Under Water: Downtown Midland Michigan is under water and 10,000 people have been told to evacuate after two dams burst 140 miles northwest of Detroit. Days of heavy rains overcame the dams leading to flooding in towns and farmland.

  The evacuations include Edenville, Sanford, and parts of the city of Midland, which has 42,000 people,

  Another dam is still collapsing and is expected to completely fail sometime today.

  Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said, “In the next 15 to 15 hours, downtown Midland could be under approximately 9 feet of water. We are anticipating an historic high water level.” 

Dying for Work: As of today, all 50 states have begun various stages of re-opening.

  As the Trump administration pushes for a quick re-opening, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin warned yesterday that if states extend their coronavirus limitations for months, the economy might suffer “permanent damage.”

  Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell echoed that saying, “When you have a situation where people are unemployed for long periods of time, that can permanently weigh on their careers and their ability to go back to work.” Powell cautioned that, “The No. 1 thing, of course, is people believing that it’s safe to go back to work. And that’s about having a sensible, thoughtful reopening of the economy, something that we all want.”

  Mnuchin and Trump don’t talk about that part of the equation. President Trump said yesterday, “We did the right thing but now we have to get back to work.”

  While it’s true that the longer the economy stays closed the greater the damage, it’s difficult under the leadership of President Trump to decide what’s wisest to do. Trump pins his re-election hopes largely on a revived economy after his disastrous handling of the pandemic. People are more likely to forget the dead if they have a job, but it may become a question of how many are sacrificed on the altar of a healthy economy and rich stock market.

To Tell the Truth: The woman in charge of collecting and publicizing pandemic statistics in Florida claims she was fired for reporting the unvarnished truth.

  The government of Florida has been in the forefront of reopening to save its economy, especially the tourist trade. They’ve had 2,052 coronavirus deaths.

  Rebekah Jones, an information systems manager in the Florida Department of Health told colleagues she was fired May 5^th because she was not willing to suppress information. She wrote in an email, “As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months.” She said, “After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.”

The Stat Board: With just under 92,000 coronavirus fatalities, the death rate in the US is slowing; 1,569 in the last 24 hours. There were days when more than that died in New York City alone. The city is still America’s epicenter with 20,806 deaths.

Just Rude: President Trump and his lieutenants have become increasingly hostile to the press under the pressure of the pandemic and shattered economy. Trump is snapping back at reporters asking legitimate tough questions. CBS Correspondent Paula Reid asked yesterday, “Mr. President, why haven’t you announced a plan to get 36 million unemployed Americans back to work? You are overseeing historic economic despair. What is the delay? Where is the plan?”

   Trump answered, “Oh, I think we have announced a plan. We are opening up our country — just a rude person, you are. We are opening up our country, and we’re opening it up very fast. The plan is each state is opening and it is opening up very effectively, and when you see the numbers I think even you will be impressed, which is pretty hard to impress you.”

Gone Baby, Gone: Johnson & Johnson announced that after years of lawsuits the company is ending North American sales of its talc-based baby power. Plaintiffs have claimed that the talcum, valued for its softness, is naturally contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos. J&J does not concede the legal points and says it will  continue to defend its talc powder in court.

A Ruling to Remember: An underwater salvage company was granted approval to cut into the wreckage of the Titanic to attempt recovery of the ship’s Marconi telegraph. 

  The company, R.M.S. Titanic, originally wanted to enter the wreckage to find diamonds but was prohibited by court order. A federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia altered that ruling to allow a search for the device that might reveal the ship’s communications the night it hit an iceberg and sank in 1912. 

The Obit Page: Annie Glenn, the widow of astronaut and Senator John Glenn who became a champion for people with speech disorders, has died at age 100.

  Mrs. Glenn had a terrible stutter. Being the wife of an astronaut she was thrust before the public, but at the time in the early 1960s she was often unable to finish a sentence and couldn’t make a phone call.  A three-week fluency program broke her stutter and she became a lifelong advocate for the speech-impaired.

What’s in a Name: After House Speaker Nancy Pelosi described President Trump as “morbidly obese,” Trump struck back yesterday saying, “Pelosi is a sick woman. She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”

  And they’re all in the White House.

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