Around 963,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week, marking the first time the figure dropped below one million since March, according to the Department of Labor.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics figure released Thursday represented a decrease of 228,000 new jobless claims compared to week that ended August 1. That number also beat Wall Street analysts’ expectations, according to CNBC.
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If you’re not convinced that Americans have been sold a distorted view of COVID-19 risk, consider Major League Baseball.
Most of the league’s players are among the 46 million Americans between ages 25 and 34. A total of 992 people in this age group have died with COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s a mortality rate of 2 per 100,000.
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A Georgia school district has ordered the quarantine of 925 students and staff following a local outbreak of the coronavirus in their school system, The New York Times reported.
The Cherokee County School District, located north of Atlanta, Georgia, opened for in-person learning on August 3 for over 30,000 students, but is now shuttering one high school in the school district and ordering the quarantine of hundreds of students and school officials.
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Furious that Democrat leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were blocking a bill to help Americans through the COVID-19 crisis, President Trump stepped up and got the job done, all by himself.
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More than 5 million people lost their health insurance coverage over the past several months because of COVID-19 restrictions as costs for lifesaving medications and treatments for cancer also skyrocketed.
A new study by Families USA found that more than 5.4 million people who lost their jobs are uninsured, compared to 3.9 million who were in a similar situation during the Great Recession.
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Scurvy, we all know, is a disease caused by a vitamin C deficiency. It took almost 200 years from the time a “lemon juice” cure for scurvy was discovered until it was promoted by the British government. Some think the mental biases that caused the needless deaths of millions have been eliminated in more “enlightened” modern times. They are wrong.
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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo dismissed suggestions Monday that local officials are undercounting coronavirus deaths at nursing homes while a several reports indicate the state inaccurately measured how the virus affected long-term care facilities.
New York will not conduct an investigation into nursing home deaths during the pandemic, Cuomo said during a press conference Monday. His insistence that there is no controversy comes after media reports show the state only counts people who died on nursing home property and not those who died after being transferred to hospitals.
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Russia on Tuesday became the first country to approve a coronavirus vaccine, a move that was met with international skepticism and unease because the shots have only been studied in dozens of people.
President Vladimir Putin announced the Health Ministry’s approval and said one of his two adult daughters already was inoculated. He said the vaccine underwent the necessary tests and was shown to provide lasting immunity to the coronavirus, although Russian authorities have offered no proof to back up claims of safety or effectiveness.
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People wanting to visit their loved ones residing in nursing homes and assisted living facilities will be able to starting August 29, the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) announced Monday.
This will be the first time visitors have been allowed into long-term care facilities since March 31.
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As states and school districts continue to change their back-to-school policies due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the national debate rages over in-person or virtual learning for instruction, some parents have taken their children’s education into their own hands.
A new form of quasi-homeschooling, called micro-schooling, is emerging. In this not-so-new format, neighboring families have decided to educate their children in a modern version of the 19th century era one-room schoolhouse.
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Some school districts are having a difficult time accounting for thousands of devices that were sent home with students this spring to participate in distance learning programs during COVID-19 shutdowns.
Federal CARES Act funding allocated money to states to purchase millions of students laptops, tablets and Chromebooks. Now some districts are having difficulty finding them.
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Governor Walz announced in a press release Friday that he will extend Minnesota’s COVID-19 Peacetime Emergency again by 30 days. The state’s peacetime emergency first went into effect March 13 – this is the fifth extension to date.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented and rapidly evolving, and we can’t let our guard down,” stated Walz.
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by Daniel J. Mitchell The coronavirus has been horrible news, most obviously because of death and suffering. But the disease has also wreaked havoc with the economy and given politicians an excuse to push counterproductive policies. But if you want to find a silver lining to that dark cloud, the virus may be putting…
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Dr. Simone Gold, a board-certified emergency physician and the founder of America’s Frontline Doctors, has responded to Twitter’s removal of her tweet about treatments for COVID-19 and locking her out of her account.
In her response, Dr. Gold – who also graduated from Stanford Law School after completing her medical degree – called out her temporary Twitter ban, calling the action “another classic case of tech censorship against anyone who speaks out against the media narrative.”
