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Dr Anthony Fauci has urged Congress to pass Joe Biden's Covid relief bill because US schools 'need more resources' to re-open safely after months of virus-enforced closures. The nation's top infectious disease expert said re-opening schools 'can be done' but told ABC's George Stephanopoulos that school districts 'really do need more resources'. 'That's the reason why the national relief act that we're talking about getting passed - we need that,' Fauci said, as Democrats in Congress try to push through $130billion in funding to help schools upgrade buildings and buy protective gear.

SPAIN, February 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) —Forty-six nursing home residents who had received their first dose of Pfizer-BioNTech’s fast-tracked vaccination against COVID-19 at the beginning of January had died by the end of the month, Spanish media have reported. Staff first reported a coronavirus outbreak at Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary), a nursing home in the province of Cadiz, Andalusia in Spain on January 12, in the wake of a vaccine distribution campaign. The Ministry of Housing and Families intervened in the private facility which houses up to 145 residents and where local media reported on February...

The world needs to wake up to the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) bullying and lay down its own rules to deter the regime's aggressions, the China adviser to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Miles Yu, a Chinese-born academic who helped shape the Trump administration's China policy, called out the CCP's tactic of threatening the United States, telling it not to interfere in issues deemed to be the regime's 'internal affairs,' including Hong Kong, Tibet, and Xinjiang—which it dubs 'red lines.' 'This is [the] Chinese Communist Party's 'red line,' that's all. It's not red lines based upon international law,'...

Since the start of February, various press have reported that the people of Israel are the most vaccinated in the word by a large margin against SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. One should expect that the daily case average in this economically advanced Mediterranean nation should exhibit a rapidly improving situation when counting daily new COVID-19 cases averages. With 72% of the Israeli population vaccinated as compared to about 14% in the United States. But recent data from Paul Elkins, a supporter of TrialSite, reveals that daily new case counts in Israel are not declining at nearly the rate that...

Seems like the Kalifornia blackouts are now happening here in the Midwest. We had one this afternoon for two hours. Did a quick search on the phone and found there are planned blackouts all over the Midwest to conserve on natural gas. Is this the next punishment we have to endure?

Ending the coronavirus pandemic is 'very, very easy' when compared to the challenges involved in tackling the climate change crisis, warns Bill Gates. The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft has a new book out called How to Avoid a Climate Disaster where he sets out the 'urgency of addressing climate change'. In his book Gates says he is an 'imperfect messenger' due to his wealth, houses and travel, admitting he even took a private jet to the 2015 Paris climate summit.

Virginia needs sweeping changes to its schools, housing laws, criminal justice system and other areas of policy to remedy the legacy of centuries of government-sanctioned racial oppression, according to a new report the state released Wednesday. It’s the latest effort of a commission empaneled by Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam, which began its work in 2019 with an examination of racist laws that — though long unenforced — had remained on the books. The report, around 100 pages long and layered with primary sources and historical research, focuses on six policy areas: housing, education, criminal justice, health, environmental justice and agricultural...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

Donald Trump waves to crowd of supporters from inside an SUV in West Palm Beach: https://t.co/Enw4LJTBVc pic.twitter.com/WVN7KTs21s— WPEC CBS12 News (@CBS12) February 15, 2021

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Monday defended the Senate's decision to acquit former President Trump but clarified that it, "vindicated the Constitution, not Trump." In his op-ed, McConnell echoed sentiments he shared after the Senate acquittal on Saturday, when he said Trump is "morally responsible" for the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6 and that he was "outraged" by Trump's actions. "There is no question former President Trump bears moral responsibility. His supporters stormed the Capitol because of the unhinged falsehoods he shouted into the world’s largest megaphone," McConnell wrote. "His behavior during and...

MADISON - Two days after members of the U.S. Senate acquitted former President Donald Trump on a charge of inciting the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, Wisconsin's senior senator is questioning whether an armed insurrection even occurred. U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson toured the state's airwaves on Monday making the claim, despite video footage and photos of the attack showing participants erecting gallows on the Capitol grounds, deploying pepper spray strong enough to injure bears, carrying zip ties, hurling a fire extinguisher, using baseball bats to smash windows, and throwing flags like spears at police officers. "This didn’t...

The proposal is expected to include an earned pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants and expand the refugee resettlement program. The Biden administration and Hill Democrats are expected later this week to release an immigration reform bill, multiple sources familiar with the planning tell NBC News. The legislative text of the “U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021” will reflect the immigration priorities that President Joe Biden unveiled on his first day in office. His proposal includes an earned pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants, expands the refugee resettlement program and deploys more technology to the Southern border....

Before barcode scanners, being a supermarket checker was a tad more complicated.

Fellow Democratic legislators in New York weren’t buying Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s explanation Monday as to why he refused for months to release a true accounting of nursing home residents who died from the coronavirus. Assemblyman Ron Kim (D-Queens), whose uncle died from COVID-19, bluntly said, “all of it is BS” and a cover-up. “They could have given us the information back in May and June of last year. They chose not to,” Kim said, when hearing Cuomo was blaming the DOJ probe for delays in releasing the accurate coronavirus death tally of nursing home residents.

Remember “The Year of Living Dangerously”? That was a 1982 film based on a 1978 novel about a love affair during the year Sukarno was overthrown in Indonesia, 1967. 2020 and now 2021 might be called the Year or Years of No Science… or maybe Phony Science… or Pretentious Science… or, perhaps most accurately, Political Science (but not with the usage commonly employed). Yes, I know we have seen the extremely rapid appearance of COVID-19 vaccines from several companies, but we have no way of knowing if they work long term or, more importantly, if they were necessary. (FULL DISCLOSURE:...

“ The UK Government have released a report highlighting adverse reactions to both the Pfizer and Oxford / Astrazeneca that have occurred since the rollout began on the 8th December and it does not make for pleasant reading. The report has collated data inputted up to the 24th January 2021 via the MHRA Yellow Card Scheme. At this point an estimated 5.4 million first doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine and 1.5 million doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca vaccine had been administered, and around 0.5 million second doses, mostly the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, had been administered. But as predicted, with the rise...

The Democratic face of Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial watched the second trial unfold the same way much of America did — glued to the TV and confined to his home as the pandemic rages. That’s not to say Rep. Adam Schiff wasn't involved in the past week’s trial, which ended Saturday in acquittal. Schiff had offered one-on-one advice to his party’s new crop of impeachment managers if they asked. And as a surrogate dispatched by the speaker’s office, the Californian frequently appeared on TV to provide commentary, like a former Super Bowl quarterback reflecting on this year’s big game....

It's no secret that BofA's Chief Investment Officer has been warning that 2021 - the year of the vaccine - is one where real inflation (as opposed to financial) will run amok sooner or later, and in his latest Flow Show he repeats his two main contentions about how events will play out in the coming months, namely "the velocity of people will rise" and "the velocity of money will (also) rise". Addressing the first, Hartnett writes that since the core 2021 trends will be "vaccine>virus", and "reopening>lockdown", this means that human mobility will rise & macro data will surge...

The NBA issued a warning to LeBron James and Kyle Kuzma for violating the league’s anti-flopping rule in the team’s 115-105 victory over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday. The incident involving James occurred with 2:35 left in the second quarter and the Grizzlies leading the Lakers 54-51. Attempting to block out Dillon Brooks of Memphis, James appears to forcefully fall to the floor after a slight nudge of the arm from Brooks. Brooks was called for a foul on the play and James went to the line, making both free throws. The incident involving Kuzma occurred with 6:31 left in...