Michigan

LANSING (Michigan, US), May 1 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Gun-toting protesters against Michigan’s coronavirus lockdown have rallied in the state capitol building.

Hundreds of demonstrators, a few of them armed, gathered in Lansing and many did not wear masks or socially distance.

Police checked their temperatures before some were allowed into the capitol, where lawmakers were debating.

Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, extended her stay-at-home mandate earlier this month until May 15.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — The Republican-led Michigan Legislature refused Thursday to extend the state’s coronavirus emergency declaration and voted to authorize a lawsuit challenging Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s authority and actions to combat the pandemic.

The governor, unfazed, responded with orders stating under one law that an emergency still exists, while declaring a new 28-day state of emergency under another law.

DETROIT (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus PAC endorsed Joe Biden’s presidential bid on Monday, further cementing his support among the nation’s influential black political leadership.

The political action committee’s unanimous endorsement came on the heels of several key nods of support among caucus leadership and members, including civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis of Georgia and caucus Chairwoman Rep. Karen Bass of California. The PAC is the caucus’s separate campaign arm.

(AP) --- While many Americans are filled with fear, Melissa Ackison says the coronavirus pandemic has filled her with anger. The stay-at home orders are government overreach, the conservative Ohio state Senate candidate says, and the labeling of some workers as “essential” arbitrary.

“It enrages something inside of you,” said Ackison, who was among those who protested Republican Gov. Mike DeWine’s orders at the statehouse in Columbus with her 10-year-old son. She has “no fear whatsoever” of contracting the virus, she said Thursday, dismissing it as hype.

DETROIT (AP) — Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden is joining a growing call for the release of comprehensive racial data on the coronavirus pandemic, which he says has put a spotlight on inequity and the impact of “structural racism.”

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — President Donald Trump’s allies are trying to contain a politically risky election-year fight with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as he struggles to balance presidential politics with a global pandemic in one of the nation’s most important swing states.

DETROIT (AP) — Twelve days ago, General Motors put hundreds of workers on an urgent project to build breathing machines as hospitals and governors pleaded for more in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

But President Donald Trump, claiming the company wasn’t moving fast enough, on Friday invoked the Defense Production Act, which gives the government broad authority to direct companies to meet national defense needs.

DETROIT (AP) — The coronavirus continued its unrelenting spread across the United States with fatalities doubling in two days and authorities saying Saturday that an infant who tested positive had died. It pummeled big cities like New York, Detroit, New Orleans and Chicago, and made its way, too, into rural America as hotspots erupted in small Midwestern towns and Rocky Mountain ski havens.

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump issued an order Friday that seeks to force General Motors to produce ventilators for coronavirus patients under the Defense Production Act.

Trump said negotiations with General Motors had been productive, “but our fight against the virus is too urgent to allow the give-and-take of the contracting process to continue to run its normal course.”

DETROIT (AP) — President Donald Trump is falsely asserting how quickly automakers including GM, Ford and Tesla can manufacture ventilators to help fill an acute U.S. shortage of the medical equipment for coronavirus patients.

Ford and GM have yet to start production, and it would take them months, if not longer, to begin production, if it’s even possible.

A look at the claim: