Free Republic

Perhaps you’re exhausted from debates on Twitter about “My Pillow.” And those sports reruns. Was Duke really the only school to play in every meaningful basketball game of the past three decades? So now you’re wondering exactly what in the world went on the other day on Capitol Hill. That’s when Congress struggled to adopt the coronavirus bill. What was going on with Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY)? And why, oh why couldn’t lawmakers vote from the comfort of their living rooms – while watching Christian Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Mike Krzyzewski, of course?

Much of California's coastline is closed amid the coronavirus pandemic—but on Saturday morning, a surfer who apparently really needed his fix was fined $1,000 for ignoring the rules, the Los Angeles Times reports. A Los Angeles County lifeguard at Manhattan Beach ordered the man to stay out of the water, to which he replied, per the Easy Reader: "Go ahead and arrest me." The lifeguard says the man then threw out some "colorful language" before heading into the waves. The lifeguard called his supervisor, who called police. A cop arrived with a code enforcement officer, who issued the citation.

WASHINGTON — In late November 2018, just over a year before the first coronavirus case was identified in Wuhan, China, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents at Detroit Metro Airport stopped a Chinese biologist with three vials labeled “Antibodies” in his luggage. The biologist told the agents that a colleague in China had asked him to deliver the vials to a researcher at a U.S. institute. After examining the vials, however, customs agents came to an alarming conclusion. “Inspection of the writing on the vials and the stated recipient led inspection personnel to believe the materials contained within the vials...

NEW YORK -- Macy's, Kohl's and Gap Inc. all said Monday they will stop paying tens of thousands of employees who were thrown out of work when the chains temporarily closed their stores and sales collapsed as a result of the pandemic. Macy's said the majority of its 125,000 employees will be furloughed this week and that it is transitioning to an "absolute minimum workforce" needed to maintain basic operations. Macy's said it has lost the bulk of its sales due to the temporarily closing of more than 600 stores starting March 18.

This is for the truckers today, working hard and keeping the country stocked up and running. This song got stuck in my head after hearing the album...and the lyrics just seemed to say Trucker... Hope you like it! (Warning: This video is not suitable for easily offended folks, PG13) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztDr9GN5TVc

Every morning at 10 a.m., the Maryland health department publishes an update to its sobering data about the rapidly spreading coronavirus. The latest state data showed the number of cases among people ages 10 to 19 more than doubled over three days. It documented how the number of cases among women in Maryland surpassed those among men. And it registered cases as they’ve sprung up in county after county after county. But absent so far is a breakdown of cases by race. Some lawmakers say publishing this information while the pandemic is ongoing is vital so that state officials can...

The Secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, at the direction of the Secretary of Defense, and the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a service in the Navy, are authorized to order to active duty not to exceed 24 consecutive months, such units, and individual members of the Ready Reserve under the jurisdiction of the Secretary concerned, not to exceed 1,000,000 members on active duty at any one time, as the Secretary of Defense and, with respect to the Coast Guard when it is not operating as a...

Wisconsin officials are moving forward with holding the planned April 7 presidential primary election as reported cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, continue to mount in the state. As of Monday morning, the Wisconsin Department of Health reported 1,157 confirmed cases and 19 deaths from COVID-19, a massive increase over the 32 cases that were reported in the state two weeks ago on March 15. Nine other states set to hold primary elections in the rest of March and April, including Georgia, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, and the six mid-Atlantic states which planned to vote on the...

CBS News admitted to a "mistake" on Monday after airing footage of an overcrowded hospital room that was allegedly in New York City but was actually from a hospital in Italy. "It was an editing mistake. We took immediate steps to remove it from all platforms and shows," a CBS News spokesperson told Fox News. Last Wednesday, "CBS This Morning" included a brief clip showing several patients and medical professionals in one room during a report about the rising threat of the coronavirus outbreak in New York City.

CNN anchor Don Lemon suggested on Monday night that his network shouldn't carry President Trump's daily coronavirus briefings because they've become his "new rallies." "I have said I don't think that you should really listen to what he says, you should listen to what the experts say," Lemon told his colleague Chris Cuomo during their nightly handoff. "I'm not actually sure, if you want to be honest, that we should carry that live. I think we should run snippets. I think we should do it afterwards and get the pertinent points to the American people because he's never, ever going...

