Below are highlights from Jim’s look at news events from our nation and around the world.  Stories included:

–China flew approximately 56 fighter planes toward Taiwan on Monday, the largest show of force on record.

–Taiwan’s foreign minister says his nation is prepared to fight back if China attacks.

–U.S. troops have been training in Taiwan for the past year.

–Taiwanese officials have confirmed that their military is developing a supersonic land attack cruise missile potentially capable of reaching Beijing.

–A Chinese company unveils a flying grenade.  It’s a mini drone weighing just 28 ounces.  It can be used for both reconnaissance and attack missions.

–China, through investments in and ownership of ports, is expanding its global maritime reach and its appetite for ports shows no signs of diminishing.  As of July 2020, Chinese firms reportedly partly owned or operated some 95 ports across the world.

–The U.S. Army is moving one of its newest missile defense systems to Guam to counter threats from Chinese missiles.

–Emerson College is launching an investigation into a campus conservative group that handed out stickers critical of the Chinese government.

–China has dis-invited the rest of the world from attending the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.

–More than 10,000 physicians and medical scientists worldwide have signed the Rome Declaration to alert citizens about the deadly consequences of COVID-19 policy makers and medical authorities.

–A public health and geographic analysis professor at Harvard recently published a study that found COVID-19 vaccination rates do not correspond with lower infection rates.

–Francis Collins, Director of the National Institutes of Health, announced his resignation on Tuesday just weeks after documents exposed that he made untruthful comments about U.S. federal funding of gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

–The World Health Organization’s publicly accessible database now shows over 2 million cases of possible COVID vaccine injuries in 2021 alone.  

–Executives at Pfizer may have sought to downplay the use of aborted fetal cells in the development of that vaccine.  This came to light after Project Veritas released a video in which a Pfizer employee shared a string of company e-mails about the subject.

–Although the Los Angeles city council passed a COVID vaccine mandate for people entering restaurants, salons and gyms, Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he’s not going to force his law enforcement employees to get the vaccine.