Free Republic

Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Wildlife officials in Utah said a 11-year-old boy landed a massive 48-pound trout just six months after reeling in a 41-pound trout. The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Tyler Grimshaw drew attention online in June when the then-10-year-old reeled in a 41-pound trout without any assistance at Flaming Gorge. Grimshaw, now 11, bested his own catch this month by reeling in a 48-pound trout in the same area. Both fish were released back into the lake. "Way to go, Tyler," the division tweeted. The Utah state record for lake trout stands at 53 pounds, 15...

President-elect Joe Biden and his wife Jill will make an appearance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2021 on ABC as the pair continue to lap up attention from Hollywood ahead of his inauguration later this month. Deadline reports that this year’s show will feature Seacrest as the host for the 16th consecutive year from New York’s Times Square. Jennifer Lopez will perform as the event’s headliner minutes before the countdown, with additional performances from the likes of Billy Porter, Cyndi Lauper, Jimmie Allen and Machine Gun Kelly.

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced a $2-billion package of financial incentives to encourage a return to in-person classroom instruction for California elementary school students as early as mid-February... ...Newsom said there was growing evidence that young students faced “decreased risks” associated with the coronavirus and benefited more from in-person instruction compared to at-home learning. All school staff and students who return to school would be required to wear masks. ...administration officials planned to make the local implementation plans subject to collective bargaining agreements between labor unions... the Newsom administration will support COVID-19 testing of teachers, staff and students, the...

4.5 million stolen bees, 6,150 pounds of missing chickpeas. 2020’s food crimes were as weird as the year itself. Thanks to a dizzying mix of pandemic and politics, 2020 has been the strangest year many Americans have lived through. As a result, many weird news stories that may have grabbed more national headlines in other years were simply shrugged off as “fitting for 2020.” So, as we thankfully prepare to enter 2021, here is a year’s worth of true food crime stories you may have missed. 92 Hives Holding Millions of Bees Stolen in California

The foods we eat may have a direct impact on our cognitive acuity in our later years. This is the key finding of an Iowa State University research study spotlighted in an article published in the November 2020 issue of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. The study was spearheaded by principal investigator, Auriel Willette, an assistant professor in Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Brandon Klinedinst, a Neuroscience Ph.D. candidate working in the Food Science and Human Nutrition department at Iowa State. The study is a first-of-its-kind large scale analysis that connects specific foods to later-in-life cognitive acuity. Willette, Klinedinst,...

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) broke the internet when he announced that he would be objecting to certification of the Electoral College results Jan. 6. He also broke one of America’s leading retailers. Walmart attacked him for it in a quickly deleted tweet that read, “Go ahead. Get your 2 hour debate. #soreloser.” Hawley was ready for them, and his response was brutal. In a follow-up tweet, Hawley went for the critical blow: "Thanks ⁦@Walmart⁩ for your insulting condescension. Now that you’ve insulted 75 million Americans, will you at least apologize for using slave labor?” Hawley didn’t let up, and proceeded...

2020 has been a great year for the nanny state. Will history see this as the year when disease-fuelled fear when made its greatest advances against the family as social foundation and against personal freedom?

The United States had more votes than it had people voting, by a lot. This travesty cannot be allowed to stand. It was a Rigged Election, one not even fit for third world countries!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 30, 2020

When the lockdown began in the United States in the Spring of 2020 it was billed as a two-week effort to “flatten the curve” and get ahead of the spread of the virus. With little or no explanation, the authorities that told us this would be sufficient then extended and expanded lockdown measures across the country. It is now nine months later. There is no end in sight. In fact, very much to the contrary; a whole host of new excuses for continuing the lockdown have appeared. We must all be vaccinated. We must all produce proof of vaccination. The...

Sometimes the military needs a little bit of nudging to determine it actually needs a new weapon. That might just be the short version of the history of the Barrett M82. The U.S. military has a proven track record of sometimes not seeing the potential, and this was true initially of the machine gun – and more recently with a very high powered sniper rifle. The concept of large rifles isn’t entirely new. Large caliber “wall guns” had been used since the 16th century in Europe, and remained in use throughout the 18th and 19th century in India and China...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Actress Dawn Wells, best known for playing Mary Ann on the hit sitcom “Gilligan’s Island,” has died at the age of 82 after becoming infected with COVID-19.

