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The United States is in the throes of another covid-19 uptick, cementing a pattern of the virus surging around the holidays as doctors and public health officials brace for greater transmission after Americans return to school and work this week. Coronavirus samples detected in wastewater, the best metric for estimating community viral activity, suggests infections could be as rampant as they were last winter. A smattering of health facilities around the country, including every one in Los Angeles County, are requiring masks again. JN.1, the new dominant variant, appears to be especially adept at infecting those who have been vaccinated...

COVID-19 case numbers have remained stable in the US, even as the highly contagious BA.2 subvariant has spread to become the dominant form of the virus. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said the new subvariant now accounts for around 72% of cases nationally, though figures show it has not driven a new surge like it has in European countries

The highly transmissible delta variant is now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. As of July 3, the latest date for which data was available, the delta variant accounted for 51.7 percent of new Covid-19 cases that had been genetically sequenced in the country. Two weeks earlier, on June 19, the variant accounted for just over 30 percent of new cases. During a news briefing Tuesday, President Joe Biden cited the delta variant's rapid spread to urge people to get vaccinated, "especially young people who may have...

Joseph R. Biden Jr. has taken a commanding lead over President Trump in the 2020 race, building a wide advantage among women and nonwhite voters and making deep inroads with some traditionally Republican-leaning groups that have shifted away from Mr. Trump following his ineffective response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new national poll of registered voters by The New York Times and Siena College. Mr. Biden is currently ahead of Mr. Trump by 14 percentage points, garnering 50 percent of the vote compared with 36 percent for Mr. Trump. That is among the most dismal showings of Mr....

Tuesday August 24, 2010 Militant Islam Versus the West By Steve JalsevacAugust 24, 2010, (LifeSiteNews.com) - Militant Islam's rapidly growing influence within Western democratic nations has become a serious concern. Most Westerners have a very poor understanding of Islam as we already stated in one 2008 article. In another we reported on Bill Federer's views on how multiculturism has fed Muslim radicalism in the West. Most Westerners do not realize Islam is not only a religious belief system, but also one that demands an all encompassing Islamic form of government and, in some Islamic societies, harshly enforced rules for daily living and thought. Because of the concerning...

WASHINGTON, April 20, 2006 – Iraqi security forces continue to play an increasingly larger role in the fight against terrorism, with many units taking responsibility for their own areas and making connections with citizens, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad said today. In a marked improvement over last year's three battalions, the Iraqi army now has two divisions, 16 brigades and 58 battalions that have the lead in counterinsurgency operations in their areas, Army Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, Multinational Force Iraq spokesman, said at a news conference. Also, at least 25 percent of daily company-level and above operations are independent...

Men would rather marry their secretaries than their bosses, and evolution may be to blame, psychology researchers at the University of Michigan reported last week. The study, in which college undergraduates were asked to make hypothetical choices, suggests that men in search of long-term relationships prefer to marry women in subordinate jobs rather than women who are supervisors, said Dr. Stephanie Brown, a social psychologist at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research and the report's lead author. Dr. Brown said the findings, reported in the current issue of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior, could have far-reaching implications....

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article in response to a Jane Smiley missive posted on Slate.com (''The Unteachable Ignorance of the Red States'') diagnosing the results of the 2004 Presidential Election. It is something to admire that Ms. Smiley’s reaction was not apoplectic as such (I had to look that big word up in a thesaurus--and, while I was at it, I discovered, having forgotten what I was doing, that there simply is no synonym for thesaurus!) As some might remember, I took exception to her reading of the results. Specifically, to put it in terms that all...