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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin warned on Tuesday that individuals who reject an offer from their company to return to work after being laid off due to coronavirus are no longer considered eligible to receive federal unemployment benefits. Mnuchin said that companies receiving benefits under the Payroll Protection Program who are inviting employees who had been laid off or furloughed due to the coronavirus crisis to return to work should plan to notify state unemployment offices of their offers. If the employee, in turn, turns down the job, they would then be considered ineligible to receive expanded unemployment benefits.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) on Wednesday declared that President Trump does not care about the Americans who have died as a result of the Chinese coronavirus and proclaimed that his true desire to reopen the economy is rooted in holding “his white power pep rallies.” “Trump doesn’t care about the 80,000+ people who’ve died from #Coronavirus!” Waters exclaimed.

Lebanon County commissioners have passed a protest resolution declaring the county in the yellow phase of the state’s pandemic reopening plan, effective immediately. The 2-1 vote came hours before Gov. Tom Wolf named 12 more counties to start a limited reopening next week; Lebanon was not among them. The board may be the first to have taken a formal action to break out from the governor’s plan, though legal experts say that given the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision affirming Wolf’s public health emergency disaster declaration, it’s likely has no legal relevance. The court, in that case, noted longtime Perry County...

Gov. Tom Wolf said Thursday he will be ready to identify more Pennsylvania counties for the first step of a staged economic reopening and partial relief from statewide stay-at-home orders Friday, positioning them to join the 37 counties that have officially made the move to the “yellow” stage so far. So it’s time to take a fresh look at new case incidence rates - the most publicly-discernible of the Wolf Administration’s metrics - through Wednesday, May 13. And pay attention, Capital Region; after almost all of northern and western Pennsylvania have started the transition, this time it looks like portions...

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan lifted the state’s stay-at-home order and announced the easing some coronavirus-based restrictions on businesses and gatherings beginning 5 p.m. Friday. It comes as the state sees a slight drop in the number of patients hospitalized for the coronavirus, a metric that his administration will use to guide the gradual reopening of the state. Hogan said he is replacing the order with a “Safer at Home” advisory that will not be enforced by the rule of law. It allows manufacturing, retail, haircuts and worship services to resume with limitations. But some local officials have said they don’t...

LANCASTER - Is Lancaster County going to be in the yellow phase of the state’s coronavirus pandemic reopening plan, come Friday? Or is it going to be in red? That, dear readers, depends upon who you are listening to. The county’s two Republican county commissioners continued to assert Thursday that the county is moving to yellow based on trend lines in new coronavirus case counts, its hospital capabilities, and a concentrated focus on efforts like building up contact tracing capacity and improving infection control programs in nursing homes. To them, they have done what they can to get the outbreak...

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers said the state was the "Wild West" on Wednesday night after the Wisconsin Supreme Court blocked an extension of his stay-at-home order. The Democratic state leader told MSNBC that judges had created "chaos" in Wisconsin by voting 4-3 against the extension of state lockdown measures until May 26. Wisconsin Supreme Court judges ruled on Wednesday that his stay-at-home extension was "unlawful, invalid and unenforceable." The governor warned that there was "nothing compelling anyone to do anything" in Wisconsin as the novel coronavirus continued to spread across the U.S.

Several bars across Wisconsin were flooded with patrons just hours after the state Supreme Court issued a ruling striking down an extension of Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order that had been in effect since mid-March to limit the effect of the coronavirus. The 4-to-3 ruling essentially reopened the state, lifting caps on the size of gatherings, allowing people to travel as they please and allowing shuttered businesses to reopen, including bars and restaurants. Nick’s Bar in Platteville, Wis., shared a photo on Twitter with the caption: “45 minutes after the bars open in Wisconsin” showing the establishment packed with mostly...

PHOENIX — Gov. Doug Ducey on Tuesday announced Arizona’s “stay-at-home” executive order will be lifted after it expires Friday and that the state would enter the first phase of reopening. Ducey pointed to a decrease in positive test result percentage, adequate hospital capacity and expanded testing numbers for reasons Arizona is ready to begin reopening. “Today we get the chance to turn that dial a little bit more to the right to brighten Arizona’s economy and to bring back some of the energy that was lost due to this pandemic,” Ducey said during a press conference.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) is allowing upstate construction and assembly line businesses to reopen May 15, but other businesses have to stay shut longer. How long? That depends on how "essential" they are, he said. Sorry, Governor, but any business is essential if it's how you earn your paycheck. People need to work, and new research indicates for otherwise healthy, working-age people, it's safer than taking a car trip. "People under 65 years old have very small risks of COVID-19 deaths even in the hotbeds of the pandemic," according to Stanford scientists John Ioannidis, Cathrine Axfors and Despina...

