Covid Nation: Covid-19 has now killed about as many Americans as the 1918-19 Spanish flu pandemic, about 675,000. The flu hit when the US population was about a third of what it is today.

  As of this morning, Johns Hopkins University reports that 676,268 Americans are dead of Covid-19 and 42.3 million have been infected.

  The majority of new cases and deaths are among the unvaccinated. CNN reports on Natalie Rise, a registered nurse in Idaho, who was a home health care worker but refused to get vaccinated against Covid-19 and died of the disease. She declined to get vaccinated even as her mother lay in a coma with Covid-19.

  “She was telling me not to get vaccinated,” her brother, Daryl Rise told CNN. “I think it was from misinformation, I think it was falling into negative social media and bloggers, YouTubers.”

  In other developments, the US has lifted the ban on vaccinated foreigners travelling into the United States.

  The ban over the last 18 months has been a sore point to people separated from families as well as foreign governments, not to mention the US tourism industry which has sustained a $500 billion loss during the months of the ban. The ban has covered 33 countries, including members of the European Union, China, Iran, South Africa, Brazil, and India.

  Foreigners coming into the US would have to show proof of vaccination.

What Goes Up: Stocks took a swan dive yesterday on news that the governments of China and the US are switching gears on some economic policies.

  The S&P 500 fell 1.7 percent, the Dow Jones, 1.78, and the NASDAQ, a whopping 2.9 percent. It doesn’t sound like much, but it’s huge. 

  US investors were shaken when they heard that the Chinese government declined to step in and rescue a giant property developer in deep debt just before they miss an interest payment.

  Here at home, investors worry that the Federal Reserve might soon cut back its purchases of government bonds, which have driven the sharp rebound in stocks and helped prop up corporate profits during the pandemic.

Manhunt: Investigators scoured the Florida family home of Brian Laundrie, the man whose fiancée Gabby Petito went missing and was found dead in Wyoming’s Bridger-Teton National Forest. 

  Laundrie has also gone missing after saying he was going for a hike near home.

  Investigators say social media sleuths who examined tourist pictures of the couple’s van helped to locate Petito’s body. Police reports also establish that the couple had a troubled relationship. The Grand County, Utah, Sheriff’s Office released a 911 recording from August in which a caller said he saw Brian Laundrie “slapping” Petito and chasing her up and down a sidewalk. 

Tilting at Windmills: Former President Donald Trump, who was soundly defeated in the 2020 election, has written a letter to Georgia Secy. of State Brad Raffensperger calling for the 2020 vote to be overturned and claiming,  “Large scale voter fraud continues to be reported in Georgia.”

  Trump says that there were 43,000 absentee ballots that were transmitted through the system in a way that “violated the chain of custody rules.” Without offering any support for his claim, Trump asked Raffensperger to “Start the process of decertifying the Election, or whatever the correct legal remedy is, and announce the true winner. Trump said in the letter that you “adamantly refuse to acknowledge the now proven facts.”

  The Republican Raffensperger is on record saying “there is no doubt” Biden won in the state.

  Trump also spoke out in support of Saturday’s fizzled Capitol rally in support of the more than 600 people arrested for the January 6^th insurrection. He said in a statement, “Our hearts and minds are with the people being persecuted so unfairly” in connection with the attack, which he called a “protest concerning the Rigged Presidential Election.”

The Law of the West: Two lawsuits have been filed by out of state parties against the Texas doctor who admitted in The Washington Post that he performed a first-trimester abortion contrary to the state’s new law banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy.

  A disbarred lawyer in Arkansas, who said he’s not anti-abortion, said he filed the suit to test the law. The doctor in question, Alan Braid, was also sued by an Illinois man who described himself in his complaint as a “pro-choice plaintiff.”

  Both men stand to win $10,000 from Dr. Braid if their suits are successful.

The Spin Rack: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party have survived a snap election but fell short of the 170 seats in Parliament needed for the majority. — Britain says it is  charging a third man in connection with the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei V. Skripal, who was poisoned in England in 2018. Skripal and his daughter, Yulia were found slumped on a bench in Salisbury, poisoned with the nerve agent Novichok. That development came on the same day that the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Russia was responsible for the 2006 killing of Alexander V. Litvinenko, who was poisoned with a radioactive isotope. — FedEx says it’s raising shipping rates nearly 6 percent after the turn of the year.

Social Security: Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has issued a video in which she promises that in 2022 she is going to “blow away the Democrats’ socialist agenda.” She then fires a 50-caliber rifle into a car with “socialism” written on it which blows up on impact. There’s just nothing in politics that settles problems like a member of Congress with a 50-caliber rifle.

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