Experts are increasingly disputing the overall efficacy of cloth face masks in fighting the spread of SARS-Cov-2, even as many insist that children must be forced to wear them when attending school in the fall.
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With Florida’s gubernatorial race only a few months in, the political rhetoric is increasing and pressure is mounting on Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle. For the Democrats, they will be attempting to unseat current Gov. Ron DeSantis and current Sen. Marco Rubio.
For Republicans, the pressure is mounting to increase their already dominant presence in Florida’s statewide offices and state legislature. However, this upcoming legislative session will also see the Republican-controlled State House and Senate redrawing Florida’s congressional seats.
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The unadjusted consumer price index as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics was 5.28 percent for the month of July, slightly lower than June at 5.32 percent, but still measuring the highest inflation on record since July 2008, when it hit nearly 5.5 percent.
The latest numbers come as Congress has easily passed another gargantuan $1.2 trillion infrastructure spending plan that included $550 billion of new spending. Interest rates have already reacted as 10-year treasuries came off a near-term low of 1.17 percent on Aug. 2 to 1.36 percent as of Aug. 12, slightly increasing inflation expectations.
The $1.2 trillion spendathon was just the latest in a long line of spending that has added $5.25 trillion to the national debt since Jan. 2020 in response to the Covid pandemic all the way to the current $28.5 trillion: the $2.2 trillion CARES Act and the $900 billion phase four under former President Donald Trump, and then the $1.9 trillion stimulus under President Joe Biden. It’s been a bipartisan affair.
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The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) on Thursday argued in a series of tweets that masking in schools seemingly has no negative effects on children.
The medical organization dismissed parental concern over the issue as nonexistent, pledging to provide “real talk” about children wearing masks.
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Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett on Thursday denied the request for an emergency injunction to stop Indiana University’s vaccination mandate from going into effect.
Her decision, however, does not mark the end of the road for the eight IU students suing the university, or for their attorney, Jim Bopp.
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The intelligence community is unlikely to come to any definitive conclusions on the origins of COVID-19 as a result of its 90-day probe ordered by President Joe Biden in May, according to multiple reports.
The report is likely to show that officials are still divided over the two theories they started out with at the beginning of the probe, that COVID-19 either entered the human population through an accidental Wuhan lab leak or by jumping naturally from animals to humans, according to reports by CNN and McClatchy citing sources familiar with the assessment.
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Eleven Senate Democrats on Thursday voted against a modest and commonsense amendment to the Senate Budget Resolution that requires illegal migrants apprehended on the southern border to be tested for COVID-19 before they are transported into the country.
The amendment, introduced by Senator Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), a physician, establishes “a deficit-neutral reserve fund relating to protecting migrants and local communities against COVID-19.” Under the provision, migrants will be quarantined and not transported from the border until they tested negative.
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by John Murawski The national movement to eradicate what activists call systemic racism and white privilege from medicine and health care has few public critics in the medical profession. A possible reason: Skeptics who have questioned these efforts have been subject to harsh Twitter campaigns, professional demotions and other…
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Rising inflation and the price increases that come with it may lead to the highest raise for senior citizens in decades.
The Senior Citizens League predicted Thursday that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for 2022 Social Security payments could be the highest since 1983. The prediction comes as federal data this week showed two major signs of inflation, continuing a trend that has worsened this year.
“The estimate is significant because the COLA is based on the average of the July, August and September CPI data,” said Mary Johnson, a Social Security policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League. “With one third of the data needed to calculate the COLA already in, it increasingly appears that the COLA for 2022 will be the highest paid since 1983 when it was 7.4%.”
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A Bryn Mawr College professor argues that America is “only for white people.”
Speaking on the “Refuse Facism” podcast, Chanelle Wilson, assistant professor of education and director of Africana Studies at the women’s liberal arts college, said the country “didn’t work for black people.”
“Damn sure it didn’t work for indigenous people,” she continued. “It did not work for people of Mexican ancestry. It didn’t work for Asians, it didn’t work for Jewish people, it didn’t work for Japanese people. It didn’t work for Chinese people.”
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Former President Donald Trump on Thursday endorsed candidate Derrick Van Orden in an important Wisconsin swing district, representing the 3rd Congressional District of the state.
In a statement announcing the endorsement, Trump highlighted Van Orden’s record as a military veteran and praised the veteran’s stance on key issues.
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Governor DeSantis expressed his support for Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment Thursday, as COVID cases and the number of hospitalizations continue to surge in Florida.
According to DeSantis, “These treatments have been proven successful, with clinical trials resulting in a 70% reduction in hospitalization and death for COVID patients,” especially those who have higher risk for severe complications due to age or preexisting medical conditions.
As reported by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), “Monoclonal antibodies are laboratory-made proteins that mimic the immune system’s ability to fight off harmful antigens such as viruses.” The treatment is meant for individuals who have tested positive or recovered from COVID.
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Former President Donald Trump in a statement on Friday endorsed Governor Bill Lee (R-TN) in his campaign to seek a second term as Tennessee’s governor.
In the brief statement, Trump pointed out Lee’s record on a host of key issues, including support for law enforcement and border security.
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The Florida Board of Education is scheduling an emergency meeting on August 17 to discuss Alachua and Broward school districts regarding their mask mandates which go against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ executive order banning mask mandates.
Earlier in the week, withholding salaries was a possible ramification, but after DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education slightly backtracked on the issue, their focus is now just funding cuts for the defiant districts. But, where the funding cuts come from is up to the school district.
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