Free Republic

Amazon told all 798,000 of its employees on Friday to avoid "non-essential travel" domestically and internationally because of concerns about COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, a spokesperson for the company confirmed to Business Insider. Earlier on Friday, The New York Times reported that employees on Amazon's worldwide operations team, which oversees much of the company's technology and logistics globally, received a separate email from the senior vice president in charge of the team, Dave Clark, telling them not to plan any meetings requiring travel until at least April, when the company hoped to have a better sense of...

SNIP In one of the more heated moments, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) confronted Pompeo, asking him if he believes "the coronavirus is a hoax." He pointed to White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney's comments earlier in the day claiming news media were ignoring the coronavirus until now because outlets were too focused on President Trump's impeachment before that, which he called a "hoax." "Donald Trump's chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told the Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] that the coronavirus was the hoax of the day," Lieu said. "Do you agree with Donald Trump's chief of staff Mulvaney...

5W Public Relations has conducted a survey via phone of 737 American beer drinkers over the age of 21 on February 25 & 26, 2020, regarding their opinions about the popular Mexican beer brand, Corona, as a result of the deadly coronavirus that's spreading around the world. The survey found that: 38% of beer-drinking Americans would not buy Corona under any circumstances now Among those who said they usually drink Corona, only 4% said they would stop drinking Corona, but 14% said they wouldn't order Corona in a public venue 16% of beer drinking Americans were confused about whether Corona...

An Atlanta man pretended he was gay to lure his female victim into his home, where he “violently” raped her, prosecutors said. Taurence Callagain, 36, was convicted by a jury in September 2015 after meeting the unnamed victim at a Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority station just weeks earlier, Fulton County prosecutors announced Tuesday. “They rode the same train and eventually exchanged numbers,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said. “The victim is a lesbian and has a female partner who she was in a relationship with when she met the defendant.” Callagain gained the victim’s trust by making her...

Ace recently had some fun at the expense of self-proclaimed libertarians whose politics are clearly far-left, even though they choose not to identify as Democrats. In my younger days I kind of considered myself a libertarian, until I realized that the most vocal libertarians tended to be either pot-heads or anarchists. Nowadays I don’t even know what “libertarian” means any more, nor do I understand why people identify as libertarian when their agenda is actively anti-liberty. Libertarians actually seem to come in all sorts of flavors now – none of which have much to do with limited government. Here are...

A citizen journalist who was exposing the reality of life inside the Wuhan lockdown zone at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak was detained by China’s security forces at his apartment in Wuhan — and the whole thing was captured on camera. Li Zehua is a former employee of state-run television station CCTV who quit and went rogue earlier this month to report on the situation in Wuhan, and has posted videos from crematoriums, virology labs, and funeral homes inside the lockdown zone. Li is the third citizen journalist to be detained by authorities in Wuhan in recent weeks and...

SUBTITLE: Lawmakers in Missouri and Tennessee have introduced bills that could put librarians in prison for hosting Drag Queen Story Hour events at public libraries. On Monday afternoon, nearly 100 kindergarten students crowded into the Tompkins Square Library in New York City’s trendy East Village neighborhood as two glamorous drag queens read them children’s books during a Drag Queen Story Hour event. Jackie Cox and Jan — two contestants from the upcoming season of VH1’s hit show “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — fielded questions such as “Are you a boy or a girl?” and “Why does your voice sound like that?”...

Bernie Sanders supporters are the kindest, most gracious human beings on the face of the planet – said nobody ever. Time and again, these people have shown that they are dangerous. Here’s just the latest example of their extremism, via Washington Examiner: A group of Sen. Bernie Sanders supporters attempted to intimidate an Illinois Democratic congressional candidate into supporting the socialist’s agenda. The Vermont senator’s supporters on Monday live-streamed their activity on social media while Betsy Dirksen Londrigan concluded a campaign appearance in Champaign, Illinois. Following the event, the group challenged Londrigan to debate Illinois socialist candidate Stefanie Smith. Share...

NEW YORK (AP) — New evidence against Mexico's former top security official has been uncovered since he was charged with taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes to protect Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman’s notorious Sinaloa cartel, federal prosecutors said Thursday. “The strength of the government’s case has only increased” since a grand jury indicted Genaro Garcia Luna last year on charges he conspired to traffic cocaine and made false statements, prosecutors wrote in court filings. Prosecutors wrote they have additional witnesses that will testify Garcia Luna “agreed to assist the Sinaloa Cartel in exchange for millions of dollars in...

Despite Michael Bloomberg’s unprecedented spending, his billionaire rival Tom Steyer has “nearly tripled the rest of the field combined in TV and digital ad spending in South Carolina through mid-February,” according to The Dallas Morning News Feb. 28. Steyer has reportedly spent a whopping $23.6 million on campaign advertising just in South Carolina alone, according to NPR Politics deputy editor Ben Swasey’s summary of Advertising Analytics data Feb. 27.

