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If anything good can come from the coronavirus pandemic, it is the revelation of America’s over-reliance on China, especially when it comes to drugs. Interviewed by NBC News, retired Brigadier General John Adams said, “Basically, we’ve outsourced our entire industry to China. That is a strategic vulnerability.”

The Chinese government silenced whistle-blowers, withheld crucial information and played down the threat posed by the new coronavirus, allowing an epidemic that has killed thousands to take hold across the country. Now the ruling Communist Party, facing a storm of anger from the Chinese public over its missteps, is trying to rehabilitate its image by rebranding itself as the unequivocal leader in the global fight against the virus. [Read: ‘No way out’: In China, coronavirus takes a toll on other patients.] The state-run news media has hailed China’s response to the outbreak as a model for the world, accusing countries...

Taiwan accused the World Heath Organization of ignoring its questions at the start of the coronavirus outbreak, part of what it has long described as a pattern that puts it at risk because of Chinese pressure to exclude it from international bodies. Taiwan is barred from membership in the WHO under pressure from China, which views it as a province rather than a state. It responded early to the coronavirus outbreak in China, and has had notable success in limiting contagion so far, with just two deaths and 215 cases.

Pray For the Peace of Jerusalem (Music in The Bible) Psalms Psalm 134 A song of ascents. 1 Praise the Lord, all you servants of the Lord     who minister by night in the house of the Lord. 2 Lift up your hands in the sanctuary     and praise the Lord. 3 May the Lord bless you from Zion,     he who is the Maker of heaven and earth. New International Version (NIV)(End of Scripture Passage) . This is the "Top Step" in our Songs of Ascents. It is also the Shortest Psalm in the Psalter. New International Version (NIV) Holy Bible, New International Version®,...

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It’s telling, isn’t it? The one thing that our betters are fixated on in this Chinese virus scare is to chase down the racists and the xenophobes. Because, as the wokerati discovered 27 minutes ago, it is racist to call the COVID-19 thingy Wuhan Flu. Even the US Commission on Civil Rights has gotten in on the action. And the Good Little Girls in the media just can’t believe anyone would call it the Kung Flu. Of course Peter Alexander of NBC News just cannot understand why President Trump might be a little overenthusiastic about the potential of chloroquine for...

The coronavirus pandemic has led to a rare surge of online posts in Thailand questioning King Maha Vajiralongkorn and the monarchy. On Sunday a government minister subsequently warned that inappropriate posts could lead to jail. Insulting the monarchy is a crime, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Thailand has been a constitutional monarchy since a 1932 revolution ended absolute royal rule, but the monarchy remains a central part of traditional Thai culture. Some Thais consider the king to be semi-divine.

"Give us this day our daily bread" (Matt. 6:11). God is glorified when He meets your needs. In America, praying for our daily bread hardly seems necessary. Most people need to pray for self-control to avoid overeating! But Matthew 6:11 isn't talking about food only. It is a statement of dependency on God and an acknowledgment that He alone provides all of life's basic necessities. Sad to say, however, many people today have reduced prayer to a means of self-fulfillment. Recently a woman sent me a booklet and wrote, "I don't think you understand the true resource we have in...

The first time most of us learned that President Donald Trump was thinking about relaxing existing measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic was on Sunday night, just before midnight. That's when his tweet shouted in all caps, "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF." He went on to say he would make a decision at the end of the current 15-day period of CDC guidelines recommending social distancing. The idea to change course may have come from his favorite network, Fox News, where a Sunday morning host suggested that when it comes to...

The first pandemic of the 21st Century took place in 2009. It was commonly referred to as the “Swine Flu” or H1N1. It was notable for its rapid global spread which was facilitated by an unusually high degree of viral contagiousness and was most lethal in individuals affected by chronic disease or other underlying conditions. The Centers for Disease Control has estimated that in the United States there were 60.8 million cases, 274,300 hospitalizations and up to 18,300 deaths due to the virus. Additionally, CDC estimated that 360,000 people worldwide died of the virus infection. The previous global pandemic took...

