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John Legend, Keith Urban, and Angélique Kidjo led a version of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s utopian anthem “Imagine” at the Tokyo Olympics, which featured Legend, whose net worth is an estimated $75 million, belting out the line “imagine no possessions.” The Opening Ceremony kicked off on Friday with several artists participating in a rendition of “Imagine” — which asks listeners to, ironically, imagine there are “no countries.” The Suginami Junior Chorus and Spanish musician Alejandro Sanz were also featured in the number. Legend, an overtly leftist Hollywood activist, belted out the lyrics, “Imagine no possessions/I wonder if you can/No...

In a poignant episode of instant payback, or what the Biblically minded call possible divine retribution. The story began when Ben and Jerry’s, a Vermont-based multinational ice cream company, announced that it would no longer be selling its products in the “Occupied Palestinian Territory”. “Although Ben & Jerry’s will no longer be sold in the OPT, we will stay in Israel through a different arrangement,” the company announced on its website on Monday. In fact, the Ben & Jerry Board wanted to boycott Israel entirely but was stopped from doing so by Unilever. Avi Zinger, CEO of Ben & Jerry’s...

It’s just the flu, bro. I have been lurking for many months since pausing the daily Flubro thread. I have seen the chaos around the world but I haven’t been inspired to post as I live in Texas, which is the greatest place on the planet. In Texas there are no Coronavirus rules or mandates so I am able to live in freedom here. But I think I finally have something worth saying. I think I finally see more clearly what is happening around the planet and in many states in the USA. It isn’t exactly socialism. Socialism is essentially...

Sitting on the sidelines of the G20 climate summit in Naples this week, it was hard not to feel a sense of existential dread. Last year, I wrote on the cover of TIME that a series of developments - beginning with the trillions spent to help the world recover from COVID-19 and ending with the UN climate conference in Glasgow this fall - had made 2020 and this year our “last, best chance” to avoid the worst effects of climate change. Going into this week’s talks, just over 100 days before the Glasgow summit, the world seemed to be on...

Rep. Madison Cawthorn says he stands by his criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci after the doctor appeared on Fox News and rebuked Cawthorn’s suggestion that legal action should be taken against Fauci. "Dr. Fauci broke his oath," Cawthorn told Fox News. "Not only his oath in Congress, but his Hippocratic oath as a doctor, to do no harm. I stand by my statements, and justice will be served." Earlier in the week, Cawthorn had referred to Fauci as a "punk" and a "pawn" of the communist Chinese government while also accusing him of lying to Congress.

I know my title sounds a bit theological. Why even bring up the topic of amillennialism? I do so because a great many pastors today subscribe to some form of this errant teaching that denies the prophesied restoration of a kingdom for Israel as well as the biblical promise of Jesus’ millennial reign before the eternal state. Amillennialism dominated the church during the Dark Ages and persisted long after the Reformation. The reason for this rests with three factors that fueled this teaching for well over a thousand years and remain in place today, at least to some degree. It’s...

The severe rainfall in Henan caused a major flood, resulting in heavy casualties in Zhengzhou and other places, which was officially declared as a disaster "once in a thousand years". However, was the flood really a purely natural disaster, or was it another man-made disaster? What tactics are being used by Chinese Communist Party officials to maintain stability and to shirk responsibility? On July 20, many places in northern Henan Province were devastated by a huge rainstorm. The Zhengzhou city was completely flooded and paralyzed. Videos on social networking sites showed many residents swept away by the water and a...

Eddy Alvarez, a first-generation Cuban American and Team USA baseball player, teared up talking about the honor of being selected as flag-bearer. The 31-year-old shortstop for the Miami Marlins organization was captured in a video posted to the Team USA Twitter account, showing him tearing up as he talked about the “honor” of carrying the flag, mentioning how his “story represents the American Dream.” According to the New York Post, he was also the first baseball player to have the honor of holding the flag when leading the team into the opening ceremony in Tokyo.

Most Americans who haven’t been vaccinated against COVID-19 say they are unlikely to get the shots and doubt they would work against the aggressive delta variant despite evidence they do, according to a new poll that underscores the challenges facing public health officials amid soaring infections in some states.Among American adults who have not yet received a vaccine, 35% say they probably will not, and 45% say they definitely will not, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Just 3% say they definitely will get the shots, though another 16% say they probably will.What's...

LOS ANGELES - As the country continues its push to get more Americans vaccinated, FOX 11 caught up with an elderly couple who caught the virus despite taking their COVID-19 shots. FOX 11's Phil Shuman spoke with 72-year-old Miriam Selivry, who – along with her husband, Nathan, 74, and two other relatives – all tested positive for the virus despite always wearing their masks. The couple isn't sure how they caught the breakthrough case of the virus. "I don't know how, don't know where," Nathan said. "But I got it. I called the doctors… he sent us to get the...

