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Australia's Prime Minister has told all foreign visitors and students to leave the country now amid fury at backpackers for failing to follow social distancing rules. Scott Morrison said that while those with essential skills - such as visiting doctors and nurses - will be encouraged to stay, it was past time for everyone else to 'make their way home'. It comes after one hostel in Sydney was shut down after police were called to break up a party, while tourists also packed on to Bondi Beach despite warnings not to gather outdoors. There were more than 1million people in...

SEOUL -- Around 500 people remain under coronavirus quarantine across North Korea, state media reported Friday, a sharp drop from some 2,280 people a week earlier as the communist nation keeps lifting the quarantine for people with no symptoms during the isolation period. North Korea has insisted it has no confirmed COVID-19 infections but has taken various anti-virus measures, including shutting down its border and putting thousands of people in isolation. The regime has said that preventing the virus is a "political task" that determines the country's fate. Last week, the official Korean Central News Agency said those subject to...

March saw the biggest gun sales on record. And with many states and local governments shutting down gun stores in March, there were clearly many people who wanted guns but couldn’t get them. The true demand for guns was undoubtedly even much higher. The 2.3 million background checks completed during March were 29 percent higher than the busiest month in 2016, the previous yearly high, when people were fearful that Hillary Clinton’s election would lead to gun bans. The run on gun stores has overwhelmed the gun background-check system. Licensed dealers have told me that they are getting busy signals...

On Thursday's Morning Joe, former Obama aide Seth Harris said that if he were advising President Trump, "I'd ask him to resign." Harris condemned Trump as "the worst failed leader our country has ever seen," who has put us in a "catastrophic" situation. Concluded Harris: "we're really going to end up being the shame of the world."On today's show, Mika Brzezinski challenged The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg to debunk Harris's suggestion that Trump resign. But before letting him speak, Mika unleashed a laundry list of items that she saw as supporting Harris's suggestion. Mika offered nothing that might contradict Harris's...

BATON ROUGE- Louisiana State University football coach Ed Orgeron has filed for divorce from his wife Kelly after 23 years. Coach 'O' filed the divorce petition Feb. 26 in the East Baton Rouge Parish Family Court. The petition states he and his wife separated Feb. 24 and have lived separately without reconciliation since that date, nola.com reports. They were married Feb. 19, 1997, and have twins, Parker and Cody Orgeron, that were born Feb. 9, 1998, the petition states. Orgeron says he is entitled to have the exclusive use and occupancy of the former couple's home in Baton Rouge, and...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will no longer block the import of KN95 masks, due to a shortage in personal protective equipment, or PPE, in the United States, an agency official first told Buzzfeed News. The masks have been described as the Chinese equivalent of an N95 mask which U.S. health care workers use to protect themselves from airborne bacteria and viruses. Though they are allowing imports of the KN95 mask, the product is not FDA-approved, meaning those who use it do so without legal protections. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has included the KN95 mask...

A few caveats, to begin: First, Dr. Anthony Fauci is correct to caution that before we start celebrating a true therapeutic breakthrough that can be safely applied to Coronavirus patients writ large, reliable clinical studies must be completed.  Second, the following headline is based on a study performed in China, so there are reasons galore to view it skeptically.  Nevertheless, the accompanying New York Times story is hopeful -- and this development is another breadcrumb along a trail to real progress: Does this still count as “false hope” or “misinformation”? pic.twitter.com/86fJtqmrKU— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) April 1, 2020 The malaria drug hydroxychloroquine...

Cardiac patients who flatline will not be taken to area hospitals for further care, according to a new directive handed down as the city battles the rise in coronavirus cases. The new orders from the Regional Emergency Medical Services Council of New York City say that “no adult non-traumatic or blunt traumatic cardiac arrest is to be transported to a hospital with manual or mechanical compressions in progress" unless the person’s heart restarts at the scene.

As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads worldwide, it continues disrupting the lives of everyone in China, the United States, and most other nations. Since I spent years in the film industry working closely with China, and am set to release my book, “Feeding the Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business” in July, journalists, peers, and friends have asked for my views on every aspect of the outbreak. There are so many layers to the story, and even more unknowns. Speculation is irresponsible, and diving into the micro will only create confusion. That’s why I...

