Tag: COVID-19 Pandemic

Chinese Investors Flee Country’s Market as Beijing Fails to Prop Up Economy

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Li Qiang

Chinese investors are racing to put funds in offshore assets as Beijing fails to successfully prop up the country’s ailing economy, according to Reuters.

China’s Qualified Domestic Institutional Investor program, which serves as an avenue for investors in the country to buy foreign securities, jumped 50% in January year-over-year, butting up against the $165.5 billion limit that Beijing has set on the fund, according to Reuters. Li Qiang, China’s premier, announced on Tuesday steps to transform the country’s development model and increase growth that has failed to pick up since the COVID-19 pandemic, with factors like deflation, poor household consumption and huge real estate debts dragging down the economy.

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Investors Scoop Up Commercial Real Estate

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Empty Storefronts in Baltimore

Investors flush with cash are looking to buy up commercial real estate properties that developers are putting on the market at deep discounts as companies struggle to pay debts, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Many investment firms are looking to buy up discounted real estate after stacking up cash during the COVID-19 pandemic, including Ares Management, which is buying up 3 million square feet of office space with offers to buy up assets related to $500 million in high-priority property debt, according to the WSJ. Commercial real estate is facing around $2.81 trillion in loans that are set to expire through 2028 at a time when the industry is struggling with low demand and huge debt costs from high interest rates.

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Religious Communities Coped Better During COVID-19 Pandemic, Studies Show

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People Praying

Religious communities in the United States and the United Kingdom were less depressed during the COVID-19 pandemic, two recent studies found.

University of Cambridge researchers conducted two studies, one in the U.S. and the other in the U.K., on the mental health and overall happiness of religious and non-religious individuals in 2020 and 2021, according to a Tuesday announcement. The research found that religion acted as a boost for both Americans and the British alike, with the risk of mental health worsening by 60% during the pandemic for U.S. citizens who were or knew someone diagnosed with COVID-19 if they professed to be non-religious.

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China Finishes Off Year with Sluggish Growth as Economy Fails to Recover

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China flag

China’s economy grew at a rate of 5.2% in 2023, failing to return to the same growth of around 6% year-over-year that was common before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The year’s growth was an improvement on the even worse growth in 2022, which totaled just 3% for that year, and economists expect similar sluggish growth in 2024 unless a big policy change occurs, according to the WSJ. A number of different indicators added to the dismal report, including real growth in urban disposable income, which grew at just 4.8% in 2023 and was the lowest year since 2002, barring 2020 and 2022.

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Analysis Ties Surge in Inflation to Increased Spending, Value of Debt

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The U.S. government and those of other countries could be using higher inflation to lessen the value of growing public debt resulting from increased spending during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new analysis by a Harvard economist working with The Heritage Foundation. 

The study covers government spending from 2020 through 2022, the high point of the pandemic, and looked at the U.S. and 20 other economies in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD. 

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China’s Latest Economic Data Spells Even More Trouble for the Struggling Economy

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Chinese Stock Market

New data from China shows the country’s economy is still failing to recover from the loss of growth it has seen since the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The Wall Street Journal.

While China’s economy did grow in November in a number of key areas, it was lower than economists’ expectations and was bolstered by a comparison from last year, when the country still maintained strict COVID-19 restrictions, according to the WSJ. Retail sales, which supports the key growth factor of domestic consumption, only rose by 10.1% year-over-year compared to the 12.9% growth that was expected, and fixed-asset investment rose 2.9% from January to November, as opposed to expectations of 3%.

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Biden Is Increasingly Using ‘Wartime’ Powers to Interfere in the Economy

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The Biden administration has increasingly relied on a law intended to shore up national defense in order to enact its economic agenda, boosting green energy initiatives and increasing production of certain goods to address economic issues.

President Joe Biden once again used the Defense Production Act (DPA), a law established in 1950 to give the president authority over domestic industries necessary for the national defense thanks to demands caused by the Korean War, in late November, this time to invest $35 million in domestic manufacturing on medicine components to address shortages, according to a statement from the White House. The use of the DPA is one of many following President Donald Trump’s expansion of the act during the COVID-19 pandemic in order to increase the production of equipment related to national health.

