Has spring reached you yet, my northern hemisphere homies? The calendar, religious holidays, and flowering peach tree in my yard say spring is here, despite the April Fools’ Day surprise for baseball fans who saw snow fall on the season’s first home run. Birds fly north, croaking frogs seek mates, wildflowers paint mosaics across the landscape, and tree leaves unfurl. Spring this year is a more welcome revival than usual.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Republicans, encouraged by the twice-impeached, former one-term president, have persisted in using the phrase “China virus” or “Wuhan virus” to describe the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of these same Republicans have insisted, despite an overwhelming scientific consensus to the contrary, that the virus was created in a Chinese laboratory as opposed to originating in an animal host.

This may be the Trumpiest story in the history of Trumps. Greed. Dishonesty. Penny-pinching penury. And, of course, McDonald’s. In other words, the four pillars of Trumpism.

One of Donald Trump’s former bodyguards is (finally) speaking out about a 2008 McDonald’s order that he paid for on behalf of Trump, and for which Trump has yet to pay him back.

This is weird for a lot of reasons. First of all, Marjorie Taylor Greene’s superhero, Pervert Hoover, thinks exercise is bad for you. (Assuming it’s not golf, of course.)

Secondly, if exercise reliably prevented COVID-19, all those people getting in sweaty knife fights over toilet paper last March would have had zero to worry about, because knife-fighting is a great cardio workout. Or so they tell me.

Finally, why are we firing Dr.

Line speeds in meat processing plants are a classic example of something that’s simultaneously a worker safety issue and a consumer safety issue. And this week, both workers and consumers got a major victory when a federal judge threw out a Trump-era rule allowing pork processing plants to operate at higher speeds.

According to U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen, the U.S.

A lot of news comes down the pipe during a Friday, even in a post-incompetent administration. Much of this news is positive as our competent administration works to help hundreds of millions of Americans adversely affected by the previous administration. Some of this news is negative as the Republican Party’s lack of popular policy ideas means their entire identity is based on the belief that we should not be a democracy.

The prospect of Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz being hoisted by his own “family values” petard is certainly enticing.

Did you know that for 28 years, Alabama has had a ban on teaching yoga in the Yellowhammer State? Well, it’s true. Since 1993, the Alabama board of education has blocked yoga, hypnosis, and meditation from public schools. According to Newsweek, the state’s guidelines explain it this way: “The State Board of Education specifically prohibits the use of hypnosis and dissociative mental states.