Artists are some of those hardest hit by the coronavirus crisis and San Francisco Mayor London Breed's office appears to have their back. This morning Breed tweeted out a press release announcing an Arts Relief Program funded by $2.5 million from the city.

The man known in Italy as Patient No. 1 in the country’s devastating outbreak of the coronavirus is out of the hospital a month after he arrived in critically ill condition. Authorities in Italy’s hardest hit region of Lombardy played an audio message recorded by the 38-year-old man in which he says, “You can get cured of this illness.” The man identified only by his first name of Mattia spent 18 days in intensive care on a respirator. After that time, he says he began to do on his own “the most simple and beautiful thing: that is, to breathe.”...

On Saturday evening I drove to a local pizza joint to pick up a pizza. This was the only way to get pizza. In Kansas City, all bars and restaurants have been closed for a week. During the last few weeks, I had made a point of not watching or following the news. I trusted none of it. A TV at the pizza place, however, was tuned to CNN. It showed the Coronavirus death toll: 12,000-plus worldwide and 285 in the United States. The numbers stunned me. Not following the news closely, I presumed, based on the hysteria in the...

A majority of American voters say they believe the Trump administration is taking strong enough measures to combat the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey. Sixty-one percent of registered voters said they strongly or somewhat agree that the Trump administration is taking strong enough measures to slow or stop the spread of COVID-19, while 39 percent said they strongly or somewhat disagree. Karlyn Bowman, public opinion analyst and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says the poll could be reflecting the "rally-round effect." "Publics tend to rally around their presidents in time of national emergency, and it's something...

Tucker Carlson called on Democrats in Congress Monday to put aside their "stupid partisan points" and stop "indulging their creepy ideological obsessions" to focus on getting a coronavirus relief bill passed. "Americans worry they can die of this disease and someone they love could die if they lose their jobs and could be crippled permanently in the wake of this disaster. It's a terrifying moment," Carlson said. "In that moment, we need wisdom and steady guidance from our leaders. We need altruism, [they] need to care more about you than they care about themselves ... but in Congress, they don't."

Four different at-home diagnostic companies are planning to offer tests for coronavirus infection to health care workers and the public in the next week or so. One of the companies is the Austin-based Everlywell, which says it will make as many as 30,000 tests available to health care providers today. The company aims to return results to consumers within 48 hours after the labs receive the test samples, and it says it will offer telehealth consultations to folks who test positive. Positive results will be communicated to all mandated federal and state reporting agencies. The company says it will take...

As the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 spreads across the globe, with cases surpassing 284,000 worldwide today (March 20), misinformation is spreading almost as fast. One persistent myth is that this virus, called SARS-CoV-2, was made by scientists and escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. A new analysis of SARS-CoV-2 may finally put that latter idea to bed. A group of researchers compared the genome of this novel coronavirus with the seven other coronaviruses known to infect humans: SARS, MERS and SARS-CoV-2, which can cause severe disease; along with HKU1, NL63, OC43 and 229E, which typically...

“I went by the field of the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man void of understanding; And, lo, it was all grown over with thorns, and nettles had covered the face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was broken down. Then I saw, and considered it well: I looked upon it, and received instruction. Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep: So shall thy poverty come as one that travelleth; and thy want as an armed man” (Proverbs 24:30-34).

Hours after Denver Mayor Michael Hancock announced liquor stores and recreational marijuana dispensaries would close across the city in an attempt to slow the spread of coronavirus, his office reversed course, a report said. The mayor sent a tweet at 5 p.m. Denver time saying liquor and marijuana stores in city would be open as usual, but following extreme physical distancing rules (social distancing). The new rules will continue through April 10, the Denver Post reported. The city defined “extreme” as six feet, or the normal amount of social distancing now recommended, the report said.

The media gets lower marks on its performance than President Trump regarding its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new poll from Monmouth University. The poll released Monday afternoon shows 50 percent of Americans approving of President' Trump's handling of the crisis, while 45 percent say the media has done a good job in reporting on it. Ten percent said the results were mixed on both fronts. Congress also received more negative than positive reviews, with just 42 percent of participants in the Monmouth poll saying it has done a good job. The American public itself was also...