Free Republic

In the increasingly urbanized world, few people still ride horses for reasons beyond sport or leisure. However, on horseback, people, goods and ideas moved across vast distances, shaping the power structures and social systems of the premechanized era. From the trade routes of the Silk Road or the great Mongol Empire to the equestrian nations of the American Great Plains, horses were the engines of the ancient world. Where, when and how did humans first domesticate horses? Tracing the origins of horse domestication in the prehistoric era has proven to be an exceedingly difficult task. Horses -- and the people...

The Stanford [University] Health Care Clinical Virology Laboratory has launched a diagnostic test developed for the virus that causes COVID-19. The test is being used for patients at Stanford Health Care and Stanford Children’s Health suspected of being infected with the respiratory virus SARS-CoV-2...It is expected to deliver results within 12-24 hours. As with all currently available tests, it’s not yet clear how long a person needs to be infected before testing positive, or whether someone who's infected could be identified by the test before displaying symptoms. Clinical virologist Benjamin Pinsky, MD, PhD, associate professor of pathology and of infectious...

A mix of legacy drugmakers and small startups have stepped forward with plans to develop vaccines or treatments that target the infection caused by the novel coronavirus. COVID-19, which was first detected in December in Wuhan, China, has sickened more than 100,000 people worldwide and killed at least 3,400. There are no Food and Drug Administration-approved vaccines or therapies for the disease. In the U.S., the companies that are initiating development have received funding from two organizations: the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is a division of the Department of Health and Human Services, and the National...

MissouriBiden - 62% Sanders - 32% Gabbard - 2% Mississippi Biden - 77% Sanders - 22% Gabbard - 1%

The United States was a net exporter of crude oil and petroleum products last month, with the four-week average net imports at a negative 907,000 barrels per day (bpd) in the last week of February, the lowest ‘imports’ level in EIA data dating back to 1973, according to EIA’s weekly data on net imports of crude oil and petroleum products. Since the start of 2020, the U.S. was a net exporter of crude and petroleum products in each of the weeks in January and February, EIA data shows. The United States exported more crude oil and petroleum products than it...

North Korea launching 3 short range projectiles eastwards into the sea Monday morning local time.... Politics in Israel heating up in the aftermath of its third election in less than a year..... Netanyahu set to go on trial for corruption a week from Tuesday (March 17th) and tonight he asked for cancellation of the trial on the basis of a lack of material being provided by the prosecution..... Four senior members of Saudi Arabia's royal family now reported arrested as the country's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman tries to maintain power.... Saudi Arabia slashing oil prices and...

Villa Duchesne and Oak Hill School will close Monday after administrators learned that a St. Louis County woman infected with the coronavirus is the older sister of a Villa Duchesne student. Moreover, a message from the schools to parents, circulating on social media, warns that the father and sister of the infected patient attended a school father-daughter dance Saturday night at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton. They also apparently attended a pre-dance gathering at the house of a Villa student. St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said Sunday that the patient’s family had been told on Thursday to self quarantine at...

Have Israel’s researchers found a vaccine to put an end to the global fears surrounding the deadly coronavirus outbreak? Amidst the outbreak of deadly coronavirus, which has no known cure so far, Israel-based MIGAL Galilee Research Institute has said in a statement on its official website that is close to finding a cure for COVID-19. The Institute has been working on developing a vaccine for avian Infectious Bronchitis Virus (IBV) coronavirus for the past four years in research funded by the Israel Ministry of Science and Technology. IBV is an ailment which affects poultry and the vaccine for IBV was...

South American nation holds miniature Amazon Synod, issues radical demands March 6, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — The Catholic Church in French Guiana, one of the nine countries of the Amazon Basin represented at the Amazon Synod in Rome last October, recently held its second local synod with many winks to the Roman event. Several “resolutions” were made in favor of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the region. Also high on the list of priorities were reflections on the environment and the “past” of the local clergy. The most spectacular move involved a commitment on the part of the Church...

With 16 new and 105 total cases of coronavirus now reported in New York state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo called upon the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to authorize the use of private labs to do automated testing for the virus on Sunday. "We don't have the testing capacity we need," Cuomo said. "The testing capacity is now more than the state lab can handle. Let us bring in private labs to do some of the testing." As of Sunday morning, Cuomo said the total number of confirmed cases jumped to 105, up from 89 on Saturday evening and from...

