The price of crude oil touched its highest level in nearly 11 years on Wednesday amid the ongoing Ukraine crisis which has roiled energy markets.
The WTI index, the U.S. benchmark index, surged to $112.09 per barrel, its highest level since May 2011, early Wednesday before receding near $108 per barrel, marketplace data showed. The global Brent crude benchmark approached $114 per barrel then dropped below $111 a barrel.
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Over 2,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since Russia first invaded the country on Feb. 25, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said Wednesday, CNN reported.
“More than 2,000 Ukrainians died, not counting our defenders,” the service said in a statement, CNN reported. “Children, women and our defense forces are losing their lives every hour.”
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Russia’s financial markets remain closed Wednesday for the third day in a row as the country’s economy continues to take massive hits caused by Ukraine-related sanctions from Western countries.
The closure of the Russian exchanges is the longest since since 1998, according to Bloomberg News.
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Former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan is facing corruption charges more than two years after a federal probe first started, according to media reports.
The office of U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois John Lausch Jr. announced a news conference Wednesday to “announce an indictment in a public corruption investigation.”
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Georgia gubernatorial candidate David Perdue said this week that incumbent Governor Brian Kemp provided state-backed financial incentives to an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer tied to George Soros. Bloomberg reported this week that Soros does invest in the EV company Rivian.
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Georgia’s redistricting process has caused Democrat Incumbent U.S. Representative Lucy McBath to flee the 6th Congressional District, leaving an open seat.
McBath has left the race for the Sixth district and is running in the much bluer neighboring new Seventh district, taking on fellow Democrat incumbent U.S. Representative Carolyn Bourdeaux. The new GA-7 has a partisan rating of D+16. According to the FEC, McBath has raised $3,199,954.75 and has a war chest of $2,452,731.80 cash on hand. Bourdeaux has $2,005,771.81 cash on hand and has raised $2,406,048.45 for the 2022 election cycle.
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President Joe Biden opened his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night saying that COVID-19 kept America’s political leaders apart last year but now we’re “together again.”
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With President Joe Biden set to deliver his first State of the Union address on Tuesday night, it’s a good time to ask: How has Biden done as president and what is the actual state of our union?
According to the American people, things aren’t going great.
A CNN poll in early February asked Americans what they thought of Biden’s presidency and what he’s done right since entering office Jan. 20, 2021.
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A government watchdog Tuesday took the next step in its battle to expose Chinese connections to the National Institute of Health (NIH).
“Empower Oversight filed an amended complaint today against the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in its Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation for documents related to a request by Chinese researchers to remove genetic sequences related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus from a database controlled by NIH,” that group said in a press release.
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The Wyoming State Senate passed an amendment to the budget Friday that would eliminate funding for the University of Wyoming’s Gender and Women’s Studies program, with those who voted in favor of defunding arguing the program is lacking in academic rigor and offers students only “biased” education.
The amendment passed, in a 16-14 vote.
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Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal’s (D) radical abortion legislation that would have overridden state pro-life laws was defeated in the U.S. Senate Monday evening.
The Senate voted, 46-48, to reject a bill Democrats called the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have embedded abortion on demand, at any time during pregnancy, into federal law, making invalid most individual state pro-life laws.
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Joe Biden’s approval rating has fallen even further in another mainstream poll, returning once more to the 30s in approval.
The Hill reports that Biden scored a mere 37 percent approval in the latest ABC News and Washington Post poll, with 55 percent disapproving of his performance. The remaining seven percent had no opinion one way or the other. The same poll back in November recorded a 41 percent approval rating.
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Half of all U.S. states penned a letter to the Biden administration, arguing against its decision to reverse a Trump-era rule allowing energy firms to transport natural gas via rail.
The 25-state coalition said that proposed prohibition of natural gas rail transport would have “devastating effects” on the economy and national security, according to the letter led by Republican Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry. The Monday letter was addressed to Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) Acting Administrator Tristan Brown.
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Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is projected to win his party’s primary nomination on Tuesday, and is expected to face Democrat Beto O’Rourke this fall.
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President Joe Biden will join other Western nations in releasing a total of 60 million barrels of crude oil amid the Ukraine crisis, the coalition announced Tuesday.
Overall, 31 member nations of the International Energy Agency (IEA), including the U.S., agreed to coordinate the release, according to the Paris-based group. The decision was made in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent effects on global energy security.
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Georgia’s election chief is vowing a full-scale investigation into allegations Democrats may have illegally harvested ballots in the 2020 election, saying his team is preparing subpoenas to “follow the money” and bring prosecutions if warranted.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger sought to dispel whispers in conservative circles that he is slow-walking the probe he announced in January, explaining to Just the News that the only delays are related to administrative changes on the State Elections Board. That panel possesses the power to issue subpoenas Raffensperger says his investigators need to solve the case.
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The American K-12 education system has been failing too many students for too long. And the problem has only gotten worse amid pandemic-era school closures and remote learning.
Increasingly, parents are venting their frustration at local government bureaucracies and teachers’ unions that they believe have too often failed to put the interests of kids first — and some are voting with their feet.
