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Bill Withers, who wrote and sang a string of soulful songs in the 1970s that have stood the test of time, including “ Lean On Me, ” “Lovely Day” and “Ain’t No Sunshine,” has died from heart complications, his family said in a statement to The Associated Press. He was 81. The three-time Grammy Award winner, who withdrew from making music in the mid-1980s, died on Monday in Los Angeles, the statement said. His death comes as the public has drawn inspiration from his music during the coronavirus pandemic, with health care workers, choirs, artists and more posting their own...

COVID Community Vulnerability Map Identification of the populations at risk for severe outcomes once infected to inform resource planning, interventions, outreach and other community initiatives

The Department of Labor reported last week that more than three million people filed for unemployment from March 15 to March 21, the largest single-week increase in American history. But this Thursday’s number, which reflects claims filed last week, could rise to 5.6 million,.. Morgan Stanley estimates that claims will rise to 4.5 million in tomorrow’s report; Goldman Sachs’s estimate is 5.5 million,according to an analysis of Google search data by the economists Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham of Yale and Aaron Sojourner of the University of Minnesota. If these forecasts are accurate, there will be as many claims in two weeks as...

Abraham Lincoln on Resoluteness: "The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country."

At a coronavirus briefing earlier this week, the White House task force presented their projections on the total number of deaths that they say are likely to occur in the U.S. because of the pandemic: between 100,000 to 240,000 will likely die, they project, even with the current mitigation measures. But, as reported by The Washington Post, some experts and Trump advisers “doubt” the projection, pushing back not as much on the numbers but how exactly the task force arrived at them. “Leading disease forecasters, whose research the White House used to conclude that 100,000 to 240,000 people will die...

"Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully," said Samuel Johnson. And as it is with men, so it is with nations. Monday, Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, projected some 100,000 to 200,000 U.S. deaths from the pandemic, "if we do things almost perfectly." She agreed with Dr. Anthony Fauci's estimate that, if we do "nothing," the American dead could reach 2.2 million. That 2 million figure would be twice as many dead as have perished in all our wars from the American Revolution...

Our local economy is about to take yet another hit thanks to coronavirus. On Thursday, Boeing company leaders announced a plan to reduce the number of employees as worldwide demand for aircraft is expected to change drastically. Boeing’s CEO called the current economic climate ‘uncharted waters,’ and in order to stay successful, the company must make changes. Q13 News also spoke with a North Sound Boeing employee who worries the company will lose a workforce that has years of experience. “It really tears at your heart to see this,” the man told Q13 News. The employee asked Q13 News to...

It turns out that the words that English speakers find pleasing are more like papillon and less like Aschenputtel, according to phonaesthetics. ome languages have beautiful words for “butterfly”: papillon (French), mariposa (Spanish), farfalla (Italian). In German, it’s Schmetterling. Cinderella gets names fit for a princess in these languages, too: Cendrillon (French), Cenerentola (Italian), Cenicienta (Spanish). In German, she’s Aschenputtel. I heard these examples recently in a series of viral videos: “How German Sounds Compared to Other Languages.” The videos imply that German sounds harsh compared with the Romance languages. This got me thinking, what are the most beautiful-sounding words...

The types of jobs available before and after the Great Recession starkly differ. With the after-effects of the economic slowdown thanks to the coronavirus, the pattern could be repeated. Many of the jobs usually held by less-educated Americans before the recession have disappeared, while workers with at least some college education disproportionately occupy growing industries, according to Georgetown University’s Center for Education and the Workforce (CEW). In their popular 2013 report “Recovery: Job Growth and Education Requirements Through 2020,” CEW concluded that around two-thirds of all jobs in 2020 would require some college education. CEW’s 2013 report is their most...

I think this is a great synopsis of the yawning moral abyss of the dummocrap party. These fiends would use a tragic national emergency as an opportunity to push through their favorite irrelevant pork projects and put people who have lost their jobs and suffered other tremendous financial loss in unfathomable debt for generations. Nothing like kicking 'em when they're down, eh dummocrap excrement?

The team is back in action. On Thursday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the creation of the House Select Committee on the Coronavirus Crisis. The new panel will have the authority to investigate any aspect of the virus emergency and the Trump administration's handling of it. Pelosi's announcement came a day after House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff called for a 9/11-style independent commission to investigate "mistakes" in the virus response. Shortly after that, Schiff told the Washington Post that in Congress, House Democrats must investigate the Trump administration's handling of virus testing and the government's distribution of personal protective equipment...

The meanings and negative associations of moist make it ugly, just as positive associations can make other words seem lovely. People seem to dislike the sound of the word moist. It tops so many “Ugliest Words in the English Language” lists that psychologists at Oberlin College in Ohio and Trinity University in Texas decided to investigate. Their study participants tended to blame the word’s “phonological properties.” “It just has an ugly sound that makes whatever you’re talking about sound gross,” one person said. Foist, hoist, and rejoice, though, did not evoke negative responses, despite their similar sound patterns. Participants thought...

PARIS/BERLIN - The global scramble to secure face masks to shield frontline workers from the coronavirus has turned the marketplace into the “Wild West”, with the United States often ready to outbid buyers who have already signed deals, European officials say. In France and Germany, senior officials said the United States was paying far above the market price for masks from number one producer China, on occasion winning contracts through higher bids even after European buyers believed a deal was done. “Money is irrelevant. They pay any price because they are desperate,” one high-level official in German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s...

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...