Free Republic

Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that President Joe Biden is “one of the most highly effective presidents we’ve ever seen.” Walz said, “First of all, he’s been one of the most highly effective presidents we’ve ever seen. I’ve been waiting for infrastructure week. I spent last weekend on Macon Island with Whitmer, because this is not a debate about Joe Biden’s age or experience. It’s about a debate about protecting the democracy and you just heard the most promising of the Republicans, and being back in Minnesota. It’s about being able to feed our...

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw that she will release a plan later this week to address the worldwide food crisis and food insecurity that has been exacerbated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yellen visited Poland and Belgium ahead of the Group of Seven finance ministers’ meeting in Germany on Thursday and Friday. She praised Poland for taking in millions of Ukrainian refugees and working with other European countries to get Ukraine’s wheat and other much-needed food supplies out of the country to world markets, the Associated Press reported. Shortages of wheat, barley, sunflower oil and other...

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki defended his country at the European Parliament on Tuesday, answer questions from lawmakers about a recent ruling by his country’s Constitutional Tribunal on the primacy of EU law. The top Polish court ruled on October 7 that parts of the EU treaties are “incompatible” with the country’s constitution and that the latter takes precedence.The ruling has been widely criticized by the European Commission and several member states, including France and Germany, and also prompted tens of thousands of people to rally across Poland on Sunday, for fears that the ruling could be the first step...

As one of the most popular sports brands in the world and in Israel, the loss of those sales will weigh heavily on the businesses of hundreds of sports stores across the country. Israeli retailers are fuming after international sporting goods giant Nike on Sunday said it will stop working with them to market its products. The measure will come into effect on May 31, 2022, Nike said. As one of the most popular sports brands in the world and in Israel, the loss of those sales would weigh heavily on the businesses of hundreds of local sports stores. In...

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU’s vaccination drive was done “the right way” and vowed to donate 200 million COVID-19 vaccine doses to low-income countries.European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave her annual State of the European Union address to the European Parliament on Wednesday, where she said the coming year would be “another test of character for the EU.” Her speech addressed the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, steps the EU took to slow the spread of the virus and the bloc’s future plans for vaccinations. “In the biggest global health crisis, we chose to go...

Biometrics in future of vaccine passports Any kind of document, especially a passport, needs to be built on a foundation that allows it to operate across borders and jurisdictions. Biometrics could be the easiest and fastest path to get started. It can add convenience and security, while identifying a person’s vaccination status easily. Modern biometric solutions have many different modalities at their disposal, from fingerprints and face to voice and iris recognition. The biometric modalities most likely to be used for vaccine passports, however, are anticipated to be face or voice recognition, as these can easily be performed on an...

They carry high-powered rifles and wear tactical gear, but their Hawaiian shirts and leis are what stand out in the crowds that have formed at state capital buildings to protest COVID-19 lockdown orders. The signature look for the “boogaloo” anti-government movement is designed to get attention. The group, which uses an ’80s movie sequel as a code word for a second civil war, is among the extremists using the armed protests against state-at-home orders as a platform. Like other movements that once largely inhabited corners of the internet, it has seized on the social unrest and economic calamity caused by...

... As Catholic Christians, we are called to value life "in all its stages." This means we are also called to value that which sustains life, which includes things like health care, food and the environment, that is, creation. In fact, if we profess to be pro-life, we must necessarily be pro-creation. The U.S. bishops, in their document "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," explain that the "culture of life begins with the preeminent obligation to protect innocent life from direct attack and extends to defending life whenever it is threatened or diminished." Clearly, this applies to environmental degradation that directly...

Former US president Barack Obama on Friday warned against rising nationalism as he painted a grim picture of American and global politics on a visit to Denmark. “I’m concerned enough about the international and American trends that I thought it was important to offer my views,” he told entrepreneurs and students in the Danish central city of Kolding. “When you start seeing our politics driven completely free of facts, when you start seeing a debate that is driven solely on racial or nationalistic impulses, when you start seeing a rejection of science and expertise and logic in politics... we are...

A warmer world makes for nastier hurricanes. Scientists say they are wetter, possess more energy and intensify faster. Their storm surges are more destructive because climate change has already made the seas rise. And lately, the storms seem to be stalling more often and thus dumping more rain. Study after study shows that climate change in general makes hurricanes worse. But determining the role of global warming in a specific storm such as Hurricane Florence or Typhoon Mangkhut is not so simple — at least not without detailed statistical and computer analyses. The Associated Press consulted with 17 meteorologists and...

