Idaho’s phased reopening: ‘some of it is not going to be perfectly fair,’ Gov. Little says – KTVB.com

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Idaho's stay-home order is set to expire Thursday. The governor is set to make an announcement about the next phase that morning.

BOISE, Idaho The reopening of some Idaho businesses that were deemed "non-essential," and have had to shut down because of the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, is set to begin Friday, but it won't happen all at once.

The current statewide stay-at-home order is set to expire on Thursday.

The next day, Friday, May 1, Gov. Brad Little will hold a news conference about what comes next. That is scheduled for 11:00 a.m., and will be streamed live on KTVB.COM and the KTVB YouTube channel.

"I think we will meet the criteria for Stage One unless something significant happens moving forward," Little said Tuesday in a telephonic town hall hosted by the AARP.

During that call, the governor also admitted that some of the reopening plan is "not going to be perfectly fair."

Under the first stage of the reopening plan, set for May 1 through May 15, places of worship can open if they adhere to strict physical distancing, sanitation protocol, and any guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Daycare facilities and organized youth activities, including camps, also can reopen during Stage One.

In that stage, Idahoans are still advised to avoid non-essential travel or gatherings of any size. A 14-day self-quarantine for people entering Idaho continues through the month of May.

Gyms and personal care services, such as barber shops and beauty salons, may reopen during Stage Two, set for May 16-29, if they can meet protocols.

Restaurant dining rooms can also open during Stage Two, once their plans have been submitted for approval by local public health districts.

Bars and nightclubs are to remain closed until Stage Four, June 13-26.

That distinction between restaurants and bars raised a question about logic and fairness, using the example of a brew pub that offers alcoholic beverages in its dining room and is classified as a restaurant because it serves food, while the tap room of a craft brewery would be classified as a bar, even if the brewery regularly hosted food trucks.

The question came during Tuesday's AARP town hall, when a caller identified as Mark from Meridian asked Gov. Little why one establishment that can abide by the same social distancing guidelines as another must wait up to four weeks longer to open under the state's reopening plan.

The governor began answering the question by saying that the plan, from the beginning, "is not perfect."

He also said that bars "by their very nature, have a lower propensity to have social distancing than a sit-down restaurant."

"There are going to be instances of where the fairness of it, particularly if you're the business, it doesn't look right and it's probably not right," Little said. "I agree with you that it's not fair, but where do you draw the line? If you sell peanuts in a bar is it a restaurant? Or a hot dog?"

Another caller, Jenny from Koosia, asked the governor to cite, specifically, the laws and constitutional provisions that give him the authority to issue orders that have forced businesses to close.

"What gives you the right to continue to mandate that Idahoans be barred from providing for their families by denying them access to the operations of their businesses, which are their property and are protected by the Fifth Amendment? I'm not asking to hear about CDC guidelines. As governor of this state you're answerable to the people of Idaho," she said.

Gov. Little mentioned the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reserves to the states or to the people those powers not delegated to the national government. He also mentioned Title 46 of Idaho state law, which includes the state's disaster preparedness act.

"My obligation is to protect the people of Idaho and to protect their economic livelihood," Little said. "Had we not done something, the turmoil of the economy would have been much much worse: The amount of people that died, the amount of people that were sick. The economic turmoil would have been by a magnitude of many over what we have today."

The dates for each stage of reopening are tentative. Idaho won't advance to the next stage if certain criteria are not met, as measured by the state's syndromic tracking and disease reporting systems. Those criteria are detailed in the Stages of Reopening page on the Idaho Rebounds website. They are also summarized below:

Reliable measurements of COVID-19 trends depend on testing.

Gov. Little said Tuesday that a task force on testing will advise the Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare and the Coronavirus Working Group on how they can measure success against the pandemic.

"Have we had the testing capacity we would have liked? No, we haven't," said David Jeppesen, director of the Idaho Dept. of Health and Welfare. "But I think that we are in a much better place today, and that's part of the reason we started this testing task force, to make sure we leverage that capacity in the best way possible."

A little more than 20,000 people in Idaho had been tested for COVID-19 as of Monday, according to the Idaho Division of Public Health's coronavirus website.

More than 80 percent of those tests were conducted by commercial laboratories.

Jeppesen said each COVID-19 test takes about four hours, and it now takes two to five days for results to be returned.

"We're getting much closer to two days on those tests," he said.

Facts not fear: More oncoronavirus

See our latest updates in our YouTube playlist:

At KTVB, were focusing our news coverage on the facts and not the fear around the virus. To see our full coverage, visit our coronavirus section, here: http://www.ktvb.com/coronavirus.

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Idaho's phased reopening: 'some of it is not going to be perfectly fair,' Gov. Little says - KTVB.com

Bordentown pizzeria owner accused of coughing on grocery worker calls cops on Trentonian for asking why he’s selling masks – The Trentonian

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BORDENTOWN Desperate times call for desperate measures.

As New Jersey businesses struggle to make it during the lockdown, a township pizzeria owner charged with intentionally coughing on a supermarket employee and telling her he had the coronavirus called the cops on The Trentonian for reporting on his creative new way of profiting off the pandemic.

George Falcone, 50, of Freehold, was selling face masks for $4 a pop at his township pizzeria, The Trentonian learned.

A customer who visited the pizzeria last week provided photos showing a box of black masks behind the counter, near the checkout register of Rosario's Pizza.

The customer recognized Falcone from seeing his mugshot in newspaper stories detailing his alleged cough-law conduct. The casedrew national attention.

"I saw the masks next to the pizza and said, 'This is f**king crazy.'" the customer said. "How comical and hypocritical that he's coughing on an employee, allegedly, when people are dying from this, and now he's selling masks to make a profit. That's wild."

Rosario's Pizza was selling face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic.

After confirming he was selling the masks and they were going like hot cakes, Falcone later called the cops onThe Trentonianfor contacting him to ask about his decision to sell the masks.

He refused to say whether he had reservations about selling the masks in light of his felony charges and soon hung up the phone.

"We are no longer selling them. I ran out. Why are you asking me this? What does this have to do with your question about face masks here?" the pizzeria owner said. "I'm going to ask you not to ask any more questions about that, and I will refer you to my attorney, and you can talk to him."

The pizzeria owner was charged last month with third-degree terroristic threats and fourth-degree obstructing the administration of law by the office of Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

When his office announced the charges against the pizzeria owner, Grewal said, These are extremely difficult times in which all of us are called upon to be considerate of each other not to engage in intimidation and spread fear, as alleged in this case."

Gov. Phil Murphy later blasted Falcone at a news briefing calling him and those putting people at risk during the outbreak a bunch of "knuckleheads."

Falcone was charged with coughing on a worker during a March 22 visit to a Wegmans in Manalapan.

The employee asked the pizzeria owner to move back because he was too close to her and a food display. That's when, authorities said, Falcone leaned in close to the worker to cough and allegedly laugh, telling her he was infected with the virus.

The pizzeria owner, who may be experiencing flagging sales amid the pandemic, then allegedly told two workers that they were lucky to have jobs, authorities said.

Falcone was also hit with a disorderly persons offense for harassment. He could face up to seven years in the slammer and $26,000 in fines if convicted of all charges.

Wife Silvana defended her husband in a Facebook post March 24 and thanked customers for continuing to support the family-run restaurant, which has been open more than four decades.

We are confident that when the evidence comes out it will prove what we already know, that my husband did not do what they are saying he did in the media, she wrote.

The AG's office didn't immediately respond to request for a status update on the case.

And Falcone wasn't having it, hanging up the phone as a reporter attempted to get his attorney's contact info.

Rosario's Pizza was selling face masks amid the coronavirus pandemic.

When The Trentonian called back, Falcone threatened to get the cops involved.

"I am going to call the police the next time you call me, Isaac, and have you charged with harassment," he said, hanging up again without providing his attorney's info.

Being more than fair to the pizzeria owner, the newspaper attempted once more to get his legal beagle's number to reach out for comment.

No one answered the phone at the pizzeria. But minutes later, The Trentonianwas contacted by a Bordentown Township Police detective.

"Apparently, he's calling saying you're repeatedly calling his business and somewhat harassing him, so I just wanted to call to let you know he called us, and he doesn't want to have any further communication with you," the detective said.

Ironically, harassment is the same charge Falcone faces.

The detective said he wouldn't pursue charges as long as the newspaper ceased contact with Falcone.

"As long as it doesn't continue, then there won't be any legal recourse," the detective said. "You do your story without his input. If you continue to call him, it becomes harassment. He doesn't have to speak to you. He doesn't have to speak to us. Everyone has a Fifth Amendment right, the right to remain silent as well."

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Bordentown pizzeria owner accused of coughing on grocery worker calls cops on Trentonian for asking why he's selling masks - The Trentonian

Rick Scott, a man of no sympathy for "whiners who lost their little jobs" and try to access FL’s glitch-prone, crash-happy unemployment…

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Floridas junior US senator is quite a guyas hed be the first to tell you. Hes worth over $250 million, and youre not.

Rick Scott has no sympathy for these grasping whiners who lost their little jobs in the coronavirus pandemic and now have the gall to expect a government hand-out.

Who do they think they are: Boeing?

Scott sent a fundraising email on April 23rd to his well-connected and richly-upholstered campaign donors complaining that, Businesses looking to reopen are telling us their employees dont want to come back to work because they collect more on unemployment.

Under Congresss Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act, these laid-off layabouts could theoretically get $600 a week to do absolutely nothing.

(Scott, of course, voted for CARES, but it pained him. Truly it did).

After all, $600 a week is lavish: enough to cover the rent, maybe the car payment, some ramen noodles, and a four-pack of tuna. You might have to let the health insurance slide, but theres always the emergency room, right?

Most of the aid money is federal, but you have to apply though the state.

Problem is, the state system, to put it mildly, aint working.

You cant get anyone on the phone; it can take a week to breach the online portal; and half the time, it crashes. Around 40 percent of those who somehow manage to fill in the forms discover they are supposedly ineligibleeven though they meet all the criteria.

To date, more than 1.8 million people have applied, but only about eight percent have received a check.

Now, who do you suppose we have to thank for what one Republican insider calls this sh-t sandwich?

Rick Scott.

Scott, you see, shelled out $77 million in taxpayer money for the glitch-prone, security-challenged, crash-happy, slow-as-Christmas CONNECT system. It never worked right. It wasnt supposed to. As an adviser to Gov. Ron DeSantis (whos been highly critical of CONNECT) recently told Politico, it was designed to fail.