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FDA Inspections of Foreign Drug Facilities Plummeted Since Before COVID-19, Study Shows

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The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has inspected fewer pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic, with foreign facilities, including those from China, seeing the largest decreases, according to a study released in December.

In 2022, the total number of inspections of drug manufacturing establishments by the FDA decreased by 79% for foreign and 35% for domestic facilities compared to 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study by Emily Cuddy, Yun Peng Lu and David B. Ridley using data acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests. Despite the drop in inspections, there was no corresponding decrease in imports or manufacturing, while resources allocated by the FDA toward inspections surged per inspection.

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Commentary: Tennessee Legislators Should Support SITE Act

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Our health care institutions were put to the test during the COVID-19 pandemic, stretching everything from large hospitals and pharmacies to local emergency rooms and makeshift testing sites. We saw our medical personnel endure unprecedented strain throughout the public health crisis. As a health care professional myself, I know the unique challenges that the medical community faces, whether it’s during times of crisis or times of calm. At the end of the day, we do our work to serve patients in need.

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Schools Struggle to Get Students to Class amid Learning Loss

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Schools across the country are struggling to get kids to class while still recovering from the learning loss following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to The New York Times.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress released a report this month showing that students who missed three or more days of school had lower math scores than those who were not absent. Schools, however, are having trouble finding bus drivers to get children to class, with some districts delaying their start times each day and others forced to postpone school for a week, according to the NYT.

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Almost 30,000 People Lost TennCare Coverage in May But Near-Record Enrollment Has Remained

The Center Square

Tennessee saw 27,000 lose Medicaid coverage in May as the state continues its process of redetermining TennCare eligibility following the end of federal COVID-19 pandemic rules.

Those rules blocked states from the mandated process of determining eligibility between March 2020 to March 31. TennCare began the eligibility determination process in April.

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Eight Former Georgia Employees Indicted for Unemployment Insurance Fraud

The Center Square

A Fulton County grand jury has indicted eight former state employees on unemployment insurance fraud charges.

Prosecutors say the eight submitted false claims and weekly certifications to the Georgia Department of Labor during the COVID-19 pandemic to receive unemployment insurance benefits when employed by the state. According to the State of Georgia Office of the Inspector General, the eight received $170,931 in unemployment insurance benefits and federal supplements.

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Poll Shows Voters in Battleground States Trust Republicans over Democrats on Education

Susan Berry, PhD

A new EdTrends poll of voters in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada, shows that Democrats have given up what was once a double-digit lead on “trust in education” and are now lagging behind Republicans by three percentage points.

The poll revealing the historic shift was released Friday by Democrats for Education Reform (DFER), an organization that lobbies for Democrat candidates and heads campaigns to achieve “educational equity for students of color and students from low-income backgrounds.”

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Florida Task Force Prosecuted 67 for Fraud Related to the COVID-19 Pandemic

The Center Square

The Middle District of Florida United States Attorney’s Office has announced the results of an investigation into fraud related to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In March 2020, the Middle District U.S. Attorney’s Office, along with federal, state, and local law enforcement, combined resources to form the Middle District of Florida COVID-19 Fraud Task Force to investigate and prosecute cases of fraud that happened during the pandemic.

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Report: Tennessee Shows Improved Prime-Age Employment Rate from Before Pandemic

The Center Square

Tennessee is one of 26 state’s that has improved its employment rate between now and before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.

Tennessee saw a 2 percentage point improvement from 79.9% employment for those ages 25 to 54 in the first three months of 2020 compared to 81.9% employment for that age group in the first three months of 2023.

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Commentary: Mask Mandates Unmasked

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In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Anthony Fauci said, “There’s no reason for you to be walking around with a mask.” But the longtime director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) soon changed his stance. Although not 100 percent effective, Fauci said, wearing masks is “a symbol for people to see that that’s the kind of thing you should be doing.”

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Analysis: Minnesota Estimated Lifetime Earnings Losses Exceed $23.7 Billion

The Center Square

Learning losses for Minnesota students during the COVID-19 pandemic could result in a combined lifetime income loss exceeding $23.7 billion, according to research from Harvard and Stanford universities.

