The State of Florida has agreed to withdraw its $3.5 million penalty directed to the Leon County government over the county’s vaccine mandate. The county rescinded its vaccine mandates earlier this month after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed legislation requiring alternatives to forced COVID vaccinations.
Read the full story
State Rep. Steve Kaiser (R-Phoenix) is sponsoring a bill, HB 2020, that would exempt people in Arizona from government or private businesses imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates if they have already had COVID-19. This includes mandates from the federal government and from corporations at their branches in Arizona. To be eligible, someone must show either proof of antibodies, a positive test, or a positive T-cell immune response to COVID-19.
Kaiser, who came up with the idea for the bill during a discussion with a friend, told The Arizona Sun Times, “It provides a great way for folks who are uncomfortable with the vaccine to keep their jobs. There is a lot of data to support this, and it has a great chance of passing through the legislature.” He said at least one Democrat has said they may support the bill.
Read the full story
The Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) said in a Wednesday statement that some information in a report about its vaccine production is inaccurate.
“Some recent reports about Walter Reed Army Institute of Research’s COVID-19 Vaccine Development have led to inaccurate representations which require clarification,” WRAIR said in a statement provided to The Star News Network. “Last week, the preclinical results of the Army COVID-19 vaccine, SpFN, were published in Science Translational Medicine. The Spike Ferritin Nanoparticle platform is designed to protect against an array of SARS-CoV-2 variants and SARS-origin variants but was not tested on the Omicron variant.”
Read the full story
Human Resources staff at Nashville’s Metro Public Health Department (MPHD) on Tuesday recommended that the department reprimand a high-ranking employee for offending Stephanie Kang, the director of MPHD’s Bureau of Racial and Health Equity. That employee, Brian Todd, serves as the director of communications for MPHD, according to an MPHD fact-finding report.
Read the full story
The trial of former police officer Kim Potter may end in a hung jury after jurors finished their second day of deliberation, asking the judge what to do if the jury could not agree on a verdict.
Read the full story
The FDA on Wednesday authorized the first COVID-19 antiviral pill in the U.S.
The Pfizer pill, Paxlovid, will be prescribed for use in adults and children 12 and older who have mild to moderate virus symptom and at risk for severe disease or hospitalization, according to a Food and Drug Administration statement obtained by NBC News.
Read the full story
Governor Lee and the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development awarded a dozen grants to communities across the state to assist economic development programs.
The grants, which total $8 million, are to be used for infrastructure and engineering improvements on industrial sites throughout the state.
Read the full story
Things are always worse than they seem.
That seems to be a good rule of thumb these days.
Take the FBI.
Every sentient person knows that the Bureau has had a rough couple years.
The Russia Collusion hoax revealed an agency shot through with corruption and partisan bias.
But the rot goes far beyond the large handful of top Bureau bad hats: the James Comeys, the Andrew McCabes, the Peter Strzoks, and Kevin Clinesmiths.
Read the full story
A group of Democratic lawmakers sent letters to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Monday asking officials to require proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test to fly domestically.
The letters, sent to FAA Administrator Steve Dickson and CDC Director Rochelle Walensky, were signed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, along with Reps. Eric Swalwell of California, Donald Beyer of Virginia and Ritchie Torres of New York. The lawmakers cited the recent emergence of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus as justification for the request.
Read the full story
A new study from Equis Research, a firm dedicated to better understanding the American Latino electorate, found over 40% of Latinos think Democrats are embracing socialist policies.
The study findings that indicate challenges for Democrats in upcoming elections considering Latinos, who accounts for roughly 1 in 8 eligible U.S. voters, are a significant part of the party’s voter base and include many who came to the U.S. to try to escape the socialist governments of their former countries.
Read the full story
The roughly 1,400 striking Kellogg’s workers ended a 10-week strike and voted in favor of a new labor contract with the cereal giant, multiple sources reported.
