Free Republic

Vladimir Putin has said that Russian forces will destroy any F-16s delivered to Ukraine from its NATO allies "wherever they are," while at the same time insisting that Moscow had no intention of attacking any country in the alliance. During a visit to the 344th Army Aviation Centre where combat pilots are trained, in Torzhok, 160 miles northwest of Moscow, Putin was asked if Russian pilots would be "allowed to hit these targets at NATO airfields." Putin replied: "Of course, if they are used from airfields of third countries, they become a legitimate target for us, no matter where they...

During the most recent total solar eclipse visible in the U.S., on Aug. 21, 2017, the skies darkened as the Moon crossed in front of the Sun. It blocked out all sunlight – except for that from a golden ring visible around the Moon’s shape, called the corona. Not surprisingly, solar power generation across North America plummeted for several hours, from the first moment the Moon began to obscure the Sun to when the Sun’s disk was clear again. On April 8, 2024, another total solar eclipse will track across the U.S., causing perhaps an even greater loss of solar...

As of this writing, the measles outbreak in Florida is up to nine cases, including the first one recorded outside the epicenter in Broward County, the vicinity of Fort Lauderdale. Nine cases may not seem like a lot, but it's enough to alarm epidemiologists. They point out that measles is among the most contagious viruses known to humankind, which means that the cases identified thus far are likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Who's unconcerned? The chief public health official of the state of Florida, that's who. He's Joseph Ladapo, who I earlier identified as "the most dangerous...

Alaska health officials confirmed the state’s first fatal case of Alaskapox — a recently discovered viral disease. An elderly immunocompromised man from the Kenai peninsula, south of Anchorage, died while undergoing treatment in late January, the Anchorage Daily News reported. He is one of only seven reported Alaskapox infections, the Alaska Department of Public Health said in an announcement on Friday. “People should not necessarily be concerned but more aware,” said Julia Rogers, a state epidemiologist. “So we’re hoping to make clinicians more aware of what Alaskapox virus is, so that they can identify signs and symptoms.” The double-stranded-DNA virus,...

KFF Health News — The Covid-19 pandemic would be a wake-up call for America, advocates for the elderly predicted: incontrovertible proof that the nation wasn’t doing enough to care for vulnerable older adults. The death toll was shocking, as were reports of chaos in nursing homes and seniors suffering from isolation, depression, untreated illness, and neglect. Around 900,000 older adults have died of Covid-19 to date, accounting for 3 of every 4 Americans who have perished in the pandemic. But decisive actions that advocates had hoped for haven’t materialized. Today, most people — and government officials — appear to accept...

As the world reckons with worsening impacts of climate change, some LGBTQ communities and destinations are grappling with the “existential” threat posed by the crisis... President Joe Biden on Nov. 14 delivered a statement on climate change policy during his administration. Biden spoke on the American Rescue Plan, the Fifth National Climate Assessment, new transparency about the state of the country’s climate and more. Biden emphasized “advancing environmental justice for disadvantaged communities, because they’re the ones always left behind.” Evidence of this trend can be found in LGBTQ destinations across the country. Julian Cyr, a gay Massachusetts state senator who...

The torrent of emotions that accompanies the decision on whether or not to have children has been intensely complicated on our over-heating planet. A recent review of studies in western countries, including the US and UK, asked how climate change was affecting plans to have children. It found substantial evidence that fears about the crisis were putting many people off. In some countries, concern has become so palpable, that organisations have sprung up to help people deal with making monumental personal decisions in the midst of global existential crisis. Among these is Conceivable Future, an organisation started in 2014 in...

… balmy holidays are a preview of something darker: bigger climate extremes, more natural disasters, the specter not of a world where humans suffer through these things and find ways to survive but where we’ve made the planet so uninhabitable that, in the longer run, the planet survives but we don’t. I was thinking about this while standing outside a science museum a couple of days ago with a friend. We were talking about the weather, but not the kind of small talk when you have nothing else to say. “I’m not sure our grandkids will even know what snow...

Thanksgiving “could soon become another victim of climate change,” a recent report by ABC News warned. The report said rising temperatures “threaten the abundance and quality” of ingredients that make up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. “As a result, these essential food items could become increasingly scarce and more expensive, potentially forcing families to omit or make substitutions in key recipes on their Thanksgiving menus,” the report said.

Chinese researchers claim they have developed what the media is terming a ‘force gun’ that purportedly uses magnetic plasma rings to manipulate distant objects in space, almost reminiscent of ways the Jedi in the Star Wars film franchise use the force to move objects with their mind.Little information is available about the mystery weapon, but if it exists, it could theoretically be used to capture enemy spacecraft, alter their orbits, or even cause spacecraft to crash into each other, all from a safe distance.

