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Andrew Lloyd Webber has said he will open his theatres on 21 June, and is prepared to be arrested if authorities try to intervene. The composer has also warned he may have to sell his six West End venues if the government does not relax its restrictions as set out in its roadmap for England. The pandemic has had a catastrophic financial impact on the theatre industry and many have remained closed despite the ease in COVID-19 restrictions as it is not financially viable for them to open with reduced capacities. Lord Lloyd Webber is preparing for a production of...

El Salvador has become the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender. Lawmakers in the Central American country’s Congress voted by a “supermajority” in favor of the Bitcoin Law, receiving 62 out of 84 of the legislature’s vote. Earlier on Wednesday, President Nayib Bukele sent the law to to the country’s Congress for a vote. “The purpose of this law is to regulate bitcoin as unrestricted legal tender with liberating power, unlimited in any transaction, and to any title that public or private natural or legal persons require carrying out,” the law reads. Prices can now be shown in...

JUST IN - Vendor that runs the constituent services platform for many of US House offices hit by a ransomware attack (Punchbowl News) -- Just copying the Tweet

The US moratorium on gain-of-function experiments has been rescinded, but scientists are split over the benefits—and risks—of such studies. Talha Burki reports. On Dec 19, 2017, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that they would resume funding gain-of-function experiments involving influenza, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus. A moratorium had been in place since October, 2014. At the time, the NIH had stated that the moratorium “will be effective until a robust and broad deliberative process is completed that results in the adoption of a new US Government gain-of-function research policy”. This process...

The New York Attorney General's Office is probing whether Governor Andrew Cuomo and his aides committed a crime by retaliating against women who accused him of sexual harassment, according to a report. Sources told the Washington Post investigators are looking into the possibility the governor and his inner circle broke state laws aimed at protecting whistleblowers that make it illegal to retaliate against alleged victims of sexual harassment. Officials are said to be especially interested in the controversial release of the personnel file of his first accuser, Lindsey Boylan, to the media which branded her a bully.

The Guardian has been mocked for branding apple pie racist after one of its writers said the treat was linked to 'a vast and ongoing genocide of indigenous people. Writing in the famously liberal publication, food writer Raj Patel claimed the all-American dessert was born of colonialism and slavery, after highlighting how apples had first arrived in the west from central Asia 4,000 years ago. The piece, titled 'Food injustice has deep roots: let's start with America's apple pie', claims the pie has 'bloody origins' and is 'as American as stolen land, wealth and labor.'

Joe Biden's hopes of passing his much-touted infrastructure bill now rest on a bipartisan group of senators after direct talks with Republicans collapsed. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican representing West Virginia, had been liaising with the White House over the bill. But their talks collapsed on Tuesday. Instead Biden turned to a small group of about half a dozen Republicans and Democrats, hoping that they could find a way to reach a compromise.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay has been defended by her bosses after saying she was 'disturbed' by the number of stars and stripes flags on display during a trip to Long Island. The paper's official PR Twitter account backed Gay on Tuesday night, tweeting: 'New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay's comments on MSNBC have been irresponsibly taken out of context.' 'Her argument was that Trump and many of his supporters have politicized the American flag. The attacks on her today are ill-informed and grounded in bad-faith.'

Former President Trump on Tuesday applauded Nigeria’s Twitter ban and called on other countries to follow suit. Trump praised the West African country for banning use of the social media platform after the Twitter suspended the account of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari for comparing gunmen attacking national electoral commission offices to the Nigeria Civil War. The company deleted the tweet, saying it violated their abusive behavior policy. “Congratulations to the country of Nigeria, who just banned Twitter because they banned their President. More COUNTRIES should ban Twitter and Facebook for not allowing free and open speech—all voices should be heard,”...

Inflation may look like a problem that will go away, but is more likely to persist and lead to a crisis in the years ahead, according to a warning from Deutsche Bank economists. In a forecast that is well outside the consensus from policymakers and Wall Street, Deutsche issued a dire warning that focusing on stimulus while dismissing inflation fears will prove to be a mistake if not in the near term then in 2023 and beyond. The analysis especially points the finger at the Federal Reserve and its new framework in which it will tolerate higher inflation for the...