Senator Bernie Sanders’ accusation of bigotry, aimed at the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, is ironic given that AIPAC is a bi-partisan group that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that Bernie says he also supports.  Bernie also wants “an independent, democratic, economically viable” Palestinian state, the same objectives outlined in detail in President Donald Trump’s recent peace plan -- yet Bernie has publicly rejected that, too.  Something smells about Bernie’s ongoing declaration that he is both “pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.” He has digressed to the same modus operandi favored by the Palestinians -- hurling racist accusations, refusing...

A British man who was quarantined on a cruise ship in Japan has died from coronavirus. The Japanese ministry of health said the man was the sixth passenger from the Diamond Princess cruise ship to have died. The ship had been quarantined off the coast of Japan. He is the first Briton to have died from coronavirus, also known as Covid-19. In the UK, 19 people have been diagnosed with the illness. The ministry did not provide his name or age. A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We are supporting the family of a British man who has died in Japan...

The U.S. Air Force is changing its song to be gender-neutral as the service grows more diverse and adds more women across its ranks. Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein made the announcement Thursday during the Air Warfare Symposium in Florida, alongside Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force Kaleth O. Wright. Goldfein said the change applies to the third verse of the U.S. Air Force Song, sometimes known as "Wild Blue Yonder," which is traditionally sung at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and often performed independently of the other verses.~~~SNIP~~~ Verse III is now: Here's a...

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) lashed out at Mick Mulvaney on Friday after the acting White House chief of staff accused the media of reporting on the coronavirus as part of an effort to "take down the president.” Schumer argued in a statement that the Trump administration had "learned nothing from the Chinese government’s failure to quickly and transparently combat the coronavirus." "For Mick Mulvaney to suggest that Americans turn off their TVs and bury their heads in the sand when they’re worried about a global health pandemic is Orwellian, counterproductive, dangerous, and would be repeating China’s mistake," Schumer...

Blizzard conditions and the biggest lake effect snow of the season are slamming Western New York. The National Weather Service calls this lake effect snow band a "monster," stretching for more than 500 miles from northern Michigan to Canada and into Western New York. The highest snowfall total so far is in Copenhagen, New York, north of Syracuse, where 28.5 inches fell -- and it's still snowing. A blizzard warning is ongoing there. Meanwhile, brutal wind gusts have climbed to over 60 mph between Buffalo, New York, and Erie, Pennsylvania. Snow alerts are in effect for nine states Friday morning,...

EVANSVILLE, Ind., -- Nearly half of state legislatures will consider bills in the near future to protect a person's right to wear hair naturally. The bills -- introduced in 24 states -- are modeled after a California law put into effect Jan. 1 that bans discrimination based on hairstyle. Proponents say employers, and even schools districts, often ban hairstyles historically worn by racial minorities -- like braids, dreadlocks and twists. "Our hairstyles influence the way employers and teachers treat us," said Courtney McKinney, a spokeswoman for the Western Center on Law and Poverty, which advocated for the California law along...

Freeman J. Dyson, a mathematical prodigy who left his mark on subatomic physics before turning to messier subjects like Earth’s environmental future and the morality of war, died on Friday at a hospital near Princeton, N.J. He was 96. His daughter Mia Dyson confirmed the death. As a young graduate student at Cornell in 1949, Dr. Dyson wrote a landmark paper — worthy, some colleagues thought, of a Nobel Prize — that deepened the understanding of how light interacts with matter to produce the palpable world. The theory the paper advanced, called quantum electrodynamics, or QED, ranks among the great...

GHENT, Belgium - Belgian waffles may be about to become more environmentally friendly. Scientists at Ghent University in Belgium are experimenting with larva fat to replace butter in waffles, cakes and cookies, saying using grease from insects is more sustainable than dairy produce. Clad in white aprons, the researchers soak Black soldier fly larvae in a bowl of water, put it in a blender to create a smooth greyish dollop and then use a kitchen centrifuge to separate out insect butter. “There are several positive things about using insect ingredients,” said Daylan Tzompa Sosa, who oversees the research. “They are...

Parts of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam's sweeping gun control legislation have won final passage in the General Assembly. Lawmakers in the House and Senate gave final passage to several pieces of gun control legislation Friday. That includes a red flag bill to allow authorities to temporarily take guns away from people deemed to be dangerous to themselves or others, and legislation giving local governments more authority to ban guns in public places.

Greta Thunberg has warned "those in power" she will "not be silenced when the world is on fire". The teenager was welcomed by chants of "Greta, Greta" as she addressed some 15,000 people at the Bristol Youth Strike 4 Climate (BYS4C) event. She accused politicians and the media of ignoring the climate emergency and "sweeping their mess under the rug". "We are the change, and change is coming whether you like it or not," the Swedish environmentalist said. Greta was speaking at the climate strike event on College Green, before leading a march through the city. "Activism works so I'm...