♪ reopening is about to begin in states like new york and california, even as the number of deaths from coronavirus in the u.s. approaches a grim milestone. welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "early start." i'm christine romans. >> and i'm laura jarrett. it's wednesday, may 26th. it's 5:00 a.m. in new york. and this morning, with america about to reach 100,000 deaths from coronavirus, plans are well under way to reopen at varying speeds all across the country. 14 states now are still seeing a 10% or more increase in new confirmed covid-19 cases over last week, while 17 states are

holding steady and 19 are now seeing declining numbers. new york's long island is set to start to reopen tomorrow. statewide, new york reported 73 deaths yesterday, still too many, but it's the third day in a row the death toll stayed under 100. meanwhile, in most of california, barbers and hairstylists will be able to reopen their shops under strict, new safety guidelines. cnn's dan simon has more now from san francisco. >> reporter: laura and christine, california clearly moving into the next phase of its recovery. governor newsom saying that hair salons and barbershops can now reopen in most of the state's 58 counties, but there is one notable exception, los angeles county. but l.a. getting the green light to reopen its retail stores where people can actually go inside the stores and do some shopping, as well as churches and other places of worship. they can also reopen. it comes as other states continue to push to reopen their economies. if you look at hawaii, the mayor of honolulu saying he also wants

hair salons and barbershops to reopen beginning on friday. he also wants to open up movie theaters and museums later in the month, june 19th, but he would need the governor's permission to do both. and in delaware, outdoor gatherings of up to 250 people will be allowed beginning on june 1st. that means you'll be having summer weddings and graduation ceremonies taking place outdoors, but people will still be required to wear masks. laura and christine, back to you. >> all right, dan. thank you for that. more than 62,000 health care professionals have been infected with coronavirus. the cdc says at least 291 have died. but the agency admits, that number is likely lower than the actual count, since oftentimes, case reports do not include the patient's occupation. health care workers around the country still say, still say there's a shortage of protective equipment. yeah, christine. the cdc also confirms antibody tests are wrong up to 50% of the time. remember, those are the tests that look for evidence of an

immune response to an infection. the agency now warns the tests are too inaccurate to use for making important policy decisions and is telling health care providers to find the most accurate antibody tests available and to consider testing each patient twice. all right, merck has entered the coronavirus vaccine race. the pharmaceutical giant is working on two covid-19 vaccines and an experimental antiviral compound that is in early clinical trials. here's senior medical correspondent elizabeth cohen. >> reporter: pharmaceutical giant merck announced that they are developing two vaccines against covid-19. now, they're joining a large group. there are more than 100 vaccine teams that are in preclinical stages, meaning they're developing the vaccine or looking at it in animals, and merck joins this group. however, merck is a leader in vaccines, and many experts are interested to see what they come up with. now, there are ten teams that have developed their vaccines, and they're in human clinical trials. they're actually trying them out in people to make sure they're

safe and to make sure that they elicit an immune response. they expect this summer to start large-scale clinical trials, involving thousands or tens of thousands of people. merck is not at that stage yet and linge won't be this summer, so that means they're behind those ten other teams. that doesn't mean that their vaccine won't be approved and won't be marketed. likely, we'll have several vaccines on the market, all coming on the market perhaps at different times. we need several because no one company has the capacity to manufacture for the entire world. also, some vaccines may work out better for different groups, like, let's say the elderly or children. so, this is a marathon, not a sprint. several of those ten teams have said that they're prepared to start large-scale clinical trials this summer, meaning in thousands of people or even in tens of thousands of people. that means that merck is behind these teams. they're not at that stage yet. but that doesn't mean that their vaccine won't turn out to be approved and to work and to be safe and effective.