“Our striking members at Kellogg’s ready-to-eat cereal production facilities courageously stood their ground and sacrificed so much in order to achieve a fair contract,” Anthony Shelton, the president of the workers’ union, the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union, said in a statement, The New York Times reported. “This agreement makes gains and does not include any concessions.”
Read the full story
Last fall, outgoing National Institutes of Health Director (NIH) Francis Collins asked Dr. Anthony Fauci in an email to pursue a “quick and devastating” media hit piece to discredit the Great Barrington Declaration, recently released emails show.
More than 60,000 infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists signed the declaration to express their “grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies.”
Read the full story
For the first nine months of the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no officially approved outpatient treatments for combating the disease. From March 2020, when the virus first emerged in the United States, until that November, when the Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of monoclonal antibodies, health authorities advised that the infected do little but quarantine themselves, drink plenty of fluids and rest unless hospitalization was necessary.
During those chaotic final months of Donald Trump’s presidency, the medical establishment expressed extreme caution regarding outpatient treatments for the virus, and these warnings were amplified by major media hostile to the president, for example when he touted the anti-malaria medicine hydroxychloroquine.
Although an estimated 12% to 38% of prescriptions are written for FDA-approved drugs used “off-label” (including Botox and Viagra), Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declared early on that providers should dispense only medicines proven to be safe and effective for COVID patients through “randomized, placebo-controlled trials.” These can take months or years to conduct, and often at great cost.
Read the full story
A California activist group calculated that students in Los Angeles County missed over 90,000 school days in the span of a month, Fox News reported.
In about a month a total of 92,455 in-person school days in Los Angeles County were lost, which Jonathan Zachreson, the founder of Reopen California Schools called “astounding,” Fox News reported Monday. Quarantine measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic kept kids home from school, which led to the learning loss that Zachreson said “could have been avoided” if school officials hadn’t intervened in public health matters.
Many students were able to stay in school because of “Test to Stay” programs, which allow unvaccinated students who are exposed to the virus to stay in school as long as they are asymptomatic, wear a mask and take two COVID-19 tests a week, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
Read the full story
Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin has tapped Caren Merrick to be his Secretary of Commerce and Trade. Merrick currently helms Youngkin’s non-profit VA Ready, which Youngkin started in June 2020, a month before announcing his departure from the Carlyle Group.
“Virginia’s jobs machine has stalled out, and Caren is going to play a pivotal role on the team that will jumpstart our economy and reinvigorate job growth here in the Commonwealth,” Youngkin said in a Tuesday press release. “Caren is an innovator, a business builder, and a true leader in workforce development—the kind of experience needed to develop talent, train workers, attract investment, and make Virginia the best state to start a business as we set out to add 400,000 jobs and launch 10,000 startups.
Read the full story
Alina Chan, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT and Harvard University, said she was accused of racism for investigating the possibility of COVID-19 leaking from a Wuhan, China, lab.
Chan began asking questions about the origins of the virus and challenging the wet market theory in March 2020, voicing her concerns on Twitter to an often hostile scientific community. Chan, who is ethnically Chinese, said she was called a “race traitor” for suggesting the virus could have been caused by a lab accident in Wuhan.
Read the full story
On Monday, the Department of Defense, in an effort to further crack down on political dissent, is revising its previous definitions of “extremist behavior” in order to deter uniformed members from certain political affiliations, CNN reports.
The Countering Extremism Working Group, a panel that was created for the purpose of ostensibly investigating “extremism” within military ranks, issued a report outlining its findings, claiming that there are indeed some “extremists” in the military. The report alleges that there were roughly 100 instances of uniformed members who either had “extremist” beliefs or joined “extremist” groups in 2021, which the report claims is an increase from previous years.
Read the full story
Shortly after the Oxford High School shooting last Tuesday, politicians started calling for more gun control.
“Michigan’s laws are woefully inadequate,” Oakland County prosecutor Karen McDonald (pictured) announced at a press conference. “We [Michigan] don’t have a safe storage law. We’re not legally required to store your weapon in a safe manner. Children are allowed to attend [gun ranges] with their parents. … We don’t have strong enough laws.”
