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There is a new COVID-19 variant in our midst, and it seems to be spreading across the globe at a rapid rate. But is it time once again to "mask up?" And did masks actually work the first time round? The new strain of COVID-19 is called EG.5, or "Eris." The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a variant of interest, meaning it is being closely monitored. Eris—which is a subvariant of the variant Omicron—is now the most common in the U.S, making up 17 percent of all cases. As of August 8, it has also been detected in...

https://youtu.be/chJlJgrvfBY

Italy and Sweden have become the latest countries to record cases of monkeypox amid the first ever global outbreak.

Commentators have assumed that the Ukraine stands little chance of fending off an overwhelming onslaught from Russia because of Russia’s vastly superior troop and weapons strength. But history proves an inferior force dedicated to unconventional warfare can so damage a superior one as to compel its withdrawal or cause its defeat. The American Revolution proved that point in the Eighteenth Century. Consider Russia’s horrendous losses in Afghanistan before it was forced to withdraw. We ourselves experienced a comparable disaster in Vietnam and many would argue in Afghanistan. Based on those and other examples, the Ukrainians’ fate is indeed very much...

A new super-variant could be created if Omicron and Delta infect someone at the same time, one of Moderna's bosses has warned. Covid infections normally only involve one mutant strain, but in extremely rare cases two can strike at the same time. If these also infect the same cell, they may be able to swap DNA and combine to make a new version of the virus.

ATLANTA – Federal health officials now say that 4,000 or more Americans likely have died from swine flu — about four times the estimate they've been using.

As the new school year gets fully under way and presidential hopefuls work the young voter circuit via social networking websites, one online group — Facebook’s “Stop Hillary Clinton (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)” — is seriously outpacing its pro-candidate rivals in attracting new members. With more than 418,000 members, Stop Hillary Clinton has now surpassed “Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)” as the largest group for or against a presidential candidate on Facebook. (The pro-Obama group has 355,000 members.) The anti-Clinton group is growing at 10 percent per month, said Micah Sifry, co-director of Tech President, a blog...

Immigration deal is near, says Specter By Elana Schor May 09, 2007 The Senate’s bipartisan immigration talks yesterday yielded the first stirrings of a “grand bargain,” but the fate of the compromise remained uncertain amid political pressure from interest groups and a potential filibuster. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), the Judiciary Committee’s ranking Republican and leader of recent negotiations on immigration reform, took the floor to announce the progress and ask Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) for more time before the next week’s floor deadline. “We have come to an agreement on what we have called a ‘grand bargain,’...

Cook Rosa Maria Salazar's eyes dart anxiously to the door as customers file into the Salvadoran cafe in a heavily Hispanic neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles. "We're terrified. The police could come for us at any time and deport us," she said in Spanish earlier this week as diners fingered maize tortillas stuffed with beans and pork scratchings and chatted softly. break "We hadn't seen anything like this here before, and it came as a shock," said Antonio Bernabe, a community worker who runs a day labor program at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. "The police...

The area's home prices have a 60-percent chance of dropping, one of many factors making San Diego the riskiest real estate market in the nation, according to a quarterly report put out by a California mortgage insurer.The report, put out by the Bay Area insurance company PMI Group, is well-respected by experts, who said it usually gives an accurate picture of the state of the nation's 50 largest home-buying markets. However, they stressed that the report is merely the latest in a long line of analyses that point to something the industry already knows: The nation's housing market is cooling,...

If Hillary Clinton runs for President in 2008, just 25% of Americans say they would definitely vote for her. That's down five points over the past two weeks. It's also the lowest level of support measured for the former First Lady in 2005. (Review Trends). Forty percent (40%) would definitely vote against Senator Clinton. That's little changed from two weeks ago. Rasmussen Reports has conducted a Hillary Meter poll every other week since April. Only once has the number who say they would definitely vote against Clinton been higher than it is now.

BERLIN -- Pressure is growing on the United States to respond to allegations that its agents were involved in spiriting terrorist suspects out of three European countries and sending them to nations where they may have been tortured.In Italy, a judge said this week that foreign intelligence officials "kidnapped" an Egyptian suspect in Milan two years ago and took him to a U.S. base from where he was flown home.In Germany, a Munich prosecutor is preparing a batch of questions to U.S. authorities on the case of a Lebanese-born German who says he was arrested in Macedonia on New Year's Eve...

#1 - FJB #2 - Children in Hospital #3 - She Throws Coffee in Marine's Face #4 - Dissing Health Care Execs Who Offered Solution #5 - Hillary, the Commies, and the Black Panthers #6 - Defiling the White House Christmas Tree #7 - Hillary Calls the Police Murderers #8 - How Did She Get Her Name? #9 - Sister Frigidaire #10 - Troopers and Secret Service as Servants #11 - Beep, Beep, Get Out of My #$%&@&$ Way #12 - Hillary Lied to Zeifman, Rigged Nixon Impeachment Protocols #13 - It Takes a Village To Stiff a Waitress...

Will terrorists be stopped by extra paperwork? The national I.D. card — complete with computer chips and biometric “tags,” such as fingerprints or retinal scans — has come one step closer to becoming a creepy reality. Last week, Reps. James P. Moran and Thomas M. Davis introduced legislation that would require its adoption by all 50 states and the District of Columbia. Though they hotly deny that their bill (and companion legislation in the Senate) would create a national-I.D. card that could be used to monitor and track the doings and affairs of every adult American, that’s nonetheless exactly what...

On signing the campaign-finance-reform bill. So, President Bush thinks the campaign-finance-reform bill he’s going to sign “does present some legitimate constitutional questions.” But he seems remarkably incurious about what the answers to those questions might be — as if it’s a minor matter to be worried about by someone else, once he’s gotten The New York Times and John McCain out of his hair. As far as we know, Bush hasn’t asked the Justice Department about it or his own White House Counsel. This represents more than a politician trying to dodge a fight he finds politically inconvenient, but a...

In light of the recent attention Governor Davis has been recieving over his questionable sanity and obvious megalomania, I thought I'd post this article from last October. Not sure if it ever ran here on FR. (mention of the now irrelevant Riordan has been clipped for brevity.) Fear of Flying The governor dropped a plan to acquire a private jet after the terrorist attacks, but it was just one of his gaffes. BY JILL STEWART The ex-mayor's running strong, and he hasn't even announced. Watching Governor Gray Davis try to recover from numerous political pratfalls this past month left me...