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Poll: Biden Leads Trump By 5 In Swing State Minnesota

L-R Former Vice President Joe Biden, Donald Trump
A new Star Tribune-MPR News-KARE 11 Minnesota poll shows former Vice President and presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by 5 points in the swing state of Minnesota Via the Minnesota Star-Tribune:

The survey, which was released on Monday, found that 49 percent of registered Minnesota voters favor Biden in a head-to-head matchup against the president. Forty-four percent said they’d back Trump, while 7 percent said they remained undecided.

The poll indicates that Biden and Trump are in a dead heat among independents, with 42 percent backing Trump and 41 percent the former vice president. Among independent voters, 17 percent said they were undecided.

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Spain Will End Tourist Quarantine July 1

Tourists in Sitges, Spain during summer 2019
Spain will end its current quarantining of international tourists at the end of June allowing the country to take advantage of some of the summer tourism season. From the Washington Post:

The move comes after Italy and Greece — which vie for Mediterranean tourism — announced they will welcome foreign travelers starting June 1.

Spain is the second most visited country in the world, behind France. In 2019, some 83.7 million international tourists spent over $100.54 billion. Tourism accounts for nearly 13 percent of Spain’s gross domestic product and an estimated 12.7 percent of the country’s jobs.

Spain has moved to relax one of Europe’s strictest nationwide lockdowns, slowly easing measures by region. The daily dose of new infections has slowed to 0.1 percent, with 235,772 confirmed coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic, with 28,752 deaths.

 

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Memorial Day 2020: Remember And Honor

Wishing everyone a great holiday weekend, and I hope that folks take some time out to remember why we celebrate this day as a nation. It’s not “National BBQ Day,” you know. Think of those we’ve lost who stood up for, and made possible, our freedoms and liberty here in the U.S. A few facts about Memorial Day: • Originally known as Decoration Day, the observance began in the years following the Civil War honoring those who fell during that conflict. • During World War I, the tradition expanded into a day of remembering all men and women who died while serving in the United States Armed Forces. • In 1968, Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, which established Memorial Day as a federal holiday to be held on the last Monday in May. The law went into effect in 1971. • Each year on Memorial Day a national moment of remembrance takes place at 3:00 p.m. local time. • Memorial Day typically marks the start of the summer vacation season, while Labor Day marks its end. • Memorial Day has a different focus than Veterans Day. Memorial Day is a day of remembering those who perished while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans. • The average age of fallen U.S. soldiers is 26½. The New York Times reports that Arlington National Cemetery is running out of room and may need to consider new rules that may turn away eligible soldiers.

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Trump Twitter Rant: “Barack Was Always Playing Golf!”

Donald Trump

Predictably, Donald Trump has become triggered by the fact folks noticed he took time to play golf on Saturday and Sunday this weekend. First, he lashed out at a campaign ad regarding his golf habit. Then, as he’s done many times in the past, he turned his focus on his predecessor claiming Obama was “always” playing golf. Many on social media criticized the Donald for his bad timing as the coronavirus death toll nears 100,000. Plus, the obvious hypocrisy after frequently harping on President Obama playing golf during his 8 years in the White House. Note – at this point in his administration, Obama had played 70 rounds of golf over more than three years. To date, Trump has played golf or visited one of his golf properties 251 times. “Sleepy Joe’s representatives have just put out an ad saying that I went to play golf (exercise) today. They think I should stay in the White House at all times. What they didn’t say is that it’s the first time I’ve played golf in almost 3 months, that Biden was constantly…vacationing, relaxing & making shady deals with other countries, & that Barack was always playing golf, doing much of his traveling in a fume spewing 747 to play golf in Hawaii – Once even teeing off immediately after announcing the gruesome death of a great young man by ISIS!”

Please remember that when it comes to Trump’s hypocrisy, there’s always a tweet:

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Lincoln Center: Kelli O’Hara Sings Gorgeous #MemorialForUsAll Tribute

Tony Award-winner Kelli O’Hara
Join Tony Award-winner Kelli O’Hara for this fourth Memorial For Us All tribute from Lincoln Center, singing works by Sondheim, McLean, and more to honor those we’ve lost. From Lincoln Center: We offer #MemorialForUsAll to provide unity, comfort, and healing. This Memorial Day weekend, as we honor those who have left us too soon during this pandemic, we also extend our debt of gratitude to those who have lost their lives in service. I was lucky to work with Kelli in the 2001 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s FOLLIES. She was as exquisite then as she is today. Three songs, beautifully performed.

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Skittles ‘Gives Up The Rainbow’ In Honor Of Pride Month

Multi-colored candy Skittles has announced it’s giving up its ‘giving up its rainbow’ in honor of Pride Month this year. In an Instagram post, the popular candy company wrote, “During PRIDE only #OneRainbow matters. That’s why we are giving up our rainbow to show support for the LGBTQ+ community! For every SKITTLES Pride Pack sold we are donating $1 to GLAAD. 🌈” The special-edition grey ‘Pride Packs’ will be available at CVS and select Walmart stores beginning this coming week through the month of June. This isn’t the first time Skittles has gone colorless. CNN reports the brand has released the limited-edition ‘Pride Packs’ in Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom in previous years. For the US debut, Skittles has partnered with LGBTQ+ advocacy group GLAAD – one dollar will be donated to the organization for every pack of gray Skittles sold up to $100,000. And, in case you’re worrying – losing the colors doesn’t mean losing the fruity rainbow flavors. Have no fear – you’ll still get to ‘taste the rainbow.’

