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President Donald Trump has fired the intelligence community’s chief watchdog, Michael Atkinson, who was the first to sound the alarm to Congress last September about an “urgent” complaint he’d received from an intelligence official involving Trump’s communications with Ukraine’s president. Trump formally notified the Senate and House intelligence committees of his intention to fire Atkinson and remove him from his duties, to take effect 30 days from Friday, according to two congressional officials and a copy of the letter obtained by POLITICO dated April 3. “This is to advise that I am exercising my power as President to remove from...

“If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens!” — J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien; Ed. Carpenter and Tolkien; Allen and Unwin (UK); 20 August 1981 On the 30th of April, 1944, just five weeks prior to D-Day, author and scholar J.R.R. Tolkien wrote to his son, Christopher, the ever-faithful guardian of his father’s legacy up until the time of his death recently at the age of 90: “I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of...

Two weeks ago, an unexpected cluster of coronavirus cases in New Rochelle, N.Y., seemed an unnerving sign that an outbreak that had devastated China and Italy was taking hold in the New York region and could spread rapidly. The state took drastic measures that stirred a backlash, including creating a containment zone. But now, the latest data indicates that the measures may be starting to work. The outbreak, which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo once said was advancing “unabated” in New Rochelle, has appeared to slow: Over the last four days, only 38 new cases were reported to the county. “Everybody...

April 04 2020 Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent Reading 1 Ez 37:21-28 Thus says the Lord GOD: I will take the children of Israel from among the nations to which they have come, and gather them from all sides to bring them back to their land. I will make them one nation upon the land, in the mountains of Israel, and there shall be one prince for them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms.No longer shall they defile themselves with their idols, their abominations, and...

Women in Texas must now travel 20 times farther for an abortion as a result of the state’s new ban, according to an analysis of anti-abortion measures introduced in a half dozen states amid the coronavirus outbreak. Under Texas’s statewide ban, the average one-way distance a woman must travel to reach the nearest abortion provider would increase from 12 miles to 243 miles, according to a new study by the research group the Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights. “The greater the increase in travel distance, the greater the hardship it causes, and the more likely it becomes that some...

Donald Trump's top advisors have expressed doubts about the accuracy of the White House's apocalyptic forecast that 240,000 Americans will die from the coronavirus pandemic, sources have said. As the US death reached 6,056 Thursday and the nation's healthcare system buckles under the crisis, administration officials said the stark forecasts could have been a tactic to warn the president he needs to act now. The White House made the shock prediction Tuesday that there will be between 100,000 and 240,000 deaths in the US if the nation continues on its trajectory and current social distancing guidelines are maintained. Trump said...

The C.I.A. has been warning the White House since at least early February that China has vastly understated its coronavirus infections and that its count could not be relied upon as the United States compiles predictive models to fight the virus, according to current and former intelligence officials. The intelligence briefings in recent weeks, based at least in part on information from C.I.A. assets in China, played an important role in President Trump’s negotiation on Thursday of an apparent détente with President Xi Jinping of China. Since then, both countries have ratcheted back criticism of each other. So far, to...

pril 3, 2020 (Pregnancy Help News) — Eleven Planned Parenthood locations in the state of California have closed amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The sites are closed "until further notice," according to the abortion giant's website. News of the California Planned Parenthood closures was released courtesy of Californians for Life. Planned Parenthood staff indicate this may last until at least the end of April, according to the pro-life group. PP screen capture via Californians for Life The abortion centers closed in California include City Heights Center in San Diego, Corona Center of Corona, Eagle Rock Health Center of Los Angeles,...

a behind the scenes look

It’s a grim reality that the number of people who have died around the world, across the country and here at home grows every day. For privacy reasons, we’ll never know who these people were unless their families share their stories -- as a few who you see named below have -- yet we want to acknowledge the loss of all of them our communities. We’ll update this list of the casualties in our battle with COVID-19 daily based on the limited information the Florida Department of Health provides on each one. For complete coverage of coronavirus’ impact and response,...

