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Four of New York City’s five boroughs have lost a higher percentage of residents since COVID than any of the 40 largest counties in the country, a startling new review of US Census data shows. Topping the list is The Bronx — with a 7.2% drop in the past three years, according to the analysis of county-level population estimates. “It’s been good for us — we get more work — but it’s sad,” said Manny Gomez, a 42-year-old Bronx resident and employee of Morgan and Brothers Manhattan, a storage and moving company, in the borough’s Mount Eden section.

Wallowa County became the 12th Oregon county to join the "Greater Idaho" movement when special election results on the measure were finalized Tuesday. The vote originally took place in May, with preliminary results showing support for the effort leading by only 21 votes. After all votes were finalized in June, the lead shrunk to only seven votes, narrowly avoiding the state requirement for a recount. The "Greater Idaho" effort originally began in 2020 as an idea for large swaths of rural eastern Oregon to secede and join the more conservative Idaho to get away from the western, progressive part of...

Homicide rates have spiked, but most of America has remained untouched. Only a tiny fraction of U.S. counties account for nearly all of the country’s homicides, according to research released Tuesday that showed a striking concentration where killings take place. The worst 31 counties — generally urban jurisdictions — have about a fifth of the country’s population but accounted for 42% of the country’s homicides in 2020, said John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, which conducted the study. The worst 5% of counties accounted for 73% of homicides. That ticked up slightly from 69% in...

It suffices to say that Election Day didn't go as planned for some polling places that experienced and are still experiencing ballot-counting issues. Despite the varying election-related difficulties, multiple jurisdictions share one foreseen commonality. There's a common thread connecting five counties spread across several states that were in disarray on Election Day: federal "monitors." On the eve of the elections, the Biden administration's Department of Justice announced Monday it would be dispatching such monitors to as many as 64 jurisdictions in almost half of U.S. states on Election Day to oversee federal election law "compliance According to the DOJ's watch...

Pennsylvania has not certified the results of its May 17 primary election in three counties due to lingering legal disputes over the counting of mail-in ballots. Berks, Fayette and Lancaster counties have become embroiled in litigation challenging the counting of such ballots on which the voter did not write the date, according to the Pennsylvania Department of State. The state last week sued the three counties, aiming to force them to count mail-in ballots without handwritten dates, the Associated Press reported. Fayette County asserts that the state lacks the authority to compel the counting of the disputed ballots and highlights...

Eight Michigan counties will end school COVID-19 mask mandates on or before Feb. 28, citing lower COVID-19 metrics.The Health Department of Northwest Michigan – which covers Antrim, Charlevoix, Emmet and Otsego counties – will repeal its mandate Thursday, followed by Ingham County on Saturday. Oakland, Washtenaw, and Wayne counties will drop their's Feb. 28, the last day of the month."The purpose of the First Amended Order was to protect students, school staff, as well as the community and was originally issued on August 27, 2021, and amended on November 9, 2021," health officer Lisa Peacock said in a statement."It was...

Representatives of three Maryland counties are saying Montani Semper Liberi. Legislators from Allegany, Garrett and Washington counties submitted a letter to West Virginia legislative leaders to explore the possibility of jumping the border. Terrapins are always free. Don’t take this as a land grab or a succession just yet. It’s by no means a done deal. “These three counties in Maryland, we would welcome these counties. This is the first step. It’s early in the process if it even does happen. These counties are more like West Virginia than they are the rest of Maryland,” said West Virginia Delegate Gary...

President Joe Biden’s aggressive push to require millions of U.S. workers to vaccinate against the coronavirus is running into a wall of resistance from Republicans threatening everything from lawsuits to civil disobedience, plunging the country deeper into culture wars that have festered since the onset of the pandemic. There are even some Democrats that are speaking against Biden’s mandates.The mandate, which requires employers with more than 100 employees to mandate either vaccination or weekly testing, will be covered under a forthcoming rule from the Labor Department and its Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Biden believes OSHA has the authority to...

