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The coronavirus has sent stock markets plummeting and no industry, including housing, is immune. Mortgage rates are hitting multi-year lows as investors, fearful of a possible coronavirus pandemic, have flocked to safe havens like Treasuries, sending the 10-year Treasury note to a record-low yield. While low rates will give hesitant homebuyers a reason to purchase, the heightened demand for housing could further depress historically low inventory. Additionally, homebuilders rely on China, where the coronavirus or COVID-19 originated, for construction materials and any disruption in the supply chain could impact their ability to deliver much-needed new inventory into the market. “There’s...

South Korea spike: 600 new infections pushed the East Asian country's total past 4,800, including 29 deaths -- the biggest outbreak outside mainland China. (Please see link, for full article)

China has taken over as president of the UN Security Council for the month of March 2020, pledging to promote solidarity and cooperation..... The council's presidency is a capacity that rotates every month among its 15 members

He said the continuing confirmation of additional cases is "a critical phase" .....the situation has changed completely due to the massive number of infections of 'followers of a fringe religious group known as Shincheonji.' Most of the cases were reported in Daegu, 300 kilometers southeast of Seoul, and the neighboring province. "The crisis in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province reached its peak and the whole country has entered a war against the infectious disease," Moon said. He ordered all of the government's organizations to shift to a "24-hour emergency situation room system," citing the need to bolster readiness to handle...

I'm thinking of voting for Bernie Sanders in the primary tomorrow. His shellacking in the general election would help Democrats repudiate the far left.

ATLANTA - Gov. Brian Kemp, during a late-night press conference, announced two people in Georgia have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus. Both patients live together and one recently returned from Italy. Georgia Department of Public Health Commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey said the patients lived in Fulton County, according to officials, and contacted their doctor once one of them returned and felt sick. Because of their travel history, they had contacted their doctor and arranged to meet the doctor without putting the general public at risk. Dr. Toomey said because of the precautions the two patients took, the risk of...

Judy Sheindlin announced she’s ending her long-running show “Judge Judy” after its 25th season, but that doesn’t mean she’s leaving TV any time soon. The acclaimed television personality announced the big news during an interview on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” that’s set to air on Monday. The 77-year-old celebrity revealed that Season 25, which will air in 2021, will be the “best year yet” and a fitting end to the show that sees her preside over people’s legal squabbles. Fortunately for fans, they'll still be able to see her on TV as she will be moving from “Judge Judy” to...

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The Liberals have banned single-use plastic by 2021 and have signed onto an international plastics treaty, but are they living how they preach? An order paper response to a question asked by Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner shows one government ministry spent nearly a million dollars on single use plastic water bottles since 2017. In 2018, the Liberals signed onto the G7 Oceans Plastic Charter to “commit to a more resource-efficient and lifecycle approach to plastics stewardship on land and at sea”. The following year, Trudeau announced that he would ban single use plastics and introduced us to his “paper...

A group that is working on getting President Donald Trump re-elected refused to pull an advertisement that features former President Barack Obama talking about his vice president, Joe Biden......Obama asked television stations in South Carolina to stop running the ad. The Perkins Coie law firm sent a cease-and-desist letter to the Committee claiming that the video featured an “unauthorized use of President Obama’s name, image, likeness, voice, and book passage.”...........In a response letter, the group declined to stop running it, asserting the use of the content “is a lawful expression of political speech” and that it “has complied with all...

Evangelist Franklin Graham has taken legal action against two more venues for canceling his U.K. tour events planned for May due to his biblical views on homosexuality, according to a spokesperson of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. After launching legal proceedings against the Scottish Event Campus in Glasgow, BGEA has now sued the FlyDSA Arena in Sheffield and ICC Wales in the city of Newport, South Wales, Christian Today reported. The Scottish Event Campus, owners of the Glasgow Hydro, had been given time until Thursday to explain why it canceled Graham’s event slated for May 30 — the first night...

Those few people watching “Hardball” on MSNBC were treated to a surprise announcement — the episode they were watching had been the last, and host Chris Matthews says he’s retiring.

FAUQUIER COUNTY, Va. - A Virginia middle school fundraiser ended early after parents said Make America Great Again hats led to a disruption. It happened earlier this week during hat day at Marshall Middle School in Fauquier County, when students were allowed to pay $1 for the right to wear a hat to school, parents said. According to a district spokesperson, “tensions between students caused the fundraiser to end early.” She wouldn’t confirm what caused the tension but did say all students were asked to remove their hats and no one was disciplined. Nevertheless, the issue exploded on Facebook, leading...

The Trump administration told the Supreme Court that a foreigner who entered the country unlawfully and was thrice denied asylum during administrative proceedings doesn’t have the legal right to challenge an expedited removal order in the courts. If the government loses the appeal in the case, known as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) v. Thuraissigiam, the flow of illegal aliens and would-be asylees to the United States could accelerate at a time when the Trump administration has been trying to curb the flow of such people into the country. In ruling on the case, the Supreme Court could clarify what,...

The city of Charlottesville, Virginia, will not honor the birthday of Thomas Jefferson this spring for the first time since World War II. The Washington Post reports that the city will instead celebrate the demise of slavery this coming Tuesday. The holiday is known as Liberation and Freedom Day. It will commemorate when Union troops arrived in the city in March 1865 and freed enslaved people. The change is the latest example of this southern city reckoning with its history. It began when the city tried to remove its Confederate monuments. That inspired white supremacists to stage the deadly 2017...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Healthcare; Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

ROME - As the number of people testing positive for the coronavirus in Europe continued to grow, the French Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes announced that pilgrims were still welcome, but the pools the sick bathe in hoping for healing would be closed temporarily. “Our first concern will always be the safety and health of the pilgrims and the shrine’s working community,” said a note posted Feb. 28 on the shrine’s website. “As a precaution, the pools have been closed until further notice.” In the center of Rome, the French Church of St. Louis, home of three famous Caravaggio...

Turkish forces have targeted the Syrian regime’s military repeatedly over the last several days..Erdogan blamed Assad for the strike, which U.S. officials said was likely coordinated with the Russian military. Russian military officials aren’t ready to allow Erdogan to target Assad’s military, which relies on Russia for air support. “In this situation, the Russian troops’ command can’t guarantee security of flights of Turkish aircraft in the skies over Syria,” Russian Rear Adm. Oleg Zhuravlev, one of the top commanders for Russia’s operations in Syria... Erdogan and Putin are expected to meet Thursday in Moscow to discuss the crisis and a...

Moscow, March 2, Interfax - Russian State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told reporters on Monday about the wording of a president-submitted constitutional amendment that includes a reference to God. "The Russian Federation, which has a millennia-long history and safeguards the memory of the forefathers who passed the ideals and faith in God to us, as well as the continuity of the development of the Russian state, shall be recognized as historically developed state unity," Volodin said. One of the amendments submitted by the Russian president on Monday in the run-up to the second reading of the bill on changes to...

Traditionalists fear hierarchy will use epidemic scare to kill Latin Mass ROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - The former archbishop of Milan has dismissed the idea that divine punishment for human sin could be a factor behind the coronavirus epidemic, which has spooked churches into shutting their doors in the dioceses of Northern Italy. "Divine punishment does not exist. It is an incorrect view of Christianity," Cdl. Angelo Scola told La Repubblica, when asked if Christianity supported the vision of a divine punishment behind the coronavirus. "Of course, God knows and predicts events but does not determine them," Scola told the leftwing Italian...