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A new smart sensor has been unveiled which can turn any face mask into a Fitbit-style health monitoring device. The FaceBit, or 'Fitbit for the face', is a quarter-sized sensor which attaches to a face mask using a small magnet and tracks a user's respiration rate, heart rate, how long they have been wearing the mask, and if the mask has begun to leak. Designed with the medical community in mind, it can be used by anyone to monitor their health, especially as many states and cities across the US continue their mask mandates. The lightweight device can even be...

In a Wednesday memo to Democrats, Schumer promised to employ a process called “messages between the houses” to get both bills onto the Senate floor. If you’re asking yourself, “What are ‘messages between the houses?’” you aren’t alone. Rules wonk that I am, I’d never heard of this process. But here’s the short version: Before a bill can become a law, the House and Senate both have to agree on the wording of that bill. Most of us are familiar with the two chambers putting together a conference committee to hammer out the differences in language — though these have...

The common cold can provide some protection from COVID-19, according to new research led by Imperial College London, which says the findings provide a blueprint for future vaccines that could offer immunity to all variants of the coronavirus. Since the start of the pandemic, scientists have questioned why some people are able to resist coronavirus infection despite prolonged exposure, while others are easily infected. The researchers set out to test a theory that a type of white blood cells called T cells, produced by the human body to fight the cold, could offer some protection. "Previous infection with common cold...

“Every time I do something I’m like, ‘This is it, I am going to get COVID,’” said Rachel McMullin, a 36-year-old swing dance instructor and performer who lives in Crown Heights. She’s had a lot of close calls. Two weeks before Christmas, when the highly contagious Omicron variant took out entire holiday parties in New York City, she went to a jazz jam in the East Village, performed at a gathering with a few hundred circulating guests, and attended a drag show in an unventilated basement, all unmasked. Recently she shared a joint with a friend who tested positive for...

Eleven people including Stewart Rhodes, the leader and founder of the right-wing militia group the Oath Keepers, have been indicted on charges of seditious conspiracy, marking an escalation of the Justice Department’s investigation into the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 last year. An indictment unsealed Thursday accused Mr. Rhodes, 56 years old, of organizing an armed plot to storm the Capitol and stop the certification of President Biden’s election victory. The case marks the first time the Justice Department has filed charges of sedition in connection with the attack and comes days after Attorney General Merrick Garland...

Legendary trader and Just Capital co-founder Paul Tudor Jones and Accenture CEO Julie Sweet join CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ to break down this year’s “Just 100” list, which ranks companies based on ESG issues.

LONDON — Britain’s domestic security agency, MI5, sent an unusual alert on Thursday to lawmakers warning that an agent of the Chinese government was actively working to subvert the political processes of Parliament. The existence of the alert, revealed by lawmakers in Britain’s House of Commons, led some outspoken critics of the Chinese government to demand a response from Britain’s Conservative government on its plans to combat political interference. This is the sort of interference “we now anticipate and expect from China,” said Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative lawmaker. “But the fact that it has happened to this Parliament — there...

From the beginning I have been a proponent of vaccination for COVID 19. I've gotten both Moderna injections and one booster. That's it for me, though. I'm done. I'm tired of the scare tactics. I'm tired of lockdowns. I'm tired of masks. But those aren't the reasons I'm ceasing vaccinations. It's the data that's bugging me. The definition of fully vaccinated is more fluid than genders. It used to be one or two injections, then a booster became required. Now a second booster is being considered. The vaccination was initially thought to last at least a year. Then a booster...

“ On September 9, 2021, the President issued Executive 14043, Executive Order on Requiring Coronavirus Disease 2019 Coronavirus Disease 2019 Vaccination for Federal Employees, requiring the COVID-19 vaccination for all Federal employees, subject to such exceptions as required by law. On October 4, 2021, the Safer Federal Workforce Task Force (“Task Force”) issued guidance to Federal agencies regarding collecting information for medical and religious accommodations. In order to meet the requirements of Executive Order 14043 and the Task Force recommendations, PSA is creating this system of records notice to permit the collection of information related to religious accommodations to the...

