An Ingham County Circuit Court ordered Detroit-based Recovery Park to repay $750,000 in Michigan Strategic Fund loans.
A May 2022 lawsuit filed by Michigan assistant attorneys general says the nonprofit Recovery Park and its subsidiary for-profit Recovery Park Farms failed to reach a third milestone of hiring six additional employees for loan forgiveness.
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One of the nation’s leading epidemiologists is declaring there is no basis for President Joe Biden to extend his emergency pandemic powers and that it is essential for insurers to release data showing deaths and injuries to those who have received COVID-19 vaccines.
Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus at the Yale University School of Public Health, told Just the News on Friday evening that federal agencies have epically mishandled the pandemic strategy by substituting theories and politics for science.
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Reports indicate as much as $400 billion in COVID-19 unemployment relief were likely lost to waste and fraudsters. Lawmakers want answers.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Labor demanding documents and information related to the unemployment fraud.
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Minnesota is the third most charitable state in the U.S., according to a new report from WalletHub.
WalletHub divided 19 metrics into two categories in the report released this week. Minnesota ranked third for volunteering and service, and it ranked seventh for charitable giving. Overall, the North Star State falls behind Maryland and Utah.
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has ended the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for its personnel, according to a memorandum exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“CBP is halting the COVID-19 screening program, and employees may choose to withdraw their pending reasonable accommodation requests for screening exemption,” an internal CBP memorandum stated. National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd confirmed to the DCNF that both the vaccine mandate and testing requirements have been lifted.
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Virginia’s Amtrak service ridership hit 105,689 in September, up from the pre-pandemic 76,793 riders in September 2019, for 37.6 percent growth. That’s also an improvement from September 2021 ridership at 50,776.
In a Thursday press release, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority said “the numbers show the strong rebound in post-pandemic travel with every route seeing an increase.”
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Dr. Peter McCullough, world-renowned cardiologist and internist, is fighting back against the radicalized American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), which stripped him of his board certifications in internal medicine and cardiology because of his testimony in Senate subcommittee hearings regarding the risks of the COVID-19 “vaccines” – information that countered that of the federal government.
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In a survey, Virginia’s school staff rated a rise in student behavior problems the most serious problem they’re facing. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) conducted the survey as part of a study of the impact of COVID-19 on K-12 education.
“The pandemic was an unprecedented disruption for K through 12 students and staff, ” JLARC Chief Legislative Analyst Joe McMahon told a General Assembly committee on Monday. “As students returned to in-person learning, chronic absenteeism, classroom behavior, and reported mental health issues have worsened.”
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A group of California physicians filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom and the state’s medical board over a new law that will regulate what doctors can tell patients about COVID-19 risks and treatments.
A.B. 2098 will make it “unprofessional conduct” for physicians or surgeons to provide their patients “false information” related to COVID-19, including vaccines, “that is contradicted by “contemporary scientific consensus contrary to the standard of care.” The legislation discriminates against alternative viewpoints and creates “a severe chilling effect,” contradicting the First Amendment, the New Civil Liberties Alliance (NCLA)-backed lawsuit contends.
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A new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin says racial and political differences during the coronavirus outbreak are more concerning than before.
A team at UW-Madison looked at death rates in the early days of the virus in the spring of 2020.
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A federal grand jury has indicted six people from Benton Harbor on fraud charges.
They are accused of defrauding taxpayers by $1 million via unemployment insurance fraud and small business loans.
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Democrats’ American Rescue Plan, sold as helping the nation recover from the economic crisis sparked by COVID-19, provided funds to begin “guaranteed basic income” programs in at least two dozen cities across the country.
More than $222 million from the legislation has gone to some of America’s largest cities—including Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Seattle, New Orleans, and Chicago—for pilot programs that would dole out money to low-income residents, in most cases for one or two years.
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The opioid epidemic in Virginia cost almost $3.5 billion in 2020, according to a new cost calculator from the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) and the Virginia Commonwealth University. On average, over four Virginians died of an opioid overdose each day in 2020, according to a VDH announcement of the cost calculator.