Throughout Covid-19, traditional public school enrollment has dropped by 3.3% (1.45 million students) while charter school enrollment has increased by 7.1% year over year (237,000 students). Families are increasingly taking advantage of other non-traditional schooling options as well: according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the rate of homeschooling nationwide increased by 5.6 percentage points between April and October 2020.
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Georgia Speaker of the House David Ralston (R-Blue Ridge) and House Ways and Means Chair Shaw Blackmon (R-Bonaire) on Tuesday announced legislation that would, if enacted into law, lower Georgia’s maximum income tax rate. Ralston and Blackmon want to reduce Georgia’s maximum income tax rate from 5.75 percent to a single and flat rate of 5.25 percent. They said at a press conference that state residents would save an estimated $1 billion per year if and when the proposed cut goes into effect for calendar year 2024.
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News of yet another violent crime in Buckhead apparently won’t nudge Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and other high-ranking GOP legislators to push for legislation to allow Buckhead residents to vote on separating from crime-plagued Atlanta. Members of the Atlanta Police Department (APD) reported a violent carjacking in Buckhead on Sunday.
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ORLANDO, Florida –The father of Brexit and the U.K. Independence Party told The Star News Network in an exclusive interview he believes his friend President Donald J. Trump is ready to make another run for the White House and that Florida Republican Governor Ronald D. DeSantis does not connect with…
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Nikole Hannah-Jones, the primary author of the widely-discredited “1619 Project,” drew more criticism and ridicule from fellow Twitter users over the weekend when she declared Europe is “not a continent by definition,” and referred to the alarm over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its people, who “appear white,” as a racial “dog whistle.”
“What if I told you Europe is not a continent by definition, but a geopolitical fiction to separate it from Asia and so the alarm about a European, or civilized, or First World nation being invaded is a dog whistle to tell us we should care because they are like us,” Hannah-Jones tweeted, as Fox News noted.
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In the interest of a return to normalcy, we take this short break from COVID and Ukraine coverage to bring to your attention an actual conservative policy matter. The pesky trial lawyers and their junk science “experts” are at it again, providing certain justices of the Supreme Court an opportunity to show us they can still do the right thing.
I’m not pointing fingers at say, Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh, but certain esteemed members of the court who had less than smooth sailing in their confirmation battles and for whom conservatives stormed the ramparts (figuratively speaking of course), have left us wondering if they were worth the battle scars. Here’s some low hanging fruit for them to pick off and make everyone breathe a little easier. All they have to do is vote to take a certain case.
The case involves a long-running dispute brought by the inventor of a special warming blanket called the Bair Hugger (now owned by 3M) which has proven to reduce post-operative infections and other complications and has been used in over 300 million surgeries worldwide to maintain patients’ body temperatures. The inventor, Dr. Scott Augustine made a fortune on this device but lost his rights to the product and its proceeds when he pled guilty to Medicare fraud in an unrelated matter. Dr. Augustine then invented a competing device and waged a campaign to discredit the Bair Hugger claiming that it caused infections. He then hired “experts” and funded studies to back up his claim. Except one of the actual authors of the studies called those studies “marketing rather than research.” As in not based on facts. The FDA admonished Dr. Augustine to stop the false campaign. And not a single physician who uses the Bair Hugger, or a single epidemiologist or any public health officials have supported Dr. Augustine’s contention.
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Matthew Perna did nothing wrong on January 6, 2021.
The Pennsylvania man walked through an open door on the Senate side of the building shortly before 3 p.m. that afternoon. Capitol police, shown in surveillance video, stood by as hundreds of Americans entered the Capitol. Wearing a “Make America Great Again” sweatshirt, Perna, 37, left after about 20 minutes.
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Yo! John Stankey! We told you CNN was stinking up AT&T. Now you are making it worse!
In an interview with CNBC last week, AT&T boss John Stankey exchanged his trademark “Mr. Hollywood Casual” for “Doctor Evil Lite,” while dodging every sensitive question about CNN’s “Mother Zucker” debacle.
In fact, Stankey did the best non-stop weasel dance since the invention of “Whack-a-Mole.”
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Country Radio Seminar is one of the most significant events in Nashville, as it brings country radio and music industry professionals together to educate each other, enhance skills, facilitate business, and promote the growth of the industry.
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The Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Inspector General found that a laboratory contractor with the Office of Research and Development inappropriately manipulated air filter data and failed to follow the appropriate guidance for data of 95 air filter samples, rendering them unusable.
The EPA said the data “drives regulatory decisions, and therefore, it is crucial to accurately assess the quality of data being collected.”
According to the Feb. 16 OIG report, in November 2018, the contractor “misidentified” a subset of filters that they had weighed “during either the loading process in the automated weighing system or by the manner of recording the weight of the filters after they were weighed.”
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Pro-free speech campus activism at Texas A&M University defeated the university president’s attempt to cease the print production of The Battalion, a student-run newspaper.