Read the full story
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday published new population estimates and ranked Georgia as the eighth most populated state in 2021. The Census Bureau also reported that the Peach State grew in population, however slightly, between April 2020 and July 2021.
Read the full story
Hennepin County Sheriff David Hutchinson was sentenced on Monday to 90 days in jail and two years of probation as well as a $610 fine following Hutchinson’s DUI crash in Alexandria. Hutchinson has not resigned from his position despite calls from legislators to do so.
Read the full story
Two former Greenfield Township wastewater treatment plant employees were found guilty of multiple Clean Water Act violations and wire fraud.
The father-son duo, Bruce Evans, Sr., and Bruce Evans, Jr., routinely failed to follow guidelines imposed by the environmental law and restrictions imposed in a permit issued by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP) and the United States Environmental Protections Agency (EPA).
Read the full story
Pennsylvania state Reps. Dan Miller (D-Mt. Lebanon) and Jordan Harris (D-Philadelphia) are preparing to introduce legislation that would mitigate several features of the commonwealth’s criminal-justice system for minors.
The two Democrats would limit juvenile probation to one year for misdemeanors and to 1.5 years for felonies, stop levying nearly any juvenile court fees or fines and raise the age at which children are subject to juvenile court to 13. Under their proposal, criminal prosecution would not be an option for anyone under the age of 10.
Read the full story
At Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest 2021 conference in Phoenix, election integrity is one of the most important topics, in part due to the high-profile ballot audit in the Maricopa County 2020 presidential election. One of the main panels at the conference focused on this, featuring Rep. Paul Gosar (R-04-Ariz.), Rep. Andy Biggs (R-05-Ariz.), and Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-01-Texas).
The main topic of the panel was how to prevent election fraud in the future. All three panelists urged everyone to get involved and make a difference, whether by poll watching, putting pressure on elected officials, or looking for fraud. Biggs advised, “Be loud and proud. Do it with a smile on your face, they hate that.”
Read the full story
The Michigan Supreme Court on Monday ruled that the state’s Independent Citizens Redistricting Commission must release documents and recordings related to a closed-door meeting the group conducted earlier this year.
According to the 4-3 ruling written by Justice David Viviano, the commission’s decision to hold a secret meeting violated the state Constitution. The Michigan Constitution states the “commission shall conduct all of its business at open meetings.”
Read the full story
More than 1,000 Ohio National Guard members began working in hospitals across the state Monday to help combat what Gov. Mike DeWine called a growing strain caused by the rising number of COVID-19 hospitalizations.
The Ohio Department of Health also has begun working with a staffing company to bring more nurses and other providers from out of state to help ease pressure on current hospital staffs as the number of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 has reached its highest level of the year.
“While the staff will be concentrated in the places where they are most needed, the entire state will feel relief as the arrangement supports the coordination of patient care that has been happening really since the beginning of this pandemic,” DeWine said at a news conference.
Read the full story
Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on Monday questioned whether former President Donald Trump is somehow tied to an effort to remove Buckhead from the much larger and crime-plagued city that she oversees. Bottoms specifically criticized Bill White, who leads the Buckhead City Committee.
Read the full story
According to an affidavit obtained by The Ohio Star, a nurse in Ohio who was in charge of procuring COVID-19 vaccines for Miami University says she was never able to obtain Pfizer’s FDA-approved version of the vaccine, called Comirnaty.
The affiant is a nurse practitioner and employee of TriHealth, which runs two hospitals and 130 sites of medical care in the Cincinnati area. From June 4 to Nov. 3, she was put in charge of procuring vaccines for Miami University, located in Oxford. The Star has redacted the nurse’s name out of concern of reprisal.
Read the full story
A student at Ohio University has filed a lawsuit against the school over its COVID-19 vaccination mandate.