Troubling headlines have been cropping up across Asia: Some patients in China, Japan and South Korea who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and seemingly recovered have been readmitted to the hospital after testing positive for the virus again. Because SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, was only discovered a few months ago, scientists are still trying to answer many big questions related to the virus and the disease it causes. Among them is whether patients can be reinfected by the virus after they seem to recover from the symptoms. With other coronavirus strains, experts say the antibodies that patients produce...

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Hours after 16 medically-vulnerable inmates were released from jail Friday, Harris County has halted additional releases, citing a court order. The order signed by the region's administrative judge, Herb Ritchie, couldn't be any clearer. It directs county criminal justice agencies to "ignore and wholly disregard any order and/or directive from the Harris County Judge regarding the (release of felony inmates) now in custody."

Documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2011 show Soros Fund Management LLC invested heavily into WUXI Pharmatech Caymen, Inc. REVEALED: Soros Invested Heavily in Chinese Biotech Research Company with Facility in Wuhan that Researches Respiratory Models and Infectious Disease By Jim Hoft Published April 3, 2020 at 4:56pm 217 Comments Share (1k) Tweet Email Thanks to Yaacov Apelbaum and Eagle1 Documents from the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2011 show Soros Fund Management LLC invested heavily into WUXI Pharmatech Caymen, Inc. WuXi AppTec, as it is now called, has a facility in Wuhan, China. The company provides validated...

Things went a bit sideways this week, but it's all good.

(Natural News) As cities all over America have placed stay-at-home orders in response to the coronavirus, high-end retailers are worrying about potential civil unrest. Several shops, including those in one of Hollywood’s most famous shopping districts, are taking measures to protect themselves against possible looters...Rodeo Drive isn’t the only high-end shopping district that’s seeing it stores board up due to fears of possible looting and civil unrest. Numerous photographs have popped up over Twitter, showing shopping districts in cities around the country such as Chicago, San Francisco and more boarding up their windows.

NEW JERSEY, April 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The governor of New Jersey asked citizens to practice “social distancing” — staying away from other people — even while they are at home with their families in order to further combat the coronavirus pandemic. “If you do not need to be out, then we need you to stay at home,” declared Gov. Phil Murphy during a recent press conference. “Please, God, stay at home.” “And even when you are at home, keep your distance between yourself and other family members,” added Murphy. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines...

When we were in the local Lidl last week, the meat counters were practically wiped out – especially the chicken. But if you’ve got chick, this from Food Wishes looks like a great, fast-to-put-together recipe: Chicken a la Crema: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m457svJVDQw ******************************************************* As I’m sure many have been, over the past weeks of teleworking I’ve experienced periods of furious (and frustrating) work; and many slow hours where nothing was happening or could be done. The oddball things that one becomes interested in, while sitting at home with hours to fill, are fascinating. I happened to find some posts to YouTube about...

MADISON, Wisconsin, April 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – More than 30 members of the Wisconsin Legislature signed a letter to Democrat Gov. Tony Evers on Thursday, demanding that the far-reaching shutdown orders he has instituted so far to contain COVID-19 be extended to suspend operations at abortion facilities. Evers’ March 24 “Safer at Home” order mandates temporary closure of an array of “non-essential” businesses, although it does not suspend elective medical procedures as many states have done in order to limit the spread of the coronavirus and free up time and resources to focus on patients afflicted by COVID-19. In fact,...

Two weeks ago, Kessler wrote a lengthy fact-check and claimed in several tweets that Dr. Anthony Fauci was wrong when he stated that Italy had an open border, which Fauci noted allowed the virus to spread rapidly undetected. In actuality, it was Kessler who was wrong, as I documented here. A few days later, Kessler was caught pulling an Adam Schiff by falsely attributing a quote to President Trump about how economic progress shouldn’t be impeded even if there was a “pile of bodies over in the corner”, insinuating it’s what Trump said when asked about a timeline for getting...