If the nation’s liquor stores bolt their doors, can bootleg liquor be far behind? My favorite time of day is cocktail hour. While I love any number of bars and restaurants, my favorite place to enjoy a cocktail is my home. Thanks to my professional requirements, I have an abundant supply of some of the best whiskies and wines in the world. In addition, the service is impeccable (there’s no trying to get the bartender’s attention—I am the bartender), the pours are always perfect, there’s no last call and I don’t have to worry about driving home. And now, like...

“I hope some people will find some joy in the glory of the holiday that is coming up, both whether it’s Passover, or it is the feast of, glorious feast of Easter, or Mohammed’s Birthday, which is coming up soon as well--the--if it hasn’t already happened,” Pelosi said. “It’s usually around the same time as Christmas, as the Easter, Passover,” Pelosi said.

Two weeks ago I warned that Mexico was dangerously unprepared for a coronavirus outbreak and that once it hit, it would spread quickly, overwhelming a weak and corrupt Mexican state and a woefully inadequate health-care system. Despite warnings from health officials that an outbreak was inevitable, the Mexican government had done almost nothing to prepare and refused to take the threat seriously.Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador repeatedly dismissed the need for caution, urging Mexicans to go shopping and eat out. He even took his own advice, staging large campaign-style rallies, kissing babies, embracing supporters, and saying things like,...

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi toured San Francisco’s Chinatown back in late February. On the 25th of February, she said there’s no reason tourists or locals should be staying away from the area because of coronavirus concerns. “That’s what we’re trying to do today is to say everything is fine here,” Pelosi said. “Come because precautions have been taken. The city is on top of the situation.” Pelosi visited The Wok Shop, a temple and the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, which was started 58 years ago by owner Kevin Chan’s mother and uncle. She helped in spreading the...

After September 11, we began the long process of trying to build a society that would be hardened against massive terror attacks. Airports became grueling fortresses in which shoes, bottled water, and personal dignity had no place. A vast intelligence infrastructure was built to violate privacy. But the big decisions were never made. Instead, America became more vulnerable than ever to Islamic terrorism. That’s why President Trump ran on, among other things, a travel ban from terrorist nations. As the nation undergoes another shock, we are going to have to think about how to rebuild our society so that it...

There's no greater contrast between how countries have treated COVID-19 than that between nations on both sides of what might be called the Asian Iron Curtain. It's a contrast that tells us much about how to handle the virus -- and how events now in the distant past can determine the fates of hundreds of millions of people today. On one side is the People's Republic of China, where COVID-19 apparently transferred from animal to human hosts. The government has deliberately lied about human-to-human transmission, persecuted to the point of death doctors who warned of its dangers and is still...

Infection/death map updated every 15 min. https://infection2020.com/

The women detained at the for-profit jail in the small, rural town of Jena, Louisiana, hail from all corners of Latin America. Some are asylum-seekers who fled repressive regimes. Others are lawful U.S. permanent residents who were picked up by immigration authorities after serving time in prison. Some are mothers and even grandmothers. Right now, they're all terrified. Like many of the more than 35,000 immigrants currently in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, the women held at the LaSalle detention center in Jena feel powerless to shield themselves from the highly contagious coronavirus, which has killed more than...

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel “1984,” the protagonist works for the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to revise any past news that doesn’t fit the current narrative and send the evidence down the “memory hole” to be incinerated and forgotten. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her comrades in the establishment media are attempting to do just that when it comes to what they were doing about coronavirus until just last month. Thankfully we live in the internet age, where revising history is impossible, and Pelosi cannot run from the fact that her own actions literally set people up...

WASHINGTON - The Trump administration's decision to let states chart their own responses to the coronavirus crisis rather than impose a national strategy will cost thousands of lives and is likely to result in an open-ended outbreak rolling across the country, a dozen public health experts told NBC News. The only way to win what President Donald Trump has called a war against an "invisible enemy" is to establish a unified federal command, the experts insist - something Trump has yet to do. So far, the federal government hasn't leveraged all its authority and influence to dramatically expand testing and...

ts' been widely reported this week that at least two pastors have been arrested after holding church services in violation of government orders to avoid gathering in groups. Rodney Howard-Browne, pastor of The River at Tampa Bay Church, was arrested by sheriff's deputies for holding church this past Sunday. The county where the church is located issued an administrative order on March 20, banning "public or private gatherings, including community, civic, public leisure, faith-based events, sporting events, concerts, and any similar events that bring together more than 10 people in a single room, single space, or any venue, at the...