US President Donald Trump said in an interview on Thursday that he was thinking about pulling the United States out of the World Trade Organization if “they don’t shape up.” Speaking with Bloomberg News, Trump said that the WTO had treated the US “very badly.” The president has often complained that the United States is treated unfairly in global trade, and has blamed the WTO for allowing that to happen. This coincides with several nations threatening to take legal action against the US through the WTO over the White House’s trade wars. The US and Russia have also launched competing...

The European Union and Mexico reached an agreement on Saturday on a new free trade deal, a coup for both parties in the face of increased protectionism from the United States under President Donald Trump. Since its plans for a trade alliance with the United States were frozen after Trump’s election victory, the EU has focused instead on trying to champion open markets and seal accords with other like-minded countries. The agreement in principle with Mexico follows a deal struck last year with Japan and comes ahead of talks next week with the Mercosur bloc of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and...

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is expected to use a Virginia car dealership on Tuesday as the setting to tout its rejection of the Obama administration’s landmark vehicle fuel efficiency rules, a move that could put automakers in the middle of a battle between the Trump administration and California. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt plans to sign a declaration by Sunday that the Obama administration’s vehicle efficiency rules for 2022 through 2025 are “not appropriate” and must be revised, Reuters reported last week. Pruitt is expected to speak at an event at a Chevrolet dealership in suburban Washington and will joined...

Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the leading Democrat in the California gubernatorial race, touted gun control as he addressed hundreds of protesters in Santa Ana on Saturday. The protesters had gathered to participate in nationwide “#MarchForLife” protests calling for stricter gun control laws following the tragic school shooting at a Parkland, Florida high school that left 17 dead last month. “We changed the trajectory of the debate, not just in this state but all across the rest of the country,” Newsom said of Proposition 63, a gun control initiative that requires background checks for ammunition and was approved in 2016. “Gun...

Reuters) - Hungarian leader Viktor Orban called on Sunday for a global alliance against migration as his right-wing populist Fidesz party began campaigning for an April 8 election in which it is expected to win a third consecutive landslide victory. Popular at home but increasingly at odds politically and economically with mainstream European Union peers, Orban has thrived on external controversy, including repeated clashes with Brussels and lately the United Nations. Those conflicts, mostly centered on migration since people fleeing war and poverty in the Middle East and Africa flooded into Europe in 2015, have intensified as the elections approach...

In an interview with the German newspaper Heilbronner Stimme, the former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, voiced grave concern Friday over growing anti-Semitic sentiment in the country. She said that public Jewish life is under threat and can only be lived out “in public with police protection and under the most serious security precautions.” Knobloch pointed out the fact that Hanukah celebrations in Berlin and Munich, as well as the large menorahs installed in both cities, were, by necessity, accompanied by massive, around-the-clock police protection. A large menorah installed in the city of Heilbronn,...

President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to cut off U.S. funding to countries that support a resolution criticizing his decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. “We’ll save a lot. We don’t care,” he said, alluding to U.S. aid. The president strongly supported U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley who said Tuesday that the United States “will be taking names” of countries that vote in favor of a General Assembly resolution Thursday declaring that Jerusalem’s status can be changed only by direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. “For all these nations, they take our money and then vote against us. They take hundreds of millions of...

British police forces arrested at least nine people a day for “offensive” online comments last year. Figures obtained by The Times through the Freedom of Information Act reveal that 3,395 people across 29 forces were arrested last under section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which makes it illegal to intentionally “cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety to another”, in 2016. The true figure is likely to be significantly higher, as thirteen police forces refused to provide the requested information and two did not provide usable data. Around half of the investigations were abandoned before being brought to prosecution, which...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that illegal immigrant parents who brought their children to the U.S. in defiance of the law “did a great thing,” giving the country an infusion of successful young people. Mrs. Pelosi’s comments strike a dissonant note from many analysts, who while saying the Dreamers are sympathetic since they had no say in the decision, say the parents do deserve blame for creating the problem. He comments came after she was shouted down by protesters earlier this week who interrupted her at an event, and demanded she do more to protect all illegal immigrants....

Slavery is not a thing of the past. A report released Tuesday by the U.N.-affiliated International Labor Office (ILO) and the Walk Free Foundation estimates that there were 40.3 million people in some form of modern slavery around the world on any given day last year. But by its very nature, the accuracy of that figure is hard to gauge. Slavery tends to be a hidden, illegal practice — one in which the victim's ability to speak out is limited. The authors of the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery study admit there are gaps in the available information: Although extensive...