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John Kerry, President Joe Biden’s administration’s climate envoy, sounded the alarm on an upcoming climate crisis. Kerry told CBS “This Morning” reporter Ben Tracy in an interview which aired Friday, that the winter weather seen across the country could be the “new normal” and needs to be prevented by cutting global carbon emissions.

Until death did they part. A Michigan couple who spent nearly a half-century together have tragically died of COVID-19 on the same day — and at the same time. Jackson natives Leslie and Patricia McWaters succumbed to the disease at a hospital on Tuesday, Nov. 22, at 4:23 p.m., ending their 47-year marriage. They were 75 and 78, respectively, the Detroit Free Press reported. Hospital staff “recorded their deaths at the exact same time,” their family writes in the funeral home obituary.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) says he hopes the coronavirus pandemic will be over in under two years. Speaking in Geneva, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Spanish flu of 1918 had taken two years to overcome. But he added that current advances in technology could enable the world to halt the virus "in a shorter time". "Of course with more connectiveness, the virus has a better chance of spreading," he said. "But at the same time, we have also the technology to stop it, and the knowledge to stop it," he noted, stressing the importance of "national...

I’m 50 years old, which means that roughly two-and-a-half years ago I passed the unhappiest point in my life.

On Tuesday in Washington, D.C., at Politico’s Women Rule Summit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) admitted the impeachment process of President Donald Trump has been going on for “two and a half” years. When asked about criticisms of “the speed” of the House Democrats impeachment, Pelosi replied, “Speed? It’s been going on 22 months—two and a half years, actually.”

ACTUAL CALLS RECEIVED AT A PUBLIC GOLF COURSE Staff: Golf course, may I help you? Caller: What are your green fees? Staff: 38 dollars. Caller: Does that include golf? Staff: Golf course, may I help you? Caller: Yes, I need to get some information from you First, is this your correct phone number? Staff: Golf course, may I help you? Caller: I'd like to reserve a tee time in two weeks. Staff: Yes, we have a tee time for two weeks from Friday. Caller: What's the weather going to be like that day? Staff: Golf course, may I help you?...

In honor of the Rush Limbaugh Show reaching 30 years old today, I would like Freepers to post and collect their memories. Memories of when they first listened to the Rush Limbaugh Show, and why you kept on listening to it. I'll start... It was 1993. Bill Clinton was elected and he was on television, and the radio discussing his budget. He was talking about all the great plans that he had to remove man from space, end the "boondoggle" of the "Freedom " space station, and mothball the space shuttles so the money could be used "for the children"....

If you’ve ever been in Germany between Christmas and New Year’s, you have without a doubt heard somebody wishing you a “Guten Rutsch!” It literally means a “good slide” and people use it to wish you a Happy New Year. There’s various ideas how the “good slide” expression came about with some people theorizing it originates in the Yiddish word “rosch” and Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. Others argue that it stems from the original meaning for Rutsch, a journey. Personally, I always figured with the winter weather and amount of black ice we get in Germany it makes...

President Donald Trump said Gen. John Kelly loved his job as White House chief of staff, and Trump wanted him to stay for the rest of his presidency. “John Kelly is one of the best people I’ve ever worked with, he’s doing an incredible job,” he told reporters at the White House. Trump said Kelly told him that he loved doing his job as White House chief of staff more than any other job he had ever had. “He’s doing a great job, he will be here, in my opinion, for the entire seven remaining years,” Trump said assuming...

Did a Planetary Society citizen scientist help find one of Earth’s biggest impact craters? About 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer-wide hunk of rock smashed into Earth near what is now Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula.The impact created a global dust cloud that snuffed out the sunlight, leading to the demise of 80 percent of Earth's plants and animals—including most of the dinosaurs. A 200-kilometer-wide crater buried near the city of Chicxulub is all that's left. It's ground zero for one of the world's most notable extinction events.But throughout Earth's history, there have actually been five major extinction events. The largest of...

We build! We Fight!

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Internal Revenue Service told House Republicans on Wednesday that it would take years to provide all the documents they have subpoenaed in their probe of how the agency handled tea party groups' applications for tax-exempt status. The comments by IRS chief John Koskinen drew a frosty response from Republicans who run the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, one of several congressional panels investigating the controversy. The panel's chairman, Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., warned him he should comply with the request "or potentially be held in contempt" of Congress, a sometimes threatened but...

Welfare spending in Britain has increased faster than almost any other country in Europe since 2000, new figures show. The cost of unemployment benefits, housing support and pensions as share of the economy has increased by more than a quarter over the past thirteen years – growing at a faster rate than in most of the developed world. Spending has gone up from 18.6 per cent of GDP to 23.7 per cent of GDP – an increase of 27 per cent, according to figures from the OECD, the club of most developed nations. By contrast, the average increase in welfare...

US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Friday that a peace deal could be imminent as he wrapped up his Israel visit, according to an AFP report. "I believe we are closer than we have been in years to bringing about the peace and the prosperity and the security that all of the people of this region deserve," he told reporters traveling with his delegation at Ben Gurion airport. The news follows reports from Maariv that negotiations were improving Thursday, as Kerry indicated that the US was more willing to follow Israel's stance on its security - specifically the...

<p>Former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick was sentenced Thursday to 28 years in prison for corruption, the apparent last step after a series of scandals destroyed his political career and helped steer a crisis-laden city even deeper into trouble.</p> <p>Kilpatrick, who served as mayor from 2002 until fall 2008, fattened his bank account by tens of thousands of dollars, traveled the country in private planes and even strong-armed his campaign fundraiser for stacks of cash hidden in her bra, according to evidence at trial.</p>

The goal can be reached, with no new taxes, while increasing spending 3.4% annually instead of the current 5%. America's national debt is over $16 trillion. Yet Washington can't figure out how to cut $85 billion—or just 2% of the federal budget—without resorting to arbitrary, across-the-board cuts. Clearly, the budget process is broken. In four of the past five years, the president has missed his budget deadline. Senate Democrats haven't passed a budget in over 1,400 days. By refusing to tackle the drivers of the nation's debt—or simply to write a budget—Washington lurches from crisis to crisis. House Republicans have...

Most cultural institutions and research laboratories still rely on magnetic tape to archive their collections. Hitachi recently announced that it has developed a medium that can outlast not only this old-school format but also CDs, DVDs, hard drives and MP3s. The electronics giant partnered with Kyoto University's Kiyotaka Miura to develop “semiperpetual” slivers of quartz glass that Hitachi says can preserve information for hundreds of millions of years with virtually no degradation. The prototype is made of a square of quartz two centimeters wide and two millimeters thick. It houses four layers of dots that are created with a femtosecond...

The bicycle party known as Critical Mass turns 20 on Friday. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of riders in all manner of dress and - if recent history holds true, no dress at all - will band together for a commemorative, congestion-causing cruise through downtown San Francisco. [snip] Chris Carlsson, the Critical Mass spokesman, said he expects 5,000 to 10,000 riders on Friday, more than 10 times the number of riders who routinely participate. "It's going to be a gigantic mess, but it is going to be fun," Carlsson said.