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NY Times Prints 1000 COVID Obituaries On Front Page

(image via New York Times)
The front page of today’s New York Times lists one-sentence obituaries of 1,000 people who have died from the COVID-19 pandemic here in the United States. With the death toll about to cross the 100,000 mark, those names represent a scant 1 percent of those lost in just over 3 months – an average of 1,100 deaths a day. From the New York Times:

Instead of the articles, photographs or graphics that normally appear on the front page of The New York Times, on Sunday, there is just a list: a long, solemn list of people whose lives were lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

As the death toll from Covid-19 in the United States approaches 100,000, a number expected to be reached in the coming days, editors at The Times have been planning how to mark the grim milestone.

Marc Lacey, National editor, had warned Tom Bodkin, chief creative officer of The Times, that the milestone was coming. “I wanted something that people would look back on in 100 years to understand the toll of what we’re living through,” Mr. Lacey said in an email.

There’s an interactive article on the Times‘ website expounding on the list of those lost and included on the front page. As the Times was prepping its cover story yesterday, Donald Trump played golf at his National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia. According to reports, he is playing another round of golf again today. CNN notes this is his 358th visit to one of his properties and his 266th trip to one of his golf clubs since he took office in January 2017. The Biden campaign noted the widely divergent perspectives on the gravity of the COVID-19 threat.

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Trump Plays Golf As U.S. COVID-19 Deaths Approach 100K

According to Bloomberg News (and other sources), Donald Trump headed to the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Virginia today.

President Donald Trump headed to the golf course for the first time in over two months, engaging in his personal passion as well as attempting to show how the country can return to normal after stay-at-home orders taken against the coronavirus.

Trump arrived at the Trump National Golf Club in suburban Virginia around 10:30 a.m. on Saturday. He was spotted earlier wearing a white polo shirt and signature white “Make America Great Again” cap. The White House doesn’t always confirm Trump’s activities while at his golf courses.

The president’s most recent golf outing was March 8 at the Trump International course in West Palm Beach, Florida. He teed it up with members of the World Series-winning Washington Nationals baseball team, according to images posted by the players on social media. Trump played at the same course on March 7.

In 2014, Trump criticized President Barack Obama for playing golf when there were TWO cases of Ebola in the U.S. As of today, there are 1.6 million cases of COVID-19 which has claimed the lives of nearly 100,000 Americans. And according to the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate has soared to 14.7 percent. But in 2014, when the unemployment rate was 5.8 percent and the Ebola outbreak had been contained, Trump took time to criticize Obama…?

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PBS Celebrates Pride Month With PRIDELAND One-Hour Special & Digital Series

PBS is celebrating LGTBQ+ Pride Month with the launch of PRIDELAND a new one-hour special and short-form digital series following host and actor Dyllón Burnside (from FX’s Pose) on a journey across the South. The six-episode, short-form series will launch on PBS Voices, a new documentary-focused YouTube Channel by PBS Digital Studios, beginning Thursday, May 26. A one-hour companion special, also hosted by Burnside, will premiere on Friday, June 12 at 9:00 p.m. ET (check local listings) on PBS, PBS.org and the PBS Video App.

PBS will also air an encore presentation of The Lavender Scare, the gripping documentary that tells the untold story of how tens of thousands of homosexual federal workers were either fired or denied employment in the 1950s, stirring outrage in the gay community and starting an LGBTQ rights movement with an unlikely hero at the forefront. The acclaimed documentary (winner of 16 awards for Best Documentary) will air on PBS on Friday, June 12 at 10:00 p.m. ET.

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Michigan: Sex Club Shut Down For Operating During COVID-19 Threat

(image via Facebook)
A retail ‘sex complex’ in South Lansing, Michigan, has been shut down for operating a backroom sex club during the state’s coronavirus restrictions. Ingham County Health Officer Linda Vail told the local news outlet City Pulse that, while the retail store Fantasies in the front of the building hasn’t been allowed to operate during the current shutdown, the “men’s lounge and maze” located in the back has been open for business violating Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s statewide orders. “There’s a lot of close contact,” said Vail. “No way they are 6 feet apart.” Carol Siemon, the Ingham County Prosecutor, ordered police to serve a cease-and-desist letter last week but the owners of the sex club continued. Police returned on Friday to shut down the business. A website for the club referred to the space as Club Tabu and describes itself as a maze of “paths and hedges,” designed to be “very dark and made with walls that have a few holes in them.” “This is an alternative club, with an emphasis on gay/bi/ts/tg. No one will ever be turned away, however, this is by no means a ‘swingers lounge.’ Although we would love to cater to every specific need and fantasy, this club is primarily focused on “male/trans fantasies” If there is a great enough need, we will designate a day for couples with bi to meet.” To be clear, I have no moral judgments about what people do sexually in private, whether at home or a private club. But during a pandemic that’s killed nearly 100,000 Americans, and racked up over 340,000 deaths around the world so far, it’s ridiculous to imagine that people would put not only their health but the health of others at risk for some anonymous encounter. There, I said it.