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The Detroit Free Press reported that Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer "signed an executive order Sunday making it a misdemeanor, with a maximum penalty of $500, for a retailer to raise prices of essential items that are more than 20% higher than what the business was selling the products for as of March 9, 2020." The order went into effect at 9 a.m. Monday and will remain in place until April 13.Stores in Farmington Hills, Dearborn, Ann Arbor and Allendale have been accused of jacking up the price of hand sanitizers, face masks, and rice and lentils by up to 900%. In one case, the Allendale store was allegedly selling face masks that would normally sell for $3 apiece for $6 to $10 each. Another store had increased the price of a small bottle of hand sanitizer from $1 to $10 and another was selling bigger bottles of hand sanitizer for $20, $40 or $60 a bottle. One market allegedly boosted the price of rice and lentils by 60%.
"At the moment we receive an average of 25 coffins a day but we can manage only 12," the manager of a crematorium in the province of Piacenza in northern Italy told RT's Ruptly.No word on how often, if at all, such a situation happens for the crematoria.Obviously, this situation creates an abnormal amount, bringing us to an emergency phase, making us very likely to halt for a few days in order to be able to recover some space.Neighboring regions have already begun sending their own excess bodies to the Piacenza facility, the manager added, observing: "It is the same problem that Bergamo had and exactly for this reason, we are receiving the coffins from all across central and northern Italy. They do not have any more provisional spaces for coffins."
"It's quite possible folks are going to have to wait a few hours," said Christopher Neuwirth, assistant health commissioner for the state.
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