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The Department of Agriculture will implement a new $19 billion COVID-19 coronavirus relief plan for food producers that includes direct payments to farmers, as announced by President Trump during the White House briefing on Friday.

PORTAGE (WKOW) -- A kitchen worker at Columbia Correctional Institution was arrested Thursday night and is accused of helping two men escape from the prison. Holly Marie Zimdahl, 46, of rural Pardeeville faces a possible charge of being a party the crime of escape. Thomas E. Deering, 45, and James Robert Newman, 36, scaled fences to break out of the prison just before 5 a.m. Thursday. Zimdahl is a civilian who works in the kitchen, according to a news release from the Columbia County Sheriff's Office. The two inmates were arrested Friday morning after showing up at a Rockford, Illinois...

A protest in Idaho's capital city Boise this afternoon against the de-facto martial law in the state with mainstream media saying a thousand people participated... President Trump tweeting in apparent support of protests against states where Democrats are governors.... Police in Israel using stun grenades to enforce coronavirus restrictions in a Jerusalem neighborhood where Orthodox Jewish activists have resisted with makeshift weapons..... Amazon trying to shut down a virtual meeting for workers to protest the company.... Large restaurant chains took in 30 million dollars in federal coronavirus loans meant to help small businesses..... A six percent jump in profits for...

Japanese government plans to buy at least 2 million courses of the influenza drugFujifilm is ramping up production of its antiviral treatment favipiravir, one of many approved drugs being tested as a possible treatment for COVID-19. Phase III clinical trials are ongoing in Japan, and the government has ordered 2 million treatment courses. In the US, Fujifilm started Phase II trials earlier this month. Favipiravir, which Fujifilm sells under the brand name Avigan, has been approved in Japan since 2014 to treat influenza and other viral strains that don’t respond to other drugs. “Avigan tablets are expected to have efficacy...

The Yankees have been a team greater than the sum of its parts all year, and when they secured their own corridor in history tonight, it was appropriate that a pitcher who had struggled in recent weeks pushed them over the finish line. Andy Pettitte, dropped to the back of the Yankees' rotation for the World Series, applied the final piece to their mosaic tonight, pitching seven and a third shutout innings and outdueling Kevin Brown in a 3-0 victory over the San Diego Padres in Game 4. In achieving their first Series sweep since 1950 and seventh in their...

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) are studying whether inhaling a gas called nitric oxide can help treat patients with COVID-19, or even prevent people from getting the disease. Although nitric oxide is widely used to treat patients with respiratory failure, MGH is the only hospital in the United States, and one of the few in the world, studying it for the treatment of COVID-19, according to the CDC. (MGH is conducting one of the studies in cooperation with teams in Alabama and Louisiana.) Get breaking news alerts and updates about the coronavirus outbreak across New England in your inbox....

Ending years of futility and self-doubt, the Yankees defeated the Atlanta Braves 3-2 in a taut thriller last night to win their first World Series title in 18 years. Crowning a magical season of many small miracles, the Yankees dropped the first two games at home and then stormed back to snatch four straight from the defending champions and claim a destiny that once seemed their very birthright. The spellbinding six-game triumph over the Braves bestowed on the Yankees their 23d world championship, by far the most of any team, and perhaps their sweetest. Never since the Yankees began winning...

A leading dog charity has teamed up with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Durham University to train six coronavirus sniffer dogsDogs could be hired by the NHS to screen up to 750 key workers an hour for coronavirus. Medical detection dogs have already been used to sniff out cancer, Parkinson’s, and malaria. But a new collaboration between a dog charity and two leading universities could see pooches trained to diagnose coronavirus patients. Professor James Logan of the London school of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said six dogs are ready to be trained. The dogs will be...

Let's say a prayer for our President Trump. May he stay healthy and safe and guide us through this crisis.

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Healthcare Systems, Government, Agriculture, Family, Military, Business, Sanctity of Life, Education, Churches, and the Media. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

“Fox News on Tuesday reached out to the offices of 16 of the women who have been speculated about as possible Democratic vice presidential nominees, including Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., as well as Rep. Val Demings, D-Fla., former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and several others. None responded as of Wednesday morning.”

At the presser today, Dr Birx spoke of national testing saying they could eventually test a million a month. Wouldn't it take 27 1/4 years to test the US population of 327 million at the rate of a million a month? Why didn't a single reporter ask, "Isn't that 27 years?" Are my numbers wrong? Do they really think we are that stupid? The ilogic of all this is hurting my head.

Corona Virus Daily Thread #45 COVID-19

Twitter users, including celebrities Kubbra Sait and Jwala Gutta, condemned tweet by Rangoli Chandel, called for action, claiming the post incited hatred and violence.Twitter Thursday suspended the account of Rangoli Chandel, actor Kangana Ranaut’s sister and manager, after she posted a tweet encouraging communal hatred and violence. On 15 April, Chandel had tweeted claiming that the family of a Tablighi Jamaat member, who died of the coronavirus infection, had attacked police and doctors, but didn’t share any details or report of the incident. “Make these mullas and secular media stand in a line and shoot them,” she added in the...

[Catholic Caucus] Again: Francis Commands And Then Blames Those Obeying Him Live-streamed Masses without people are a danger and “gnostic,” Francis rambled during his live-streamed April 17 Mass without people. He pontificated that the sacraments cannot be virtual, “This is not the Church, it's a Church in a difficult situation.” Antonio Socci reminds on Facebook.com that Francis has a pattern of ridiculing those who obey him. The closing of the churches is for Socci the most recent example. Francis first demanded from the clergy obedience to the State which wanted the closing, and received the Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte....

When reports of a new virus circulating in China’s Hubei province first began to emerge, I was cautious about overreacting. I’ve reported on health long enough to know that just because a pathogen is new doesn’t necessarily mean there’s a crisis. Of course, I quickly realized this isn’t just any virus. We’re currently battling a global pandemic unlike any we’ve seen in over a century. But it’s also not the first modern virus we’ve faced. In the past two decades, the world battled Ebola, SARS and more than one major flu outbreak. Those left tragedies in their wake but didn’t...

At least four states may be able to loosen social distancing measures next month, an influential model tracking the coronavirus pandemic says. The model's new projections show that Vermont, West Virginia, Montana and Hawaii could open as early as May 4.

Covered in yellow tarps and wheeled into an ambulance, two coronavirus-positive great-grandparents said goodbye to their family last month and headed to the hospital — on one condition. Dolores said her and her husband Louis Amen never expected to get the virus, because they don’t often leave the house. “I’ll only go to the hospital if we can have room together,” said survivor Dolores Amen. She said her and her husband Louis Amen never expected to get the virus, because they don’t often leave the house. “When I saw them drive away in the ambulance wrapped like that, I thought...

Good COVID-19 News First, it seems that the Wuhan virus has peaked in the U.S. This chart is from the CDC web site. It shows cases of COVID-19 by date of onset. I have posted it a couple of times before, with the caveat that this chart only included around one-quarter of the total number of confirmed cases. Now, however, it includes more than half of cases recorded by the CDC. I assume that no date of onset is available for the others. At this point, it seems clear that the epidemic has assumed the bell-shaped curve predicted by Farr’s...

The British government paid $20 million for COVID-19 antibody tests from two Chinese companies, only to later find they didn’t work properly, according to multiple reports. Half a million of the China-made tests are now in storage, according to a New York Times report. UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson called the kits “[a]s simple as a pregnancy test” in a March statement announcing negations to buy the product, adding “it has the potential to be a total game changer.” “Because once you know that you have had it, you know that you are likely to be less vulnerable, you’re less...