The Education Recovery Scorecard was released this week by Harvard’s Center for Education Policy Research and the Educational Opportunity Project at Stanford. The scorecard measures learning loss in 40 states between 2019 and 2022, and estimates how much earnings will be subtracted from students’ lifetime earnings.

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Census: Arizona Cities Among Nation’s Fastest Growing

The Center Square

Arizona’s municipalities continue to grow as the COVID-19 pandemic waned, some at faster rates than nearly any other.

U.S. Census population estimates released Thursday show Phoenix increased by 19,053 people in the 12 months ending last July, more than any other city with a population over 1 million people. The only other city of comparable size to add population was Houston, Texas, which gained 11,223 in the same time period. Fort Worth was the only city with more than 50,000 people to add more people than the Arizona capital, adding 19,170 people.

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Justice Gorsuch Says Pandemic Created ‘Greatest Intrusions on Civil Liberties’ in America’s Peacetime History

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Justice Neil Gorsuch called government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic the “greatest intrusions on civil liberties in the peacetime history of this country” on Thursday.

Gorsuch made his comments in reaction to the Supreme Court’s Thursday dismissal of a case dealing with red states’ attempt to keep in place a Trump administration policy, Title 42, which allowed the U.S. to expel over 2.5 million migrants from the border due to a public health emergency. In an eight-page long statement attached to the decision, Gorsuch slammed an array of emergency power abuses employed by local leaders during the pandemic, from lockdowns to church closures.

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As Juvenile Crime Skyrockets to Record Levels, States Seek to Crack Down

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As juvenile crime has skyrocketed across the nation following the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, state lawmakers are looking to pass laws to curb rising youth violence and lawlessness.

Juvenile homicides nationwide increased by 44% from 2019 to 2020 and increased by 83% from 2013 to 2020, according to data from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, as school closures and police reforms have contributed to rising youth crime. Lawmakers in Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and New Jersey have introduced bills to implement measures such as penalty enhancements for juvenile gang members, as well as mandatory holding periods for juveniles charged with violent crimes, to address the rising violence.

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IRS Data Says Florida Is a Top Choice of Americans on the Move

The Center Square

New federal data says Florida is one of the most desired destinations for Americans wanting to move and continues to be the fastest growing state in the country.

According to the 2020-21 IRS migration data, Florida has gained more people than any other state in the U.S since the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Sunshine State’s government continues to add more employment opportunities and tax breaks, enhancing the chances migration to Florida could continue on the same trend.

The IRS data is derived from income tax filings.

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DOJ Won’t Make Inmates Sent Home During COVID Go Back to Prison

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Thousands of inmates sent home during the COVID-19 pandemic will be able to complete the rest of their sentences there as long as they remain compliant, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced Tuesday.

A final DOJ rule released Tuesday clarifies that inmates placed on home confinement under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act will not be automatically sent back to prison when the Biden administration lifts the public health emergency, though the Bureau of Prisons retains discretion to impose sanctions on or return inmates who commit infractions. After multiple extensions, the Biden administration announced in January it would allow the public health emergency to expire on May 11.

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GOP Rep Introduces Legislation to Make China Pay for America’s COVID Costs

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Republican Florida Rep. Brian Mast introduced legislation to hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a copy of the bill obtained exclusively by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The bill seeks to allow the U.S. government to withhold debt payments to China equal to the cost incurred by the U.S. in response to the pandemic. The bill’s introduction comes days after the Department of Energy (DOE) found that the virus likely originated from a lab leak in China.

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Arizona’s Population Growth Leads the West in Latest Census Estimate

The Center Square

More than 94,000 people are calling Arizona home than they did amid the waning months of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The U.S. Census released its annual state population estimates Thursday morning. The measure dips into state births, deaths, immigrants from outside the country and those moving into one state from another. The data is from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022.

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More Evidence Reveals CDC Colluded with Social Media Giants to Silence COVID ‘Misinformation’

Susan Berry, PhD

America First Legal (AFL) released a fourth set of documents obtained from litigation against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that reveals more evidence of alleged collusion between the nation’s public health agency and social media companies to censor free speech and silence Americans under the government’s label of “misinformation.”

