Free Republic

Sweden has not imposed the kind of draconian lockdown measures enacted by other European countries. People are still allowed to gather in crowds of up to 50, as well as visit bars, nightclubs and cinemas. Borders and schools remain open. Although more people are working from home, life is pretty much as normal. “We who are adults need to be exactly that: adults. Not spread panic or rumors,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven told Swedes in a recent televised address. The goal is to slowly infect the population with coronavirus in order to create “herd immunity,” an approach that has been...

A locomotive engineer at the Port of Los Angeles was charged with a rare count of train-wrecking after he purposely derailed a train that was heading towards a Navy hospital ship on Tuesday. Eduardo Moreno, a 44-year-old from San Pedro, Calif., is in FBI custody and claims that he ran the train off the tracks at a high speed to draw attention so “people could see for themselves” what the USNS Mercy was up to, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Central District of California. Moreno allegedly told investigators that he was suspicious of the...

He wasn’t even out long enough to say coronavirus! An accused meth dealer was tossed back in the slammer just a day after he was freed over coronavirus concerns because he tried to cut off his ankle monitor, law enforcement officials told the Daily News. Rasedur Raihan, who was free on bail, got some mercy from a Brooklyn Federal Court magistrate judge on March 12 when the feds tried to lock him up for failed drug tests and missed treatments. Locking up Raihan would have been “a relatively easy call” in mid-February, Magistrate Judge James Orenstein said at the time....

A combination of anti-malaria drug Hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the generic name is Plaquenil, and Azithromycin appear to be effective in treating COVID-19 patients. While Dr. Anthony Fauci wants to wait for studies that could take up to a year, there simply isn’t time. Anecdotal evidence from several countries, including China and France, suggest it is effective.

Stable coronavirus patients could be taken off ventilators in favour of those more likely to survive, it emerged on Wednesday, as another sharp rise in deaths left the UK braced for the outbreak to reach up to 1,000 deaths a day by the end of the week. In a stark new document issued by the British Medical Association, doctors set out guidelines to ration care if the NHS becomes overwhelmed with new cases as the outbreak moves towards its peak. A rise in the death toll of 563 brought the overall total to 2,352, an increase of 31% on Tuesday’s...

Crude futures surged on Thursday, after President Donald Trump expressed optimism that a damaging price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia can be resolved. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery CL.1, 10.290% surged nearly $2, or 9.6%, to $22.80 a barrel, after slipping 0.8% to settle at $20.31 on Wednesday. June Brent crude BRNM20, 12.369% climbed $2.57, or 10%, to $27.30 a barrel, a day after the contract plunged 6.1% to $24.74 a barrel on ICE Futures Europe. “President Trump’s acknowledging of the problems in the oil patch is critical, and he also revealed he had spoken with the...

I left a forwarding address with the Post Office, but I am still concerned.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered police and military in the country on Wednesday to kill troublemakers who violate coronavirus lockdown measures. Duterte gave the warning during a televised address where he said it was critical everyone cooperates and follows home quarantine measures. He added the abuse of medical workers would be considered a serious crime. “My orders to the police and military ... if there is trouble and there’s an occasion that they fight back and your lives are in danger, shoot them dead," he said, according to Reuters.

A retired British doctor who returned to work to help battle the country’s coronavirus outbreak died of the disease this week, according to new reports. Dr. Alfa Saadu, 68, died Tuesday morning after suffering from the infection for two weeks, his son Dani said in a social media post, Metro UK reported. He worked at the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital in Welwyn, Hertfordshire, until his passing.

On Wednesday, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) quoted a violent passage from the Quran calling for false accusers to receive a flogging of eighty lashes. She was responding to a Quran quote condemning adultery with another quote condemning those who falsely accuse "chaste" women of adultery. Her response was particularly rich given her recent marital history. Omar tweeted "Subhanallah," a celebratory phrase that roughly translates to "May Allah be exalted!" A Twitter user rained on her parade, tweeting a Quran quote condemning adultery. "'Nor come nigh to fornication/adultery: for it is a shameful (deed) and an evil, opening the road (to...

