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As you deck the halls and traverse afar this holiday season, taking precautions to protect yourself from a quartet of infectious diseases can lessen your odds of bringing an illness into the new year. Flu, COVID, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and norovirus are making their winter rounds nationwide, and you may have heard the term “quad-demic” pop up online or in conversation (the first three are sometimes called a “triple-demic”). While the unofficial term for the four maladies circulating in tandem evokes a sense of impending doom, the quadruple threat isn’t so different from respiratory virus seasons past. “All of...

When Jimmy Carter was president from 1977 to 1981, gays and lesbians were unable to obtain government security clearance, same-sex intimacy was illegal in at least two dozen states, and gay marriage was no more than a radical pipe dream. Moreover, political support for LGBTQ causes was still largely taboo for politicians on both sides of the aisle. But Carter, a Southern Democrat and devout Baptist, stood out for his early support for pro-gay legislation and his embrace of LGBTQ advocates. ... In 1976, when Carter, a former Georgia governor, was running for president, he voiced his support for legislation...

Election Wizard @ElectionWiz BREAKING: Parts of I-85 closed due to b*mb threat involving 18-wheeler in Greenville County, South Carolina

Less than a week into 2025, the need for rapid Senate confirmation of President-elect Donald Trump’s national security team could not be more apparent.On New Year’s Day, Americans across the country were subjected to multiple suspected terrorist attacks, capping off a devastating end to Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency.In New Orleans, ISIS-inspired Army veteran Shamsud-Din Jabbar drove a rented vehicle into a crowd, killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more in the process. Meanwhile, authorities are investigating a potential act of terrorism in Las Vegas, where active-duty Army soldier Matthew Livelsberger blew himself up while inside a rented Tesla...

President-elect Donald Trump will hold a rally in Washington, D.C., on Sunday, January 19 — one day before he is sworn into office for his second term.Trump’s inauguration committee announced on Wednesday that the “Make America Great Again Victory Rally” will be held at Capital One Arena, which can seat around 20,000 people, beginning at 3:00 p.m. ET, CBS News reported. The incoming president is slated to speak at the event along with a list of other speakers who have not been revealed, according to The Hill. Trump hasn’t held a rally in D.C. since January 6, 2021, when he...

Thursday 2 January 2025 Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops, Doctors on 2 January St. Basil the Great Byzantine Catholic Church, MiamiReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: C(I).Readings for the feriaReadings for the memorialThese are the readings for the feriaFirst reading1 John 2:22-28The anointing he gave you teaches you everythingThe man who denies that Jesus is the Christ –he is the liar,he is Antichrist;and he is denying the Father as well as the Son,because no one who has the Father can deny the Son,and to acknowledge the Son is to have the Father as well.Keep alive in...

In a major victory for cable companies and telcos that raises concerns about the Federal Communications Commission's regulatory authority in the wake of recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings, the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the agency’s net neutrality rules. The rules require broadband operators to treat all internet traffic equally and banned them from giving preferential treatment to some sites by speeding up or slowing down consumer access. The FCC had implemented net neutrality rules under former President Barack Obama, which were then dropped during the Trump administration. Last April the FCC voted 3-2, along party...

Twenty councillors at a local authority in Nottinghamshire have quit Labour, saying the party has “abandoned traditional Labour values” under Keir Starmer’s leadership. The move means Labour has lost overall control of Broxtowe borough council, which it gained in 2023, and those defecting include the council leader, Milan Radulovic, who had been a party member for 42 years. In a statement, the councillors – who will now sit as part of a new Broxtowe Independents party – said: “It is with a heavy heart that we can no longer be in a party that has abandoned traditional Labour values under...

Haven't heard anything at all about drones since the Las Vegas and New Orleans fiascos.....