“This burden is carried by Virginia’s workers, employers, and governments, and includes both future losses and current direct spending that could have been avoided,” the calculator’s site explains. “Virginia families and businesses take on a large amount of these costs, mostly due to lost future worker productivity. Federal, state, and local governments also see increased healthcare and government costs and lost future tax revenues. The cost burden of the opioid epidemic is split among several sectors.”
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National test scores released Monday provide damning new evidence that America’s students are paying the price for the government’s COVID-19 school closures.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress was administered to a sample of fourth- and eighth-grade students in every state between January and March. Students last took the test in 2019.
Nationally, math scores saw the largest decrease on record while reading scores dropped to a 30-year low. No states saw any improvements.
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The Arizona State Senate has reassured that public school students will not be required to receive a COVID-19 vaccine despite recent recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“This is just another example of how out of touch the federal government and its agencies are with everyday families,” said Senate President Karen Fann (R-Prescott). “With Republicans currently in control of our state government, we can promise that we will never subject Arizonans to the requirement of an experimental vaccine that has raised questions over long-term health implications.”
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RICHMOND, Virginia — Virginia’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) are “catastrophic,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a press conference Monday morning, hours after the NAEP scores were released. Nationally, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said in a press release the scores are “appalling.” Virginia’s Republican education administration blamed the Commonwealth’s scores on Democratic policy under previous administrations predating COVID-19, while Cardona said the national results are “a reminder of the impact that this pandemic has had on our learners.”
“Today’s data release is a clear and heart-wrenching statement that Virginia is failing her students,” Virginia Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera said at the conference, and said the results are not a surprise. “Recent date from the ACT, SOLs [Standards of Learning], from the PALS data, and today’s catastrophic decline in Virginia’s NAEP scores are a predictable outcome of the decade-long systemic dismantling of a foundational commitment to excellence in education.”
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A new documentary about the face of the COVID-19 pandemic response in the United States, Dr. Anthony Fauci, received 125,000 views on its opening day Tuesday, according to a press release.
The film, called The Real Anthony Fauci, is based on a book called The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
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A documentary about Dr. Anthony Fauci, the face of America’s COVID-19 lockdowns, mandates, and restrictions, is set to debut in only a few days.
“The Real Anthony Fauci, the latest film from documentary filmmaker Jeff Hays exposes the motivations behind “America’s Doctor” to issue unquestioned edicts that upended everyday life during the Covid-19 pandemic,” according to a press release. “Fauci has drawn criticism from a number of fronts. The film is based on the runaway bestselling book The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.”
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Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech announced Wednesday the Biden Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for their “bivalent” mRNA COVID-19 booster shot for children aged 5-11 years without having completed clinical trials.
“As families across the country take part in fall festivities and plan for the upcoming holiday season, we aim to provide school-aged children with additional protection against the Omicron BA.4/BA.5 subvariants, which continue to account for more than 80% of cases in the U.S.,” said Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla. “Anticipating this need, we manufactured millions of booster doses, which will be made available, pending CDC recommendation, to help families stay up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations.”
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A top Pfizer international executive admitted to a European Parliament committee Tuesday that the pharmaceutical giant did not test its COVID mRNA shot for whether it could prevent transmission of the virus before it was placed on the market and then mandated in many parts of society throughout the world.
Rob Roos, a member of the European Parliament from the Netherlands, tweeted a video of his exchange with Janine Small, president of international developed markets at Pfizer.
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A Columbus, Ohio-based think tank this week prevailed in an administrative case on behalf of a Washington, D.C. tavern owner against D.C.’s since-rescinded mandate forcing indoor establishments to require that patrons wear masks and submit proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
The Buckeye Institute handled the matter for Eric Flannery, a Navy veteran and co-proprietor of The Big Board, a bar and grill operating three blocks east of Washington’s Union Station. Despite the city’s mask and vaccine-card rules, Flannery announced that “everyone is welcome” at his restaurant. This winter, the D.C. Department of Health (DOH) officials responded by suspending the tavern’s operating and liquor licenses, ordering the place to temporarily shutter and slapping Flannery with a $2,000 fine.