The former governor, elected to the Senate by the skin of his capped teeth two years ago, signed legislation in 2014 requiring people trying to get that princely $275 a week in unemployment compensation to answer a 45-question skills questionnaire and prove they tried to get hired by at least five possible employers every week.

Many were rejected anyway, owing to some ill-defined charge of misconduct.

Scott, a person of limited imagination, thinks that if youre poor its your faultand your sorry bone-idle ways should not be rewarded with a handout.

Like many pols, including Donald Trump, hes so thoroughly bought into his mythologized background he thinks he struck it rich entirely thanks to his own hard work and geniusinstead of what we might describe as a certain ethical flexibility.

Trump talks about his success as if the money he got from his dubious daddy and the loans from the Bank of China and Deutsche Bank were incidental, as if he pulled himself up by his own bone-spur-friendly boot straps.

Scott talks about himself as if he were born destitute in a log cabin he helped build and split rails until he joined the Navy, founded the hospital chain Columbia/HCA, made money, and became governor of the Sunshine State.

In truth, his Navy career was remarkable only for the way he bought Cokes onshore and re-sold at hugely-inflated prices to his fellow sailors. At Columbia/HCA he presided over one of the largest healthcare frauds in history. He invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination 75 times; and he finally walked away with $300 million in stock and optionssome of which helped him buy his way into the Florida Governors Mansion.

Like Trump, Scott equates money with intelligence and skilland quite possibly divine favor.

Business ber alles.

Those who pursue low-paid but intellectually-enriching fields are losers.

Public employees are losers. Teachers are losers.

When he was governor, Scott tried to force universities to push students into what he saw as lucrative careers in STEM subjects, instead of useless nonsense like anthropology, which should not be supported by state funds.

His own daughter majored in anthropology, but thats different. She comes from money.

Scott invented all kinds of ways to torment what he saw as the Undeserving Poor. He undercut public health facilities. He tried to mandate drug testing for all state workers, who are among the lowest-paid in the nation.

He also thought it would be a grand wheeze to drug test welfare recipientsat their own expense. If they didnt come out clean, they wouldnt get their benefits.

Scotts family happened to own a string of clinics which perform drug testing. What a coincidence.

Though he had allegedly gone to law school (SMU), Scott seemed to have never heard of the Fourth Amendment. The courts slapped him down.

Taxpayers still ended up paying $1.5 million in his legal fees.

In the midst of this deadly pandemic, Scott wants to underline the fecklessness of those who need public assistance and the way profligate Democrats enable them.

In a hysterical (not in the funny way) column for Fox News, Scott splutters that while decent American families stick to a budget, reusing tinfoil and cutting their own grass, Big Gubmint throws money to the unworthy.

He quotes Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois saying of the CARES Act: if we err on the side of giving a hard-working family an extra thousand dollars or two thousand dollars because of our approach, so be it.

Clutch those pearls! You taxpayers, who have shelled out a mere $133 million (so far) to pay for Donald Trumps golf outings, should rise up and say this waste, fraud and abuse will not stand!

Rick Scotts counting on you to be as wet-hen mad as he is. Hes running for president in 2024 and rage is all hes gotrage and contempt.

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Rick Scott, a man of no sympathy for "whiners who lost their little jobs" and try to access FL's glitch-prone, crash-happy unemployment...

The First Amendment and Broad Juror Intimidation Statutes – Reason

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Today, the North Carolina Supreme Court handed down State v. Mylett, in which the UCLA First Amendment Clinic had filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Pennsylvania Center for the First Amendment. The court reversed the defendant's conviction on the grounds that there wasn't enough evidence that he conspired to intimidate a juror (congratulations on that to Rob Heroy, the defendant's lawyer), and therefore didn't need to reach our arguments that the juror-intimidation statute, as interpreted by the North Carolina Court of Appeals, was overbroad.

But I thought I'd pass along our amicus brief for those who are interested in such thingsand of course I wanted to thank our superb pro bono local counsel, Noell Tin of Tin Fulton Walker & Owen, and my student Bruce Lee, who worked on the brief with me.

Summary of Argument

N.C. Gen. Stat. 14-225.2criminalizes "threatening" or "intimidating" a juror because of his or her "prior official act as a juror." This statute is content-based on its face, because it "draws distinctions based on the message a speaker conveys" Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 2227 (2015)here, based on whether it conveys a "threatening" or "intimidating" message. The statute is also content-based because it requires prosecutors and other law enforcement officials to "examine the content of the message that it conveyed to determine whether" a violation has occurred. McCullen v. Coakley, 134 S. Ct. 2518, 2531 (2014).The Court of Appeals thus erred in concluding that the statute merely criminalizes conduct, not speech, and in concluding that the statute is content-neutral.

Because the statute is content-based, it must be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest. See Reed, 135 S. Ct. at 2231.The statute can satisfy this test if the statute is read as limited to "true threats," one of the narrow categories of speech that is excluded from First Amendment protection. See, e.g., Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359-60 (2003).

But the Court of Appeals read the statute as going beyond just true threats, even though the dissent pointed out that such a broad reading violates the First Amendment. Indeed, the decision below upheld a conviction even though the trial court expressly refused the defense's request to instruct the jury that "threaten" and "intimidate" was limited to true threats.

This makes it possible for convictions to rest solely on constitutionally protected speechfor instance, statements that can be seen as "intimidat[ing]" people through fear of public embarrassment or social ostracism. Under such a reading, it could be a crime for a newspaper to harshly criticize jurors' decisions, or for a "group of people who had gathered in a public space outside a courthouse to voice their dissatisfaction with a verdict in a high profile case," State v. Mylett, No. COA17-480, 2018 WL 6314137, at *17 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015) (McGee, dissenting). This cannot be constitutional.

This Court should therefore overturn the Court of Appeals' decision, and conclude that 14-225.2must be interpreted as limited to "true threats."

Argument

[I.] Section 14-225.2 is a content-based speech restriction

Section 14-225.2criminalizes any speech that is "threatening" or "intimidating" to a juror and that is said in response to that juror's official act. The statute is content-based for two related reasons: First, it restricts speech based on the "message a speaker conveys," Reed, 135 S. Ct. at 2227here, a message that is "threatening" or "intimidating." Second, it requires prosecutors and other "'enforcement authorities' to 'examine the content of the message that is being conveyed to determine whether' a violation has occurred," McCullen v. Coakley, 134 S. Ct. 2518, 2531 (2014) (citation omitted), again to see if the content is "threatening" or "intimidating."

This would be true even if 14-225.2were read as limited to criminalizing true threats (a reading the court below did not adopt). Laws that permissibly restrict true threats are nonetheless content-basedin Virginia v. Black, the Court listed bans on "true threats" as "restrictions upon the content of speech," albeit ones that are allowed under the First Amendment. 538 U.S. 343, 358-59 (2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). Likewise, in Watts v. United States, the Court noted that a statute making it illegal to threaten to kill or injure the President of the United States criminalized "a form of pure speech." 394 U.S. 705, 707 (1969) (per curiam). The same is true of this statute.

The Court of Appeals thus erred in concluding that the statute is content-neutral, and that it restricts conduct, not speech. See State v. Mylett, No. COA17-480, 2018 WL 6314137, at *3-5 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015). Though the statute does not mention speech expressly, and could in theory be violated by nonspeech conduct, here the statute covered Mylett's speech because of the supposedly threatening or intimidating message that the speech communicated. Even laws "directed at conduct" are content-based speech restrictions when "the conduct triggering coverage under the statute consists of communicating a message." Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, 561 U.S. 1, 28 (2010).

Thus, in Holder, the Court held that a statute prohibiting "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations was a content-based speech restriction, even though "material support" "most often does not take the form of speech at all." Id. at 26-28. Likewise, 14-225.2 is not rendered content-neutral just because the statute happens to also criminalize threatening or intimidating conduct as well as threatening or intimidating speech.

Similarly, in Cohen v. California, the Court struck down the conviction of a man who was convicted under a statute prohibiting maliciously and willfully disturbing the peace or quiet of any neighborhood or person by "offensive conduct." 403 U.S. 15, 16 (1971). Cohen was convicted for wearing a jacket bearing a vulgar and offensive anti-draft message; and because "[t]he only 'conduct' which the State sought to punish [was] the fact of communication," the Court treated the law as a content-based restriction on speech. Id. at 18; Holder, 561 U.S. at 27-28; United States v. Playboy Entm't Group, Inc., 529 U.S. 803, 813 (2000) (giving Cohen as an example of a case involving "a content-based speech restriction"); Police Dep't v. Mosley, 408 U.S. 92, 95 (1972) (same); see also Eugene Volokh, Speech as Conduct: Generally Applicable Laws, Illegal Courses of Conduct, "Situation-Altering Utterances," and the Uncharted Zones, 90 Cornell L. Rev. 1277, 1284 (2005).The same analysis applies to 14-225.2.

[II.] Section 14-225.2 would not be narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest unless it is read as limited to "true threats"

Because the statute is a content-based speech restriction, it is unconstitutional unless it is narrowly tailored to a compelling government interest. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 135 S. Ct. 2218, 2231 (2015); State v. Bishop, 368 N.C. 869, 877 (2016). The State does have a compelling interest in "ensuring that jurors remain free from threats and intimidation directly resulting from their duty to serve." State v. Mylett, No. COA17-480, 2018 WL 6314137, at *5 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015). And if the law were read as limited to constitutionally unprotected true threats, it would be narrowly tailored. "'True threats' encompass those statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence," Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003), and intimidation "in the constitutionally proscribable sense of the word is a type of a true threat." Id. at 360.

But laws criminalizing threatening speech "must be interpreted with the commands of the First Amendment clearly in mind" in order to distinguish true threats "from constitutionally protected speech." Watts, 394 U.S. at 707. In this case, though, the Court of Appeals rejected the dissent's call to read the statute as limited to true threats. State v. Mylett, No. COA17-480, 2018 WL 6314137, at *19 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015) (McGee, C.J., dissenting). The law as read by the court below thus covers a broad range of speech that might be loosely seen as "intimidating" rather than threatening, or might be seen as threatening just embarrassment or social ostracism rather than criminal conduct.

