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Background Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is caused by a newly discovered coronavirus (SARS-CoV). No effective prophylactic or post-exposure therapy is currently available.Results We report, however, that chloroquine has strong antiviral effects on SARS-CoV infection of primate cells. These inhibitory effects are observed when the cells are treated with the drug either before or after exposure to the virus, suggesting both prophylactic and therapeutic advantage. In addition to the well-known functions of chloroquine such as elevations of endosomal pH, the drug appears to interfere with terminal glycosylation of the cellular receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2. This may negatively influence the virus-receptor...

It was only three months ago that we lowly voters passed Prop 117 to stop the state legislature from raising taxes without our consent by calling them new “fees.” Thanks to our Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights, we get to vote on tax increases. Well, at least we did until our TABOR-loathing state Supreme Court ruled that taxes labeled a “fee” need no consent. We just want consensual taxation. Now, the legislature is already entertaining a colossal tax increase, again, without our consent, this time for transportation. The dodge they plan to get around 117 is to immensely increase an existing...

Incoming Biden Administration Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III is ordering all military personnel to "stand down while we conduct a thorough evaluation of the fitness to serve of everyone currently in uniform. It appears that several of the January 6th insurrectionists were former soldiers or sailors. Though there is no evidence of widespread disloyalty thus far, we can't afford to be taken by surprise. All are suspect until we can prove otherwise." The "thorough evaluation" is expected to include political affiliation, voting behavior, social media posts, public comments, and tattoos. "To those who say we are being paranoid...

Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed a lawsuit today against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and federal officials over its new policy to pause nearly all deportations for 100 days. The Attorney General’s Office (AGO) is asking the U.S. District Court in Arizona to rule the new policy violates federal law and Arizona’s existing agreement with DHS. Halting deportations for 100 days raises serious safety concerns for Arizona communities. Not only could the plan release individuals charged with or convicted of crimes into Arizona communities, but law enforcement officials have told the AGO they are concerned whether those being...

Some veterans across the country are making contingency plans in case they run out of medications before they arrive in the mail as U.S. Postal Service delays mount. Melissa Ned, a U.S. Navy veteran, has been waiting about three weeks for her two leukemia medications to arrive. She can't just go to her nearest Department of Veterans Affairs hospital to get them -- it's two hours away and its pharmacy has been mostly closed during the pandemic. "I gave up calling the VA pharmacy since COVID-19," she said. "Nobody answered and I automatically got disconnected. Vietnam Army veteran John Williams...

Tamara Wilhite: What led you to create Stage Right? Robert Cooperman: I became a little tired of seeing characters with conservative points of view depicted as bumpkins and ignorant slobs (you know, the “clingers” that our former president referred to). What’s more, I saw a very obvious worldview in the arts that was leftist in nature and omnipresent in many plays. ... I’ve read play after play where the characters are miserable, crazy, or both, and we the audience are supposed to find something appealing about them and sympathize. I’m looking for a theatre universe where we have real heroes...

Black Lives Matter and Antifa protesters marched in the streets of Washington, D.C., where demonstrators scuffled with police officers and the crowd shouted threats to "burn down" the nation's capital. On Saturday night, members of BLM and Antifa protested in D.C., where they regularly chanted, "If we don't get it, burn it down!"

Biden’s immigration agenda to flip Texas blue. ‘Watters’ World’ host highlights the Biden administration’s plan to loosen border rules.

Are any FReepers attending this year? Is there a plan for FReepers to get together? Does anybody know the mask mandate in Orlando/Orange County, FL? Only news I can find about masks dates back to Sept/Oct. Hope to meet some of you this year!

Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming on Sunday reaffirmed her decision to impeach former President Donald Trump and said she would not resign from her seat. During an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, said that she felt "compelled" to support Trump's removal. "I think people all across Wyoming understand and recognize that our duty is to the Constitution," she said in response to being formally censured by the Wyoming Republican Party on February 6. "The oath that I took to the Constitution compelled me to vote for impeachment and it doesn't bend to partisanship, it...

