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Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said on Tuesday that he has started closed-door interviews as part of his deep dive into the surveillance courts and the FBI’s Russia probe. Graham confirmed to reporters that he has started the depositions, then escaped into a Senate elevator. Graham is using his gavel to probe the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) surveillance warrants involving Trump campaign associate Carter Page and the FBI’s handling of the investigation into Russia's election meddling and the Trump campaign. He’s requested testimony from more than 20 current Justice Department and FBI officials.

We assessed public health use of R0, the basic reproduction number, which estimates the speed at which a disease is capable of spreading in a population. These estimates are of great public health interest, as evidenced during the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) virus pandemic.We reviewed methods commonly used to estimate R0, examined their practical utility, and assessed how estimates of this epidemiological parameter can inform mitigation strategy decisions.In isolation, R0 is a suboptimal gauge of infectious disease dynamics across populations; other disease parameters may provide more useful information. Nonetheless, estimation of R0 for a particular population is useful for understanding...

Lahore (Agenzia Fides) - The appeal verdict of Shafqat Emmanuel and Shagufta Kausar, a Christian couple from Gjra (in Punjab) sentenced to death for blasphemy in 2014, will be read on 8 April 2020 by the Lahore High Court on charges of having sent telephone text messages deemed blasphemous. This is what Catholic lawyer Khalil Tahir Sandhu, who took over the defense of the two defendants, reports to Agenzia Fides. The lawyer says he is "confident" for the positive outcome of the hearing and for an acquittal verdict, as "there is no clear evidence against the two of them. The...

Two South Australian sisters have been denied their plea to feed their dying mother, with a public guardian refusing to reinstate the woman's feeding tube despite the intervention of the Catholic Church. The Office of the Public Advocate (OPA) has been making decisions on behalf of the mother, after her daughters were stripped of her guardianship amid a dispute with her aged care provider. The mother, who had end-stage dementia and breast cancer, died this week, more than a month after the nasogastric tube, which had been providing her nutrition, fell out. Before her death, the sisters urged the public...

Next week—for the first time since Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh joined the bench—the Supreme Court will hear arguments in a case involving abortion. On the docket is June Medical Services v. Russo, a constitutional challenge to a Louisiana law that requires doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of where the abortion takes place. Life Legal submitted amicus briefs in support of the pro-life law, and we’ll be there on March 4 to watch the Supreme Court argument in this critical case. You can read the brief we filed on behalf of Abby...

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea reported 516 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, a day after a record spike in cases prompted the ...

Buffalo, N.Y., Feb 28, 2020 / 10:10 am (CNA).- The Diocese of Buffalo announced on Friday that it is declaring bankruptcy as hundreds of abuse lawsuits have been filed against it in the last several months. The diocese said it was formally filing for Chapter 11 reorganization under the U.S. bankruptcy code to provide the most compensation for victims of clergy sex abuse while continuing the day-to-day work of its Catholic mission. "Our decision to pursue Chapter 11 reorganization - arrived at after much prayer, discernment and consultation with the College of Consultors and our Diocesan Finance Council - is...

Mini Mike, don’t lick your dirty fingers. Both unsanitary and dangerous to others and yourself! pic.twitter.com/LsKLZNeZL9— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 4, 2020

The little movie in this link: https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/03/04/i-like-ike-and-donald-trump/ attempts a fusion of the thoughts of Eisenhower and Trump. Does it work? In the text below the link, I list Republican Peace Maker presidents whom I admire. Any comments? Are there any others I should have included? What Democrats deserve a mention as Peace Makers? Which Presidents have been the best Peace Makers?

~ Freeper Canteen ~ --Canteen Mission Statement-- Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allies' military and family members of the above. Honoring those who have served before. Today We Want You To Take The..... Guess The Right First Name Of These 60s Songs QuizHT--PROCON Click HERE and take the quiz!To share your results, click on the "HTML" button, then copy and paste the code into a "Reply" box. Have fun! Please remember that The Canteen here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and their families, and is family friendly.

