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Memorial Day weekend in New York City won’t look quite the same as years past, as the novel coronavirus pandemic has caused beaches to be closed for large gatherings, sports, celebrating and even swimming. Mayor Bill De Blasio said during a Friday press conference the Parks Department will be the first line of enforcement, with the NYPD around to step in when necessary. "Anyone who's unhappy about that, anyone who thinks it's unfair, the buck stops with me," he said, as he laid out the rules for which activities would and would not be allowed on beaches.

Since the first shots fired in the Revolutionary War, Americans have answered the call to duty and given their lives in service to our Nation and its sacred founding ideals.  As we pay tribute to the lives and legacies of these patriots on Memorial Day, we also remember that they sacrificed to create a better, more peaceful future for our Nation and the world. We recommit to realizing that vision, honoring the service of so many who have placed love of country above all else. As Americans, we will always defend our freedom and our liberty.  When those principles are...

Baltimore Mayor Jack Young (D) wants President Donald Trump to cancel his plans to visit the city’s Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine on Memorial Day, citing health concerns stemming from the Chinese coronavirus and the price tag attached to a presidential visit. “I wish that the President, as our nation’s leader, would set a positive example and not travel during this holiday weekend,” Young said, according to CBS Baltimore. “I would hope that the President would change his mind and decide to remain at home. If he decides, however, to move forward with his scheduled trip to Baltimore...

A Memorial Day tradition will continue in Berks County, Pa., this year after the state’s governor agreed to waive one of his administration’s coronavirus rules. Because of the waiver, flag maker FlagZone of Gilbertsville was able to begin distributing an estimated 50,000 American flags to veterans organizations and volunteers throughout the county, The Reading Eagle reported. The decision was good news for Robert Haller, senior vice commander of a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Birdsboro – although he said he planned to defy the restriction if it wasn’t lifted.

Pennsylvania's Democrat governor has rejected a plea from a flag company for special permission to sell their American-made flags for Memorial Day amid the state's lockdown.FlagZone LLC near Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, asked Gov. Tom Wolf to allow them to ship US-made flags for Memorial Day to be used for veterans’ graves in nearby Berks County and nationwide.

EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Kelly Loeffler is urging the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow small groups to participate in the placement of American flags at national cemeteries for Memorial Day, after the department issued a recent order to prohibit the traditional observances amid the coronavirus crisis. In a letter exclusively obtained by Fox News, Loeffler, R-Ga., urged VA Secretary Robert Wilkie and the undersecretary for Memorial Affairs, Randy Reeves, to amend the recent decision and allow small groups of volunteers to take part in the tradition -- provided they abide by social distancing guidelines. “Americans from every community across the nation...

A flag company in Pennsylvania will not be able to sell flags for Memorial Day observances because of the governor’s shutdown of all non-life-sustaining businesses to slow the spread of the coronavirus. FlagZone LLC near Gilbertsville, Pennsylvania, had asked Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf for special permission to ship American-made flags for veterans’ graves in nearby Berks County and nationwide for Memorial Day. Flagzone LLC was one of the many non-life-sustaining businesses that Wolf ordered to close on March 19 in response to the coronavirus. “We want to be able to honor veterans as we do every year and as we’ve...

A longtime Memorial Day weekend tradition to honor veterans is now canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, but there are persisting calls to bring it back. For decades, the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other groups have devoted part of the holiday to place small American flags at the graves of veterans and those who have given the ultimate sacrifice as a way to honor our country's war heroes. Yet this year the Department of Veteran's Affairs has prohibited public events at the sites because of COVID-19. The Boy Scouts and other groups have been barred from carrying out the...

That same article we read every May, the one where we talk about the record number of travelers who are about to hit the road, the quote from the AAA expert, the mention of gas prices, that article will be different this year. More importantly, underneath the numbers we’ll read are a thousand points of darkness, anecdotes of pain and loss. We’re still not yet fully awake to that reality, we’re still operating in the gap between the economic actions we’ve taken and the true and coming economic fallout. However, to those service industry workers that keep our cities the...

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — The governor of North Carolina said Tuesday that NASCAR can go forward with the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway without fans in attendance at the end of May unless health conditions deteriorate in the state. Gov. Roy Cooper said he and state public health officials have had discussions with NASCAR and the speedway regarding safety protocols for staging the race. Cooper said the state offered input on NASCAR's plan, but he believes the race can go forward on Memorial Day weekend for the 60th consecutive year. “We believe that unless health conditions go down, we...