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New York schools can bring children back to classrooms for the start of the school year, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday, citing success in battling the coronavirus in the state that once was the U.S. heart of the pandemic.
The Democratic governor’s decision clears the way for schools to offer at least some days of in-person classes, alongside remote learning. Students will be required to wear masks throughout school day.
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Ohio Republican Gov. Mike DeWine tested negative for the coronavirus Thursday after testing positive earlier that day, according to The Wall Street Journal.
DeWine first tested positive for the virus Thursday before his scheduled meeting with President Donald Trump in Cleveland, the WSJ reported. DeWine’s office said the 73-year-old governor doesn’t have any symptoms, according to the WSJ.
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The U.S. economy produced between 1.35 million and 1.8 million jobs the month of July, bringing the total number of jobs created since April when labor markets bottomed with the federal and state governments in lockdown to combat the Chinese coronavirus to between 9.3 million and 10 million.
Further speeding the recovery along are the number of COVID-19 cases are beginning to decline nationally after brief spikes in Texas, California, Florida and Arizona as states were reopening. Now the cases have stabilized in those states, and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation is projecting they will remain stable until mid-to-late September when the cold and flu season gets going again.
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The University of Minnesota released a report Thursday in which all 500 Twin Cities healthcare workers tested in their study were negative for COVID-19. Their test subjects were the healthcare workers who have been tending to patients for months.
Considering the recent surge of cases, this is good news for the frontlines.
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The Republic is in grave danger.
There, I said it.
Does anyone really doubt it? America is stumbling and the vultures are circling. What is the nature of these perils that afflict us?
Read MorePrivate sector job creation for displaced workers slowed in July, with private payroll increases not meeting the growth expected by economists, CNBC reported.
Economists who were surveyed by Dow Jones expected private-sector employment to increase by 1 million, yet reported an increase of 167,000, CNBC reported. The report was issued by Dow Jones economists and Moody’s Analytics.
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Virginia has rolled out a smartphone app to automatically notify people if they might have been exposed to the coronavirus, becoming the first U.S. state to use new pandemic technology created by Apple and Google.
But hopes for a nationwide app that can work seamlessly across state borders remain unrealized, and there are no known federal plans to create one. State officials say their new app won’t work as well outside Virginia, at least until a group of coordinating public health agencies gets a national server up and running and other states join in.
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Mayor of New York City Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday COVID-19 checkpoints will be established on tunnels and bridges leading into the city in order to enforce Governor Cuomo’s quarantine order.
The mayor tweeted, “New Yorkers worked too hard to beat back COVID-19 — we cannot lose that progress. 35 states have dangerously high infection rates. We won’t let the virus spread here.”
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Governor Mike DeWine was headed to Cleveland to meet President Trump who is visiting the state today. During his ride to the Burke Lakefront Airport, he took a rapid response test which returned a positive result for the coronavirus.
DeWine is headed back to Columbus after his positive test. Currently, the 73-year-old has not experienced any symptoms, according to the Governor’s statement.
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Economic activity in the manufacturing sector grew in July, with the overall economy notching a third consecutive month of growth, according to a new report published by the Institute for Supply Management.
The Manufacturing ISM “Report on Business” calculated a July composite reading of 54.2 percent, a second straight month of growth for U.S. factories.
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One influential pork company has received most of the money from an Iowa program designed to support farmers who euthanized their hogs after the coronavirus devastated their industry, newly released data shows.
Christensen Farms, one of the nation’s largest family-owned pork producers, has received $1.86 million from the Iowa Disposal Assistance Program, or 72% of the $2.6 million the program has paid to date.
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Some unemployed workers received nearly twice as much money through unemployment insurance (UI) payments authorized through the CARES Act than they earned when they were employed, a new study from the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) found.
In response to states shutting down economies over coronavirus fears, Congress passed several relief bills, including the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) and the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act. These two bills expanded the UI benefit period, suspended work search requirements, included newly eligible individuals, and added a $600-per-week unemployment benefit enhancement through July 31.
