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CHICAGO — Black coronavirus victims are dying at disproportionately high rates, a problem Gov. JB Pritzker said is due, in part, to “decades, frankly, maybe centuries, of inequality of application of health care to people of color.” In Chicago, 70 percent of the people who have died from coronavirus are Black, according to a WBEZ analysis. Black people comprise just 29 percent of Chicago’s population.

Evers signed an Executive Order Monday afternoon to delay Tuesday's in-person voting due to COVID-19 concerns. The order also directs the Legislature to meet in Special Session on Tuesday to address the election date. If the Legislature does not enact legislation to change the new election date, in-person voting will occur on June 9.

America’s major medical society specializing in the treatment of respiratory diseases has endorsed using hydroxychloroquine for seriously ill hospitalized coronavirus patients. The American Thoracic Society issued guidelines Monday that suggest COVID-19 patients with pneumonia get doses of the anti-malaria drug. “To prescribe hydroxychloroquine (or chloroquine) to hospitalized patients with COVID-19 pneumonia if all of the following apply: a) shared decision-making is possible, b) data can be collected for interim comparisons of patients who received hydroxychloroquine (or chloroquine) versus those who did not, c) the illness is sufficiently severe to warrant investigational therapy, and d) the drug is not in short...

Birx Is No Longer Licensed To Practice Medicine In Pennsylvania Dr. Deborah Birx, a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has an expired medical license. Birx, who was appointed by former President Barack Obama to serve as United States Global AIDS Coordinator in 2014, graduated from the Pennsylvania State University medical school in 1980. She was issued a medical license in Pennsylvania in 1987.That license expired on December 31, 2014, and it has not been renewed since then, according to the Pennsylvania Licensing System Verification Service, courtesy of the Pennsylvania Department of State.Birx, who is listed as residing in...

Don't let the mood spoil you - Lasst euch die Laune nicht verderben!

Thank you for the reminder, Mr. Exum! President Ronald Reagan on facing a crisis: “The crisis we are facing today does not require of us the kind of sacrifice that ... so many thousands of others were called upon to make. It does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that, together, with God’s help, with can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn’t we believe that? We are Americans.”

“This is a huge, unprecedented, devastating hit,” Yellen said. “My hope is that we will get back to business as quickly as possible.” Former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen estimated Monday that the unemployment rate would probably be as high as 12 to 13 percent if we had a real-time gauge for joblessness. Yellen also said that the economy will probably contract around 30 percent because of the coronavirus and related measures that have shut down large segments of the economy in pursuit of social distancing the control the spread of the disease. Yellen described the recent reports of initial...

Police are searching for a teenage girl who made racist statements as she viciously assaulted an Asian woman on a Bronx MTA bus with an umbrella. The 51-year-old victim was confronted by the group of four girls about 3 p.m. on March 28 as she rode the Bx13 bus near Ogden Avenue and W. 166th St. in Highbridge, cops said. The girls made anti-Asian statements before one of them struck the woman in the head with an umbrella and fled the bus, cops said. The attack is at least the sixth anti-Asian hate crime in recent weeks. Many of the...

White House Official: Americans Should Avoid Grocery Shopping for 2 Weeks A member of the White House’s CCP virus task force is warning against going out to buy groceries or medication as the pandemic is expected to reach its apex in the next two weeks. “The next two weeks are extraordinarily important,” White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said on April 4. “This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe,” she warned. More than 9,500 deaths...

The first of 11 El Al cargo planes delivering medical supplies from China landed at Ben-Gurion Airport early Monday morning. A second flight is expected to land in Israel on Monday afternoon, while a third is currently making its way to China.....

Former Vice President Joe Biden, now running for president, was asked on Sunday if he's concerned about the economic consequences of coronavirus "stay at home" directives. "Isn't there a point there that, if this lockdown goes on for too long, the public health concerns could be -- could be grave?" George Stephanopoulos, host of ABC's "This Week," asked Biden, who repeated the anchorman's words: And that's why I think, George, we're going to need not only the last -- CARES Act that the Congress passed, which did a great deal. We're going to need at least two more iterations of...

