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US and Chinese officials have exchanged sharp rebukes in the first high-level talks between the Biden administration and China, taking place in Alaska. Chinese officials accused the US of inciting countries "to attack China", while the US said China had "arrived intent on grandstanding". Relations between the two superpowers are at their most strained for years. The US has pledged to raise contentious issues such as Beijing's treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang. The ill-tempered talks in Anchorage involved Secretary of State Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the US side, facing off with China's most senior...

I have just learned that the Executive Committee of the Blues Foundation Board of Directors has made the decision to rescind my nomination for the 2021 Blues Rock Artist of the Year award. We have been told this decision has been made because In recent days, concerns have been raised regarding one of the cars in my muscle car collection. The car was built 17 years ago as a replica and homage to the iconic car in the television series, The Dukes of Hazzard. That CBS show was one of the highest rated and most popular programs of its era...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capita Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

On Thursday, Attorney General Todd Rokita (R-Ind.) warned Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that his office is considering legal action after the company removed a conservative book from its inventory. In 2018, Ryan T. Anderson — now the president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC) — published When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment, a scholarly and scientifically-informed warning against the transgender movement. The book disappeared from Amazon shortly before the House of Representatives voted to pass the pro-transgender Equality Act. “I will be watching closely and with interest how Amazon continues down this path of censorship...

On Thursday, the State Board of Education will adopt an Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum for high schools that is four years, four drafts, three public vetting periods and 100,000 comments in the making. *** Over the past two years, the language of ethnic studies — white privilege, implicit bias, white supremacy — has seeped into everyday speech.... *** The most complex disagreement is foundational: Should teaching about past and current racial inequities and injustices be done primarily through the lens of white supremacy, the deliberate oppression by whites in America to gain and maintain power? *** In subsequent drafts, the...

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas asserts it is “extraordinarily disrespectful” to ask him about American victims of crimes committed by illegal aliens. During a hearing before the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) asked Mayorkas about illegal alien crime victims. Specifically, Cammack referenced the case of 19-year-old Amber Scott, a high school cheerleader at the time in Douglas County, Colorado, who was kidnapped at knifepoint in 2006 by 25-year-old illegal alien Pedro Martinez. Martinez had been previously deported to his native Mexico after three felony drug convictions, but he returned illegally to the...

The United State Mint unveiled designs for the 2021 Morgan and Peace centennial silver dollars. They also revealed where they will be made and how many mint and privy marks will be used. Authorized under Public Law 116-286, the 1921 Silver Dollar Coin Anniversary Act, the U.S. Mint will strike the silver dollars in recognition of the 100th anniversary in 2021 of the production transition from Morgan dollars to Peace dollars. Mint staff were able to develop the 2021 designs by scanning old assets, including Morgan and Peace dollars, hubs, plasters, and galvanos. The finest scanned components were digitally mapped...

CBS San Francisco reports that an elderly Asian woman delivered a beat down to a man who attacked her on Market St. Wednesday morning around 10:30 AM.The 76-year-old woman was reportedly minding her own business when a man assailed her. She made him experience instant regret.Xiao Zhen Xie says she was just waiting at the traffic light and then the suspect punched her by her left eye.Immediately, her instincts kicked in to defend herself. While she suffered injuries and required medical attention, it was her attacker that ended up on the stretcher. “She found the stick around the area and...

Republican senators on March 18 introduced a bill that would strip the Chinese regime of its trading privileges by revoking its permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status in a bid to hold it accountable for its economic aggressions and human rights abuses.The bill, introduced by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), would tie China’s eligibility to receive preferential trading treatment—known as “normal trade relations” status (NTR)—with the government’s human rights record.Under President Bill Clinton, the United States granted China PNTR status in 2000, which paved the way for the regime’s accession to the World Trade Organization. Conventional thinking at the time was...

Many people dream of seeing the Northern Lights one day. For photographers, the phenomenon known as Aurora borealis is not just a bucket list item; it's a chance for the shot of a lifetime. Often shooting at night in freezing weather, these photographers must put all their astro and night photography skills to the test. The resulting images capture these otherworldly sights, as well as the beautiful locations over which the greenish lights dance. For the third year, editor and astrophotographer Dan Zafra of the website Capture the Atlas has curated the best 25 images of the enchanting lights from...

