50 ☆ States
ALABAMA Montgomery: The Alabama Department of Labor has created an appointment system for people to get in-person help with employment claims after people were sleeping overnight in a parking lot in the hopes of seeing someone.
ALASKA Anchorage: The Anchorage Department of Health has released a list of businesses where people who later tested positive for COVID-19 spent extended periods of time. The department named 19 locations in the Municipality of Anchorage, Palmer and Seward to which the patients were traced in mid- to late June.
ARIZONA Tucson: Many state residents have raised concerns about how long insurance providers will cover video visits and telephone calls to doctors during the pandemic. The rate of infection in Arizona is still rising, and many have received doctors’ advice or therapists’ help virtually, a method commonly known as telemedicine or telehealth, the Arizona Daily Star reports. Some providers have announced telemedicine visits will end sometime in July; others have extended visits until the end of September.
ARKANSAS Little Rock: If President Donald Trump decides to hold a campaign rally in Arkansas, the state will insist that all participants are socially distanced and wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, Gov. Asa Hutchinson said Sunday.
CALIFORNIA Sacramento: Two more death row inmates died Friday from apparent complications of the coronavirus in the midst of an outbreak that has infected about 40% of inmates at San Quentin State Prison, corrections officials said.
COLORADO Denver: The Bandimere Speedway violated court-ordered social distancing requirements during an event attended by fans on the Fourth of July, the Jefferson County Health Department said Sunday.
CONNECTICUT Plainfield: Reports of serious crimes dropped so far this year in the city, though calls into the police department’s dispatch center skyrocketed as residents frequently reached out to police for nonemergency pandemic-related issues.
DELAWARE Wilmington: Health officials say contact tracers have been in touch with about two-thirds of people in the state who’ve been infected by the coronavirus and their close contacts. But officials also say challenges remain as the state tries to reach more people to limit the virus’s spread.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA Washington: Just a few days after the Nationals kicked off the post-pandemic season, Mike Rizzo, president of baseball operations and general manager for the team, is hitting the brakes, WUSA-TV reports. Rizzo canceled the scheduled team workout Monday because officials still haven’t received Friday’s coronavirus test results.
FLORIDA Fort Lauderdale: The state recorded more than 6,300 new coronavirus cases and 48 more deaths Monday, according to Florida Health Department statistics.
GEORGIA Atlanta: The metro area’s transit authority will provide disposable masks to riders to try to protect them from the coronavirus.
HAWAII Honolulu: Pay cuts or furloughs for public employees in the state are inevitable if the federal government does not provide additional coronavirus relief funding, Gov. David Ige said.
IDAHO Boise: State officials said late last week that new unemployment claims jumped 26% the previous week to about 5,500.
ILLINOIS Chicago: Seven new staterun centers will open this summer to support small businesses. The Small Business Development Centers set to launch in July or already opened are in Chicago, Elgin and Joliet.
INDIANA Indianapolis: The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, one of the nation’s largest museums of its kind, is opening to the general public Saturday for the first time since shutting down in mid-March.
IOWA Des Moines: Iowans younger than 40 are disproportionately testing positive for the coronavirus, and Johnson and Story counties, home to the state’s two largest universities, are topping the trend.
KANSAS Topeka: A county Republican Party chairman who owns a weekly newspaper apologized Sunday for a cartoon posted on the paper’s Facebook page that equated the Democratic governor’s coronavirus-inspired order for people to wear masks in public with the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
KENTUCKY Louisville: A car alarm blared shortly after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell began to speak at a food bank Monday morning, damping his speech about Congress’ recent efforts to provide relief to local communities during the coronavirus pandemic. Someone outside yelled, “Mitch doesn’t care!” before the doors shut.
LOUISIANA Baton Rouge: Gov. John Bel Edwards is using much of the $50 million in discretionary education aid awarded to the state to help with the coronavirus response to buy computers and expand internet access for public school students.
MAINE Portland: Fewer tourists, declining restaurant sales and worker shortages could be problems for the state’s wild blueberry growers who are preparing to begin harvesting amid the pandemic. The Wild Blueberry Commission and other agricultural organizations have been working with state government to ensure that “we’ll have the immigrants and visas and the migrant labor workforce,” said Patricia Kontur, the director of programs for the commission.
MARYLAND Baltimore: The city’s top prosecutor has dismissed nearly 600 open warrants for minor offenses as part of efforts to reduce the number of people entering jails amid the coronavirus pandemic.
MICHIGAN Detroit: At least a dozen COVID-19 cases have been tied to a strip club near the city’s airport, public health officials said Sunday as they encouraged anyone recently at the venue to contact them.
MINNESOTA St. Paul: State Sen. Scott Jensen said he’s being investigated by the Minnesota State Board of Medical Practice for some public comments he made as a doctor about the coronavirus. In a video released Sunday, the Chaska Republican said the investigation related to his earlier criticism of the Minnesota Department of Health for following federal guidelines on when doctors should characterize deaths as due to COVID-19. Jensen said he was fearful the death toll might be inflated if each state’s allocation of federal funds depended on the number of coronavirus deaths.
MISSISSIPPI Jackson: A state Senate leader and a protest organizer are speaking out against Republican Gov. Tate Reeves’s tweet Sunday that the “liberal media” is ignoring new coronavirus cases that could have been caused by protests and blaming the state’s recent surge on holiday barbecue parties.
