Palm Springs is overrun with rental cars that have nowhere to go. With the California governor’s shelter-in-place order in effect, tourists and snowbirds have headed home. Car rental companies do not have enough space to park all the returned vehicles. Automobiles line Kirk Douglas Way near Palm Springs International Airport. More are parked on Gene Autry Trail next to the Palm Springs Air Museum. The total rental fleet numbers about seven-thousand, most of them typically in use. Nearly all of them are now un-rented, many more than rental companies have space for.
The Group of Seven nations rejected a draft presented by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo using the term “Wuhan virus” in a joint statement about Covid-19. Pompeo also wanted the statement to assign blame to China for the virus’s spread. At a virtual meeting, the G7 voted six to one against issuing a joint statement. Instead, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada opted to issue their own statements.
A Pennsylvania women is undergoing mental health evaluation after being arrested for purposely coughing on produce, meat and baked goods in a grocery store. The Hanover Township Police Department plans to file criminal charges. Gerrity’s Supermarket, a small family-owned chain, said that it threw out $35,000 of food and stripped bare, sanitized and disinfected all the areas of the store that the woman visited. In New Jersey, a man was charged with harassment, obstructing law enforcement and making terroristic threats after intentionally coughing on a Wegmans grocery employee when she asked him to not stand so close to a display of prepared foods. He told the employee he was infected with coronavirus.
The Redding California Public Works Department dispatched employees on an urgent mission to remedy a backed-up sewer lift station. The clog put the station in imminent danger of a sewage spill onto city streets and overflow inside residents’ homes. The cause? Shredded t-shirts that had apparently been used in lieu of toilet paper. The next day city employees distributed door hangers throughout the neighborhood emphasizing that that nothing but toilet paper should be flushed. “Anything and everything is flushable, but it doesn’t mean that it’s OK to put it down the toilet.”
