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The Chinese government has waged a months-long disinformation campaign to portray itself as the country that defeated the virus, when it attempted to hide it for months. At midnight on Friday, China closed its borders to the rest of the world as it tries to stop a resurgence of the coronavirus. The move was the culmination of a months-long PR and disinformation campaign waged by the Chinese government to rewrite the history of a pandemic that has spread to almost every corner of the planet, killed more than 34,000 people, and infected almost three-quarters of a million. China initially ignored...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Schneider: Priests don’t have to obey bishops, govt who suspend Mass over COVID-19 Priests may disobey 'human law' to save souls March 30, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Athanasius Schneider has stated that a priest, using discretion and following the necessary health precautions “has not to obey the directives of his bishop or the government to suspend Mass for the faithful.” He also described the COVID-19 pandemic as a chastisement and a purification. Directives canceling all public Masses “are a pure human law; however, the supreme law in the Church is the salvation of souls,” said the auxiliary...

Weeks ago it was clear that the coronavirus presented a unique threat to homeless people who often have underlying conditions that make them more vulnerable than the rest of the population. Cities up and down the west coast have rushed to take emergency measures to get as many people as possible inside, but that has its own risks as shelters are often overcrowded and put ill people a few feet apart from other vulnerable people as they sleep. Now we’re starting to see the first confirmed cases of the virus among the homeless population. In Seattle, four people have...

    ~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Beale Air Force Base, CaliforniaBeale Air Force Base is a United States Air Force base located approximately 8 miles east of Marysville, California. The host unit at Beale is the 9th Reconnaissance Wing (9 RW) assigned to the Air Combat Command and part of Sixteenth Air Force. The 9 RW collects intelligence essential for Presidential and Congressional decisions critical to the national defense. To accomplish this mission, the wing is equipped with the nation's fleet of U-2 Dragon Lady and RQ-4 Global Hawk unmanned aircraft and associated support equipment. The wing...

CNA Staff, Mar 30, 2020 / 02:45 pm (CNA).- Amid lockdowns responding to the coronavirus pandemic, at least three priests were arrested Sunday for celebrating Mass publicly, in alleged defiance of government orders banning religious gatherings during the pandemic. In Uganda, Fr. Deogratius Kiibi Kateregga was arrested March 29 for celebrating Mass at St Joseph’s Catholic Parish in Mpigi, Uganda. There were reportedly at least 15 Catholics in attendance at the Mass. The priest is well-known in Uganda, and came to national notoriety after a televised 2018 sermon at the memorial Mass for a Ugandan musician, Mowzey Radio, who died...

Via Nate Silver, most of us are way out of our depth in trying to understand this stuff. I feel more out of my depth each day as I try to reconcile the increasingly hair-raising projections being made by most epidemiologists with the implications of the Oxford model of the disease, which speculates that asymptomatic infections are much more common than anyone realizes. But I’m going to try anyway.If Oxford is right, it means two things are likely true and they’re both welcome news. One: The case fatality rate is much lower than we’ve assumed. A large number of...

Joe Biden’s campaign is looking to expand its fundraising operation as it prepares to take on President Donald Trump in the general election. Officials within Biden’s organization have discussed bringing in a new group of regional fundraising advisors, including former aides to Sen. Kamala Harris’ and Pete Buttigieg’s campaigns, who could help them expand their donor network, according to people familiar with the matter. These people declined to be named because the talks were private. Biden had a strong March, raising more than $30 million in online donations, as the coronavirus has pushed his campaign into a fully online platform,...

A healthcare AI company has spotted several unexpected, off-label drug combinations that may do the job against COVID-19. In any case, the company is offering its complete AI toolkit free of charge to drug developers working on COVID treatments. In announcing its work, Germany-based Innoplexus, which specializes in AI-based drug discovery and development, says the promising combos emerged from its processing of hundreds of studies covering thousands of patients. Most of the findings mentioned in the announcement involve the potential of the decades-old, much-discussed malaria fighter Hydroxychloroquine as used with other drugs. For example, the analysis showed that combining Chloroquine...