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Researchers, governments and pharmaceutical companies worldwide have been working rapidly to develop an effective vaccine against coronavirus, which has infected over 4.5 million and killed over 150,000 people in the United States alone.
Testing has advanced quickly and there’s optimism that a vaccine will be developed before 2021. But there are also concerns that a vaccine won’t be sufficiently stockpiled or efficiently distributed. There’s additional worry that the growing distrust in vaccines will result in large numbers refusing the injection, making it less beneficial.
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Police Departments across the country are in crisis as calls to defund the police, rioting, and the Covid Crisis threaten to sap existing resources.
A new study by the Police Executive Research Forum showed that almost half of the 258 departments surveyed are facing budget cuts. Portland City council approved a $15,000,000 dollar budget cut last month as the city struggled with riots. The Portland Police Department was forced to pay over $5,000,000 in overtime to deal with the unrest.
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Governor Tim Walz announced Thursday that Minnesota schools will have the majority of authority on if or how they open campuses, based on discretionary assessment of their district’s localized data.
According to Walz’s Emergency Executive Order 20-82 and the accompanying “Safe Learning Plan,” schools must watch the spread of COVID-19 in their communities to determine the learning model that will suit their needs. These models are also subject to change throughout the school year, a protocol that Walz refers to as “dialing back [or] forward” in his executive order.
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The U.S. economy contracted a record-setting, inflation-adjusted, annualized 32.9 percent in the second quarter of 2020 according to the latest data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis as tens of millions of Americans waited out the Chinese coronavirus in their homes, not venturing out much except for work and needed supplies.
The second quarter comprises of April, May and June, when in Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey 25 million jobs were lost by April and then 8.8 million came back in May and June as states slowly began reopening.
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Pharma giants GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur have announced they will supply 100 million doses of an experimental COVID-19 vaccine to the United States as governments buy up supplies in hopes of securing a candidate that works.
The United States will pay up to $2.1 billion “for development including clinical trials, manufacturing, scale-up and delivery” of the vaccine, the two companies based in Europe said in a statement. Sanofi will get the bulk of the funds.
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An all new LIVE STREAM of War Room: Pandemic starts at 9 a.m. Central Time on Saturday.
Former White House Chief Strategist Stephen K. Bannon began the daily War Room: Pandemic radio show and podcast on January 25, when news of the virus was just beginning to leak out of China around the Lunar New Year. Bannon and co-hosts bring listeners exclusive analysis and breaking updates from top medical, public health, economic, national security, supply chain and geopolitical experts weekdays from 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon ET.
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Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam announced Friday that the government will postpone highly anticipated legislative elections by one year, citing a worsening coronavirus outbreak in the semi-autonomous Chinese city.
The Hong Kong government is invoking an emergency ordinance in delaying the elections. Lam said the government has the support of the Chinese government in making the decision to hold the elections on Sept. 5, 2021.
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The Anoka County Sheriff’s Department said this week it will not be enforcing Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’s face covering executive order.
Intended to help slow the spread of the Coronavirus, Executive Order 20-81 makes it mandatory for Minnesotans to wear masks while in most public spaces.
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The United States gross domestic product (GDP) fell 32.9% in the second quarter of 2020, the Department of Commerce reported, marking the largest decline the country has ever seen, according to CNBC.
In addition to the record drop in GDP, The Department of Labor reported Thursday that over 1.43 million Americans filed initial claims for unemployment last week, marking a swift economic contraction as coronavirus cases continue to rise across the country.
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Minneapolis business owners are reeling after Governor Mayor Jacob Frey’s latest order closing “bar areas” indefinitely starting Saturday.
According to the Minnesota Emergency Regulation 2020-17, counter service at bar areas will be prohibited. The regulation extends to dance floor areas, stages, game rooms, or “any space that is undefined or does not provide for seated food and/or beverage service.” The city estimates that this will impact more than 640 businesses.
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Silicon Valley’s pre-election censorship of conservatives is rapidly increasing, with anything that questions the imposition of a new level of COVID-19 lockdown misery and economic devastation a top target.