ONE YEAR AGO, in a column headlined "What was so great about the 2010s," I remarked that the first decade of the 21st century, "for all its sorrows, has been the best time to be alive." Despite the media's relentless focus on bad news, I argued, humankind was living in the most fortunate era our species had ever known.Then came 2020.The past 12 months have brought misery, turmoil, and distress on a scale that most Americans couldn't have imagined last New Year's Eve: the emergence of the coronavirus, a torrent of sickness and death, economic and social lockdowns, a tidal...

Gov. Tom Wolf announced Wednesday that he will lift some temporary restrictions on Pennsylvania businesses, including a suspension of indoor dining at restaurants, on Jan. 4. The news conference comes days before restrictions the governor has imposed on businesses are slated to expire. Wolf said those measures will indeed end on the scheduled expiration date of Jan. 4. Earlier this month, Wolf imposed temporary restrictions on businesses, including a three-week ban on indoor dining at restaurants. Wolf also has ordered the closure of entertainment venues, including casinos, theaters and concert halls. Retailers and most other businesses are restricted to 50%...

An at-home haircut led to the coronavirus deaths of a Chicago couple who took every precaution they could prior to contracting the deadly virus, according to their distraught son. Joe Bruno said his parents, Mike and Carol Bruno, died from COVID-19 just nine days apart after the couple, who were married for 59 years, got infected during a Nov. 20 visit to his apartment so he could get a haircut from his sister. “We never thought this would happen to our family – and it did,” Bruno told WLS-TV Thursday. “This virus is really unforgiven and just attacks in really...

Today, the D.C. Circuit affirmed a signature initiative of the Trump Administration, which ensures that American patients have access to the hospital pricing information they need when they need it, beginning on January 1. This transformative hospital price transparency rule has been fought at every step by the swamp and defenders of the status quo. Today’s ruling should reassure the American people that President Donald J. Trump refuses to bow to the influence of special interests who would prefer to keep patients in the dark. This initiative is just one in a series of rules that will bring unprecedented price...

In all the gloom and doom, and media-driven nihilism, there is actually an array of good news. As many predicted, as testing spreads, and we get a better idea of the actual number and nature of cases, the death rate from coronavirus slowly but also seems to steadily decline. Early estimates from the World Health Organization and the modeling of pessimists of a constant 4 percent death rate for those infected with the virus are for now proving exaggerated for the United States. More likely, as testing spreads, our fatality rates could descend to near 1 percent. There is some...

This morning, I realized that everything is about to change. No matter how I vote, no matter what I say, something contrary to my belief has invaded our nation, and our lives are never going to be the same. I have been confused by the hostility of family and friends. I look at people I have known all my life— so hate-filled that they agree with opinions they would never express as their own. I think that I may well have entered the Twilight Zone. You can't justify this insanity. We have become a nation that has lost its collective...

4:46 in. The bar code expert’s team hacks the Georgia election voting system DURING the hearing.

As we approach the end of 2020—a year with a deadly pandemic, a crushing economic shutdown, brutal riots, and a contested presidential election—it often feels as though things can’t get any worse. Yet the political left sees these very moments when the American people are overwhelmed and exhausted as opportunities to push its destructive agenda. It won’t stop promoting socialist climate policies, government-run health care, identity politics, racial division, bending a knee to our worst enemies, and penalties for offending the sensibilities of the woke. As the threats continue to grow, Americans are feeling anxious. They’re worried about whether America...

Today's identity politics leftists have a different idea for society. Although they speak about wealth redistribution, they try hard to keep that fact their little secret. Instead, their focus is on reducing humans themselves to an indistinguishable blending of race and sex. (The racial blending is interesting because neo-leftists also cling to their belief that the races are entirely distinct, with an immutable hierarchy from dark skin down to light.) The latest example of this new leftist utopianism is something that most of us missed back in March, when we were preoccupied with the emerging virus. On March 3, the...