The National Basketball Association sent emails with proposal ideas to all 30 general managers, which included a “World Cup-style” playoff format in a plan to return to play.
It was first reported by The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor.
In the league’s effort to restart their 2019-2020 season, 16 to 30 teams would congregate at Disney World in Orlando, Florida, to be divided into groups to ensure each team tipped-off against the same opposition. Based on the regular-season records, the teams would be split up into “tiers” ensuring an equal level of competition, according to O’Connor and ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
CNN Sports reached out to the NBA for comment about the reports.
Northwestern University announced its plan for a “phased return” to campus for fall 2020, including an outline of safety precautions.
The University’s Return to Campus and Safety Work Group developed a set of “core responsibilities” that it said will help protect the health and well-being of the community, according to a letter sent Friday to Northwestern faculty, staff and students from Interim Provost Kathleen Hagerty and university leaders.
The measures include: social distancing, using face masks, consistent health monitoring, and protecting vulnerable members of the university community, which has more than 22,000 undergraduate and graduate students.
“It is important that you only come to campus when your school or unit permits,” the letter said. “For many of you, that may mean continuing to work remotely in the months ahead.”
The school said it is still in “step 1” of its phased reopen, which is essential faculty and staff only. “Step 2,” a pilot phase to reactivate research laboratories, will take place when Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order expires, which could happen as soon as June 1.
Mississippi is still seeing a steady number of coronavirus cases, Gov. Tate Reeves said at a news briefing on Tuesday.
“That number is not declining significantly, and it certainly should serve as a warning to all of us that this disease is not disappearing. We have to stay vigilant,” he said.
He added the number of cases “is primarily driven by finding asymptomatic or unserious cases, through our ramped up targeted testing.” Active hospitalizations, patients in intensive care, patients on ventilators and deaths have stayed relatively flat, Reeves said.
Here are the latest numbers, according to officials:
- At least 9,401 Mississippians have recovered from coronavirus.
- The state still has approximately 3,678 active cases.
- There are currently 134 patients in intensive care units, and 81 patients on ventilators.
- Twenty-nine hospitals have received enough doses of remdesivir for 351 patients.
- At least 154,624 tests have been done – 6,805 were serology tests or blood tests that look for antibodies.
- About 69 inmates in prisons have been tested – 27 were positive, 41 negative and one test result is still pending.
- There has been at least 273 new cases of coronavirus, 17 additional deaths and 121 ongoing outbreaks in long-term care settings.
Most New Mexico restaurants will be able to have outdoor dining services starting on Wednesday, according to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office.
Eateries will be allowed to serve customers outdoors as long as they are seated and practice social distancing.
Inside dining will continue to be prohibited and bars will stay closed.
Additionally, three counties in the northwestern part of the state will be excluded from the relaxed rules because of their higher rates of coronavirus infection.
“We continue to see sustained, consistent progress in our fight against this virus,” Grisham said in a written statement.
The New Hampshire Attorney General’s Office will be taking actions against a race track owner who held races with large gatherings over the weekend, Gov. Chris Sununu said.
According to Senior Assistant Attorney General Benjamin Agati, the Groveton speedway owner had been informed that there would be consequences for his defiance of the governor’s emergency orders.
In addition, Agati said the state took the proactive measure to notify potential spectators of the public health risks associated with large gatherings by posting multiple, large message boards on the roads leading to the speedway that read: “COVID-19 race track warning/no public spectators allowed.”
Northumberland Police Chief Peter Pelletier issued the owner a written warning, which he ignored by allowing spectators into the Riverside Speedway, the Attorney General’s Office said.
Sununu said things like this will be handled on a case-by-case basis saying, “We always want to work with individuals as opposed to saying there’s a blanket template here.”
“There are still aspects of our economy that are going to be challenging to fully open without, you know, the potential for repercussions of what I keep calling the ‘super cluster events,’ where one individual can infect a whole bunch of people in a very short time period,” Sununu said.
He said most of the people who went to the racetrack were probably from around the area. This is dangerous because an outbreak could overwhelm small, community hospital systems, he added.
“So one supercluster event can affect an area that has a good health care system, but doesn’t have all the capacity in the world in terms of beds like you might find in other parts of the state or whatnot, so you know, you’re putting a lot of folks at risk when you do that and so we just need everyone to be disciplined,” the governor said.
Chicago is requesting $56 million to hire at least 600 contact tracers, according to a statement from Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
The funding – which will come from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Illinois Department of Public Health – will be used to train and certify contact tracers to fight Covid-19 in areas hardest hit by the pandemic, Lightfoot said.
Chicago officials hope to expand contact tracing at the community level and will focus their efforts “in areas of high economic hardship,” according to a statement by the city.
Lightfoot said in the statement that the proposal “represents a win-win for our city by both stemming the spread of COVID-19 among our most-impacted communities, as well as addressing the underlying health inequities these same communities have faced for generations.”
“Thanks to our close community partnerships, our work to expand our contact tracing workforce will also empower these same individuals to apply their new skills towards long-term career opportunities in our healthcare economy, and strengthen ability to become the inclusive, equitable city we all know we can be,” she continued.
Contact tracers hired through this initiative will also be able to pursue higher education through an “Earn-and-Learn program,” which the city said will give them “the ability to pursue stable, middle-income jobs that can support their livelihoods beyond the height of the pandemic.”
Contact tracers will be paid $20 an hour, with supervisors earning $24 an hour, the city said. The positions will also have health care benefits.
President Trump had a simple message for Americans photographed and videotaped in crowds during Memorial Day weekend — be safe.
“I’m sure you saw the images from over the weekend of people out on Memorial Day weekend. They were crowding pools, crowding boardwalks. Do you have any message for those people?” a reporter asked Trump on Tuesday in the White House Rose Garden.
Trump responded, “Yeah, always be safe. You want to be safe. We’re opening up but you want to be safe.”
President Trump said he could “override” governors who decline to reopen houses of worship in their states in “many different ways,” but did not cite what authority he had to so.
“I can absolutely do it if I want to and I don’t think I’m going to have to because it’s starting to open up,” Trump said Tuesday during a news conference in the White House Rose Garden.
“We need people that are going to be leading us in faith. And we’re opening ‘em up, and if I have to, I will override any governor that wants to play games. If they want to play games, that’s okay, but we will win, and we have many different ways where I can override them,” he continued.
The President also added that “there may be some areas where the pastor or whoever may feel that it’s not quite ready and that’s okay, but let that be the choice of the congregation and the pastor.”
Last week, Trump announced new federal, voluntary guidance for places of worship to open their doors amid the coronavirus pandemic. He also said then he had the authority to override governors who did not allow their states to comply with the guidance.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said she will veto a bill passed by the state legislature that would have shifted control of the state’s Covid-19 response away from the governor and to legislative leaders.
“House Bill 2054 is a sweeping piece of legislation that would have long standing consequences for the people of Kansas,” Kelly said at a news briefing Tuesday.
The bill would have also changed how counties set coronavirus rules and would have protected businesses and health care providers from coronavirus-related lawsuits.
Kelly said that “creates more problems than it solves.”
The Kansas Legislature is out of session until January 2021, but Kelly said she may bring the legislature back for a special session.
Statewide: Kansas is reporting at least 9,218 positive coronavirus tests and 188 deaths, according to the state’s Department of Health and Environment website.