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The First Lady of the United States will visit Nashville Wednesday to promote COVID-19 vaccine boosters.
According to several reports, First Lady Jill Biden will arrive in Nashville for a late morning visit to a COVID-19 vaccination site.
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Social media giant Twitter first blocked, then restored, Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo’s tweet regarding the state health department’s guidance in which is noted a study showing an “84% increase in the relative incidence of cardiac-related death among males 18-39 years old within 28 days following mRNA vaccination COVID-19 mRNA shots.”
“Today, we released an analysis on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines the public needs to be aware of,” Ladapo tweeted. “This analysis showed an increased risk of cardiac-related death among men 18-39. FL will not be silent on the truth.”
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A U.S. Army pilot who reluctantly received a COVID-19 vaccination has been reprimanded and denied promotion — and could still face discharge and the loss of his wings — after questioning the vaccine and filing complaints about allegedly biased investigations of him, according to his wife and her attorney.
Jessica Hill-Budge, the wife of Chief Warrant Officer 3 Brandon Budge in the 7th Infantry Division’s 16th Combat Aviation Brigade, told Just the News that her husband is likely to lose his nearly 20-year military career due to improperly conducted official investigations of his case.
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While the economy has been the top concern for Pennsylvania voters, concerns about COVID-19 have all but disappeared.
The impact of inflation and a spike in gas prices making their financial effects felt in the wallets of the public has made what was a live and passionate issue a year ago an afterthought today.
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Epidemiologist Martin Kulldorff, Ph.D. told attendees at Hillsdale College’s Blake Center for Faith and Freedom in Connecticut Thursday evening that government health agencies that forced lockdowns and mass vaccinations to manage the COVID-19 pandemic have thrown the basic principles of public health “out the window.”
Swedish native Kulldorff, who is on leave from Harvard University and is a founding fellow of Hillsdale’s Academy for Science and Freedom, is also a co-author of the Great Barrington Declaration, a document published in October 2020 that has since been translated into 44 languages and signed by nearly one million scientists, physicians, and citizens.
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Two California doctors filed a federal lawsuit that seeks to block a California law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) last week that threatens the free speech rights of physicians to provide full informed consent to their patients about the risks of COVID-19 mRNA shots and benefits of early treatment with off-label drugs.
The new law threatens to punish doctors who do not support the government’s established narrative, called the “scientific consensus,” on COVID-19 with revocation of their license, and livelihood.
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Virginia has 15,338 state employees teleworking at least one day a week, according to a September 30 report from the Department of Human Resource Management (DHRM). That’s up from pre-pandemic 5,664 employees in 2019; Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration said the increase is good.
“As of September 7, 2022, 42 percent of classified executive branch employees were eligible for telework. Of those, 66 percent have approved telework agreements in place. This is significantly higher than employees eligible (26 percent) and approved for telework (37 percent) in 2019,” the report states.
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A former National Guardsman who sought a religious exemption to the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate was given the mRNA shot instead of an inoculation for the flu “accidentally,” according to the service.
After refusing the COVID vaccine multiple times and requesting a religious exemption to the mandate, former Maine National Guard Specialist Mathew Bouchard was given the mRNA shot instead of the flu vaccine months before he was to leave the service, he told Just the News on Thursday.
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California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Friday a bill that allows the medical boards of California to be used as government overseers as they discipline doctors who provide their patients with informed consent about the risks of the COVID-19 mRNA shots and the benefits of early treatment for COVID disease with off-label drugs.
Newman signed AB 2098, which labels as “unprofessional conduct,” a doctor’s discussion about the benefits of early treatment of COVID with effective, readily available, and inexpensive medications already in use for years.
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A Vanderbilt University alumnus who is touted as one of the chief architects of the early COVID-19 vaccine will return to his alma mater to give a speech, the school recently announced.
