Free Republic

Japanese and Chinese at highest risk for Coronavirus What is your risk to get infected coronavirus? East Asians, Japanese, and Han Chinese are the most likely people to become severely sick by the coronavirus with a chance of more than 90% when exposed. Europeans only rank in the 50%, Africans in the 60% range, and considered low to medium. It also makes a difference if one is a smoker or non-smoker. The Travel and Tourism industry is in turmoil. Tourism leaders don’t want anyone to panic, but the story doesn’t yet have an end to it. At the same time,...

House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., fired back at Democrats who criticized Attorney General William Barr for his role in former Trump associate Roger Stone's sentencing and defended the president's use of Twitter after he used the platform to comment about the ongoing criminal case. "What’s happening here with Barr, I think people need to understand that he’s cleaning up the mess from not only the Obama administration, but also the mess that was left with the whole Russia-gate fiasco," Nunes told "Fox & Friends Weekend," saying taxpayers paid tens of millions of dollars to fund then-Special Counsel...

A report of a woman heard screaming first drew a police response to the neighborhood, LAPD officials said in a written statement. Officers encountered a man in the street who told them his roommate was being assaulted inside her home, police said. The roommate relayed that he had jumped a wall and ran to neighboring homes in search for help. “When officers went to make entry, they found the victim on the ground beneath a third story balcony,” according to the LAPD statement. “The victim was gravely injured. She suffered significant injuries consistent with a fall.” Investigators learned that Harwick...

Skip Indeed, students reported that they worry less about censure from faculty than from peers. Skip An alarming 25.5 percent of survey respondents said it would be appropriate to “create an obstruction, such that a campus speaker endorsing this idea could not address an audience.” This authoritarian view was held by about 19 percent of self-identifying liberals, 3 percent of moderates, and 3 percent of conservatives. Skip Also troubling were the undergraduates who reported having kept an opinion to themselves in the classroom, even though the opinion was related to the class, because they were worried about the potential consequences...

This is swirling in my brain and there seems to be no good answer: I am executor of my parents' estate. My mom passed away less than a month ago. In order to distribute the estate according to the will the farm property (and probably house) will have to be sold...or something. Problem 1: the property has been in the family over 150 years. No one in the family farms it. We are at the end of progeny who "might" want to farm it. The one possibility is in high school still. All of the adult children but one live...

It appears former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg is also an expert on farming. As he tell it, anyone can do it as you just dig a hole, put a seed in, add some dirty and water and BAM — corn grows. Have a watch:

California's governor signed a bill last week that allows state residents to switch their party affiliation on election day, a change expected to increase primary election participation. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed the bill Thursday, allowing voters to fill out a short form at any point in the last two weeks before an election including the day itself declaring their party affiliation. The bill ensures that a resident may vote in their intended party's primary even if they miss the official registration deadline, presuming that their application is accepted by county officials. California's embrace...

Alabama lawmaker responds to abortion ban with mandatory vasectomy bill: 'It always takes two to tango' In response to last year’s near-total (and temporarily blocked) abortion ban in Alabama, a state legislator has introduced a bill that would require a man to undergo a vasectomy, at his own expense, “within one month of his 50th birthday or the birth of his third biological child, whichever comes first.” House Bill 238, introduced on Thursday by Rep. Rolanda Hollis (D) notes, “Under existing law, there are no restrictions on the reproductive rights of men.” The bill, Hollis says in a statement she...

A threat from President Trump for any countries that choose to deal with China's Huawei tech firm but first.... Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will convene a crisis meeting of the "Incident Response Group" tomorrow.... In northwestern Syria humanitarian corridors are to be opened so that civilians can flee the areas where fighting has occurred or may occur in the future.... Syrian forces claiming a major victory clearing areas west of Aleppo city..... "I consider unacceptable to transfer the territory of these countries into the theater of geopolitical competition and point-scoring. Likewise, to use terrorists for achievement of lucrative geopolitical...

HONG KONG: Armed robbers who stole hundreds of toilet rolls were being hunted by Hong Kong police on Monday (Feb 17), in a city wracked by shortages caused by coronavirus panic-buying. Toilet rolls have become hot property in the densely packed business hub, despite government assurances that supplies remain unaffected by the virus outbreak. Supermarkets have found themselves unable to restock quickly enough, leading to sometimes lengthy queues and shelves stripped bare within moments of opening.

... Late last year, US Attorney General William Barr called the growing disrespect for law enforcement a contributing factor to the dangers that cops face. Most important, Barr noted the justice system’s persistent failure to keep dangerous repeat offenders off city streets. The Bronx suspect, Robert Williams, like many attempted cop killers, is no stranger to the justice system. Last week, The New York Times reported that he has multiple arrests dating to the mid-1990s, including a robbery charge when he was just 14. After his sentencing in 1995, he was paroled twice. He subsequently returned to prison for violating...