Rep. Ilhan Omar is not a fan of the coronavirus press conferences at the White House. The freshman rep from Minnesota became the latest Democrat to criticize the briefing as rambling and self-promotional. MSNBC and CNN did not run the press conference in its entirety. Erik Wemple, the Washington Post's media critic, penned a column titled, “CNN, MSNBC refused to carry full Trump coronavirus briefing. Yay!” Omar took to Twitter on Wednesday to call the press conference “disturbing to watch.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pushing for a new stimulus bill that would roll back the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a measure that would predominately help wealthy individuals making more than $100,000 -- including most residents in Pelosi's district and perhaps even Pelosi herself. A 2019 report from the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that of those who would face lower tax liability from the elimination of the SALT cap – which only affects those who itemize tax deductions – 94 percent earn at least $100,000. The government would lose out on $77.4 billion in tax dollars,...

April 02 2020 Thursday of the Fifth Week of Lent Reading 1 Gn 17:3-9 When Abram prostrated himself, God spoke to him: “My covenant with you is this: you are to become the father of a host of nations. No longer shall you be called Abram; your name shall be Abraham, for I am making you the father of a host of nations. I will render you exceedingly fertile; I will make nations of you; kings shall stem from you. I will maintain my covenant with you and your descendants after you throughout the ages as an everlasting pact,...

A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in late afternoon on Wednesday. MOSCOW/WASHINGTON - Russia sent the United States medical equipment on Wednesday to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, a public relations coup for Russian President Vladimir Putin after he discussed the crisis with U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump, struggling to fill shortages of ventilators and personal protective equipment, accepted Putin's offer in a phone call on Monday. A Russian military transport plane left an airfield outside Moscow and arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy airport in...

How can the Fed launch an “unlimited” monetary stimulus with congress approving a $2 trillion package and the dollar index remain strong? The answer lies in the rising global dollar shortage, and should be a lesson for monetary alchemists around the world. The $2 trillion stimulus package agreed by Congress is around 10% of GDP and, if we include the Fed borrowing facilities for working capital, it means $6 trillion in liquidity for consumers and firms over the next nine months. The stimulus package approved by Congress is made up of the next key items: Permanent fiscal transfers to households...

A study released today supports the use of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) as a treatment for COVID-19. The relatively small trial conducted in China included 62 patients positively identified with the COVID-19 disease. All of the 31 patients given HCQ experienced improvements in cough, fever and pneumonia as compared with the 31 patients that did not receive the drug. “Despite our small number of cases, the potential of HCQ in the treatment of COVID-19 has been partially confirmed,” said the authors of the study, which was published on medRxiv, an online server for medical papers. “Considering there is no...

But though God can do all things, yet He cannot lie, or deceive, or be deceived; He cannot sin, or cease to exist, or be ignorant of anything. These defects are compatible with those beings only whose actions are imperfect; but God, whose acts are always most perfect, is said to be incapable of such things, simply because the capability of doing them implies weakness, not the supreme and infinite power over all things which God possesses. Thus we so believe God to be omnipotent that we exclude from Him entirely all that is not intimately connected and consistent with...

DETROIT – As COVID-19 tests across the state take a week or more to return results, the city of Detroit has received a shipment of tests that give results in minutes. Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced during his Wednesday, April 1 news conference that the city received a shipment of test kits from Abbott Laboratories earlier in the day. Tests, which can return results in 15 minutes, will be reserved for Detroit police, firefighters, EMTs and bus drivers, Duggan said. Detroit will be the first city in the nation to receive the rapid tests to use on city employees, Duggan...

Italians are feeling abandoned by the EU during their fight against the coronavirus pandemic, and are taking to social media to say ‘We save ourselves’ while burning the EU flag.

Last week John and Marie McConnell made sure their wills were up to date. Ill at Cleveland Clinic Indian River Hospital Thursday night and awaiting results of a COVID-19 test after feeling poorly for about two weeks, John McConnell, 65, hit a turning point. “I knew they were preparing me for ICU and probably a ventilator,” said McConnell, who’d heard survival rates were low for COVID-19 ventilator patients. The odds were not good for McConnell, a fit, former nationally ranked college tennis player and former senior vice president of programming for ABC Radio who moved to Vero Beach full time...