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Surprising photos of soldiers in Almaty wearing UN peacekeeping helmets spark a response from the United Nations. Images released by the Associated Press on January 8 show several soldiers in Kazakhstan's largest city, Almaty, wearing helmets with "UN" stenciled on them in the unmistakable colors of United Nations peacekeeping forces. The photos, made by photographer Vladimir Tretyakov and shared by independent journalist Jake Hanrahan, have added to questions over what exactly is happening in the restive Central Asian country.

The parents of a five-time Jeopardy! champion are suing for medical malpractice after their 24-year-old son died in February following colorectal surgery. Brayden Smith was considered the 'last great champion' of legendary host Alex Trebek, who died on November 8, 2020, age 80. Smith taped his final appearances in October 2020, and died of blood clots to his lungs in February 2021, three weeks after surgery to treat his ulcerative colitis. The Nevada-born contestant's death shocked fans of the show, and on Monday The Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that his family were suing two hospitals in their home town of...

ALEXANDRIA, Virginia – The actions of one elementary school in Virginia has many parents asking questions and wanting to ensure that their children are safe and warm after a video surfaced that shows children having class in the freezing temperatures. The Fairfax County Parents Association took to Twitter to post a video that shows young children sitting outside of Waynewood Elementary, surrounded by snow, in below-freezing temperatures while a teacher is reading to them and pointing to a book she is holding up. “It’s well below freezing in Fairfax County, yet young children are having storytime on the cold concrete...

An Alabama man faces federal charges over claims he paid a stranger he met on the Kik messenger app $75 to abduct a former female friend and subject her to 'the most brutal rape imaginable.' Matthias Jacob Edward Mann, 22, was arrested last week in the north Alabama town of Hartselle on charges of attempted kidnapping and attempted coercion. He was busted after a person who he believed was willing to assault the woman turned out to be a police officer working undercover online, according to a sworn statement from an FBI agent. 'Can anyone abduct and rape a b****...

Brad Raffensperger sparked a major conversation when he suggested a Constitutional Amendment to ensure that only United States citizens are voting in election, a chat that referenced New York recently allowing over 800,000 noncitizens access to vote in local minor elections. Raffensperger, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State, is up for re-election and targeted Democrats who continuously make claims about voter suppression, rejected that notion and defending his state of Georgia by saying, during an interview on "Face the Nation," the following: "I think that we have shown that Georgia has fair and honest elections..."

With COVID-19 cases rising and limited hospital capacity, Douglas County Health Director Lindsay Huse said Tuesday that she will issue an indoor mask mandate for the city of Omaha effective at midnight. "We're not doing everything that we can to contain this astronomical spike in cases," she told the Douglas County Board. The move is opposed by Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, who said

The White House said Tuesday it will provide $308 million in new humanitarian aid for Afghanistan, as the country teeters toward a full-scale humanitarian crisis and economic collapse under the Taliban.

"Our study suggests that it wasn't the use of penicillin that drove the initial emergence of MRSA, it was a natural biological process. We think MRSA evolved in a battle for survival on the skin of hedgehogs, and subsequently spread to livestock and humans through direct contact."

With the U.S. Supreme Court hearing arguments about the legality of federal vaccine mandates, a certain Covid Karen at the Washington Post is really irked about something vaguely related: Masks. The deputy editorial page editor and longtime columnist for said periodical, Ruth Marcus, went postal because Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch was not wearing a mask while hearing oral arguments on this matter. Marcus let the world know how upset she was with Gorsuch's maskless heresy on Monday by screeching to the world with this fiery op-ed, "Where was Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mask?"

Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday created an advisory group to help guide the state's response to COVID-19 amid a record surge in cases and hospitalizations fueled by the omicron variant. Youngkin will be sworn into office on Saturday and quickly assume responsibility for the state's public health care system, which is under strain due to the ongoing pandemic. Youngkin's new "Medical Advisory Group" will include several hospital leaders, physicians and public health experts. It will be led by Dr. Marty Makary, a surgical oncologist and professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Makary is critical of...

Police say a driver turned the tables on an armed carjacking suspect in North Philadelphia Monday night when he shot the suspect multiple times with a firearm he was licensed to carry.