The Battalion reported Feb. 11 that university President M. Katherine Banks ordered the publication to stop printing physical copies of the paper at the end of the 2022 spring semester.
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The House over the weekend lifted its COVID-19 mask mandate, ahead of President Biden’s State of the Union on Tuesday night in House chambers before a joint session of Congress.
The change, which makes masks optional, was announced Sunday by Capitol Physician Brian Monahan.
“Individuals may choose to mask at any time, but it is no longer a requirement,” he said in a letter to lawmakers, who are returning Monday to Capitol Hill.
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Astudy of Maricopa County’s mail ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimates that more than 200,000 ballots with mismatched signatures were counted without being reviewed, or “cured” — more than eight times the 25,000 signature mismatches requiring curing acknowledged by the county.
Commissioned by the Arizona State Senate, the signature verification pilot study was conducted by Shiva Ayyadurai’s Election Systems Integrity Institute, which released its final report to the public on Tuesday. Ayyadurai is an engineer and entrpreneur with four degrees from MIT who bills himself as the inventor of email, a claim which critics have alleged is exaggerated.
Of the 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots that Maricopa County received and counted in the 2020 presidential election, the county reported that 25,000, or 1.3%, had signature mismatches that required curing, but only 587 (2.3%) of those were confirmed mismatched signatures.
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Over 70% of Americans support funding students’ education rather than public education systems, according to a new poll conducted by RealClear Opinion Research.
Among a majority of respondents, 72% support school choice, according to a poll conducted by RealClear Opinion Research, which surveyed over 2,000 registered voters from Feb. 5 – 9, 2022.
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After gradually reducing requirements for automobiles to pass a mechanic’s inspection before obtaining a registration, a bill in the Missouri state legislature would eventually end the program.
Currently, motor vehicles with more than 150,000 miles and 10 years from their manufacturing model year must pass a biennial safety inspection. House Bill 2499, sponsored by Rep. J. Eggleston, R-Maysville, changes the law to exempt motor vehicles with less than 150,000 miles and manufactured after Jan. 1, 2012.
During testimony on Wednesday before the House Downsizing State Government Committee, Eggleston said legislators in 2019 considered eliminating the inspection program but compromised instead and loosened requirements.
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The rate of homeownership in the United States saw its highest surge ever recorded in 2020, with homebuying rates jumping significantly even as the country continues to see record-low stock in most states.
The homeownership rate “climbed to 65.5% in 2020, up 1.3% from 2019 and the largest annual increase on record,” the National Association of Realtors said in a press release this week.
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The Supreme Court heard arguments in West Virginia v. EPA on Monday, a blockbuster case that could have major ramifications in future separation of powers cases.
The case, which stems from an Obama administration climate rule, has wide-ranging implications for how the federal agencies may issue future regulations and rules, according to the parties that brought the case before the high court. States, environmental groups, large power utility companies, civil liberties organizations and pro-coal industry groups have inserted themselves in the case over the last several years, signaling the importance of the questions it has raised.
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When we last checked in with U.S. Representative Alex Mooney (R-W.Va.), evidence of his misuse of campaign funds had been referred to the House Ethics Committee by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
As American Greatness has reported, Mooney’s congressional campaign used campaign money to pay for the congressman’s personal expenses, including $3,475 in meals from Chick-fil-A and other fast-food restaurants, two vacation trips to resorts in West Virginia, and $17,250 in gift card purchases from a Catholic Church gift shop. He has repaid more than $12,000 of a disputed $40,115 as a result of the OCE investigation.
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On Tuesday, the United States Department of Interior (DOI) announced that it would be declaring the term “squaw” to be derogatory, and would rename over 600 historical sites that feature the term.
As reported by CNN, DOI Secretary Deb Haaland first wrote an order back in November declaring that the longtime term “squaw,” which often referred to female Native Americans, was racist and sexist. To this end, Haaland announced the creation of the Names Task Force, consisting of 13 members, for the purpose of coming up with new names for the over 600 sites that included the term in their names.
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The American Bar Association House of Delegates has approved new law school accreditation standards at the 2022 ABA Midyear Meeting, of which two amendments were focused on “diversity.”
In order to eliminate bias and enhance diversity, the ABA’s amended Standard 303(c) requires that “a law school shall provide education on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism: (1) at the start of the program of legal education, and (2) at least once again before graduation.”
To fulfill this requirement, “Law schools must demonstrate that all law students are required to participate in a substantial activity designed to reinforce the skill of cultural competency and their obligation as future lawyers to work to eliminate racism in the legal profession.”
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A mother who has been arrested twice at Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) School Board meetings spoke to The Georgia Star News Monday.
“I am unhappy that our school board keeps violating constitutional rights of its constituents and that parent rights are being usurped each and every day by a power- and control-hungry Board of Education,” Karen Pirkle said. “I am devastated that my child was involved and they violently arrested me in front of her. I will continue to fight for my child no matter what. As a result of the board actions, my child will not longer attend GCPS schools, as they have now banned me from all school property which limits this parent’s right to drop off and pick up my child. I will continue to fight for my child and her rights.”
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