“Everyone who wants to be vaccinated has been vaccinated at Ohio University,” Tyce Patt told The Ohio Star. “I believe it is not only wrong to force students to get an experimental Emergency Use Authorized vaccine to go to class, but also Illegal.”
Read the full story
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, along with the state’s Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis, and Attorney General Ashley Moody, held a meeting Monday of the State Board of Administration (SBA) to “take action against communist China and woke corporations.”
As stated in a press release by the Governor’s Office, the meeting was an attempt t0, “revoke all proxy voting authority that has been given to outside fund managers, to clarify the state’s expectation that all fund managers should act solely in the financial interest of the state’s funds, and to conduct a survey of all of the investments of the Florida Retirement System to determine how many assets the state has in Chinese companies.”
Read the full story
A complaint filed with Gov. Tony Evers (D) seeks the removal of Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm who approved the low bail for the alleged Waukesha parade killer Darrell Brooks. “The devastation resulting from Chisholm’s dereliction of duty to protect the public has reached outside the borders of Milwaukee County,” the complaint reportedly says.
Read the full story
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) discussed in an interview on Sunday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit’s decision to defer the OHSA vaccine mandate to a three-judge panel. The deference by the 6th Circuit reinstates the OSHA mandate.
Read the full story
Governor-elect Glenn Youngkin announced that Aimee Rogstad Guidera will serve as Secretary of Education. During the No Child Left Behind era, Guidera founded the Data Quality Campaign (DQC) which focuses on better data gathering to help improve school quality.
In his Monday press release, Youngkin said, “Aimee will be a critical partner in restoring expectations of excellence; overseeing a record education budget to invest in teachers, facilities and special education; rolling out innovation lab and charter schools; and standing for a curriculum that prepares Virginia’s children for a dynamic future and removes politics from the classroom.”
Read the full story
The U.S. Census Bureau on Tuesday published new population estimates and ranked Tennessee as being one of the Top 10 states for numeric growth between 2020 and 2021. The Census Bureau also reported that the Volunteer State grew in population, however slightly, between April 2020 and July 2021.
Read the full story
The Tennessee Comptroller Office released a statement last week alleging a California woman was stealing money from a Tennessee Library. The state’s comptroller’s audit determined that Shekinah Edwards stole $32,366.89 from the Elma Ross Public Library in Haywood County by issuing fraudulent checks addressed to herself. The allegations were referred to a Haywood County Grand Jury, who returned an indictment in November against Edwards of one count of theft of over $10,000.
From May 22, 2020, through July 10, 2020, the Comptroller’s office alleges, Edwards issued herself 14 checks with the forged signatures of the library officials. The fraudulent checks were discovered in July 2020, when the library director was reconciling the library’s bank account and realized the font on the checks was not the same as the checks routinely issued by the library.
Read the full story
Last year, our nation experienced the largest increase in murder in American history and the largest number of drug overdose deaths ever recorded. This carnage continues today and is not distributed equally. Instead, it is concentrated in cities and localities where radical, left-wing, George Soros progressives have captured state and district attorney offices. These legal arsonists condemn our rule of law as “systemically racist” and have not simply abused prosecutorial discretion, they have embraced prosecutorial nullification. As a result, a contagion of crime has infected virtually every neighborhood under their charge.
Soros prosecutors refuse to enforce laws against shoplifting, drug trafficking, and entire categories of felonies and misdemeanors. In Chicago, Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx allows theft under $1,000 to go unpunished. In Manhattan, District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. refuses to enforce laws against prostitution. In Baltimore, State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has unilaterally declared the war on drugs “over” and is refusing to criminally charge drug dealers in the middle of the worst drug crisis in American history. For a time, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon even stopped enforcing laws against disturbing the peace, resisting arrest, and making criminal threats.
