• Mandated transgender brainwashing: California school district forbids parents from opting children out of LGBT 'education'
• Canada's gender-neutral pronoun bill should be a warning for Americans
• Policing of speech: NYC to fine businesses for not using the correct gender pronoun
• Transgender madness spreading: Activists gear up to rewrite Harvard Medical School's curriculum!
• Questioning gender fluidity has become the new blasphemy
• The gender identity concept came from a pedophile and human experimenter

• Tolerance cuts both ways: Freedom of speech means freedom for people to say the things we hate to hear
• Protecting your right to free speech - as long as you're 'one of us' that is.
• Jordan Peterson documentary premiers in Canada despite 'cancel culture' onslaught
• UK academic prevented from giving free speech lecture at his own university as spineless officials cave to hard-left threats
• Cancel culture strikes again and kills Apu from 'The Simpsons' - where does this nonsense end?
• The main victims of progressive 'cancel culture' are progressives themselves

• Not to become the world's garbage dump: Malaysia sends back thousands of tons of trash
• Hemp 101: The incredibly versatile plant

Talk is now being raised about a global pandemic:

© AFP / Anthony Wallace
A press conference in Hong Kong about the extent of the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak in China, January 21, 2020

  

The deadly pneumonia-like illness that has sickened hundreds and killed nine in and near Wuhan, China has turned up in the US, despite precautions, as China's neighbors ratchet up screening efforts to prevent a global pandemic.

A Snohomish County, Washington man has become the first officially confirmed novel coronavirus case in the US. Local officials have not named the man, who is said to be very sick. He was hospitalized with pneumonia last week after returning from the Wuhan region, where the illness has already claimed nine lives, according to Chinese authorities.

It's not immediately clear how many other Americans may have been exposed to the disease, which is believed to have its origins in a seafood and poultry market in the city of Wuhan, home to 11 million people.

Over 440 cases had been confirmed by Wednesday in China, cropping up in cities including Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai; cases have also been reported in Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and - now - the US. Infectious disease experts from Imperial College London estimated the disease toll to be much higher, however, suggesting on Saturday that at least 1,723 people might be infected.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention set up screening points at airports in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York on Friday in hopes of catching coronavirus carriers before they made it into the country, but they were apparently too late - or too far south - for US Patient Zero. While the CDC has claimed the threat to Americans is low, it also claims to be taking "proactive preparedness precautions."

Russian airports in Moscow, Ekaterinburg and Irkutsk stepped up screening of travelers arriving from China to try to identify infected people on Tuesday, after it became clear the virus is able to spread from human to human. India has also expanded thermal screening of passengers arriving from China, including Hong Kong, to seven airports, among them Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Cochin, in addition to New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The sole South Korean airport operating direct flights to Wuhan set up special gates for passengers back on January 3, while Singapore also expanded travelers' temperature screenings at Changi airport. Malaysia beefed up its own evaluations at the major airport in Kuala Lumpur, and the Bangladesh aviation watchdog also ordered screenings for travelers from China to look for any signs of the illness. Australian health officials, meanwhile, are distributing pamphlets and asking everyone coming from Wuhan to identify themselves if they feel any symptoms.

It's not entirely clear how easily the virus - which causes pneumonia-like symptoms including fever, cough, shortness of breath, and chest tightness - spreads from person to person, or what predisposes a person to contracting (or dying from) it, but authorities believe it initially jumped from animals at the Wuhan market to humans. The World Health Organization is due to weigh in on Wednesday on whether the outbreak will be declared an international public health emergency.

The virus seems to be adapting and mutating, according to the head of China's Disease Control Center, Gao Fu, who noted though that, so far, all of its changes have been in line with expectations.

There may now be up to 2,197 cases of "close contact" with confirmed carriers, though another Health Commission official said he has yet to see evidence for "super spreaders" of the illness, or highly contagious patients, adding that "relevant measures" were being taken in the event such patients arise.

The abrupt increase in confirmed cases comes with improvements in methods of detection, the vice minister said, but the government has nonetheless warned the public to avoid densely populated areas nationwide. Meanwhile, officials in both Wuhan and the city of Hubei have been asked to take the "strictest possible measures" to minimize public gatherings, while residents of both cities were requested to refrain from traveling.

The Health Commission said it will continue to publicize new cases daily throughout China's lunar New Year as researchers work to track the source of the illness and create a vaccine, adding it is now in its "most critical" stage for prevention and control.

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• Close Clinton friend claims her warnings to top-level Democrats about Weinstein fell on deaf ears
• Sex crackpot, liberal left Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein's close connection to the Obamas and Clintons

"Clinton lied about her perceived rival Tulsi Gabbard," the lawsuit, filed in U.S. district court in New York, read. "She did so publicly, unambiguously, and with obvious malicious intent. Tulsi has been harmed by Clinton's lies — and American democracy has suffered as well."

In October, Clinton said that an unnamed Democratic presidential candidate was "the favorite of the Russians."

"I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on somebody who is currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third-party candidate," Clinton said, speaking on a podcast with David Plouffe, a former adviser to President Obama.

Although she never named Gabbard, a four-term congresswoman from Hawaii, there were just five women running for president at the time: Gabbard, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Marianne Williamson.

When a CNN reporter asked Clinton's spokesperson, Nick Merril, whether Gabbard, who has served in the Army National Guard, was the candidate she was referring to, he said: "If the nesting doll fits," a reference to Russian nesting dolls.

Gabbard's suit claimed she suffered "significant actual damages, personally and professionally, that are estimated to exceed $50 million — and continue to this day."

Clinton's remarks at the time ignited a political firestorm, evoking responses in defense of Gabbard from both President Trump and fellow Democratic presidential hopeful Bernie Sanders. Clinton has not responded publicly to the suit and did not immediately respond to a FOX Business request for comment.

Gabbard's suit suggests that Clinton targeted her with a false accusation for "retribution" over her endorsement of Sanders, Clinton's rival in the Democratic primary, in 2016. (Sanders eventually endorsed Clinton for president in July 2016).

"Tulsi was told that the Clinton team would never forget this," the suit says.

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• Lebanon cancels tax hike proposals following MASSIVE protests throughout the country
• 'Tax intifada': Beirut in flames as protesters demand 'downfall of the regime' for new fees, mounting debt

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