Free Republic

* Wuhan’s overburdened health workers are unable to confirm many of those who died were suffering from Covid-19, so they will not show up in official figures. * The families of those who die at home are also denied the comfort of being able to make proper funeral arrangements. Retired Wuhan factory worker Wei Junlan had always been in good health, but around two weeks after developing the first signs of a cough and fever, the 63-year-old was dead from what doctors suspect was the new coronavirus. But her death on January 21 will not show up in official statistics...

... [A] task force of the faculty senate at the University of California, of all places, is resisting the movement to ban test scores in admissions. The 227-page report, completed in late January, recommends that the UC system keep standardized tests like the ACT and SAT as admissions requirements, and it demolishes the logic of the politically motivated anti-testing movement. The report dispatches the myth that standardized math and reading tests are useless for predicting college performance. Based on data from tens of thousands of students in the UC system, the report concludes that “test scores are currently better predictors...

More than two-dozen candidates made a bid for either the Republican or Democratic nomination for president in the 2020 election cycle, making for especially crowded Democratic debate stages. But in the end, there can only be one nominee for each party. Here are the candidates who have dropped out of the race so far, ending their bids for the White House. Democrats Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo. -- Bennet, who ran as a moderate, stayed in the race until New Hampshire but struggled to gain any traction. He left the contest on Feb. 11. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. -- Booker was...

More than 100,000 people are expected to attend an event in a cricket stadium honoring President Trump's visit to India hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi later this month. Yahoo Sports reported Wednesday that the stadium, which is expected to seat 110,000 when completed, is still under construction but is set to be completed and filled to the rafters for Trump's Feb. 24 visit to the country. Trump is set to visit India for two days, where he will attend a speech by Modi called "How Are You Trump" at the massive Sardar Patel Stadium. The stadium, once completed, will...

An Australian woman died during an eating competition thrown to celebrate Australia day after choking on a lamington—the country’s national cake. The woman was 60-years-old and participating in a competition in the city of Hervey Bay in Queensland on Jan. 26. CTV News reported that the competition was held on Sunday at the Beach House Hotel. Australians commonly celebrate the public holiday with food festivals as well as parades and fireworks. People witnessing the event took videos that show a bar filled with cheering onlookers as the competition carried out. The woman choked while she was eating a lamington which...

Sexual orientation has a correlation with skin cancer prevalence, new research finds. Gay and bisexual men have higher rates of skin cancer over the course of their lifetimes compared to heterosexual men, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Dermatology. Bisexual women — but not lesbian women — were found to have lower odds of contracting skin cancer compared to heterosexual women.

Only one in a sample of 1,099 patients infected with the new coronavirus was found to have an incubation period of as long as 24 days, a top Chinese scientist has clarified. The time between initial exposure and development of the first symptoms of the illness is based on the patient's account of the illness. Dr Zhong Nanshan, a prominent scientist who is leading a government-appointed panel of experts to help control the coronavirus outbreak, said on Tuesday (Feb 11) that caution is needed because there is not enough evidence to regard 24 days as the longest incubation period for...

Retired NBA All-Star Dwyane Wade recently opened up about supporting his daughter Zaya, who identifies as a transgender girl. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres on "The Ellen Show" this week, Wade said that one day his 12-year-old came home and asked to have a discussion about using she/her pronouns and going by a different name than the one that she was given at birth

Turkey's military will set aside past ceasefire agreements to strike Syrian government forces by air or ground anywhere in Syria if another Turkish soldier is hurt, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has said. Joe Davies reports.

A Syrian was killed and another was wounded when government supporters attacked American troops and tried to block their way as their convoy drove through an army checkpoint in northeastern Syria, prompting a rare clash, state media and activists reported. The U.S. military said its force came under fire, and that troops responded in self-defense. It said an investigation of the incident was underway.

