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A variant of the coronavirus identified in South Africa is more problematic than the mutation found in the U.K., Britain’s health minister said Monday, as both strains spread rapidly. Health Secretary Matt Hancock told the BBC the variant found in South Africa was especially concerning. “I’m incredibly worried about the South African variant, and that’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa,” he told the BBC’s “Today” program. “This is a very, very significant problem ... and it’s even more of a problem than the U.K. new variant.” Both countries are struggling...

LONDON (AP) — Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Monday a new national lockdown for England until at least mid-February to combat a fast-spreading new variant of the coronavirus, even as Britain ramped up its vaccination program by becoming the first nation to start using the shot developed by Oxford University and drugmaker AstraZeneca. Johnson said people must stay at home again, as they were ordered to do so in the first wave of the pandemic in March, this time because the new virus variant was spreading in a “frustrating and alarming” way. “As I speak to you tonight, our...

Donald Trump made a call to the Georgia Secretary of State the other day. That's where the agreement about everything ends. Right on cue, democrats are once again in the same ditch they've been in for the last four years, i.e. making a crime out of nothing. State and federal officials have called for investigations into whether President Trump violated election laws — or possibly committed other crimes — in his Saturday phone call to Georgia’s secretary of state. A recording of the one-hour call was released Sunday by the Washington Post. The president is heard pressuring Brad Raffensperger,...

Sherlock Holmes is the most famous detective of all time. Since he was imagined into creation in 1892 by the young Scottish doctor Arthur Conan Doyle, there has been hardly a decade in which a play, television series, film or book about Sherlock Holmes has not been produced. An early sketch of Holmes, smoking a pipe. Sherlock Holmes by Sidney Paget, 1904. Wikimedia Commons In 2010, a fresh take on Sherlock Holmes burst onto British screens. This contemporary Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, inspired a whole new level of fandom and increased sales of the original books by 53%. People were...

Defenders of Civilization?Our grandees seem too exhausted, too guilty, or too ignorant to pass on and improve the civilization they inherited for others to come.The year 2020 witnessed a long series of writs lodged against an America beset with plague, quarantine, recessions, riot and arson, and the most contested election since 1876.What was strange was not so much the anarchist Left’s efforts in the present to wipe away the past to recalibrate our Animal Farm future. What was odder were both the absurdities of the complaints against American civilization, and the unwillingness or inability of Americans to rebut them and...

It's already been a day loaded with bombshells... and all of this was revealed before noon. Today is bombshell day for Trump supporters as multiple stories have emerged just two days before Congress is set to meet in a joint session to determine the next President of the United States. The first was a crazy, albeit plausible drop by attorney Lin Wood that tells of blackmail, sex trafficking, and pure evil. Then, data analysts revealed incontrovertible proof that over 400,000 votes for President Trump in heavily contested Pennsylvania were “disappeared” during and after Election Day. Now, former Overstock.com CEO Patrick...

California's top energy bosses soon will decide when to snuff out natural gas flames in new homes. The seismic move toward omitting some gas appliances comes as the California Energy Commission retools state building codes for energy-efficient homes. The agency now plans to tighten rules on natural gas for home heating and hot water, a code update that would take effect in 2023. Environmental groups want a complete ban on natural gas in new homes, but the state commission has signaled that isn't likely right now. The California Building Industry Association, a trade group whose members develop 85% of new...

Four Kansas Republicans who will be members of the new Congress plan to join objections to Electoral College certification Wednesday in an effort to bolster President Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud that allegedly contributed to President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in November. U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall, U.S. Rep. Ron Estes and U.S. Reps.-elect Tracey Mann and Jake LaTurner, who all endorsed Trump’s re-election, have announced their intent to support Trump’s quest to overturn the election by first delaying the process in which Congress counts Electoral College votes and certifies the winner of the presidential races. In the Kansas delegation, Republican...

READ AND RETWEET AS THOUGH THE LIFE OF YOUR NATION DEPENDS ON IT. WHICH IT DOES. Citizens, I am going to add to the picture with more information. I am not going to let this pass while keeping information to myself. I am going to walk you through 2 narratives. Patrick Byrne @PatrickByrne · 5h A printing shop in Michigan prints ballots for Delaware County, Pennsylvania and as Lancashire County, Pennsylvania (this is normal). But along with the ballots it prints on contract and delivers to those counties, it prints some ballots that get diverted to Bethpage, New York. There,...