Other courts have recognized the importance of following Watts and limiting threat statutes to "true threats." Thus, in State v. Johnston, the Washington Supreme Court held that a statute banning "threaten[ing] to bomb or otherwise injure any public or private school building" could only apply to true threats. 156 Wash. 2d 355, 360 (2006). Under any looser construction, the court reasoned, the statute would be rendered "unconstitutionally overbroad under the First Amendment." Id. at 363. And because the jury was not instructed using the true threats standard, the court reversed the conviction. Id. at 366.

Similarly, in State v. Perkins, the Supreme Court of Wisconsin overturned a conviction under a statute criminalizing threats against judges because the jury instructions failed to distinguish between true threats and "hyperbole, jest, innocuous talk, expressions of political view, or other similarly protected speech." 243 Wis. 2d 141, 165 (2001). To be constitutional, the jury instructions needed to "contain a clear definition of a threat based on the true threat standard." Id. at 166. Likewise, Mylett's conviction should be reversed and the case retried with the jury being given such a "clear definition of a threat."

[III.] If read as the court of appeals read it, the statute would be facially overbroad and thus unconstitutional

The Court of Appeals' interpretation also renders the statute invalid on its face. Under the First Amendment, "a law may be invalidated as overbroad if 'a substantial number of its applications are unconstitutional, judged in relation to the statute's plainly legitimate sweep.'" United States v. Stevens, 559 U.S. 460, 473 (2010) (citation omitted). Here, if the statute were not read as limited to true threats, it would indeed have a substantial number of unconstitutional applications.

Speech could be said to be "intimidating" or "threatening," for instance, just because it makes people fear public embarrassment or social ostracism. Under the Court of Appeals' reading of the statute, then, a newspaper columnist could be prosecuted for naming jurors and condemning their recent verdict in a way that some jurors saw as "intimidating," even if the op-ed made no constitutionally unprotected true threats. Yet a conviction on this basis would be unconstitutional: "[s]peech does not lose its protected character . . . simply because it may embarrass others or coerce them into action." NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886, 910 (1982).

Likewise, the Court of Appeals' loose reading of "threatening" and "intimidating" could apply to angry denunciations of a jury verdict (criminal or civil) in a political candidate's speech, or on a citizen's Facebook page, if the speakers have reason to think that the denunciations might be forwarded to some jurors. And, as the Court of Appeals dissent noted, the statute could permit the prosecution of citizens who had lawfully gathered "outside a courthouse to voice their dissatisfaction with a verdict in a high profile case," State v. Mylett, No. COA17-480, 2018 WL 6314137, at *17 (N.C. Ct. App. 2015) (McGee, dissenting), even when they do not make any true threatsa prosecutor could argue that the mere presence of an angry and passionate crowd would intimidate a juror leaving the courthouse.

The way to avoid such unconstitutional facial overbreadth is to do what the dissenting judge below suggested, and what the Washington and Wisconsin Supreme Court decisions cited above did: read the statute as limited to "true threats," and as requiring that the jury be instructed accordingly.

Conclusion

Section 14-225.2restricts speech and not just conduct, and restricts it based on its content. That is permissible if the statute is read as limited to "true threats," a constitutionally unprotected category of speech. But the jury was not instructed that it had to find a true threat, and the Court of Appeals rejected the dissenting judge's call to read the statute as limited to true threats. The Court of Appeals decision should therefore be reversed.

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The First Amendment and Broad Juror Intimidation Statutes - Reason

Lawsuit filed against Marco Island alleges first amendment violation – Marco News

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Local resident Regina Dayton speaks to Marco Island City Council on Jan. 21, 2020.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

Tworesidents filed alawsuit against the city of Marco Island and City Council ChairpersonErik Brechnitzalleging their first amendment rightswere violated.

Regina L. Dayton and Ray Seward are requestingthe 20th Judicial Circuit courtenter its judgment compelling a declaratory and injunctive relief, punitive damages against all defendants and award of attorneys' fees to plaintiffs.

On Jan. 21, both residents slammed councilor Larry Honig during a councilmeeting after a Naples Daily News reportrevealed he admitted to betheonly person providing content to marcopolitics.com, awebsite targeting council candidates as well as current and former city councilors.

Brechnitzinterrupted Daytonon several instances during her time at the podium.

"My comments are not meant to be in opposition to a person but in support for what is right," Dayton said. "I once voted for Mr. Honig, and there is no denying his intellect nor the hours he devotes to city issues but this is a different matter."

Brechnitzinterrupted Dayton's prepared speech.

"Mrs. Dayton, if it'snot going to be about a specific councilorplease do not name any councilors," Brechnitz said. "This is about policy issues."

"If this is gonna become an attack on someone "

Chairperson of the Marco Island City Council, Erik Brechnitz, requested a motion to approve the 2019-2020 city budget on Sept. 16, 2019.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

More: Marco residents, councilor speak up about Honig during City Council meeting

Dayton did not let Brechnitz finish the sentence.

"Oh no, sir," Dayton said."And I think that if you let me finish you'll see that's my intent too."

Dayton continued.

"Clearly, Mr. Honig in his written response to the FEC now admits that he alone wrote the content of the website marcopolitics, which many Marco Islanders found repulsive after repeatedly denying this."

Brechnitz interrupted Dayton again.

"Mrs. Dayton, this sounds like an attack to me," Brechnitz said.

In response, Dayton said it was not meant as an attack.

"It's what it sounds like," Brechnitz said."I dont want you to attack any personal councilor up here. Lets not make it personal."

Dayton then continued uninterrupted for the rest of her speech.

"I was going to ask [...] that all of you consider a vote of no confidence for Mr. Honig because I wanted you to be the collective consciousness of our community," Dayton said.

After her turn at the podium, Dayton spoke with the Eagle about her exchangewith Brechnitz.

"I never anticipated that response from Brechnitz," Dayton said. "If Mr. Honig's statements were considered freedom of speech, this should have been as well."

Local resident Ray Seward speaks to Marco Island City Council on Jan. 21, 2020.(Photo: Omar Rodrguez Ortiz/Staff)

Sewardalso spoke about Honig that night without specifically saying his name.

"Im not here to attack anyone but I was attacked by one individual on this council," Seward said. "I was slanderedand I was lied to."

"I feel I should have the right to confront that individual in public."

After a back and forth with Brechnitz, Seward said the individual should expect a letter from his attorney. He later told the Eagle that the individual he was referring to was Honig.

Dayton told the Eagle on April 22 she was personally hurt after the incident with Brechnitz.

"Both of us were personally hurt.We were shocked. We were embarrassed, but that wasn't our issue," she said."That's done, there is nothing that can take that away."

"But when citizens in our community want to stand before their elected officials and speak the truth and (are) told to sit down and are censored, that's wrong."

Dayton said the purpose of the lawsuit, filed April 3, is to preventother residentsfrom goingthrough a similar experience.

"What's important to me about filing this lawsuit is to ensure [...] that in the future, when others wish to speak to their elected officials, they are given that opportunity," she said.

Dayton also said the lawsuit could have been avoided.

"The hope was that chair Brechnitz would make an outreach to Ray and I and say 'my intentions were well founded [...] but it was wrong,' and we would have moved forward," Dayton said.

"There wouldn't have been no lawsuit."

Dayton was allowed by Brechnitz to "say nearly everything she wanted to say, except naming me in her baseless personal attacks," according to Honig.

"Bear in mind, this is the same person who constantly files self-serving complaints against city staff and other councilors," Honig wrote April 22. "Taxpayers have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in direct payments as well as legal fees and her complaints are always dismissed as frivolous."

On March 27, 2019, the Federal Election CommissionnotifiedDayton that the complaint she filed against Honigalleging his website violated Florida's election lawswas 'legally insufficient.'

"The redlined editorial contained political analysis, fact-checking, opinion, and name-calling," wrote Tim Vaccaro, the commission'sexecutive director. "However, in my opinion, it did not include anything that would amount to more than free political speech."

"The complaint appears to be based upon hearsay," Vaccaro wrote.

This is not Dayton's first complaint or lawsuit against the city or its councilors.

In 2019, the Florida Bar dismissed Dayton's complaints filed against Councilor Jared Grifoni and City Attorney Alan Gabriel over their conduct in the handling of battery allegations against former City Manager Lee Niblock.

In two separate letters to Dayton, Bar counsel Teresa Goodson wrote that there was insufficient evidence to prove either man had committed any violations of rules governing attorney conduct.

In 2014, the city paid $150,000 to Dayton and her husbandTimothy J. Dayton as part of apair of settlement agreements which concluded their long-standing dispute over the city building departments inspection of the couples home as it was being constructed.

It wasa squabble that found the Daytonsseeking redress through a Collier County Circuit Court lawsuit and multiple administrative complaints filed with the Florida Department of Building and Professional Regulation against the city and its inspectors.

As far as were concerned, this is behind us, said Dayton of the quest she and her husband began in 2007, when they filed the first of their multiple DBPR complaints against Marco and its building officials.

City Manager Mike McNees responded to the Eagle's request for comment but asked that further questions be directed to Alan Gabriel, city attorney.

"I wont have anything to say about the lawsuit while its ongoing, something that would hold true for any such suit," McNees wrote April 22.

Brechnitz did not respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by Naples Daily News reporter Devan Patel and correspondent Don Manley.

Omar Rodrguez Ortiz is a community reporter for Naples Daily News and Marco Eagle. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram as@Omar_fromPR, and on Facebook. Support his work by subscribing to Naples Daily News.

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First amendment rights should not be suppressed, even during pandemic The News Journal – The News Journal

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U.S. history is full of instances where people have taken a stand against what they perceive as excess, overreach, inaction, ineptness, or just plain evil on the part of local, state and/or federal government.

Dean Manning is a reporter at the News Journal.

The nation was founded by just such people, and they added provisions in the U.S. Constitution to ensure future generations would have a legal leg to stand on should they feel the need.

The Constitution guarantees the right for people to peacefully assemble and to speak their minds without fear of reprisal from the government.

Since 1791 when the Bill of Rights, including the First Amendment, was ratified, courts have found some limitations.

In 1919, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that false speech, such as the familiar Yelling fire in a crowded theater and causing panic, is not protected, unless there is actually a fire.

The ongoing COVID19 pandemic has resulted in pushback from people across multiple states, including Kentucky, who are demanding governors ease the restrictions.

Gov.Andy Beshear instituted restrictions on what businesses may remain open. Main Street in Corbin is a ghost town, while the budding revitalization of downtown Williamsburg has been stopped in its tracks.

