Free Republic

Today’s CG is from The Arkansas Gazette. KVDNEF UDN DTSDRN VIMNZVJ, WYZ FEZ DTSDRN MF D KVDNEFDWTV PEKC. - HDKT CDKI

Americans, and indeed all people of goodwill, should be pleased to see that Israel finally has broken its 15-month political impasse. Amidst a global pandemic, jihadists might have misinterpreted instability in Israel as providing them with a chance to spark a conflagration without fearing effective repercussions from a stricken and distracted Western world. But now that three-time challenger Bennie Gantz has agreed to let Benjamin Netanyahu continue for 18 months as prime minister in a “unity government,” there will be no doubt that Israel itself can act against any aggression with solidarity and dispatch. Gantz and some but not all...

DUNN, N.C. — A Raleigh city employee has died from COVID-19, the illness associated with the new coronavirus. Adrian Grubbs, who was in his 30s and lived in Harnett County, died Wednesday, his wife said. He suffered from high blood pressure, she said, and state officials said the underlying medical condition put him at higher risk from the virus. "He was a good man. He was a great man, a loving husband, a devoted father, a great leader," his wife said. "All this happened so fast." Grubbs became sick on March 13 and immediately quarantined himself inside the family's Dunn...

Currently, there is no known specific medicine to treat the novel coronavirus, but researchers in Italy suggest that the COVID-19 disease is slow to mutate, based on its genetic material. This finding could aid in helping large swaths of people over an extended period of time once a specific cure is found. The study, which was produced by two independent teams in the country, used "a new next-generation sequencing (NGS) research assay" from Thermo Fisher Scientific on Italian COVID-19 patients. The experts then compared them to a sample from the original outbreak to come up with their findings. "Had we...

The US, China, and Italy (in that order) have the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world. But an analysis of coronavirus cases per capita — the number of cases per million residents — in various countries reveals a different story. Switzerland, not China, tops the list of COVID-19 cases per capita, with 1,340 cases per million people. It's followed by Spain, then Italy.The US, which has the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world — more than 83,000 — is low on the cases per capita list. Only 210 people in the US had been infected per...

On the day that the United States passed China and Italy with the most confirmed coronavirus cases – 83,507 according to Johns Hopkins University – President Trump reiterated his call for America to “go back to work.” “Our country has to go back. Our country is based on that. I think it is going to happen pretty quickly,” Trump said at the daily coronavirus task force briefing held at the White House, “ A lot of progress has (been) made but we’ve got to go back to work.” But the plan to get America working again may not start with...

County Population Totals: 2010-2019 This page features all the files containing Vintage 2019 county population totals and components of change. Nation, States, and Counties Population Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2019 Cumulative Estimates of Resident Population Change for Counties and County Rankings: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2019 Estimates of Resident Population Change for Counties and County Rankings: July 1, 2018 to July 1, 2019 Estimates of the Components of Resident Population Change for Counties: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2019 100 Fastest-Growing Counties: April 1, 2010 to July...

The Queen of Malaysia helping people in need by utilising her cooking skills....Malaysia has seen 1,796 cases and 16 deaths so far and Tunku Azizah Aminah Maimunah Iskandariah - who is the wife of Al-Sultan Abdullah Al-Haj of Pahang - has been supporting those helping to fight the virus by cooking them traditional Malaysian meals and treats. She sent the dishes to a number of hospitals in Malaysia including, Sungai Buloh Hospital, University Malaya Medical Center, and the Crisis Preparedness and Response Centre (CPRC). The Queen is already a cooking enthusiast, with an Instagram feed filled with a number of...

Test to be validated this week, then made available to healthcare workers and general public Millions of 15-minute home coronavirus tests are set to be available on the high street or for Amazon delivery to people self-isolating, according to Public Health England (PHE), in a move that could restore many people’s lives to a semblance of pre-lockdown normality. Prof Sharon Peacock, the director of the national infection service at PHE, told MPs on the science and technology committee that mass testing in the UK would be possible within days, saying evaluation of the fingerprick tests should be completed this week....

The governor of the central Mexican state of Puebla told reporters Wednesday that poor people "are immune" from the coronavirus. During his remarks, which broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook, Gov. Luis Miguel Barbosa posed a question, asking reporters which people were infected at the moment. "The majority are wealthy people, you know," he said, answering his own question. "If you're rich you're at risk, but if you're poor, no, well us poor, we are immune." There is no scientific evidence to suggest the virus effects people differently due to economic status. His remarks sparked an uproar on social media,...