All of these cities have paid a terrible price for these insane policies. Last year, the number of homicides in Chicago rose by 56%, and more than 1,000 Cook County residents have been murdered in 2021. In New York City, murder increased 47% and shootings soared 97%. In 2020, the murder rate in Baltimore was higher than El Salvador’s or Guatemala’s — nations from which citizens often attempt to claim asylum purely based on gang violence and murder—and this year murder in Baltimore is on track to be even higher. Murder in Los Angeles rose 36% last year and is on track to rise another 17% this year.
Read the full story
Independent journalist Alex Berenson on Monday announced from his SubStack account, “Unreported Truths,” a lawsuit against Twitter for violating his First Amendment rights.
The lawsuit, which follows the social media giant banning the author from the platform, contends that multiple Twitter officials assured Berenson that he would have access to the platform, only to be kicked off later.
Read the full story
Purdue University announced recently that it intends to hire 40 new faculty to “diversify the racial makeup” of its campus.
The move is part of the Indiana school’s $75 million Equity Task Force strategy, a five-year project.
Purdue’s website lists 14 open positions and explains that the first cluster hire will focus on the fields of “Public Health, Health Policy, and Health Equity.”
Andy Sayles, the vice president of Purdue University’s Turning Point USA chapter, told Campus Reform that the amount of money the school is spending on the initiative is “alarming.”
Read the full story
Buffeted by a Russia scandal that proved false, Donald Trump ended the first year of his presidency on a high note with passage of historic tax cuts. In contrast four years later, Joe Biden’s first year in office is ending with a stunning rebuke from a senator in his own party.
On Sunday, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) gave a resounding “No” to Biden’s signature Build Back Better legislation, leaving an uncertain path for the Democrats’ ambitious agenda despite the fact they control the Senate, House and White House.
Read the full story
Federal regulators hit the largest bank in the U.S. with a $200 million fine Friday for failing to keep track of employees’ use of messaging apps, including WhatsApp, to evade federal record-keeping laws.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Friday that a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co. would pay $125 million after admitting to “widespread” record-keeping failures. The bank will pay an additional $75 million fine to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for allowing unapproved communications since 2015.
Read the full story
The arts and crafts chain Hobby Lobby announced their companies will raise their full-time employees’ beginning hourly wage to $18.50 beginning January 1, 2022. In 2014 the company raised their beginning hourly wage to $15.
Read the full story
The following is an excerpt from “When Politicians Panicked: The New Coronavirus, Expert Opinion, and a Tragic Lapse of Reason” (Simon & Schuster, 2021).
Let’s travel back in time to March of 2020. It was then that predictions of mass death related to the new coronavirus started to gain currency. One study, conducted by Imperial College’s Neil Ferguson, indicated that U.S. deaths alone would exceed 2 million.
The above number is often used, even by conservatives and libertarians, as justification for the initial lockdowns. “We knew so little” is the excuse, and with so many deaths expected, can anyone blame local, state and national politicians for panicking? The answer is a resounding yes.
Read the full story
There is a new type of cyber-enabled fraud that the Federal Bureau of Investigation is warning the public about – missing persons scams using social media. Scammers use information posted about missing persons on social media websites to target and exploit the victim’s family and friends network.
It is common for scammers to only request small amounts of money as missing persons scams tend to be a quick cash-grab. In addition to small requests, scammers tend to express some level of urgency in the payment by claiming the victim is either injured or sick.
Read the full story
The Biden administration rolled out a series of new emissions regulations for passenger vehicles and light trucks that it said would “unlock” $190 billion in benefits for American consumers.
The regulations will be enforced beginning with 2023 car models and will be revised with more stringent standards in 2027, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced. The EPA said the new emissions standards would ultimately quicken the transition from traditional engine vehicles to zero-emission cars.
“This day is truly historic,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said during an event on Monday.
Read the full story
West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin fired back at the White House Monday after it put out a blistering statement criticizing him for opposing President Joe Biden’s domestic spending package.
In an interview with West Virginia’s Hoppy Kercheval, Manchin said that while he “figured they would come back strong,” they knew that Manchin could not support the bill they were backing.