One of the final steps was closing state parks, including Cumberland Falls and banning groups of more than 10 people from congregating.

The governor had also ordered that churches not hold in-person services, using online and drive-in options.

When protestors went to the State Capitol in Frankfort, where thousands have gone in the past to voice their anger, the protestors were called out by their fellow citizens.

Among the suggestions was that Gov. Beshear call in the Kentucky State Police to break up the protest.

Im a liveandletlive type of person.

You want to be a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Wiccan, Hindu, Shinto, Sikh, Pagan, other, or none of the above? Preach it!

You love President Trump, or hate President Trump, and want to march down Main Street in Corbin with a sign proclaiming that, or shout it on your Facebook page? Go for it!

You want to abolish the United States and want to join a one-world government, or just start over with whatever utopia you may dream up? More power to you!

And, yes, if you dont like a particular race, creed, color or sexual orientation and want to voice that, I will defend your right to say that without interference from the government, even though I believe it makes you among the worst people there are.

I understand the governor is trying to keep COVID19 from spreading. But just as he can get on his soapbox every day at 5 p.m. and speak to the masses, so those protestors, and, yes, those who agree with him, have the right to gather and voice that.

With the popular opinion on free speech spiraling further and further toward perceived hate speech being banished, the need to stand for free speech is even greater.

Perception is a pendulum. What is accepted speech today, may be hate speech tomorrow and a citizen who stands by while free speech is eroding could very easily find their own views outlawed in the future.

So, while you may not like what the protestors who stood outside the capitol were saying, voicing support for their right to do so is essential, as you may be part of the next group seeking to exercise that same right.

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First amendment rights should not be suppressed, even during pandemic The News Journal - The News Journal

Urgent Care Doctor Silenced By Youtube Says His First Amendment Rights Have Been Attacked – Sara A. Carter

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Dr. Dan Erickson, who owns several urgent care facilities throughout California and is a specialist in emergency medicine, warned of the collateral damage resulting from the coronavirus outbreak and the stay at home orders, which, he said, only elongates the curve and decreases immune systems, and isnt a good plan and his early warnings on the issue, he said, were silenced.

Erickson made the comments during a Facebook Live broadcast on Thursday night with House Freedom Caucus Chairman Rep. Andy Biggs, R-AZ, and Dr. M. Zuhdi Jasser.

As Im weighing both the collateral damage and the virus, itself damage and saying I think the collateral damage in the state of California far outweighs the actual virus. Californias at about 1,800 deaths today and we have about 40 million people, Dr. Erickson said. Every death is of course terrible, but, again, the influenza also in 2017-2018 had about 60,000 deaths. So some of the early models we saw were predicting 2 million and that didnt exactly occur.

The early decision to keep the country at home, Erickson said, despite not knowing if it was the best decision or not. Initially the rate of diagnosis at his clinic was 6.5 percent, and, after testing 5,213 patients during a two-month period. Erickson then decided to hold a press conference to be transparent after he had tested 50-60 percent of the population in Kern County. The video, which was posted to Youtube, was promptly removed from the platform for what the tech-giant says violates community guidelines.

One model that Erickson said hes been persistently monitoring is in Sweden, where the countrys top epidemiologists, including Anders Tegnell, have taken a different approach to the virus than the U.S. by keeping the economy open and allowing life to stay as normal as possible, which he says is successful and should be looked at as a possible way for our country to reopen. The model, although not initially intended by Swedens epidemiologists, may have also brought about a certain herd immunity to the virus in its population.

The decision to lock down the U.S. was because it was something to do and we were afraid when we watched China, he said. But theres data for handwashing, we have great data for handwashing, but I think we took on a program that didnt have a lot of science to it, I tried it and I toed the line for two months. And then after I had collected all my data, I looked at it, I said, you know, I think theres a better approach.'

Because many states have implemented pauses on elective surgeries, hospitals are being forced to close and/or furlough workers. He also said that the stay at home orders have presented significant tolls on patients mental health. In order to navigate the debate on reopening the country, Erickson advocated for a formation of a physicians COVID alliance for doctors treating patients with the virus on a daily basis to bring what theyre seeing with their own eyes to the publics attention.

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MARTI CROW: Church gatherings and the first amendment – Leavenworth Times

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The response to the coronavirus pandemic by many national and state leaders upsets me. However, the struggle in Kansas politics over Gov. Kellys limits on church gatherings bewilders me. A warning about meeting in large groups, of course, is proper when health experts and evidence show that such gatherings have consistently yielded a multitude of sick people and many deaths.

A warning about church gatherings is not necessarily an attack on the constitutional right to exercise religion. The first amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees us the right to practice our individual religious beliefs.Free exercise of religion, however, does not mean allowing religious people to act in ways that place themselves and others in harms way.Now do not get me wrong here.

To me, churches provide essential services and perform crucial work. I do not, however, read the governors order as shutting down my church or denying me the right to exercise my faith.

In 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court, inSherbert v. Verner,considered a case asking whether the state of South Carolina violated the Free Exercise Clause of the first amendment by denying unemployment benefits to a person for turning down a job which required working on the Sabbath.The Court ruled 7-2 that the statute did not impede a persons right to freely exercise religion.In 1985, inThornton v. Caldor, the court considered a Connecticut statute providing employees with the absolute and unqualified right not to work on their religions Sabbath. The court, 7-1, held that the statute violated the constitution because it effectively gave religious concerns automatic control over all secular interests and took no account of the rights or interests of employers and employees and had the primary effect of advancing a particular religious practice.

The court asks three questions in religious freedom questions:Does the policy or law have a clear and compelling secular purpose, does the law apply neutrally to religious and non-religious activity and is the law designed to persecute or oppress a particular religion or its practices.

Separation of church and state does not prevent the government from limiting church activities that are dangerous or harmful.Right now, gathering cheek to jowl is dangerous.Religious people usually share the values of family, charity, peace and respect for others. Fundamental to my faith is the aim to do no harm to others.Whether we wear Sunday clothes, yamika, kufi, hijabs or our jammies, I believe we have the same mission.Taking care of each other is an act of obedience to our faith.

Church gathering is important.The No.1 reason Christians are encouraged to find a church home is because the Bible instructs us to be in relationship with other believers. We have a need to come together to encourage one another as members of our faith and we work together to fulfill an important purpose in our community and onthe earth.In Hebrews 10:25, Paul taught, Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another But he also said in Hebrews 13:17, Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you.

I admit that Paul was not talking about the 2020 coronavirus pandemic.Pauls early religious gatherings did not occur in church buildings. The political and religious authorities of his time were often persecuting his followers rather than trying to protect them.Pauls early church did not have the benefit of electronics and media gatherings. But there were differences of opinion in the early churches just as there are today.Hopefully, our present differences are not based on politics and power struggles.Some believe that church gathering can be carried out safely; others choose to forego meeting in person but stay in communion in other ways.I can see both sides of the controversy. Are not we all are in agreement that this crisis is real?Because this pandemic is somewhat apocalyptic, people of faith have duties to serve each other and the world during the crisis.I hope we will learn some lessons that we can apply after the danger has abated.

When one of us is sick, or poor, or homeless, all of us are affected.Community and communication matters.

We ought to assure that those workers who do the truly important tasks are paid a living wage.Health care is not just a need, it is a right and we all have a duty as a community to provide care to each other.We thrive and overcome disaster by communicating openly and working together with love and respect for the least of us.Competition may have its place in the economy but cooperation is more important.

And when it is safe, let us all return with praise and thanksgiving to our church homes.

Marti Crow is a Leavenworth Times columnist.

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‘ReOpen NC’ Founder Has COVID-19, Says It Is Her First Amendment Right To Infect Others – Wonkette

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Audrey S. Whitlock, one of the founders of "ReOpen NC" and an admin of the ReOpen NC Facebook page, a group agitating to end social distancing measures in North Carolina, recently revealed that she tested positive for COVID-19 and was an asymptomatic carrier for who knows how long.

While most people in Whitlock's position might feel horrible, might be worried about who else they may have infected, might walk back some of the bullshit they've been spreading ... she is doing no such thing. In fact, without a hint of regret, Whitlock took to Facebook to claim that requiring her and others with COVID-19 to quarantine themselves is a violation of both their First Amendment rights and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Which, you know, it's not.

Yes, she's literally mad that she's not allowed to go rally for the right for everyone to spread highly communicable diseases just because she's got a highly communicable disease.

Via The Raleigh News & Observer:

"I have been told not to participate in public or private accommodations as requested by the government, and therefore denied my 1st amendment right of freedom of religion," Whitlock wrote. "If I were an essential employee, I would be denied access to my job by my employer and the government, though compensated, those with other communicable diseases are afforded the right to work. It has been insinuated by others that if I go out, I could be arrested for denying a quarantine order. However, the Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by employers, places of public accommodation, and state and local government entities. . Where do we draw the line?"

The line, actually, is very clear. She could Google for the line. Freedom of Religion does not mean the right to attend, in person, a specific church, while one is being quarantined due to having a contagious illness. Whitlock is free to practice her religion at home, by herself, as many are doing right now and as many did even prior to the pandemic.

While the ADA does protect those with communicable diseases, it doesn't cover situations wherein the person with the communicable disease poses a direct threat to other people. In cases like this, people can be quarantined and they can be denied access to certain public accommodations for as long as they are infectious.

Via The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Coverage of Contagious Diseases:

Audrey Whitlock may really want to go to her rallies, she might really want to go to church, but it is perfectly legal to prevent her from doing those things that if she poses a threat to others. Despite what she may have been led to believe, she is not actually the only person in the whole entire world. While she may be asymptomatic, while COVID-19 may not have killed her or put her on a ventilator, other people who also exist might not be so lucky. Ms. Whitlock might not care if those people die or get sick, but they might, and therein lies the rub.

The ReOpen NC group has continued holding protests every Tuesday throughout this, and Whitlock has refused to tell the news media whether or not she has attended these rallies. However, screenshots from the ReOpen NC Facebook group posted in the public group Banned From ReOpen NC suggest that she may have been to and posted video from at least one of them.

Nice!

[The Raleigh News & Observer]

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The nation’s free press should refuse federal bailouts | TheHill – The Hill

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News organizations are businesses, and like pretty much all other businesses, they have been financially harmed by the COVID-19 crisis. Advertising revenue the lifeblood of the journalism industry has diminished, leaving news outlets across the country to cut budgets, reduce wages and furlough staffers. Like employees in other businesses, people who work in the news industry are real human beings with families to feed and mortgages to pay. They are suffering in this uncertain financial climate.