I get a chuckle everytime I watch this. Bob Hope was the best!

He was the 44th vice president of the United States in the George H.W. Bush administration, but for the last 20 years, Dan Quayle has stayed mostly away from the unfriendly glare of political life. I called him to get his thoughts on the coronavirus and the current political scene. On the virus and the approach to it by the Trump administration, Mr. Quayle said, “I think they’re doing a very good job. They know what they’re doing.” Echoing President Trump’s optimism, he, too, is optimistic about what comes after the virus is defeated: “We’ll get back to where we...

I laughed at this tweet by Tom Elliott: “There’s a non zero percent chance the mafia is involved here.” It feels right. We’re a third-world country now in many respects. Our nurses wear trash bags because our leaders were too shortsighted and slovenly to stockpile PPE before a pandemic broke out. We’re governed by a nationalist strongman whose battle plan against the virus seems to be to give everyone some hydroxychloroquine and tell them to get back to work. Of course a society at that late stage of decline might need to turn to the mafia as a key distributor...

On this date in 1836 — Palm Sunday, as it happened — over 300 Anglo POWs fighting to separate Texas from Mexico were executed en masse outside Goliad’s fortress Less widely celebrated than the Battle of the Alamo preceding it by a fortnight, the Battle of Coleto on March 19-20 had seen Mexican troops surround and capture another force of Texians at Goliad.

The United States has indicted Venezuela’s socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro and other top regime officials in a narco-terrorism and drug trafficking conspiracy that aimed to “flood the United States with cocaine,” the Justice Department announced. The criminal indictment accuses Maduro of teaming up with Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

As I post this in Australia, it is still 26 March in America, the 128th anniversary of Walt Whitman’s death. I invite Freeepers to reflect upon freedom via this collage of Whitman with some of my own thoughts: https://freedom-demokrasi-and-civilised-humanity.com/2020/03/27/american-energy/ Does Trump rediscover Whitman for America in …….. ………… his celebration of people scorned by Obama and Clinton as clinging and deplorable? ………… and in his urge to keep working when medical science around the world is saying stop and self-isolate? If we have to self-isolate, is there any place better to do that than in the glories of Walt Whitman?...

A local business is paying it forward, by supporting local businesses affected by the coronavirus pandemic. The CEO of MuniciPAY, a payment processor in Portland, is giving each of his employees $50 a week to buy food from local restaurants in the area. He says the company is fortunate to be economically stable during this time, and hopes he's making a difference in the community. "You know, the employees feel good, we're doing something good, and that's it, hopefully this will grow to be some big number,” MuniciPAY CEO Jamie Nonni said. “I know you can't save everybody, but that's...

A ringing phone stirred Somy Ali from her sleep one night last week. A call in the early morning hours is hardly unusual for Ali, who runs a Miami-based nonprofit for domestic violence survivors. But in recent days, as millions isolate themselves from the outside world while COVID-19 diagnoses surge across Florida, her phone hasn't stopped ringing. For now, the consensus advice has been to stay inside. Yet for those who experience domestic violence, the outbreak has created a perfect storm of circumstance, trapping some in their homes with an abuser as uncertainty compounds anxiety. In 2018, Miami-Dade saw 9,137...

After a shocking turnaround in his campaign — he was nearly left for dead after his crushing defeat in New Hampshire, only to become the presumptive nominee after Super Tuesday — Joe Biden was ready to pivot to a general election campaign against President Trump. But then the coronavirus hit the United States, and the ex-veep’s campaign has struggled mightily to deal with the political fallout. Trump has utterly eclipsed his would-be rival. And when Biden has been heard from, he has looked frankly pathetic. After disappearing for more than a week after his primary victories in Missouri, Michigan and...

A video from a reporter in Montana has gone viral after the reporter spots a herd of bison coming toward him while setting up for his shot. “Three, two, oh my god. I ain’t messing with you. Oh no. I’m not messing with you,” Deion Broxton says. Deion Broxton KTVM ✔ @DeionNBCMT There was a herd of bison walking right toward me at @YellowstoneNPS today! Embedded video 364K 1:25 PM - Mar 25, 2020 Broxton was doing a story at Yellowstone Park when he spotted the bison. He then packed up and got out of there. Then once he was...