Free Republic

In what will come as welcome news to anxious parents across the country, Abbott Nutrition announced it restarted production of infant formula at its Sturgis, Michigan plant on Saturday. The company is prioritizing EleCare and other specialty and metabolic formulas, with product expected to start reaching consumers June 20. Abbott closed the plant in February as the Food and Drug Administration investigated the deaths of two infants who succumbed to bacterial infections. Each had consumed powdered formula from the Sturgis facility, as did two other infants who were hospitalized but recovered. The shutdown turned a preexisting shortage—fueled by supply chain...

Senior Biden Administration Officials Participating in High-Level Vatican Conference on FridayVATICAN CITY — U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, President Biden’s climate envoy John Kerry, and the heads of the IMF, World Bank, and African Union will be taking part in a high-level Vatican conference on Friday on the theme “Dreaming of a Better Restart.” Hosted by the Pontifical Academies of Sciences and Social Sciences, the one-day meeting, which includes the participation of finance ministers from the US, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Mexico, and Argentina, aims to build on recent inter-governmental efforts to combat inequality, climate change, and hunger following...

At least three Norwegian Cruise Line ships will be back in the water with paying passengers by the end of August. The world’s fourth-largest cruise brand on Tuesday said it would resume operations on July 25 with a single vessel, the 2,200-passenger Norwegian Jade, sailing to the Greek Islands out of Piraeus, Greece (the port for Athens). Two more Norwegian ships — the 3,802-passenger Norwegian Joy and 2,394-passenger Norwegian Gem — will begin Caribbean sailings out of Montego Bay, Jamaica, and La Romana, Dominican Republic, on Aug. 7 and Aug. 15, respectively, the line said. Like many cruise lines, Norwegian...

Norwegian Cruise Line today reported quarterly and full-year financial results for Q4 2020, as well as the full financial year 2020, in addition to providing a business update and how it’s dealing with the current situation on suspending operations including millions lost due to the CDC’s Conditional Sailing Order. Not only has the Conditional Sailing Order taken far longer to materialize than expected, but significant uncertainties also remain regarding specific requirements of the conditional order. It also includes the technical instructions that are still pending for all cruise lines. The fact that Norwegian Cruise line had gone through the effort...

Every day, the battle lines are drawn more clearly for what promises to be a memorable election. The Democrats infamously lumbered the president with an investigation into his relations with Russia that they knew to be unfounded. Then they attempted a completely spurious impeachment proceeding (with no believable evidence that he had committed the alleged offenses which, in any case, were not impeachable). And now, in response to a fortuitous virus pandemic, they purport to require President Trump to commit political suicide by shutting down the economy for so long that the soon-to-be 30 million unemployed will turn him out...

Governors from seven East Coast states formed a coalition on Monday, led by New York, to develop a joint reopening plan. Three governors from the West Coast formed a similar plan. The 10 states, mostly led by Democrats, together make up 38% of the U.S. economy. As part of Cuomo’s effort, McKinsey & Co. is producing models on testing, infections and other key data points that will underpin decisions on how and when to reopen the region’s economy, the sources said.

Officials at Lake Oroville reduced the rate of water release once again Friday as workers continued make repairs to a damaged spillway and clear debris from a hydroelectric plant. State Department of Water Resources engineers will decrease the flow of water in the Oroville Dam's main spillway from 80,000 cubic feet per second to 60,000 by Saturday morning, giving crews space to dredge debris from a pool at the bottom of the spillway, said DWR acting director Bill Croyle. Engineers had been pumping water out of the lake at 100,000 cfs for several days to make room for incoming storm...

The United States and Egypt, along with France, are planning a joint move to restart Israeli-Palestinian talks on the basis of the June 4, 1967, borders, territorial exchanges and a complete freeze of construction beyond the Green Line, including East Jerusalem. The freeze would not be announced publicly. Egypt's foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said in an extensive interview with the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat that "once they realized their earlier approach had failed, the Americans see themselves forced to change direction." He added that Egypt had recently discussed with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the new strategies for negotiations...

FALL CITY, Wash. – Ben Alexander spent nearly every waking minute playing the video game "World of Warcraft." As a result, he flunked out of the University of Iowa. Alexander, 19, needed help to break an addiction he calls as destructive as alcohol or drugs. He found it in this suburb of high-tech Seattle, where what claims to be the first residential treatment center for Internet addiction in the United States just opened its doors. The center, called ReSTART, is somewhat ironically located near Redmond, headquarters of Microsoft and a world center of the computer industry. It opened in July...

VIENNA, Austria (AP) -- North Korea announced Thursday that it is preparing to restart the facility that produced its atomic bomb, clearly indicating that it plans to completely pull out of an international deal to end its nuclear program. North Korea told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it was stopping the process of disabling its main nuclear site and barring international inspectors from the Yongbyon facility, the agency said. Pyongyang "informed IAEA inspectors that effective immediately access to facilities at Yongbyon would no longer be permitted," the U.N. nuclear watchdog said. North Korea "also stated that it has stopped...