Unlike other businesses, however, the news industry shouldnt be getting in line to seek government financial assistance, even during this national crisis. Thats because news outlets are different from widget manufacturers or local restaurateurs. The journalism industry produces news, and that product just shouldnt be tarnished or compromised by taking financial handouts from the very government the press is designed to monitor on the citizens behalf. (NOTE: The Hill has notaccepted stimulus funding)

An independent press is a hallmark of American democracy. A free press was allowed to blossom in the nation from the time the First Amendment was ratified, a controversial notion then and now. The free press has often been referred to as the Fourth Estate, serving an unofficial but essential role in watch-dogging the government.

Journalists are supposed to provide an independent news flow to the citizenry to counter bureaucrats and power-hungry politicians who are happy to snooker society with self-serving propaganda. For that role to be conducted effectively, the press must be independent in all facets, including financially. The press has enough credibility problems without creating any appearance that its independent news judgments could be influenced by taking government handouts.

Some news organizations are willing to compromise their independence from government in this harsh financial climate, already having pulled in millions of federal dollars from the Paycheck Protection Program. And more government help might be on the way. More than 70 United States senators from both sides of the aisle have signed a letter to the federal Office of Management and Budget, asking the OMB to direct federal agencies to buy public service advertising time in media outlets as a way to financially boost broadcasters and newspapers across the country. The letter originated with Sen. Steve DainesSteven (Steve) David DainesThe nation's free press should refuse federal bailouts The Hill's Coronavirus Report: Madeleine Albright says Trump's America First strategy is hurting US with a virus that knows no borders; Fauci warns states against 'leapfrogging' reopening guidelines Democratic Senate campaign committee books M in fall TV ads MORE (R-Mont.). Local media outlets surely need the money, but taking charity from the OMB because of senators pressure sure looks like government strings.

It turns out that a wide majority of news outlets dont even qualify for funds from the PPP. Many local news organizations are part of much larger corporate structures that employ over one thousand people, the threshold for participants in the PPP. The reality in the media world today is that few news outlets are mom and pop local entities, but instead are parts of big corporations that have grown like cancers through years of consolidation. These consolidated big shots have harmed local journalism with a bottom line mentality and general loss of real localism.

Federal financial support for journalism is not a brand new concept. Newspapers have benefited for years from discounted postal rates. Federal funding supports NPR and PBS. Even these small gestures could be questioned, but hardly compare to downright financial rescues.

None of this is to say the news industrys financial problems are not real or that the nation wouldnt suffer if news outlets disappeared from the local or national landscape. Broadcasters and newspaper publishers serve essential roles in their communities. But taking federal money disrupts the social distancing that has defined the press and government relationship throughout Americas history.

There have to be other ways to protect the news industry, but without government handouts. One media company reported to be receiving PPP money is the Seattle Times. It would seem mega-billionaires (and Washington state residents) such as Bill Gates or Howard Schultz could step in to fund local journalism with a foundation grant that could provide funds, but allow for autonomous journalistic operation. The COVID-19 crisis could well be the prompt for a reshuffling of how news gets provided in our nation. The declining revenues and staff layoffs surrounding journalism were underway long before COVD-19.

The American press has always boasted about its independence and fought the good fight for over two centuries to keep it that way. Now is not the time to compromise that spirit. Maintaining the public trust means making sure there is no appearance of government influence in the news product. Press freedom is more important than federal money, even during these desperate times.

Jeffrey McCall is a media critic and professor of communication at DePauw University. He has worked as a radio news director, a newspaper reporter and as a political media consultant. Follow him on Twitter@Prof_McCall.

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The nation's free press should refuse federal bailouts | TheHill - The Hill

Editorial | Commitment to readers and the community endures despite changes – TribDem.com

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If youre reading this Sunday editorial as you hold a paper copy of The Tribune-Democrat, youre doing so for the last time at least for a while.

We announced on Wednesday that we had made the very difficult decision to discontinue print publication two days a week Tuesdays and Sundays, beginning May 5.

The move was a direct response to the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic locally, with many of our loyal advertisers closed or seeing business reductions.

And the move was made with much discussion about the obvious impact on our readers and the community, and with guidance from our parent company, CNHI LLC.

As Publisher Rob Forceystated in his note to readers on the front page of Wednesdays editions, we hope these cost-cutting measures are temporary.

We look forward to a day, hopefully soon, when we can report that local businesses are operating fully, that our own conditions have improved and that well be getting back to business as usual.

But, as reporters covering the COVID-19 situation have repeatedly told us,the road ahead is uncertain.

Health experts cant predict when a safe treatment will be widely available, then when a vaccine might be ready or even when we can safely move about without wearing masks and maintaining safe distances between one another.

We remain steadfastly optimistic about the ability of our region to bounce back from adversity as weve demonstrated throughout our history of floods, recessions and declines in some key economic sectors.

And it is our hope that as the region rebounds, we can rewind the clock on these decisions about our days of print publication.

But hope is not a strategy.

Wevemade a choiceto help our business navigate the short term and we are now taking steps to make sure we continue to provide our valued customers with the content they need and want.

We will publish an electronic edition on Tuesdays, despite the absence of a physical newspaper includingdaily obituaries and death notices, Classifieds and other material, which will also appear in print on Wednesdays.

Our new Weekend Edition will contain content traditionally published on Saturdays (Church page, In The Spotlight, puzzles and daily comics) as well as those features and sections that have historicallybeen delivered on Sundays (Living, Business, Comics and TV Magazine) along with two days worth of advertising circulars and coupons,editorials and letters to the editor, obituaries, feature columns and news reports.

We will continue to maintain a robust website every day, as youve come to expect, with the latest news on the coronavirus, sports, politics and other topics of immediate interest.Weve made COVID-19 updates freely available at tribdem.com, and our online audience has never been stronger although, that hasnt translated into a surge of online subscribers.

Our goal is to take away nothing our customers cherish except for some paper and ink twice a week.

We have been uplifted and empowered by the responses of many of our readersand community leaders who have reached out to us to say they understand the economic challenges we are facing just as many of them are and that theyll stand with us through this difficult period.

And, as many have reminded us, local news coverage matters indeed, now more than ever.

Communities that lose newspapers then lose much more connectivity to events and organizations, participation in civic duties such as voting, a watchdog on those in power, a champion of the voiceless, a cheerleader for individuals and institutions making a difference, a platform fordiscourse and change.

The Tribune-Democrat has been serving this region, in various forms, since 1853 through the power of the printing press, the internet, social media, and powered by the First Amendment and the passion of generations of journalists, sales representatives, press operators, administratorsand delivery personnel.

Now, were adapting, evolving. But were not going away.

With the duty of serving our community as our guide and inspiration, we pledge to remain as our Editorial page reminds us a tribune of the people.

We are making critical coverage of the coronavirus available for free. Please consider subscribing so we can continue to bring you the latest news and information on this developing story.

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Editorial | Commitment to readers and the community endures despite changes - TribDem.com

Edward Achorn: A personal note to readers – Opinion – The Providence Journal

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SundayMay3,2020at6:52AM

Although I have produced pages through Monday, Friday was my last day at The Providence Journal. It has been my tremendous honor to have served the people of Rhode Island on these Commentary pages for nearly 21 years, fighting political corruption, advancing reform and defending our hard-won freedoms, particularly the First Amendment. Along the way, I was privileged to be named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for Commentary and to win the Yankee Quill Award for lifetime achievement in New England journalism and many other prizes.

Expressing ideas is often a difficult task, subjecting one to personal attacks or worse. But I can never forget the extraordinary kindnesses I received. I feel wonderfully blessed to have won the friendship and support of readers as well as leaders in business, government, and religion here, and to have edited the work of superb journalists and writers, including our intrepid corps of letter writers. I hope you will stay in touch with me via Twitter @Ed_Achorn and facebook.com/ed.achorn. I am eager to write more books and hope you will check out my new one (see Froma Harrops marvelous column today).

I wish all of you and the brave little state that welcomed me more than two decades ago a healthy and vibrant future. Thank you for everything.

Edward Achorn

TO OUR READERS: This content is being provided for free as a public service during the coronavirus outbreak. Sign up for our daily or breaking newsletters to stay informed. Please support local journalism by subscribing to The Providence Journal.

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Letter to the editor | Wolf lacked authority to close businesses – TribDem.com

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The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. The 14th Amendment includes the state governments.

The Supreme Court of the United States has held that the civil right to peaceful public assembly cannot be limited without a specifically applicable statute.

The problem:Gov. Tom Wolfs order to shut down businesses in the entire state without specific statutory authority for a pandemic, such as the coronavirus, has caused unnecessary economic harm.

Fascism is defined as when a political philosophy, movement or regime that exalts government above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation and forcible suppression of opposition.

The solution:Section 1983 of Title 42 of the U.S. Code, Civil Rights Act of 1871 provides:

Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, ...

Dr. Bill Choby

Latrobe

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Kent State University survivors tell their stories 50 years later – cleveland.com

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CLEVELAND, Ohio Freshman Laura Davis doesnt remember if she had class the morning of Monday, May 4. If she did, she didnt go. She had plans to attend a noon rally. Photography student John Filo headed out to see what he could capture, though he was kicking himself for missing the action on campus over the weekend. Roseann Chic Canfora was worried about her brother. And, like everyone else, Gerald Casale could not have imagined how that day would end.

All were students at Kent State University that fateful day, when two thousand people exercised their First Amendment right to speak against a war many Americans thought was justified. Four were killed when the National Guard fired: Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer. Nine were injured.

They were shot as they rallied for what they believed in, exercising their rights as Americans. The shots shocked the world.

It still holds that power to show that people will sacrifice for these freedoms, said Idris Kabir Syed, a Kent State University associate professor who teaches a May 4 class. That saying that freedom aint free is very symbolic and very important here at Kent State.

May 4 brought the Vietnam War, and casualties, to a Midwest college town, forcing America to begin to reckon with its role in the war.

There was this profound change in how America thought about the war that came about because of the shootings on May 4. I mean, it really was the day the war came home, said Davis, the founding director of the May 4 Visitors Center on the Kent campus.

After the shooting, students sat on the grassy hill, as a professor screamed through a microphone to stop, lest they be slaughtered.