Donald Trump has extended America’s national shutdown for a month, bowing to public health experts, and scientific reality, and warning that the worst of the coronavirus pandemic is yet to come. Speaking in the White House Rose Garden, the US president claimed that, if his administration keeps the death toll to 100,000, it will have done “a very good job” – a startling shift from his optimistic predictions of a few days ago when he said he hoped to restart the economy by Easter. Trump also undermined his plea for unity by uttering falsehoods, verbally abusing reporters and making incendiary...

Although the Greek Orthodox Church earlier agreed to limit its services to just one-hour Divine Liturgies on Sundays, the state was not content, and on March 16 it banned all services until March 30, in an effort to contain the highly contagious coronavirus. However, while understanding the need to protect the faithful and all people, the Church also understands the need for the Divine Liturgy to be served. Thus, the Church has petitioned the Ministry of Education and Religion to make an exemption and allow the Divine Liturgy to be served according to the normal schedule, albeit behind closed doors,...

A REMNANT INTERVIEW: Archbishop Viganò on COVID-19 and the Hand of God In the face of this chastisement, when so many bishops have fled and taken our Sacraments with them, we're so grateful that at least a few good shepherds have broken the chains of collegiality in order to bring to  us the consolation of Christ's truth and call the scattering sheep back into the protection of the fold. Clearly, we are not alone. God is again raising up his prophets. Millions of Catholics are struggling to assimilate everything that has happened in the last few weeks. On this First Sunday of...

Moscow, March 29, Interfax - Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia has addressed believers and called on them to pray at home rather than in churches to protect themselves from getting infected during the coronavirus pandemic. "I call on you, my dear, to refrain from visiting churches in the coming days, until there's a special blessing from the patriarch, and if someone says anything to you, remind them of the example of Mary of Egypt," the patriarch said following the liturgy at the Christ the Savior Church on Sunday. The patriarch said that this decision was difficult for him....

Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets: She crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have set at nought all my counsel,...

Video

An Australian astrophysicist who hoped to create a device to help stop people catching the coronavirus has ended up in hospital - after getting magnets stuck up his nose. Dr Daniel Reardon came up with a plan to create a necklace which would react if your hands were near your face. Unfortunately, the device did not work quite as planned.

You might want to practice VERY CAREFUL self-quarantine if you've got diarrhea, if I'm right in the way I'm connecting news stories. (You might say that's a "big if," but from predicting the 2010 landslide to the election of Pope Francis to the peaking of China's and then South Korea's coronavirus, I think my track record on FR is pretty good. On the other hand, if some sizeable portion of the coronavirus tests being used are serological, I'm prepared to say "oooooops.") See, a study from the American Journal of Gastroenterology found that of 200 studied patients in Hubei, 50%...

By WMBF News Staff | March 30, 2020 at 6:29 PM EDT - Updated March 30 at 7:30 PM COLUMBIA, S.C. (WMBF) – South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster issued an executive order on Monday that closes all public access points to the state’s beaches. The executive order also closes all public boat ramps, landings and other access points on the state’s lakes, rivers and waterways. “As a result of behavior observed this past weekend by the Department of Natural Resources and SLED, it has become necessary to close public access to our state’s beaches, and to close boat ramps and...

WARNING! This thread contains spoilers for: Better Call SaulBreaking Badand El CaminoProceed at your own risk. ~ For the Visually Impaired ~⠎⠏⠕⠊⠇⠑⠗ ⠺⠁⠗⠝⠊⠝⠛

The Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency authorization for a pair of anti-malaria drugs to treat COVID-19 patients. The authorization will allow for 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate and one million doses of chloroquine phosphate to be donated to the strategic national stockpile. According to the FDA, the drugs would only be distributed and prescribed "when a clinical trial is not available or feasible." UNM Hospital said it expects to have a supply of the anti-malaria drugs soon. While there is still no approved treatment for COVID-19, the department said anecdotal reports suggest the drugs may offer some...

A judge on the Mississippi Court of Appeals is being nominated to serve on a federal appeals court that handles cases for Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, the White House announced Monday. Cory Wilson joined the 10-member state court in February 2019 after being appointed by then-Gov. Phil Bryant, a Republican. Before that, Wilson was a first-term Republican member of the Mississippi House. President Donald Trump announced in August that he was nominating Wilson to become a federal district judge in southern Mississippi. The state’s two Republican U.S. senators, Roger Wicker and Cindy Hyde-Smith, introduced Wilson to the Senate Judiciary Committee...