Free Republic

MINNEAPOLIS — The city of Minneapolis has reached a $27 million settlement with George Floyd's family just weeks before the trial is scheduled to begin for the former officer charged with murder in his death. The City Council unanimously approved the settlement Friday after adding the matter to its agenda for a closed session Floyd's family filed a federal lawsuit in July against the city and the four officers involved in the arrest that led to his death. The lawsuit took issue with neck restraints and police policies and training, among other things. It sought compensatory and special damages in...

Joe Biden’s decline has change into so painful to see and so embarrassing to observe that it feels merciless to say it. But it’s much more merciless that Biden’s crew act as if it’s not taking place, and most of America’s media look the opposite manner. On Thursday night time, Biden marked the primary anniversary of the Covid-19 shutdowns and his fiftieth day within the White House by giving the primary televised tackle of his presidency. He hadn’t been seen in public for 3 days, which is what he appears to require if he’s to not unravel before the cameras....

Some 20 million Americans received unemployment benefits last month and another 10 million remain unemployed. But actor Jason Alexander is sleeping better these days. The Seinfeld star was relieved following President Joe Biden’s primetime address on Thursday, telling his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers he “slept with a sense of ease and hope” that he had “not known” during Donald Trump’s presidency.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., a veteran prosecutor overseeing a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump, said Friday that he won’t seek reelection, opting against a primary fight with progressive candidates who say he’s a relic and not a reformer. Vance made the announcement in a memo to staffers, ending months of speculation about his future and almost certainly guaranteeing it’ll be a brand-new D.A. who sees the Trump case through. His term expires at the end of the year. Vance, a Democrat, counted Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction a year ago among his crowning achievements but faced withering...

Rep. @AOC "There's so much more work to be done." Video...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — The construction worker stood on his tiptoes and tried to arrange a crown of thorns on a statue of Jesus while architect Jorge Rigau fired a flurry of directions from beneath the ladder. “Grab it like this and move it just a bit,” he said, motioning with his fingers. “Move it to the right, but don’t lower it.” It was one of the final touches on a detailed restoration of the second oldest surviving Spanish church in the Americas, whose construction had begun by 1532 on land donated by famous explorer Juan Ponce de...

Sen. Marco Rubio (R., Fla.) voiced his support for a union-organizing drive at an Amazon.com Inc. warehouse in Alabama, accusing the e-commerce giant of waging a culture war that hurts its workers and the economy. In an op-ed article in USA Today on Friday, Mr. Rubio said that adversarial relations between workers and companies could harm the country’s competitiveness. But he said he would support employees “when the conflict is between working Americans and a company whose leadership has decided to wage culture war against working-class values.” “The days of conservatives being taken for granted by the business community are...

Piers Morgan isn’t bothered by the commotion following his public criticism of Meghan Markle, sources confirm to Page Six. The bombastic Brit revealed he was forced to leave his job on “Good Morning Britain” because he wouldn’t apologize to Markle for disbelieving her claims about her mental health, but a source who knows him tells Page Six he isn’t concerned and “thrives on the uproar.” Morgan, 55, stormed off the set of the British talk show earlier this week following an on-air clash with colleague Alex Berenson over Markle and Prince Harry’s interview with Oprah Winfrey. UK broadcaster ITV later...

SNIP Every generation seems to come up with new euphemisms for one of the oldest forms of gender-based oppression and the terms this generation seems to have adopted are “sugar babies” and “sugar daddies,” as if these very quaint terms can undo the reality of prostitution, buying sex. Prostitution consists of two very unequal halves. One half is selling sex; predominantly women and girls who usually are in some way lacking basic necessities in their lives, have dependants, or struggle with mental health or addictions. The other half is the men (over 90% of those who buy sex are men)...

The U.S. has a stockpile of tens of millions of doses of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine, but the shot has yet to be approved by American regulators. The White House is in the midst of a tense debate over whether or not to release the vaccine doses to other countries which have already approved the vaccine, according to The New York Times (NYT). About 30 million doses are ready at the company’s West Chester, Ohio, facility and enough vaccine for tens of millions more doses is reportedly ready in Baltimore, Maryland, at an Emergent BioSolutions facility. More than 70 countries have...

