Day: February 20, 2022

Healthgrades Ranks Twelve Virginia Hospitals Among Top Five Percent in the U.S.

Eric Burk

Twelve Virginia hospitals have been named to Healthgrades’ list of the top 250 hospitals in the U.S., a ranking based on patient outcomes. Henrico Doctors’ Hospital and several of its campuses and Sentara Princess Anne Hospital made it onto Healthgrades’ top 100 list. No Virginia hospitals made it onto the top 50 list.

“Now more than ever, patients are learning the importance of taking control of their health and using resources like Healthgrades to find the perfect hospital and caregiver match,” Healthgrades Chief Medical Officer and Head of Data Science Brad Bowman, MD said in a HCA Health Systems press release.

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Lawsuit Demands Court Ends Biden’s ‘Unlawful’ and ‘Unconstitutional’ COVID-19 Airplane, Public Transit Mask Mandates

Neil W. McCabe

The general counsel of the Texas Public Policy Foundation told The Star News Network the legal theory behind the federal lawsuit filed by the foundation Wednesday on behalf of Representative Elizabeth Ann “Beth” Van Duyne and Texas Attorney General W. Kenneth Paxton petitions the court to strike down the Centers of Disease Control mask mandate on airplanes and public transit as unlawful and unconstitutional mitigation for the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Well, the basis is twofold,” said Robert Henneke, who is also the foundation’s executive director.

“First of all, there is no statutory authority for the Centers for Disease Control to command that all Americans have to wear a face mask covering when they travel,” Henneke said.

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Commentary: The Freedom Convoy Is a Teachable Moment for the American Right

Virginia Star Staff

It’s pretty amazing how a few weeks of honking in Ottawa combined with parents standing up to autocratic school boards appear to be doing more to move public opinion and change the everyday lives of Americans for the better than decades of funding CPAC social events and conservative think-tanking have done. Fascinating when you think about it.

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Commentary: The FBI’s Troubling Failure to Solve Wave of Bomb Threats at Historically Black Colleges

Virginia Star Staff

On Jan. 5, at least eight historically black colleges and universities received bomb threats, causing the campuses to issue lockdowns and cancel classes. HBCUs have continued to receive bomb threats over the past month, especially as Black History Month kicks off, actively disrupting the learning environments at these educational institutions.

However, the FBI and police departments across the country have seemingly not been able to trace any of the threats and claim to have no findings. It is unconvincing that the FBI has come up virtually empty-handed at so many campuses when it is rarely unsuccessful in cases involving threats at schools.

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Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Air Force Officer Who Defied Vaccine Mandate

Virginia Star Staff

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Georgia ruled in favor of an anonymous Air Force officer who refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine as per the Air Force’s mandate, scoring another victory for freedom of religion.

According to CNN, Judge Tilman Self issued a preliminary injunction forbidding both the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force from enforcing its vaccine mandate on the female officer, who sought a religious exemption from the vaccine.

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Another Obama Economist Joins Public Chorus of Voices Disparaging Biden’s Handling of Inflation

Virginia Star Staff

Former Obama administration Treasury Secretary Steven Rattner is the latest high-profile Democrat to hit at the Biden administration’s handling of the U.S. economy.

In a “guest essay” for the New York Times on Thursday, Rattner criticized the president for the “talking points on inflation” he provided during a recent interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.

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Facebook Executive Resigns After Apparently Being Caught in Underage Sex Sting

Virginia Star Staff

A corporate director at Facebook is out of the company after the release of what appeared to be footage of him being caught in an underage sex sting operation.

Jeren Miles, formerly a manager of global community development at Facebook parent company Meta, departed the company after video of the apparent bust was posted to the YouTube channel of the amateur group PCI Predator Catchers Indianapolis.

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Lack of Vitamin D Increases Risk of Severe COVID, According to Study

Virginia Star Staff

Vitamin D deficiency was linked to worse health outcomes for COVID-19 patients, including higher risk of death, a new study found.

Israeli scientists from Bar-Ilan University and the Galilee Medical Center found a strong connection between vitamin D deficiencies and negative COVID-19 outcomes. The researchers were able to predict COVID-19 patients’ vitamin D status accurately based on the severity of the disease in a patient, according to the Feb. 3 study.

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South African Doctor Who Discovered Omicron Refuses to ‘Create Fear’ by Hyping Variant’s Threat

Virginia Star Staff

“I cannot make a disease worse, and create fear out there,” says Dr. Angelique Coetzee, the South African doctor who discovered Omicron.

In an interview on Just the News Not Noise, Coetzee, chair of the South African Medical Association, described the pressure she faced from public health authorities worldwide to portray the now-dominant variant of COVID-19 as more severe than she was witnessing in real time.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton Launches Human Trafficking Investigation Into TikTok

Virginia Star Staff

Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Friday he is launching an investigation into Chinese social media app TikTok over potential aiding of human trafficking and child privacy violations.

“Chinese-owned company TikTok may be complicit in child exploitation, sex trafficking, human trafficking, drug smuggling and other unimaginable horrors,” Paxton said in a statement Friday. “I will get to the bottom of these concerns and make sure Big Tech doesn’t interfere with the safety and security of Texans.”

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University of Pennsylvania Trans Swimmer Breaks Another Women’s Record, Finishes a Lap Ahead of Competition

Virginia Star Staff

Transgender swimmer Lia Thomas won an Ivy League Championship in the women’s 500-yard freestyle event Thursday, beating most of her competitors by about one lap, according to multiple sources.

Thomas, who competed on the University of Pennsylvania men’s team for three years before adopting a transgender identity, beat the second-place 500 free swimmer by seven and a half seconds and the third-place swimmer by more than ten seconds, according to an event summary.

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Multiple Climate Alarmist Studies About Fish Acidification Turn Out to Be False

Virginia Star Staff

A new study published in early February seems to indicate that many prior claims about the alleged acidification of ocean water dramatically exaggerated the process’s effect on fish and other marine life.

According to the Washington Free Beacon, the study was published on February 3rd in PLOS Biology, and reviewed 91 different studies of the effects that acidification allegedly had on the behavior of fish. Many of these studies claimed that this would lead to a significant decrease in the fish population, as affected fish would be less likely to evade predators in the wild.

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Sheriff Raises Concerns with Biden Administration’s Plan to House Two Thousand Afghan Refugees a Month Near Virginia Schools

Admin

A Virginia sheriff has publicly raised concerns with a plan by the Joe Biden administration to reportedly house thousands of migrants in the Northern Virginia county of Loudoun, allegedly within walking distance of at least two schools.

Loudoun County Sheriff Michael Chapman’s office wrote on the sheriff’s website this week that earlier this month the county received an “unannounced visit” by the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Protective Service.

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