• With Alabama's coronavirus caseload worsening while casinos, churches and more reopen, the state's most recognizable person had some stern words about bringing COVID-19 under control.
• “You need to be staying 6 feet away from me, and haven't I told you you have to wear a mask when you're in this building?” University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban, himself wearing a mask emblazoned with “Roll Tide," scolded the school's elephant mascot in a video released as the state reopened more.
• Perhaps Saban's rant — which tied the prospects of fall football to disease control in a football-crazy state — will be the thing that makes people see a need for renewed vigilance in a place where life is largely back to normal despite a deepening health crisis.
• From the Gulf Coast to the lush Tennessee Valley, Alabama's political leaders and health experts are struggling to make many residents see the continued need for social distancing, crowd limitations and wearing masks after Gov. Kay Ivey reopened much of the economy.
• Cases are on the increase, but health officials say it's impossible to determine whether the rise is linked to additional testing or an actual increase in disease. Yet state statistics also show hospitalizations are up since early April, which has some health officials worried.
• New daily cases have risen to 307 from 268, and the rate of daily tests coming back positive has increased from 6.7% to 7.5%.
• Full story from Jay Reeves HERE.

• President Donald Trump has a new pitch to voters for this fall: Trust me.
• As the economy faces a once-in-a-century recession, with more than 38 million people out of work, Trump is increasingly talking up a future recovery that probably won't materialize until after the November election. He's asking voters to look past the pain being felt across the nation and give him another four-year term on the promise of an economic comeback in 2021.
• “It’s a transition to greatness,” Trump says over and over, predicting a burgeoning economy come the fall. “You’re going to see some great numbers in the fourth quarter, and you’re going to end up doing a great year next year."
• His chief economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, echoes the wait-until-next-year sentiment, holding out hope for a “big bang 2021.”
• It's a delayed-reward tactic Trump was using long before the global pandemic gut-punched the country. He has turned to it with new urgency as the coronavirus has robbed him of the booming economy that was to be the core of his reelection message. 
• Trump had already pledged to finally release a Republican health care plan after the polls closed — despite having served more than three years in office — along with a post-election tax cut and a “Phase 2” trade deal with China.
• Now, Trump is making the case to voters that if he helped bolster the economy once, he can do it again.
• “We built the greatest economy in the world," Trump says frequently. "I’ll do it a second time.”
• Full story HERE.

• Did you see the video of former Vice President Joe Biden saying black voters "ain't black" if they have a hard time choosing between him and Trump?
• It's pretty cringey, and it didn't take long for Biden to apologize saying he "should not have been such a wise guy."
• In a call with the U.S. Black Chamber of Commerce that was added to his public schedule, Biden said he would never “take the African American community for granted.”
• “I shouldn’t have been such a wise guy,” Biden said. “No one should have to vote for any party based on their race or religion or background.” 
• That was an acknowledgement of the stinging criticism he received in response to his comments, which he made earlier in the day on “The Breakfast Club,” a radio program that is popular in the black community.
• Near the end of Biden's appearance on the radio program, host Charlamagne Tha God pressed him on reports that he is considering Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is white, to be his vice presidential running mate. The host told Biden that black voters “saved your political life in the primaries” and “have things they want from you.”
• Biden said that "I guarantee you there are multiple black women being considered. Multiple.”
• A Biden aide then sought to end the interview, prompting the host to say, “You can’t do that to black media.”
• Biden responded, “I do that to black media and white media,” and said his wife needed to use the television studio.
• He then added: “If you’ve got a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or for Trump, then you ain’t black.” 
• Trump's campaign and his allies immediately seized on Biden's comments. South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Trump supporter and the Senate's sole black Republican, said he was “shocked and surprised” by Biden's remarks.
• “I was struck by the condescension and the arrogance in his comments," Scott said. "I could not believe my ears that he would stoop so low to tell folks what they should do, how they should think and what it means to be black.”
• Full story HERE.