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New federal figures show a deeper than previously reported decline in U.S. life expectancy last year, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold. Final data released Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that Americans’ life expectancy fell 1.8 years to 77 years in 2020. The drop was 0.3 years more than that of provisional estimates released in July 2021 and remains the biggest life-expectancy decline since at least World War II. Covid-19 was the nation’s third leading cause of death last year, behind heart disease and cancer, and was the underlying cause in about 351,000 deaths, the...

The New Zealand government has announced that patients admitted to the hospital for COVID-19 can be killed via euthanasia, according to Scoop. In November, anti-euthanasia group #DefendNZ asked the New Zealand Ministry of Health (MOH) questions about the practice of the nation’s End of Life Choice Act (EOLC Act). One of these questions was, “Could a patient who is severely hospitalised with Covid-19 potentially be eligible for assisted suicide or euthanasia under the Act if a health practitioner viewed their prognosis as less than 6 months?” The EOLC Act states that a person who has a “terminal illness that is...

Italy is rolling out its ‘Super Green Pass’ today, barring the unvaccinated from a variety of events and amenities, even if they have a negative COVID test. Unvaccinated individuals are now barred from eating indoors at restaurants, attending sports events, concerts, theatres, and other public events, regardless of whether or not they have tested negative for the Chinese Coronavirus, reports Italian newspaper Il Giornale.

President Joe Biden reflected on his age at a Hanukkah menorah lighting ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. Biden recalled speaking to some younger people on his staff before the event about his many trips to Israel.

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected the idea that a fetus that has the ability to move and react to pain is a human life that should be protected from abortion. "Virtually every state defines a brain death as death," Sotomayor, appointed by former President Barack Obama, said during oral arguments in a potential landmark abortion rights case Wednesday, as the state of Mississippi defended an abortion restriction law that directly challenges Roe v. Wade. "Yet, the literature is filled with episodes of people who are completely and utterly brain dead responding to stimuli," Sotomayor continued. "There's about 40 percent...

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WASHINGTON - Judge Clarence Thomas said at his Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991 that he hadn't given that much thought to whether Roe v. Wade was correctly decided. But Justice Clarence Thomas took only months to reach a conclusion: the landmark 1973 ruling guaranteeing a woman's right to abortion should be discarded. “The power of a woman to abort her unborn child" is not a liberty protected by the Constitution, said a dissenting opinion from four members of the court, including Thomas. Thus began three decades of official Thomas opposition to the notion of a constitutionally protected right to...

Mars rover Perseverance lists, among its mission objectives, a first for red planet exploration. The robotic explorer has been tasked with searching for signs of ancient microbial life on the dusty, dry planet – tiny microfossils that would be evidence that Mars was once habitable. That would indeed be an astounding, incredible discovery – but the new paper urges caution in interpreting what we find, in both this and future sources. According to astrobiologist Sean McMahon of the University of Edinburgh and geobiologist Julie Cosmidis of the University of Oxford in the UK, scientists will have to keep an eye...

GLASGOW, Scotland — United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the goal of limiting global warming to 2.7 F is “on life support” as UN climate talks enter their final days, but he added that “until the last moment, hope should be maintained.” In an exclusive interview on Thursday with The Associated Press, Guterres said the negotiations set to end Friday in Glasgow, Scotland, will “very probably” not yield the carbon-cutting pledges he has said are needed to keep the planet from warming beyond the 1.5-degree threshold. So far, the talks have not come close to achieving any of the UN’s...

World leaders will turn their focus to gender Tuesday at the U.N. global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland. Globally, women are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change than men, as they make up a majority of the world's poor and depend most on natural resources, according to the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In the United States, one subgroup of women are particularly at risk: pregnant women. As global temperatures and emissions rise, so does the impact of climate change on public health. More pollutants from automobiles, fossil fuel plants and smoke from wildfires degrades air quality....

President Joe Biden promoted his “Build Back Better” spending proposal on Thursday by releasing a slideshow that shows the life of a pregnant woman named Linda who receives government assistance without any mention of her child’s father. The slideshow is a throwback to the “Life of Julia” slideshow during the 2012 campaign, when then-President Barack Obama and Vice President Biden illustrated their idea of government with a hypothetical father-less, husband-less woman who made it through life thanks to government programs.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Portland is believed to be the first city in the country to offer bereavement leave for pregnancy loss to city employees. City Commissioner Mingus Mapps touted the new policy in a Tuesday interview with KATU News. "Policies like this are exceptionally rare in the United States," said Mapps. "In fact, Portland may be unique in the nation for providing leave to people who are mourning the loss of an unborn child." The policy covers situations like abortion, stillbirths and miscarriages. While the intent is to help employees cope with loss, Mapps sees other benefits. "We also wanted...

The Supreme Court on Friday declined to immediately block a Texas anti-abortion law that bars abortions once cardiac activity is detected, but it agreed to review whether it is constitutional. The high court wrote in its order (pdf) that it would consider the question of whether “the United States bring suit in federal court and obtain injunctive or declaratory relief against the State, state court judges, state court clerks, other state officials, or all private parties to prohibit S.B. 8 from being enforced,” referring to Senate Bill 8, the name of the law that has been in effect since Sept....

Modern society is awash in stuff. There’s stuff at the grocery store. At the hardware store. At Amazon and eBay. We eat stuff, wear stuff, buy stuff, and store stuff. Click some buttons, swipe a card, tap a phone – and presto! Stuff appears, like magic. At least for now. We are a carbon-based species. Carbon forms the foundation of our bodies and the external world we experience. Almost everything we touch is carbon-based. As I type this, I’m sitting on a couch made predominantly from foamed polyurethane, my feet resting on a carpet made from synthetic nylon. I just...

Given the future plans of that Joetato in D.C. regarding the economy and USA life in general: would it be better to keep funds in a local financial institution or purchase farmland?

My beloved fellow FReepers, just wanted to update you that my Dad is now in the Presence of Father God and The Lord Jesus in Heaven.

ROMANCE:Betty was lying in bed one night. Jim was falling asleep but Betty was in a romantic mood and wanted to talk. She said: "You used to hold my hand when we were courting..." Wearily he reached across, held her hand for a second and tried to get back to sleep. A few moments later she said:"Then you used to kiss me...." Mildly irritated, he reached across gave her a peck on the cheek and settled down to sleep. Thirty seconds later she said:"Then you used to bite my neck...."Angrily, Jim threw back the bed clothes and got out of...

Social media was all about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Tax the Rich" dress at the Met Gala. But the more important outfit was worn by her Congressional colleague Rep. Carolyn Maloney, who dressed as a suffragette. The suffragettes were largely against abortion. But earlier in the week, Maloney had cheered on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul as Hochul invited Texas women seeking abortions to visit New York. Hochul gave that invitation in Central Park, near a statue depicting Sojourner Truth, Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Stanton, a prominent suffragette, called abortion "infanticide" and wrote: "when we consider that women are...

Funders of a deep-pocketed new "rejuvenation" startup are said to include Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner.Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in a theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger. Milner is a Russian-born billionaire who made a fortune on Facebook and Mail.ru and previously started the glitzy black-tie Breakthrough Prizes, $3 million awards given each...

A good 2 minute message about life and Jesus Christ. https://twitter.com/TheRightMelissa/status/1437656888250978307