we just don't know whose vaccine is going to turn out to work in this race. one thing that we do know, it is a marathon, it is not a sprint, and we need several vaccines. no one manufacturer can create vaccine for the entire world. also, it may turn out that several vaccines are different for different groups. one might be better for children and one better for older people. and that's why we have so many teams in the race to provide a covid-19 vaccine. laura, christine? >> all right, elizabeth cohen. thank you so much for that. the governor of virginia is rolling out a statewide mandate for wearing masks during the pandemic. we have reporters covering all the new developments across the country. >> reporter: i'm brian todd in washington. virginia governor ralph northam says his state's washington suburbs in the north are going to start phase one of their reopening later this week, but he also says the entire state is going to be under some strict new rules regarding face mask wearing. governor northam says anyone over 10 years old is going to be required to wear a face mask

when they're inside an indoor public space. people who are eating and drinking are going to be exempt from that rule. governor northam also says that people riding public transportation are going to have to wear face masks. virginia's northern suburbs are starting their reopening about two weeks after the rest of the state did. >> reporter: i'm nick watt in los angeles, where the county has just announced that they are going to appoint an independent inspector general to oversee the more than 300 nursing homes in this county during this covid crisis. the remit -- prevent any unnecessary deaths, like elsewhere in the country. nursing homes here have been very hard hit. more than half the deaths in l.a. county, more than 1,000 connected to those nursing homes. the supervisor calls it a pandemic within a pandemic. >> reporter: i'm bianna golodryga in new york. the university of colorado at boulder announced plans tuesday for its fall semester, and they include welcoming students back

for in-person classes and on-campus housing august 24th. and n what's being described as a science-based, yet flexible model, the intent is to create as normal of a college-like environment for students. everyone on campus will be required to wear masks and go through mandatory safety training. classes will be smaller and students who live on campus will be grouped into teams that will socialize, live, and go to class together. the plan is expected to be in place through thanksgiving, after which students will move to online learning and not return to campus for the remainder of the semester. >> reporter: i'm pete month teen in washington. more people are flying on commercial airlines, thanks in part to the long holiday weekend. the transportation security administration says it screened 1.5 million people between thursday and monday. they say the highest traffic was on friday. the tsa screening almost 350,000 passengers at america's airports. even still, that is only about

12% of the norm but is a welcome sign for the airline industry struggling in this pandemic. >> all right, thanks to our correspondents for those reports. the "sesame street" crew will return to cnn for a second town hall on coronavirus and staying safe this summer. "the abcs of covid-19" airs saturday morning at 10:00 a.m. eastern here on cnn. >> that first one was so fun! i can't wait to watch the second one. my kids loved it. all right, as businesses slowly start to reopen, white house economic adviser larry kudlow says the trump administration is open to a get back to work bonus in the next stimulus package. >> it may well be, it's something we're looking at very carefully. senator portman has a good idea. he understands incentives and disincentives. the trouble with the $600 plus-up -- and maybe we needed it in that emergency period -- but frankly, it's a major disincentive to go back to work, and we don't want that. we want people to go back to

work. >> a lot of talk about incentives to get people back to work. senator rob portman's plan would give unemployed workers an extra $450 a week in addition to wages, if they go back to work. the temporary aid would be in place of that, an extension of those enhanced jobless benefits. anybody out of work right now is getting an extra $600 a week. republicans say that's a disincentive. but democrats are still pushing for the extra 600 bucks a week on top of their state unemployment benefits. kudlow thinks that extra $600 a week will go away in the next bill. he later reiterated that the president is very keen on a payroll tax cut for workers. well, president trump looks determined to turn masks into a political weapon, despite the advice from virtually every doctor. you're going to hear from him and his opponent, former vice president joe biden, next. ♪ hey allergy muddlers... achoo! ...do your sneezes turn heads? try zyrtec... ...it starts working hard at hour one... and works twice as hard when you take it again the next day.

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flashpoint. he won't wear one in public, and now he is mocking his democratic rival, joe biden, for doing just that. the former vice president was asked about it when he sat down with our dana bash. >> reporter: you mentioned the mask, that you wore a mask yesterday. president trump went to a memorial day service. he did not wear a mask. it's not just some people making fun of you. he did. >> yeah. >> he did on twitter. he retweeted a photo of you wearing it. he's trying to belittle you for wearing a mask. making it seem like it's a sign of weakness. is it? >> he's a fool. an absolute fool to talk that way. i mean, every leading doc in the world is saying we should wear a mask when you're in a crowd. and especially when you know you're going to be in a position where you're going to inadvertently get closer than 12 feet to somebody. i know we're 12 feet apart. i get that. but it just, absolutely -- this macho stuff, for a guy -- i