Sarah Palin wants jurors to be barred from seeing footage of her appearance on “The Masked Singer” in her defamation case against the New York Times that may go to trial in the coming weeks.

Two LAPD cops who ignored calls to attend a robbery at a nearby Macy's to play Pokemon have failed in their bid to have their firing reversed. California's court of appeals ruled Tuesday that Louis Lozano and Eric Mitchell were rightfully terminated in 2017 after refusing to go to the scene of a robbery at the Crenshaw mall, with Lozano responding: 'Aw, screw it.' Instead, the cops decided to hunt down a 'Snorlax' character that had appeared nearby on Pokemon Go, which lets players 'capture' virtual reality characters who pop up on a phone map of nearby locations. Players must...

A combination of heat and high pressure allow this semi-autonomous boring robot to tunnel through undrillable rock - credit: Petra San Francisco startup Petra says its new contactless thermal drilling robot can make steady progress through the hardest rock on Earth – stuff that would normally destroy drilling equipment – so quickly and cheaply that it could make a lot of underground infrastructure projects economically feasible. The semi-autonomous "Swifty" robotic system can create 18-60 inch (46-152 cm) diameter tunnels through any geology, blasting the rock with an extremely hot, high-pressure spallation head such that it glows, chars and flings away....

* Fauci and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky are testifying in front of the Senate Health Committee on the government's COVID-19 response * Roger Marshall asked Fauci several times to hand over his financial disclosures, which are publicly available documents * Paul accused Fauci of trying to silence scientists over emails published by Republican lawmakers appearing to show Fauci dismissing a COVID origin study * Fauci suggested the Kentucky Republican's rampant criticism is responsible for threats against his family, and linked it to a man recently arrested with a hit list * The hit list contained prominent Washington, DC figures like...

A curry a week helps keep the brain at its peak. It’s been known for a while now that the blend of spices found in curry can lead to a wide range of health benefits from improved digestion to lower blood pressure. But the question remained whether this was all true for Japanese curry as well. Although more or less the same food, the differences between Indian and Japanese curry can be quite stark, casting doubt on the latter’s nutritional benefits. A fair comparison might be the difference between Italian and American pizzas, wherein they’re the same basic idea but...

Sonoma County is the first Bay Area county to restrict gatherings in response to the spread of the omicron variant in the region. On Monday, the county banned indoor gatherings of more than 50 people and outdoor gatherings of more than 100 people while asking residents to "stay home as much as possible for the next 30 days and limit interactions with those outside of their immediate household." “Our case rates are at their highest level since the pandemic began and our hospitalizations are climbing at an alarming rate as well,” health officer Dr. Sundari Mase said in a statement....

Tri-Cities, WA — Governor Inslee recently announced his support for legislation that would outlaw attempts by elected officials to spread lies about free and fair elections when it has likelihood to stoke violence. State Representative Brad Klippert attended MyPillow Chief Executive Mike Lindell's cyber security symposium in August. Action news spoke with Klippert about why participating was so important to him. "I don't get it with this guy [Inslee], has he not read the Constitution, has he not read that we in the United States of America and we in Washington state have freedom of speech," said Klippert. "So if...

As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised to "direct federal resources to help prevent violence against transgender women, particularly transgender women of color." In office, Biden has not only offered substantial outreach to the transgender community but has also leveraged several federal departments in service of this promise. The Biden administration convened the first Interagency Working Group on Safety, Opportunity, and Inclusion for Transgender and Gender Diverse Individuals, which spent several months seeking input on such issues as homelessness and housing, youth and foster care, immigration, transportation security, criminal justice, education, employment, and labor. On Nov. 20, 2021 — Transgender...

Researchers describe a troubling increase in early-onset colorectal cancer and precancerous polyps, based on a large, nationally representative study of patients under age 50 who underwent colonoscopy. It was the first large-scale study to look at precancerous polyps in this age group. "We have known for many years that rates of colorectal cancer are rising in individuals younger than 50, prompting several medical organizations to recommend lowering the screening age from 50 to 45. What has been missing until now is confirmatory data of the prevalence of precancerous polyps in younger individuals. Because precancerous lesions are not reportable to regional...