Last week, AFL’s 600-page document release uncovered evidence that Twitter operated a “Partner Support Portal” for government employees and other selective “stakeholders” that would allow them to delete or flag posts viewed as “misinformation,” noted AFL, which is led by former President Donald Trump’s immigration advisor Stephen Miller.

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Remote School Districts Saw Larger Enrollment Declines, Report Finds

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School districts that stayed remote as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic saw larger drops in their enrollment compared to in-person school districts, according to a Monday report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).

During the 2021-2022 school year, remote learning school districts lost at least half a million more students than school districts that returned to in-person learning, according to a report by AEI. Remote school districts’ enrollment dropped 1.3% more than school districts that were in-person 90% of the year.

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Michigan Agrees to Spend $20 Million to Settle False Unemployment Fraud Cases

The Center Square

Part of the many woes plaguing Michigan’s Unemployment Insurance Agency since before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic may be resolved but may cost state taxpayers $20 million.

The Michigan attorney general’s office announced Thursday the state has reached a tentative $20 million settlement to resolve a class-action suit against the UIA that claimed the agency falsely accused unemployment recipients of fraud and seized private property without due process.

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Arizona Attorney General Brnovich Sues Biden Administration over Student Loan Debt Cancellation Program

Rachel Alexander

Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich filed another lawsuit against the Biden administration on Thursday, this time challenging the president’s authority to cancel student loan debt. He argued that it goes contrary to several recent Supreme Court decisions striking down federal agencies’ assertion of power never granted to them by Congress. The Biden administration intends to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 of student loan debt for people who make less than $125,000 annually, or $250,000 annually for a married person filing jointly.

In his lawsuit, Brnovich said, “This loan cancellation … is a naked handout by one administration and one party to favored political classes (college graduates and those employed by the higher education industry) at the expense of taxpayers everywhere.”

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Fauci and Wife’s Net Worth Skyrocketed During Pandemic, Analysis Finds

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National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Anthony Fauci and his wife saw a net worth increase of $5 million during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by a government watchdog group.

Between Jan. 1, 2019 and Dec. 31, 2021, the Faucis expanded their net worth from $7.6 million to more than $12.6 million, according to OpenTheBooks’ Wednesday analysis of the 81-year-old retiring NIAID director’s financial disclosures. The director was the highest paid federal employee in both 2021 and 2022, earning $456,000 per year and $480,000 per year, respectively, the analysis noted.

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IRS Sent over $1 Billion in Child Tax Credit Payments to the Wrong People

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The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) sent over $1.1 billion in child tax credit payments to incorrect recipients during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an audit by the Department of the Treasury’s Inspector General (IG) for Tax Administration on Tuesday.

The IRS sent the payments to 1.5 million people between July and November of 2021 during the pandemic, according to the audit’s report. Additionally, the IG noted that 4.1 million taxpayers did not receive payments they should have, amounting to $3.7 billion withheld.

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Sen. Roger Marshall Leads Republican Call to End Biden’s COVID National Emergency

Susan Berry, PhD

Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) introduced a resolution Thursday to end the COVID-19 national emergency declaration that is still in effect under the National Emergencies Act (NEA) despite Joe Biden’s comments that the pandemic is “over” in the United States.

“Since President Biden used his appearance on 60 Minutes to declare COVID is over, he must immediately terminate the COVID-19 national emergency declaration and wind down other emergency authorities that his Administration continues to force us to live under,” Marshall said in a statement released by his office.

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Feds Reeling from New Vax Study, Lawsuits on Social Media Censorship and COVID Stat Manipulation

Just the News

Public health agencies are facing perhaps the most serious threats to their control over information since the COVID-19 pandemic started, playing defense in lawsuits that have already exposed substantial federal involvement in censorship and could next uncloak alleged manipulation of data that has driven COVID policy from the start.

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Federal Government Gives Wuhan-Linked Organization $1 Million to ‘Prevent Future Pandemics’

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The federal government has awarded a controversial nonprofit a $1 million grant for research to help prevent future viral pandemics, an award that comes after more than two years of suspicions that the nonprofit in question may have been bankrolling certain types of highly dangerous coronavirus experiments in the city where the COVID-19 pandemic began.