Kent State and schools across the country were closed. Many people blamed students for the senseless deaths. Protestors received bomb threats and hate mail. It took years for the shooting to receive the recognition it deserved. You could park your car over the spot students died until 1999.

Its painful. Do you know how hard it is for Middle America to accept the fact that American soldiers would turn their guns on American people without some provocation or reason, good reason to do so? said Canfora, a Kent sophomore at the time, whose brother Alan was shot in the wrist.

Everyone on campus that day carries May 4 with them, recalling the events in vivid details.

These are their stories.

And everything was just frozen in this chaos in horror and screaming: Gerald Casale remembers May 4, 1970

I just curled over and I just started shrieking: Theyre shooting their guns: Laura Davis remembers May 4, 1970

My immediate response was I dont know how I missed getting shot: John Filo remembers May 4, 1970

It was then that we realized it was live ammunition: Roseann Chic Canfora remembers May 4, 1970

I have great pride in the revolt: Kent State University shooting victim Alan Canfora recounts events leading to May 4, 1970

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Joe Biden allows access to Senate records tied to assault allegations – Business Insider

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Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and former Vice President Joe Biden asked the secretary of the Senate to locate an alleged harassment complaint from a former staffer Tara Reade.

In a letter sent Friday to Secretary of the Senate Julie E. Adams, Biden requests "that you take or direct whatever steps are necessary to establish the location of the records of this Office, and once they have been located, to direct a search for the alleged complaint and to make public the results of this search."

"I would ask that the public release include not only a complaint if one exists, but any and all other documents in the records that relate to the allegation," the letter continues.

Reade has alleged that Biden sexually assaulted her when she was a staffer in 1993. After making her allegations last month on a podcast, Reade filed a criminal complaint against Biden, alleging he shoved his hand under her skirt and penetrated her with his fingers in a Senate corridor in 1993, Insider previously reported.

Biden has denied the accusation and publicly addressed it on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Friday morning.

"No, it is not true," Biden said on "Morning Joe."

"Women have a right to tell their story, and reporters have an obligation to rigorously vet those claims. We encourage them to do so, because these accusations are false," Katie Bedingfield, Biden's communications director, said in light of the allegations.

Reade also claims she was sexually harassed when she worked in Biden's office, stating that she was told to "serve drinks at an event because Biden liked the way she looked," Insider also reported.

On Friday, Biden called for the National Archives to release any records that might that could see if there was ever a complaint brought against him for sexual misconduct. The National Archive said they didn't have them and that they're most likely held by the Senate.

"I'm confident there is nothing no one that I'm aware of filed a complaint, no one in my office at the time is aware of any such request or complaint," Biden said on "Morning Joe." "I'm not worried about it at all. If there's a complaint, that's where it would be."

Reade said Biden's Senate papers at the University of Delaware could have evidence of her accusations. However, Biden claimed his Senate papers wouldn't include personnel records.

Reade said while she never brought up the assault to aides, she did bring up the harassment including to former chief of staff, Ted Kaufman.

"Ted Kaufman took notes when I spoke with him," Reade told Insider. She thinks those notes could be retrieved in the Senate archives.

Kaufman told Insider he didn't remember Reade.

As of Thursday, Biden's campaign avoided requests to open the 1,875 boxes of records, Insider reported. A spokeswoman for the University of Delaware told Insider that the collection was accessed by Biden's campaign staff in the spring of 2019.

According to Insider, members of Congress don't have to release their official records, and if they choose to make them public, they can choose what to make public and what to keep private, according to Insider.

"I think access to his senatorial records would help to vet Tara Reade's claims because they would contain records from the time that she worked for him," Lata Nott, a fellow at the Freedom Forum Institute's First Amendment Center, told Insider. "The First Amendment doesn't say you have to release your senatorial papers, but you know what? It would be good if you did. It would show a commitment to openness and transparency and the public understanding of what you did in your time as a senator and how you would be as a presidential candidate."

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Joe Biden allows access to Senate records tied to assault allegations - Business Insider

Space exploration – Major milestones | Britannica

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The first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957. The first human to go into space, Yuri Gagarin, was launched, again by the Soviet Union, for a one-orbit journey around Earth on April 12, 1961. Within 10 years of that first human flight, American astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon. Apollo 11 crew members Neil Armstrong and Edwin (Buzz) Aldrin made the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969. A total of 12 Americans on six separate Apollo missions set foot on the Moon between July 1969 and December 1972. Since then, no humans have left Earth orbit, but more than 500 men and women have spent as many as 438 consecutive days in space. Starting in the early 1970s, a series of Soviet (Russian from December 1991) space stations, the U.S. Skylab station, and numerous space shuttle flights provided Earth-orbiting bases for varying periods of human occupancy and activity. From November 2, 2000, when its first crew took up residence, to its completion in 2011, the International Space Station (ISS) served as a base for humans living and working in space on a permanent basis. It will continue to be used in this way until at least 2024.

Since 1957 Earth-orbiting satellites and robotic spacecraft journeying away from Earth have gathered valuable data about the Sun, Earth, other bodies in the solar system, and the universe beyond. Robotic spacecraft have landed on the Moon, Venus, Mars, Titan, a comet, and three asteroids, have visited all the major planets, and have flown by Kuiper belt objects and by the nuclei of comets, including Halleys Comet, traveling in the inner solar system. Scientists have used space-derived data to deepen human understanding of the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, planets, and other cosmological phenomena.

Orbiting satellites also have provided, and continue to provide, important services to the everyday life of many people on Earth. Meteorologic satellites deliver information on short- and long-term weather patterns and their underlying causes. Other Earth-observation satellites remotely sense land and ocean areas, gathering data that improve management of Earths resources and that help in understanding global climate change. Telecommunications satellites allow essentially instantaneous transfer of voice, images, and data on a global basis. Satellites operated by the United States, Russia, China, Japan, India, and Europe give precision navigation, positioning, and timing information that has become essential to many terrestrial users. Earth-observation satellites have also become extremely useful to the military authorities of several countries as complements to their land, sea, and air forces and have provided important security-related information to national leaders.

As the many benefits of space activity have become evident, other countries have joined the Soviet Union and the United States in developing their own space programs. They include a number of western European countries operating both individually and, after 1975, cooperatively through the European Space Agency, as well as China, Japan, Canada, India, Israel, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, and Brazil. By the second decade of the 21st century, more than 50 countries had space agencies or other government bodies carrying out space activities.

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Q&A with the Student Who Named Ingenuity, NASA’s Mars Helicopter – NASA Mars Exploration

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Vaneeza Rupani by Her Bookshelf: Vaneeza Rupani, the 11th grader who named the Mars Helicopter (Ingenuity), at home in Northport, Alabama. Credit: Rupani Family. Download image

As a longtime fan of space exploration, Vaneeza Rupani appreciates the creativity and collaboration involved with trying to fly on another planet.

Vaneeza Rupani, an 11th grader at Tuscaloosa County High School in Northport, Alabama, is the person behind the Mars Helicopter's new name. Chosen by NASA from the finalists for the agency's "Name the Rover" contest for the Mars 2020 mission, Ingenuity is an apt description for the history-making spacecraft, which launches with NASA's Perseverance rover this summer. Here, we ask Rupani what it's like to be part of a pioneering experiment.

What was going through your head when you heard that the name you submitted for the rover would be used for the helicopter instead?

I was very, very excited. To have a name I suggested used in any capacity is amazing. This helicopter is an incredible project, and I am thrilled to have a part in its journey.

Why do you think "Ingenuity" would be a good name for the helicopter?

Ingenuity would be a good name for the helicopter because that is exactly what it took to design this machine. The challenges faced trying to design something capable of flight on another planet can only be overcome with collaboration and creativity. It takes the ingenuity of an incredible group of people to create something with so many complex challenges.

What excites you most about the Mars Helicopter?

The fact that it will be the first craft to fly in a controlled way on another planet is super-exciting. Proving this is possible will open up multitudes of opportunities in space exploration. This milestone of adding an aerial element to the exploration of other worlds is extremely exciting!

Why do you think space exploration is important?

Space exploration is important because it gives us important insight into the history of planets. It tells us how different environments have changed over time and how they have reacted to different events. This information can then be used to protect Earth from any environmental dangers it may face, making space exploration extremely important to Earth's health and survival.

Bonus question for Vaneeza's mom, Nausheen Rupani: Whats an interesting story you can share about your daughter that's related to space?

Vaneeza had an interest in space science since her Montessori years. On their way to school every day, she and her dad would pretend they were in a spaceship. They would imagine seeing planets (buildings), stars (traffic lights), etc. on their way and give them names.

Space and the science of engineering that answers our questions about it have always fascinated Vaneeza since she learned to express herself. The tradition continues ... every night, we have a "fact of the day" session, where she shares new information she has learned.

We are immensely proud of Vaneeza and know she will make it big.

News Media Contact

DC Agle / Jia-Rui CookJet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California818-3939-9011 / 818-354-0724david.c.agle@jpl.nasa.gov / jccook@jpl.nasa.gov

Alana JohnsonNASA Headquarters, Washington202-358-1501alana.r.johnson@nasa.gov

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How the United States plans to make space exploration pay | TheHill – The Hill

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President Donald Trumps space policy has certainly evolved since the campaign when he was telling people that he doubted sending people to Mars was a good idea with American infrastructure needing to be rebuilt. During his presidency, Trump has set America on a course back to the moon. He has also started encouraging space commercialization, including the mining of the moon and other celestial bodies.

In 2015 before Trump took office President Barack ObamaBarack Hussein ObamaWH official says Trump believes K-12 private schools should give back PPP funds A Hillary Clinton-Barack Obama ticket to replace Joe Biden? Is it even possible? Donald Trump: The Boomer TV president MORE signed into law the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act, which Congress passed, thanks in large part to the efforts of Texas Sen. Ted CruzRafael (Ted) Edward CruzSunday shows preview: America braces for next month of pandemic Texas set to reopen under political shadow Hillicon Valley: Experts worry U.S. elections vulnerable due to COVID-19 | Report finds states need more federal election funds | Republican senators to introduce coronavirus-related privacy bill MORE (R). The Act, among other things, mandated that American space miners would retain ownership of the resources they extracted.

