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We're slowly approaching the night when Venus will be the brightest it's going to be in 2020. That moment arrives the night of April 27, right around 9pm EST. That evening, the planet hits its greatest illuminated extent, a fancy way of saying its really damn bright. This is the juncture when "the illuminated portion of Venus covers the greatest square area of the sky's dome," writes EarthSky. When it's at its brightest for the year, Venus is almost three times as bright as it is when it's at its dimmest.

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WKYT) - One of the first steps the state of Kentucky took when faced with the COVID-19 pandemic was canceling elective and non-emergency procedures at hospitals. The move was done to try to limit the use of personal protective equipment, and reduce potential exposure to the virus for health care workers. Since then, Kentucky’s health care system has been able to keep up with the number of COVID-19 cases, and starting next week some of those health care services will resume. Lexington ER doctor Ryan Stanton a lot of those elective procedures, can't be put off too long,...

Sweden's strategy to keep large parts of society open is widely backed by the public. It has been devised by scientists and backed by government, and yet not all the country's virologists are convinced. There is no lockdown here. Photos have been shared around the world of bars with crammed outdoor seating and long queues for waterfront ice cream kiosks, and yet it is a myth that life here goes on "as normal". On the face of it little has shut down. But data suggests the vast majority of the population have taken to voluntary social distancing, which is the...

A DW investigation has found that protest groups in various US states against recent coronavirus lockdown measures were set up by conservative gun lobbyists. The coordinated effort seems to be driven by the apparent long-term aim of building a larger base of support for gun law relaxation. This comes after thousands of people across the US organized online and started to demand an end to stay-at-home orders. Protest organizers claim on their Facebook pages that the lockdown restrictions are a result of “politicians on a power trip,” who they allege are “destroying our businesses, passing laws behind the cover of...

On March 7, Joshua Love became a part of Chicago’s other pandemic. The 21-year old was shot, the single bullet severing his spinal cord. Long before the word coronavirus became a part of our lives, another public health crisis played out in Chicago on an almost daily basis: people being shot. That crisis has not abated. Love is now a patient at Schwab Rehabilitation Center on Chicago’s West Side. “I can’t walk. I don’t know how long that’s going to last for,” he said during a video call after finishing his morning regimen. “He sustained a violently acquired spinal cord...

In the past fortnight, Mumbai's Dharavi area has emerged as a major hotspot of novel coronavirus cases. To prevent further spread of Covid-19 cases in one of the largest slums in the world, the state government has chalked out a three-fold strategy. Speaking on this at a special session at e-Agenda Aaj Tak on Saturday, Maharashtra Health Minister Tajesh tope said the biggest challenge for the state government is to implement the lockdown strictly and contain the spread of novel coronavirus in densely populated areas like Dharavi. Health Minister Rajesh Tope said the government has decided to administer hydroxychloroquine to...

Vlog report about Ivermectins effectiveness in treating the Wuhan Corona Virus.

As long as there are residents in the state of Michigan who need help and who need a voice, Democratic Congresswoman Karen Whitsett promised Saturday that she will not be silenced. In an interview on "Fox & Friends Weekend" with host Pete Hegseth, Whitsett explained that she would also continue to work with President Trump and any president who extended a hand her way to ensure what's done in her state needs to be done. On Saturday, a group called the 13th Congressional District Democratic Party Organization will consider censuring Whitsett for foregoing the status quo and meeting with President...

The first phase of reopening the state of Virginia “will be a two year affair,” State Health Commissioner Norman Oliver said on Friday. Gov. Ralph Northam (D) shared the “blueprint” to reopen Virginia on Friday, dubbed the “Forward Virginia Blueprint,” which outlines a phased approach to reopening the state — an approach embraced by a number of other states. “We cannot and will not lift restrictions the way you turn on a light switch,” Northam (D) said. “We will do it responsibly and deliberately, and it has to be grounded in data.” Phase One involves the reopening of certain businesses...

The novel coronavirus pandemic will define the modern era in the same way World War II shaped an earlier generation, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates says in a 11-page memo outlining his ideas on how best to tackle the disease. “This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side,” he writes. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has committed $250 million to the battle and Gates has been speaking up regularly to influence its direction — something that has sometimes placed him at odds with President Donald Trump and made him a target of...

Tianwen-1, meaning ‘questions to heaven’, is taken from the name of a long-form poem by Qu Yuan, a poet born in the fourth century B.C., according to CNSA chief engineer Ge Xiaochun. China is understood to be planning a Mars sample return mission, a Jupiter orbiter and considering possible missions to icy giants and interstellar space. A joint near-Earth asteroid sample return and comet rendezvous mission has also been proposed. Few details of the Tianwen-1 mission have been released so far. The Tianwen-1 spacecraft is expected to have a wet mass of around 5 metric tons. Launch on a Long...

