Free Republic

Evidence is mounting that Sweden has beaten the coronavirus with herd immunity rather than a lockdown, according to a renowned expert on the spread of disease. Sweden’s infection rate has remained low and stable at a time when other European countries are facing a strong resurgence.

The far-left Newsweek just fired off around a thousand words falsely accusing Amy Coney Barrett of inspiring the dystopian feminist thriller The Handmaid’s Tale, and has been forced to retract it. L to the M to the A to the O. Of course, the fake news outlet didn’t retract-retract it. That would require ethics and integrity, and anyone in the media who engages in ethics and integrity will be booted from the club, so Newsweek just wrote the equivalent of “nevermind” at the bottom of its big lie and rewrote the big lie a bit.

Joe Biden has regressed to the point of reading cues out loud, giving hand signals to scroll up the text, and botching words as they appear on the screen. Election 2020 has seen its fair share of the comical and bizarre, of the heartening and debased. There is something to be learned from it all, I believe, even from a simple machine designed to facilitate clear communication to the general public. Once the prized, not-so-secret weapon of President ObamaÂ’s supposed rhetorical prowess, the teleprompter has become the conspicuous centerpiece of Joe BidenÂ’s third attempt to capture AmericaÂ’s highest office.Saving Obama...

(NASA Ames/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle, Christine Daniloff, MIT) Every exoplanet is special in its own way, but a newly discovered exoplanet 186 light-years away is an especially delicious treat. It's a smallish world around the same size as Earth, whipping around its star on an orbit that takes just 3.14 days. That's extremely close to the mathematical constant π (Pi), the number that describes the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. So, even though the exoplanet's official name is K2-315b, its discoverers have nicknamed it "π Earth." The discovery of the star has been several years in the baking....

At a lecture to peers this month, John Nkengasong showed images that once dogged Africa, with a magazine cover declaring it “The Hopeless Continent.” Then he quoted Ghana’s first president, Kwame Nkrumah: “It is clear that we must find an African solution to our problems, and that this can only be found in African unity.” The coronavirus pandemic has fractured global relationships. But as director of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Nkengasong has helped to steer Africa’s 54 countries into an alliance praised as responding better than some richer countries, including the United States. A former U.S....

Actress and 'Defund the police' activist Alyssa Milano was quick to call cops when she believed an armed gunman was on her Bell Canyon property on Sunday morning. The call ignited a response that included seven Ventura County Sheriffs' vehicles, one K-9 unit, a police helicopter and one Los Angeles Fire Department team that sat down the street on standby. DailyMail.com has obtained exclusive photos showing the first responders coming to the aid of the 47-year-old at her five bed, six bath, 8,000 square foot, $2.5 million home in the upscale gated community that sits just 20 minutes north of...

The national page for the Black Lives Matter movement has updated several sections of their website, including the removal of a page that features a paragraph about the disruption of the 'Western nuclear family.' The grassroot organization - that works mostly in local, chapter-based, groups - removed several pages from their about section in the cleanup, according to an archive of their website. Included in the removal was the site's 'What We Believe' page and pages providing biographies of the national chapter leadership and co-founders. Internet archives suggest that the website was updated on September 17.

Sweden has beaten coronavirus by refusing to shut the country down and achieving herd immunity, according to an expert. The Scandinavian nation was the only country in Europe not to introduce strict lockdown measures at the start of the pandemic. But scientists believe that this may have helped it avoid a second wave of Covid-19 as it continues to record its lowest number of cases since March - with just 28 infections per 100,000 people.

The Canadian woman charged with sending a ricin-laced letter to President Trump apparently tweeted a hashtag supportive of killing the commander-in-chief less than two weeks ago. Pascale Ferrier, of Quebec, was arrested Sunday at the border crossing between Fort Erie, Ontario, and Buffalo, New York, after allegedly mailing a letter addressed to Trump containing the highly toxic substance, according to CBC News. She was carrying a gun at the time of her arrest at the Peace Bridge crossing, CNN said.

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” namesake Joe Scarborough on Tuesday scolded Trump supporters who attend crowded rallies amid the coronavirus pandemic, comparing the “mass insanity” to people who participated in the notorious Salem witch trials of the 1690s. Trump spoke to a raucous crowd near Dayton, Ohio, on Monday night, but the MSNBC host doesn’t think the event will be remembered favorably. “This is going to be looked back upon, it really is, really, it’s going to looked back upon, I think, the way that we look back at the Salem witch trials, where just mass insanity takes over a group of...

