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Russian President Vladimir Putin wants marriage to be defined as the union of a man and woman in a revised constitution, ruling out gay marriage. It is among several constitutional amendments proposed by Mr Putin, which are set to be put to a public vote. Critics see the proposals as a move by Mr Putin to keep a hold on power after his presidential term ends in 2024. The package includes a proclamation of Russians' faith in God and a ban on giving away any Russian territory.

The Justice Department announced today that Sterling Medical Associates Inc. (Sterling) will pay $1.85 million to resolve allegations under the False Claims Act that it failed to schedule veterans’ medical appointments timely at two outpatient clinics in Minnesota, resulting in the submission of false claims to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Sterling is a Cincinnati-based company that provides various services in the healthcare industry, including staffing, departmental operation, and outpatient clinic operation. “We expect companies doing business with the government to comply with their contractual obligations, particularly when they relate to the health of our veterans,” said Assistant Attorney...

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made the remarks during a hearing of the House of Representatives with members of the president's coronavirus task force, confirming earlier reports by US media outlets including Axios and NBC News. "Congress's attending physician told the Senate that he expects between 70 to 150 million people to eventually contract the coronavirus in the United States," Tlaib said.

Portland, Ore., Mar 12, 2020 / 04:11 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Portland will not cancel public Sunday Masses, after Oregon’s governor responded to the coronavirus pandemic by announcing a statewide prohibition on gatherings of more than 250 people. Portland’s archbishop encouraged parishes with high Sunday Mass attendance to consider adding more Masses. “The celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life. It is in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that we encounter the mystery of our redemption, are nourished by God’s Word, and receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of...

Seattle, Wash., Mar 11, 2020 / 05:45 pm (CNA).- The Archdiocese of Seattle will indefinitely suspend public Masses in response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left at least 31 dead in Washington, along with 375 people in the state who have tested positive for the virus. “I want to acknowledge the best science that is out there, that basically says despite our best efforts, this epidemic is going to continue to spread, that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be doing everything we possibly can to restrict the spread of this virus and of this epidemic,” Archbishop Paul Etienne said...

ROSARIO, Argentina - As bishops from Pope Francis’s native Argentina figure out how to pay their own salaries instead of taking funds from the state, a new poll shows that while seven in ten Argentines declare themselves to be Catholic, six in ten don’t know what activities the Church is doing in the country and seven in ten attend Mass less than once a month. At first glance, the results of the study, commissioned by the bishops after they announced the progressive end of public funding for the Church late last year, aren’t all bad news: 67 percent of Argentines...

Today, President Donald J. Trump declared that a major disaster exists in the State of Mississippi and ordered Federal assistance to supplement State and local recovery efforts in the areas affected by severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and flooding from January 10 to January 11, 2020.Federal funding is available to State and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work and the repair or replacement of facilities damaged by the severe storms, tornadoes, straight-line winds, and flooding in the counties of Bolivar, Choctaw, Clay, DeSoto, Oktibbeha, Panola, Prentiss, Sunflower, Tishomingo, and Washington.Federal funding...

Moscow, March 12, Interfax - Automobile procession with cross with a prayer service against coronavirus in Lipetsk planned for March 15 was suspended as public meetings in the region are banned due to coronavirus. Organizer of the procession with cross, head of the Lipetsk community of the Holy Royal Martyrs, Yury Bernikov wrote in his Vkontakte account that he asked believers to "read acathistes (praising hymns - IF) in churches and read a prayer against coronavirus at home." On March 7, three cases of coronavirus infection were confirmed in the region: it was a woman born in 1961 and a...

The Russian trolls are back -- and once again trying to poison the political atmosphere in the United States ahead of this year's elections. But this time they are better disguised and more targeted, harder to identify and track. And they have found an unlikely home, far from Russia itself. In 2016, much of the trolling aimed at the US election operated from an office block in St. Petersburg, Russia. A months-long CNN investigation has discovered that, in this election cycle, at least part of the campaign has been outsourced -- to trolls in the west African nations of Ghana...

