A disruptive journalist has accused the White House of racism and claimed press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre 'ignored him' - as he explained his reasoning for derailing the press briefing and berating her on Monday in front of the cast of Ted Lasso.

Simon Ateba, a Cameroonian correspondent for Washington DC-based Today News Africa, said he had been waiting for seven months to ask a question in the room.

On Monday, during a special visit to the press room by the cast of Ted Lasso, Ateba demanded once again that he be allowed to ask a question.

The Los Angeles Times has an interesting article today by Nicholas Goldberg about the Pledge of Allegiance. Goldberg praises those independent-minded students and parents who have challenged its enforcement in public (i.e., government) schools. 

The Pledge of Allegiance has been used as a symbol of patriotism for more than 100 years. Today, it is recited by children in public schools and and also by adults at various events.

Conservatives are among the most ardent proponents of the Pledge. That’s ironic because it was written by a self-avowed socialist, a man named Edward Bellamy. Conservatives profess to oppose socialism and support “free enterprise.”

One of the funniest parts of the history of the Pledge was the manner in which public-school students were expected to recite it. American students were long expected to extend their right arms outward while reciting the Pledge. You know, like the Nazi salute. Officials decided, for appearance’s sake, to change it to the right hand over the heart.

Another interesting aspect to the Pledge is that our American ancestors lived without it for the first 100 years of American history. I guess proponents of the Pledge would say that they weren’t very patriotic. 

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Expect more details—and more controversy—coming soon on the Chinese origins of COVID-19 as a House select committee continues its investigation. While many in government in early 2020 immediately began pushing the narrative that the coronavirus came from nature, several scientists and the U.S. State Department had serious doubts and pointed to the large amount of circumstantial evidence that the virus originated in a Chinese lab.

At the first hearing on the origins topic, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Ohio, chairman of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic, announced that he was not only inviting Drs. Francis Collins and Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health to testify on the topic but also key personnel of other federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of State.

The key question for Congress and the nation: Did COVID-19 have a natural or a laboratory origin? There is disagreement among scientists; and among U.S. intelligence agencies, no consensus exists.  

If it isn’t already, surviving economic collapse should be at the forefront of your mind. And with good reason; the pitiable state of the economy has sparked fear that the world is to face an even larger economic collapse in the coming year. We are truly in a precarious position. The moment the United States dollar experiences a weakening, and the value of basic commodities like oil, gold, and grain skyrocket, a lot of people will be scared for their own daily survival. But, is there still a way of surviving total economic collapse if this event were to take place? The good news is, the answer is yes. The bad news is, while every one of these tactics are absolutely achievable, most Americans will never take the care to implement them. For this reason most will either suffer terribly, or perish in the wake of this disaster. There are various survival skills, both physically and financially, which you can learn and implement now, in order for you and your family to survive in case there is a total economic meltdown.

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy met with other lawmakers for the House Republican Policy retreat in Orlando. One America’s Neil W. McCabe has more from McCarthy’s opening press conference.

One section of Credit Suisse's bondholders is set to be wiped out following the struggling bank's takeover by UBS, causing them to see investments worth 16 billion Swiss francs ($17 billion) become worthless.

The Swiss regulator FINMA announced Sunday that the so-called additional tier-one bonds, which are widely regarded as relatively risky investments, will be written to zero as part of the deal.

The Americas were declared polio-free in 1994.

But now there's a new case that indicates community transmission in the United States for the first time since 1979: An unvaccinated young adult in Rockland County, N.Y., contracted the highly contagious virus and was paralyzed as a result.

Initially, authorities suspected that the individual was exposed when traveling abroad because the type of virus acquired is only seen in other countries: It's what is known as vaccine-derived polio rather than "wild polio."

Vaccine-derived polio stems from the oral vaccine used in low- and middle-income countries. This vaccine is cheap and easy to administer. Two doses confer lifetime immunity. But it is made with living, weakened virus. Those who've been immunized with live virus can shed it in their stool, which can then spread through sewage in places with poor sanitation. If the virus stays weak, it can expose the unvaccinated to polio and give them immunity. But if the virus mutates and regains virulence, someone who isn't vaccinated can become sick with vaccine-derived polio after contact with the contaminated wastewater.