State unemployment staffers are so busy, the Cuomo administration is asking City University of New York employees and civil servants from other agencies to help with the deluge of paperwork and callbacks. The beleaguered state Department of Labor needs additional staff to process some of the unemployment applications filed by tens of thousands of people suddenly out of work due to the COVID-19 pandemic . . There are now 3,000 people working on the phones and processing applications seven days a week, he added. That’s up from the just 400 representatives in place before the health crisis. Penny Errico-Nagar, 62,...

Democratic Party leaders in Georgia and Michigan have targeted two state legislators for punishment. The “crime” of which both are accused is “breaking our party’s united front against the Trump menace,” said state Rep. James Beverly (D-Macon), chairman of the party’s House caucus. Georgia state representative Vernon Jones (D-DeKalb) made the “mistake” of praising the positive impacts on African Americans of Trump’s economic and prison-reform policies. Beverly pointed out that “it is our Party’s position that nothing Trump does is worthy of approval. Everything must be condemned if we hope to unseat him in the November election. There must be...

Guest Contribution by Gregg Updike Boy, does the MSM (D) and the DNC really have to tie themselves up in knots in their attempt to thread the political needle in this election cycle. The Democratic leadership and the left are users, plain and simple. They use loyal donkeys to suit their purpose at the moment and dump them like yesterday’s trash when their ‘use by date’ expires. Here are some examples: Al Franken was propped up and helped over the finish line in Minnesota by the DNC’s Voter Fraud Division in his defeat of Norm Coleman (R) to gain a...

Viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza are lipophilic, enveloped viruses, and are relatively easy to inactivate by exposure to alcohols. The envelope mainly consists of the lipid bilayer, taken from the host cells at assembly/budding stage of the viral life cycle. Therefore the constitution of the lipid bilayer should be common in all SARS, MERS and influenza viruses, even after mutations, and thus these closely-related viruses will be disinfected by exposure to ethanol with the same concentration. Existing experimental data indicate that an ethanol concentration of 30~40 v/v% is sufficient to inactivate Influenza-A viruses in solution[1,2,3]. The author suggests that...

My Dad saved many letters that family members wrote to him in 1948. He was 17 yrs old and had just enlisted in the Air Force. I would like to make a book with copies of the actual letters, photos and then a transcript of the letters. Many have faded and some of the writing is hard to decipher. I have several family members that would enjoy this. Any advice?

A new clinical treatment trial launched Friday and UW Medicine researchers are looking for COVID-19 patients to test the effectiveness of anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine. UW researchers want to enroll 630 people who currently have the COVID-19 virus. Researchers say this particular study looks at COVID-19 patients who do not need to go to the hospital yet. Researchers are testing two combinations. One is hydroxychloroquine. The other is hydroxychloroquine plus azithromycin. Researchers are also using a placebo. UW Medicine is looking for patients in cities nationwide including Boston, Chicago, and New York.

Boeing’s statement confirmed a Reuters story earlier on Saturday and followed a story on Friday in which Reuters reported that the deal was close to collapse as the two parties neared a crucial midnight deadline. Boeing said in the statement that Embraer had failed to meet certain conditions for the deal to go through, although it did not specify which ones. The April 24 deadline for closing had been baked into the deal since early last year, but antitrust hiccups had forced the two companies to try to work out a new deadline. In July 2018, Boeing agreed to buy...

APRIL 3 —- Pawn Stars' frontman Rick Harrison jokingly asked Thursday, "What did you do during the quarantine?" But, as he leans on one of the jewelry counters full of toilet paper at Gold and Silver Pawn, his sense of humor also reveals his confidence that Las Vegas will be back stronger than ever after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. "Normally, we have 2,500 to 3,000 people a day coming in here this time of year," said Harrison. "And look around, there’s nobody here." Harrison also knows his shop and other pawn shops around town will get busy in the...

... This week, Hastings-Lennox and Addington MP Derek Sloan took to social media posting a video suggesting Canada's top doctor, Theresa Tam, worked for China and "parrots" misinformation handed down by the World Health Organization. "Dr. Tam must go! Canada must remain sovereign over decisions. The UN, the WHO, and Chinese Communist propaganda must never again have a say over Canada's public health!" said Sloan on twitter. The social media posts caught the attention of Hastings County CAO, Jim Pine, and warden, Rick Phillips. On Thursday, the pair sent Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer a letter asking him to take...