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Residents of Hubei province, the epicenter of China’s coronavirus outbreak, resumed a more normal daily life routine as factories and other businesses reopened Wednesday, possibly offering encouragement to the U.S. and other affected nations. Health experts around the world are carefully watching the pandemic as it plays out in China, where the virus originated, for clues to how the new COVID-19 coronavirus strain works its way through a target population. At first overwhelmed by new cases and outbreaks, Chinese officials are reporting a sharply declining number of new cases in recent days. Food processors, manufacturers and other businesses essential for...

Marc Lamont Hill, a liberal pundit who previously was a contributor for CNN, found himself in hot water after tweeting an offensive “joke” about Hollywood star Tom Hanks’ announcement that he contracted coronavirus. After 63-year-old Hanks and his wife Rita Wilson bravely announced that they had tested positive for the disease, Hill reposted a tweet announcing their diagnosis. “I’m Black. Call me when Will and Jada got it,” he captioned the tweet, according to Fox News. Hill was referring to the African American actors Will Smith and his wife Jada Pinkett Smith. Many took the tweet to imply that Hill...

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has said he will self-quarantine and be tested for coronavirus after mingling with the Brazilian President and his infected aide at Mar-a-Lago last weekend. President Donald Trump will learn on Friday whether Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to reports out of Brazil, after the two men dined together at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday night and shook hands. Bolsonaro was checked for the disease after his aide Fabio Wajngarten tested positive for it but South Carolina senator Graham said Thursday he doesn't recall touching the leader or the infected staff member. 'Senator...

New York is set to get $750 million a month in coronavirus economic stimulus legislation that’s currently being finalized, Sen. Chuck Schumer tells The Post. The Democratic Senate minority leader said Thursday that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) signed off on the Empire State funding and that he hasn’t heard of objections from the White House or Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is negotiating with Pelosi. Schumer said he scored the haul by temporarily adjusting the state’s Medicaid reimbursement rate. Right now, the federal government pays 50 percent of expenses for Medicaid in New York. Under the deal, the feds...

Invitation to do the math for your state: COVID-19 cases as a percent of the population. Below is a list of states per currently reported COVID-19 infections (by CNN, of 3-12-20) in comparison with population size (note that variations in reported cases are partly be due to how comprehensive testing can and has been done). Using an online calculator as here, (see second row under “Percentage Calculator in Common Phrases”, and remove commas in population figure), then 95 “is what percent of” 6949503 = 0.001367. Is this correct? And what correlations do you see that may be of interest? In...

Oval Office 11:00 A.M. EDT PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you all very much. It’s an honor to be with the Prime Minister of Ireland. We’ve known each other now for quite a while, and we have a great relationship and a great relationship with Ireland. And we have a lot to discuss. We will be talking about the obvious, and we’ll also be talking about the virus that’s hit the world. I see they’ve cancelled their big soccer games, their championship games, and a lot of other games. They’ve cancelled a lot over in Europe and all over the world....

When someone first learns about a new and potentially serious risk, the natural, healthy, and useful reaction is, in a sense, an over-reaction: You pause. While you wait to see what’s going to happen, you may stop doing things that suddenly feel dangerous. After 9/11, some people quit flying for a while or stayed away from skyscrapers. During the anthrax attacks, some people hesitated to open their mail. When a U.S. cow was discovered with mad cow disease, some people briefly avoided hamburgers. You become hyper-vigilant. You watch TV news more than you used to, or check Google News every...

"The security and prosperity of the United States depend on high-speed, reliable, and secure communication networks." President Donald J. Trump RELIABLE AND SAFE NETWORKS: President Donald J. Trump signed new legislation to ensure that our Nation’s communications networks are protected from foreign adversaries. Today, President Trump signed the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Act, furthering his commitment to defend our networks from entities posing an unacceptable risk to national security.This legislation will help protect our telecommunications infrastructure by prohibiting the use of Federal funds to purchase equipment from companies that pose a national security threat.The Act creates a reimbursement program...

Gov Hogan declared all our schools in Maryland closed (not just public) for the next 2 weeks. And mentions many other venues. Here is his website, which only links into YouTube, so no easy-to-skim story. (Not perfectly updated, either, as the bottom text last declares the emergency state.)

American lawyers should file hundreds of class-action lawsuits against the Chinese government for the negligent release of the COVID-19 virus from their bio-lab in Wuhan province in China, where they have been developing weaponized virus for years, including the SARS virus.