W.H.O. Broadens Definition of Airborne DiseasesAfter a drawn-out global controversy over the coronavirus, the W.H.O. has updated its classification of how pathogens spread through the air. ….. Read More.THE NEW YORK TIMES – Health | Consumers & ShoppingThu, April 18, 202422 hours ago
Trump’s Willing AccompliceYesterday, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos conducted a skillful and revealing interview with New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu. Over nine damning minutes, Sununu illustrated how deep into the Republican Party the rot has gone.The context for the interview is important. Governor Sununu is hardly a MAGA enthusiast. During the 2024 GOP primary, he supported Nikki Haley, and over the past several years, he’s been a harsh critic of Donald Trump. Sununu has referred to him as a “loser,” an “asshole,” and “not a real Republican.” He has said the nation needs to move past the “nonsense and drama” from the former president and that he expects “some kind of guilty verdict” against Trump. “This is serious,” Sununu said last June. “If even half of this stuff is true, he’s in real trouble.”Most significant, as Stephanopoulos pointed out, five days after January 6, Sununu said, “It is clear that President…
World Health Organization, experts reach landmark agreement on how to define airborne diseasesThe World Health Organization and around 500 experts have agreed for the first time what it means for a disease to spread through the air, in a bid to avoid the confusion early in the COVID-19 pandemic that some scientists have said cost lives.The Geneva-based U.N. health agency released a technical document on the topic on Thursday. It said it was the first step towards working out how to better prevent this kind of transmission, both for existing diseases like measles and for future pandemic threats.The document concludes that the descriptor “through the air” can be used for infectious diseases where the main type of transmission involves the pathogen traveling through the air or being suspended in the air, in line with other terms such as “waterborne” diseases, which are understood across disciplines and by the public.WHO DIRECTOR…
A New Police Force Chased a 17-Year-Old Boy to His Death. Then It Vanished.Cruising south down a two-lane highway in Montana, Braven Glenn looked out onto the open road, the evening sky chilly and dark. It was November 24, 2020—half a year into the pandemic and three months after his 17th birthday. He was a good student, on his way to pick up his girlfriend, a basketball player like him, at her house on the Crow Indian Reservation. Most days, Braven took his time while driving; his friends sometimes teased him for staying below the speed limit. But lately he hadn’t been feeling like himself—not since his grandma died from Covid weeks earlier. On this particular night, when a car ahead of him sat at around 60 mph in a 70 mph zone, he signaled and passed it, slowing again to the speed limit after crossing back over the dotted…
National Debt Tracker: American taxpayers (you) are now on the hook for $34,576,488,508,928.92 as of…The U.S. national debt is climbing at a rapid pace and has shown no signs of slowing down, despite the growing criticism of massive levels of government spending.The national debt — which measures what the U.S. owes its creditors — increased to $34,576,488,508,928.92 as of Wednesday afternoon, according to the latest numbers published by the Treasury Department. That is down about $14.5 billion from the $34,591,001,330,876.91 figure reported the previous day.By comparison, just four decades ago, the national debt hovered around $907 billion.The outlook for the federal debt level is bleak, with economists increasingly sounding the alarm over the torrid pace of spending by Congress and the White House. SOARING DEFICITS TO PUSH PUBLICLY HELD DEBT TO RECORD LEVEL IN 4 YEARSThe latest findings from the Congressional Budget Office indicate that the national debt will grow to…
The RFK Jr. Strategy Clicks Into FocusWhat if everyone’s wrong? What if Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign is savvier, more organized, and more cunning than it’s been given credit for? This past weekend, Kennedy’s “We the People” party gamed an Iowa loophole to secure his spot on the state’s 2024 election ballot. Instead of spending months gathering thousands of signatures, Kennedy’s allies persuaded hundreds of voters to show up in the same place on the same day and partake in something akin to a potemkin political convention. The summit barely lasted two hours. It was a bold gambit, and it worked.On Saturday in West Des Moines, Kennedy “accepted” his nascent party’s nomination for president, then spoke extemporaneously (no teleprompters, no printed remarks) inside the historic Val-Air Ballroom. Twenty years ago on this same stage, Howard Dean gripped the mic and emitted a guttural “YAHHHHHH!”—a gargling, alien howl that many…