Leading Experts Discuss the Latest Research on Preventing & Treating COVID-19 with Ivermectin and Call for its Immediate Global Use to End the Pandemic. WASHINGTON, DC, UNITED STATES, March 18, 2021 /EINPresswire.com/ -- A group of medical and scientific experts convened by the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) today call for action to put an end to the COVID-19 pandemic by immediately adopting policies that allow for the use of ivermectin in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Scientists and physicians from the U.S., U.K., E.U., South America, and Israel gathered to discuss the latest data on how...

As the U.S. Senate considers legislation that would revamp America’s election laws, voters still overwhelmingly support laws requiring that voters show identification before casting a ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 75% of Likely U.S. Voters believe voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote. Only 21% are opposed to such a requirement. (To see survey question wording, click here.) Thirty-six states have enacted some form of voter ID law, but those laws would be nullified if the Senate approves H.R. 1, which passed...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Thursday he's concerned about a possible fourth surge in COVID-19 cases as numbers tick up in some states and Europe, which the U.S. has traditionally trailed by about four weeks in its COVID trajectory Fauci, the nation's chief disease expert, and other Biden administration officials testified before the Senate's Health committee on Thursday about the COVID response, stressing the U.S. is in a race against virus variants to vaccinate Americans as quickly as possible. Fauci said the situation in the U.S. has improved greatly since the intense spike in cases after the winter holidays, but that...

A report from the U.S. intelligence community suggests that a minority of intelligence officials believed that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did, in fact, attempt to hinder former President Donald Trump’s chances in the 2020 election, while reporting that the CCP did not “deploy interference efforts.”A report from the National Intelligence Council (pdf) released March 10 stated that Russia sought to denigrate President Joe Biden and boost Trump during the 2020 election, and that China “did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election,” adding: “We...

‘Our services are our services,’ the pastor said in response. ‘You don’t go into a bake shop and ask them to fix your car. Then you can’t come into a Christian church and expect us to convey messages that we don’t agree with.’March 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Back in 2019, I noted that the LGBT movement would methodically begin going after clergy for sermons. Most sermons and homilies are posted online; with laws that increasingly expand the definition of hate speech and sustained campaigns to portray Christian organizations at hate groups, it was only a matter of time before activists...

BAGHDAD – The five Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian Members of Iraqi Parliament have denounced in a joined statement the new Federal Court bill which would appoint legal experts in Islam to the Federal Court. The Federal judges themselves would be appointed only from within the Islamic components of Iraq: 5 for the Shia component, 2 for the Sunni, and 2 for the Kurdish component, which is also Muslim. The Chaldean-Syriac-Assyrian MPs showed their aversion to the bill by walking out of the session of parliament in which the bill was discussed. In their joint statement the MPs stated that the bill “pushes Iraq...

“She gave the state of Wyoming the middle finger.” “He’s a traitor.” “We want a real Republican in there.” These are just some of the criticisms that Republicans have lobbed at the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump after his supporters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. The criticisms haven’t stopped there, either. Trump told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month to “get rid of them all.” And all but one of these 10 representatives have been publicly rebuked by state or local GOP officials. In total, nine already face a primary...

Moscow, March 15, Interfax - The introduction of so-called Covid passports may restrict people's rights and freedoms, the Russian Orthodox Church said. "There are currently more questions than answers, and therefore the concerns that are being stated in connection with these proposals are totally founded," Metropolitan Hilarion, the head of the Synodal Department for External Church Relations, said on the program the Church and the World on the Rossiya-24 television channel, commenting on the news about the European Union's plans to consider a bill on Covid passports this month. The hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church said that such passport...

Washington D.C., Mar 15, 2021 / 01:15 pm MT (CNA).- While the White House on Monday would not respond to the Vatican’s statement on marriage, press secretary Jen Psaki said that President Biden supports same-sex unions. On Monday, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a response to a question on the Church’s power to bless same-sex unions. The CDF said that the Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions or any relations “that involve sexual activity outside of marriage.” When asked by a reporter on Monday if the president had a response...

A retired New Jersey teacher who got death threats after editing a President Trump T-shirt out of a high school yearbook has now been awarded a $325,000 settlement from the district, according to a report. Susan Parsons insisted she was regularly ordered to make edits to photos at Wall Township High School, including making a “Trump Make America Great Again” shirt look like a plain blue one in 2017. When the alteration sparked outrage, Parsons was set up to “take the blame,” getting suspended and barred from talking to the media, she claimed in a lawsuit filed in May 2019....