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Janeal Wright says he hasn’t been the same since his two friends were gunned down in 2018. The double shooting on the West Side claimed the lives of Darius Brown and Johnathan Jeter, both 23. The absence of their laughter and generosity was “heartbreaking,” he recalled Wednesday. He became afraid of staying in the Austin neighborhood, wondering if he would be next. “It was monumental, that event,” Wright, 26, said Wednesday. “That was the first dramatic event I ever really took to heart. … I didn’t really heal from it.” Consumed by the gun violence on the West Side, Wright...

Maine Gov. Janet Mills announced her plan to reopen the state’s economy, a plan that allows some personal services to open as soon as Friday and restaurants to reopen in June with some provisions. The four-stage plan also includes a “Stay Safer at Home” executive order that is extended until May 31 and requires residents to wear face coverings in public in stage one. The month-by-month plan can change if the number of COVID-19 cases increases again. “We don’t know what will happen in the next days, weeks, months,” Mills said. “We may well have to start and stop and...

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced Wednesday a plan to provide free college tuition for people working on the frontlines during the novel coronavirus pandemic. Whitmer's "Futures for Frontliners" plan will provide those working on the frontlines - including hospital staff, grocery workers, and child care providers - with the opportunity to get either a college or a technical degree on the state's dime, if they do not already have one. "The Futures for Frontliners program is our way of saying 'thank you' to those who have risked their lives on the frontlines of this crisis. This program will ensure tuition-free...

A network of activists led by a handyman from Illinois is organizing simultaneous demonstrations in all 50 state capitals on May 1 to argue for ending governors’ stay-at-home orders and allowing people to go back to work. Josh Ellis of Naperville, Illinois, who owns a business repairing water and mold damage, said America’s foundation is being weakened by government overreach during the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re responsible for protecting our health,” Mr. Ellis told The Washington Times. “We believe in the severity of the disease, but at the same time, we don’t feel it’s government’s right to violate our constitutional rights.”...

Demonstrators against Michigan's coronavirus stay-at-home order were forcibly removed from inside Michigan's legislative building in Lansing on Wednesday, with one of the protesters taken away on a stretcher. A video of the incident was shared on Twitter by Michigan's MIRS News. In the clip, one of the protesters with the group Michigan United for Liberty can be seen screaming as uniformed security guards attempt to remove her from the House of Representatives gallery. "You're not allowed to touch her," one of the protesters yells as her fellow demonstrator can be seen kicking her legs from the floor. Another protester can...

Maatje Benassi, a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying she brought the disease to China. The false claims are spreading across YouTube every day, so far racking up hundreds of thousands of apparent views, and have been embraced by Chinese Communist Party media. Despite never having tested positive for the coronavirus or experienced symptoms, Benassi and her husband are now subjects of discussion on Chinese social media about the outbreak, including among accounts that are known drivers of large-scale coordinated...

Link only - https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2020/04/27/whitmer-wants-extend-mich-state-emergency-through-may/3036116001/

HARTFORD, CT (WFSB) - More people are calling for Governor Ned Lamont to reopen Connecticut In Hartford, a stay-at-home protest took place on Monday as the state continues to look at how to carefully get people back to work. State leaders, meanwhile, said they're eyeing June as the month to start to get things back up and running. Monday's protest is not the first the first demonstration of its kind. Another took place last week. They're being put on by a group calling itself the CT Liberty Rally. Until the economy gets moving again, in its words, the protests will...

When Atascadero resident Fay Johnson’s neighbor called the county to file a complaint about her eight family members gathering for Easter dinner, she said the shelter-at-home order had gone too far. “If that sheriff had come down my driveway and told me to disperse my party, they would have had to arrest me because I was not going to do that. I did everything I could to keep everybody safe,” Johnson said. “It’s just gone too far.” On Sunday morning, she joined the 10 to 15 adults and children who gathered in downtown San Luis Obispo to protest the shelter-at-home...

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - A group of people gathered near the Chick-Fil-A off of Stockdale Highway protesting the stay at home orders and were calling for local businesses to reopen Saturday. The protesters gathered at the restaurant just before noon on Saturday. They held signs saying the stay at home orders are against their constitutional rights. A similar rally also took place earlier in the week. Protesters spoke about the economic impact the orders are having on local businesses. "They are trying to keep their businesses going right now by doing to go orders but they can't compete with all these...

Dozens of Mississippi motorists drove around downtown Jackson on Saturday, honking horns and encircling the Governor’s Mansion in an effort to get Gov. Tate Reeves to fully reopen the state. The drive-thru rally, which lasted about an hour, was established by a group called Reopen Mississippi. A spokeswoman for the group told The Clarion Ledger that many in the state are hurting. “So many of our beloved small businesses are closing,” Napp said. The group said Reeves’ shelter-in-place orders violate Mississippi citizens’ rights and freedoms protected by both the U.S. Constitution and Mississippi Constitution.