“Pathbreaking immunologist, virologist, educator and leader Barney S. Graham, PhD’91, will deliver the School of Medicine Basic Sciences Dean’s Lecture on Monday, Oct. 17, at 4 p.m. CT in the Jacobs Believed In Me Auditorium at Featheringill Hall,” said a press release from the school. “Graham was the chief architect of the first experimental COVID-19 vaccines and earned the 2021 Vanderbilt University Distinguished Alumnus Award.”
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Tucson Unified School District gave employees $68 million in retention bonuses and vaccine stipends, according to Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo in a document given to the school board.
Trujillo made the statement in a Sept. 13 report, which stated, “Over $68 million invested in our employees through the payment of retention and vaccine stipends.”
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The latest snapshot of Wisconsin schools shows that kids are still not back to where they were before the coronavirus closed some schools for more than a year.
Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction on Thursday released the scores from the Forward Exam for elementary school kids, the ACT Aspire for freshmen and sophomores, and the ACT for high school juniors.
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Spotsylvania middle school English-as-second language [ESL] teacher Fabiana Parker is the 2023 Virginia Teacher of the Year, making her Virginia’s nominee for National Teacher of the Year.
“Teachers play a critical role in the success of every learner and child in Virginia and Fabiana is the best of the best,” Governor Glenn Youngkin said in a Virginia Department of Education press release. “Growing up as an ESL student, Fabiana knows firsthand the challenges her students face. She began her career as an educator as a girl teaching her grandmother to read. She has helped hundreds of students find a path to success by equipping them with the English skills necessary to prosper academically and in life.”
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After Sandra Hernden voiced her opinion to the Chippewa Valley School District school board, she says the district retaliated.
Now she’s suing the district with help from the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, alleging the board violated her First Amendment rights. Her request in damages if successful, is a public apology and one dollar.
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A Cuyahoga County, OH court this week ruled in favor of a Pennsylvania resident employed in Cleveland who argued she did not need to pay taxes to that city for work she did from home during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The plaintiff, Dr. Manal Morsy, executive vice president at the Athersys biotechnology company who lives in the southeastern Pennsylvania town of Blue Bell, would commute to Cleveland and stay through her workweeks before COVID hit in 2020. Whenever she worked outside of Cleveland previously, she would receive income-tax refunds from the municipality. Pursuant to a state law passed in March 2020 which stated that work from home during the public emergency would be deemed to take place “at the employees principal place of work,” the city collect the municipal income tax from her employer without refunding it.
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State Senator Katie Muth (D-PA-Royersford) announced this week she will introduce legislation to toughen Pennsylvania’s anti-price-gouging law despite economists’ general skepticism about such efforts.
As currently written, the state’s 2006 Price Gouging Act prohibits any entity “within the chain of distribution of consumer goods or services” to sell those products at “an unconscionably excessive price” during an official “state of disaster emergency” or 30 days thereafter. The law defines such a price as “an amount equal to or in excess of 20% of the average price” in the affected region before the emergency declaration.
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The Defense Department’s inspector general has alerted the secretary of defense to apparent blanket denials of religious accommodation requests (RAR) for exemptions from the military COVID-19 vaccine mandate, which would be a violation of federal law.
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Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) once again battled with White House chief medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci Wednesday about whether children with natural immunity from a prior COVID infection should be injected with the mRNA shots the government has referred to as “vaccines.”
“Dr. Fauci continues to lie, cover-up, and deny the science to promote himself,” tweeted Paul about his tense exchange with Fauci during a Senate committee hearing whose central focus was the federal response to monkeypox.
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A new pre-print study by nine health experts from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and other top universities found that COVID-19 boosters administered to young adults cause 18 to 98 serious adverse events for each COVID hospitalization prevented.
The study—posted Monday on The Social Science Research Network (SSRN)—concluded that mandatory booster vaccination in college is “ethically unjustifiable.” The paper is titled, “COVID-19 Vaccine Boosters for Young Adults: A Risk-Benefit Assessment and Five Ethical Arguments against Mandates at Universities.”
