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The National Instant background Check System (NICS), run by the FBI, shows April of 2023 was the third highest number of gun sales for April on record, a slight increase from April of 2022.The estimate for April 2023 is 1.34 million gun sales. The estimate for April 2022 was 1.32 million gun sales. The number of background checks done in April of 2023 is also in third place, at about 2.86 million background checks done on the NICS system in April of 2023, compared to about 2.73 million done in April of 2022. Gun sales have consistently been over a...

The U.S. economy added 253,000 jobs in April, surpassing analyst forecasts of 180,000 new jobs, according to Labor Department data released Friday. The unemployment rate remained historically low at 3.4 percent, down from 3.5 percent the previous month. The jobs report reveals that the economy is slowing, but the labor market remains surprisingly robust. The unemployment rate for Black Americans dipped slightly to 4.7 percent, a record low. That’s a huge recovery from the onset of the pandemic, when the Black unemployment rate spiked to 16.8 percent in May 2020. Wage gains also came in slightly stronger than expected. Hourly...

(WJW) — Some Social Security recipients can expect a second payment before the end of the week. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients have received two benefit disbursements so far this month: the first SSI disbursement on March 1 and the regular Social Security payment on the second, third or fourth Wednesday, depending on their birth date. There’s typically only one SSI payment each month, paid out on the first of the month. But if that day falls on a weekend or holiday, it arrives on the last business day before the end of the month. This year, April 1 is...

I have a birthday this and every year around this time, I post a similar article, from about April 17 thru April 21 or so, some major world and local news events have occurred. For example, Adolf Hitler and Napolean were born on April 20. Other events. The Branch Dividians were incinerated by the Janet Reno and DOJ in Waco on April 19, 1993. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols bombed the Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. The Columbine School Shooting took place on April 20, 1999. The Deep Water Horizon Oil Well blew up in the...

Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS), chair of the House Select Committee investigating January 6, said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” that his committee had “information” that individuals were planning in anticipation of the election not going their way. Thompson said, “Clearly, a lot of us at this point feel that had January 6 been successful, this democracy would not be what it is today. So we came real close. So by getting this information, we think it will provide the necessary direction for us to correct it so that the military or no other branch of government can be...

The U.S. recorded more than 1,000 COVID-19 deaths on Tuesday as numbers reach levels last seen in April, largely due to the highly infectious delta variant spreading rapidly throughout the country. The 1,017 coronavirus deaths reported on Tuesday equate to roughly 42 fatalities an hour, according to a Reuters tally of state data. The U.S. has recorded more than 620,000 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The U.S. economy added 266,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate rose to 6.1 percent, an unexpectedly poor showing falling well below expectations. The meager showing exposed unexpected gaps in a recovery that some economists were fretting would "overheat" by recovering too quickly. "For those who feared the US economy would overheat, the bigger risk may be that it is undercooked," said The Atlantic Council's Josh Lipsky.

HARPURSVILLE (WBNG) -- Animal Adventure Park has announced that April the Giraffe has died. Animal Adventure said in a news release that euthanasia was carried out at April's home Friday morning due to worsening arthritis, in accordance with her veterinary team.

The United States will reach a level of herd immunity to COVID-19 that will allow for a return to normal by April, according to Dr. Marty Makary, a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Bloomberg School of Public Health. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Makary noted that the number of COVID-19 cases is down 77% in the last six weeks. He claimed this is due to natural immunity among people who have been previously infected and the 15% of the population already vaccinated. Depending on the estimate, herd immunity to the coronavirus is thought to be...

A Covid-19 vaccine may be widely available by April 2021, Dr. Anthony Fauci said in an interview with CBS News Wednesday. Fauci said researchers should know by “November or December” whether some vaccines trials have a safe candidate and that even in the event that a safe candidate is determined, initial quantities will likely only be a few million doses. Pushing back against an assertion made by the President that the US can expect 100 million doses by year’s end, Fauci said that the 100 million number is only possible if every vaccine candidate currently in trials is determined to...

Yesterday's thread here: http://freerepublic.com/focus/chat/3831710/posts?page=1

Illinois' stay-at-home order has been extended until April 30, Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Tuesday. Pritzker said he was signing an executive order that would extend Illinois’ Disaster Proclamation, stay-at-home order, and the suspension of on-site learning at schools across the state. "If we can end these orders earlier, I’ll be the first to tell you when we can start to make strides toward normal again," Pritzker said. The news comes one week before the initial order was set to end and just days after the state saw its biggest rise in cases of the coronavirus pandemic so far. Health officials...

Still, excitement is building among both professional and amateur astronomers about the upcoming flyby of asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2 – the biggest asteroid due to fly by Earth this year – coming closest on April 29, 2020. This space rock is probably at least a mile wide (1.8 km) and maybe 2 1/2 times that big (4.1 km). Closest approach is April 29 around 5:56 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (09:56 UTC; translate UTC to your time). No access to a telescope? No problem. The Virtual Telescope Project in Rome will host a free, online public viewing of the asteroid on...

Aug. 21 (UPI) -- A visitor to Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas found a 3.72-carat yellow diamond, the largest diamond found at the park in over two years. Miranda Hollingshead, 27, of Bogata, Texas, said she was sitting at the base of a hill on the northeast side of the park and watching a YouTube video on her phone about how to find diamonds when she looked down and spotted the gem. "I shook my hand across it to make sure what it was, picked it up, and yelled across the field to my mom, 'I think I...

Tucker Carlson’s cable-tv show begins identically each night. After the words “Good evening and welcome to Tucker Carlson Tonight”—always intoned and inflected exactly the same way—the host launches into an opening monologue on the news of the day, or what he thinks ought to be the news of the day. On January 2, 2019, though, there was no news. So Carlson used the holiday lull to deliver a non-stop, 15-minute, 2,571-word evisceration of America’s ruling class—political, industrial, financial, intellectual, and cultural. Our rulers, he insisted, had failed at their ostensible tasks: to improve the health of the country and the...

Link: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-05-10/an-april-tax-boon-for-salt-hit-states-that-struggled-to-forecast

I'm Gonna Miss You on Valentine's Day When I see all the young lovers together I'm Gonna Miss You on Washington's Birthday 'Cause I told a lie and I lost you I'm gonna feel like an April Fool When April first is due... I don't suppose one in a gazillion folks knows the above song. Mel Tormé wrote it, and you get the gist pretty quickly: he's gonna miss you on Valentine's Day, Groundhog Day, Ramadan, Take Your Daughter To Work Day, you name it. The relationship of February 14th to romance is obvious, Washington's Birthday less so, but the...

Even during times of rapid global warming, loooooong periods of cold weather can occur. April in the U.S. was one of those periods. Despite record warmth elsewhere in the world, it was the 13th-coldest April in the United States, where records date back to 1895. The Upper Midwest was particularly cold — Iowa and Wisconsin had their all-time coldest April while temperatures in surrounding states in the Central and Northeast U.S. were well-below average. From Minnesota to Mississippi, nine states had their coldest April overnight lows. In Minnesota, ice-out came as late in the season as it ever has. Ice-out...

Replay of the April 28, 2018 Monthly Q & A from Jordan Peterson.

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump -- who has himself been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct -- on Friday designated April 2018 "National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month" amid a national debate over the issue. "Sexual assault crimes remain tragically common in our society, and offenders too often evade accountability," said a proclamation from Trump released by the White House. "These heinous crimes are committed indiscriminately: in intimate relationships, in public spaces, and in the workplace." "Too often, however, the victims of assault remain silent. They may fear retribution from their offender, lack faith in the justice system,...