Let me begin with President Donald Trump, for he is on the  cover of the current  Time  magazine . His biggest problem today?   Says he won't be extorted by Democrats to end the government shutdown, which tomorrow will tie the record of 35 days his administration set in 2018-2019. His record will also be tested tomorrow when several states vote. His unpopularity in these races has kept him away, but his funding assistance will be helpful to Republicans.  He does have a tele-rally for those governors races tonight at 7PM EDT.  Interesting that, while he has endorsed Ciattarelli, he has not quite officially said so for Earle-Sears. The most watched is for Mayor of New York City. Pits 34-year-old state Democratic lawmaker Zohran Mamdani against former state governor 67-year-old now independent Andrew Cuomo and 71-year old Republican Curtis Sliwa. At last check, Mamdani held a  +14.7 point lead  over nearest rival Cuomo. Two are for governor. In...

  The top stories of the day start with our pandemic: The world is set to reach a quarter billion COVID-19 cases tomorrow.  This means that slightly more than 3% got infected with this virus. Today, the world experienced five million COVID-19 deaths.   This represents 1 death for every 1500 people. Traffic deaths, in the same 20 month period, showed 1 death for 3350 people. Or, during this pandemic, you are about twice as likely to have died from COVID-19 than in a traffic accident. This means the mortality rate is 2%. The U.S. mortality rate is 1.6%. Experts remain uncertain, but the best available info today indicates that  40-50% of those infected don't show any symptoms .  Amazingly enough, there were  28 studies  on this subject by early this year, and the asymptomatic rate ranged from 1.4% to 78.3%. Say the asymptomatic rate is 50%, then the world mortality rate is 1%. The mortality rate of the seasonal flu is 0.1%. But the asymptomatic rate...