Free Republic

BERLIN - The German cabinet on Wednesday backed plans to exit coal as an energy source by 2038 as part of efforts by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s ruling coalition to protect the climate and restore its green credentials. The government is spurring a shift toward renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power with exits from nuclear power by 2022 and coal-fueled power sources by 2038. “This is not just an exit from coal, it’s an entry into renewable energy,” Environment Minister Svenja Schulze told reporters. Of the coal exit, she said: “We will cut a quarter of all CO2...

... China is the planet’s premier incubator of new flu strains, blamed for the 1918-19 “Spanish” flu, 1957’s Asian flu, the Hong Kong flu of 1968, and the “Russian” flu of 1977. Yet the story is one of progress. China’s backyard agriculture, where ducks and pigs are raised in close proximity, was long considered a key culprit in generating new strains. With this year’s Wuhan outbreak and 2003’s SARS outbreak, suspicion has shifted to urban “wet” markets where affluent Chinese indulge an increasingly atavistic taste for wild and exotic animals slaughtered on the spot. Notice that such issues with meat...

Medicaid was created to be a safety net for the truly needy such as seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income children. Most of us agree: It is important to protect this program for the people who need it most. Unfortunately, many politicians have lost sight of Medicaid’s intended purpose. In doing so, they took limited resources meant for truly needy individuals and moved millions of able-bodied adults—the majority of whom do not work at all—to the front of the line instead. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people with developmental disabilities and other conditions remain trapped on waiting lists, hoping to...

There are a lot of ways to win a battle at different levels, but the most effective methods involve some kind of surprise and deception. Sneak attacks go back as far as war itself, and since then man has always come up with a lot of weapons designed to deliver damage without getting caught. This list are some of the coolest, scariest, and most notorious sneak attack weapons in history, focusing on attack weapons – not traps or ambush tactics. This list of stealth weapons is meant to take out a single target in silence or wipe out whole contents...

Democrats in Virginia aren’t wasting time with their first statehouse majority in 26 years—by repealing the state’s 70-year-old right-to-work law that has helped the commonwealth thrive. Twenty-seven states including Virginia have right-to-work laws that give workers a choice of whether to belong to a union. According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, the rate of job growth was two times higher in right-to-work states between 2008 and 2018 than in states where workers can be compelled to join unions or pay dues as a condition of employment. This disparity is the result of a confluence of pro-growth policies...

TOKYO (Kyodo) -- Two Japanese men were diagnosed with pneumonia Wednesday while 11 others are showing symptoms including a fever and cough after they were evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the center of a deadly virus outbreak, authorities said. A total of 206 people arrived in Tokyo early in the morning on a government-chartered plane, and 204 of them are being tested for infection with the new coronavirus. The remaining two did not consent, according to the health ministry and the Tokyo metropolitan government. Among those repatriated, 12 were hospitalized including the two men in their 40s and...

President Donald Trump’s defense team falsely claimed the Justice Department was already investigating him even before the 2016 election and distorted the facts about a dossier of opposition research into Trump’s ties to Russia. A look at some of the claims Tuesday during Trump’s impeachment trial: TRUMP LAWYER JAY SEKULOW: “The president of the United States, before he was the president, was under an investigation. It was called Crossfire Hurricane. It was an investigation led by the FBI.” THE FACTS: Trump was not under investigation before he took office. In fact, Trump says he was told that directly and repeatedly...

In a blog post published in November, a year before the 2020 election, Brian Burch, the president of CatholicVote.org, a socially conservative advocacy group, announced that in Wisconsin alone his organization had identified 199,241 Catholics “who’ve been to church at least 3 times in the last 90 days.” Nearly half of these religiously observant parishioners, Burch wrote, “91,373 mass-attending Catholics — are not even registered to vote!” CatholicVote.org is looking for potential Trump voters within this large, untapped reservoir — Republican-leaning white Catholics who could bolster Trump’s numbers in a battleground state. Burch, whose organization opposes abortion and gay marriage,...

It has been said that the very moment a man finds himself, he finds God. This captures the story of Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, a man of deep faith whose youthful struggles with racism caused that faith to be shaken but who later returned to it, more deeply and more resolutely because of his great character and refusal to settle for anything but truth. The new film "Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words" will be released in theaters nationwide Jan. 31, exquisitely timed with Black History Month. But this is also a time of great tensions...

An 8-year-old has been denied admittance by several schools because of his hair — and now his mother is fighting for a policy change. Bonnie Miller of the U.K. has been on the lookout for schools her son Farouk James could attend in the future, and two won't allow him in because of his long, natural hair. One of those schools was The London Oratory School — the same school her older son, who is now 23, attended. "I knew about their bad hair policies," Miller told CBS News. The mother said she went through a similar situation with her...