I met Kristine Luken posthumously. She and a mutual friend, Kay Wilson, were victims of a terrorist attack in Israel in 2010. Miraculously, Kay survived. Upon meeting Kristine’s twin sister Kathleen, I felt like I was meeting an old friend. Non-Israelis are not enveloped in the community as are other families of victims, nor are they remembered on Yom Hazikaron, Memorial Day, this week when Israel remembers nearly 24,000 soldiers and terror victims. Being outside Israel, families like Kristine’s are excluded. Not deliberately, just circumstantially. Mourning Alone“I’ve never met anyone who has lost a loved one to terrorism. I searched...

During a recent radio interview with Fox News' Geraldo Rivera, Vice President Mike Pence expressed hope the country can move past the Wuhan coronavirus crisis by Memorial Day Weekend. "If you look at the trends today, I think by Memorial Day Weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us...state and local officials will begin to reopen activities, you’re going to see states ahead here begin to do that,” Pence said. During the daily White House briefing Thursday night, Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Advisor Bill Bryan outlined new details from a study showing the virus dies...

Vice President Mike Pence announced on Thursday that he believes the coronavirus pandemic will be under control by Memorial Day weekend at the end of May. Speaking to Fox News’ Geraldo Rivera on his radio show, Pence, who is chair of the White House coronavirus task force, was optimistic about some states being able to reopen by the holiday.“Am I going to be on my boat and fishing in early June, Mr. Vice President?” Rivera asked. “If you look at the trends today, I think by Memorial Day Weekend we will largely have this coronavirus epidemic behind us,” said Pence....

It's the Memorial Day image that made Americans online everywhere put their hands to their hearts. A photo that amateur photographer Frank Glick snapped in 2011 of a bald eagle resting on a veteran's gravestone suddenly went viral after the Department of Veterans tweeted it earlier this week. And it's easy to see why. The shot depicts a bald eagle, America's iconic symbol of freedom, perched atop a gravestone, pensively looking out over the expanse. According to an interview with Fox News, Glick snapped the image early one morning at the Fort Snelling National Cemetery in Minnesota before attending a...

In 2014, Zahra Billoo, the radical executive-director of CAIR’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter, tweeted that she “struggles with Memorial Day each year.” “If one dies in an unjust war in which we illegally invaded and occupied a sovereign nation, should that person be honored?” – @DawudWalid — Zahra Billoo (@ZahraBilloo) May 23, 2014 Billoo also retweeted radical comments from CAIR official Dawud Walid from Michigan and radical Islamist poet Remi Kanazi.

During the walk-up to Memorial Day, with its evocations of respect for fallen warriors, hypercharged Dallas, found time to stick out a very official tongue at, you see, the wrong kind of fallen warriors: the Confederate kind. The business of establishment America, on the urging of the political left, has become that of saying, "Oh, 'scuse us for not living up to ideals we didn't know were ideals till you kind progressives kindly wised us up. " Dallas city government -- once fairly accused of patient commitment to reasoned dialogue -- bellied up enthusiastically, voting to sell and bar (unconstitutionally)...

MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski made a failed attempt on Monday morning to rile up her "Morning Joe" panel to bash President Trump on a segment dedicated to Memorial Day. In the segment, Brzezinski began by asking the "reflections" of MSNBC commentator Mike Barnicle by invoking Trump's deployment of troops at the southern border. “I want to ask you what your reflections are during this time in terms of our attitudes in America, our knowledge and our understanding of people who serve in the military, who serve multiple tours of duty, who have taken part in wars on behalf of this...

Orange Beach Police and several federal agencies are investigating after police said more than a million-dollars’-worth of illegal drugs washed up on the beach before Memorial Day weekend. It happened between Tuesday and Thursday and was reported by beachgoers. The drugs included marijuana and cocaine. Police said they recovered 21 pounds of marijuana and 39 kilos of cocaine, which is equivalent to 86 pounds. It was found washed up on the beach with barnacles growing on the packaging so investigators said they think it was in the water for quite a while. This kind of discovery is not common along...

t least 42 people were shot, seven fatally, in Chicago over the Memorial Day weekend even as severe storms kept people indoors and 1,200 extra officers patrolled the streets. The toll was slightly higher than last year’s Memorial Day weekend, when 39 people were shot, seven of them fatally, according to shooting data kept by the Tribune. In 2017, 45 people were shot, seven of them killed. And in 2016, 71 people shot, six of them fatally, in one of the most violent Memorial Day weekends in recent years. “That is just an unacceptable state of affairs,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot...

FULL TITLE: 'Go back to your trash heap neighborhoods and don't come back!' Virginia Beach residents vent fury at rowdy Memorial Day visitors who left TEN TONS of garbage on the shore Residents of Virginia Beach have been left fuming after Memorial Day weekend beachgoers left piles of garbage on the shore. Public work crews and citizen volunteers responded to the Chic's Beach area of Virginia Beach before dawn on Monday to clean up after the mess left after the annual 'Floatopia' party. A total of ten tons of garbage was removed from the shore, compared to the average of...