Elena Moore

Former Vice President Joe Biden again denied the sexual assault allegation made against him by former Senate staffer Tara Reade in an interview on MSNBC Thursday night, but added that voters who stand by Reade should not support him.

"If they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn't vote for me," Biden said when asked what message he would give to female voters who accept Reade's allegation as true, but were planning on supporting him.

"I wouldn't vote for me if I believed Tara Reade," Biden added.

Former Vice President Joe Biden formally began the process of selecting a running mate on Thursday morning, releasing the names of former and current Democratic officials who will lead his search for a vice presidential candidate, who Biden has said will be a woman.

Former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, Delaware Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and Cynthia C. Hogan, a top aide to Biden in the Senate and White House, will lead the search over the coming months.

Testing is the key that will unlock normalization for millions of Americans.

It's the doorway between the disaster response mode of the pandemic and confidence about returning to work, school and life. And it's also still apparently weeks or more away from scaling to a level that will make a big difference for most people in most places.

Precisely how far away isn't clear, although President Trump and a pageant of guests attempted on Monday to sell the idea that victory is just around the corner.

A few weeks ago, Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff held his first digital organizing event over the video conferencing service Zoom, geared at teaching volunteers how to conduct phone banks from home.

"There is nothing more effective than going door to door and having those face-to-face conversations," Ossoff told over 70 attendees. Since moving his primary campaign online over a month ago, the campaign held several virtual town halls and events with local political organizations.

A month ago, President Trump went on Fox and downplayed the potential lethality of the novel coronavirus and compared it to the seasonal flu.

Worldwide total confirmed cases: 2,063,161

Total deaths: 136,938

U.S. total confirmed cases: 638,111

Confirmed U.S. deaths: 30,844

SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, as of 11:35 p.m. ET Wednesday

President Trump is promising to deliver on Thursday guidelines to "reopen" America. He said some states would open even before May 1. That's two weeks away.

Updated at 11:15 a.m. ET

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren formally backed former Vice President Joe Biden for president on Wednesday, over a month after she ended her own campaign, extending a string of big endorsements as party leaders rally around the presumptive Democratic nominee.

"In this moment of crisis, it's more important than ever that the next president restores Americans' faith in good, effective government — and I've seen Joe Biden help our nation rebuild," Warren said in a tweet.

Updated at 10:05 a.m. ET

After intense political back and forth, Wisconsin is holding its presidential primaries and elections for many state and local offices on Tuesday.

Former Vice President Joe Biden says he finds it "hard to envision" an in-person Democratic National Convention taking place in July as planned.

"The fact is, it may have to be different," the leading Democratic presidential candidate said in an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday night.

The Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place from July 13-16 in Milwaukee. The Republican National Convention is planned for Aug. 24-27 in Charlotte, N.C., and neither party has announced alternative plans.

Jaylan Scott was in the middle of planning an upcoming event for the Young Democrats of Georgia when he found out his state's primary was postponed.

"It was pretty much a shocker for me," the Georgia State University sophomore said. "It was a shocker for everybody."

Scott first voted in the 2018 midterm elections but has yet to participate in a presidential election. He's a supporter of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, but says he'll vote for former Vice President Joe Biden if he is the Democratic nominee.

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, the 11th Democratic presidential debate, on Sunday, is set to look and sound quite different from the previous 10.

To prevent further transmission of the virus, the Democratic National Committee announced Thursday it will hold the debate in Washington, D.C., with no live audience, instead of its original planned location of Arizona, one of four states voting on Tuesday.

Updated at 9:40 p.m.

Just ahead of the single most important day of the Democratic primary, former Vice President Joe Biden picked up the endorsements of two former rivals.

Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., who ended his own White House bid Sunday night, appeared with Biden at a barbecue restaurant in Dallas Monday evening.

Three days before the Nevada caucuses, six Democratic candidates will face off in a debate Wednesday night in Las Vegas.