And then there were two - unless you count Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii), who has about the same chance of winning the Democratic Party’s nomination for president as does Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The last (serious) woman candidate in the race - Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) - has dropped out. The only openly gay man in the race dropped out a few days earlier. All the candidates of color are gone - again, unless you count Tulsi. And, now, all that’s left are two white men, both closer to 80 than 70. Right from the jump, Democrats bragged...

These readings were obtained by InSight's magnetic sensor, which studied the magnetic fields within the mission's landing zone. This shallow crater, known as "Homestead hollow", is located in the region called Elysium Planitia – a flat-smooth plain just north of the equator. This region was selected because it has the right combination of flat topology, low elevation, and low debris to allow InSight to probe deep into the interior of Mars. Prior to this mission, the best estimates of Martian magnetic fields came from satellites in orbit and were averaged over distances of more than 150 kilometres (93 miles). Measuring...

Sharp declines in U.S. stock index futures triggered trading curbs meant to slow panicked markets as the price of oil fell by more than 30 percent and bond yields crashed amid heightened worries over the coronavirus. E-mini futures on the S&P 500 dropped by 5 percent in overnight trading Sunday, triggering automatic trading curbs that kick-in when the price falls below 5 percent of the closing price of the referenced index Friday. As a result, the futures contract cannot trade at a lower price until the cash market opens at 9:30 a.m., although trades may still be made at higher...

"The reports were that there was a female inside the residence that was out of control, breaking items," Sgt. Alexander Martinez said, adding that officers were told she was armed with a knife. Police fired shots "shortly after" arriving to the home, the Torrance Police Department said in a news release. It's unclear what led up to the shooting and whether she was armed at the time. Loved ones at the home told KTLA the reported incident at the home involved the woman killed and a woman she was romantically involved with.

New head of German bishops’ conference on track to ‘change’ Catholic sexual teaching The German bishops' conference has made it clear today that it does not wish to be anymore Roman Catholic.’ PETITION: Join faithful German Catholics in resisting bishops’ plan to ‘Protestantize’ Church Sign the petition here. March 3, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Today, Bishop Georg Bätzing of the Diocese of Limburg was elected the new president of the German bishops’ conference. In his first interview after his election, he touched upon the question of the Church’s teaching on sexual intercourse before marriage and on homosexuality. Asked whether he sees some...

Seven more teens have been arrested for the brutal beatdown of a 15-year-old girl in Brooklyn, cops said Sunday. The teens, ranging in ages from 14 to 16, were charged with robbery and gang assault for the attack at Sterling Place and Utica Ave. in Crown Heights about 4 p.m. on Thursday. They were all nabbed over the weekend, authorities said. The attack sparked an outcry from local officials and advocates after the NYPD released shocking footage of the attack.

A malfunction at a local winery caused 1,000 liters of ready-to-be-bottled wine to leak into the water pipes. The glitch lasted about three hours and impacted about 20 homes, said Giorgia Mezzacqui, deputy mayor of Castelvetro, about 10 miles south of Modena. The local government posted on its Facebook page that the leak didn't pose any health risks. The malfunction was caused by a faulty valve in the washing circuit within the bottling line. Lambrusco Grasparossa, a local specialty, seeped through the town's water lines due to its pressure, the winery said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The arrests have raised questions about whether the crown prince was on the verge of taking full power from his father, King Salman. The scope of a new roundup of Saudi royals widened on Saturday with word that a fourth senior prince has been detained under orders from Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, according to two Saudis close to the royal family, in a sign that he is determined to crack down on even whispers of dissent. The wave of arrests has ensnared a former head of army intelligence, Prince Nayef bin Ahmed, as well as at least three other...

Is there or is there not a shortage of kits to test for the coronavirus? That the question even has to be asked does not reflect well on the administration's response to the crisis.And yet, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told ABC News on Friday there was no shortage, contradicting the White House and health professionals across the country. The Hill: “There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been,” Azar said on ABC News Friday. “We will have by the end of this weekend over 1.2 million tests around America in public health labs...

Eighteen people were shot – including one fatally – late Saturday after a large fight broke out among several motorcycle clubs on the city’s East Side, Cleveland police said.