On April 6 President TrumpDonald John TrumpMajor hotel group to return millions in PPP funding Trump administration's 'Operation Warp Speed' looking at 14 potential COVID-19 vaccines to fast-track Tlaib, Lowenthal pen op-ed asking Trump administration to release aid to Palestinians to fight COVID-19 MORE signed an executive order confirming the principles of the U.S. Commercial Space Launch Competitiveness Act. The EO repudiated the 1979 Moon Treaty, which the United States never ratified, and stated:

Americans should have the right to engage in commercial exploration, recovery, and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law. Outer space is a legally and physically unique domain of human activity, and the United States does not view it as a global commons. Accordingly, it shall be the policy of the United States to encourage international support for the public and private recovery and use of resources in outer space, consistent with applicable law.

The Trump administration is pressing ahead with getting an international agreement confirming the right of private companies to mine space resources, according to a recent Wall Street Journal article.

As a follow up to the executive order, the administration has been quietly preparing the Artemis Accords, which it plans to present first to Americas partners on the International Space StationCanada, Europe, Japan and Russiaand later to other nations.

Just as an aside, because of recent events, China should be excluded from the list of nations to be part of the Artemis Accords for the time being. However, Taiwan should be included.

Other possible countries beyond the ISS partners that could join the Artemis Accords include Israel, India, South Korea, Australia and the United Arad Emirates. Australia would be obliged to withdraw from the Moon Treaty if it accepts an offer to join the Accords.

NASA has been tasked with returning to the moon and establishing what the space agency calls a lunar base camp to do science and to practice missions to Mars. However, the policy encouraging mining the moon and, by extension, other celestial bodies such as asteroids, recognizes a fact that has held back space exploration since the beginning.

The Apollo program to land men on the moon and the ISS have been seen as expensive hobbies by politicians who write the checks. Leaving aside studies such as the one conducted in the 1970s by Chase Econometrics that demonstrate space exploration returns many times the investment, the fact remains that science and national prestige from the space program are considered optional and not vital.

President Trump and like-minded people in Congress such as Sen. Cruz have recognized that space exploration must be made to pay in order to be sustainable. If returning to the moon creates wealth, then it becomes not just something that is nice to do but a thing that must be done for the benefit of the United States and its allies and, by extension, for all humankind.

This vision of the future goes beyond a small, lunar base camp. A town will grow up on the south pole of the moon, a center of science and commerce. While some will go exploring to wrest the secrets of the universe from the moon, others will extract our nearest neighbors hidden riches. Those riches include industrial metals such as titanium and aluminum, platinum group metals, rare earths, helium 3, which could be used for future fusion power plants, and water ice, which could be refined into rocket fuel for expeditions further into the solar system, to asteroids heavy with more riches and to Mars, the far away realm of explorers dreams for many decades.

The moons mineral wealth will fuel a new age of space exploration, a space-based industrial revolution, and, perhaps, an era of clean, limitless energy. It is a future better and more prosperous than the past or present.

Mark Whittington, who writes frequently about space and politics, has published a political study of space exploration entitled Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon? as well as The Moon, Mars and Beyond. He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times, and the Washington Post, among other venues.

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How the United States plans to make space exploration pay | TheHill - The Hill

The final frontier: The 40 most important events in the history of space exploration – USA TODAY

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After spending over 200 days in space, the Expedition 62 returned to earth to discover a new normal brought on by coronavirus COVID-19. return to earth USA TODAY

With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting every aspect of everyday life, it's easy to forget about what else is going on in the world and that includes significant historical moments and fun holidays. One of them is May 1 Space Day, which is Friday.

24/7 Tempo has compiled a list of the coolest and most unforgettable moments in space exploration after reviewing material from NASA, news articles from decades ago and information from the National Archives and Records Administration.

If Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci, and Vasco Da Gama helped Western civilization in the Age of Discovery reach new worlds, in the Space Age, Yuri Gagarin, John Glenn, Valentina Tereshkova, and Neil Armstrong took humanity to Earth's orbit and beyond. Those space pioneers launched our world into a realm that had been pondered by astronomers, philosophers, religious figures, science fiction writers and poets.

The Space Age paralleled the Cold War, and when the Soviet Union succeeded in launching Sputnik into space in 1957, it was seen as much a threat to U.S. national security as a scientific triumph. Sputniks success was the starting gun of the space race that put the prestige of nations on the line.

The competition for supremacy in space made national heroes of Gagarin, Glenn, Tereshkova, and Armstrong, among many other astronauts and cosmonauts in the 20th century. They would gain fame as astronauts on the Mercury and Apollo missions during the 1960s here are 30 special skills astronauts need to master to do their job.

Google's MyMaps: Feature gets huge boost during crisis, for mapping test sites to child care for responders

Apple's new iPhone SE: Smartphone costs just $399. Heres what you need to know.

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1. Sputnik I

Date: Oct. 4, 1957

The Soviet Union began the space race by launching humankind's first artificial satellite. The 23-inch diameter sphere transmitted signals to Earth for 22 days and continued in orbit until burning up on Jan. 4, 1958 . The launch of Sputnik shook up the United States, which feared a technology gap between itself and the Soviet Union and began to revamp the nation's science and engineering education. A year later, NASA was created.

2. First creature in space

Date: Nov. 3, 1957

A stray husky-spitz mix named Laika was the first living creature to orbit the Earth. She was also the first fatal casualty in the Space Age. According to documents at the National Air and Space Museum, Laika reached orbit alive aboard Sputnik 2 and orbited the Earth in 103 minutes. But the temperature inside the capsule soared above 90 degrees after the fourth orbit following the loss of the heat shield, and Laika died soon afterward. The capsule continued to orbit for five months.

3. US launches first satellite

Date: Jan. 31, 1958

The United States joined the space race when Explorer 1 was launched into orbit on Jan. 31, 1958. The satellite lifted off from Cape Canaveral in Florida under the direction of legendary German-born scientist Wernher Von Braun. Explorer 1, which was 80 inches long and 6.25 inches in diameter, revolved around Earth in a looping orbit that took it as close as 220 miles of Earth and as far away as 1,563 miles. Explorer orbited the Earth more than 58,000 times before burning up on March 31, 1970.

4. First creatures return from space

Date: May 28, 1959

Less than two years after Laika perished while orbiting the Earth, two monkeys, Able and Baker, became the first living beings to return to our planet alive. Able, a female rhesus monkey, and Baker, a female squirrel monkey, were sent into space by the United States aboard a Jupiter missile. The flight lasted about 15 minutes and the spacecraft's speed topped 10,000 miles an hour. The monkeys suffered no ill effects from the flight that included a period of weightlessness. The success of the mission encouraged scientists to believe manned space travel was possible. Able died during a medical procedure shortly after the flight but Baker became a celebrity and received as many as 150 letters a day from schoolchildren.

5. Yuri Gagarin

Date: April 12, 1961

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly into space and return to Earth safely, beating the United States by several weeks. Gagarin circled the planet in 108 minutes aboard the Vostok 1 spacecraft that traveled at 17,000 miles an hour. The launch of Sputnik and the triumph of putting a man into space were twin shocks to American pride and ratcheted up the competition in the space race.

The new space race: Many countries and companies seek resources on the moon and Mars

Space tech: Inventions we use every day that were actually created for space exploration

Alan Shepard flew the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a suborbital 15-minute flight that reached a peak altitude of 116 miles and a top speed of 5,180 miles an hour. And unlike Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, whose capsule was automatically controlled, Shepard was able to take control of his spacecraft for short periods.(Photo: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons)

6. First US man in space

Date: May 1, 1961

The United States had hoped to be the first nation to put a man into space, but the Soviet Union won that race with Gagarin accomplishing that feat. Several weeks later, Alan Shepard flew the Freedom 7 spacecraft on a suborbital 15-minute flight that reached a peak altitude of 116 miles and a top speed of 5,180 miles an hour. Unlike Gagarin, whose capsule was automatically controlled, Shepard was able to take control of his spacecraft for short periods.

7. Kennedy's speech on space exploration

Date: May 25, 1961

Several weeks after Alan Shepard became the first American in space, President John F, Kennedy gave a speech before both houses of Congress, committing the nation to space exploration. Kennedy's clarion call for an ambitious space program included landing Americans on the moon and returning them safely to Earth by the end of the decade as well as other space projects.

8. Glenn orbits Earth

Date: Feb. 20, 1962

Less than a year after Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth, John Glenn became the first American to do so, completing three orbits around the planet aboard the Friendship 7 capsule. Glenn was already a military hero by the time he was chosen to be an astronaut for Project Mercury. After he completed his mission, he went on to a successful political career as senator from Ohio. He made history again at the age of 77 in 1998 by becoming the oldest person to fly into space when he flew on the space shuttle.

9. First woman in space

Date: June 16, 1963

Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova is not a household name in the United States, but she is revered in Russia because she was the first woman to fly in space 20 years before Sally Ride became the first American woman to do so. Tereshkova orbited Earth 48 times in her space capsule, the Vostok 6. That was her only trip into space. She received the highest honors from the Soviet Union and was bestowed the United Nations Gold Medal of Peace. Tereshkova toured the world and became a staunch advocate for Soviet science.

10. First space walk

Date: March 25, 1965

Russian cosmonaut Alexei Leonov became the first person to walk in space, after leaving the Voskhod spacecraft that carried two passengers. Leonov walked in space for about 10 minutes. His suit expanded minutes after he stepped into space owing to the lack of pressure, and he was unable to fit through the hatch when he tried return to the spacecraft. Leonov had to release a valve to partially depressurize his suit to allow him to get back into the spaceship. Three months later, Ed White would become the first American to walk in space.

The spacecraft Mariner 4 was the first to fly to Mars and the first to transmit pictures of Mars.(Photo: manjik / Getty Images)

11. First pictures of Mars

Date: June 14, 1965

The spacecraft Mariner 4 was the first to fly to Mars and the first to transmit pictures of Mars. Mariner 4 spent all of 25 minutes taking 21 photographs of the red planet from distances ranging between 6,200 miles and 10,500 miles above the planet. Those first, blurry images of Mars's craters and barren landscape suggested to some scientists that the planet was similar to our moon and dispelled hope that it had ever held life.

12. Soviets land spacecraft on moon, Venus

Date: Feb. 3, 1966

1966 would prove to be a significant year for the Soviet space program. In February of that year, the USSR would land an unmanned spacecraft called Luna on the moon that sent back transmissions to Earth. Less than a month later, on March 1, the Soviet Union would succeed in landing a spacecraft on Venus. The Venera 3 impacted Venus, the first spacecraft to land on another planet, but the communications systems failed before any data could be retrieved.

