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Thousands of residents of the northwest Chinese city of Lanzhou have been diagnosed with brucellosis, a highly infectious bacterial disease after they were exposed to polluted air from a state pharmaceutical company late last year. According to health authorities on Tuesday, 3,245 people have tested positive for Brucella bacteria antibodies out of 21,847 people tested so far in Lanzhou, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. Local health authorities announced on December 26 that the Lanzhou Biopharmaceutical Plant, a unit of the state-run China Animal Husbandry Industry, “used expired sanitizers while producing Brucella vaccines between July 24 and August 20”...

United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) condemned violent unrest during a Thursday speech on the House floor with the most forceful remarks she has delivered since nationwide uprisings began in May. Pelosi said a Republican member had asked her, “Where are you when you’re talking about violence, this or that?” She responded: “We’re there. We support peaceful demonstrations. We participate in them. They are part of the essence of our democracy. That does not include looting, starting fires, or rioting. They should be prosecuted. That is lawlessness.” President Donald Trump has attacked Democrats over the last several months for...

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Ending the 2020 census at the end of September instead of the end of October, could cost Florida and Montana congressional seats. It could also result in Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina losing $500 million annually in federal funding for healthcare for its neediest residents, according a report released Thursday. Scenarios modeled by statisticians Jonathan Auerbach and Steve Pierson showed that if the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident ends in September, without an extra month, California, Ohio, or Idaho could gain congressional seats, while Florida or Montana could lose seats they otherwise...

The Republican-led Senate confirmed six of President Donald Trump's judicial nominees to lifetime appointments over two days this week, even though it has delayed crucial coronavirus relief since May. The Senate filled four federal vacancies in California and two in Illinois, Bloomberg Law reported. It is also expected to confirm two additional Illinois judges in short order. "The Senate has confirmed six of Trump's judicial nominees in the past 30 hours," tweeted Vanita Gupta, the president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "These are lifetime appointments that McConnell's pushing through instead of the HEROES Act...

President Donald Trump announced on Thursday he would sign a new executive order establishing the “1776 Commission” to promote patriotic education. The commission will counter the revisionist history peddled by leftist efforts like the New York Times’ 1619 Project, which imposes false narratives on America’s students. “The narratives about America being pushed by the far left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries,” Trump said in remarks during the White House Conference on American History at the National Archives. He further described the 1619 Project—a collection of essays that cast...

Tucker Carlson, the host of 'Tucker Carlson Tonight,' on Thursday called an alleged cover-up in the Nashville mayor’s office over how many coronavirus cases are linked to bars and restaurants and other believed instances of politicians obfuscating about the data “unforgivable.” Carlson said a FOX 17 Nashville reporter obtained emails from Democratic Mayor John Cooper’s office “that discussed the fact that only a very low number cases have been traced to bars and restaurants in the city.” As of June 30, bars and restaurants had led to just 22 virus cases compared to more than 1,000 in nursing homes in...

SEATTLE mayor Jenny Durkan could reportedly face charges for failing to clear the "autonomous zone" set up by Black Lives Matter protesters in the city earlier this year. **SNIP** The area expanded, eventually taking up six blocks and a park, and remained in place for over three weeks before being cleared on July 1 by police following an emergency order from Mayor Durkan. Attorney general William Barr has now asked prosecutors in the civil rights division of the Justice Department to look into whether Durkan could be charged for failing to clear the area sooner, the New York Times reported....

President Trump announced Thursday a new Executive Order creating the ‘1776 Commission’, an organization that will promote “patriotic education” in America’s public schools. “Today I’m also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an Executive Order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the 1776 Commission,” said the President. https://twitter.com/bennyjohnson/status/1306674380437676033?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1306674380437676033%7Ctwgr%5Eshare_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fhannity.com%2Fmedia-room%2F1776-commission-trump-signs-order-establishing-commission-to-promote-patriotism-in-schools%2F “It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding,” he added. Watch the President’s comments above

The organizing groups behind the White House "siege" that is supposed to last until Election Day suffered a set back on the first day as they canceled the first event related to the protest. Minutes before the "General Assembly" was supposed to convene in Lafayette Square at noon, Twitter accounts announced the meeting was canceled due to the groups receiving "MANY threats of death and violence from Trump supporters and white nationalists." Despite the setback, it appears the organizers still plan on conducting some form of protests, but it appears to be heavily scaled back from what was being originally...

Grandmother confronts teacher over woke brainwashing. A video clip shows a grandmother confronting a teacher over the phone about how she told a student she didn’t have a right to an opinion because she was “white” and “blonde.” The footage starts with the grandmother explaining to the teacher that her granddaughter is crying and hasn’t been to school because of this “BLM crap.” She then accuses the teacher of telling her granddaughter that she had no right to express an opinion on the issue because she’s British, white and has blonde hair. After being told there is an audio recording...