MISSOURI Springfield: The state’s southwest corner is now a hot spot for the coronavirus. McDonald, Newton and Jasper counties see cases jump by double digits nearly every day.
MONTANA Lincoln: The town held its annual Independence Day events in one of the few celebrations in the state not curtailed or canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Few of the parade attendees wore masks.
NEBRASKA Omaha: Another state prisons employee has tested positive for the novel coronavirus, officials said.
NEVADA Las Vegas: Cassandra Darrough, a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, has been named as the state’s new tribal emergency response coordinator, amid a report that coronavirus testing and assistance has been slow to reach Native American tribes.
NEW JERSEY Trenton: The rate of transmission of COVID-19 in the state – the average number of people infected by each infectious person – has exceeded 1.0 for the first time in a month and a half, Gov. Phil Murphy said Monday. The Democrat said in several outbreaks across the state, officials found them to be directly tied to travel to other hot spots, including several cases linked to people who attended a wedding in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
NEW MEXICO Santa Fe: State health officials reported an additional 203 coronavirus cases but no more known deaths Sunday.
NEW YORK New York: Nail salons and dog runs were back in business Monday as the city entered a new phase in the easing of coronavirus restrictions. Mayor Bill de Blasio said about 50,000 more people will come back to work as the city enters Phase 3 of reopening, which also includes tattoo parlors, indoor tanning, and sports such as basketball, volleyball and handball.
NORTH CAROLINA Hendersonville: The City Council has asked the police department to enforce Gov. Roy Cooper’s mandate requiring that masks be worn in most public settings, but only when business owners blatantly disregard the requirement as it applies to their employees, receive a warning and then continue to ignore it.
NORTH DAKOTA Fargo: Mayor Tim Mahoney is easing restrictions on access to public buildings, many of which were closed to residents because of the coronavirus.
OHIO Columbus: A company partly owned by Gov. Mike DeWine is among those that received loans from a federal coronavirus aid program. DeWine Seeds-Silver Dollar Baseball received a loan under the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program for a range of $150,000 to $350,000. The company owns the Asheville Tourists, a minor league baseball team in North Carolina.
OKLAHOMA Oklahoma City: State health officials on Monday reported 434 new confirmed coronavirus cases and four additional deaths.
OREGON Salem: Now that Oregonians are required to wear masks in indoor public spaces, the state’s workplace safety agency is preparing to handle enforcement. Since early March, Oregonians have filed roughly 5,500 workplace complaints related to the pandemic.
PENNSYLVANIA Harrisburg: An additional 450 people in the state have tested positive for the coronavirus, with nearly half the new cases coming from the Pittsburgh area, state health officials reported Monday.
RHODE ISLAND Providence: Providence Municipal Court, which handles disputes involving parking and traffic enforcement in the city, reopened Monday after closing in midMarch because of the coronavirus.
SOUTH CAROLINA Greenville: Lavish Lounge, the nightclub where two people were killed and eight others injured Sunday morning, was in violation of crowd restrictions put in place because of the COVID-19 pandemic, investigators said.
SOUTH DAKOTA Pierre: The state tallied 35 new confirmed infections of COVID-19 on Sunday but no new deaths. While the number of new cases reported daily has stayed mostly constant over the past two weeks, the number of active cases surpassed 900 for the first time since June 16, the Rapid City Journal reports.
TENNESSEE Franklin: Williamson County Mayor Rogers Anderson has issued an executive order declaring a public health emergency and requiring county residents to wear face coverings in public to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
TEXAS Corpus Christi: Nearly all inmates at the Nueces County McKinzie Jail Annex have contracted COVID-19, county officials said Sunday evening. The county reported that 87 of the annex’s 90 inmates tested positive for the virus.
UTAH Park City: One county in Utah beat back a spike of pandemic virus infections in the spring, and another saw its rate jump. Both trends showed up in their sewage. Wastewater from communities near a Cache County meatpacking plant that discovered 287 infected workers indicated an outbreak several days before it was officially reported. In contrast, sewage from Summit County showed a decline after officials imposed anti-virus measures, including asking tourists to stay away from its popular Park City ski area.
VERMONT Montpelier: The state Department of Labor is warning residents to be vigilant amid the threat of unemployment insurance fraud and says it’s taking steps to monitor such activity.
VIRGINIA Lynchburg: Students and faculty at the University of Lynchburg will be required to wear masks when campus reopens in August. Thanks to members of the university community, they’ll be provided handsewn, reusable cloth masks at no cost, The News & Advance reports.
WASHINGTON Seattle: A second bus driver has died from complications related to COVID-19, according to a public transportation agency. King County Metro Transit said Mike Winkler, 71, died June 17 after several weeks fighting the virus, The Seattle Times reports.
WEST VIRGINIA Charleston: Billionaire Gov. Jim Justice’s family businesses received at least $11.1 million from a federal rescue package meant to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic, according to data released by the Treasury Department on Monday.
WISCONSIN Madison: University of Wisconsin-Madison instructors are growing more worried that the campus can’t reopen safely this fall as the coronavirus continues to surge among young people. The Wisconsin State Journal reports that UW-Madison’s chapter of the Association of American University Professors released a survey Thursday that found nearly half of respondents weren’t confident campus can reopen safely.
WYOMING Jackson: The town will require people to wear face masks in many businesses.