shouldn't get going, but it just is -- it's cost people's lives. it's costing people's lives. and like i said, we're almost 100,000 dead today. 100,000 people. columbia study's showing that we could have -- if you had just started a week earlier, it would have saved thousands of lives. i mean, this is a tragedy. >> reporter: but wearing a mask has become a cultural and political flashpoint, and the president is involved in that, even stoking that. >> sure, he is. and he's stoking deaths. that's not going to increase the likelihood that people are going to be better off. >> so, do you think wearing a mask projects strength or weakness? >> leadership. what it presents and projects is leadership. presidents are supposed to lead, not engage in folly and be falsely masculine. it reminds me of the guys that i grew up with playing ball. they'd walk around with a ball in their hand, but they didn't like to hit very much. >> so, when called out for making fun of the former vice

president on memorial day, president trump deflected. >> biden can wear a mask, but he was standing outside with his wife, perfect conditions, perfect weather. they're inside, they don't wear masks. and so, i thought it was very unusual that he had one on. but i thought that was fine. i wasn't criticizing him at all. why would i ever do a thing like that? >> for more on the politics of mask-wearing, here's cnn white house correspondent kaitlan collins now. >> reporter: yeah, laura and christine, you saw the president say that he did not believe that he was mocking joe biden by retweeting that tweet of biden wearing a mask the day before memorial day, though he did say that he thought it was hypocritical for biden to be wearing a mask in public when he doesn't wear one inside his home that he shares with his wife, jill biden, even though we should note that cdc guidance that the federal government put out says you should be wearing a mask when you're in public. of course, it's just guidance. it's not a requirement. and the president himself has not followed that guidance, saying he didn't want to give

the press the justification of seeing him wearing a mask in public. and that day he also defended his tweets about joe scarborough, something that a widow of an aide that the president has now been raising her death and implying inaccurately and without any evidence that joe scarborough was involved. her widower asked twitter to remove the president's tweets, saying they violated the terms of service. you later saw twitter refuse, but something they did do later in the day was mark one of the president's tweets for the first time as inaccurate. this is a tweet the president sent about mail-in voting. as you've seen the conversations happening with state officials about really what elections will look like in the age of coronavirus, and it said, twitter said that, basically, the president did not get all the facts right in his tweets, by saying that these votes can be subject to massive fraud. and so, they marked them with a thing, basically asking users to get more information about what the president was tweeting about. he later pushed back on that in saying that he believed it was unfair criticism of what he had

been tweeting. laura and christine? >> all right. thanks for that. in all the back-and-forth and noise over masks, one republican governor and a doctor who used to head the cdc perhaps summed it up best. >> the instruction is as old as the bible, you know? you're supposed to love your fellow man and woman, and that's what we're really doing. and i think that's the message, that you're not wearing it so much for yourself as you are wearing it for that person that you're going to come in contact with. >> you should wear a mask to protect others, that that's a good thing to do, that that's an american thing to do, that that's what we do to protect the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. and it should make you feel good that you're doing this for the others in your community. >> you know, it's so interesting. you hear so many people talk about liberty and don't tell me what to do, but with liberty and democracy comes responsibility, right? >> and shared responsibility. >> right. and that's what that is.

we only have one tool right now. we don't have a vaccine. we don't have accurate testing and tracing, right? the only tool we have is our own behavior, and that is wearing a mask. >> absolutely. all right, 19 minutes past the hour. calls for justice overnight in minneapolis. protests over the death of an unarmed black man at the hands of police, next.

