which we have taken. and the phones just went crazy and we booked out for about three weeks. gillian: wow, well it's good to hear that you're having some success with it and that business is coming back. that's great news. hugh, i want to come back to you quickly on future plans. so presumably you're already starting to think and strategize

about the health measures you'll have to put in place once you do open. what's the latest thinking on that? like what are restaurants going to have to do in this new age? >> i think a hair salon can operate safely right now. tim's going to be having one customer at a time. they've got the ability to space out properly. we have to come up with a plan on how reservations are taken, where people are sitting, how many people we can sit at a table, how does the food come out. we do six, seven course meals. so does the food all come out at once now because i don't want my waiters and buzzers and service staff to have to approach the table every five minutes and talk. in hong kong, they're making you sign a waiver when you come into the restaurant saying you haven't traveled recently or haven't come into contact with somebody that has, it's basically a liability waiver. it's not just about my risk toll tolerance, it's not about

anybody's risk tolerance to get back open as a business person. we all want to do our businesses, we want to be serving our customers. but at this point in time, it's like if you do this, are you endangering others. so it comes down to this whittled down, simple, simple idea, do i care for fellow humans? yes, i do. so i don't know when we're going to get reopened -- gillian: we're presuming we saul care about fellow humans, it's a question of what extra precautions one industry has to take versus another. gentlemen, we've got to leave it there, unfortunately. thank you so much for sharing your stories with us, really illuminating. we hope to circle back with you in the future and best of luck. >> thank you. >> thanks, gillian. leland: we'll take you around the country as the blue angels and thunderbirds perform together in a rare show, we'll tell you why when we come back.

gillian: the blue angels and thunderbirds are performing aerial demonstrations today in

honor of first responders and their families. they're flying over washington, d.c., baltimore, maryland and atlanta, georgia. lucas tomlinson joins us from the pentagon with what is going down. it looks beautiful so far, lucas. >> reporter: it was, gillian. good afternoon. i stepped outside the pentagon to see the show and it was very impressive. today's three city flyovers now complete but other tributes are scheduled in the days ahead. the cities to be determined. fox news caught up with one nurse outside the nation's capital after the show. >> it was emotional. but it was all good. now we know we're honored and i appreciate it, what we do, every day especially during this period of pandemic. i was wowed, like all this for us, so we appreciate it. >> reporter: the flights a salute to the first responders, the heros on the frontlines

against the coronavirus. the flight demonstration teams are performing combat maneuvers and formation flying, not just incredible stunts, a normal air show is lower and louder normally. earlier this week the jets flew over new york city, the virus forced the blues and thunderbirds to cancel over a dozen shows this spring but they still train. the u.s. military is used to being called heroes in battle. now they're saying thank you, one veteran now a doctor, showed her appreciation. >> well, since i am a veteran myself, to me it is just amazing. i'm very grateful for my colleagues in green, well, navy, so i guess blue, but i'm very grateful that they are taking time out of their busy lives to come and show us some appreciation. >> reporter: earlier this week, about 8600 miles away, the air force launched another flyover, this one meant to sent a different message, directed at china and north korea, b-1

bombers from south dakota flew over 30 hours to the south china sea, a second flight landed on the island of guam on friday, along with 200 airmen to carry out more operations, they flew from texas. a pair of u.s. war ships cruised by contested islands in the south china sea which drew the ire of beijing. gillian. gillian: lucas, thanks for that. thanks for walking us through the sights and sounds today. we appreciate it. leland. leland: a little more on the thunderbirds and blue angels fly over, light colonel -- lieutenant colonel noel collins. good to see you, sir. we 'appreciate it. any idea how the idea for this start? >> it initially developed -- we saw the hard work that the first responders and providers were doing in las vegas, our hometown. we thought what small thing can we do to provide support and let

them know we appreciate the work they're doing. that flyover went very well. we decided to work with the blue angels, come to pensacola to their home station and we put together the idea for these flyovers, just to really salute all the healthcare and first responders all over the country. leland: air shows aren't happening and we're coming up to air show season. so is this in lieu of, essentially, to still be able to spread the message? >> currently, yeah, this is -- like you said, the air shows, most have been canceled. it has yet to be seen as to how much of the season is going to be canceled. but especially with the coronavirus, the way it's making its way across the country, the small thing we could do to fly over and show our support to first responders, this is -- you put it well. this is in lieu of us doing shows at the moment. leland: it's interesting, you have the responsibilities in terms of being there to do the pr side and the medical side but also to look after these guys and keep them healthy and safe

from a flying standpoint. how is the coronavirus changing what you are doing inside the unit that typically has so much of the public interaction as part of what you do every day. >> good question. so i do help with the coronavirus response in my unit and for the medical group back at home. obviously, our shows have been canceled, the season has been severely restricted but just within the squadron we have to follow the same social distancing guidelines, wear a mask when we're able to do that. it definitely took some reworking of our daily habits, to fall in line with all the required -- the required protection. leland: i'm thinking about in terms of the flyovers, the ones that happened obviously out in las vegas, your home base and now we've had new york and philadelphia, now we have d.c., baltimore and atlanta. is it basically somewhere you can get to within one flight from pensacola so you don't have to move ground crews around.