Francis Footnote Follies: Why Francis Dropped the Title of Vicar of Christ… Jorge Bergoglio is busy rolling out the Abrahamic Faith Initiative—the New One World Religion…at lightening speed!Jesus Christ has no role in this new religion. Here is the most recent timeline of events:*On February 4, 2019, Francis flew to Abu Dhabi and co-signed the Abu Dhabi Declaration, along with his Islamic collaborator, Grand Imam Ahmed Al-Tayyeb. Read the Abu Dhabi Declaration, in which Francis declares that “God wills the diversity of all religions.” While this heretical statement has been denounced by Bishop Athanasius Schneider and Cardinal Raymond Burke and a...

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro Monday confirmed reports of a heated argument between himself and Dr. Anthony Fauci over the weekend concerning the use of hydroxychloroquine while continuing to push for the use of the drug in the fight against COVID-19. "If we didn't have disagreement or debate in the Trump administration, this administration would not be as strong as it is," Navarro told CNN's "New Day" host John Berman. He also confirmed the argument in a separate Fox News interview. "Let me focus on the issue at hand," Navarro told Berman. "Does hydroxychloroquine work? That was the subject...

Medical workers across the region are being treated to cheesesteaks from Pat’s King of Steaks. The South Philly icon has begun a project to donate 1,000 of its signature sandwiches to hospitals, according to spokesperson Nancy Schure. So far, the local comfort food has been delivered to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Jefferson and Penn Presbyterian, Schure said, with additional batches set for Einstein, Temple Hospital and CHOP this week. The 90-year-old steak shop has also sent hundreds to workers at Mt. Sinai in New York and the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. “I can’t believe...

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly addressed the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt on Monday to defend his decision to fire the aircraft carrier’s commander, Capt. Brett Crozier, who wrote a memo last week demanding more urgent action to address an outbreak of coronavirus. According to a recording of the address and descriptions by relatives of crew members and by U.S. officials, Mr. Modly delivered the remarks to the crew of the ship, which is now docked in Guam as crew members undergo a quarantine because of the Covid-19 outbreak. More than 150 of the approximately 5,000 members of the...

Two Democratic members of Congress from Houston made it to the headlines last week when they made an urgent plea directly to President Donald Trump to get more testing kits to Houston and Harris County as the region struggles to test enough people for COVID-19. U.S. Reps Sheila Jackson Lee and Sylvia Garcia co-signed a short letter to Trump and another to FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor warning of the scarcity of test kits in the country’s fourth-largest metro area. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) is the chair of the Congressional team in charge of dealing with COVID19. Last week she...

Critics are letting their disdain for the president blind them to geopolitical realities. When a new coronavirus emerged in China and began spreading around the world, including in the United States, President Donald Trump’s many critics in the American foreign-policy establishment were quick to identify him as part of the problem. Trump had campaigned on an “America first” foreign policy, which after his victory was enshrined in the official National Security Strategy that his administration published in 2017. At the time, I served in the administration and orchestrated the writing of that document. In the years since, Trump has been...

Former Vice President Joe Biden brought Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) onto his newly launched podcast on Monday, a move that could stoke speculation he’s considering her as a potential running mate. “Gov. Whitmer is an outstanding governor. She is one of the most talented people in the country in my view,” Biden said while introducing her on the podcast. “She also is a supporter. She was also a co-chair of my campaign. She’s a good friend, but she has been laser focused, laser focused on delivering for her state.” Biden has already said he plans to choose a woman...

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner went on TV to try to persuade criminals "to wait until the COVID-19 pandemic eases up, before you go out to rob, rape, or murder someone. I know you have needs. I know you have scores to settle. But the risk to your own health at this time is too great. Prey on the wrong person and you could get sick and maybe die. I'm not asking you to give up your careers or stifle your passions. I'm just advising you to be patient so you can violate the law later without undue risk to yourself."...

Although President Donald Trump has said that the federal stimulus package aimed at supporting a nation battling the coronavirus outbreak will focus on American citizens, illegal immigrants will be in line for support in a California relief plan. Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Friday that the state will support businesses that cannot qualify for federal aid administered by the Small Business Administration because they are operated by illegal immigrants, as well as those operated by citizens “[W]e always consider those that are documented, those that are undocumented, those that are living in mixed-status families,” Newsom said Friday, according to...