Sometime in the past year, this tiny planet we live on in an obscure corner of our Milky Way galaxy went through some sort of tipping point, a “state change” of sorts, and now things are different from how they’ve been at any other time in the 300,000 year history of the human race. Nobody knows for sure what that change or tipping point is. — One theory is that variations in dust concentrations in the Northern Hemisphere’s atmosphere — a function of the temperature of the Atlantic Ocean allowing more or less fine dirt to be picked up and...

Sometime in the past year, this tiny planet we live on in an obscure corner of our Milky Way galaxy went through some sort of tipping point, a “state change” of sorts, and now things are different from how they’ve been at any other time in the 300,000 year history of the human race. Nobody knows for sure what that change or tipping point is. - snip - But regardless of the why/how, something has definitely happened in the past year or so that has pushed our atmosphere’s state of equilibrium out of an older, stable range and into a...

There's no ducking it now. The widespread, serious negatives have reached a critical level. There are no cures available except a major reset of investor beliefs, rationale and expectations. Importantly, this reset is not of the "typical" overoptimistic, fad-driven, easy-money booms. Instead, it is the return to traditional capital market operations that had been skewed by the Federal Reserve since 2008 — 15 years! Never has there been such an extended period and enormous, anti-capital market actions. The Fed's two primary actions were near 0% interest rates that produced dramatic inequities, and $trillions of money creation that has led to...

The next major pandemic is coming. It’s already on the horizon, and could be far worse — killing millions more people — than the last one. We don’t yet know for certain what form it will take — just that its arrival, according to global health experts, is not just a possibility but a probability. To combat Disease X — as the World Health Organisation ominously calls it — we will once again need vaccines to be engineered and delivered in record time. But, as things stand, there is absolutely no guarantee that will happen. By contrast, we may well...

… While some families never stopped masking, a recent Yahoo News/YouGov survey of 1,665 adults in the U.S. found that just 12% had practiced regular mask-wearing outside of the home over the previous week. … Dr. Zachary Hoy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Pediatrix in Nashville, says he doesn’t believe that families should overreact to the uptick in COVID-19 cases just yet, though it is worth monitoring. … If your family decides to return to masking, Amodio suggests including kids in any discussions. “Help them to understand the reasons behind the choice, and be sure to validate their emotions...

Covid cases are on the rise again. Hospitalizations have spiked noticeably since the beginning of July. But doctors say we're far from a place of panic. There's also promising new protection on the horizon as a highly contagious new variant spreads. As North Texas prepares for the return to school and enjoys the last bit of summer, the CDC is keeping a close watch on those COVID cases. In the first hospitalization spike, we’ve seen this year, just over 8,000 hospital admissions were reported on July 22. That was up 12% compared to the prior week.

The economic meltdown that is coming should not be a surprise to anyone. Throughout U.S. history, there have always been signs that a major downturn was coming, and that is precisely what we are witnessing right now. Tax revenues are way down, demand for trucking services is way down, demand for cardboard boxes is way down, the money supply is shrinking at the fastest pace in modern history, and the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators has already declined for 15 months in a row. At this point, anyone that cannot see what is coming has got to be...

Governments must introduce measures to reduce the public’s standard of living by a staggering 75 percent, using force if necessary, globalist corporate media outlets are now warning. The public must take drastic measures to reduce individuals’ so-called “carbon footprint” to stop “global warming,” according to the BBC. In its “Future World” series, the BBC warns viewers that choosing to live an “ultra-low carbon lifestyle” is no longer an option and calls for the standards to be mandated by governments. The public-funded British media outlet insists that a dramatic reduction in living standards is now required if the planet is to...

"THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS." Off the Charts Scientists are alarmed as ocean surface temperatures have continuously set new record-breaking highs over the last month. According to data analyzed by the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, daily ocean surface temperatures breached historical record highs since at least 1982 in April. That means we are in uncharted territory as global warming continues to take its toll with extreme weather events becoming more common by the year — and scientists are clearly shaken by the spiking temperatures. "This is getting ridiculous," physicist and climate change expert Rober Rohde tweeted. "For the last...

Russian president Vladimir Putin gave an interview to the All-Russia State Television and Radio Broadcasting Corporation, which ran the interview on state-run television network Russia 24. During the interview, Putin Western countries’ plans to supply Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, as well as the current state of Russia’s military-industrial complex. The Russian president also announced his plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of neighboring Belarus. Meduza shares the most important parts of Putin’s remarks.There are threats, of course. We know about plans to supply weapons to Ukraine, including a million shells. Is that a lot or a...