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MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - The Russian rouble slumped to new record lows against the dollar on Thursday though it closed the Moscow session little changed, after Fitch and Moody's downgraded Russia's sovereign debt to "junk" status, with steps by the central bank and finance ministry failing to halt its slide. Russia's financial markets have been thrown into turmoil by sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two. The stock market remains closed and trading volume on its sovereign debt has vanished. The rouble ended at 106.01 per dollar in...

Many people have to take statins to lower their cholesterol levels. But statins may be able to do more: Researchers report that these drugs inhibit a gene that promotes cancer metastasis. Cancer patients rarely die from the primary tumor but rather from the metastases. Professor Ulrike Stein and her lab were able to discover an important driver of this process in human colorectal cancer: the metastasis-associated in colon cancer 1 (MACC1) gene. When cancer cells express MACC1, their ability to proliferate, move around the body, and invade other tissues is enhanced. "Many types of cancers spread only in patients with...

None of the mercenaries the West is sending to Ukraine to fight for the nationalist regime will enjoy the right of combatants under international humanitarian law, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said. "I wish to make an official statement that none of the mercenaries the West is sending to Ukraine to fight for the nationalist regime in Kiev can be considered as combatants in accordance with international humanitarian law or enjoy the status of prisoners of war," Konashenkov stressed. He stated that all acts of sabotage by mercenaries in Ukraine were being carried out with the use of weapons...

Russia’s last few remaining independent-minded media outlets were taken off the air this week in a public feud over reporting on Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine after the country’s prosecutor general said the stations were misleading the Russian public and spreading lies. Both Ekho Moskvy, a long staple of independent journalism, and TV Rain, which gained prominence during mass antigovernment protests that shook Russia a decade ago, said access to their sites had been blocked by the country’s communications censor, known as Roskomnadzor. “Roskomnadzor has decided to take Ekho Moskvy off the air,” the station said on its Twitter feed. “We...

As President Vladimir V. Putin wages war against Ukraine, he is fighting a parallel battle on the home front, dismantling the last vestiges of a Russian free press. On Thursday, the pillars of Russia’s independent broadcast media collapsed under pressure from the state. Echo of Moscow, the freewheeling radio station founded by Soviet dissidents in 1990 and that symbolized Russia’s new freedoms, was “liquidated” by its board. TV Rain, the youthful independent television station that calls itself “the optimistic channel” said it would suspend operations indefinitely. And Dmitri A. Muratov, the journalist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize last year,...

TV Rain, a youth-focused Russian TV station often critical of the Kremlin, was shut down by state authorities on Thursday, but its staff got in one last full newscast that ended in a symbolic protest. At the end of the night’s report, the staff gathered around the news desk. The anchors were overhead saying “no war” as everyone walked off together. The broadcast image of the empty studio was replaced by the TV station’s logo and a message asking for donations before the telecast cut to old footage from a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake. The Swan Lake bit...

Former President George W. Bush offered some unique insight into the psyche of Russian President Vladimir Putin this week, relaying an exchange the world leaders once had years ago involving their pets. Bush, headlining a benefit fundraiser for the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center on Tuesday, recounted the story of how he once hosted Putin and introduced him to his Scottish Terrier, Barney. "I introduced Vladimir Putin to Barney, our Scottish terrier, and [he] dissed him," Bush told the audience during a Q&A, Politico reports. Bush continued: "A year later, Laura and I go visit Vladimir and his wife...

A ketogenic diet may be safe for people with multiple sclerosis (MS). The preliminary study also found people with MS may experience less fatigue and depression and report an improved quality of life while on the diet. Study participants consumed a ketogenic diet for six months. A total of 83% of participants adhered to the diet for the full study period. Participants completed tests and surveys prior to the start of the diet and again at three and six months while on the diet to measure level of disability and quality of life. Researchers found that not only did participants...

As Russia is trying to cut off the flow of information in Ukraine by attacking its communications infrastructure, the British news outlet BBC is revisiting a broadcasting tactic popularized during World War II: shortwave radio. The BBC said this week that it would use radio frequencies that can travel for long distances and be accessible on portable radios to broadcast its World Service news in English for four hours a day in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, and in parts of Russia. “It’s often said truth is the first casualty of war,” Tim Davie, director-general of the BBC, said in a...