Almost 200 of the country’s top business leaders urged Congress to certify the electoral results for President-elect Joe Biden in a letter Monday, arguing that “attempts to thwart or delay this process run counter to the essential tenets of our democracy.” The letter marked the business community’s most significant push yet to ensure President Trump’s efforts to overturn the November election are unsuccessful. Signers included a wide array of executives of Fortune 500 companies, from the leaders of banks, airlines, investment firms, pharmaceutical companies, professional sports leagues, real estate conglomerates, top law firms and media companies. “The presidential election has...

A suburban Chicago man chased down his stolen car with 2 teens inside, then shot them both, one fatally, after a struggle Sgt. Chris Covelli said detectives Sunday were still trying to find out how the 35-year-old Round Lake Beach man — who had reported his 2012 Chevrolet sedan stolen from his Fairfield Road home Dec. 30 — spotted the car in Volo in the middle of the night. It wasn’t immediately clear whether he located it by coincidence, if he had a tracking system onboard or if he’d left some type of electronics in the car he could trace....

Wolves, grizzly bears, and other wildlife can be hunted on private inholdings in Grand Teton National Park, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Elk on private lands within Grand Teton National Park can be hunted, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has agreed/NPS file The ruling stemmed from a National Park Service decision in 2014 that its wildlife regulations did not apply to 2,300 acres of privately or state-owned land inside the park that hugs Wyoming's western border. Among the organizations challenging that interpretation were the National Parks Conservation Association and the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, which...

San Francisco’s stay-at-home order, which was tentatively expected to lift as of January 7 2021, has been extended “indefinitely,” Mayor London Breed and Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax announced ThursdaySan Francisco’s Department of Emergency Management on December 31, the officials wrote that “due to ongoing regional ICU capacity limitations and continuing increase of cases, San Francisco does not expect the Bay Area will meet the State’s thresholds for lifting the order” by January 7.Even after the region’s ICU bed numbers allow the stay-at-home order to be lifted, the city might still be shut down, Breed and Colfax say. “Once...

See page 1074 of 2124. ‘‘American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020’’ H.R.133 - Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021116th Congress (2019-2020) httpsa://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr133/BILLS-116hr133enr.pdf

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The NCAA announced Monday that all 67 men’s basketball tournament games including the Final Four will be played entirely in Indiana in a bid to keep the marquee event from being called off for a second consecutive year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Games will be played one at a time on two courts inside Lucas Oil Stadium, home of the NFL’s Indianapolis Colts. They will also be held at Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indiana Farmers Coliseum, Mackey Arena at Purdue, and Assembly Hall in Bloomington.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on Monday is slated to hold a press conference in Atlanta. The event is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m. EST. Watch at: https://thehill.com/video/in-the-news/532542-watch-live-georgia-secretary-of-state-holds-press-briefing \

U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak resigned his position Monday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia. In October 2017, Pak was sworn into the office. He previously served as an assistant U.S. Attorney from 2002 to 2008 and in the Georgia General Assembly as a state representative from January 2011 to January 2017. Pak’s office offered no further comment about the resignation.

Record-breaking coronavirus rates can’t stop these partiers from continuing to rage. Despite surging COVID-19 cases, Florida beaches were packed with maskless revelers over New Year’s weekend. Photos of Fort Lauderdale Beach show nary a face covering and many a bikini as people continued to party despite the ongoing pandemic. On Jan. 3 at Miami’s Fontainebleau pool area, heavy daytime partying was photographed despite the state’s coronavirus dashboard reporting another 10,603 cases that day — the fifth consecutive day it reported more than 10,000 cases.

My wife and I had just recently finished reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. I must have been subconsciously dreaming about that book last night when I was awakened from my slumber by a ringing phone. I answered the call and an eerie, mournful, voice on the line said, “You will be visited tonight by two ghosts-the Ghost of Christmas Past and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.” I replied, “Hey, I thought that there were supposed to be 3 ghosts.” The unknown caller sighed and said, “You get two ghosts-deal with it,” and hung up. I went...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington, D.C.’s mayor urged calm Monday as some 340 National Guard troops were being activated while the city prepared for potentially violent protests surrounding Congress’ expected vote to affirm President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. According to a U.S. defense official, Mayor Muriel Bowser put in a request on New Year’s Eve to have Guard members on the streets from Jan. 5-7th, to help with the protests. The official said the D.C. National Guard members will be used for traffic control and other assistance but they will not be armed or wearing body armor. Congress is meeting this week...