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Americans Flocked to Arizona Cities amid COVID-19 Pandemic

The Center Square

Whether it was following new opportunities or taking advantage of the untethering of remote work, Arizona’s cities saw significant population growth in 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The U.S. Census released its annual population estimates for cities and counties Thursday, reflecting changes in municipal populations as of July 1, 2021. Four Arizona cities – Queen Creek, Buckeye, Casa Grande and Maricopa – were among the top 10 in terms of largest percentage of growth in the 12 months ending July 2021.

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U.S. Birth Rate Increases for the First Time in Seven Years

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The U.S. birthrate in 2021 increased for the first time since 2014, with COVID-19 pandemic restrictions potentially causing the jump.

The U.S. birthrate saw a 1% increase over the course of 2021 with 3.66 million babies being born throughout the year, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. All age groups of women over 25 contributed to the jump in birthrates, with some experts suggesting that a lengthening COVID-19 pandemic might have contributed to the bump, according to The Wall Street Journal.

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Michigan Audit: Long-Term Care Advocates Didn’t Visit Most Homes for 31 Months

The Center Square

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Michigan’s Long-Term-Care Ombudsman Program failed to visit most facilities in person, an auditor general report found.

MLTCOP, housed within the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, advocates for more than 100,000 long-term care residents statewide, investigates complaints and supports improved policies.

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Analysis: Famed Bangladesh Mask Study Excluded Crucial Data

The Center Square

With one exception, every gold standard study of masks in community settings has failed to find that they slow the spread of contagious respiratory diseases. The outlier is a widely cited study run in Bangladesh during the Covid-19 pandemic, and some of its authors claim it proves that mask mandates “or strategies like handing out masks at churches and other public events—could save thousands of lives each day globally and hundreds each day in the United States.”

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Report: Biden Expected to Extend Moratorium on Student Loan Payments

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President Joe Biden is expected to pause student loan payments through Aug. 31, once again extending the moratorium that has allowed Americans to postpone paying their debts throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, The Hill first reported.

The Biden administration is expected to announce Wednesday another pause on federal student loan payments which will impact roughly 43 million Americans who owe a combined $1.6 trillion in student loan debt, The Hill reported, citing multiple sources. The initial moratorium was scheduled to expire on May 1.

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Report Highlights ‘Compounding Effect’ of Pandemic on Student Performance

The Center Square

A new national report highlights the “compounding effect” the pandemic and remote learning have had on student performance, especially for the youngest learners. 

The report from Renaissance Learning Inc., a Minnesota-based education technology company, found students have made modest gains since returning to the classroom, but have yet to catch up all the way.

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In Another Viral Speech, Rep. Schweikert Says It’s About Time to Declare the Pandemic over, and Exposes Fraud and Budget Gimmicks in ‘Build Back Better’

Rachel Alexander

Just two weeks after his House floor speech on financial fraud in Congress went viral, Arizona Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) delivered another epic speech, this time focusing on COVID-19 and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill. Schweikert said the country is about at the point to declare the pandemic over, and he slammed Biden’s “social spending plan” for “economic violence” against the working poor and “laced with budget gimmicks.”

Schweikert explained how the combination of several factors now means the pandemic is about over. Pfizer’s new antiviral medication, which is about to be approved by the FDA, is 89% effective and will be available to millions by January. There are at-home COVID-19 tests and multiple vaccines. He will be putting forth legislation shortly to address this developing situation.

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‘Fauci’ Earnings Mystery: No Info on Box Office Take for Gushing Documentary About COVID Czar

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Documentaries often earn a fraction of what their fictional counterparts generate, at least those without the names “Moore” or “D’Souza” attached.

“Fauci,” a film detailing the scientific life of the nation’s preeminent infectious disease expert, appeared to be an exception.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has his detractors, particularly on the political right, but he’s still the biggest name in medical science thanks to his leadership on the COVID-19 pandemic and near-constant media presence.

The timing of the film’s Sept. 10 limited release, in cities including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, D.C. and New Orleans, seemed fortuitous given the aggressive Delta variant.

Except we’re still waiting on the box office tally.

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