A North Hollywood middle school teacher quit her local labor union because it’s considering support of the pro-Palestine BDS movement, a report said.Lindsey Kohn of James Madison Middle School said she in a heated resignation letter that she felt “unsafe as a Jew” in the United Teachers Los Angeles, the Jewish Journal reported on Tuesday.

ABSTRACTBackground The purpose of this study was to evaluate the necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in persons previously infected with SARS-CoV-2.Methods Employees of the Cleveland Clinic Health System working in Ohio on Dec 16, 2020, the day COVID-19 vaccination was started, were included. Any subject who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 at least 42 days earlier was considered previously infected. One was considered vaccinated 14 days after receipt of the second dose of a SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccine. The cumulative incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection over the next five months, among previously infected subjects who received the vaccine, was compared with those of previously...

The spacecraft flew closer to Jupiter’s largest moon than any other in more than two decades, offering dramatic glimpses of the icy orb. The first two images from NASA Juno’s June 7, 2021, flyby of Jupiter’s giant moon Ganymede have been received on Earth. The photos – one from the Jupiter orbiter’s JunoCam imager and the other from its Stellar Reference Unit star camera – show the surface in remarkable detail, including craters, clearly distinct dark and bright terrain, and long structural features possibly linked to tectonic faults.This image of Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager during Juno’s June...

Biden, Pope Francis may meet in Rome ahead of US bishops’ debate on Communion for pro-abortion politiciansThe get-together and details about the discussion have yet to be confirmed by the Vatican.June 8, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) –President Joe Biden will make his first international trip to Europe for a number of political liaisons starting June 10, according to the White House, and Vatican sources hinted that he may stop in Rome to meet with Pope Francis on June 15.The meeting would come just one day before American bishops are set to debate the censure of openly pro-abortion politicians like Biden who claim...

The overall rate of vaccination for Covid-19 among the U.S. military is far below what's claimed by CDC for the general public. The vaccines are not mandatory for the military since they are only approved for "emergency use."According to the figures reported at military.com (counting Guardsmen and Reservists):23% of the military force is fully vaccinated.The Navy is at 40%.The Marine Corps is almost 27%.The Air Force and Space Force are at 25%.The Army is at 14.5%.Nationally, CDC says that 40% (132.8) of the U.S. population of 332 million is "fully vaccinated" against Covid-19. Nearly 50% (165.7 million) have received at...

A February 2020 statement signed by more than two dozen scientists that claimed the coronavirus naturally jumped from humans to animals was “orchestrated” to hurt then-President Donald Trump politically, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) charged Tuesday night. “This is the Russia dossier all over again,” Graham told Fox News’ “Hannity.” “This stinks to high heaven. This is lab-gate, China-gate, call it whatever you want to call it.” Graham was referring to a message published in the British medical journal The Lancet that dismissed the theory that the virus accidentally leaked out of a virology lab in Wuhan, China. “We stand together...

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) conducted its Seventh National Population Census (hereinafter referred to as the Census) using 00:00 hours of Nov. 1, 2020, as the reference time. Although an official government report of the census reveals an increase in China’s population, the CCP hastily launched the “three-child policy” because its economic growth, which is “stable with a growing momentum,” as claimed by the state-owned People’s Daily in May, is actually no match for the current fertility crisis in China. An unnamed senior official from the CCP Health and Family Planning Commission revealed three sets of data during an interview...

The Amsterdam-based Market Information Research Foundation (SOMI) sued the video-sharing platform TikTok on behalf of 64,000 Dutch parents, seeking 1.4 billion euros (about $1.7 billion) for allegedly collecting data from millions of children. Meanwhile, TikTok has updated its privacy policy in the United States with regard to collecting personal data such as facial and voice recognition. According to Dutch media, on June 2, SOMI filed the lawsuit in a court in Amsterdam against the Chinese social media app for violating the European Union’s data protection law. The organization claims that TikTok is collecting the data of children without proper permission,...

WASHINGTON—The United States will target China with a new “strike force” to combat unfair trade practices, the Biden administration said on Tuesday, as it rolled out findings of a review of access to critical products, from semiconductors to electric-vehicle batteries. The “supply chain trade strike force,” led by the U.S. trade representative, is looking for specific violations that contributed to a hollowing out of supply chains that could be addressed with tariffs or other remedies, including toward China, White House senior director for international economics and competitiveness Peter Harrell told reporters. Officials also said the Department of Commerce is considering...