The third part of the trial scene from the 1966 movie "A Man for All Seasons". Thomas More is on trial because he would not take the Oath of Supremacy recognizing Henry VIII as the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, and failure to do so was treated as treason. Roman Catholics such as More had to take the Oath or were tried and usually executed.

A lawsuit by a 70-year-old veteran who was targeted in an unprovoked attack by federal police while he was trying to go through security at a Veterans Administration hospital is being appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. That's after a ruling by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals that the officers "may act with impunity and not be held accountable for their actions, no matter how unconstitutional." A video shows an officer confronting José Oliva and directing him through a screening machine and a second officer attacking as a chokehold was applied. Eventually, three officers were in on the physical...

One of the benefits of having a music subscription service (i.e. Spotify; Apple Music) is that you can stream pretty much everything ever recorded. Kind of makes your carefully curated music collection obsolete. If only I knew this 40 years ago. Since about 1975, I've been building a massive music library. Started out as vinyl, a few 8-tracks (that played mostly in my AMC Pacer), then went to cassettes for a while, finally to go to compact discs sometime in the mid 1980s. Anyway, I probably spent a good $50,000 on recorded music between 1975 and about 2010 or so...

The Biden administration is withdrawing the U.S. from agreements with three Central American countries that restricted the ability of people to seek asylum at the southwest border, part of a broad effort to undo the the immigration policies of President Donald Trump Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday the administration had notified El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras that it had started the formal process of terminating agreements that had been part of Trump’s effort to restrict asylum. The agreements, which had been on hold since early in the coronavirus pandemic, required many people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border...

Conservative activist and commentator Candace Owens pledged her love for America and revealed she was thinking about running for President. Owens wrote to her 2.5million Twitter followers: “I love America. Thinking about running for President.” I love America. Thinking about running for President. 🇺🇸 — Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) February 6, 2021

Can one do evil without being evil? This was the puzzling question that the philosopher Hannah Arendt grappled with when she reported for The New Yorker in 1961 on the war crimes trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi operative responsible for organising the transportation of millions of Jews and others to various concentration camps in support of the Nazi’s Final Solution. Arendt found Eichmann an ordinary, rather bland, bureaucrat, who in her words, was ‘neither perverted nor sadistic’, but ‘terrifyingly normal’. He acted without any motive other than to diligently advance his career in the Nazi bureaucracy... ...Arendt dubbed these...

"We're only 24 hours away from the big game! Gen. Frank McKenzie, commander of @CENTCOM, has a special pregame message before #SuperBowl LV. #KnowYourMil #SBLV" DoD Twitter

There were three critical swing states in which the Green Party appeared on the ballot in 2016 and didn’t appear in 2020. The states of Arizona, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania all removed the Green Party from the presidential election in 2020, with Democratic operatives using underhanded tactics to kick them off. Labor activist Howie Hawkins was the Green Party’s 2020 presidential nominee. In 2016, the Green Party nominee Jill Stein won more than 34,000 votes in Arizona. If a Green Party candidate had appeared with ballot access in the state in 2020, he or she would’ve been sure to win enough...

More than a year after COVID-19 surfaced in the United States, the pandemic rages on, with 433,000 deaths and counting in the United States as of early February. While the situation remains dire—we can only hope the virus is past its peak—there’s finally a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel. Two vaccines, produced by Pfizer and Moderna and both in the form of a double dose, were authorized and recommended to prevent COVID in December. While the rollout is moving slower than expected—as of the end of January, about 25 million people had received at least one...

Mrs. Yellen’s last year as Federal Reserve Chair will long be remembered as one in which she kept interest rates too low and the Fed’s balance sheet too large for too long. She did so in an apparent attempt to curry favor with President Donald Trump in her unsuccessful bid to get a second term as Fed Chair. In the process, she contributed importantly to the creation of a global everything asset and credit market bubble. It was only once she left the Fed and was safely ensconced at the Brookings Institution that she warned of the risk to the...