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When did COVID start for you? Personally, I trace the beginning to Feb. 13, 2020. My wife and I were waiting for a plane at O’Hare when a group of Japan Airlines flight attendants walked past, wearing those masks I’d read about. I snapped a photo and sent it into the city desk. Look: news. Emotionally, it really began in March. The stripped Target shelves. A few hours before Gov. JB Pritzker shut down the restaurants, I popped into Kamehachi for a last sushi fix and was surprised to find myself the lone diner at 12:30 p.m. Watching the chef...

On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) said that Mike Huckabee, President-Elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S. ambassador to Israel, “has been making statements that [seem] to back up Netanyahu” and Netanyahu “has committed some war crimes with some of the actions that he’s taken in Gaza.” “And I just don’t think that Mike Huckabee is going to be someone who is going to hold Netanyahu to account. And that’s a pretty scary thought.” Duckworth said, “I do think that Mike Huckabee is someone that, when we bring him before the committee, we should...

For years, North Point Community Church, led by Andy Stanley, has been partnering with and promoting affirming LGBTQ+ organizations when desperate parents come to see them for help with their struggling gay children, all done through their Parent Connect Ministry. Parent Connect is (was formerly?) led by Amy Blakeslee, an openly affirming queer woman, and is overseen by Debbie Causey, a gay-affirming, long-tenured pastor at North Point Community Church and the director of their Care network of ministries. Causey is also a board member at Renovus, a pro-LGBTQ+ activist and advocacy group led by many leaders within North Point church...

South Korea's foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador to Seoul on Monday and urged an "immediate" withdrawal of North Korean soldiers from the war in Ukraine. "We condemn North Korea's illegal military cooperation, including its dispatch of troops to Russia, in the strongest terms," said South Korea's First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Hong Kyun in a press release, calling for an "immediate withdrawal" of the troops. The minister warned the Russian ambassador Georgiy Zinoviev that Seoul will respond by mobilizing "all available means in cooperation with the international community to any acts that threaten the core interests of South Korea."...

There is a lot to criticize about America’s current military – and I’ve criticized it – but there’s another problem no one seems to want to talk about. It’s scary as hell. The United States is not ready for the kind of war we are seeing played out in Ukraine, a peer-to-peer conventional fight that is rewriting the rules of what we thought war was supposed to be. And, with leadership in the White House sitting in a rocker staring slack-jawed at Matlock reruns, we are not in a position to fix what will mean defeat in our next real...

Climate alarmists at Vox urge humanity to stop burning fossil fuels because “the window to act on climate change is closing.” Sparing no hyperbolic flourish, climate writer Umair Irfan asserts that 2023 has been a year of “extraordinary drought, deadly rainfall, and searing heat waves” thanks to global warming. The year 2023 is on track to be “the hottest year measured in human history,” Irfan adds, meaning of course since 1880, when any sort of reliable temperature tracking records began. This year may also “mark the first time global average temperatures have risen above a critical line, providing a glimpse...

A photo of a huge spider hanging from a roof has sparked concern, with some joking that the homeowner should move out. A concerned man in Baldivis, 45km south of Perth, shared the scary image on a local Facebook community group and asked for help identifying the mammoth arachnid. It shows the spider sitting in a web with its long pointed legs curled up under a bulky dark abdomen, as if it is ready to pounce. The original poster described it as 'one of the biggest I've seen'.

Fans of the 1990 horror comedy “Arachnophobia” may find their promised land in the rural Great Plains town of La Junta, Colorado. That’s because La Junta is ground zero for the annual mating ritual of tens of thousands aphonopelma, or Oklahoma brown tarantula. For a few months each year, this tiny community in southeast Colorado is prime viewing for fans of the brown-and-black arachnids, especially from August to October when the males emerge, looking for love. Rather than be repulsed when overrun by the large, hairy spiders, La Junta decided last year to embrace the annual ritual as a tourism...

A new study conducted by scientists at the University of Colorado confirms that the COVID-19 “vaccines” have been shedding and transmitting antibodies to those who chose to avoid the injection via aerosols. These findings should not come as a surprise though, because a confidential Pfizer document had already confirmed that exposure to the mRNA injections was perfectly possible by skin-to-skin contact and breathing the same air as someone who had been given the Covid-19 jab. This means that the vast majority of humanity has had absolutely no choice in the matter of whether they wish to get the Covid-19 injection...

