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Results from 6-year-old Anastasia Weaver's autopsy may take weeks. But online anti-vaccine activists needed only hours after her funeral this week to baselessly blame the COVID-19 vaccine. A prolific Twitter account posted Anastasia's name and smiling dance portrait in a tweet with a syringe emoji. A Facebook user messaged her mother, Jessica Day-Weaver, to call her a "murderer" for having her child vaccinated. In reality, the Ohio kindergartner had experienced lifelong health problems since her premature birth, including epilepsy, asthma and frequent hospitalizations with respiratory viruses. "The doctors haven't given us any information other than it was due to all...

WARREN, Mich. – Paige Cole is one of the “Anons.” The mother of three from Eastpointe, Michigan, says Joe Biden is a sham president and believes Donald Trump will soon be reinstated to the White House to finish the remainder of Biden’s term. “His whole inauguration was fake. He didn’t have real military people. He had, like, fake badges, fake people. And Trump is actually our president,” she said while waiting in line for his latest rally on Saturday at Macomb Community College. Wearing a pink “Trump 2024” hat and draped in a large “TRUMP WON” flag, Cole — a...

GOLDSBORO, N.C. (AP) — The situation with the poll watcher had gotten so bad that Anne Risku, the election director in North Carolina's Wayne County, had to intervene via speakerphone. “You need to back off!” Risku recalled hollering after the woman wedged herself between a voter and the machine where the voter was trying to cast his ballot at a precinct about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh. Poll watchers have traditionally been an essential element of electoral transparency, the eyes and ears for the two major political parties who help ensure that the actual mechanics of voting are administered fairly...

The majority of the country’s top 100 companies received failing grades when it came to supporting pro-democracy policies, according to a new report. On that list, major brand names that impact most daily lives of voters, including three big Michigan based companies and dozens of others with large economic footprints in the state. The companies were graded on an A-F scale, based on 14 different points including expressed public opposition to the January 6th insurrection on the US Capitol, has a company taken action or a stance on voting rights legislation encouraging access to voting and is the company being...

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (AP) — An election worker in the Grand Rapids area was charged with two crimes after a witness reported seeing him place a USB flash drive into an electronic poll book at the close of the Aug. 2 primary, authorities said Wednesday. The incident had no impact on election results in a Gaines Township precinct, though it was “extremely egregious and incredibly alarming,” Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons said. “It is a violation of public trust and of the oath all election workers are required to take,” Lyons said. James Holkeboer was charged with using a...

“In 2021 I could see him starting to spiral. Then in 2022, he was completely spiraled off the deep end. Every conversation we had he had to bring up vaccines or COVID or 5G or EMFs or something or just anything ridiculous you could think of,” Rebecca Lanis said. “If any of you have relatives like this you need to start monitoring them,” she said. “If they have guns you should hide them or something because these people are dangerous.”

Neena Pacholke, a basketball star at the University of South Florida, was found dead in her home at the age of 27. Pacholke, who was reportedly engaged, was a morning anchor at a local news station in Wausau, Wisconsin, which is an ABC News affiliate.

DENVER – A Colorado mother accused of plotting to kidnap her son from foster care after her teen daughter said she started associating with supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory was found guilty of conspiracy to commit second-degree kidnapping on Friday. Cynthia Abcug, 53, denied she was involved in planning a raid on the foster home where her then 7-year-old son lived in the fall of 2019. She had lost custody of him earlier that year after being accused of medical child abuse — lying about him having seizures and other health problems in order to trick doctors into providing...

The endorsement that has loomed over the Republican race for Michigan governor has come in. Tudor Dixon announced late Friday that former President Donald Trump endorsed her for governor. “It is a great honor to receive President Trump’s endorsement and have the strength of our campaign to defeat Gretchen Whitmer further affirmed by his support,” Dixon said in a statement released late Friday. In the last poll before the primary, Dixon was leading the other candidates, coming in at 19%. But it was a narrow lead, and more than 30% of Republican votes hadn’t decided who they were going with....

The Top Chef family is mourning the death of Howard "Howie" Kleinberg. The Florida-based chef, who competed on season three of the culinary competition series, passed away July 22, according to his obituary. He was 46 years old. Kleinberg's mother, Susan, told the Miami Herald he died of a heart attack. "I am just finding out how many lives he touched," she shared with the publication. "He was married to his passion in life, which was his cooking." After learning of Kleinberg's passing, Top Chef paid tribute on social media. "The #TopChef family is saddened to learn about the unexpected...