  Oval OfficeFebruary 11, 20204:13 P.M.  ESTTHE PRESIDENT:  Okay.  Thank you very much.  We are today signing the Supporting Veterans in STEM Careers Act.  It’s a big deal and the people behind me have been so involved — our senators, our congressmen.  We’re missing a few great senators because we’re approving, I think, five judges today.  And Marco Rubio was very much involved in this process and helped everybody very much and so I want to thank him.But we’re taking action to increase access to education and job opportunities in science, technology, engineering, math, and computer science for our...

Erin Gregoire crossed the finish line of the Houston Marathon, looked at her watch, and smiled. In her debut at the distance, she ran 2:42:55—well under the qualifying time of 2:45:00 she needed for the Olympic Marathon Trials. In what has become a complex case, however, Gregoire was denied entry into the Trials, because the differential between her gun time (2:54:54) and chip time (her 2:42:55) was too large. And the day of the Houston Marathon (January 19) was the final day of qualifying, so it was her last shot at getting into the race. “Obviously it was an incredible...

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo is scheduled to meet with President Donald J. Trump at the White House on Tuesday afternoon to discuss a 2017 change in federal tax law that the governor contends has been devastating to New York and other "Democratic states." Last week, Cuomo had announced New York is facing an unexpected $2.3 billion shortfall — the most significant in eight years — that he attributed in large part to the federal rollback of the state and local tax deduction, known as SALT. Cuomo's administration contends that the $10,000 cap on federal tax deductions of state and local...

When you pick up your prescription at the pharmacy, it isn’t labelled “made in China,” but odds are that’s where many of your medications come from. President Trump is calling on US industries to manufacture here at home, instead of outsourcing to China. Drug companies — which now rely on China for active ingredients that go into antibiotics, heart medicines and other drugs we need to stay alive — should be the first to respond to Trump’s plea. That reliance is a threat to national security. And the squalid conditions in many Chinese drug factories pose a health risk to...

VIDEO It was a sad night for the mainstream media. Their preferred candidates of Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren pretty much COLLAPSED leaving the road open to crazy Bernie. Note their sad reactions to their realization that the Democrat party is cracking up.

    By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: Section 1.  Purpose.  The national and economic security of the United States depends on the reliable and efficient functioning of critical infrastructure.  Since the United States made the Global Positioning System available worldwide, positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) services provided by space-based systems have become a largely invisible utility for technology and infrastructure, including the electrical power grid, communications infrastructure and mobile devices, all modes of transportation, precision agriculture, weather forecasting, and emergency response.  Because of the widespread...

The coach was so nearly empty that the little boy had a seat all to himself, and his mother sat across the aisle on the seat next to the little boyÂ’s sister, a baby with a piece of toast in one hand and a rattle in the other. She was strapped securely to the seat so she could sit up and look around, and whenever she began to slip slowly sideways the strap caught her and held her halfway until her mother turned around and straightened her again. The little boy was looking out the window and eating a cookie,...

Two Ohio State football players were arrested Wednesday and accused in the rape and kidnapping of a woman earlier this month at their shared Ohio apartment. Jahsen Wint and Amir Riep, both 21, are facing two felony counts of rape and kidnapping. Columbus police alleged that the pair forced a woman to falsely admit on video that she engaged in consensual sex after being assaulted by the two men on Feb. 4, The Columbus Dispatch reported, citing a police affidavit.

Why does the world of dating seem so complicated? Lauren Chen, host of Pseudo-Intellectual on Blaze TV, offers some useful navigational tools. It starts with this basic question: what is the purpose of dating? The answer may shock you.

The White House is expected to pull the nomination of Elaine McCusker to be the Pentagon’s comptroller and chief financial officer in the latest staffing fallout from President Trump’s impeachment, The Post has learned. McCusker resisted the president’s directive to stall about $250 million in military aid to Ukraine and her emails protesting the delay were leaked in January to the blog Just Security ahead of Trump’s Senate trial. “This administration needs people who are committed to implementing the president’s agenda, specifically on foreign policy, and not trying to thwart it,” a White House official told The Post.