13. US lands spacecraft on moon

Date: June 2, 1966

The United States, still playing catch-up in the space race, landed its first spacecraft, the unmanned Surveyor 1, on the moon in June. The mission was considered a success, and the technology needed to achieve landing and operations on the lunar surface succeeded. Surveyor 1 performed engineering functions and took photos. It sent televised images of the spacecraft's footpad and the lunar surface.

14. Soviet spacecraft first to orbit moon

Date: Sept. 15, 1968

The Russian spacecraft Zond 5 became the first spacecraft to orbit the moon and return to Earth. Aboard the Zond 5 were turtles, mealworms, seeds, bacteria, and other living things. After the spacecraft landed in the Indian Ocean, all of the biological passengers were safely recovered. The flight was seen as a precursor to manned lunar landing.

15. Apollo 8

Date: Dec. 21-28, 1968

Apollo 8 was among the most famous of America's space missions the first manned spacecraft to leave Earth's gravity and reach the moon. The mission conducted a number of tests that were crucial to the lunar landing the following year. The crew photographed the lunar surface, both the far side and nearside, as well as Earth. The mission' "Earthrise" photo would become among the most famous of the 20th century. The astronauts had six live television transmissions, including the Christmas Eve broadcast in which they read from the book of Genesis, at the time the most-watched TV broadcast ever.

16. Men walk on moon

Date: July 20,1969

American astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on a celestial entity other than Earth on July 20, 1969, fulfilling President John F. Kennedy's hope of landing humans on the moon before the end of the decade. Armstrong's quote as he stepped on the lunar surface, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," has become immortal. It was one of America's proudest moments, witnessed by hundreds of millions of people on television around the world. Armstrong and Aldrin spent two and a half hours on the surface collecting rocks and soil samples and, among other tasks, measuring by laser the exact distance between the moon and Earth. Armstrong and Aldrin were the first of 12 men, all Americans, who have walked on the moon.

The first space station, Salyut 1, was launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971.(Photo: NASA / Wikimedia Commons)

17. First space station

Date: April 19, 1971

The first space station, Salyut 1, launched by the Soviet Union on April 19, 1971, achieved significant progress in humankind's ability to live and work in space. The cylindrical-shaped Salyut 1 was adapted for use with the manned Soyuz spacecraft and was about 65 feet long and 13 feet in diameter at its widest section. Salyut spent 175 days in space before crashing into the Pacific Ocean. The three-man Soviet crew that went aboard Salyut 1 for 23 days later died while returning to Earth when their Soyuz spacecraft accidentally lost its air.

18. US orbits Mars

Date: Nov. 13, 1971

Mariner 9, an unmanned NASA probe, became the first spacecraft to circle another planet after it completed an orbit around Mars. The photographs sent back from the Mariner 9 showed Mars to have varied geology and weather, according to a NASA summary of the mission, including ancient river beds, extinct volcanoes, canyons, weather fronts, ice clouds, and morning fogs.

19. Russians land on Mars

Date: May 28, 1972

On May 28, 1972, the Soviet spacecraft Mars 3 made the first soft landing on another planet when it touched down on Mars. Mars 3 had arrived at the red planet the previous December. The landing craft failed after relaying 20 seconds of video data to the orbiter. The orbiter continued to relay data to Soviet scientists until August 1972, measuring surface temperature and atmospheric conditions.

20. Skylab I

Date: May 14, 1973

The United States launched its first orbiting laboratory, Skylab I, on May 14, 1973. Skylab proved to be a success, despite technical glitches at the start. Skylab orbited the Earth for six years before it deteriorated and fell into the Indian Ocean and western Australia. Skylab hosted three crews of three astronauts who lived on the station for a total of 168 days in orbit. They conducted experiments in biomedical and life sciences and solar astronomy. Skylab also was important in understanding how humans endure extended time in space.

21. US-Soviet astronauts link up in space

Date: July 17-19, 1975

Cold War adversaries achieved detente in space in 1975, when U.S. astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts came together for the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. The Soyuz craft bore cosmonauts Alexei Leonov and Valery Kubasov, while the Apollo carried astronauts Thomas Stafford, Vance Brand, and Donald Slayton. The two spacecraft docked in space for two days. After the vehicles came together, the space travelers shook hands and embraced and exchanged presents, plaques, and flags from their respective nations. The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was the first mission in which the two nations began cooperating in space.

22. Viking 1 and 2

Date: July/September 1976

NASA launched the Viking 1 and 2 spacecraft in 1975, and both landed on Mars the following year, becoming the first U.S. spacecraft to land on the red planet. The photos that the two spacecraft returned to Earth deepened the knowledge about the planet's atmosphere and geology, with a greater understanding of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere. Viking 1 and 2 conducted biology experiments intended to look for signs of life. These experiments provided no indication of living microorganisms near the landing zones.

23. Voyagers I and 2 send back Jupiter images

Date: August and September 1977

Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched two weeks apart by NASA in 1977. NASA wanted to take advantage of a unique alignment of planets that happens once every 176 years. Such an alignment could slingshot each spacecraft from one planet to the next, aided by a planet's gravity. Voyager 1 would become the first spacecraft to fly by Jupiter and Saturn. It transmitted its first pictures of Jupiter back to Earth in April 1978, when it was 165 million miles away. Voyager 1 was the first to journey into interstellar space in 2012. Voyager 2 flew past Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. Since their launch, the spacecraft have been traveling along different flight paths and at different speeds.

24. Space shuttle takes off

Date: April 12, 1981

NASA's shuttle Columbia became the first winged spaceship to orbit Earth and return to airport landing. Columbia flew 28 missions and spent more than 300 days in space. Its early missions focused on repairing and deploying satellites and telescopes. Later, NASA shifted Columbia's priorities to science. Tragedy struck the shuttle on Feb. 1, 2003, when the spacecraft and crew were lost after the Columbia burned up during reentry. The disaster shut down the shuttle program for more than two years.

The first American woman in space, Sally Ride entered space aboard the space shuttle Challenger. She would make two shuttle flights.(Photo: Sandy Huffaker / Getty Images)

25. First US woman into space

Date: June 18, 1983

Sally Ride became first American woman in space, about 20 years after Soviet cosmonaut Tereshkova became the first woman in space. Ride, who held a doctorate in physics, was selected as one of NASA's first six female astronauts. She entered space aboard the space shuttle Challenger. Ride would make two shuttle flights. Among the tasks she performed in flight were operating the shuttle's robotic arm.

26. Voyager 2 transmits images from Uranus

Date: Jan. 24, 1986

Voyager 2, launched into orbit with Voyager 1 in 1977, began transmitting images from Uranus in 1986. The massive planet showed some evidence of boiling oceanic water. Voyager 2 also found 10 new moons and two new rings around Uranus. Voyager 2 would become the only spacecraft to study all four of the solar system's outer planets at close range.

27. Voyager 2 transmits images from Neptune

Date: Aug. 1, 1989

Voyager 2 was built to examine the farthest reaches of the solar system, and this included the planet Neptune. The spacecraft is the only human-made object to have flown to that planet. During its journey, Voyager 2 found five moons and four rings around Neptune. It was discovered that Neptune's largest moon, Triton, was the coldest known planetary body in the solar system. The planet also was more active than previously believed, with winds exceeding 680 miles per hour. Hydrogen was the most common element in the atmosphere.

28. Hubble space telescope

Date: April 25, 1990

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The final frontier: The 40 most important events in the history of space exploration - USA TODAY

Deep Space Exploration and Technology Market to grow at a CAGR of 6.42% during the forecast period from 2020 to 2030 – WhaTech

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The deep space exploration and technology market is segregated by region under four major regions, namely North America, Europe, APAC, and Rest-of-the-World. Data for each of these regions (by country) is provided in the market study.

Deep Space Exploration and Technology Market report by BIS Research projects the market to grow at a CAGR of 6.42% on the basis of value during the forecast period from 2020 to 2030. North America is expected to dominate the global deep space exploration and technology market with an estimated share of 62.45% in 2020.

North America, including major countries such as the U.S., is the most prominent region for the deep space exploration and technology market. In North America, the U.S. is estimated to account for a major market share in 2020 due to the rising number of space exploration missions led by the country.

Read Report Overview: bisresearch.com/industrarket.html

The space sector has been undergoing numerous developments since the past years, due to several factors such as cost-effective systems due to technological advances, increasing private investments by emerging players in the industry, increasing need for better communication and connectivity. Moreover, the increased application of space technologies for investigation on weather, surveillance for the military sector, and real-time imaging requirements by different sectors are also leading to the evolution of the space industry.

To cater to the applications mentioned above, an increase in the number of satellites is launched every year. For the same, the industry has also witnessed a demand for small satellites, which allow for enhanced operations as well as cost-effective missions.

In addition to this, upgraded launch vehicles with heavy lift capabilities are being developed.

Major space agencies, as well as private space companies, are focused on developing reusable launch vehicles, which can provide cost-efficiency as well as reduce space debris. Prominent space agencies such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), European Space Agency (ESA), China National Space Administration (CNSA), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Roscosmos State Corporation for Space Activities (Russian Space Agency) and the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) are looking toward the development of earth independence which includes human presence beyond low Earth orbit and cislunar space and onto Mars.

A deep space exploration mission ranges from two to three years with a safe return of the crew to Earth.

Deep space exploration missions require enhanced subsystems, which aid in propelling the system into space, navigate through space among the space debris as well as on the planetary surface, and maintain contact with the space stations or the space ground stations. The leading space centers are focused on developing advanced in-space propulsion technologies that can aid satellites, spacecraft, and other interplanetary vehicles.

They also focus on the development of an enhanced propulsion system that can support not only space missions to the ISS but also the planetary missions and other deep space explorations. The command and control system enables the spacecraft to connect with the space ground stations as well as provide critical data of its mission.

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In various deep space exploration missions planned to be launched from 2020, the navigation and guidance system proves to be an integral part, as it requires high-precision tracking and guidance. Significant technological advancements in this area include the development of Deep Space Atomic Clock (DSAC), Deep Space Positioning System (DPS), and autonomous navigation using artificial intelligence (AI).

These developments are expected to help in mitigating any small navigational error so that the spacecraft reach their intended destination and successfully carry out their space operations.

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Deep Space Exploration and Technology Market to grow at a CAGR of 6.42% during the forecast period from 2020 to 2030 - WhaTech