To start this hour by wishing you all a safe and healthy memorial day. Start by catching up on the latest facts. Right now our country has more than 1. 6 million known coronavirus cases, were approaching another difficult milestone this morning as well, the virus has killed more than 98,000 americans so far. And on this memorial day President Trump paying his respects to americans who have died in service to their country. This hour the president will leave the white house for baltimore. He will be visiting the Fort Mchenry National monument there. Earlier he and the first lady participated in a wreath laying ceremony at Arlington National cemetery. Were also expecting to hear from new York Governor Andrew Cuomo this hour, giving the Daily Briefing around 11 30 today. The governor is in new york city. We will bring that to you as soon as it happens. We start this morning in the short town of Point Pleasant beach the protest that organizers are calling the freedom march of new jersey, set to start there in a little under an hour, the protesters are pushing for new Jersey Governor Phil Murphy to allow businesses to fully reopen as soon as possible. Nbcs kathy park joins us from Point Pleasant beach, and kathy, first of all, how big is this crowd expected to get . What are you hearing from the protesters there . Reporter well, craig, i spoke with an organizer not too long ago and she says right now its unclear how long or how big this crowd will get because a lot of the social media posts that they had basically advertising the event got taken down. So she says its a lot of it has been word of mouth. But talking to some of the folks here theyre coming from the tristate region, new york, new jersey, various parts of the state. And, really, their purpose is a couple of things. They want to loosen up the restrictions because they believe that the state has flattened the curve and they say that the restrictions are just too strict and then the other point that they wanted to make was that a lot of these smaller businesses are suffering in beach communities like Point Pleasant beach because of the restrictions. A lot of them have to be curbside only and that is a big challenge. This has hurt the local economy. They believe its unfair that these Big Box Stores like walmart and target are profiting because of whats going on and they want these restrictions to be lifted so that the little guys can actually get back on their feet. Now, you might see a lot of trump 2020 flags behind me. And it might look like a political rally but i was told that this is a bipartisan event. We have legislators from both parties slated to speak behind me over there is a stage. So its supposed to allegedly be a couple of hours and then theyre supposed to march down the main street here. And craig, you know, you see this large gathering behind me, very few masks on. A couple of things to note, though, in the state of new jersey when you are outside its not mandatory to wear a mask but obviously its encouraged. However, though, something to point out, groups have to be less than 25. So i asked the chief of police here, hey, how are they able to do Something Like this, host an event like this . He says this group has the right to shes lying all right. We you know, the chief of police said they have a right to protest. They have the right to be here and he says that they will be using discretion, and potentially citing, if it gets to be a little too rowdy. You heard there, craig, you have folks who object to what we are doing but hopefully it stays peaceful and it seems to be that way. Craig, back to you. Kathy park, who does not lie, kathy park from the jersey shore, kathy, thank you, stay safe my friend, let us head about eight miles north of Point Pleasant beach to bell mar, new jersey, another popular beach town used to seeing overflowing tourist crowds. Officials have had to make major adjustments, had to suspend the sail of seasonal beach badges over the Holiday Weekend after seeing massive lines for people trying to get them early. Im joined now by the mayor of bellmar, mayor mark walcifer. First of all, how is the Holiday Weekend going so far . Is the beach packed . And if so, are people keeping that safe social distance . Well, craig, we have the weather gods on our side this weekend. The weather wasnt ideal for the beach this weekend. We had fog and rain this morning. And for the past two days the sun hasnt been out so our boardwalk has been a lot of people on our boardwalk, not so many people on our beach. We had our whole team in place for the whole weekend. To make the adjustments that we had to make because we put a whole program in place to make sure that we concentrated on the social distancing. We took all the benches off the boardwalk. Made sure that people were staying, keeping their walking to the right on each side. We had to suspend the sale of season beach badges because normally on memorial day weekend, its our two biggest days for selling seasonal beach badges. So with the crowds that happened last weekend we figured that we better suspend the sale of them until tuesday. Just so that we can concentrate on the social distancing. But weve been making changes, you know, we were prepared to make changes hourly if we needed to. Mayor we just showed that protest there in Point Pleasant beach, not far from where you are. What are you hearing from local Business Owners about reopening . Well, you know, we started our summer season. So, you know, i feel for all the summer businesses and all the businesses in bellmar because they really count on the tourist season to carry them through the whole year. So, you know, were working closely with the governors office. Want to make sure that we concentrate on social distancing and keep everybody safe. So were taking