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WASHINGTON (AP) — It’s not often that a president gets everything he asks for, but that’s what happened. President Joe Biden wanted $1.9 trillion to help the country climb out of the coronavirus crisis last year, and Democrats in Congress delivered. The American Rescue Plan was stuffed with rental assistance, tax rebates, direct payments and money to distribute vaccines that had just become available. Less than two months after Biden took office, it was a hopeful sign that he could fulfill his campaign promise. But the legislation’s legacy is more complicated than it originally appeared. Depending on who’s telling the...

The central San Joaquin Valley’s top labor organizations say they want to see stricter enforcement of the COVID-19 paid sick leave law and other labor regulations. Worker advocates also say they want to see better outreach about labor rights to rural farmworkers, as well as people who don’t speak English or Spanish, such as those who speak Punjabi, Hmong and Indigenous languages. Some say that few of the Central Valley’s rural workers even know they are entitled to retroactive COVID-19 paid sick leave. “Our experience is that none of them (rural farmworkers) know about it,” Perfecto Muñoz of the West...

GENEVA (AP) — An expert group convened by the World Health Organization said Tuesday it “strongly supports urgent and broad access” to booster doses, in a reversal of the U.N. agency’s previous insistence that boosters weren’t necessary and contributed to vaccine inequity. In a statement, WHO said its expert group concluded that immunization with authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide high levels of protection against severe disease and death amid the global circulation of the hugely contagious omicron variant. It said vaccination, including the use of boosters, was especially important for people at risk of severe disease. WHO noted that the current...

As demand for COVID-19 vaccines collapses in many areas of the U.S., states are scrambling to use stockpiles of doses before they expire and have to be added to the millions that have already gone to waste. From some of the least vaccinated states, like Indiana and North Dakota, to some of the most vaccinated states, like New Jersey and Vermont, public health departments are shuffling doses around in the hopes of finding providers that can use them. State health departments told The Associated Press they have tracked millions of doses that went to waste, including ones that expired, were...

The U.S. State Department and the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) were aware in January 2020 that Chinese authorities were withholding COVID-19 data, according to government documents obtained by a legal watchdog organization. The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) also sent “experts” from the NIH-supported P4 lab at the University of Texas Medical Branch to train technicians at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in “lab management and maintenance”—nearly two years before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic—the records obtained by Judicial Watch through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit reveal. Judicial Watch President Tom...

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington state is expanding its program to distribute free COVID-19 tests throughout the state. The Seattle Times reported that officials with the state Department of Health said that starting Wednesday, sayyescovidhometest.org — the site that allows people to order free tests to be delivered to their homes — will allow up to two orders per household every month while supplies last. When the state Department of Health launched the site in January, each household could only order one kit, which contains up to five tests, due to limited supply. The state quickly ran out of tests...

Evidence is mounting that seemingly innocuous viral infections can in some cases cascade into a range of more serious diseases. In a new study in mice, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have uncovered a mechanism by which a common childhood virus could play a role in autoimmune diseases down the track. Viral infections are extremely common throughout our lives, with most resolving without serious issue. But recent research is increasingly showing that many of these apparently benign infections could possibly, in combination with other genetic and environmental factors, trigger diseases like Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and several types of...

Nearly 200 Rocklin Unified School District educators called in sick or took leave Monday, protesting their district’s last-minute defiance of state-imposed K-12 mask mandates. An angry Rocklin Teachers Professional Association in a statement Monday afternoon said its teachers learned the district’s board held a special Feb. 23 meeting ahead of its regularly scheduled March 2 meeting on a day’s notice and during the district’s President’s Week break to adopt a new mask enforcement policy. “While there are varying opinions on masking in our community and our schools, the issue teachers are most concerned about is the lack of respect for...

My mask is not coming off. COVID-19 has faded, and people who continue to wear masks in public spaces are just neurotic, my husband says. “You look goofy,” he admonishes me. On Monday, the most onerous COVID-related mandates will fall away. Customers in public spaces will no longer be required to mask up or produce proof of vaccination at restaurants, bars and gyms in Chicago and throughout Illinois. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention loosened its mask guidelines for public indoor spaces on Friday. I am thrilled the Omicron surge is fading and eager to return to “normal,” whatever...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly half of the 500 million free COVID-19 tests the Biden administration recently made available to the public still have not been claimed as virus cases plummet and people feel less urgency to test. Wild demand swings have been a subplot in the pandemic, from vaccines to hand sanitizer, along with tests. On the first day of the White House test giveaway in January, COVIDtests.gov received over 45 million orders. Now officials say fewer than 100,000 orders a day are coming in for the packages of four free rapid tests per household, delivered by the U.S. Postal...

