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The Department of Justice today filed a statement of interest in a Washington State federal court supporting the First Amendment religious freedom claims of a Pierce County church, explaining how a recent Supreme Court decision, South Bay United Pentecostal Church v. Newsom (May 29, 2020), supports the church’s claim. The statement of interest explains that Washington’s preferable treatment of secular gatherings such as restaurants, taverns, and outdoor protests compared to the restrictions imposed on indoor and outdoor religious services triggers heightened scrutiny under the Constitution.The statement of interest is part of Attorney General William P. Barr's April 27, 2020 initiative...

Ohio's COVID-19 lockdown violates due process and the separation of powers, a state judge concluded today, ruling in favor of a company that sought to reopen a water park without suffering criminal penalties. "This unbridled and unfettered consolidation of authority in one unelected official is dangerous grounds to tread on," writes Erie County Court of Common Pleas Judge Roger Binette, referring to Ohio Department of Health Director Amy Acton's orders requiring "nonessential" businesses to close. "If one unelected, unaccountable to the public official is allowed to invoke unfettered Orders [that] criminalize an otherwise non-criminal activity only for disobedience to her...

Mayor Bill de Blasio on Sunday fired back at Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s threat to shut down Manhattan again if the city didn’t enforce social-distancing better — saying through a rep that “imprisoning people” isn’t the answer. “We must balance safety with people’s need to reopen their businesses,” a City Hall spokeswoman said in an e-mail. “We had social distancing ambassadors out all weekend distributing masks and encouraging people to disperse after making their purchases. “These businesses are allowed to be open per the Governor’s guidelines and we don’t believe imprisoning people or taking away their livelihood is the answer.”

A date for reopening New Jersey malls has not been announced by Gov. Phil Murphy and a group of mayors is pressing him on why. The mayors of Bridgewater, Elizabeth, Paramus, Wayne and Woodbridge sent a letter to Murphy this week requesting a quicker reopening of malls in their towns. “Willowbrook Mall is the largest taxpayer in our community and having them closed for so long is hurting our economy severely,” Wayne Mayor Chris Vergano said in the letter. All of the mayors said the economic impact from the closings is substantial. “We have been unable to collect revenue associated...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — As of June 16, Missouri will be “fully open for business” even though the coronavirus “is still out there,” Gov. Mike Parson announced Thursday. The second phase of Parson’s reopening plan means there will be no statewide health order — albeit, local officials will be able to enact more stringent rules or policies, as was the practice under the initial stage. The governor said all four “pillars” to reopening — expended testing, securing personal protective equipment (PPE), hospital capacity, and Missouri data — had been met during the extended initial phase.

Eight additional Pa. counties will move into the green phase of Gov. Tom Wolf’s coronavirus reopening plan next Friday, according to The Associated Press. Dauphin, Franklin, Huntingdon, Luzerne, Monroe, Perry, Pike, and Schuylkill counties all made the cut for moving out of the yellow phase, where aggressive mitigation must be practiced, to the least restrictive phase, otherwise known as the green one. In it, most businesses can reopen with certain capacity limits in place, and gatherings of up to 250 people are allowed. CDC and Pa. Department of Health guidelines must be followed, as well. Twelve counties are spending their...

Senate Urges Court to Enforce Resolution Ending Wolf’s Emergency Declaration Posted on Jun 10, 2020 (HARRISBURG) – Noting that Governor Wolf has refused to carry out his mandatory duty to act upon a resolution passed by the General Assembly that ends his emergency declaration, Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati (R-25) and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman (R-34) today urged the state’s Commonwealth Court to “command” the Governor to terminate the declaration in accordance with the law. “Governor Wolf’s failure to issue an executive order or proclamation ending the COVID-19 state of disaster emergency is unlawful, unreasonable, and without just...

Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday asked an Eastern Ohio court to dismiss a criminal charge against diner owners who re-opened in early May, before the state’s coronavirus ban on sit-down dining was lifted. Dwight and Vicki Brearley reopened their National Road Diner near Cambridge to customers on May 6, even though the DeWine administration didn’t lift its order prohibiting inside dining until May 21. After they ignored warnings, Guernsey County Health Commissioner Dr. Edward Colby charged the couple with one count of failure to prevent a threat to the public during a pandemic, epidemic or bioterrorism event, a second-degree...

Dr. Amy Acton has resigned as Ohio’s health director, Gov. Mike DeWine said Thursday, capping a contentious few months as the target of frustrations during the coronavirus pandemic that included gun-carrying critics showing up at her home. Acton was most recently sued by organizers of music festivals and restaurant owners as the slow reopening unfolded. “I really want to say most of all to Ohioans: Ohioans, you have saved lives. You’ve done this,” she said at a news briefing. Acton, who called her time as the state health director an “honor of a lifetime,” faced House Republicans seeking to restrict...

The Asbury Park City Council voted Wednesday evening to allow indoor dining beginning on June 15, a move in direct violation of New Jersey executive orders related to COVID-19. On June 3, Gov. Phil Murphy signed Executive Order 150, which allows outdoor dining on June 15, subject to health and safety protocols. But Asbury Park went a major step forward by allowing diners to eat inside. Reached on Twitter, Deputy Mayor Amy Quinn confirmed a report by The Coaster breaking the city’s decision. Quinn said the governing body passed a resolution allowing indoor dining in accordance with the issuance of...