Heavy rains forced me inside. After lunch I fell asleep and woke in about an hour. Something strange happen to me. I understand now. I have been so wrong about the evil vax. It’s doing more damage to mankind than we can even imagine. My eyes are now open…… Vaccinated drown in Michigan Great Lakes. Drownings spike 22%! https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/lake-michigan-drownings-water-deaths-great-lakes-surf-rescue-project-great-beach-south-haven-muskegon-red-flag Vaccinated man (Probably had 2 boosters too) drops dead in driveway. https://upnorthlive.com/news/local/saginaw-police-investigating-after-mans-body-was-found-in-driveway “Leave it to Beaver” star Tony Dow dies twice, once from Cancer, once from Vaccine. https://upnorthlive.com/news/entertainment/leave-it-to-beaver-star-tony-dow-dead-at-77-wally-cleaver-fight-with-cancer-diagnosis-announced-in-may-jerry-mathers-theodore-the-beaver-cleaver-tv-big-brother-hit-1950s-sitcom Texas Congressman and former Whitehouse Doctor Ronny Jackson suffers from rare vaccine reaction,...

Nearly five months into its senseless war against Ukraine, Russia has concocted a wild new explanation for why the Kremlin’s plans for a quick takeover fell apart so spectacularly—because Ukrainian troops were turned into superhuman killing machines during “secret experiments” in American-run biolabs, of course. Never mind the myriad reports of Russian troops refusing to fight by the thousands, sabotaging their own shoddy equipment and even deliberately wounding themselves to abandon the war, Russian lawmakers claim the real setback for Moscow was “drugged up” Ukrainian soldiers. That claim was made Monday by two Russian lawmakers heading up a commission to...

UTICA, Mich. – A video that shows an altercation between a Utica detective and two men has gone viral since it was posted Wednesday (Feb. 9) night. These guys call themselves auditors, who have filmed videos in public places all over Michigan, and they say they aren’t after confrontations with police, but in this case, they got a big one. It all began with another driver upset about two men filming with their cameras, so he called Utica police. Those two men are with Fricn Media, a group of self-proclaimed auditors of police behavior that makes no secret about being...

Ahead of the rally, Protzman, or Negative48 as he’s known to his followers, predicted the event would feature some major revelations. While most QAnon followers criticized Trump for talking about returning in 2024 rather than trying to overturn the 2020 election result, Protzman told his followers that something huge happened in the desert on Saturday night. In an audio chat with his followers on Sunday, Protzman claimed that Kari Lake, the former TV anchor who is now running for Arizona governor, had just finished speaking but was brought back up on stage by Trump, in order to show people that...

A leading QAnon promoter who urged both her followers and strangers she passed on the street not to take the COVID vaccine died Thursday of the coronavirus, making her just the latest vaccine opponent killed by the disease. Cirsten Weldon had amassed tens of thousands of followers across right-wing social media networks by promoting the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy under the screenname “CirstenW.” She was prominent enough to become a sort of QAnon interpreter for comedian conspiracy theorist Roseanne Barr and started recording videos about QAnon with her. In late December, however, Weldon started showing symptoms of coronavirus infection. In her...

Jake West was a seemingly healthy 17-year-old when he collapsed during high school football practice in Indiana and died of sudden cardiac arrest. A video widely shared online falsely suggests COVID-19 vaccination is to blame, weaving headlines about him into a rapid-fire compilation of news coverage about athletes collapsing. The vaccine played no role in West’s death — he died from an undiagnosed heart condition in 2013, seven years before the pandemic began. “My tragedy of losing my son is always upsetting, and to think that somebody would use that for their gain is very upsetting,” she said. “It’s mind-boggling...

They have decried COVID-19 as a hoax, promoted unproven treatments and pushed bogus claims about the vaccine, including that the shots magnetize the human body. The purveyors of this misinformation are not shadowy figures operating in the dark corners of the internet. They are a small but vocal group of doctors practicing medicine in communities around the country. Now medical boards are under increasing pressure to act. Organizations that advocate for public health have called on them to take a harder line by disciplining the doctors, including potentially revoking their licenses. The push comes as the pandemic enters a second...

Marcus Lamb, a co-founder and the CEO of the conservative Christian Daystar Television Network who vocally opposed Covid-19 vaccines, has died at 64, weeks after he contracted Covid-19, the network said. “It's with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning," the network said a tweet Tuesday. "The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer." In July 2020, the Lamb family devoted an hour of their broadcast to "censorship" around...

Seven doctors who gathered at a COVID anti-vaccination summit in Florida to tout the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin and other alternative measures for preventing the transmission of the coronavirus now have contracted COVID-19, The Daily Beast reported on Tuesday. One of the doctors — Dr. Bruce Boros — is from the Florida Keys. Boros, of Key West, told the Miami Herald in September 2020 that he had been giving ivermectin — commonly used as a dewormer for cows, horses and other livestock — to COVID patients.

If you or someone you know dies or gets injured from any of the three COVID-19 vaccines — which medical experts say is rare — legal compensation is available. But the process is different and generally more limited compared to other vaccines. Most routine vaccinations in the U.S., including the measles, hepatitis, flu, Tdap and polio shots, are covered by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP), which was created by the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986 following several lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and health care providers. The VCIP covers injury-related expenses for diagnosis, medical care and rehabilitation...