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this morning, new surveillance video shows what happens in the moments before george floyd encountered police on the street in minneapolis and later died after an officer kneeled on his neck. security video from a restaurant shows the officers approaching floyd's vehicle and then

detaining him. what the video apparently does not show is floyd resisting arrest. that's something police have claimed he did. last night, hundreds of protesters gathered outside the restaurant, clashing with police. some windows were smashed there. police at one point used tear gas on the crowd. four police officers have been fired for their involvement in george floyd's death, which originally came to light when cell phone video showed him being held down, as we mentioned, by one of the officers' knee while floyd said he could not breathe. cnn's omar jimenez has more from minneapolis. >> reporter: christine, laura, the video is difficult to watch. to begin with, let's start with what led to all of this. police had gotten a call about a potential counterfeit or forgery situation at a nearby business here. and when they got here, they say they found a man that seemed to match the description of a suspect that was given. now, when they got to this man, they say he was inside his car already and it was a physical resistance to the arrest that

led to the entanglement that we at least saw the latter portion of play out on video. we know that man's name is george floyd. you see him, again, in this harrowing video, pinned down to the ground with an officer's knee on the back of his neck, and you can hear him repeatedly saying "i can't breathe," until eventually, his voice begins to trail off. bystanders are asking officers to at least check for a pulse. and by the time paramedics actually got there, floyd's body seems to be completely limp. now, as for what happened in the immediate aftermath of that, you can see that protesters came out in support of floyd's life, but also against what happened. the four officers involved were fired by the police department, and now the fbi confirms they are investigating along with state and local officials. christine, laura? >> the family of george floyd talked to cnn's don lemon just a few hours ago about the fired police officers.

>> firing them is a good start, but we want to see justice for our family. we want to see them charged with murder. >> murder. >> and we want them to be convicted. we want them arrested. they need to pay for what they did. he didn't deserve what happened to him. while he was begging for his life, not one of them tried to do anything to help him. that i didn't see. what i did see was murder. >> floyd's two brothers held up his picture and spoke of a man who didn't hurt anybody. meanwhile, in new york, a white woman who called the police on a black man bird watching in central park has been fired from her job. the man named christian cooper, recorded part of the conflict which all started when he asked her to follow park rules and leash her dog. >> there is an african-american man. i am in central park.

he is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. >> after his video went viral monday, the woman, amy cooper, publicly apologized saying "i am not a racist. i did not mean to harm that man or the african-american community. on tuesday, her employer announced it had fired her because, quote, it does not tolerate racism of any kind. last night, christian cooper told cnn he accepted her apology as sincere but still questioned her actions. >> i'm not sure if in that apology she recognizes that while she may not be or consider herself a racist, that particular act was definitely racist. she was looking for some way to get an edge in the situation, and that's where she went, and that ultimately did not help her. so, you know, is she a racist? i can't answer that. only she can answer that. >> christian cooper says that as long as she keeps her dog on a leash in that part of the park,

they will have no issues with each other. "early start" continues right now. ♪ as some states move forward with reopening, others are still seeing spikes in coronavirus cases. good morning. this is "early start." i'm laura jarrett. >> and i'm christine romans. it's 28 minutes past the hour. the u.s. is about to reach a painful, grim milestone, 100,000 deaths from coronavirus. but all across the country, states are starting to reopen, some faster, some more deliberately. in 14 states, the number of new cases is growing over last week by 10% or more, 14 states. 17 states are holding steady. and 19 states now have declining numbers. one of three states where the caseload growth is above 50% is arkansas. cnn's ed lavandera is there. >> reporter: christine and laura, the state of arkansas has reported nearly 6,200 cases of

coronavirus since this pandemic started. nearly 1,100 of those cases have been reported in just the last six days. and that is why governor asa hutchinson is saying that not only is this a second peak, but it could be the signs of a higher peak that is looming. stand-alone bars across the state were allowed to reopen in a limited capacity on tuesday, and the governor here says that state officials don't want to take a heavy-handed approach in enforcing strict social guidelines in the wearing of masks. they say it is incumbent upon residents across the state to take this threat seriously and to alter their behavior. >> the direction that we go from here totally depends upon the discipline and the commitment of the people of arkansas to avoid circumstances in which they will contribute to the spread. >> reporter: this is proving to be a very difficult sell for the governor here in this state. we have seen very few people wearing masks out and about here in little rock and in other