Wall Street is convincing itself that China will bounce back relatively quickly around the end of the first quarter, when it expects the coronavirus' spread to be contained. This is banker delusion. China's economy is growing much more slowly than it was in 2003, when the SARS outbreak hit. Plus, the financial sector is in much worse shape. It's loaded with debt, and credit conditions are still deteriorating from bailouts last year. This will all make it much harder to fund struggling businesses and local governments.

Up to minute 17 or so is a good explanation, with map, of what is going on in Syria with Turkey, Russia, Syria, Israel. Amir really brings it to life with his direct and appropriately passionate treatment of the conflict. Then comes his take on the coronavirus, with reports from many countries, some of which many of us haven't heard. Last, an end times perspective on things and a call to prayer.

Summary: Let’s look at the cosplay festival that is Campaign 2020, as the candidates pretend to be what they are not. Their voting records tell the true tale to those that listen. Dazzled by our glorious revolutionary future. The presidential election of 2020 is a costume drama, with the candidates all wearing masks. Trump pretends to be a populist, behind which is the standard GOP team (who have run their standard policies: tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of corporations, waving anti-trust to build cartels, crushing unions, etc.). The Democratic Party’s candidates play more elaborate cosplay games. Sanders runs as...

The annual 2019 trade figures for the United States came out last week, heralding some encouraging news. America’s enormous international trade deficit actually declined slightly from 2018. This was the first decrease in six years, with the deficit in goods and services dropping 1.7%, to $616.8 billion. Better yet, America’s bilateral trade deficit with China fell for the first time in four years, dropping a hefty 17.6%, to $345.6 billion. These are promising numbers and they show that tariffs on Chinese products are successfully moving the needle on U.S. trade flows. In fact, America’s 2019 imports from China actually fell...

Going further than he ever has in expressing regret over Obama administration immigration policy, presidential candidate Joe Biden called it a “big mistake” to have deported hundreds of thousands of people without criminal records. “We took far too long to get it right,” Biden said in a wide-ranging, sometimes contentious interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos. The former vice president later added: “I think it was a big mistake. Took too long to get it right.” In written statements included as part of Biden’s proposed immigration overhaul, the campaign already had acknowledged “pain” surrounding deportations that occurred when he served...

Catholic Eastern Europe Bastion of freedom Catholicism in Western Europe is atrophying and it's not secular forces that are the cause. It's because Catholics are abandoning and perverting the Faith. Meanwhile, Eastern Europe has become the bastion of Catholicism and culture, protecting and passing on what the rest of Europe has cast away. The bishops of Germany are gathering for their own synod and, as indicated by the working documents outlining the assembly's discussions, the prelates are seeking to redefine Church teaching on the ordination of women, homosexuality, masturbation and contraception. But this week, Ukranian bishops wrote a letter to their German...

Cardinal Joseph Zen discusses the Church in China and his relationship with Pope Francis and Cardinal Pietro Parolin On February 11, Cardinal Joseph Zen, emeritus bishop of Hong Kong met with Congressional leaders on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. After that meeting, the cardinal gave an exclusive interview to CNA in which he discussed the Church in China, the Holy See’s agreement with the Communist regime, and his relationship with Pope Francis and the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin. The following is a transcript of the cardinal’s interview with CNA. It has been edited for length and clarity....

Participants observed a minute's silence. The Marian shrine, which is located in the Diocese of Berhampur (Odisha), draws the faithful of all religions. “The only source of true happiness is the Lord,” says the local bishop.Berhampur (AsiaNews) – More than 200,000 pilgrims, both Christian and Hindu, came from across Odisha (Orissa) to celebrate the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes at the shrine dedicated to her in Dantoling, Diocese of Berhampur. At the opening of the ceremony, on Tuesday, participants observed a minute of silence for the victims of the coronavirus outbreak. Bishop Sarat Chandra Nayak of Berhampur led a...

Vatican Secretary of State blasts Rome conference on St. John Paul IIROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - A conference of eminent academics, politicians and writers celebrating the nationalist legacy of Pope St. John Paul II and targeting Pope Francis's globalist agenda has triggered a counterblast from the Holy See's head of state and Catholic and secular establishment media. Cardinal Pietro Parolin blasted the Rome conference on "God, Honor, Country: President Ronald Reagan, Pope John Paul II, and the Freedom of Nations" as "fundamentally infantile" — even though speakers like Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán emphasized the values of "Christian liberty" and Europe's Christian...