NEW YORK (AP) — There were many reasons to think NBC made a savvy business deal in 2014 when it locked up the American media rights to the Olympics through 2032 for $7.75 billion. As the Beijing winter games come to a close, it’s harder to see them now. These Olympics were a disaster for the network: a buzz-free, hermetically-sealed event in an authoritarian country a half-day’s time zone away, where the enduring images will be the emotional meltdown of Russian teen-agers after a drug-tainted figure skating competition and a bereft Mikaela Shiffrin, sitting on a ski slope wondering what...

OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) — Police arrested scores of demonstrators and towed away vehicles Friday in Canada’s besieged capital, and a stream of trucks started leaving under the pressure, raising authorities’ hopes for an end to the three-week protest against the country’s COVID-19 restrictions. By evening, at least 100 people had been arrested, mostly on mischief charges, and nearly two dozen vehicles had been towed, including all of those blocking one of the city’s major streets, authorities said. One officer had a minor injury, but no protesters were hurt, interim Ottawa Police Chief Steve Bell said. Police “continue to push forward...

Scientists say that a rapid drop in emissions because of Covid played a key role in record rainfall in China in 2020. The decline in greenhouse gases and small particles called aerosols caused atmospheric changes that intensified the downpours. Many parts of eastern China experienced severe flooding in June and July in 2020. The researchers say the reductions in emissions contributed about one third of the extreme summer rain. A number of scientific studies have looked at what caused the flooding events, some pointing to the extreme conditions in the Indian Ocean. Now an international team has put forward a...

Former President Donald Trump, who repeatedly called Black Lives Matter protesters “thugs” and “anarchists,” said there’s “a lot of respect” for the overwhelmingly white truckers who blocked streets in the Canadian capital and shut down border crossings with the U.S. to oppose COVID-19 restrictions. To Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the truckers who parked bumper to bumper are “heroes” fighting for a righteous cause. Fox News Channel’s Sean Hannity sent “solidarity, love and support” to the drivers, who also defied police orders to clear Ottawa’s streets and ignored a court order forbidding them from blaring their horns. GOP Sen. Rand Paul...

ransomnote: The Expose is over the target and taking flak, banned and censored - even Paypal turned against them in an effort to deprive them of funding. Please pray that the Expose receive the funds it needs to keep serving the public.In response to my article published by the Expose in December last year (Virology’s Voodoo Scientism Is Not Real Science) somebody posted an article by Frank Visser in response:“WHY VIRUSES ARE NOT EXOSOMES The Corona Conspiracy FRANK VISSER”This article is a great example of the kind of sophistry deployed by intellectually dishonest “debunkers” in a pathetic attempt to “debunk”...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is hoping to use his upcoming State of the Union address to nudge the pandemic into the nation’s rear-view mirror. But it could turn into yet another disruptive display of national tensions and frustration over trying to move past COVID-19. The White House has taken extraordinary precautions to keep Biden from getting the virus, including requiring high-quality masks in his vicinity and limiting his travel and participation in large events. A speech to a full House chamber would be by far the densest audience of his presidency to date.

NEW YORK (AP) — Dr. Deborah Birx has a memoir coming out this spring that will focus on her contentious time as White House coronavirus task force coordinator in the administration of President Donald Trump. Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, announced Monday that Birx’s “Silent Invasion: The Untold Story of The Trump Administration, COVID-19, and Preventing the Next Pandemic Before It’s Too Late,” will be published April 26. “I wrote ‘Silent Invasion’ to document the full extent of what I witnessed as I tried to save lives during this devastating time,” Birx said in a statement. “In the book,...

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (AP) — Hundreds of people who were given a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine at a New Haven clinic will need another jab after health officials said late Friday that vials of the Pfizer vaccine were improperly refrigerated. As many as 650 people were administered shots of the vaccine over a 6-week period between Dec. 23 and Feb. 7 at a New Haven Health Department clinic, according to the Hartford Courant. Officials said the efficacy of the doses might have been diminished because vials containing the vaccine were kept at a temperature below what is recommended. There’s...

The Hague (AFP) – A convoy of vehicles from across the Netherlands brought The Hague's city centre to a standstill on Saturday, protesting against coronavirus restrictions. Inspired by Canadian truckers who congested the capital Ottawa, several hundred vehicles blocked access to the Binnehof, seat of the Dutch government, according to an estimate by public television. The protesters started to arrive in the early morning in trucks, cars, tractors and even caravans, and many seemed determined to stay on even after a police warning on Twitter to move by 3:30 pm (1430 GMT). The convoy will "continue to roll until fundamental...

Police have intercepted hundreds of vehicles trying to enter Paris as part of a protest against France's coronavirus regulations. Authorities have deployed more than 7,000 officers over the next three days in a bid to stop the demonstrators. Some vehicles managed to arrive at the Arc de Triomphe in the city, and tear gas was fired at demonstrators on the nearby Champs-Élysées. Similar demonstrations have started to spread around the world. Austria and Belgium have banned such convoys from entering their capitals, with similar demonstrations also emerging in Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands. The groups were inspired by the...