parts of the state, but the governor does say that one of the silver linings they're seeing is that, so far, the positive infection rate and the hospitalization rates after all these coronavirus tests remain relatively low. christine and laura? >> all right, ed lavandera, thanks so much. new guidance this morning from the cdc for staying safe while using public transit. the agency recommends you limit touching surfaces like turnstiles and ticket machines and travel during nonpeak hours. also avoid crowded spaces. skip a row of seats between yourself and other passengers, if you can, and enter and exit buses through rear entry doors. mexico's government moving forward with plans of a phased reopening of its economy. it comes as health officials report a record daily spike in coronavirus cases and deaths in that country. cnn's matt rivers is in mexico city with the latest. >> reporter: christine and laura, we are without question in the worst days of the outbreak in mexico, and the new data coming from the mexican

government only proves that point. it was tuesday evening that mexican health officials announced the largest single-day increases in both newly confirmed cases and newly confirmed deaths. health officials announcing nearly 3,500 new cases as well as an additional 501 deaths. and to put that into context for you, that means that mexico has recorded about half of the total deaths that it is attributing to this outbreak in just the last 13 days. meanwhile, i had a conversation with a world health organization official who says that latin america is swiftly becoming, if it isn't already, the next global epicenter for this outbreak. and given what we have been seeing as of late in mexico, given what we've been seeing in peru, given what we've been seeing in brazil, the worst-hit country in latin america, given all those countries and all those spikes in cases and the spikes in deaths, it's not hard to see exactly what that world health organization official was talking about. christine, laura? >> all right, matt rivers. thanks for that. hertz paid out millions of

dollars in bonuses to its executives just days before it filed for bankruptcy and a month after it started laying off thousands of workers. the rental car company paid $16.2 million to top executives on may 19th. it filed for bankruptcy three days later. jcpenney also paid $1 million bonuses to its top four executives before filing for bankruptcy, including a $4.5 million bonus to its ceo. both companies said the big pay days are designed to keep top talent aboard. retention bonuses are typical when you go through bankruptcy, but the optics just not good right now, especially during the coronavirus recession. hertz has laid off nearly half of its staff since april 14th and more losses are probably coming. hertz said last week it plans to close an undisclosed number of locations away from airports. the national hockey league is unveiling its plans for a return to the ice. andy scholes has more in this morning's "bleacher report." hi, andy. >> good morning, laura. you know, there's still a lot of details to be worked out, but

one thing is for sure, we are going to have hockey this summer. so, nhl commissioner gary bettman outlined the return-to-play plan yesterday. he says the regular season is over. 24 of the 31 teams will return to the ice and go straight to the stanley cup playoffs. bettman did not say when the games will begin, but he did announce that the earliest training camps would open would be july 1st. the plan is to host games in two yet-to-be-named club cities without fans in the stands. >> as we see some return to normalcy, this is an important day, particularly for nhl fans. i know i join sports fans everywhere when we say we cannot wait for our players to hit the ice again. all right, so, the nhl now has a plan. as for the nfl, the plan has never changed. miami dolphins owner stephen ross believes the season will start on time.

>> i think it's definitely going to be a football season this year. the real question is, will there be fans in the stands? i think right now, today, we're planning on having fans in the stands, but i think the nfl is looking at and is very flexible so that we will be able to start on time and really, you know, bring that entertainment that's really so needed to all of us in this country. as for the nba, there are still a number of ideas on the table, including a world cup-style playoff. according to multiple reports, the idea was sent to general managers around the league for feedback. here's how it would look. based on records, the top 20 teams would be put in five tiers and then divided up evenly into groups. the teams would then play each other twice, then the top two teams in each group would advance to an eight-team second round of the playoffs where they would then start playing the typical best-of-seven-game series. i'll tell you what, laura, i'm

in for it, you know? these are different times, so why not have a completely different format and try it out for a year? who knows it might be a success and something they do going forward. >> i think fans would be into it. anything to have sports back this summer, i think folks will take it. >> yeah. >> all right. thanks so much, andy. >> that's for sure. >> good to see you. all right, new protests just moments ago breaking out in hong kong, where insulting china's national anthem could soon become a criminal offense. we'll go to our cnn crew right there in the thick of it, next. who has time for wrinkles? neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair®. we've got the retinol that gives you results in one week. not just any retinol. accelerated retinol sa. one week is all it takes. neutrogena®.

