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LONDON, June 30 (Reuters) - Britain is starting to plan for a COVID-19 vaccine booster campaign starting later this year after top vaccine advisers said it might be necessary to give third shots to the elderly and most vulnerable from September. The government said that a final decision on whether a vaccine booster campaign was needed had not been made, but officials had advised that preparations should begin on a precautionary basis.

Bathsheba Spooner, the first woman executed* in the post-Declaration of Independence (i.e., post-July 4, 1776) United States. The daughter of one of Massachusetts’s most prominent Tory loyalists — the latter fled to Nova Scotia during the events comprising this post, owing to the ongoing American Revolution — Spooner was married to a wealthy Brookfield gentleman whom she utterly despised. From late 1777 into 1778, Bathsheba beguiled three young would-be Davids — Ezra Ross, a wounded former Continental Army soldier whom she nursed back to health; and James Buchanan and William Brooks, two redcoat deserters — into getting rid of Mr....

The incidence of type 2 diabetes in children appears to have doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, data from two new US studies suggest, with the lead investigator of one saying she was "surprised by the staggering increase in cases of type 2 diabetes...and the increase in severity of presentation." Although the two studies differed somewhat in the clinical parameters examined, both revealed a similar doubling of the rates of hospitalizations for type 2 diabetes among youth during 2020 compared with the same time period in 2019, as well as greater severity of metabolic disturbance. And, as has been previously described...

hina and India have been moving tens of thousands troops to their disputed border as military tensions continue to rise since the skirmish between the two nuclear-armed neighbors last June. China's People's Liberation Army has gradually increased numbers to at least 50,000, up from about 15,000 in June last year, Indian intelligence and military officials told the Wall Street Journal. It reported that numbers have mostly increased over the last few months. India has also deployed tens of thousands of troops and heavy artillery has been sent to the region. Much of the military build up has taken place in...

A prominent statue of Queen Victoria has been torn down by protesters in Canada as anger grows over the deaths of indigenous children at residential schools. The protesters cheered as the statue at the legislature in Manitoba's capital Winnipeg was toppled on Thursday. A smaller statue of Queen Elizabeth II was also upended nearby. Local media say police used a stun gun to arrest a man at the scene but the protest was largely peaceful. The toppling of the statues came on Canada Day, an annual celebration on 1 July that marks the country's founding by British colonies in 1867.

Country music superstar Toby Keith has released a July 4 single, lamenting the state of U.S. Keith, 59, premiered 'Happy Birthday America (whatever's left of it) on Fox News on Friday morning. The Oklahoma-born singer, known for his patriotic, upbeat songs, strikes a markedly different tone as he mourns 'all the broken-down cities, by the left's design' and asks why the nation is so miserable. 'Seems like everybody's pissin' on the red, white and blue,' he sings.

STORY AT-A-GLANCEEvidence from Washington University School of Medicine shows long-lasting immunity to COVID-19 exists in those who’ve recovered from the natural infectionAt both seven months and 11 months after infection, most of the participants had bone marrow plasma cells (BMPCs) that secreted antibodies specific for the spike protein encoded by SARS-CoV-2The BMPCs were found in amounts similar to those found in people who had been vaccinated against tetanus or diphtheria, which are considered to provide long-lasting immunityThe antibody protection gained in those who’ve recovered from COVID-19 is likely to continue “indefinitely”Vaccination may be more dangerous for those who’ve had COVID-19,...

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — The U.S. and Japan are reportedly conducting secret war games in preparation for a potential military confrontation with China over Taiwan. The Financial Times on Thursday (July 1) cited six sources as saying that the U.S. and Japan started preparing contingencies for a conflict with China since the last year of the Trump administration. This planning reportedly involves "top-secret tabletop war games and joint exercises in the South China and East China seas." In the face of increased threats from China in 2019, Abe Shinzo expanded military training, and in 2020 war games and joint military...

Gravitational wave astronomy has just given us another amazing gift: the first observational confirmation of one of Stephen Hawking's predictions about black holes. An analysis of the very first gravitational wave detection made back in 2015, GW150914, has confirmed Hawking's area theorem. It states that, under classical physics, the area of the event horizon of a black hole can only grow larger - never smaller. The work gives us a new tool for probing these mysterious objects, and testing the limits of our understanding of the Universe. "It is possible that there's a zoo of different compact objects, and...

Vice President Kamala Harris’s history of “mistreatment of employees and dissent” before entering the White House is spilling over Friday, as infighting and sabotage are impacting the office of the Vice President.“As the wheels came off the then-California senator’s primary run,” the New York Post wrote, “stories of mistreatment of employees and dissent in the ranks began bubbling up before eventually spilling into public view.”During Harris’s Democrat primary run, the Harris campaign’s state operations director Kelly Mehlenbacher resigned and wrote a letter containing “a blistering account of mismanagement that had culminated in major staff layoffs days earlier” in 2019.“This is...