BERLIN (Reuters) - German police wearing riot gear and face masks tussled on Saturday with dozens of protesters demonstrating in central Berlin against the coronavirus lockdown on public life. Protesters shouted “I want my life back” and held up signs with slogans such as “Protect constitutional rights”, “Freedom isn’t everything but without freedom, everything is nothing”, and “Daddy, what is a kiss?” Police said on Twitter they had arrested more than 100 people. Some protesters tried to keep a distance from each other, sitting on the ground and wearing masks, but others clustered together. Like dozens of countries around the...

A speaker addresses the small crowd gathered for a "Rhode Islanders against excessive quarantine" protest in reaction to the state's mandatory stay-at-home order as an attempt to combat COVID-19 at the Rhode Island State House in Providence, Rhode Island on Saturday, April 25, 2020. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo has extended the stay-at-home order in an effort to combat the spread of COVID-19 to May 8th and recently told schools that they will finish the year through via distance learning. Rhode Island has had 6,699 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 202 deaths as of Saturday.

It might have resembled a July 4th gathering - people wearing red, white and blue and waving American flags and signs quoting the Constitution as speakers blasted songs by Lee Greenwood and Bruce Springsteen with "U.S.A." in the titles. But the crowd clustered Saturday outside Minnesota's governor's residence in St. Paul was angry. About 250 people, few wearing masks and many standing within inches of one another, protested measures Gov. Tim Walz has implemented to limit the spread of COVID-19. "I believe that the governor, along with so many other governors throughout the nation, has practiced overkill," said W.H. Nieder...

SAN DIEGO COUNTY, Calif. - The limited reopening of San Diego beaches is expected to begin on Monday, but protests against the stay-at-home order are still planned for this weekend. Organizers for weekend rallies said their "freedoms are under attack, and it's unfair businesses are still closed." "There isn't a reason anymore to keep people locked down and locked out of these public spaces. This is our beach. These are our rights, and we are going to exercise those rights,” said Crista Curtis, the former organizer of last Sunday’s Encinitas protest calls the lockdown restrictions unreasonable. Last weekend's protest drew...

As early as next week, Gov. Greg Abbott said Texans could be allowed to go back to movie theaters, hair salons, dine-in restaurants and return to church under a new executive order he is working on. On a Dallas-area radio program, Abbott said he’ll make an announcement on Friday this week or on Monday that will re-open “massive amounts of businesses” that have been closed since he issued a statewide stay-at-home order March 31. When he makes the announcement, Abbott said he will give businesses a week to do what they need to get ready to re-open.

Two days after the Rev. Shane Harris called on San Diego police to cite organizers of Saturday’s “freedom rally” downtown against COVID-19 orders, a San Diego woman has been notified she’s facing a $1,000 fine or jail time. Naomi Israel, 27, on Wednesday publicly confirmed she was an organizer — and the woman facing penalties for the downtown protest that drew hundreds. On Facebook, Israel posted that she would be arrested for exercising her constitutional rights. “I have attorneys ready and an entire team here to protect me but I need your help,” she said. “Centers for American Liberty is...

Drug overdoses have increased in Charlotte, according to police, and addiction specialists say they’re concerned people are drinking too much alcohol and resorting to drugs while stuck at home. Since March 26 - when Mecklenburg County began its stay-at-home order - CMPD has responded to 100 emergency calls about drug overdoses. That’s a 24% increase or around 20 additional calls compared to a similar time period last year, said CMPD spokesman Rob Tufano. Out of the 100 calls, ten people died, he said. Director of prevention and intervention at Anuvia, a substance abuse treatment center, Cindy Murphy said that resources...

China, Iran and Russia are using the coronavirus crisis to launch a propaganda and disinformation onslaught against the United States, the State Department warns in a new report. The three governments are pushing a host of matching messages: that the novel coronavirus is an American bioweapon, that the U.S. is scoring political points off the crisis, that the virus didn’t come from China, that U.S. troops spread it, that America’s sanctions are killing Iranians, that China’s response was great while the U.S.’ was negligent, that all three governments are managing the crisis well, and that the U.S. economy can't bear...

Hundreds of protesters gathered at state capitals in North Carolina and Missouri to protest stay-at-home orders Tuesday, the latest in a wave of demonstrations against statewide restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus. The small protests featured demonstrators - many of them wearing gear promoting President Donald Trump and waving "Don't Tread on Me" and U.S. flags - who mostly opted against wearing masks and ignored social distancing guidelines that health experts say are necessary to mitigate the transmission of the highly contagious virus. The protesters decried the stay-at-home orders, which have curtailed businesses and personal freedoms, and pointed...