For the past two weeks now, we’ve been talking about hydroxychloroquine as the wonder drug in the fight against the deadly coronavirus. Two anti-malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine are shown to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients after controlled clinical study conducted by doctors ​in France shows that a combo of Hydroxychloroquine and Azithromycin (Z-Pak) cures 100% of coronavirus patients within 6 days of treatment. However, according to doctors treating coronovirus patients in Italy, Tolicizumab, a drug used to treat moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis, has been shown to be more effective than hydroxychloroquine. Tolicizumab is so effective that the...

On Monday, CNN chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta stepped back in the ring for Monday’s White House Coronavirus Task Force daily briefing and, as usual, he made a fool out of himself. Fortunately for our collective sanity, the ordeal lasted less than two minutes and ended with President Trump torching Fake News Jim for his “nasty, snarky question” about the President’s past statements at what was then a disturbing but evolving pandemic. Having recognized he was there, Trump called on him around 6:01 p.m. Eastern: “Go ahead, let’s give it a shot.” Acosta responded with this doozy, which felt...

"Amazon has fired the worker at its Staten Island warehouse who organized a walkout on Monday to demand greater protections from the company amid the coronavirus outbreak. Chris Smalls, 31, a management assistant at the facility, told The Post he was canned in a phone call following Monday afternoon’s strike. “They pretty much retaliated against me for speaking out,” said Smalls. “I don’t know how they sleep at night.” He and dozens of other employees at the Bloomfield warehouse walked off the job to demand Amazon AMZN, +3.36% temporarily close and clean the facility after a worker tested positive for...

AUSTIN, Texas (KWTX) Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's dramatically expanded order that requires travelers who arrive in the state to self-quarantine for 14 days went into effect Monday. The order now includes not only travelers from New Orleans and the New York Tri-State area, but also the states of California, Louisiana and Washington and the cities of Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit and Miami. The requirement went into effect at noon on Monday and remains in effect until further notice. The restrictions are part of the state’s growing effort to curb the spread of the new coronavirus in Texas. On Sunday Abbott said...

“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” — Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) One of my Fox colleagues recently sent me an email attachment of a painting of the framers signing the Constitution of the United States. Except in this version, George Washington — who presided at the Constitutional Convention — looks at James Madison — who was the scrivener at the Convention — and says, “None of this counts if people get sick, right?” In these days of state governors issuing daily decrees purporting to criminalize the exercise of our...

It’s no secret that airliner passengers and crews are at an increased risk of infection with the novel coronavirus that causes the COVID-19 disease, but how many pilots and flight attendants have come down with the virus? It’s impossible to say right now for two reasons. There’s not enough testing capacity in the U.S. health care system to get tests for all who are symptomatic, let alone for all flight crewmembers, and a substantial percentage of people who acquire the novel coronavirus never experience symptoms or have only mild symptoms they might not associate with COVID-19. The subject has come...

The Center for Disease Control posted a job listing for a Public Health Advisor in the Quarantine Program in all major U.S. cities in November of 2019, at least a month before the novel coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak. The job listing is for positions in Dallas, El Paso, Houston, Seattle, Anchorage, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Miami, Atlanta, Honolulu, Chicago, Boston, Detroit, Minneapolis, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, and San Juan. The job description reads, “Serves as a project representative for a program responsible for preventing the importation and spread of communicable diseases.” All cities currently dealing with coronavirus fears in...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson said insiders in the Joe Biden presidential campaign believe he will not be mentally fit to be president come Election Day. While appearing on the Charlie LeDuff podcast, Carlson claimed that Biden insiders told him they don't believe the former vice president has the mental fortitude to last until the 2020 election in November, speculating that the Democratic Party may revoke his potential nomination.

Amid rising coronavirus cases in India, the national task force for COVID-19 constituted by the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) has recommended hydroxy-chloroquine as a preventive medication for high-risk populations. According to this advisory distributed from New Delhi on March 22, 2020, hydroxy-chloroquine should be given to high-risk population -- asymptomatic healthcare workers involved in the care of suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19 disease and asymptomatic household contacts of laboratory-confirmed cases. The hydroxy-chloroquine protocol recommended by the National Task Force has been approved by the Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) for restricted use in emergency situations. "Hydroxy-chloroquine...

Add routine pet checkups to the list of things that will have to wait until the COVID-19 pandemic subsides. On Monday, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed an executive order prohibiting in-person veterinary services that aren’t essential and encouraging a shift towards telemedicine through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. The order takes effect 5 p.m. March 31. The prohibition doesn’t apply to lifesaving procedures, treating serious pain, necessary euthanizations or necessary treatment of infectious diseases that can be transmitted between animals and human beings. A licensed veterinarian would make the call on whether a service is essential. The Centers for Disease...