Ionizable lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) have gained attention as mRNA delivery platforms for vaccination against COVID-19 and for protein replacement therapies. LNPs enhance mRNA stability, circulation time, cellular uptake, and preferential delivery to specific tissues compared to mRNA with no carrier platform. However, LNPs have yet to be developed for safe and effective mRNA delivery to the placenta as a method to treat placental dysfunction. Here, we develop LNPs that enable high levels of mRNA delivery to trophoblasts in vitro and to the placenta in vivo with no toxicity. We conducted a Design of Experiments to explore how LNP composition, including the type and molar ratio of each lipid component, drives trophoblast and placental delivery. Our data revealed that a specific combination of ionizable lipid and phospholipid in the LNP design yields high transfection efficiency in vitro. Further, we present one LNP platform that exhibits highest delivery of placental growth factor mRNA to the placenta in pregnant mice, which demonstrates induced protein synthesis and secretion of a therapeutic protein. 

 Orwellian messaging and media control techniques the Western powers honed in the run up to and during the Iraq war are being applied two decades later to stifle any dissent over involvement in the Ukraine conflict, former UK ambassador Peter Ford told Sputnik.

On March 19, 2003, the US launched the invasion of Iraq based on what turned out to be the false premise that Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction. The US and Western press strongly beat the drums for war before the invasion. A FAIR watchdog group poll revealed that 70% of American sources cited in stories in the run up to the invasion were pro-war and a mere 3% were categorized as anti-war.

The war itself was accompanied by images and stories about human rights abuses, including the crimes committed by American personnel at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, although some journalists were targeted for covering such issues.

"Policymakers resolved to get better at manipulating domestic opposition to military adventurism, notably by tighter control over corporate media," Ford said about lessons learned from the Iraq war. "The Ukraine crisis is the perfect illustration of how these lessons have been applied. Dissent over involvement in Ukraine is stifled to an Orwellian degree, while the US shows a limitless capacity for enduring Ukrainian casualties."

Yemen’s National Salvation Government and the Saudi-sponsored administration of the ousted President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi have agreed at UN-brokered talks in Switzerland to swap more than 880 prisoners.

"An agreement has been reached to implement a (prisoner) swap" that will see more than 880 people released in total, said Abdul Qader al-Murtada, the leading delegate of the popular Ansarullah resistance movement to the talks in Bern, according to Yemen's al-Masirah news channel on Monday. The exchange is set to take place within weeks.

Under the agreement, Ansarullah will release 181 detainees, including Saudi and Sudanese nationals, in exchange for 706 prisoners, said Murtada, who heads the National Committee for Prisoners' Affairs. "The swap will be implemented after three weeks." 

House Republicans are now demanding testimony from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg ahead of his potential indictment of former President Trump. 

Trump revealed over the weekend that he believed he would be arrested on Tuesday in relation to a case Bragg has been working on for years related to hush money payments he made to Stormy Daniels. 

The letter came before Bragg even officially took any action, and the chairs of three committees demanded Bragg answer for 'what plainly appears to be a politically motivated prosecutorial decision.' 

Dollar Tree has stopped selling eggs after raging inflation push the cost of a dozen to $4.21 - a three-fold increase on two years ago.

The discount chain said eggs won't be sold again until at least fall, but the stoppage could last even longer.

Average eggs prices fell slightly to $4.21 per dozen in February 2023 after reaching a record of $4.82 in January. In February 2021, the price was just $1.59 a dozen.

President Joe Biden on Monday issued the first veto of his presidency – stopping a Republican-led bill that would overturn his administration's rule letting retirement account planners take 'environmental, social and governance' factors into account.

Biden did so by labeling the GOP move as a 'MAGA' effort, in a statement where he referenced Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-Ga.).  

The Biden Labor Department issued a rule that  ended a Trump-era ban on managers of retirement plans considering factors such as climate change or pending lawsuits when making investment choices.  

 For many electric vehicles, there is no way to repair or assess even slightly damaged battery packs after accidents, forcing insurance companies to write off cars with few miles - leading to higher premiums and undercutting gains from going electric.