Dissatisfaction with democracy within developed countries is at its highest level in almost 25 years, according to University of Cambridge researchers. Academics have analysed what they say is the biggest global dataset on attitudes towards democracy, based on four million people in 3,500 surveys. The UK and the United States had particularly high levels of discontent. "Across the globe, democracy is in a state of malaise," report author Roberto Foa said. The study, from the University of Cambridge's Centre for the Future of Democracy, has tracked views on democracy since 1995 - with the figures for 2019 showing the proportion...

For most of the past century, the United States was the pre-eminent nation in science and technology. The evidence for that is beyond dispute: Since 1901, American researchers have won more Nobel prizes in medicine, chemistry, and physics than any other nation. Given our history of discovery, innovation, and success, it is not surprising that across the political landscape Americans consider the funding of scientific research to be both a source of pride and a worthy investment. Nevertheless, in his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the pursuit of government grants would have a corrupting influence on...

Dangerous menaces are spreading from mainland China to the United States. Surgical masks and Big Pharma vaccines, however, won't protect this nation from its infiltration. The problem doesn't lie with bats. It lies with America's batty pursuit of globalization at all costs. Chinese Communist Party agents are using our suicidal pathologies -- blind worship of "diversity," naive exaltation of "cultural exchange" programs, and reckless surrender of our education system -- against us for economic espionage, intellectual property theft and world dominance. While Beltway blowhards rail against foreign interference in our elections, Beijing's hijacking of our classrooms ensues with hardly a...

Apple Inc. shares ticked higher in aftermarket trading after the company posted record quarterly results for its holiday quarter Tuesday afternoon while easily topping expectations. The star of the quarter was the iPhone, as revenue for the category exceeded the FactSet consensus by more than $4 billion. Apple AAPL, +1.75% also saw strong performance once again from its wearables, home and accessories category, with revenue up 37% to $10.01 billion, another beat relative to the consensus view.

U.S President Donald Trump and Israeli President Binyamin Netanyahu delivered a joint address at the White House Tuesday afternoon. The President revealed details of his long-awaited 'Deal of the Century' for Middle East peace. As part of his plan, President Trump declared that Jerusalem would remain the "undivided capital" of Israel. However, he later stated that the Palestinian Arabs would have a capital in eastern Jerusalem. Inside the plan itself, which was released Tuesday, President Trump calls for most of the city to remain unified under Israeli sovereignty, while turning Arab neighborhoods outside of the security barrier into "Al Quds",...

Caballeiro is believed to be driving a white 2001 Chevrolet Express van with a decal that reads “Nesty School Services.” The back left door has a decal that reads “Caution: Transporting Children.” Caballeiro is believed to be driving a white 2001 Chevrolet Express van with a decal that reads “Nesty School Services.” The back left door has a decal that reads “Caution: Transporting Children.” Miami-Dade police said investigators have not called Caballeiro a suspect in the slayings. Police have not said how the women died or if they were related to the baby. Anyone who sees the van is asked...

BEIJING -- Countries began evacuating their citizens Wednesday from the Chinese city hardest-hit by a new virus that has now infected more people in China than were sickened in the country by SARS. The number of confirmed cases jumped to 5,974, surpassing the 5,327 in mainland China during the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003. The death toll rose to 132, which is still lower than the 348 people who were killed in China by SARS. Scientists say there are still many critical questions to be answered about the new virus, including just how transmissible and severe it is. A Japanese flight...

He got a bigger audience from this than he ever gets on his low-rated show. – CNN’s dimwitted, haughty night-time host Don Lemon made actual news over the past two days when he played host to another in a long line of segments ridiculing the average, hard-working Americans who make up the preponderance of President Donald Trump’s support base. In case you’ve managed to miss it to this point, here’s a clip of the segment in question, which apparently took place on Saturday: Col. Rob Maness ret. ✔ @RobManess Will @donlemon have some of us @realDonaldTrump supporters on his show?...

Just days before the 2008 Democratic presidential caucuses in Iowa, Hillary Clinton led Barack Obama by four points in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. Obama took the lead, by a few tenths of one percentage point, literally 24 hours before the caucuses. And then he won by nearly eight points. In retrospect, things were moving very fast in Iowa in those final days before the voting. And now, we are again days away from the Iowa Democratic caucuses. Things might be moving in ways we don't know. Four candidates have held the lead at various times in the Iowa race....