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Gov. J.B. Pritzker declared the virus a public health emergency Monday, which allows the Illinois Department of Public Health to use state and federal resources across state agencies to distribute vaccines. “I find that a disaster exists within the State of Illinois due to the public health emergency caused by the monkeypox virus and specifically declare all counties in the state of Illinois as a disaster area,” Pritzker’s disaster declaration said. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention puts the count nationwide at 5,189. Illinois has reported 520 cases of confirmed or presumptive monkeypox, according to the governor’s office,...

Dozens of former Republican and Democratic officials announced on Wednesday a new national political third party to appeal to millions of voters they say are dismayed with what they see as America's dysfunctional two-party system. The new party, called Forward and whose creation was first reported by Reuters, will initially be co-chaired by former Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang and Christine Todd Whitman, the former Republican governor of New Jersey. They hope the party will become a viable alternative to the Republican and Democratic parties that dominate U.S. politics, founding members told Reuters. Party leaders will hold a series of...

BERLIN - The main natural gas pipeline between Russia and Germany shut down for scheduled maintenance Monday, raising concerns that Moscow could use the repairs as a pretext for a longer shutdown as it wields energy supplies as leverage in the Ukraine war.European ministers warned that it was unclear whether Moscow would turn the taps on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline back on after the 10 days of scheduled work. Germany's economy minister, Robert Habeck, said Berlin was concerned about a "nightmare scenario" this winter if Russia decides against doing so."Everything is possible, everything can happen," he told Deutschlandfunk radio...

Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has not ruled out sitting with MKs Benjamin Netanyahu (Likud), Bezalel Smotrich (Religious Zionism), and Itamar Ben Gvir (Otzma Yehudit), but opposes the formation for a "fully" right-wing government. In an interview with Channel 13 News, Bennett said, "A fully right-wing government, in the current sense, is, in my eyes, a disaster, because it does not have the balances." He added, "Netanyahu, Bezalel, and Ben Gvir...in a different constellation, can be fine, but a government trapped in the hands of the extreme is horrible and awful, even if it is the other side." .....

The latest report on funding for social security benefits did not give a financially positive outlook for the future to federal lawmakers. Instead, a report by the Social Security Administration said benefits will cost more than the income collected to pay for it. By 2035, the SSA's Social Security Board of Trustees reported that the money in the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASI and DI) Trust Funds will be depleted, putting funds toward insolvency, meaning it is unable to pay its debts. Slightly sooner, SSA reported the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund would be empty by...

Heavy rains and flooding battered the eastern coast of South Africa on Wednesday, killing at least 350 people, damaging roads and destroying homes. The tragedy marked “one of the darkest moments in the history” of the KwaZulu-Natal province. The flooding hit KwaZulu-Natal, which includes the coastal city of Durban. Roads cracked and gave way to deep fissures, and a huge stack of shipping containers collapsed into muddy waters, news agency images show. A bridge near Durban was swept away, leaving people stranded on either side. “Many people lost their lives with Ethekwini (Durban metro) alone reporting 45 so far,” while...

What would happen if a major disaster hit America, millions died, air traffic ground to a halt, electricity was down and Congress needed to act? And what if half the members of Congress were among the dead or missing? These aren't pitches for a disaster movie set in Washington. These were all serious scenarios floated by members of Congress tasked with coming up with ways to bring Congress into the modern world--a world where cyber threats, pandemics, nuclear war and political violence are all well within the scope of possibility. "This isn't just hypothetical anymore," said Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.,...

The outrageous prices at the grocery store and gas stations – the highest ever recorded and increasing at rates too fast to calculate with precision – are yet more collateral damage from the initial lockdowns two years ago. The story unfolds over two years but the line of causality is direct. Apparently it’s going to get much worse. I wonder if at some point, no one will remember how this all began. Maybe everyone has already forgotten. I asked a friend: do you think people understand the relationship between the March 2020 lockdowns and the wild price increases two years...

A large, deadly tornado battered parts of the New Orleans area on Tuesday night, with damage reported in Arabi and the Lower Ninth Ward.... According to PowerOutage.us, there were more than 10,000 customers without power in Orleans and St. Bernard Parish. The weather service said there were two tornado reports in St. Tammany Parish.

Ross wins 64% in do-over of November 2020 contest that ended in a tie. Republican Sandford Ross won a do-over election for South Toms River Borough Council on Tuesday, defeating Democrat George Rutzler and officially ending the 2020 cycle. A judge ordered a new election after Ross and Rutzler ended the November 2020 elected tied at 772 votes each. Ross leads Rutzler, 250 to 142, a 64%-36% margin...