Elon Musk has reignited his feud with the Prime Minister in a social media rant where he called for a new UK election and the release of far-right activist Tommy Robinson from prison. The world’s richest man, who is a close ally of incoming US President Donald Trump, posted a series of tweets on Thursday stating “free Tommy Robinson” and in another said “a new election should be called in Britain”. He added that “only” Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party could “save” Britain.

Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) detractors are falling in line after President-elect Donald Trump put his thumb on the scale. Johnson ended the 118th Congress by bungling through a government funding battle – angering conservatives, moderates, and even Trump himself – and his chances at retaining the gavel into the next Congress appeared dire. Trump, with a single Truth Social post, appears to have saved Johnson. The once and future president left Johnson twisting in the wind for over a week after Johnson failed to deliver Trump’s ask of raising the debt ceiling through a government funding bill. With no word...

Civil war has broken out within the MAGA Republicans. On the one side are the traditional MAGAs, who tend to be White, anti-immigrant, and less educated than the rest of the United States. They believe that the modern government’s protection of equal rights for women and minorities has ruined America, and they tend to want to isolate the U.S. from the rest of the world. They make up Trump’s voting base

Biden and Thomas on the Natural LawRecently, I watched an excellent documentary called Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words. That movie includes the 1991 Supreme Court Confirmation Hearings where Clarence Thomas had to defend himself against the false-accusations of Anita Hill in regards to verbal sexual harassment. Most people in the 1990s were fascinated by the racy language surrounding things like “Long Dong Silver” and other odd statements from Hill. But what I found most interesting in the movie was that the then-Senator Joe Biden tried to hang Clarence Thomas on these false-accusations mainly because the Democrats were...

NEW ORLEANS — Since a suspected terrorist attack killed at least 14 New Year revelers on Bourbon Street and injured dozens more, officials in this city rebuilt on tourism sought to assure the world that it was safe to attend the Sugar Bowl. The annual college football showdown — postponed from the previous evening — was expected to draw some 74,000 fans on Thursday afternoon to the Caesars Superdome, and indeed, the stadium looked packed. There was no sign that, 36 hours earlier, leaders had clashed over the right time to resume athletic festivities. “Your governor is going to be...

A new report released by the Committee on House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight into the January 6 pipe bomber shows the FBI stopped looking for the suspect in 2021 and covered up evidence. The FBI is now refusing to cooperate with Congressional investigators. In September, former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino said according to a whistleblower, after the pipe bombs were found at the RNC and DNC headquarters, “assets on the ground, including a whistleblower, was briefed about the pipe bombs the next day and show a picture of a guy in a hoodie.” However, according to the whistleblower, the...

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In 1995, the BBC's Tomorrow's World programme decided to predict what the world would look like 30 years later, in 2025. The show, which is no longer broadcast, featured one of the most famous scientists of the age, Prof Stephen Hawking, who predicted: "By 2025 we can expect big changes." The programme team agreed, suggesting a raft of world-shaking innovations from hologram surgery to space junk gel. So, with the help of some experts - and the benefit of three decades of hindsight - let's take a look at how much of today's world that Tomorrow's World successfully anticipated. The...

Authorities said Thursday they have found "no definitive link" between the New Orleans attack on New Year's Day and the explosion in a Tesla Cybertruck outside a Trump hotel in Las Vegas. “At this point, there is no definitive link between the attack here in New Orleans and the one in Las Vegas,” Chris Raia, the deputy assistant director of the FBI’s counterterrorism division, said at a news conference in New Orleans.

Envisioning interactive headsets way back in 1925 is pretty impressive. Image credit: Owlie Productions/Shutterstock.com It’s now a quarter of a century since Y2K, which means we’re well into the futuristic age imagined by the science-fiction writers of the 19th and 20th centuries. And while we’re yet to populate the cosmos or invent robot butlers, the predictions made about the year 2025 by one scientist were remarkably accurate. Professor Archibald Montgomery Low – who used the title despite not being a real professor – was among the most prominent inventors of his time. Born in London in 1888, Low created the...