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(CNN)Poll of the week: A new Gallup poll finds that 59.2% of Americans say they're thriving. Additionally, 73% of Americans said they experienced enjoyment for a lot of the previous day.The former is the highest rating Gallup has ever recorded on the measure dating back to when it was first taken more than 13 years ago. The latter is the highest since the coronavirus pandemic began early last year. What's the point: The last year has been tough for a lot of Americans. Among other issues, the coronavirus dominated our lives, and there was a very contentious presidential election. But...

Actor and activist Sean Penn declared the Trump administration’s coronavirus policies were no better than “gunning down” vulnerable communities “from a turret at the White House” at the Cannes Film Festival. Speaking at the French film festival about his new film, Flag Day, Penn told the media of his efforts to continue observing coronavirus protocols as he filmed the movie. He also spoke about his efforts to sponsor vaccination and testing facilities in underserved communities. Penn slammed officials who pushed what he deemed to be “misinformation,” and the actor and director had particularly harsh words for the Trump administration. “We...

Sharpton and Crump are advocating for 17-year-old Hunter Brittain, who was shot and killed by Sgt. Michael Davis during a June 23 traffic stop Officer Davis, who is white, was fired by Lonoke County Sheriff John Staley last week for not turning on his body camera until after the shooting occurred Last Friday, Arkansas State Police handed over the results of its investigation into the shooting to prosecutors On July 7, Sharpton and Crump attended the funeral for the teen where Sharpton said 'I want the whole world to know the name of Hunter Brittain' Sharpton said that there is...

A straw poll conducted of the 1,525 attendees at a Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) in Dallas over the weekend showed no support for former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s potential bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

First Lady Jill Biden will make her first visit to the Twin Cities since the 2020 presidential campaign on Friday, the White House announced. No other details of her trip have been released. The first lady made two campaign stops in Minnesota last year on behalf of then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. She toured Jeffers Pond Elementary School in Shakopee with Gov. Tim Walz and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, and she made stops at Golden Thyme Coffee & Cafe in St. Paul and Utepils Brewing Co. in Minneapolis during a trip in October.

Juvenile has remixed his hit song “Back That Thang Up” into a pro-vaccine anthem called “Vax That Thang Up,” sparking anger among some fans. The new track dropped Tuesday on YouTube and features fellow artists Mannie Fresh and Mia X rapping along with Juvenile to encourage the Black community to get the COVID-19 vaccine. “Girl you look good once you vax that thang up. You a handsome young brother once you vax that thang up/Dating in real life, you need to vax that thang up/Feeling freaky all night, you need to vax that thang up,” the song says. The revised...

NBA legend Dominique Wilkins has opened up for the first time about the shocking moment he was turned away from an upscale Atlanta restaurant because of the color of his skin. In an exclusive interview with DailyMail.com the Hall of Famer, nine-time NBA All-Star and Atlanta Hawks Vice President told how he felt the sting of discrimination as the host of Le Bilboquet looked him up and down then refused to seat him on the grounds that they were trying to 'keep a level of elegance.' He said, 'I've never got turned down by a single restaurant in my life...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, seemingly lectured unvaccinated Americans on Sunday, contending to CNN there is “no reason not to get vaccinated” despite looming concerns about vaccine safety and the fact that they are not approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Fauci lamented the ideological hesitations behind the decisions of some to refrain from getting vaccinated. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Republicans less likely to get the vaccine than Democrats, 93 percent of Democrats surveyed indicating they have been vaccinated or plan to be. That number dropped to 49 percent among Republicans....

The term “New Evangelization” was originally used by Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI to refer to the unique situation of the West, wherein we were not preaching the Gospel to a people who had not heard it, but were instead “re-presenting” the Gospel to a culture that had once embraced the Gospel and later rejected it. In essence, the term means “re-evangelization.” In his “Latin Letters,” C.S. Lewis quipped that while the ancient Europe encountered by the Apostles and the early Church was a virgin awaiting her groom, Jesus Christ, modern Europe is an angry divorcée.Reaching...

Anti-government protests broke out Sunday in Cuba demanding freedom and calling on the disbandment of the country’s communist dictatorship, all while some of the U.S.’ most outspoken, self-professed Democratic socialists appear to be in lockstep by not acknowledging the historic events unfolding on the island about 90 miles from Florida. Fox News has emailed Reps. Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Sen. Bernie Sanders and has yet to receive a response from any of them. As of early Monday, none have even mentioned the protest on social media. Thousands of Cubans marched on Havana’s Malecon promenade and elsewhere to...