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey, a Republican in a swing state who will be up for reelection in 2022, said in a statement Tuesday that he supports Senate Republicans in moving to fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death of late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a trailblazer for women's rights and the face of the liberal bloc of the court. "Four years ago, I noted that my decision to oppose moving forward with the Supreme Court confirmation process for Judge Merrick Garland was related to the circumstances present at the time," Toomey said. "In 2016, the White House and...

A state audit released Tuesday revealed that the University of California wrongly admitted 64 wealthy students over the past six years, some under the premise of being athletes. Campus staff admitted 22 applicants whose families were well connected and doled out hefty donations to the university, falsely designating them as student-athlete recruits. At the University of California, Berkeley campus, admissions accepted 42 applicants through its regular process based on connections to staff, leadership, and donors, but those applicants were not as qualified as others who were not admitted, the audit found.

<p>TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Just days after after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won a court victory to keep felons from voting until they’ve paid off fines, restitution and court fees, billionaire Mike Bloomberg has stepped in to help them pay off the debts.</p>

China’s leader took oblique potshots at the United States and its foreign policies Tuesday, cautioning in a U.N. address that the world must “not fall into the trap of a clash of civilizations” — remarks played minutes after delegates heard the American president insist that the United Nations “hold China accountable” for how it handled the emergence of the coronavirus. “Major countries should act like major countries,” Xi Jinping said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, a speech made remotely and recorded in advance because the pandemic prevented leaders from convening as they have for decades. The virus...

Bigotry against Catholics is nothing new in America. WhatÂ’s new is DemocratsÂ’ wholesale embrace of it, which we might see play out in primetime. President Trump is expected to pick a Supreme Court nominee to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as early as the end of this week. Two of the people on TrumpÂ’s short list of possible nominees are Catholic women: Amy Coney Barrett, a federal appellate court judge in Chicago, and Barbara Lagoa, a federal appellate court judge in Atlanta.If either of these eminently qualified judges gets the nomination, expect...

Sales of existing homes rose 2.4% in August to its highest level since 2006 as the housing market recovers from a widespread shutdown in the spring brought on by the coronavirus outbreak. The National Association of Realtors said Tuesday that sales rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6 million homes sold last month. Sales are up 10.5% from a year ago and back to pre-COVID-19 levels of early 2020. Although the pace of sales has slowed significantly after back-to-back months of more than 20% gains, it’s the third straight monthly gain after big, consecutive declines in March, April...

Fresh off of surprising upset victories in this summer’s Democratic primaries for state Assembly and Senate, the city’s Democratic socialists are targeting the City Council primaries next year, when 35 of the 51 seats will be without an incumbent. The Democratic Socialists of America-NYC is planning to back a slate of council candidates who, if elected, would create a “socialist caucus” down at City Hall. According to the strategy document obtained by The Post, one litmus test will be agreement to “defund the police” by 50 percent, slashing the NYPD’s budget by $3 billion.

A top official with the billionaire-backed Berggruen Institute has called for the kidnapping and execution of writer Michael Anton for exposing the color revolution coup that is taking place to oust President Donald Trump from office regardless of November’s voting results. Claremont Institute President Ryan Williams highlighted the grotesque tweet made by Vice President of Programs Nils Gilman comparing Anton to French fascist sympathizer Robert Brasillach:

Tommy DeVito, one of the smooth harmonizing founding members of legendary doo-wop group The Four Seasons, has died from complications of the coronavirus. He was 92. Actor Alfred Nittoli (“Casino”) confirmed the baritone vocalist and lead guitarist’s passing Tuesday on Facebook. “My dear friend Tommy passed away in Las Vegas at 9:45 last night,” Nittoli wrote, spurring dozens of emotional condolences. “With deep regret I am writing this sitting in his living room. I was informed by his daughter Darcel there will be a service in New Jersey.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Monday that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will lie in state in National Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol. She will be the first woman to ever do so. She will also lie in repose at the Supreme Court, it was announced by the court. Pelosi said the ceremony for Ginsburg will be held Friday, Sept. 25. It will be by invitation only, because of the coronavirus. Rosa Parks lay in honor at the U.S. Capitol, a distinction extended to private citizens, as opposed to government officials like Ginsburg. Ginsburg will also be the first...