Two campaign team members for Republican Lacy Johnson, who is challenging Rep. Ilhan Omar (D), were shot Monday afternoon in Minneapolis, one fatally. Minnesota Public Radio reports that one 17-year-old and another team member were shot after being “approached on foot.” CBS 4 reports that the two were standing outside Super USA convenience store at the time, and that a gunman, or gunmen, fled the scene before they could be apprehended. The 17-year-old succumbed to his wounds and the other campaign team member was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Johnson’s Campaign stated that the two were not carrying out official duties...

The American Journal of Psychiatry (AJP) has released a correction to a 2019 Swedish study which drew as its primary conclusion that individuals who claim to be transgender experience mental health benefits following gender-affirming surgeries. After reanalysis, the Swedish study’s conclusion was that neither “gender-affirming hormone treatment” nor “gender-affirming surgery” decreased the need for mental health services of those claiming to be transgender. Overlooked were key data of completed suicides, healthcare visits, prescriptions, and hospitalizations for the litany of other medical or psychological diagnoses potentially related to gender-affirming treatments. These omissions suggested cherry-picking data in order to obtain the desired...

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Massive federal spending meant to blunt the coronavirus’s economic impact could have long-term costs, experts say — meaning those stimulus checks might not be free money after all. Congress’s unprecedented stimulus measures coupled with the Federal Reserve’s aggressive efforts to shore up the economy could drive up inflation in the coming years, leaving Americans with less purchasing power over time, according to reports. Lawmakers have approved about $4 trillion in coronavirus-related stimulus spending, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, while the Fed has injected trillions more into the financial markets and cut interest rates to near zero.

Judges dramatically reduced bail amounts as high as $1 million Thursday that had been set this week for several people accused of crimes during unrest in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, that included protests and vandalism to public buildings. Bail for nine of 13 defendants was lowered, in several cases so they will not have to put up any money to be released, LNP reported. Bail for two defendants was reduced from $1 million to $50,000 unsecured, clearing the way for their release pending trial.

Democratic nominee Joe Biden went after Attorney General Bill Barr for saying that coronavirus lockdown orders were the 'greatest intrusion on civil liberties in American history' since slavery - and called Donald Trump's handling of Covid 'close to criminal.' 'Quite frankly they're sick,' Biden remarked of Barr's comments at a Thursday night CNN town hall with Anderson Cooper, held just outside his hometown of Scranton, PA. 'I never, ever thought I would see such a thoroughly, totally irresponsible administration.'

The United States Government's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is taking Kroger to court, alleging that they've violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The case centers around small, light blue, dark blue, red, and yellow embroidered hearts that Kroger implemented as part of its dress code in April 2019. A Twitter sleuth suggests that the hearts were part of a Kroger "promise campaign" and that its colors represented its four tenets: everyone friendly and caring, everything fresh, uplift every way, and improve every day. The supermarket chain itself has yet to formally confirm or deny this (via Arkansas Democrat-Gazette).  Whatever the...

There are all kinds of reasons to stay out of flood waters from Hurricane Sally and other storms on the Gulf Coast, snakes, gators, downed power lines. But there’s also a hidden hazard that could leave you burning for days, literally. Floating islands of fire ants sound like something out of a nightmare or a horror film. But they are real, and they are painful if you get mixed up with one. WKRG News 5 photographer Jason Garcia has been covering storms for decades. So it was no surprise to him that he was able to capture an island of...

A majority of likely U.S. voters believes the country is experiencing a war on police and that politicians should enact policy classifying attacks on cops as hate crimes, according to a new poll. Released on Thursday, Rasmussen’s polling came amid a wave of calls to defund police and a swell in anti-police sentiment. Since 2018, the percentage of likely voters who believes there’s a war on cops has increased from 43% to 59%. The latest data represented a slight uptick from the 58% high reported in 2015. Meanwhile, 29% disagreed with that view and 12% reported as undecided. The poll...

Six hundred stolen Native American ancestral remains and artifacts, held at a museum overseas, have officially been returned to U.S. soil. The U.S. has been trying for more than seven decades to secure the artifacts and remains from the National Museum of Finland to return to tribes of the Mesa Verde Region. President Donald Trump was joined by U.S. Ambassador of Finland Robert Pence and Native American leaders for the announcement. “How big is today? It’s huge,” said Pence. In 1891, a young Finnish professor traveled to Mesa Verde in Colorado to study the cliff dwellings. A few years later,...