An illegal immigrant accused of raping a 13-year-old girl in Brooklyn was cut loose thanks to New York’s “sanctuary city” policy and the Brooklyn District Attorney — despite a request by immigration officials that he be detained. Guatemalan national Miguel Federico Ajqui-Ajtzalam, 20, was arraigned Friday on a 20-count criminal complaint for allegedly raping the girl five times in 2018. But Brooklyn DA Eric Gonzalez’s office didn’t ask the judge to set bail, and Criminal Court Judge Hilary Gingold agreed to let him go on supervised release. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had issued a detainer asking the city to nevertheless...

he White House is willing to offer some military assistance to Turkey to assist an insurgency against neighboring Syria, which has received support from Russia and Iran, a senior U.S. diplomat said Tuesday. James Jeffrey, who serves as both the State Department's special representative for Syria and the presidential envoy to the fight against the Islamic State militant group (ISIS) told reporters in Turkey's southern border province of Hatay that the Turkish forces "mainly use our equipment, we want to make sure the equipment is ready when they need to use it," according to Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency. "We're willing...

The Department of Justice announced today that El Expreso Bus Company (El Expreso), based in Houston, Texas, has paid over $90,000 to eight U.S. workers pursuant to a May 29, 2019, settlement agreement.The settlement resolved the Department’s claims that El Expreso discriminated against U.S. workers due to a hiring preference for temporary visa workers, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA). This settlement is part of the Department’s Protecting U.S. Workers Initiative, which targets, investigates, and brings enforcement actions against companies that discriminate against U.S. workers because they prefer to hire foreign visa workers. Since the Initiative’s inception,...

The United States filed a complaint under the False Claims Act against Mallinckrodt ARD LLC, formerly known as Mallinckrodt ARD Inc. and previously Questcor Pharmaceuticals Inc. (collectively, Mallinckrodt), in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, the Department of Justice announced today.  The government alleges that Mallinckrodt has violated the False Claims Act by knowingly underpaying Medicaid rebates due as a result of large increases in the price of its drug H.P. Acthar Gel (Acthar). “The Medicaid Rebate Statute provides an important check on rising drug prices,” said Assistant Attorney General Jody Hunt of the Department of Justice’s...

(CNSNews.com) - Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf began his congressional testimony on Tuesday with an announcement: The DHS office in King County, Washington, is closed for two weeks, after an employee apparently contracted coronavirus after visiting a relative at the Life Care nursing facility, which is experiencing a deadly coronavirus outbreak.

An attendee at the March 2, 2020, Fox News town hall asked Mike Bloomberg why he pushes gun control for the common man but surrounds himself with armed security. The attendee said, “You have an armed security detail that is likely equipped with the same firearms and magazines you seek to ban the common citizen from owning. Does your life matter more than mine or my family’s?” Bloomberg responded by admitting to having an armed detail, and suggesting he needs armed protection because he gets more threats than the common man. Michael Bloomberg is ENDED by a citizen on gun...

Nobody knew who the “plague doctor” was until he put on the mask. The message of the student who hands out fliers in a mask reminiscent of the kind doctors wore to treat victims of the bubonic plague? Death shouldn’t be inevitable. “The one core thing that I take as the basis of everything else is that death is wrong, categorically and fundamentally,” said Jairus Chittenden, a junior in the College of Science. Chittenden is a transhumanist, and though he is almost sure his generation was born too early to see a radical extension of life, he is focused on...

""What a scam—Speaker Pelosi held up the vote on coronavirus funding so that her campaign team could run ads against Republicans for Super Tuesday. Instead of putting America first, she is putting politics first."""

Today's Quotefall Puzzle features a quote by Sir Isaac Newton. Click puzzle (or click here) for full size rendition, then use your browser's print command to print puzzle. Sir Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author, who was a key figure in the scientific revolution with regard to gravitational forces. All hints, along with the answer, are provided in the first reply comment below, using filtered font to prevent accidental spoilers. Please refrain from disclosing the full answer in comments to prevent spoilers.To solve the puzzle: Enter the letters in the top half (letter columns) of the puzzle...

Museum of the Cape Fear has rescheduled “Black Republicans From the 1868 North Carolina Constitutional Convention and the Reconstruction of the South” for Thursday at 7 p.m. This presentation by Earl Ijames, curator of Agriculture and African American History, and many other programs and special events scheduled for Feb. 20 were canceled because of the threat of severe winter weather. The end of the Civil War brought several firsts for African Americans. Most notably is the election to local, state and federal offices. From the state legislature to the United States Congress, African American North Carolinians served their nation in...