>> the reason we came out here initially is to do the joint training with the blue angels. we were able to fly together. flying those two deltas is harder than it looks. it looks pretty hard from the ground. by themselves the jets are pretty nimble. when you put six of them together it's like flying a giant ocean liner, something like that. it doesn't respond, it doesn't move very quickly or nimbly. so when you put two deltas together like that it's more so. it's good we got to come out and practice with them and just get this routine nailed down safe and professionally. so that was a big reason for us to come out here. leland: interestingly enough, as i watched it, you guys are flying, what, about 10 feet apart at times? >> the jets themselves within formation, you can get down 18 inches apart. leland: that's pretty close. as it relates -- sometimes when you see this video, there's also like the six and six and then there's one jet off to the side. what's that guy doing?

>> that's our photo chase and safety observer so it's usually a two-seater. there's a pilot, he's calling out any potential hazards that may pop up. and then there's often a photographer in the back to get the shots. leland: all right. well, lieutenant colonel, we appreciate you joining us, sir. thanks so much. i had the opportunity to fly with you guys once. it was quite the thrill. look forward to seeing you on the air show circuit coming up. >> good deal. thank you for having me. leland: all the best. gillian. gillian: some major parts of the country are going to see warmer than normal temperatures this weekend. we've got a full forecast for you coming up after the break. ♪ it's velveeta shells & cheese

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gillian: the weekend's bringing in some warmer temperatures longed for in many parts of the country but not everyone unfortunately is going to stay dry. meteorologist adam klotz joins us with today's look ahead. adam. >> hey, there, gillian. not everybody stays dry but for the most part brought full we -- beautiful weather across the country here on this saturday. look at some heavy rain moving across portions of me brass cay and eye -- nebraska and iowa.

you see heavy rain running into oregon and washington, higher elevations, maybe a little bit of snow. some of these temperatures feeling fantastic. 75 degrees currently in chicago, 71 degrees in new york, 80 degrees in kansas city. there's some spots across -- temperatures over the next three days, anywhere from 10 to 20 degrees above average in some locations, getting up into triple digits in the heart of texas, stretching to phoenix, this is above average, getting close to 100 degrees. they were up to 105 a couple days ago. so that is slightly cooler. we're looking at a relatively nice forecast for sunday. sunday looking very comfortable, a lot of spots in the 70s. gillian, as you said, a couple spots are looking at rain but all in all this is a very pleasant looking weekend across the country. gillian: we appreciate some good news on a weekend when

mostly we're still covering the coronavirus pandemic. adam, thanks so much for that. leland: almost feels like it should be the kentucky derby, doesn't it? but it should feel like it's the kentucky derby because it is this weekend or should have been this weekend. we're going to tell you how the derby is going all digital when we come back. hey, can i... hold on one second... sure. okay... okay! safe drivers save 40%!!! guys! guys! check it out. safe drivers save 40%!!! safe drivers save 40%! safe drivers save 40%!!! that's safe drivers save 40%. it is, that's safe drivers save 40%. - he's right there. - it's him! he's here. he's right here. - hi! - hi. hey! - that's totally him. - it's him! that's totally the guy. safe drivers do save 40%. click or call for a quote today.

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first saturday in may and filled , in kentucky but the race is moved on due to coronavirus. today's triple showdown will feature digital versions of triple-crown winners. the actual derby is scheduled to take place on september 5th, i just hope we can have real mid julips rather than mid-may julips. gillian: you can still do all of those things. leland: we might see a few of those hats. 18,000 barbecue sandwiches and 300,000 strawberries go into andy kentucky derby. things in louisville will be a little bit different but hopefully they all come back

well and good in september. gillian: i will never say i never learned something from you, leland. leland: good way to end the show. eric and arthel will have a lot more news from new york. see you tomorrow. arthel: more states are easing or lifts coronavirus restrictions amid a growing shutdown from coast to cost to return to normalcy this in the phase of caution by experts and as we see the staggering toll of the pandemic, the number of coronavirus cases in the u.s. now more than 1.1 million, hundred thousand, i said that wrong but you get the point. 1.1 million and the death toll now topping 65,000 sad to say. hello, everyone, i'm arthel neville, welcome to america's news headquarters. hi, eric. eric: hi, arthel, hello, thank you for joining us on this saturday. i'm eric sean. you know n