Free Republic

A 45-year-old man was jailed for 17 months on Wednesday (April 8) after he was caught smuggling 22kg of white rhinoceros horns worth an estimated US$563,000 (S$804,000) at Singapore’s Changi Airport without a permit. In a statement issued after the sentence was handed down, the National Parks Board said the penalty was "the heaviest sentence meted out for the smuggling of wildlife parts in Singapore" to date. The court heard that the horns had been removed from at least five adult white rhinoceros — a species that is threatened with extinction according to an international convention — the court heard....

At the casino, the house (almost always) wins. In the stock market, Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) never seems to lose. That’s certainly the reputation Burr has managed to cultivate these last few weeks as his financial disclosures showed he sold off major stock positions worth up to $1.72 million just ahead of the market crash resulting from the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. Another of Burr’s well-timed stock trades is now drawing scrutiny. Burr sold off nearly $47,000 worth of shares in an obscure Dutch fertilizer company in 2018 — when the stock was near its five-year peak. Burr’s profitable sale came...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ SHOULDER RESCUE Army Sgt. Jason C. Carroll carries a young resident through flooded streets in Monroe, LA, March 10, 2016. Carroll is electronic warfare specialist noncommissioned officer assigned to the Louisiana National Guard's 528th Engineer Battalion, 225th Engineer Brigade. The unit used light tactical vehicles as it worked with the Ouachita Parish Sheriff's Office to navigate the high waters and assist residents. Army National Guard photo by Spc. Tarell J. Bilbo Canteen Mission Statement Showing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members...

Teachers in school districts across the country have been doing hundreds, if not thousands, of these parades over the past few weeks (Google lists over 2,500 news articles on local parades), but especially over the past few days. Yet “car church” isn’t okay! These are just some of the teacher parades that were held in the past few days and the past week, despite there probably being state orders for most of them that prohibit people from taking non-essential trips from home. Alaska https://www.kyuk.org/post/slideshow-elementary-school-connects-kids-teacher-parade Arizona https://www.kold.com/2020/04/08/coronado-k-teachers-have-parade-see-students/ Arkansas https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/apr/05/teachers-parade-through-neighbors-cheer/ California https://krcrtv.com/news/local/turtle-bay-teachers-to-hold-social-distancing-parade-wednesday-in-redding https://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/local/teacher-parades-growing-in-popularity-across-sd-county/2299202/ https://myvalleynews.com/photos-ysabel-barnett-elementary-teachers-parade-for-their-students/ https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/living/story/love-care-amid-coronavirus-crisis-good-news-happening-69624293 https://www.turnto23.com/news/makin-it/local-teacher-parade-in-northwest-bakersfield https://www.mantecabulletin.com/news/local-news/teachers-parade/ Illinois https://khqa.com/news/coronavirus/liberty-school-staff-holds-social-distancing-parade-for-local-families https://www.mysuburbanlife.com/2020/04/07/teachers-parade-through-berwyn/dlvj4m/ https://q985online.com/poplar-grove-elementary-teachers-surprise-students-with-parade/...

Joe Biden’s campaign is offering to help states receive coronavirus resources through its own private connections. Let me repeat that for the CNN-impaired… Joe Biden is offering to help states get their hands on coronavirus resources through his own private connections. In other words, rather than offer these much-needed resources to the federal government or even the state and local governments, Biden’s connections are offering them to his campaign so Biden can pretend to be president while he hides out in his Delaware basement. And Joe Biden is okay with that. This is not a joke. This is really happening...

It materialized out of nowhere and is disappearing just as quickly, as if a mirage in a coronavirus-fueled fever dream. Gov. Jay Inslee Wednesday announced he would return to the federal government the field hospital assembled by soldiers roughly a week ago in Seattle’s CenturyLink Field Event Center to help the healthcare system cope with the new coronavirus. Inslee in recent days has cited more favorable projections for what’s to come next in the outbreak of COVID-19 in Washington, the state that at one time led the nation in cases and deaths. There were 9,097 cases of coronavirus as of...

It’s probably a coincidence, but I notice that as businesses go under, jobs are lost, careers are ended and trillions of dollars are drained from the economy, the people most avidly pushing the coronavirus panic are doing quite well. No politician or government official has taken a salary cut. To the contrary, dusty bureaucrats now find the entire country transfixed by their every utterance. Cable news hosts still make millions of dollars -- and now they get to work from home! Annoyingly, though, journalists can’t seem to relay the basic elements of a news story: who, what, where and why....

Dr. Scott Jensen is both a physician and a Minnesota state senator. Yesterday he was interviewed by a local television station and dropped a bombshell: he, and presumably all other Minnesota doctors, got a seven-page letter from the Minnesota Department of Health that gave guidance on how to classify COVID-19 deaths. The letter said that if a patient died of, e.g., pneumonia, and was believed to have been exposed to COVID-19, the death certificate should say that COVID-19 was the cause of death even though the patient was never tested, or never tested positive, for that disease. Dr. Jensen found...