More than 95 percent of U.S. counties are now seeing “high” rates of COVID-19 transmission, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC's COVID Data Tracker revealed on Tuesday that 95.19 percent of counties in the U.S. are seeing a “high” rate of transmission, meaning there were at least 100 new cases reported per 100,000 people in the past seven days. Around 2 percent of counties are seeing “substantial” and “low” rates of transmission, and less than one percent of counties are seeing “moderate” rates of transmission.

Two Washington counties are implementing outdoor mask mandates beginning Tuesday, forcing individuals attending large outdoor events to mask up and recommending them to do so in any outdoor situation where they cannot keep a six-foot distance. The orders cover large events in both King and Pierce counties. Under the rules, those five and older must wear a mask outdoors if they are attending a large gathering, which is described as any event with over 500 people.

BREAKING REPORT: Wisconsin Governor Tells Counties to IGNORE SUBPOENAS for House Election Audits…

While there are literally millions of different viruses around the world, most of which, of course, are benign, there is one thing that defines those which afflict humans most: Mutation.The first thing a virus does when it is met with resistance, for the most part, is to mutate so that it can continue to survive. Only when there is no host to mutate to, do most viruses finally die off.But that’s what is driving the new spike in COVID-19 infections in Florida — higher than average vaccination rates, and a vulnerable population.Thanks to the COVID-19 vaccines, the original strain has...

San Francisco and six other Bay Area counties will reinstate a mask mandate for all indoor environments as cases of the coronavirus “Delta variant” continue to rise, health officials announced Monday. The new mandate — which applies to everyone, regardless of their vaccination status — will take effect on Tuesday in San Francisco, Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sonoma counties, and in the city of Berkeley.

Five eastern Oregon counties voted Tuesday to consider joining Idaho, the biggest victory to date for the movement to split off from the Democrat-controlled blue state by redrawing state lines. Citizens for Greater Idaho said that the five rural counties — Sherman, Lake, Grant, Baker and Malheur — approved measures directing county commissioners to promote the concept of border relocation, joining two other counties, Union and Jefferson, that did so in November. The Nov. 3 election also saw two other counties defeat the Greater Idaho proposal, but on Tuesday, all five counties with the initiatives on the ballot passed them....

Several counties in America are considered the “bellwethers,” the ones that nearly always vote for the eventual winner of the presidential race. And by “nearly always,” we mean it’s remarkable how accurate they are throughout history. This year, the bellwether counties voted heavily for Donald Trump, and for many of them, it appears they have broken their near-perfect records of predicting the winner, if the current trends hold and Biden is elected president. Valencia County, New Mexico – perfect record with the electoral college winner since 1952 (longest current perfect streak). 2020: Trump 54%, Biden 44.% Vigo County, Indiana (county...

Joe Biden is on track to smash another of Barack Obama’s records. If Mr Biden takes office, he will have set a new low for the percentage of counties won by a successful US presidential candidate – just 15 per cent. The former Democratic Vice President appears to have secured an electoral college victory with just 477 out of the country’s 3143 counties and county-equivalents. Hillary Clinton, in her failed 2016 run, won 472 counties. Former President Obama ushered in the previous low in 2012, winning re-election with just 689 counties, or 22 per cent – breaking his own record...

Michigan drivers and taxpayers have been complaining about road and highway conditions for years. But the solutions policymakers have recently proposed ranged from the politically impossible, like raising the gas tax 45 cents per gallon, to financially-risky short-term fixes like borrowing billions in bonds to pay for teacher pension contributions so that money could be shifted to funding for roads. But it seems like Michigan lawmakers may be warming up to a long-term, sustainable, users-pay solution to achieving better roads: tolling. Lansing's interest in tolling has gone back decades but this year the state Legislature and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration...

Wait: Biden Won 200 Fewer Counties Than Obama … but Still Got 13 Million More Votes?

Six Bay Area counties announced Monday in a joint statement they'd be extending shelter-in-place orders through the end of May amid the novel coronavirus pandemic. The extended orders affect Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties, as well as the City of Berkeley, which has its own public health department. Full details are expected to be released later this week, the health officers said, and "will include limited easing of specific restrictions for a small number of lower-risk activities." The current shelter-in-place restrictions for the six Bay Area counties were set to expire on May...

Schools and businesses in Pennsylvania will remain closed until further notice because of the coronavirus pandemic, the state's governor said on Monday.