😷 Covid will 'probably' become a seasonal virus like the flu, Walensky says

CDC officials say it's increasingly likely the coronavirus will never truly go away, but will instead simmer at low levels and rise again in the winter. Even as cases of Covid-19 continue to fall nationwide, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the coronavirus is most likely here to stay — and that it could behave similarly to influenza.

"I do anticipate that this is probably going to be a seasonal virus," said the CDC's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. That means it could join the flu and other respiratory viruses that tend to spread during the cold winter months.

While the CDC says 90 percent of people in the U.S. can take off their masks now, Walensky said she can't guarantee that masks will be gone forever. That means they could make a comeback one day.

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❗️🇺🇸 Every single US ambassador in Latin America has been instructed to influence countries to get on board with the anti-Russia sanctions, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said Friday

❗️❗️Nuland says Ukraine has biological research facilities

🇺🇸🇷🇺🤦🏻‍♀️ Nuland also said that Washington is working to eliminate cryptocurrency sanctions loophole in order to target Russia

❗️🥤Following McDonalds and Starbucks, Coca-Cola is suspending operations in Russia

❗️🇺🇸🇨🇳 US Commerce Department threatens to cut off Chinese firms from US equipment if they don't stop trading with Russia

"We could essentially shut SMIC down because we [the United States] prevent them from using our equipment and our software," Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told The New York Times on Tuesday

“Not only are we pressing every country that we speak to at the President and Secretary's level and all the levels in the department, every single one of our ambassadors has instructions to work with their host nations to try to get them to match US and EU and allied sanctions to the extent that they can and are willing to condemn Russia,” Nuland said during a Senate hearing on Ukraine.

The United States is also trying to influence a number of big countries that have so far abstained from implementing sanctions and other measures to “get on the right side of history,” Nuland claimed.

🔎A Texas man who became the first Capitol riot defendant to take his case to trial was found guilty on all counts on Tuesday.

Guy Reffitt, a 49-year-old member of the far-right “Texas Three Percenters” militia group, was convicted on all five of the felony charges he faced, including bringing a gun onto the Capitol grounds and obstructing an official proceeding.

The federal jury in Washington, DC, handed down the unanimous verdict after just two hours of deliberation.

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❗️(Surprisingly), PepsiCo ceases sales and operations in Russia

❗️UPDATE: A US judge has dismissed Virginia Giuffre's lawsuit against Prince Andrew after they reached an estimated settlement of $16 million

Read the full story on our website and subscribe to @sputniknewsus

❗️Nuland says Nord Stream 2 is "now dead", avoiding the question on whether the sanctions on the pipeline should be permanent

🖋Judge Kaplan has signed the order officially dismissing Giuffre's case against the Duke of York 👆

🇨🇺Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has accused the US and NATO of driving Russia to the edge by pushing their military hegemony in Europe and called them out for "fanning the flames" by introducing sanctions that hurt the already struggling global economy.

❗️🇺🇸🇷🇺 The US has charged dual US-Russian national Elena Branson with acting illegally as a "Russian agent", making false statements to the FBI.

The US Justice Department claims Branson corresponded with President Putin himself and met a high-ranking Russian minister before founding a "propaganda center" in NYC

⭕️A Republican candidate favored to win a seat in the Michigan House said he tells his daughters to “just lie back and enjoy it” if raped, as he attempted to make an analogy about abandoning efforts to decertify the results of the 2020 election.

Robert Regan, who is running to represent Michigan’s District 74 in the state legislature, made the comments during a Facebook live stream Sunday. 

Robert Regan, who is running to represent Michigan’s District 74 in the state legislature, made the comments during a Facebook live stream Sunday. 

Regan then moved on to other comparisons, drawing a parallel between his recent victory in the Republican primary and the biblical story of David and Goliath.

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🔎 Teachers in Minneapolis went on strike Tuesday morning, shuttering classrooms for about 30,000 public school students.

For weeks, the teachers’ union and school district officials have been negotiating over salaries, hiring, and resources for students’ mental health. The talks in Minneapolis failed to reach a resolution by their Monday evening deadline, with the district saying it could not afford to meet the teachers’ demands.

Students in the Twin Cities have already faced pandemic-related disruptions this year. In January, students in Minneapolis learned remotely for two weeks because of staff shortages related to the coronavirus. In St. Paul, some schools also returned to virtual learning for days at a time.

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❗️🇺🇸🇲🇨 The Pentagon has rejected Poland's plan for giving fighter jets to Ukraine

❗️❗️🇪🇺The EU sanctions against Russia cause enormous damage to EU citizens, Dmitry Birichevsky, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of Economic Cooperation, said in an interview with Sputnik

Pentagon says Poland’s offer to fly its jets from a US air base to Ukraine “raises serious concerns for the entire NATO alliance” and is not “tenable.”