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Interim Police Supt. Charlie Beck on Wednesday decried the warm weather outbreak of violence straining police resources and filling hospital space desperately needed for patients with the coronavirus. “This violence has to stop. There are two pandemics that face Chicago — and only one of them is virus-induced,” Beck said. In the 24-hour period starting at midnight Monday, seven people were shot to death and 21 more were wounded, including a 5-year old girl. Another man was killed after being pushed onto CTA Red Line tracks at Jackson and run over by a train. The death...

As the therapeutic efficacy of hydroxychloroquine becomes more and more provable, the left gets more and more hysterical. They have bet the farm on COVID-19 as a means of preventing President Trump’s re-election and then this old malaria drug appears on the scene. The first trial came from China and no one should take their word for it but a doctor there realized that every patient with lupus, even if sick, was negative for the disease. Then a French doctor, Dr. Didier Raoult, a world-famous microbiologist, tested the theory with more than a thousand patients and found it 100% effective,...

Austria will begin reopening Austria will lift some of its Wuhan coronavirus related restrictions next week. It will begin by reopening non-essential shops of less than 400 square meters on April 14, and then all shops and malls on May 1. Strict rules about masks, social distancing, and the number of people allowed into a store at any one time will remain in place.Schools will remain closed until mid-May. Public events are banned until the beginning of June. All of these decisions are subject to change, depending on conditions.Austria’s prime minister said that his early response to pandemic has enabled...

While Florida might not be the most important swing state come November’s presidential election, it is the largest. Simply put, it is near impossible for President Donald Trump to win a second term without Florida though the Democratic candidate, presumably former Vice President Joe Biden, could build an electoral college majority without the Sunshine State. Politicians from the Sunshine State always garner some buzz as potential vice presidential candidates but, in the 175 years of statehood, no Florida politician has ever been included on a major ticket. Of course, that could change this year since Trump moved from New York...

Researchers at Stanford Medicine are working to find out what proportion of Californians have already had COVID-19. The new study could help policymakers make more informed decisions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Paris, France, Apr 7, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- One year after the world watched the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris burn, the Archbishop of Paris will display the relic of Christ’s crown of thorns for veneration during a Good Friday broadcast. “When Mary is at the foot of the cross, she knows that from the most absolute evil God can always draw a much greater good," Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris said in an online press conference on April 7. “I do not see any meaning in the cathedral fire or the COVID-19 epidemic. On the other hand, I...

Threat was unfounded, investigators sayFBI agents arrested a San Antonio man after he posted on Facebook, claiming he paid someone to spread COVID-19 at grocery stores. Christopher Charles Perez, 39, was arrested Tuesday afternoon on suspicion of perpetrating a coronavirus-related hoax. Perez posted the threat “because he was trying to deter people from visiting the stores, purportedly in order to prevent the spread of the virus,” according to a news release from the United States Attorney’s Office in San Antonio. The screenshot quickly caught the attention of the Southwest Texas Fusion Center, a team of law enforcement individuals who monitor...

NEW YORK CITY, April 6, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) — Evangelical leader Rev. Franklin Graham says the coronavirus pandemic is the result of sin — that “man has turned his back on God” — and urged people to pray and ask God’s forgiveness as Christians begin Holy Week. “As we come to this week, Easter week — I would encourage people around the world and across the country to pray,” Graham told Fox host Judge Jeanine Pirro Saturday. “I pray that God would protect us, and God’s hand would relieve us from this pandemic.” Graham’s humanitarian organization Samaritan’s Purse, which brings medical...

Don’t get too excited about the coming “certified recovered” caste of immune citizens just yet. If this study is confirmed, the segment of the population with durable immunity from COVID-19 may be smaller than everyone expects. A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies…All of the patients had recently recovered from mild symptoms of the disease and most of those with low antibody levels were young. The researchers excluded patients who had been admitted to intensive...

PLEASANTON (CBS SF) –People shut in their homes in Pleasanton were jolted by the sounds of honking horns and shouts reverberating through their streets Wednesday, coming from a rolling parade of teachers saluting their students and families amid the coronavirus sheltering in place. The parade was organized by teachers at Donlon Elementary School in Pleasanton on Wednesday. Led by members of the Pleasanton Police Department, the Donlon teachers rode in a caravan of vehicles throughout the neighborhoods served by the school, bringing smiles to the faces of those who were roused out of their homes. Many of the teachers’ cars...

Civil rights leader asks why Pope Francis is not subject to same lawROME (ChurchMilitant.com) - A priest who was fined €400 ($432) for processing with a "miraculous crucifix" through the picture-postcard town of Rocca Imperiale in southern Italy is refusing to pay the penalty in protest against the state's repressive measures to "punish the Church."Father Domenico Cirigliano, 76, says he was doing what every parish priest overseeing Rocca Imperiale in the province of Calabria has done for the last 300 years: re-enacting the procession that has been the town's tradition since March 30, 1691 — the date on which the...

DR. AI FEN According to China’s Ministry of Public Security, police investigated more than 5,100 instances of “fabricating and deliberately disseminating false and harmful information” between January 20 and February 21. The actual number as of today is unknown as are details of most of the cases. However, a group called Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) has collected information on 897 such cases between January 1 and March 26. What they found was government censorship of social media which resulted in some people having their social media accounts deleted and others being put into administrative detention. From our incomplete list...