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"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me" (Matt. 5:10-11). When you speak out for Christ, you can expect harassment, insults, and slander. Jesus mentioned three broad categories of suffering that Christians will experience. The first is persecution. "Persecuted" (Matt. 5:10) and "persecute" (v. 11) both come from the same Greek root meaning "to pursue" or "chase away." Over time it came to mean...

All my life, I have dismissed paranoids on the right ("America is headed to communism") and the left ("It can happen here" -- referring to fascism). It's not that I've ever believed liberty was guaranteed. Being familiar with history and a pessimist regarding the human condition, I never believed that. But the ease with which police state tactics have been employed and the equal ease with which most Americans have accepted them have been breathtaking. People will argue that a temporary police state has been justified because of the allegedly unique threat to life posed by the new coronavirus. I...

Argentina has banned all internal and international commercial flights until 1 September because of the deadly coronavirus outbreak. The authorities said airlines should not be allowed to sell tickets for flights that may not go ahead in the next four months. Aviation industry groups said thousands of people could lose their jobs. Argentina closed its borders to non-residents in March, imposing tough quarantine measures. The country currently has nearly 4,000 confirmed infections, with 192 deaths, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The country's National Civil Aviation Administration issued a decree on Monday, banning ticket sales for commercial flights to,...

No matter where you fall on the spectrum of coronavirus concern – anywhere between “it’s the greatest hoax every perpetrated on the public” to “we’re all going to die” – there is a dataset ready to reinforce your preconceived notion. These numbers are being used to manipulate the public for whatever ends the person conveying them has, and they work. The truth, on the other hand, is lost in the fog of it all. Is coronavirus a plague that will wipe out all of humanity, or is it an annoyance, a convenient boogeyman used to seize power by unscrupulous, power-mad...

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump suggested he may seek damages from China over the coronavirus pandemic which began in the Chinese city of Wuhan and spread around the world, prompting a furious response from Beijing on Tuesday. "We are not happy with China," Trump said at a White House briefing Monday. "We are not happy with that whole situation because we believe it could have been stopped at the source. In Beijing, a foreign ministry spokesman on Tuesday accused US politicians of "telling barefaced lies", without naming Trump specifically, and of ignoring their "own serious problems". "American politicians...

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Maatje Benassi, a US Army reservist and mother of two, has become the target of conspiracy theorists who falsely place her at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, saying she brought the disease to China. The false claims are spreading across YouTube every day, so far racking up hundreds of thousands of apparent views, and have been embraced by Chinese Communist Party media. Despite never having tested positive for the coronavirus or experienced symptoms, Benassi and her husband are now subjects of discussion on Chinese social media about the outbreak, including among accounts that are known drivers of large-scale coordinated...

You are 4.8 times more likely to die from a Democrat Governor’s state response to Covid-19 than a Republican Governor. The numbers for the 48 contiguous States, using Worldometer Covid-19 numbers as of 4/27/20: Democrat Governors are currently elected to head 22 states 164,941,892 population (2010 Census data) 721,579 cases 45,243 deaths 274.296 deaths per million population. Republican Governors are currently elected to head 26 states 141,131,858 population (2010 Census data) 258,667 cases 8,003 deaths 56.70 deaths per million population. 274.296 divided by 56.70 equals 4.837671 Thus: You are 4.8 times more likely to die with a Democrat Governor managing...

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The Centers for Disease Control reports that it killed more than 1 million people worldwide, more than 100,000 of them in the U.S. Luckily, a vaccine was developed early — in August 1969. But the Hong Kong flu is still with us as a seasonal malady...

Washington (AFP) - US President Donald Trump was repeatedly warned about the dangers of the novel coronavirus in intelligence briefings in January and February, The Washington Post reported late Monday. The warnings -- more than a dozen included in classified briefings known as the President's Daily Brief -- came during a time the president was mostly downplaying the threat of a COVID-19 pandemic. The Post, citing unnamed current and former US officials, said the warnings were contained in the daily classified summary of the most important global issues and security threats. For weeks, the Daily Briefs traced the spread of...

