Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tested positive for COVID-19, a day after appearing unmasked at a White House event with President Joe Biden. ...The 82-year-old Democratic leader’s announcement came ahead of her weekly press appearance on Capitol Hill. The House is set to start a two week spring recess.

Cuban President Raúl Castro turns 81 on Sunday, another year on in his race against time to reform Cuba's economy and try to assure the survival of communism after he and his elderly colleagues are gone. Their task, he has said, is to correct mistakes made during their 53 years of leadership, which will require "days and years of work" that he intends to finish. "The generation that made the (Cuban) revolution has had the historic privilege, few times seen, of being able to direct the rectification of errors they themselves committed," he told a Communist Party conference in January....

Edith Macefield died at home, just the way she wanted. The Ballard woman who captured hearts and admirers around the world when she stubbornly turned down $1 million to sell her home to make way for a commercial development died Sunday of pancreatic cancer. She was 86. "I don't want to move. I don't need the money. Money doesn't mean anything," she told the Seattle P-I in October. She continued living in the little old house in the 1400 block of Northwest 46th Street even after concrete walls rose around her, coming within a few feet of her kitchen window....

Cancer claimed her tonight at the tender age of 84. I was scheduled to leave home to drive to be at her bedside when she passed. But I cancelled some appointments and was packing to go when my brother called and said to take my time. The sweet little lady's been my mom for 62 years, so it's hard to see her go, even though it was a peaceful and painless passing for her. But I know she's in a better place now.