A box of guns was delivered to a Delaware County high school in what police called an "honest mistake." Police said the delivery to Chester High School was a mistake on the part of FedEx, but parents say it couldn’t come at a worse time – when schools are laser-focused on keeping children safe as they’re getting ready to return to class. Chester Upland School District Superintendent Dr. Craig Parkinson said they were expecting a delivery of textbooks and supplies for the start of the school year, but instead, something else arrived at the loading dock Friday. School district leaders...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nina Jankowicz, like so many millennials, was excited to share a social media post announcing her new job on Twitter late last month when she was named executive director for a new disinformation board established by the Department of Homeland Security. But instead of well-wishes, Jankowicz’s tweet set off a torrent of sexist profanities across social media and menacing emails filled with rape or death threats that continue to follow her even after she resigned from that new job on Wednesday morning following the disastrous rollout of the program. It’s a familiar scenario. A crush of online...

MSNBC contributor Donny Deutsch said Friday on “Morning Joe” that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was “a scary dude.” Deutsch said, “Disney on the one hand was late coming out, going against ‘Don’t Say Gay,’ and that hurt the constituency. Then the head of content came out and said going forward we’re putting 50% of characters will be LGBTQ or minorities, and pissed off the right on that one. It’s a difficult position. This DeSantis character is a scary dude. The Republican Party is becoming the anti-freedom party, the anti-American party, whether it’s a woman’s right to choose, gay rights,...

A professor at Wayne State University in Detroit was giving a lecture on Paranormal Studies.To get a feel for his audience, he asks, "How many people here believe in ghosts?" About 90 students raise their hands. "Well, that's a good start. Out of those who believe in ghosts, do any of you think you have seen a ghost?" About 40 students raise their hands. That's really good. I'm really glad you take this seriously. Has anyone here ever talked to a ghost?" About 15 students raise their hand. "Has anyone here ever touched a ghost?" Three students raise their hands....

Official data published by the Office for National Statistics proves that deaths among children have increased significantly compared to the five-year-average since they were offered the Pfizer mRNA Covid-19 vaccine.On September 13th 2021, Professor Chris Whitty the Chief Medical Officer for England, wrote to the UK Government advising them that all children over the age of 12 should be offered at least one dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 injection.This was despite the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) refusing to do so due to concluding the benefits do not necessarily outweigh the risks. The reason they concluded this is...

If you’ve been thinking of buying a house, you’ve probably noticed that house prices are soaring everywhere, not just in the usual preferred zip codes. You might have thought this is simply because of market deformations thanks to COVID and the lockdowns. In fact, the soaring prices reflect something much more sinister: Blackrock, an investment company is buying up housing stock, turning America into a nation of renters – that is, people with no stake in their communities or their futures. However, what’s really sinister is that it’s not just housing stock. BlackRock, along with The Vanguard Group, owns a...

**SNIP** Nevertheless, two states created an uproar this week when both states (Texas and Mississippi) announced their decision to pull back restrictions and mandates imposed during the pandemic, like max capacity requirements for businesses and statewide face mask rules. President Biden criticized these moves as the product of “Neanderthal thinking,” while CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky actually went farther than that - warning during a White House press briefing this week that the US could lose all of the progress made thus far as a result of the spread of more transmissible coronavirus variants. Spread that would be helped even...

Can anyone here recommend good scary horror, sci-fi films that are suitable to watch with kids? My children are 9, 12 and 14 so they are too old for the young kiddie stuff but I don't want them watching anything with lots of blood and gore and profanity. I'm not interested in those types of films. Films I have on DVD and have watched with my kids include Frankenstein (1931), The Old Dark House (1932), The Mummy (1932), The Black Cat (1934), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), Don't Be...

To @realdonaldtrump Through my ongoing conversations with friends, teammates, and leaders in the black community, I realize this is not an issue about the American flag. It has never been. We can no longer use the flag to turn people away or distract them from the real issues that face our black communities. We did this back in 2017, and regretfully I brought it back with my comments this week. We must stop talking about the flag and shift our attention to the real issues of systemic racial injustice, economic oppression, police brutality, and judicial & prison reform. We are...

All of a sudden nostalgia for 1930s Germany resurges across Europe, where some dismiss it as “just fun.” Carnival marchers in the Belgian town of Aalst last week were dressed up as Jewish caricatures, as if lifted from the pages of the crude Nazi-era weekly Der Sturmer. They had long, crooked noses, Hasidic hats, rat tails — the works. Men clad in SS uniforms marched alongside, drinking beer and joking with the cheering crowds. The grotesque display, which appeared in Aalst’s annual three-day carnival last year for the first time and repeated again last week, was described to the BBC...

Oil pared losses and world stocks seesawed on Monday as cost-cutting plans by General Motors and economic data offset fears that a flu outbreak could spread into a pandemic and further strain a global recession. Investors who reckoned markets would fall on fears that the flu outbreak in Mexico could spread worldwide with dire consequences were forced to reverse their bets and buy stocks.