The televised debate comes on the heels of a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll that shows Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders leading nationally, with 31% support among Democratic-leaning voters.

Trailing Sanders in second in the survey is billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with 19% backing.

After a flawed Iowa caucus process, the Senate acquittal of President Trump and a dramatic State of the Union address — all in the past five days — Friday night brings the eighth Democratic presidential debate.

Writer, entrepreneur and spiritual leader Marianne Williamson has ended her presidential campaign, months after garnering viral attention in early debates, earning curiosity but little support from Democratic voters.

"The primaries might be tightly contested among the top contenders, and I don't want to get in the way of a progressive candidate winning any of them," Williamson wrote in a letter to supporters. "As of today, therefore, I'm suspending my campaign."

President Trump ordered an airstrike on Thursday evening that killed the Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad, a man he said was "plotting imminent and sinister attacks" against Americans in the region.

Soleimani was the leader of the Quds Force, a covert section of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The White House says he was the mastermind behind attacks on Americans during the past two decades — including two recent attacks.

Updated at 10:30 a.m. ET

Julián Castro, the only Latino candidate in the Democratic field, has ended his presidential campaign.

Castro released a video on Twitter on Thursday, saying that his campaign had "stood up for the most vulnerable people" and had "given a voice to those who are often forgotten."

He adds in the video: "I'm not done fighting. I'll keep working toward a nation where everyone counts."

Castro served as secretary of housing and urban development in the Obama administration and, before that, was mayor of San Antonio, Texas.

The top seven Democratic presidential candidates will appear on stage in Los Angeles Thursday night in the sixth debate of the year.

The debate comes just one day after President Trump became the third president of the United States to be impeached by the House of Representatives.

Here's what you need to know:

Updated at 2:15 p.m. ET

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., has released a report that outlines the findings from public hearings and closed-door interviews conducted by impeachment investigators since late September.

As part of the impeachment inquiry, the House Intelligence Committee has released the transcript of the testimony by Philip Reeker, the acting assistant secretary of state who is responsible for European affairs.

Reeker testified for eight hours on Oct. 26, complying with a subpoena despite pressure from the White House to defy the request.

According to a source familiar with his testimony, Reeker was prevented by high-ranking State Department officials from aiding Marie Yovanovitch, then U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, before she was recalled from her position.

House impeachment investigators have released the transcript of the deposition of Mark Sandy, a career staffer for the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Sandy was deposed by lawmakers on Nov. 16 and was the lone person from the OMB to testify. Top-ranking political appointees to the OMB — including Russell Vought, its acting director — refused to comply with the investigation's requests, citing advice from the White House counsel's office.

Two more witnesses testify Thursday morning in front of the House Intelligence Committee, marking the end of this week's public impeachment hearings.

Fiona Hill, the former Russia director for the National Security Council, and David Holmes, a U.S. diplomat from the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv, are appearing before investigators.

Over the past three days, lawmakers have spent hours questioning a total of nine U.S. officials (including Hill and Holmes).

No additional hearings have been announced by the Intelligence Committee.

Fiona Hill

Updated at 3:50 p.m. ET

Four witnesses are testifying in front of the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, starting the second week of public hearings in the ongoing impeachment inquiry investigation.

The morning session features Jennifer Williams, a career State Department staffer detailed to work with Vice President Pence's staff, as well as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the Ukraine specialist on the National Security Council. Former U.S. envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker and former Russia director for the NSC Tim Morrison are testifying in the afternoon.

Impeachment investigators have released the testimony transcript of Tim Morrison, the former top European affairs official on President Trump's National Security Council.

In his Oct. 31 testimony, Morrison confirmed he was on the July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukraine's president. He also said that Trump had indeed sought help from his Ukrainian counterpart, but he argued the conduct wasn't unlawful.

The warnings from national security leaders in Washington have been clear: The danger of foreign election interference isn't going away.

What have the many Democratic presidential hopefuls pledged to do about it?