direction from the governors office. He is looking to it looks like hes going to start loosening up some restrictions but, you know, we have to, you know, abide by what hes coming out with. So i know its tough on all of our businesses because, you know, they really count on this tourist season. So and its definitely going to hurt. You know, mayor, one of the things that i continue to hear from mayors like yourself in these beach towns is that one of the things thats happening is youll have one beach thats open, and then, you know, the next beach isnt open and the next beach after that might not be open so the beaches that do decide to open have a disproportionate number of people who are coming to the beach, which makes it more difficult to socially distance. How do you fix that . Is that something that youve seen as well . Well, we were prepared for it this weekend, but like i said the weather didnt cooperate with the beach goers. So our beaches were actually pretty light. We were in contact with the governors office, and our county Freeholders Office for the past five weeks to make sure that if one of the beaches were going to open we all had to open. So that that didnt happen but we were prepared. Our full our office of Emergency Management our full concentration was on social distancing because when we found that when the sun comes out thats the only thing that we can try to control is the social distancing because the people are coming to the beach. We found out the first weekend in may that when it was a beautiful weekend everything that we tried to do to stay with the stay at home order, to tell people, you know, to stay at home, didnt work. So they came down to the beach. They loaded up our boardwalks, and we had to make the change to open up the boardwalk because we had so many people walking in the middle of the street that it became a Public Safety issue. We decided to take a and thats what we did. So we took the benches off. And that actually helped us out a lot. Getting the people back up on the boardwalk and out of the street. So from the first weekend of may we knew that anytime the sun was out we were having an influx of people into our town. We had to make those adjustments. All right. Bellmar new jersey mayor mark walcifer, thanks for your time, sir. Lets stay in new jersey for a moment. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy is speaking. This is a Memorial Day Ceremony in wrightstown, new jersey. Hes at the william c. Doyle memorial cemetery, this morning the governor tweeted, quote, we honor all those who paid the ultimate price for something greater than themselves, our freedom and liberty, may we never forget their sacrifice. Governor murphy there right now. Lets go from the garden state down the east coast to the tar hill state. Lets head to North Carolina, that state saw its biggest oneday spike in covid cases over the weekend, saturday, more than 1,100 cases were reported in 24 hours, more than 400 more on sunday. That rise came as the state continued its phased reopening, restaurants and hair salons are now open at 50 capacity, more beaches are open in North Carolina as well. Nbcs Allison Barber has made her way to durham, North Carolina. First of all, allison, whats the scene like where you are . And secondly, the spike that we saw there in North Carolina, is this purely a result of more testing . Reporter yeah, a lot of people weve spoken to so far think it could be testing in terms of the state, the States HealthDepartment Says epidemiologists are still evaluating to see if there were any significant contributing factors in terms of saturdays uptick. Here in durham, though, things are a little bit different than they are in the rest of the state because theres actually a local stay at home order in effect here, restaurants, hair salons, theyre not open here and thats because in this area the mayor, who i spoke to a little earlier today, says that they have three times the amount of cases per capita. When you look at nearby counties like wake county. Because of that, they say other parts of the state were able to go with the phase two reopening that Governor Cooper went into effect, his orders on friday. They say they werent ready for that here. You can see people are out and about. But in terms of stores being open, restaurants operating, thats not happening in this area just yet as it is in other parts of the state. As you said there was that big uptick, over 1,100 confirmed reported cases of covid19 on saturday. The states director, Health Secretary said it was a concerning uptick, a spokesperson for the governor told nbc news this, quote, the increase in cases shows we must move forward slowly and cautiously, especially on this Holiday Weekend. The governor urges north carolinians to protect themselves and their families. He will continue to work with Public Health experts to closely monitor and analyze the data. And, again, epidemiologists say theyre still evaluating to see if there was any significant contributing factors in regards to the uptick, but as you mentioned a lot of people have pointed out that North Carolina has significantly increased their testing in recent days and whether its a democrat or republican, when you ask someone what they think maybe caused the uptick a lot of people say they think testing could have had some sort of impact. Craig . All right, Allison Barber there in durham, North Carolina. Allison, thank you. Lets head about two hours south of durham to wilmington, North Carolina, coastal town there, im joined by the mayor of wilmington, North Carolina, mayor bill saffo. I came to know you reasonably well last year during the unfortunate hurricane there. Its good to see you again. I know that just this last friday you lifted more restrictions there in wilmington, restrictions