Free Republic

Boris Johnson looks to have won his battle to persuade hardline Brexiteers in his party to back his EU trade deal in the Commons this week. The Prime Minister and top adviser Oliver Lewis have been ringing senior members of the pro-Brexit European Research Group to argue that the agreement meets their demands on the return of sovereignty. The ERG has convened a self-styled 'star chamber' legal team, with veteran Eurosceptic Sir Bill Cash as chairman, to go through the 1,200-page document line by line. Andrew Bridgen, Conservative MP (pictured) and a member of the ERG, said: 'If you had...

Mr. President, it’s time to end this dark charade. We’re one week away from an enormously important moment for the next four years of our country. On Jan. 5, two runoff races in Georgia will determine which party will control the Senate — whether Joe Biden will have a rubber stamp or a much-needed check on his agenda. Unfortunately, you’re obsessed with the next day, Jan. 6, when Congress will, in a pro forma action, certify the Electoral College vote. You have tweeted that, as long as Republicans have “courage,” they can overturn the results and give you four more...

Two more iconic restaurants have succumbed to the coronavirus pandemic. This time, the historic locations affected are on the West and East Coast. The owners of San Francisco’s well-known The Cliff House restaurant are closing its doors for good after running the establishment for nearly 48 years. The Cliff House location has a history that dates back 157 years. The Cliff House had temporarily switched to take-out orders during the pandemic, but it wasn’t enough to keep the iconic restaurant in business during the COVID-19 crisis. The restaurant, which is known for its ocean views of the Pacific Ocean, will...

April 19, 2020: “Costco will require all shoppers to wear face masks inside stores.” December 24, 2020: “COVID-19 outbreak at Yakima-area Costco leads to at least 68 staff testing positive.”April 19, 2020: “Costco will require all shoppers to wear face masks inside stores”Source: https://www.today.com/food/costco-requires-all-shoppers-wear-face-masks-inside-stores-t180196December 24, 2020:“COVID-19 outbreak at Yakima-area Costco leads to at least 68 staff testing positive”Source: https://www.wenatcheeworld.com/news/covid-19-outbreak-at-yakima-area-costco-leads-to-at-least-68-staff-testing-positive/article_ec9be93a-46c0-11eb-9a32-6f4a30d7f576.html

A team at the Canada’s particle accelerator facility at the University of British Columbia is celebrating a major triumph, inking a deal to produce a rare cancer drug that previously relied on nuclear waste. The TRIUMF project has formed a partnership with Ontario-based Fusion Pharmaceuticals to upgrade its facility to produce actinium-225, nicknamed “the rarest drug on Earth.” That rare radioisotope started making headlines about five years ago when four treatments of it were administered to a German man who was just weeks from death, and suffering from multiple cancerous tumours. Eight months later, the tumours had disappeared. “We’re seeing...

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Two German WWII tombstones at a Texas veterans cemetery — each bearing Nazi swastikas — have been removed and replaced with new ones that do not use the symbol. The 1943 gravestones belonging to German prisoners of war Alfred Kafka and Georg Forst at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery featured an Iron Cross with a swastika in the middle, and the phrase, “He died far from his home for the Leader (Führer), people and fatherland.” Cemetary workers removed the stones on Wednesday.

Trump had refused to sign a Covid relief bill until Congress raised the amount of money paid to everyday Americans. President Trump on Sunday night signed a $2.3 trillion federal spending and COVID relief bill, averting a government shutdown and ensuring millions of Americans continue to get unemployment benefits. Despite his misgivings about wasteful spending and low stimulus payments in the bill, Trump said he signed the legislation because “I have an obligation to protect the people of our country“ from further economic devastation. He said, however, “more money is coming” as Congress votes this week on larger checks. The...

The “Donald Trump/Mike Pence Prayer Vigil” and “Pray for our American Heroes" Prayer Thread have Combined to Form the AMERICA PRAYER VIGIL Prayer Thread!Join with Fellow FREEPERS to Pray for our PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP/VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE and AMERICA: Government, Family, Military, Business, Education, Churches, and the Media.'And this is the Confidence that we have in Him, that, if we Ask Anything According to His Will, He Heareth us.' 1 John 5:14Religion Forum Threads Labeled [Prayer] are Closed to Debate of Any Kind.Psalm 103:13As a Father hath Compassion upon His Children, So hath the Lord Compassion on them that Fear...

Do you remember the McPizza? Gen Z probably doesn't. But, for children of the '80s and '90s, the dish brings back memories of a time when you could order a pizza alongside your burgers and fries. For some reason, McDonald's Twitter account also recently decided to reminisce about its lost pizza, tweeting: "remember when we sold McPizza." Memories of McPizzas past provide an opportunity to walk down memory lane, savoring the cheesy nostalgia of menu items lost but not forgotten. McDonald's first debuted its pizza in the '80s. Rivals mocked McDonald's attempts, with Pizza Hut even running ads calling the...