Media Matters for America, a George Soros-funded organization that attempts to censor conservative media, complained Thursday that Andrew Breitbart’s original 2012 attack on Critical Race Theory “appears to be working,” nine years later.Media Matters’ Spencer Silva notes that today’s backlash against Critical Race Theory in communities all across America began with Breitbart News drawing attention to the doctrine, then a “little known academic study of systemic racism.”Critical Race Theory is a doctrine that claims all the political, social, and economic institutions of the United States are inherently racist because they were developed during a time when black people could be...

The number of U.S. truck drivers sidelined due to substance abuse violations has surpassed 60,000 and continues to climb by roughly 2,000-3,000 per month, according to federal data. The latest monthly report by the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse, administered by the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration since January 2020, revealed that 60,299 CDL holders have a drug or alcohol violation recorded in the clearinghouse as of June 1, up from 57,510 as of May 1 and up from 18,860 recorded in the clearinghouse as of May 1, 2020.Drivers with at least one substance abuse violation are barred from operating a...

A British friend, recovered from COVID, decided to get vaccinated despite being naturally immune. This is the email he recently sent me: “Marc I suffered a mild stroke on Wednesday 8 days after taking the Astrazeneca 2nd dose. Since I am a marathon runner I am a very ‘rare case’. I don’t smoke, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history or come into any of the risk categories for blood clots… You did warn me against taking the second dose and I wished I’d heeded your advice. I’ve taken a totally unnecessary risk with my life and I bitterly...

Thousands of COVID-19 patients in India have been diagnosed with mucormycosis, or so-called “black fungus” that’s leaving some with vision loss. The rare but serious fungal infection is caused by a group of molds called mucormycetes, which live throughout the environment and typically do not agitate otherwise healthy people, but can be problematic in those who have health issues or take medications that lower the body’s ability to fight off germs and sickness. In India, a health care system overwhelmed by recent coronavirus surges and short medical supplies may be contributing to the spread, as may attempts to treat COVID-19...

Leading a state that went heavily for Donald Trump in the 2020 election and that has enacted some of the most aggressive laws on social issues, Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas has been in the national spotlight this year. But not for embracing the state’s Trumpian turn. It’s for distancing himself from it. At a time when red state governors like Ron DeSantis in Florida and Kristi Noem of South Dakota are carrying forward Trump’s rhetoric and policies, Hutchinson is doing the opposite. He’s taking a contrarian position that’s making him an outsider in the state party he helped...

An Ohio mother is speaking out about her 12-year-old daughter suffering extreme reactions and nearly dying after volunteering for the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine trial. Stephanie De Garay told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" Thursday that after reaching out to multiple physicians they claimed her daughter, Maddie De Garay, couldn’t have become gravely ill from the vaccine. "The only diagnosis we've gotten for her is that it's conversion disorder or functional neurologic symptom disorder, and they are blaming it on anxiety," De Garay told Tucker Carlson. "Ironically, she did not have anxiety before the vaccine."

Participants in a large-scale study who more commonly consumed a Southern-style diet – high in added fats, fried foods, processed meats and sugary drinks – had a higher risk of sudden cardiac death than people who had lower adherence to a Southern-style diet. However, participants who closely followed a Mediterranean diet, which is high in vegetables, fruits, fish, whole grains and legumes while being low in meat and dairy, had a lower risk of sudden cardiac death than people who tended not to follow the Mediterranean style diet. Regularly eating a Southern-style diet may increase the risk of sudden cardiac...

With global container shipping rates hitting never before seen levels amid a historic global scramble to secure good and inventory…… suppliers to Walmart, Target, Amazon.com and other major retailers told Reuters they are placing holiday orders for Chinese-made merchandise weeks much earlier this year, as a global shipping backlog threatens to leave many gift buyers empty-handed this Christmas shopping season. Reuters surveyed nearly a dozen suppliers and retailers of everything from toys to computer equipment in the United States and Europe. All expect weeks-long delays in holiday inventory due to shipping bottlenecks, including a global container shortage and the recent...

Joy Behar told her co-hosts Thursday on ABC’s “The View” that the Politico article alleging a hostile work environment in the office of Vice President Kamala Harris will be used by the right to attack Harris because she was a black woman. ABC legal analyst and co-host Sunny Hostin said, “I think that this has a lot to do with, yes, politics, but it also has a lot to do with the fact that she’s a woman of color and a woman because we know that things that are acceptable for men are not acceptable for women. Maybe she’s, you...

Studies using human cell lines and tumors grown in mice provide early evidence that inhibiting RNA-binding proteins, a previously overlooked family of molecules, might provide a new approach for treating some cancers. In cancer research, it’s a common goal to find something about cancer cells — some sort of molecule — that drives their ability to survive, and determine if that molecule could be inhibited with a drug, halting tumor growth. Even better: The molecule isn’t present in healthy cells, so they remain untouched by the new therapy. Plenty of progress has been made in this approach, known as molecular...