TODAY IS GIRL'S DAY

But first, a look at the week to come:

Donald Trump leads Nikki Haley in the Republican primary, 244 to 24. 1215 clinches the vote.

Actually, we are in the midst of the DC Republican primary, from Friday through Sunday for 19 delegates. If Haley is ever to beat Trump, it will be in DC.
Donald Trump will crush Nikki Haley in all the 16 Republican primaries on Super Tuesday.
The only question about the Republican primary is when Haley will give up.

Will this happen after Super Tuesday?
She represents the never-Trumpers, and this could be more than 10% of the Republican Party and Independents, those who will make the difference between Trump and Biden.
Wouldn't it be nice for Republicans if they kissed and made up, with Haley campaigning WITH Trump into the future?
If she hangs in there, that will only hurt Trump, for, after all, he is a lout, cheat and a huge threat to American Freedom and Democracy. If he gets re-elected on November 5, that will the last election in the USA for all that we have represented to the World. Trump will rig all future elections, and find a way to make ours a monarchy, insuring that one of his family becomes the next POTUS. He's already done this to the Republican Party.

With November 5 eight months away, Joe Biden will kick-off his re-election effort with his first campaign speech, which also happens to be his fourth State of the Union on Thursday. Last year, 27 million watched. Sure to be more this next time. I mean, old, but honest and good old Joe Biden....versus old, but serial liar and soon to be convicted felon Donald Trump

Oh, the House of Representatives will take another crack this week to see if it can really shut down our federal government. Perhaps they will instead try to redeem itself by delaying this embarrassment while passing war funds to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.
By the way, speaking of Girls' Day, Caitlin Clark today scored 35 points, got 6 rebounds, had 3 steals and dished out 9 assists, as Iowa beat #2 Ohio State. She also broke the all time scoring record held by Pistol Pete Maravich. I was there to watch him for all four years at LSU and saw him break that record.

Here is what I know about Japan's Girls' Day.

There has never been a Girl's Day in Japan. Hinamatsuri means doll festival, began in the Heian Period (794-1195) on March 3, and became official in 1687.
While there are boy dolls in the country, girl dolls are more prominent, and some took this to be Girl's Day, so families wished young girls health and prosperity. March 3 was never a national holiday, and this year just happens to fall on Sunday.
There was once Boys' Day, on May 5, when paper carp flags were flown, going all the way back to the 12th century. But the Japan Diet in 1948 changed that to become Children's Day for both boys and girls, and is now a national holiday. Called Tango no Sekku, historically, on this day, women were asked to purify the house by fixing the roof, and during the Kamakura period (1185-1333) the samurai class switched the focus to boys. Carp streamers came later, in the Edo period (1603-1867).

Actually, there is an International Day of the Girl Child, but this is celebrated on November 14, declared in 2012 by the United Nations. It's too new, and no country treats this day as a national holiday. The day is used here and there to promote women's rights. In 2016 President Barack Obama issued a proclamation supporting an end to gender disparity. Can you imagine Donald Trump doing this?

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicious and troublesome. This strain has also been spreading in

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for several months. This is caused by stress more than anythi

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These are held every five years, and there have only been

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