Burmese pythons may not be everyone’s first food of choice for festive holiday fare — or second, third or fourth either. For starters, it’s snake. Plus, because of potentially high mercury levels, there’s still a lot of uncertainty over the health risks posed by eating South Florida’s most destructive invasive species. But one South Florida python hunter has been experimenting with what some have dubbed “chicken of the Glades” — making meals, snacks and even sweets that could give the holidays that distinctive South Florida flavor. How about python jerky, a plate of constrictor and grits for breakfast or maybe...

Assembled in teams at folding tables, GBI agents and state election investigators this past week scrutinized voter signatures on absentee ballot envelopes, a major test of their legitimacy. A small number of mismatched signatures would discredit suspicions from President Donald Trump and election skeptics who claim the system for verifying voter identity allows rampant fraud. Significant mismatches would expose flaws in the ballot verification process. The unprecedented review of absentee ballots, scheduled to be finished this week, is comparing signatures on ballot envelopes with their signatures on file. Fifty investigators are working to examine a 15,000-ballot sample of the nearly...

If you accidentally stumbled upon the town of Huacachina, you might think it is a mirage. Huacachina is centered around a lagoon lined with lush vegetation—all located in the driest desert in the world. Snuggled between the biggest sand dunes in South America, it is the only natural oasis on the continent. On August 15, 2020, the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8 captured this image of Huacachina and the adjacent sand dunes. Huacachina is located in southwestern Peru on the edge of the Atacama desert. The town is located about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the city of...

Guitar icon Joe Bonamassa has shared security camera footage from his apartment in Nashville capturing the explosion of a recreational vehicle on Christmas morning which damaged dozens of buildings, injured three people and knocked out AT&T wireless service in and around the city. On Friday (December 25), Bonamassa — who splits his time between Nashville and Los Angeles — tweeted out the 12-second clip, and wrote in an accompanying message: "A message of love and support to my friends and family in Nashville on this Christmas Day. This was taken by my security cameras three blocks away from the bombing...

The Buffalo Bills have won the AFC East division for the first time in 25 years and secured their first home playoff game in almost as long. Thousands of Bills fans waited hours in the cold to greet the team, which arrived at the Buffalo airport at 1:30 a.m. after beating the Denver Broncos on Dec. 19 to clinch the division title. The die-hards were restless after being barred from Bills games all season. Whether Bills Stadium will join the 13 others that allow in fans before the playoffs may now depend on the wisdom of Howard Zucker —the state...

The joint U.S.-European Solar Orbiter spacecraft had an appointment with Venus this morning (Dec. 27), the first in a series of planetary flybys to hone the probe's orbit on its journey to the sun. Solar Orbiter reached its closest approach to Venus at 7:39 a.m. EST (1239 GMT), when the spacecraft was about 4,700 miles (7,500 kilometers) from the top of the planet's cloud tops. The probe, a partnership between NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), launched in February, bound to spend seven years studying our sun. But to get as close to our star as scientists want to,...

We have been discussing student editors and student government leaders using their positions to retaliate against the exercise of free speech by other students with the support of faculty. This trend is hardly surprising as journalism deans call for censorship and journalism professors call for the rejection of neutrality in the media. Universities have generally remained passive as students and faculty harass and punish those with opposing views. The latest such example was detailed in a column on the site College Fix on how students at Cornell University moved to oust student representatives who voted against disarming and defunding campus...

Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley is urging the incoming Biden administration to declare a national climate emergency, he said would unlock powerful tools to address the climate crisis. Merkley outlined his recommendations in an op-ed published Dec. 21 by The Washington Post. “Too many Americans are experiencing the wrath of climate-related disasters firsthand," Merkley wrote. "These disasters are killing our citizens, bankrupting businesses, endangering our national security and threatening to leave our children a world of growing scarcity and conflict. . . . "According to Merkley, declaring climate chaos a national emergency under the National Emergency Act (NEA) would unlock...

Major Covid Vaccine Glitch Emerges: Most Europeans, Including Hospital Staff, Refuse To Take It All is not going according to plan in the biggest global rollout of what is arguably the most important vaccine in a century, and it is not just growing US mistrust in the covid injection effort that was rolled out in record time: an unexpected spike in allergic reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine (and now, Moderna too) may prove catastrophic to widespread acceptance unless scientists can figure out what is causing it after the FDA’s rushed approval, and is also why as we reported yesterday, scientists...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said during a virtual Sojourner Truth Project event last week that ousting Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and David Perdue (R-GA) will give them significant power to pass legislation because they can pass bills with a simple majority in the Senate using reconciliation. Pelosi spoke virtually at the Sojourner Truth Project on December 22 via Zoom. During the event, she discussed how Georgia Senate Democrat candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock’s potential victories would give Democrats significant power to pass legislation in Congress. She compared their Democrats’ potential power to having essentially 60 votes in the...