A Haitian doctor with reported ties to Florida has been arrested in connection with the assassination of President Jovenel Moise last week. Christian Emmanuel Sanon is the third person arrested on Sunday in connection with the killing who reportedly had ties to the United States. Authorities have said he was one of the masterminds behind the plan and that he wanted to assume the presidency, according to the Washington Post. Haiti National Police Chief Leon Charles said multiple suspects already in custody mentioned Sanon, according to the Miami Herald. Sanon “made contact with two other people who are implicated, they...

The National Institute of Health maintains an online library of medical information known as the National Center for Biotechnology Information. In it, you can find scholarly articles, research papers, and the results of medical studies for most common areas of medicine. Lately, however, the repository has been adding a number of new studies that seem to be quite controversial to say the least and they deal with medical issues involving transgender children and what’s come to be known as “gender-affirming medical care.” A couple of these studies are now drawing public attention because of the decidedly unscientific and potentially dangerous...

Twenty-four hours a day, adults with scuffed shoes and dusted pant legs file out of the Otay Mesa Port of Entry — sometimes alone and sometimes in groups — into Tijuana’s streets. Many stop to charge their phones in the little plaza that receives southbound pedestrian traffic. Some hang around for hours, unsure of where to go next after their plans of reaching the United States have failed. Most are Mexican men. And for most, this is not the first time they’re finding themselves abruptly returned to Mexico, expelled under a pandemic policy known as Title 42 from the country...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden, dismissed the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has not yet approved vaccines for the Chinese coronavirus as merely a “technical issue.” For months, Fauci has branded himself, quite literally, the voice of science. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief has routinely dismissed critiques against him as attacks on science itself.

The annual Sun Valley conference among finance, tech, entertainment, and media kingpins, dubbed summer camp for billionaires, included an address by Bill Gates about climate change. But critics pointed out the hypocrisy of such concerns, given that so many flew into the resort in private planes. The congestion concerns were so bad that the Federal Aviation Administration had to put a temporary ban on planes taking off from the West Coast to Michigan and Canada, according to the Daily Mail. NPR reported that the manager of the nearby airport, Friedman Memorial Airport, said more than 90 private planes were expected.

Anthony Fauci said on Sunday that he was horrified to hear the crowd at a conservative gathering this weekend cheering anti-vaccination comments. "It's horrifying. I mean, they are cheering about someone saying that it's a good thing for people not to try and save their lives," Fauci told host Jake Tapper on CNN's "State of the Union," referring to the audience's reaction to remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas. Fauci also said that it was “almost frightening” for people to say that they don’t want health officials to save their lives. "I mean, if you just...

In 416 BC, during the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta, Athens decided to attack the neutral island of Melos. When the Melians protested they had done Athens no wrong, the Athenians replied, “The strong do what they can; the weak suffer what they must.” The Melians were starved into surrender, their men were killed, and their women and children were sold into slavery. None of this was unusual in the ancient world. The strong, it was supposed, had every right to dominate the weak. Cruelty, rape, torture, and slaughter were ordinary means of enforcing power. Neither the gods nor...

For the first time ever, California posted a population decline in 2020, and the United States as a whole didn’t fare much better. Its growth has decelerated to 0.35% year-over-year, the slowest growth rate since the Great Depression.Population experts blame the slowing growth rate on three big trends: families across the country are aging and having fewer kids, legal immigration has declined, and economic hardships extending all the way back to the dot-com crash have shifted priorities away from marriage and families. While some contributing factors are down across the board, other social and economic factors have disproportionately impacted specific...

Hailed as a miracle in the 1950s, the potent bug killer DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) promised freedom from malaria, typhus and other insect-borne diseases. Manufacturers promoted it as a “benefactor of all humanity” in advertisements that declared, “DDT Is Good for Me!” Americans sprayed more than 1.35 billion tons of the insecticide—nearly 7.5 pounds per person—on crops, lawns and pets and in their homes before biologist Rachel Carson and others sounded the alarm about its impacts on humans and wildlife. The fledgling U.S. Environmental Protection Agency banned DDT in 1972. Friends and family often ask Barbara Cohn, an epidemiologist at Oakland's Public...

A new report by The Wall Street Journal blew apart the liberal media narrative that spiking inflation under President Joe Biden would only be a temporary issue. The Journal reported that “Americans should brace themselves for several years of higher inflation than they’ve seen in decades.” The assessment was based on the newspaper’s survey of economists this month. On average, respondents are now expecting “a widely followed measure of inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy components, to be up 3.2% in the fourth quarter of 2021 from a year before,” The Journal said. In addition, “They forecast the annual...