Russia may fire missiles at its own villages in a move to justify furthering its invasion into Ukraine, the Ukrainian Ministry of Security and foreign minister claimed Wednesday. "Worrying reports: Russians might have pointed multiple rocket-launching systems in the Russian border village of Popovka towards their own territory," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Twitter. "Knowing the barbaric nature of Russian actions we fear a false flag operation might be prepared in order to accuse Ukraine." The Ministry of Security likewise issued a similar statement regarding Russian military units that had crossed the border into the Ukrainian village of Krasnopil...

MSNBC guest Sarah Kendzior, a regular contributor to the network, pushed a conspiracy theory that Donald Trump was “installed” as President as a means to benefit Vladimir Putin. Kendzior pushed the conspiracy theory during a weekend appearance on “The Cross Connection,” after being prompted to comment on Trump’s recent comments which the media have falsely pushed as genuinely ‘heaping praise’ upon Putin. Kendzior piggybacked off the claims and launched a new conspiracy theory of her own. “Trump was installed as the President of the United States in order to weaken the alliances that were preventing Putin from achieving his goals,”...

Q: You said that Eucharistic adoration is the first thing you would do to renew a parish. Why is the Eucharist so central?Because life is a Eucharist.Too bad it has such a technical- and “churchy”-sounding name. It is love; it is life; it is the whole meaning of our lives. It is not just one very good thing in life, or in the world; life and the world are in it. It’s not just that there is an analogy, a likeness; it’s not just that our life is like the Eucharist or that the Eucharist is like our life. Rather,...

“Attend to know understanding. For I give you good doctrine, forsake ye not my law” (Proverbs 4:1-2 KJV).

October 28, 2020In 2011, Thomas G. Mortenson, senior scholar at the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education in Washington, D.C. and independent higher education policy analyst, put together and published the 100+ item list “For Every 100 Girls….” on Education Week. In an email, Tom explained to me that “At the time I wrote it initially I was hearing and reading that boys were no different than girls, and the data I was looking at said something very different. Our differences are important, to both genders, and should be respected. Education has a long way to...

POLTAVA REGION snip When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, this small city in central Ukraine — the name of which is being withheld for security reasons — immediately mobilized to resist the Russian invaders. Territorial Defense and police forces fortified road arteries in and out of the city and implemented a strict curfew. snip Armed with assault rifles and sniper rifles, the local resistance unit is an ad hoc group of volunteers who immediately sprang to action when the war began. The outfit is not funded, armed, or commanded by the regular military or city...

Now that Russia has invaded Ukraine, there is full-scale war in Europe. Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, and possibly also Moldova are fully engaged, with other nearby countries on alert, involving themselves in a way that sometimes appears to push the envelope of neutrality. We all know what this means in terms of the human cost to people and geography. Shelling, bombing, firing on individuals, businesses, population centers, industrial centers, and other targets, both military and civilian. Thousands of people have already been killed, and many thousands more, most likely, will die in the weeks and months ahead. That is of course...

Kay Smythe from The Daily Caller reports, Republican congressional candidate Shukri Abdirahman went after her opponent, “Squad” member and Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar, in her latest campaign ad.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—President Joe Biden is in hot water following his annual State of the Union address because of his mysterious sign-off in which he exclaimed, "Go get him!" Now progressives are in an uproar after he appeared to assume the gender of the person we're all supposed to "go get." "I'm sorry, but him? HIM??" said Director Christopher Wray of the FBI. "Whoever this person is that we're supposed to get could be any number of genders! The President should know better. Also, who are we getting and what are we supposed to do when we get him? D'oh!" Director...

Breaking911 @Breaking911BREAKING: Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., calls for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be assassinated

A 40,000-year-old archaeological site in northern China has unearthed the earliest evidence of ochre processing in east Asia, researchers say. The site was discovered at Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin, in the northern Chinese province of Hebei. Ochre pieces and tools found in the area suggest that the clay earth pigment was processed there, via grinding and pounding, to produce powders of different colours and grain sizes. Near lumps of ochre, archaeologists unearthed a hammer stone as well as a flat limestone slab that showed signs of battering. In a study published in the journal Nature, the team has dated...