A North Korean projectile exploded shortly after launch on Wednesday, Reuters reports, citing South Korea's military. The suspected missile would have been the Kim Jong Un regime's 10th launch this year. The missile was launched from the international airport in Sunanm near the capital of Pyongyang, South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement."It is presumed that it failed immediately after launch," the statement said. JCS told Reuters the projectile was presumed to be a ballistic missile and exploded at a 12-mile altitude during its booster phase. North Korea's past two launches, one on Feb. 26 and...

A massive wildfire that broke out in South Korea's eastern coastal county of Uljin forced President Moon Jae-in to order all-out efforts to protect the nearby Hanul Nuclear Power Plant on Friday, March 4, 2022. The government issued a natural disaster alert after a wildfire broke out in the county of Uljin, North Gyeongsang Province on Friday, about 10 km (6.2 miles) from the Hanul Nuclear Power Plant.1 "Place the top priority on preventing casualties and put every possible effort into swiftly putting out the fire," Moon told officials after being briefed on the wildfire. Dozens of helicopters and about...

There was a glimmer of hope for Joe Biden today, who is increasingly cornered by soaring inflation in general and the relentless surge in oil prices in particular, when Russia’s chief negotiator in talks to revive a 2015 nuclear deal between world powers and Iran said on Friday that he thought a deal was possible in the middle of next week. “As far as I know, the Iranians are not ready for direct talks (with the United States),” Mikhail Ulyanov told reporters, cited by Reuters. “We will have a deal maybe in the middle of next week. We are talking...

Mariupol, a key port city in southern Ukraine, has been under siege for days, leaving civilian areas burning and destroyed, according to video verified by The New York Times and interviews with residents. Images have emerged only sporadically because of power and cellular network outages in the city. Mikhail Vershinin, head of the Donetsk Regional Patrol Police, told The Times that once residents had restored their connections, he expected “horrible footage” to flood the internet. He described the situation as being on “the brink of a humanitarian disaster.”

While the world is looking forward to the future of 5G – as soon as we can figure out how to implement it without screwing up our entire air travel infrastructure – the demise of 3G is quietly wreaking havoc with some automakers, according to a new report from CNBC. “Millions of car owners” are affected by 3G dropping off the map, the report notes. Many vehicles use 3G networks for updates and remote communication, including models manufactured by Tesla, Audi, Honda and Nissan. The affectionately titled “network sunset” of 3G renders some features on these models, and many other...

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Did the current administration “collude” with Russia? So far no evidence at all has emerged to support that hypothesis, but Politico’s Josh Meyer digs deep into another curious set of circumstances in the Obama White House and its own operations with a foreign power. Perhaps the media will start asking whether the previous administration colluded with Iran to let terrorists and drug dealers go free in order to score one of the worst deals ever in international relations. Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation...

President Joe Biden faces an avalanche of problems when he returns to the White House in the new year.For starters, Covid - the virus he vowed to 'shut down' the moment he entered office - is out of control. Just weeks ago, he warned the unvaccinated that they face a "winter of severe illness and death."Yet the most vaccinated major US cities are setting new records for Covid infections, vaccinated athletes are collapsing across the world, and 2/3 of the Belgian staff at a fully-vaccinated antarctic base have Covid.Now, the CDC has pivoted to a 'pox party' strategy by essentially...

The new Netflix film Don’t Look Up is a star-studded allegory about climate change. The world faces a clear and imminent threat, and the question the movie poses is: Will we be able to overcome the narrow self-interests of politicians, the business community, and individual nations to defeat the threat we collectively face? Will too many people around the world be too gullible and passive to demand the right actions from their leaders? In the case of the film, it does not give away too much to suggest that doing the right thing is a challenge. The film is not...

Hundreds of homes burned and tens of thousands of people were evacuated after a rare wind-driven wildfire tore through suburban neighborhoods in Colorado on Thursday, authorities said. Gov. Jared Polis declared a state of emergency in the area, calling the blaze — which ballooned to 1,600 acres in a few hours amid 100-mph winds — “absolutely devastating.” After toppled power lines started the grass fire around 11 a.m. south of Boulder, the flames quickly spread through the towns of Louisville and Superior, Boulder County Sheriff Joe Pelle said during a news conference. “This was consuming football field lengths of land...