The Fresh Air Clip can be used to screen indoor environments and establish whether they are high-risk areas for exposure to SARS-CoV-2Adapted from Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2022, DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.1c00877 VIEW 1 IMAGES Engineers from Yale University have developed a wearable device that can help individuals assess whether they have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. The cheap device can clip onto a person’s clothes and capture aerosolized viral particles in the surrounding environment. From rapid tests to vaccines, many extraordinary innovations have helped us navigate this global pandemic. While we have a number of ways...

Sen. Tom Cotton on Wednesday delivered a brilliant speech defending the filibuster as Democrats plot to change Senate rules to pass voting legislation. What made his remarks so powerful? He used the top Senate Democrat’s own words. “Right now, we are on the precipice of a constitutional crisis. We are about to step into the abyss. I want to talk for a few minutes why we are on that precipice and why we are looking into that abyss,” Cotton said Wednesday, quoting Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. In fact, the rest of the Arkansas Republican’s speech was a reading of...

The Justice Department will begin transferring thousands of inmates out of federal prisons this week as part of a sweeping criminal justice overhaul signed by President Donald Trump more than three years ago. The department, in a rule being published Thursday in the Federal Register, is spelling out how “time credits” for prisoners will work. The bipartisan law is intended to encourage inmates to participate in programs aimed at reducing recidivism, which could let them out of prison earlier. It also eases mandatory minimum sentences and gives judges more discretion in sentencing. While the transfers are expected to begin this...

What will you all do to enjoy this moment of schadenfreude for the despicable communists?

FIRST WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MARK 1:40-45 Friends, our Gospel for today has to do with Jesus’ healing a leper. There aren’t that many lepers around today, but there are plenty of people that we treat as outsiders or pariahs. Like Jesus, we should be welcoming to them. Now, I have nothing particularly against that way of reading the situation, but I suspect that we’ve all heard it a thousand times. Let me propose a symbolic reading a little different from the customary one. I propose that the leper here stands not so much for the socially ostracized but for...

The Age of Intolerance: Cancel culture’s war on free speech“Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners.”—George CarlinCancel culture—political correctness amped up on steroids, the self-righteousness of a narcissistic age, and a mass-marketed pseudo-morality that is little more than fascism disguised as tolerance—has shifted us into an Age of Intolerance, policed by techno-censors, social media bullies, and government watchdogs.Everything is now fair game for censorship if it can be construed as hateful, hurtful, bigoted or offensive provided that it runs counter to the established viewpoint.In this way, the most controversial issues of our day—race, religion, sex, sexuality, politics, science, health,...

Fool's Ball: Wildcard Weekend!!!! Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandate on large private businesses through the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) on Thursday, but upheld a Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) mandate. The decision on the OSHA mandate was 6-3; the decision on the CMS mandate was 5-4, with Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joining the court’s three Democratic appointees in upholding it. As Breitbart News reported last week, the Court had appeared skeptical of the mandates during oral arguments, especially the OSHA mandate, as Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar struggled to identify the statutory...

Kyrsten Sinema publicly and bluntly reaffirmed she would not support any change to the filibuster rules on Thursday, effectively killing her party’s hope of passing the most sweeping voting rights protections in a generation. Sinema took to the Senate floor around noon on Thursday and said she would not support any changes to the filibuster, the Senate rule that requires 60 votes to advance legislation. “While I continue to support these [voting rights] bills, I will not support separate actions that worsen the underlying disease of division infecting our country,” said Sinema, a first-term Democrat from Arizona. “We must address...

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter announced Wednesday a temporary policy for establishments serving indoor food or beverages. View the full order from Minneapolis here and from St. Paul here. The policy, which applies for licensed businesses at which food or drink is served indoors, will require customers to either show proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative PCR or antigen test taken within 72 hours of the visit. City officials said the policy will take effect on Jan. 19. There is not an explicitly listed expiration date for the policy, but Frey said the policy...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis confirmed that the Food and Drug Administration agreed to extend the expiration date for almost 1 million rapid COVID-19 test kits. The tests initially expired last September, but the expiration was extended to December before they expired again. The new extension will last for three months. "At the end of the summer they expired. The FDA agreed to extend it for three months, but during those three months there was almost zero demand for testing because we had such low COVID prevalence," he said during a press conference Wednesday. "The Division of Emergency Management had been...