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welcome back. a national anthem bill is sparking new protests in hong kong. the controversial legislation would make insulting china's national anthem a criminal offense. let's go live to cnn's anna coren in hong kong. what are you seeing there on the ground, anna? >> reporter: well, laura, we've been covering the protests all day. it started outside the legislative council building and then moved across the city. but protesters really never had a chance to gain the traction and momentum that we saw last year. police have showed zero tolerance, shutting down any idea of a protest. people chanting slogans, somebody playing the "glory to hong kong" anthem. police are racing in and detaining them. and to date, they've arrested over 300 people. we're in one of the busiest shopping districts here in hong

kong, and we were filming as one of the people were being arrested, and we got hit with pepper spray. our crew did. it was an awful sensation of being caught up in tear gas, but this was quite painful. but this is something that protesters have been hit with all day. as i said, police showing zero tolerance to any sort of demonstration. you talk about that national anthem bill. that is being debated and it will be a crime to mock or insult the national anthem. but the bigger issue here, why people are taking to the streets, is because of that national security law that will ban subversion, sedition, foreign interference. that's what people are worried about, that this is the end of one country, two systems here in hong kong. people have always been able to express themselves, to demonstrate freely. now that is not being tolerated at all. people are being arrested for

unlawful assembly. and speaking to joshua wong, a high-profile activist here in hong kong, he said that hong kong is now turning into a police state, laura. >> all right, anna. stay safe. thank you for being there for us. we'll talk to you soon. all right, german chancellor angela merkel is facing a backlash after extending social distancing measures through the end of june. bus drivers are particularly upset about eu travel restrictions. they say it's killing the tour bus industry and hundreds of thousands of jobs are on the line. let's go live to berlin and bring in frederik pleitgen, where those bus drivers are clearly signaling their unhappiness. [ honking ] >> reporter: definitely, christine. genuinely signaling their unhappiness, and i'm also noticing just how loud they are. there are about 600 buses protesting here in berlin, part of a nationwide protest here in germany, as we can really see, christine, that angela merkel right now is almost a victim of

her own success. one of the things that we've been talking about in the past is that germany has been very successful at fighting the coronavirus. obviously, the death toll here in this country's still very low. and now there's been industries that are saying, it's time to bring business back because business is on the brink of collapsing completely. the tour bus industry, and really, the entire european travel industry, is obviously in a lot of problems. they're saying that for tour bus operators alone, about 220,000 jobs are on the line. of course, many, many more in all of europe, and they say that the borders here in europe need to open very quickly and they need to be able to do their tours again. one of the interesting things, christine, is that angela merkel's cabinet was supposed to decide today whether or not borders for germany could be opened around june 15th. it's not clear whether or not that decision is actually going to be made, as some of that unity that you've seen within the german government seems to be crumbling a little bit. there are some german states that say they want to open more quickly to allow more businesses to come back to life.

there's other german states that do still have a lot of coronavirus cases that are saying we need to do this a lot more slowly. so, certainly some political backlash for angela merkel. difficult situation for her. and as you can see from the angry tour bus operators as well, christine. >> fascinating. all right, fred. fred, you get the award for poise under honking. that was very well done. thank you. all right, renowned tenor andrea bocelli announcing he was diagnosed with coronavirus but has made a swift and full recovery. ♪ >> bocelli says in a facebook post he and members of his family contracted covid-19 earlier this year and recovered fully by the end of march. he has donated blood to help researchers found a cure for covid. his sunday music concert has had 40 million views to date on youtube. wow, that voice.

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latin america now surpassing the u.s. and europe in the daily number of reported covid-19 infections. global health officials say the americas have become the epicenter of the covid pandemic. and they're especially worried about brazil, where the number of new cases keeps climbing. cnn's nick paton walsh has the latest from rio de janeiro. >> reporter: laura, christine, copacabana beach in rio de janeiro, you would normally expect to see the sands over here significantly more packed than they are, but people are still running up and down the concourses here.