Full title: EXCLUSIVE: 'It's a horror movie.' Nurse working on coronavirus frontline in New York claims the city is 'murdering' COVID-19 patients by putting them on ventilators and causing trauma to the lungs A frontline nurse working in New York on coronavirus patients claims the city is killing sufferers by putting them on ventilators. 'It's a horror movie,' she said through a friend. 'Not because of the disease, but the way it is being handled.' And she said relatives of the sick need to make it clear as soon as a person is taken to the hospital that they do...

Protests outside the Illinois State Capitol drew several dozen people from around the state. Some were business owners affected by Pritzker’s stay-home order that’s been in effect since March 21. Those orders lead to more than 700,000 Illinoisans filing for unemployment benefits since the beginning of March. Ashley McLemore from Dixon traveled to Springfield to protest the orders and to urge the state’s economy to reopen. She said they had to close their music teaching business. “The day that we closed, we had ten instructors and 85 students and about 90 percent of those students were coming for music therapy,”...

Downstate Jasper County has seen only three residents die of COVID-19, and Monroe County only ten. But the two southern Illinois counties have the highest per capita death rates from coronavirus of all the state’s 102 counties, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said Monday. “That means you’re more likely to die of COVID-19 if you live in either of those two counties than if you live in Chicago or in Cook County,” the governor said. Rural Jasper County, in southern Illinois, with a population of 9,611, has 42 reported cases and three deaths from the coronavirus, according to Illinois Public Health Department...

The U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds have released a map that shows the route they and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels will follow for a flyover on Tuesday, April 28. The “America Strong” flyover by the military precision flying teams is meant to be a salute to health care workers during the coronavirus pandemic and a sign of national unity. The flyover begins at Joint Base Maguire-Dix-Lakehurst at 1:45 then goes over Levittown and Trenton before heading south for three loops over the Philadelphia region around 1:55 p.m. The flyover then heads south over Wilmington at 2:15 p.m. President Trump announced...

PING LIST - Please contact me as needed... COVID-19 Update As of 04/27/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Nations InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:45 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Capture Counties InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:46 PDST     Johns Hopkins University - Process JHU DataAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Document Core NumbersAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture Nations InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 23:59 PDST     WorldofMeters - Capture States InformatonAs of 00/00/2020 00:00 PDST     WorldofMeters - Data Processing begins...As of 00/00/2020 ??:?? PDST    ...

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo announced Monday night that he is coronavirus free and was found to have antibodies that can potentially help protect him from reinfection. “So, I tested negative — I don’t have the virus,” Cuomo, who was diagnosed about a month ago, said on his show. “Good for me. I also tested to show that I have both antibodies.” But Cuomo questioned if the development is a reason to celebrate considering the World Health Organization recently cautioned that the presence of coronavirus antibodies does not prove immunity against the disease.

SEOUL — Kim Jong Un may have missed a key holiday on April 15 because of concerns over the coronavirus, not because he is ill, South Korea’s minister for North Korean affairs said on Tuesday.

U.S. Attorney General William Barr on Monday released a memo to federal prosecutors which sought to balance public safety measures with the preservation of “constitutional rights and civil liberties” during the coronavirus pandemic. The memo instructs U.S. Attorneys to “be on the lookout” for orders by state and local governments which encroach upon the rights of citizens. Barr said he is expanding the mandate on prosecutors previously directed to prioritize cases against persons accused of illegally profiting from PPE hoarding and price gouging to also encompass constitutional violations.“Now, I am directing each of our United States Attorneys to also be...

The head of the emergency department at a Manhattan hospital committed suicide after spending days on the front lines of the coronavirus battle, her family said Monday. “She tried to do her job, and it killed her,’’ Dr. Philip Breen told the New York Times of his physician daughter, Dr. Lorna Breen, who had been medical director of the NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital amid the pandemic. The battle-weary ER doctor, 49, was only the latest city healthcare worker to take her own life.