LONDON — Two months ago, when there were roughly one million confirmed coronavirus cases and the primal politics of survival was sweeping the world, shutting down was the order of the day. This week, the number of cases soared past seven million, with 136,000 new infections detected on Sunday alone, the highest single-day total since the pandemic began. The order of the day? Reopening..... “This is not the time for any country to take its foot off the pedal,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director general of the World Health Organization, warned at a news conference in Geneva this week. The...

According to Franklin County Representative Paul Schemel, the House passed a resolution tonight to end the governor’s COVID-19 emergency declaration. This was done on a 121-81, bipartisan vote. The Senate has already passed the same resolution. Under the Pennsylvania Constitution, the General Assembly has the authority to terminate a state of disaster emergency at any time by concurrent resolution. Upon adoption of the resolution, the governor must issue an executive order or proclamation ending the state of disaster emergency. Today’s House vote completes the concurrent resolution process.

BANGOR, Maine — President Donald Trump met with Maine fishing industry leaders shortly after he arrived in Bangor on Friday. The focus of the discussion was the new action Trump would be taking to allow commercial fishing at a marine conservation area off the coast, but more was talked about at the meeting, including criticism of Gov. Janet Mills. Former Gov. Paul LePage, who greeted the President when he landed at the Bangor International Airport around 2 p.m., initiated the talks about where Maine is on reopening, saying Maine is "still tied up pretty tight because we have a Governor...

Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill Friday that would have allowed the state's bars to open for outside operations, stopping a legislative end run around the state's phased reopening from the shutdown Cooper ordered to slow the spread of Covid-19. North Carolina's bars have been closed since Cooper shut restaurants and bars down onMarch 17. After Cooper allowed restaurants and breweries to reopen in Phase 2 but left bars closed, the General Assembly passed a bill that would have allowed bars to serve customers outside, permitted restaurants to operate at full capacity and limited the state's ability to to close...

As states across America being to reopen, some scientists are voicing fears about so-called "superspreaders" who may be responsible for larger numbers of coronavirus cases through airborne transmission. Although many businesses are reopening with stringent social distancing guidelines, those practices vary significantly from state to state and even from city to city within various states. Kimberly Prather, an atmospheric chemist at University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography, wrote in a recent perspective paper in Science that a review of existing literature provides evidence that the new coronavirus can linger in the air, perhaps even for hours, before...

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced Monday that she is lifting her state's stay-at-home order effective next week, easing restrictions placed on businesses and public gatherings due to the coronavirus pandemic. Under the new guidelines, stores will be able to have customers without appointments and restaurants will be able to have customers dine in, but social distancing requirements remain in place requiring limited capacity. The state has noted that coronavirus cases and deaths have dropped more sharply and treatment capacities at hospitals and other health-care facilities have improved, among other criteria. “While Michiganders are no longer required to stay home, we...

Chick-fil-A put out an updated version of its “Safe Service” guidelines for employees and guests on Friday, announcing new safety measures such as plexiglass partitions at registers, contact-less checkouts and suspending drink refills and playground areas for kids when dining rooms reopen for dine-in and carry-out service. Dine-in customers will have to follow social-distancing guidelines at tables, with some being blocked off to allow for proper spacing. Staff members are also being mandated to disinfect high-touch areas of the restaurant, including bathrooms, food prep stations and registers every half hour. Employees will also be required to undergo temperature checks before...

State Dining RoomMay 29, 2020 4:54 P.M. EDTTHE PRESIDENT:  All right.  Thank you very much.  Appreciate it.  I want to express our nation’s deepest condolences and most heartfelt sympathies to the family of George Floyd.  A terrible event.  Terrible, terrible thing that happened.I’ve asked that the Department of Justice expedite the federal investigation into his death and do it immediately, do it as quickly as absolutely possible.  It’s a local situation, but we’re also making it into a federal situation.  And it’s — it’s a terrible thing.  We all saw what we saw, and it’s very hard to even...

We’re over it. The masks, the kids, the Lysol. Over it. The tragic hair, the diminished hygiene, the endless construction next door, the Zoom meetings from hell, the mind games with the unemployment office, the celibacy, the short tempers and long evenings, the looking forward to the mail, the feeling guilty about the mail carrier working double time, the corporate compassion pushing products we didn’t need even before the world went funky and febrile. The now-more-than-everness, the president-said-whatness. Over it. Does 99.1 count as a fever? Over it. Some of us have reached the outskirts of Netflix, and we’re over...

The Nordic countries of Denmark and Finland are reporting no increase in the spread of coronavirus since opening their respective schools, further suggesting that children are less likely to be sickened by COVID-19 and spread the virus. Denmark began sending its children back to school on April 15, just over a month after Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen issued an extensive nationwide lockdown. They were kept spaced apart in classrooms and on playgrounds, while sanitation measures such as hand-washing stations and deep-cleaning procedures were put into place. Similar measures were put into place in Finland to keep children from congregating in...