there is a mandatory face mask order. i think about two-thirds of the people are strictly obeying that. there is more activity in the shops here. and this is one of the worst impacted cities in brazil, as the numbers begin to climb. 4,000 dead here. 40,000 cases here. and brazil's case is now 374,000. but that isn't the whole picture because they're simply not testing as much like the country of the united states. here, rio, though, is involved too in the political turmoil. the governor here, wilson witsell, one of his premises was searched by federal police, saying he was potentially involved in corruption to do with the allocation of field hospital contracts to fight the coronavirus. he's not named in the probe, but his advocate said this is all part of the political sparring between those like the governors of sao paulo, rio de janeiro and they are advocating lockdown measures, face masks, digging graves and the president jair

bolsonaro who called this a flu, is focused solely on boosting the economy and is deeply dismissive of the measures taken by some of his opponents on a local level. but the peak here is potentially a week to two weeks away. and in rio, i have to say, there are signs of change in life, but it's still fairly busy here on the seafront. laura, christine? >> nick, thank you for that. let's check on cnn business this wednesday morning, taking a look at markets around the world. mixed, although you can see gains again this morning in european shares. and on wall street, there's some optimism here, comments from jpmorgan's jamie dimon, saying there are good odds for a quick recovery this year. futures are up sharply again this morning after a big day yesterday. look, against the backdrop of trillions of dollars in stimulus, stocks rallied, boosted by optimism about the reopening of the economy and coronavirus vaccine developments. the dow closed up 530 points, the s&p 500, nasdaq also finished higher. look at this. the nasdaq is now up for the year, up 4%. and take a look at the so-called

f.a.n.g. stocks -- facebook, amazon, apple, netflix, and google. great performances there. deep-pocketed tech companies are thriving in what is otherwise a coronavirus recession. uber and lyft drivers are suing new york state for unemployment benefits they say they're owed. drivers claim the state has refused to pay or delayed the payment of unemployment benefits for two months. drivers for rideshare apps are considered employees as opposed to independent contractors. independent contractors have to prove their earnings and employment status. some drivers claim they were told they would receive no benefits, even though they submitted their earnings to the department of labor. a spokesman for governor andrew cuomo says the administration's working to make sure it has the necessary information to get those benefits as quickly as possible. apple is reopening 100 more stores in the u.s. this week, but customers won't be able to goal goe inside of them just yet. most of the stores will only offer curbside or storefront services. around 40 stores will allow

walk-in customers. apple will require temperature checks and masks for employees and customers, and even as some tech companies are telling employees they'll be able to work from home for the long run, google does plan to reopen some of its offices in july. google did not specify which offices will be reopened but said each will be limited to about 10% capacity at first with plans to grow by 30% by september. but laura, so many companies are saying, hey, if you want to work from home and it's working, we can reorder the workplace to allow that. >> yeah, some permanently, right? >> yep. >> all right, christine. it's all systems go for the spacex crew dragon. the historic flight launches later this afternoon from the kennedy space center in florida, and it will mark the first time, the first time a commercial company has carried humans into orbit. spacex is sending two nasa astronauts on a mission to the international space station. it will also be the first manned space flight in the u.s. in nearly a decade since the space

shuttle program ended in 2011. we wish them the best. very cool! >> it is cool and it's exciting to see the space race happening here, you know? very cool. >> definitely. all right, thank you for joining us, everybody. i'm christine romans. >> i'm laura jarrett. "new day" is next. yes. the first word to any adventure. but when allergies and congestion strike, take allegra-d... a non-drowsy antihistamine plus a powerful decongestant. so you can always say "yes" to putting your true colors on display. say "yes" to allegra-d.

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the best seat in the house." the trajectory of what's going to happen with, as i mentioned each state, is really very much in the hands of the people in those states. >> please wear the masks. the masks are absolutely critical. >> the cdc is saying that those

antibody tests are wrong maybe half of the time. >> we still have a long way of going to get to where we need to be. the man in the video pleading for his life. >> this was not a sudden mistake or a procedure gone bad. this was over a period of time. >> can no longer just stand idly by and think it's going to go away because it's not. >> announcer: this is "new welcome our viewers in the united states and around the world. this is "new day." it is wednesday, may 27th, 6:00 here in new york. i'm told it's a foggy sunrise and the skyline is shrouded in fog. look at that, john. >> wow. wow. i think there's something mystical about to happen today, as i gaze into your eyes and the fog -- look at that. the fog