“It’s a new phase,” Governor Andrew Cuomo remarked today as he turned New York toward a gradual reopening of public life after the COVID-19 shutdowns. By May 15, Cuomo plans to start rolling back restrictions imposed during the peak of the outbreak, declaring those policies a success in getting to “the other side of the mountain.” The state will use different regional strategies, and a few of them might be ready to start sooner — perhaps as early as now, Cuomo suggests: NEW: “We are on the other side of the mountain … We can intelligently turn toward reopening,”...

Over 70% of California’s economy has reopened with limitations, Gov. Gavin Newsom said Monday during his daily update on the state’s response to #COVID-19 “I know 70% is not 100%, and I recognize that ‘with modifications’ means ‘with restrictions,’ and ‘with restrictions’ means a struggle for businesses to get back where they were pre-pandemic,” Newsom said. Last Friday, the state moved into the next phase of reopening its economy by allowing some nonessential retailers - including clothing, music, toy, sporting goods and book stores - to reopen for curbside pickup. Still, the impact of the pandemic on the economy has...

Some areas of New York state will be allowed to reopen Friday, beginning the “next big step in this historic journey,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Monday. Three upstate regions will be allowed to reopen in a phased manner after meeting metrics laid out by the state government, Cuomo said. But areas of the state that have been hardest hit by COVID-19, including New York City and Long Island, have not yet met those requirements as of Monday. “In my point of view, we’re on the other side of the mountain,” Cuomo said during a news conference. “We have abated...

Lancaster County has joined the growing list of counties resisting the coronavirus restrictions put in place by Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf. In a letter to the governor dated Saturday and signed by numerous Lancaster County lawmakers and commissioners, they asked Wolf to formally move Lancaster County out of the red designation and into yellow under the plan to reopen the state. They note the county is prepared to do so on Friday, adding, “We prefer to act with your cooperation, but we intend to move forward with a plan to restore Lancaster County.” Republican commissioner majorities in Berks, Cumberland, Dauphin,...

It’s deeply disappointing and downright dangerous that some members of York County political and business leadership, including some paid by the very taxpayers that they should be protecting, are essentially encouraging York County business owners to defy the governor’s orders and open. This irresponsible defiance by some of our leaders puts business owners, their clients, their customers and the entire York community at risk of further spread of COVID-19, a deadly virus that has already killed 13 of our neighbors and sickened more than 700 York countians in recent months. This is a time when leaders must have the courage...

More U.S. likely voters say it’s “time for America to get back to work” despite the COVID-19 pandemic, but that plurality is driven by conservatives, results of a national Rasmussen Reports survey released Monday reveal. While 43% of voters nationwide say “Yes,” it’s time to get back to work, 38% say “No,” it’s not. Another 19% are “unsure,” according to the survey of 1,000 voters conducted April 30 and May 3, 2020. Report this ad But, 71% of conservatives say it’s time for the country to return to work, compared to just 30% of moderates. Only 14% of liberals say...

Italy, one of the European countries hit hardest by the coronavirus pandemic, allowed millions of people to return to work on Monday, as it joins several nations tentatively lifting lockdown measures as infections and deaths appear to decline. More than 4 million Italians were allowed to return to work after a lockdown of about two months. Construction and manufacturing were allowed to resume, as was traffic in downtown Rome and street vendors, The Associated Press reported. “It’s something that brings happiness and joy, and people have been missing that these days,” vendor Stefano Fulvi told the AP. Fulvi added that...

Thirty-eight states have started reopening or are planning to reopen soon from the near-total economic lockdown implemented to try to slow the spread of the CCP virus, according to an Epoch Times tally. Businesses in 21 states have already started reopening or will be allowed to welcome customers back on May 1. Alabama, Georgia, Montana, and Tennessee are among the states that have already started reopening. Oklahoma, Utah, and Wyoming are among the states loosening restrictions effective Friday. The other states that have reopened or are reopening on May 1 are: Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico,...

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf will announce the first group of counties expected to move into the yellow phase of coronavirus mitigation Friday afternoon, his office confirmed. A press release from Wolf's office said he and Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine will provide an update on coronavirus in the state at 2 p.m.

KEY POINTS With coronavirus cases beginning to level off, states are looking to jump-start economies hard hit by the virus. And with jobless claims totaling 30.3 million in six weeks, Americans are clamoring to get back to work. Governors have taken vastly different tactics in developing plans to reopen business in their states and remove social-distancing restrictions. Here’s a complete, state-by-state listing, which will be periodically updated.