The latest example of this pre-election censorship occurred yesterday, when Facebook, Twitter and Google removed a press conference video by frontline doctors featuring U.S. Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and organized by Tea Party Patriots.
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During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the media warned breathlessly of “chatter” that terrorists—domestic and international—were planning to exploit and spread the virus. So far no such plots have developed, but a former CIA officer warns that the lessons terrorists have learned from the inept and politicized response to the pandemic, if exploited, may be more dangerous to us than terrorist use of the virus itself.
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Boeing lost $2.4 billion in the second quarter and the company will slow production and cut more jobs as demand for commercial aircraft shrinks during the coronavirus pandemic.
The loss was far worse than Wall Street expected; so was the decline in revenue, which fell 25%.
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A Kodak moment for the books: the former film giant flipped to pharma in a move aimed to rejuvenate the company after nearly two decades of hardship. Several reports state that Kodak branched out to offset the large-scale loss of its film business – punctuated by a bankruptcy in 2012 after the concept of the digital camera that it invented rendered many of its product offerings obsolete.
Initial talks of Kodak’s new active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) division, branded “Kodak Pharmaceuticals,” began as early as a few months ago according to Kodak CEO Jim Continenza. He says the move shouldn’t be all that surprising.
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Host Steve Bannon interviewed Peter Navarro at the Freedom Summit about America-China relations amid the coronavirus pandemic that was started by the Chinese.
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This week, educators and parents wait with bated breath on Governor Tim Walz’s upcoming decision on a safe return to schools.
On the Facebook page, “Minnesota for a Safe Return to Campus”, the greatest concerns were mainly posted by educators. Death, unrealistic demands, a future lack of interest in teaching as a profession, and the inability to be with elderly loved ones were all consistent issues listed throughout the page.
Since March, when U.S. policy makers implemented restrictive policies to limit the spread of the coronavirus, government agencies have collected data and reported their findings, which have significantly varied over time. As the data comes in, agencies have amended their guidelines, often to the frustration of policy makers and media critics.
Initially, the Centers for Disease Control argued that the coronavirus could be spread via surface-based transmission. It has since changed its position on this after scientific studies have shown the opposite. It recently stated that doorknobs and other commonly touched surfaces are not consistent with transmission. Rather, spread of the virus is believed to be mostly through droplets from respiratory exchanges, it states in its revised guidelines.
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Minnesota health officials are concerned about renewed pressure on the testing supply chain, which could affect the state’s response to a recent growth in cases and plans to continue to ramp up testing.
Health Commissioner Jan Malcolm said during a press call Friday that state officials have received reports of delays or reductions in testing supplies like reagents and pipettes from some health systems across the state, which rely on their own supply channels for weekly shipments of testing equipment.
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This tumultuous back-to-school season has parents and teachers alike scrambling to make sense of the madness: from ever-changing district directives to COVID-19 response protocols. Some school systems have announced that the academic year will start with remote-learning-only. Others are pursuing partial reopening options with both online and in-person instruction. Still others are planning to fully reopen for in-person learning.
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Several reports published in western countries worldwide argue that children should be returning to in-person classrooms in the fall.
Reports by the top pediatric hospital in Canada and by a leading expert in the British government argue that schools should reopen with relatively few restrictions because of growing evidence that indicates that children appear to be at little risk of contracting or spreading COVID-19.
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Although we’ve seen numerous office epitaphs in recent weeks, we believe the pre-pandemic workspace isn’t going away anytime soon. Why?
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The state legislature, not the governor of Indiana, has the authority to require residents to wear a face covering in public, Attorney General Curtis Hill said in a new opinion.
Gov. Eric Holcomb is requiring that all state residents wear a mask or other face covering in public places effective Monday, July 27.
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The United States is gradually grinding to an educational collapse as the giant bureaucracies and extraordinarily powerful teachers’ unions ignore children and education in pursuit of power.
Many of the wealthiest school systems have decided that they simply will not go back to school this fall. They will offer virtual classes even though the evidence is overwhelming that for younger children virtual classes are dramatically less effective than in person instruction.
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