Five of California's top doctors in state government have received the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, an act taken jointly in front of news cameras as officials seek to promote the most recently approved shot. Federal and state scientists have been focused recently on touting the benefits of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, a single-dose shot that has provided virtually 100% protection against the kind of life-threatening COVID-19 disease that leads to hospitalization and death. Officials have been trying to boost public confidence in the vaccine because, at the time the clinical trials were conducted, the Johnson & Johnson shot...

If you've ever driven up the East Coast, you may have driven over the Tappan Zee Bridge. The span — north of New York City — was built in the spot that seems to make the least economic sense. Why?

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday granted emergency use listing to a single-dose coronavirus vaccine developed by Johnson & Johnson, marking the fourth jab cleared to rollout among developing countries through a global initiative called COVAX. The WHO will convene an advisory group of experts next week to form recommendations for use of the vaccine, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director-general, said during a briefing Friday. "We hope that this new vaccine will help to narrow vaccine inequalities and not deepen them," Tedros said. He added that the COVAX facility booked 500 million doses of the single-shot vaccine, and...

This St. Patrick's Day, don't go chasing pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Chase them instead to your nearest Krispy Kreme. Just in time for St. Paddy's Day green hysteria, Krispy Kreme announced their all-new Luck O' the Doughnuts Collection. The green-and-gold confection collection includes four doughnuts — Gold Coin Doughnut, Lucky Sprinkles Doughnut, Lucky Unicorn Doughnut, and Leprechaun Plaid Doughnut. So what do gold coins, lucky sprinkles, unicorns, and plaid leprechauns taste like? Good question. Krispy Kreme explains the flavors this way: Lucky Gold Coin Doughnut — An Original Glazed doughnut is dipped in white icing, decorated...

Low as our expectations were, President Biden still disappointed with his speech Thursday night. We’re supposed to hope that if all goes well, we can gather with a few others outdoors to celebrate Independence Day? Sorry, sir, we can do that now. And Americans by the tens if not hundreds of millions are. And in Texas, Florida and other states, they’ll be packing stadiums by Memorial Day — with precautions, sure. But half the country’s done with extreme cautions. Whether Biden knew it or not (and how would he?), the whole thing reeked of what another president, in a very...

Cuomo on air doing LIVE press conference. Adamant that HE WILL NOT RESIGN. Hiding behind the "investigation". The 7th person was a 25 year old reporter who he bad uncomfortable by his touching. She relocated to Florida. He is saying he takes lots of pictures with women. How many will need to come forward before Airhead Kristen Gillibrand gets upset? 7, 14, 40?

A majority of Americans support restricting the freedoms of people who have not taken a coronavirus vaccine, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey released this week. According to the survey, taken March 8-9, 2021, among 1,005 respondents, 72 percent view it as at least somewhat important to know if the people around them have been vaccinated for COVID-19. The survey listed a series of scenarios for everyday activities — including traveling on an airplane, enrolling in school, working out at the gym — and asked respondents to indicate if they agree that individuals should be required to be vaccinated before engaging...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Some doctors are calling an experimental drug a “game-changer” in the fight against COVID-19. Pharmaceutical company Merck recently released, along with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, early trial results for Molnupiravir. The antiviral therapy would be a first of its kind capsule, taken twice a day for 5 days, to limit the effects of COVID-19. Central Ohio family physician Dr. Anup Kanodia explained Molnupiravir works for COVID-19 the way Tamiflu works for the flu. Both drugs stop a virus from reproducing. “If you catch it early on, it’s easier to fight off. Same thing with this,” he said. “So...

"Asbestos particles are on average 5 microns, which are much larger than SARS-CoV-2, yet nobody in my field – industrial hygiene – would recommend that we could protect workers from asbestos exposure using a mask," said Stephen Petty, a certified industrial hygienist and hazardous exposure expert, on my podcast last week. "In fact, I would argue that you'd lose your credentials for saying such a thing." The notion that cheap cloth and surgical masks are considered proper protection, much less bona fide PPE, for a virus that is 0.1 microns – 1/50th the size of average asbestos fiber – was...

The Littleton City Council on Feb 2 enacted an unprecedented gun storage ordinance that requires both wholesale and retail firearms sellers, gunsmiths and pawnbrokers to obtain a “firearm retailer license” that claims to “mitigate the risks to the citizens of Littleton and the community at large by requiring certain safeguards to ensure that firearms do not illegally enter society.” The licensing and storage requirements appear to be the first in Colorado and are rare in other states. At least one impacted Littleton business calls the burdensome new rules unworkable. Littleton is a home rule municipality of roughly 44,000 residents that...