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Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and military in the country on Wednesday to kill troublemakers who violate coronavirus lockdown measures. Duterte gave the warning during a televised address where he said it was critical everyone cooperates and follows home quarantine measures. He added the abuse of medical workers would be considered a serious crime. “My orders to the police and military ... if there is trouble and there’s an occasion that they fight back and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead," he said, according to Reuters.

A retired British doctor who returned to work to help battle the country’s coronavirus outbreak died of the disease this week, according to new reports. Dr. Alfa Saadu, 68, died Tuesday morning after suffering from the infection for two weeks, his son Dani said in a social media post, Metro UK reported. He worked at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, until his passing.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) quoted a violent passage from the Quran calling for false accusers to receive a flogging of eighty lashes. She was responding to a Quran quote condemning adultery with another quote condemning those who falsely accuse "chaste" women of adultery. Her response was particularly rich given her recent marital history. Omar tweeted "Subhanallah," a celebratory phrase that roughly translates to "May Allah be exalted!" A Twitter user rained on her parade, tweeting a Quran quote condemning adultery. "'Nor come nigh to fornication/adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to...

Rep. Ilhan Omar is not a fan of the coronavirus press conferences at the White House. The freshman rep from Minnesota became the latest Democrat to criticize the briefing as rambling and self-promotional. MSNBC and CNN did not run the press conference in its entirety. Erik Wemple, the Washington Post's media critic, penned a column titled, “CNN, MSNBC refused to carry full Trump coronavirus briefing. Yay!” Omar took to Twitter on Wednesday to call the press conference “disturbing to watch.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pushing for a new stimulus bill that would roll back the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a measure that would predominately help wealthy individuals making more than $100,000 -- including most residents in Pelosi's district and perhaps even Pelosi herself. A 2019 report from the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that of those who would face lower tax liability from the elimination of the SALT cap – which only affects those who itemize tax deductions – 94 percent earn at least $100,000. The government would lose out on $77.4 billion in tax dollars,...

April 02 2020 Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent Reading 1 Gn 17:3-9 When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him: “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,...

A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in late afternoon on Wednesday. MOSCOW/WASHINGTON - Russia sent the United States medical equipment on Wednesday to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, a public relations coup for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he discussed the crisis with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump, struggling to fill shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, accepted Putin's offer in a phone call on Monday. A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in...

How can the Fed launch an “unlimited” monetary stimulus with congress approving a $2 trillion package and the dollar index remain strong? The answer lies in the rising global dollar shortage, and should be a lesson for monetary alchemists around the world. The $2 trillion stimulus package agreed by Congress is around 10% of GDP and, if we include the Fed borrowing facilities for working capital, it means $6 trillion in liquidity for consumers and firms over the next nine months. The stimulus package approved by Congress is made up of the next key items: Permanent fiscal transfers to households...

A study released today supports the use of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID-19. The relatively small trial conducted in China included 62 patients positively identified with the COVID-19 disease. All of the 31 patients given HCQ experienced improvements in cough, fever and pneumonia as compared with the 31 patients that did not receive the drug. “Despite our small number of cases, the potential of HCQ in the treatment of COVID-19 has been partially confirmed,” said the authors of the study, which was published on medRxiv, an online server for medical papers. “Considering there is no...

But though God can do all things, yet He cannot lie, or deceive, or be deceived; He cannot sin, or cease to exist, or be ignorant of anything. These defects are compatible with those beings only whose actions are imperfect; but God, whose acts are always most perfect, is said to be incapable of such things, simply because the capability of doing them implies weakness, not the supreme and infinite power over all things which God possesses. Thus we so believe God to be omnipotent that we exclude from Him entirely all that is not intimately connected and consistent with...

DETROIT – As COVID-19 tests across the state take a week or more to return results, the city of Detroit has received a shipment of tests that give results in minutes. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced during his Wednesday, April 1 news conference that the city received a shipment of test kits from Abbott Laboratories earlier in the day. Tests, which can return results in 15 minutes, will be reserved for Detroit police, firefighters, EMTs and bus drivers, Duggan said. Detroit will be the first city in the nation to receive the rapid tests to use on city employees, Duggan...

Italians are feeling abandoned by the EU during their fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and are taking to social media to say ‘We save ourselves’ while burning the EU flag.

Last week John and Marie McConnell made sure their wills were up to date. Ill at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital Thursday night and awaiting results of a COVID-19 test after feeling poorly for about two weeks, John McConnell, 65, hit a turning point. “I knew they were preparing me for ICU and probably a ventilator,” said McConnell, who’d heard survival rates were low for COVID-19 ventilator patients. The odds were not good for McConnell, a fit, former nationally ranked college tennis player and former senior vice president of programming for ABC Radio who moved to Vero Beach full time...

Lord, we are true believers. You have been our refuge for all of our lives. We have waited on you with holy fear and sacred awe. And now, with the Holy Spirit to help us, we open our mouths. Like David, we have marshaled our thoughts like men of war and, like arrows, we make straight aim with our prayers. We direct our prayers with all of our strength, we let our arrows fly. When the arrows and our prayers, have left our hands, only then, Lord, will we look up. We expect, Oh, Lord, according to Your Word, to...

Coronavirus patients who are obese are reportedly at higher risk of becoming critically ill with the disease. Dr. Stefan de Hert, a former president of the European Society of Anaesthesiology, determined that obesity was one of the more common risk factors among patients admitted to the intensive care units in Italy, Metro UK reported. “The mean age of all COVID-19 patients is 70 years, and one of the major risk factors for admission to intensive care is obesity,” he told the outlet.

The coronavirus story later but first... An interesting sidebar to this evening's White House coronavirus news conference is the annoucement of US military and law enforcement operations in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea said to be aimed at drug trafficking..... President Trump saying on Twitter that Iran is planning to attack US troops in Iraq..... Efforts to form a unity government in Israel are stalling.... Turkish forces shelling Syrian army positions in northwestern Syria late Tuesday.... Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan discussing the situation in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin.... The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today...

"We are writing to inform you that the WHCA Board has voted this evening to remove a news outlet from the rotation for a seat in the briefing room. We did this because a report for this outlet twice attended press briefings in contravention of this policy. ... We do not take this action lightly. This is a matter of public safety."

Several U.S. states are blocking health clinics from providing abortions, declaring the procedure to be “nonessential” during coronavirus business closures. Other services deemed medically unnecessary during the crisis include dental exams, colonoscopies and cataract surgeries. The inclusion of abortion on this list is controversial and legally contested. Judges in recent days struck down such abortion bans in Texas, Ohio and Alabama, allowing abortions to continue. However, on March 31, a Texas appeals court overturned the district court’s ruling. Abortions that are not “immediately medically necessary” may now be prohibited in the state. Officials in these states argue restricting abortions will...

My aunt was upset this morning, she says that the media is giving Trump too much credit. She despises the President and says that if Peter Jennings, former ABC anchorman was still alive, the coverage would have been more soothing and she believes that Jennings and ABC would have been more combative towards Trump. My aunt is very anti-Trump. She served in the U.S. Army. Very, very militaristic and angry woman. What do you think?

Did anyone catch Laura's show tonight? She had a Dr Stephan Smith on as a guest. First he discussed that his serious condition patients were all over BMT 30 and pre-diabetic or diabetic. Then he said that his experience using chloroquine was similar to the French study. None of his patients who had at least 4 daily doses had to be intubated. Then he said something really extraordinary insinuating that this was a real game changer (not his words but similar). I was shocked to see a doctor talking so positively about this treatment without all the caveats. He is...