“You know me, always willing to work and listen and try. I just got to the wit’s end and they know the real reason” things fell apart, Manchin said, referring to the White House.
Read the full story
A majority of Americans say Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is failing to handle the ongoing supply chain crisis, according to a new poll.
Roughly 55% of likely voters rated Buttigieg’s handling of the supply chain crisis as “poor,” according to the results of a Trafalgar Group/Convention of States Action poll released Monday, while around 30% said Buttigieg’s job performance on the crisis is “good” or “excellent.”
Republican voters particularly disapproved of Buttigieg’s job performance, with over 80% saying Buttigieg was doing a poor job handling the crisis. Democrats were more favorable to the secretary, with roughly one-third rating Buttigieg’s performance as poor.
Read the full story
Republicans are more likely than Democrats to back certain reforms targeting major tech companies like Amazon, Google and Apple, including a key bipartisan antitrust bill, according to a new poll.
There is a bipartisan consensus among voters in Republican-heavy Iowa to update legislation to hold tech companies accountable, though more Republicans than Democrats back measures curbing abuses of power by large technology firms and strengthening laws to keep markets competitive, according to the results of a poll by Data For Progress shared exclusively with the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Read the full story
President Joe Biden’s mandate that all businesses with 100 employees or more require employee COVID-19 vaccinations is now with the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Buckeye Institute, a Columbus, Ohio-based policy group, became the first to file a motion for an emergency stay with the court, less than an hour after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit granted the government’s request Friday to dissolve an existing administrative stay previously issued by the Fifth Circuit.
The Liberty Justice Center filed a similar motion Saturday with the high court on behalf of a Louisiana grocery store owner and six Texas employees of CaptiveAire Systems.
Read the full story
Live from Virginia Monday morning on The John Fredericks Show – weekdays on WNTW AM 820/ FM 92.7 – Richmond, WJFN FM 100.5 – Central Virginia, WMPH AM 1010 / FM 100.1 / FM 96.9 (7-9 PM) Hampton Roads, WBRG AM 1050 / FM 105.1 – Lynchburg/Roanoke and Weekdays 6-10 am and 24/7 Stream – host Fredericks welcomed War Room’s Stephen K. Bannon to the show to discuss Joe Manchin’s refusal to sign on to the Build Back Better bill while dismantling the Democrats’ agenda. He added that in the days to come the Biden administration will begin to blame Trumpers and The Unvaccinated in response to their mishandling of the Omicron variant. Fredericks: Joining me, Stephen K. Bannon. He is the host of the biggest and hottest show in America, live on War Room. Now he’s on 10 to noon Monday to Saturday. He’s on 5:00 to 6:00 Monday to Friday. He’s heard all over the world. He’s got the biggest live audience and the biggest podcast and he’s the biggest influencer. And he has the most listeners of anybody in America. Even if you add them all up, he’s there. And he’s joining us now, Stephen K. Bannon. Steve, great…
Read the full story
Albany State University (ASU) is requesting that professors include a LGBTQ “Safe Zones” section on their syllabi.
Campus Reform obtained a copy of the recommended syllabus statement, which explains that the university intends to establish “Safe Zone Spaces” across campus.
“The Safe Zone Project is to help educate people about sexual orientation and gender identity/expression issues and to create a visible network of allies to provide support to the ASU lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) community,” the statement reads.
Read the full story
Chinese spies infiltrated Taiwan’s military as a part of a campaign to undermine the island’s defense, Reuters reported.
The effort involved recruiting senior officers at the center of the Taiwan’s armed forces, even reaching President Tsai Ing-wen’s security detail, Reuters reported. A retired presidential security officer and a serving military police lieutenant colonel in the unit had convictions upheld this year for leaking sensitive information about her security to Beijing.
“China is conducting a very targeted infiltration effort towards Taiwan,” retired Taiwanese navy Lieutenant Commander Lu Li-shih told Reuters.
Read the full story