Saturday, February 22, 2020

In the news, Thursday, February 13, 2020


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FEB 12      INDEX      FEB 14
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from America Magazine - The Jesuit Review

To prevent spread of COVID-19, Hong Kong Diocese cancels Masses
The threat of spreading the coronavirus has forced Catholic officials in Hong Kong to suspend all church programs Feb. 15-28, including Sunday Masses and the Ash Wednesday liturgy that marks the beginning of Lent.

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from Financial Times
LEAST BIASED, HIGH, business and economic newspaper in London, UK

Coronavirus was not genetically engineered in a Wuhan lab, says expert
A scientist at the forefront of an international effort to track the deadly coronavirus outbreak has shot down claims about the disease’s origins, including that it escaped from a Wuhan laboratory after being genetically engineered. Trevor Bedford, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, rubbished stories circulating on social media that Covid-19 was created at Wuhan Institute of Virology or elsewhere in China, rumours that prompted the World Health Organization to warn of an “infodemic” of false news on the outbreak.

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from The Guardian (UK)

Coronavirus: China purges regional leaders hours after spike in deaths and cases
The number of deaths and infections caused by the coronavirus in China has risen sharply after authorities changed the way they calculated the figures amid a purge of party officials in the stricken province of Hubei. On Thursday China confirmed 254 additional deaths – the majority of them in Hubei, the centre of the outbreak, bringing the total death toll to 1,370. After days of declines in new infections, Hubei province reported an enormous increase of almost 15,000 – a jump of about a third on the total so far. Hubei’s health commission said it was now including in its confirmed tally those people diagnosed via CT scans as well as via testing kits. Previously, the authorities had included only those cases confirmed by the diagnostic testing kits, which are in short supply. The change has been applied only to Hubei province.

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from HumanProgress.org  Education Website

The Battle to Feed Humanity Has Been Won
For millennia, people lived on the edge of starvation. Today, starvation has disappeared outside of war zones.

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from Inlander

Crisis pregnancy centers are gaining popularity, buoyed by the pro-life movement. Using private donors and, in some cases, public money, volunteers operate thousands of centers around the country. While operating under far less scrutiny than the medical health centers they vastly outnumber, the movement's mobile clinic vans and brick-and-mortar pregnancy centers often locate as close as possible to clinics that offer abortion, in part to divert women on their way there.

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from Mises Institute
RIGHT-CENTER BIAS, MIXED


Rothbard: The Constitution Was a Coup d'État
Rothbard took the American Revolution to be mainly libertarian in its inspiration, but he contends that the libertarian impulses of the Revolution were betrayed by a centralizing coup d’état. If Rothbard is right, the Constitution as written provides ample scope for tyranny.

Foreign Aid Just Empowers Corrupt Regimes. End It.
US aid to foreign regimes helps free governments from having to raise funds from their own people. So, the recipients of foreign aid are likely to become less responsive and more corrupt.

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from POLITICO

Pentagon to shift $3.8B for fighter planes, ships toward border wall
The Trump administration plans to sap money intended to build fighter jets, ships, vehicles and National Guard equipment in order to fund barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Pentagon told Congress on Thursday, a move that has agitated Democrats and even drawn condemnation from a top House Republican. The surprise reprogramming of another $3.8 billion, transmitted to Congress and provided to POLITICO, means the Pentagon will have forked over nearly $10 billion since last year to help pay for President Donald Trump's border wall. But this shift in funding marks a new phase for the administration, which until now had used money set for military construction and counterdrug operations, not combat equipment. The fiscal 2020 money will be moved into drug interdiction accounts that the Pentagon tapped last year to fund border barrier projects.

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from The Spokesman-Review
Newspaper in Spokane, Washington

Senate moves to limit Trump on military force against Iran
The Senate approved a bipartisan measure Thursday aimed at limiting President Donald Trump’s authority to launch military operations against Iran, with eight Republicans joining Democrats in a post-impeachment bid to constrain the White House. The rebuke was the Senate’s first major vote since acquitting Trump on impeachment charges last week. Trump is expected to veto the war powers resolution if it reaches his desk, warning that if his “hands were tied, Iran would have a field day.”’

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