The states of Goa and Maharashtra have been badly affected, with many feared missing near the financial hub Mumbai. At least 136 people have died in Maharashtra, while in neighbouring Goa hundreds of homes have been damaged. Many factors contribute to flooding, but experts say climate change caused by global warming makes extreme rainfall more likely. Heavy rains and flooding have also hit western Europe and parts of China in recent weeks, while North America has grappled with scorching heatwaves. The monsoon season in India lasts from June to September each year. Rescuers have struggled to reach affected residents. Landslides...

A Prince William County, Virginia, woman shot and killed an allegedly armed, masked man who approached her front door on Thursday. The Associated Press reports the woman was leaving her home when she noticed the masked man approaching. The woman had a gun and shot the man, fatally wounding him. Officers responded to the scene and reportedly found the man lying with a handgun nearby. WTOP notes that officers performed CPR on the man, who was then transported to a hospital where he died. The deceased man was identified as “20-year-old Azhar Laurent Smart.” The Prince William Police Department said...

The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee split along party lines during a Thursday morning vote on President Joe Biden’s nominee to lead the Bureau of Land Management. Democrats on the committee unanimously backed the nominee, Tracy Stone-Manning, in the face of fierce Republican opposition over her involvement in a 1989 ecoterrorism incident and her alleged dishonesty to the committee about the incident. “Tracy Stone-Manning collaborated with ecoterrorists. She lied to this committee, and she continues to harbor extremist views most Americans find reprehensible,” Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., ranking member of the committee, said before the vote. “She is thoroughly...

“The body was located in a bathroom window” at a hotel, which was not the resort where Snow was staying, according to the tweet translated from Spanish. Benito Juárez is about a 30-minute drive, or 10 miles away, from the beachfront hotels in Cancun. Snow’s cause of death has not been released, and results of an autopsy are pending. Family members believe he was murdered after possibly being kidnapped and trying to escape, according to media reports. Elijah Snow’s wife, Jamie Snow, told family members her husband had been found dead Monday morning while they were staying at a Cancun...

WORLD—After a century of hard-fought battles for equal rights, the feminist movement has finally achieved its ultimate goal of obliterating women's sports, relabeling mothers "birthing persons," and getting women drafted into the military. "We are so proud of what we have achieved," said Mandy Chandrilla, a biological man who now identifies as a female feminist. "Women were so oppressed, and we realized there was really no way around it, so we just rendered the term 'woman' meaningless and effectively eliminated women as a meaningful category of human altogether. Hooray for feminism!" Chandrilla then shotgunned a beer and crushed the can...

NEW YORK, NY—Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the world’s smartest socialist, is always talking about the evils of capitalism. Now tragedy has struck her with what she sees as a clear failure of that economic system: She has accidentally super-glued her face to her coffee table. “See what capitalism has done to me?!” Ocasio-Cortez told the press who had to meet her in her living room, since she couldn’t leave because a coffee table was glued to her head. “I had broken apart a vase I bought, to see if there was a prize inside — there wasn’t — and then I...

WASHINGTON D.C.—According to reports, President Joe Biden has purchased the entire collection of Hunter Biden's artwork for $12.6 million. In a discussion with an anonymous source, he said he hopes this gives him the leverage he needs for an audience with the President. "I really wanna meet the President—I hear he's a real swell guy," said President Biden as he packed a mural made of multicolored pasta in his trunk. "And I was able to get this whole collection for only four-hundred bitcoin! What a deal! Four hundred ain't a lot!" Biden said he hopes the President will listen to...

Audience: Individuals Performing COVID-19 Testing Level: Laboratory Alert After December 31, 2021, CDC will withdraw the request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel, the assay first introduced in February 2020 for detection of SARS-CoV-2 only. CDC is providing this advance notice for clinical laboratories to have adequate time to select and implement one of the many FDA-authorized alternatives. Visit the FDA website for a list of authorized COVID-19 diagnostic methods. For a summary of the performance of FDA-authorized molecular methods with an FDA...

Lockdown could be a “permanent” part of life until the majority of the population is vaccinated, according to an Australian economist. While Sydneysiders are on tenterhooks to see if their lockdown efforts will be represented in a Covid-19 case decline, economist Gareth Aird said they may need to come to grips with restrictions lasting a lot longer than expected. Mr Aird, who is CommBank’s head of Australian economics, told The Australian the coming week would be critical in determining whether a lockdown end date could soon be set.

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