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Wisconsin GOP Sen. Ron Johnson condemned Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky for failing to substantively respond to inquiries into the agency’s monitoring of adverse COVID-19 vaccine effects.
Johnson initially wrote to Walensky in both June and July asking as to the agency’s methods for monitoring vaccine side effects. He received a reply on Sept. 2 in which Walensky largely discussed the use of the data mining method the CDC employed. She said the CDC used Empirical Bayesian (EB) data mining as its primary method and only used the proportional reporting ratio (PRR) to verify EB results.
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A new report issued Monday by Republicans on the Senate Education Committee claims the Minnesota Department of Education failed to follow state and federal law in its management of federal meals programs.
The report says agency leadership “either did not know how to responsibly manage [Food and Nutrition Service] programs or found the faithful execution of those duties burdensome and optional.”
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State Representative Tim Twardzik (R-PA-Frackville) this week proposed legislation to lighten the burden of unemployment compensation (UC) on businesses that have seen major rate increases since COVID-19 hit in 2020.
Twardzik indicated his bill will be similar to legislation that state Senator David Argall (R-PA-Mahanoy City) has introduced in his chamber.
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President Joe Biden is being mocked after he made a garbled claim that he is reducing the deficit this year by one trillion, five hundred thousand dollars, with the number being especially awkward given the vast difference between trillions and hundreds of thousands.
“You know how much, how much I’m reducivethedefcit this year? One trillion, five hundred thousand!” Biden said during a Labor Day speech in Milwaukee, Wisc. It appears the president was attempting to say he’s “reducing the deficit this year.”
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The Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) plans to spend $1.2 billion of federal COVID-19 relief to recover from learning loss and revamp its buildings.
The spending plans aim to repair learning loss detailed by test data the state and federal government released this week showing a drop in test scores, and for some students, decades of learning loss.
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Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania released its Fall 2022 COVID-19 vaccination protocol, stating that returning students must be fully vaccinated prior to arriving on campus.
“Students are required to be fully vaccinated prior to arriving to campus, unless approved with an exemption,” the Susquehanna University Plan for Fall 2022 reads.
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After adding more routes in Virginia, ridership on four state-supported Amtrak routes hit all-time highs in July, beating pre-pandemic levels with 110,256 passengers.
“These numbers make it very clear – Virginians want more passenger rail to be a part of their transportation network,” Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (VRPA) Chief Operating Officer Mike McLaughlin said in a press release. “With the launch of two new roundtrips and the resumption of another, we know that rail works for the Commonwealth and look forward to further expanding service throughout the state.”
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The Biden education department announced Thursday that U.S. students’ plummeting scores in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic is all due to former President Donald Trump.
“Today’s data confirm the significant impact the prior Administration’s mismanagement of the pandemic has had on our children’s progress and academic wellbeing,” said Biden Education Secretary Miguel Cardona Thursday, following the report that U.S. students showed their steepest decline in decades in math and reading scores during the COVID school shutdowns.
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Life expectancy across all groups in the U.S. has fallen 2.7 years from 2019 to 2021, the largest two-year decrease in 100 years, according to provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released Wednesday.
Overall, life expectancy at birth fell to 76.1 years, with life expectancy declines driven primarily by the coronavirus pandemic and unintentional injuries including overdoses, with heart disease, liver disease and suicide representing smaller contributions, the CDC reported. While life expectancy is expected to increase slightly in 2022, it is unlikely to rise to pre-pandemic levels and CDC researchers are still waiting to see how the U.S. fares in an expected winter rise in death rates, according to Reuters.
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Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) announced Tuesday that he had filed a civil rights lawsuit against the City of Tucson over its mandatory COVID-19 vaccine requirements.
“Tucson dictated a widespread vaccine mandate without regard to its impact on the liberties and civil rights of its employees,” Brnovich said in a press release. “Many of those affected are first responders, and it’s our turn to be there for them. The city’s misguided vaccine mandate is an ugly example of government overreach that we must vigorously oppose.”
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