for breweries, wineries, distilleries. Are you at all concerned about this latest rise in cases and whether youre lifting these restrictions too early . Sure, we are. We knew that when we went from the mitigation phase to the reopening phase that we would see a spike. We hoped that during the mitigation phase on all the things weve asked people to do, wearing the masks, having the essential distancing, washing your hands, would carry over into the reopening phase. We knew there would be a spike. Obviously were testing a lot more but we hope that the spike is just temporary. But we are prepared to take a significant action that if the numbers continue to rise well have to make some adjustments into the reopenings. Obviously here in the city of wilmington weve only allowed hotels to open up at 50 capacity, understanding were a coastal community. A lot of tourists come to our area. The three beach communities have fully reopened. We dont want to put all those hotels all at one time. The beaches started first and then we ended up coming in near the end of this. So hopefully what were doing here will keep that curve down and continue to allow us to reopen our businesses but also be cautiously optimistic and vigilant in how we do it. You made the decision to encourage, but not mandate the use of masks in wilmington there. One of the things that weve seen in a lot of the cities that attract large numbers of tourists is that the residents will wear facial coverings but the people who come into the city, maybe not so much. Why encourage and not mandate . Its an enforcement issue for us, craig, and i think its going to be an enforcement issue for most communities around the country. The amount of people that will not wear a mask for whatever known reason is pretty large. Ive seen it out and around town. I do feel that the vast majority of people here in the community have heeded the warnings of the elected people, have heeded the warnings of the medical folks and are Wearing Masks. There are people no matter what you tell them or what evidence you show them, they will say im not going to wear a mask, you cant make me do it. Those are the ones that will get a lot of people sick in the long run. We hope the businesses we have engaged with are making the right decisions and doing the good things weve asked them to do to protect their customers and employees. Here again there is a group of people out there, no matter what you tell them, theyre going to do what they want to do. Its unfortunate. If we do these things of wearing the masks, washing our hands, doing the social distancing we can get through this crisis, and to the point where we get the vaccine or we get the litany of drugs to help combat it and allow us to continue to reopen our country, reopen our businesses here in not only wilmington but all over the state and all over the country. If people would just continue to thumb their nose and say were going to do what we want to do were going to continue to see the infection rates dramatically increase in certain parts of the country. But i will tell you, i think that Governor Cooper was very aggressive and did a great job in getting us to where we are today and allowing us to reopen our communities and our city. Wilmington mayor bill saffo, its good to see you again, please pass along my regards to everyone down there. I enjoyed my time there in wilmington last year, it would be nice to talk to you under better circumstances at some point. I hope so, buddy, thank you. Lets go from North Carolina to wisconsin now, this weekend a popular vacation spot there, like geneva, not far from chicago, not far from milwaukee, lake geneva saw massive crowds and as you can see from this video not a lot of social distancing. On any memorial day weekend it would be a popular choice but its drawing more people from surrounding states, nbcs cal perry on that road to recovery rv tour, across the country, he has made his way to lake geneva. Hes there now. What are you seeing there today, cal . Reporter you look at that video i took yesterday, this downtown area was packed, thousands of people. Like you said this is one of those places that attracts a lot of out of state visitors. In this case states with very different rules. In illinois, face coverings are required. Here in wisconsin they are just recommended. And so people are out, as they would be on any other memorial day. The way that this happened, i think, in wisconsin is very instructive to how people are celebrating memorial day. David, a business owner, said this about how quickly things changed here. We went from lockdown to total chaos. Reporter open. They overturned the governors ruling, and there was an argument about the legality of that, or how it was done, i think. But the governor had a plan to reopen in a week. All of us were kind of aligned on that. We were all kind of waiting to hear what those new rules and guidelines were. So its been a challenge because we went from zero to a hundred, and we are kind of left to try and figure this out on our own. Reporter and so restaurants and bars and all the places that you go when youre at the lakefront are figuring it out all on their own. One of the problems i saw yesterday was in the restaurants like the ones behind me you can space out the tables all that you want inside but all it does is force that line outside. So this street yesterday i imagine will be the same today, craig, with people just kind of flowing into it and the same goes for the beach. Theyve restricted beach access to a beach that normally holds 700 now, only 300 people. People dont have a place to go. Its just a volume issue, so many people here this weekend, craig. Okay. Cal perry, lake geneva, wisconsin. Safe travels. We continue to wait for new York Governor Andrew Cuomo, happeni