Free Republic

Between 622,800 to 968,800 people in Wuhan had COVID-19 by April 2020, and the first case emerged between mid-October and mid-November 2019, according to two new studies. “6·92 percent of a cross-sectional sample of the population of Wuhan developed antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, with 39·8 percent of this population seroconverting to have neutralising antibodies,” wrote the first research group on The Lancet on Thursday. “Our results define the period between mid-October and mid-November 2019 as the plausible interval when the first case of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in Hubei Province,” the second research group posted on Science magazine on March 18. The results...

A synopsis of world history paints a dark picture of humanity rife with mankind’s inhumanity. The weak have always been a prey and even the strong have fallen. The animal kingdom is a suitable allegory for what usually takes in the world: the strong and ruthless prevail. Indeed, for man himself is a beast, and so much more to the extent that conscience lacking. As it is written, "Man that is in honor, and understands not, is like the beasts that perish." -- Psalm 49:20. And again, "I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men,...

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem has sent back to the legislature a hotly contested bill on transgender athletes, asking lawmakers for changes and startling those who view the Republican as an ally in their fight to keep biological males out of women’s sports. The Republican Noem issued a “style-and-form” veto of House Bill 1217, suggesting four changes over concerns that “this bill’s vague and overly broad language could have significant unintended consequences.” “I support this legislation and hope that House Bill 1217, with the changes I am proposing, becomes law,” she said in a Friday statement. Her decision to seek...

All persons who are involved in organizing the political persecution of fifth president of Ukraine, MP (the European Solidarity faction) Petro Poroshenko, will sooner or later be held accountable for this, the lawyers of the MP said during a briefing at Interfax-Ukraine. According to the press service of the European Solidarity on Wednesday, Poroshenko's representatives noted that law enforcement agencies, pursuant to court decisions, were forced to resume proceedings on deliberately false reports of a crime, as well as against the security forces of the State Bureau of Investigations, that organized the storming of Ivan Honchar museum. "This is about...

That uninviting outer fencing around the U.S. Capitol will reportedly come down in the coming days after it’s made a mockery of the principles this country was founded upon for more than two months. Acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy Blodgett issued a memo on Friday announcing that the Capitol architect and the U.S. Capitol Police together “will remove the outer perimeter fencing around the Capitol complex sooner than initially anticipated.” CNN reported that the move could come as early as this weekend, said Blodgett. The man told lawmakers that “there does not exist a known, credible threat against Congress or the...

President Joe Biden’s administration has awarded a taxpayer-funded contract to pay for hotel rooms for border crossers arriving at the United States-Mexico border. An Axios report reveals that Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) will pay a Texas-based nonprofit to provide $86 million worth of hotel rooms for six months for approximately 1,200 families who cross the southern border. DHS confirmed the arrangement. The hotel rooms, according to Axios, will be in Arizona and Texas near the southern border and will serve as welcoming centers for border crossers whom the Biden administration is hoping to quickly release into the U.S....

Reports are coming in of strong displays of aurora borealis—the Northern Lights—as a surprisingly strong geomagnetic storm strikes Earth’s magnetic field. “Auroras spilled across the Canadian border into northern-tier US states during an unexpectedly-strong G2-class geomagnetic storm,” said Spaceweather.com, referring to displays late on Friday, March 19 and into Saturday, March 20, 2021. A “G2-class geomagnetic storm” is a moderate solar storm that can bring hours of bright aurora. There could be even more displays coming this Saturday night and beyond.

Biden stumbles boarding Air Force? in Delaware

The speed and maneuvering they do here at times looks unreal. Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov won Olympic gold in 1994 and 1998, as well as four World Championship titles. Dancing a "Quickstep" on ice - Grishuk & Platov, 1995 World Figure Skating Championships

Fox News host Steve Hilton said Friday that President Joe Biden’s gaffes and stumbles prove, “He’s not in charge.” “The capacity of our commander-in-chief is a vital public issue. It’s not just this gaffe, there’s one of these almost every day where he seems to forget where he is or what he’s doing, he stumbles and mumbles,” Hilton said on Fox News’ “The Faulkner Focus.” We’ve known for months that Joe Biden was not all there. Yet the Democrats put this senile old man up as their candidate. It didn’t matter. They could have put up a stuffed teddy bear,...

Fresh on the heels of his wife's suggestion that unarmed civilians should confront violent criminals, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is giving the City's police a new assignment to confront people accused of hurtful comments. "Even if something is not a criminal case, a person being confronted by armed members of NYPD or another agency, and being told that what they've done was very hurtful to another person could be a very effective way of modifying their future behavior," the Mayor predicted. "The officers could threaten that if the hurtful remarks are ever repeated they could lead...

MOSCOW—Vladimir Putin has challenged Joe Biden to a contest of wits, strength, and cunning: a stair-ascending contest. The winner of the contest will gain control of the other country. "Stair-ascending contest, me and you, right now, let's go," said Putin as he met with the American president. "He who wins become supreme glorious leader forever of other puny weak man." Biden agreed to the contest, though it wasn't clear he knew who this man was or where they were. "3... 2... 1... climb!" shouted the referee before firing off a pistol. Biden got off to a rocky start as he...

Georgia’s corrupt Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger had numerous reasons to invalidate the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. The top reason was his office knowing 460,000 ballots were missing legally required chain of custody documentation. This was unconscionable. Only 56 of Georgia’s 159 counties have provided ballot transfer form data to The Georgia Star News. The number of absentee by mail ballots delivered to registrars in those 56 counties total only 195,309, or 32.5 percent, of the estimated 600,000 absentee vote by mail ballots deposited in drop boxes and delivered to county registrars and counted in Georgia’s 2020...

President Biden plans to nominate former Florida Sen. Bill Nelson (D) to serve as administrator of NASA, the White House said Friday. If confirmed, Nelson, who served in the Senate for 18 years, will helm NASA as it carries out its Artemis program by working with private companies to establish a presence on the moon with the ambitious goal of reaching Mars in the coming years. Biden’s plans to nominate Nelson were first reported by The Verge and other news outlets on Thursday and confirmed by the White House on Friday. Nelson, who is 78, served three terms representing Florida...

'It's disgusting': Everett residents protest controversial new restaurant name.

Television pundit Ana Navarro is being accused of racism after she posted a tweet on Friday that included a joke considered derogatory toward Asians. ‘Me so vaccinated!’ Navarro wrote in a tweet that was deleted soon afterwards. Last week, Navarro expressed glee that Piers Morgan left his morning show Good Morning Britain after he was accused of racism for his views on Meghan Markle. -snip- The comment was apparently an attempt at humor by using a play on words of the phrase ‘Me so horny.’ The phrase was uttered in a famous scene from the 1987 war film Full Metal...

Barron Trump turns 15 today. Son of President Donald Trump and Melania Trump, the teenager has spent the past few years growing up in front of the nation’s eyes — literally. He now towers over his 6-foot-3 father and 5-foot-11 mother. Since Barron was just an infant, he’s been subjected to a life in the spotlight. Now that Donald Trump is no longer president, though, the teen has been able to avoid the public eye much more than in the previous four years of his life. Before that, though, we were able to see just how much he’s grown into...

D.C. Circuit Judge Laurence Silberman penned a scathing dissent Friday on a defamation case The Reagan-appointed judge slammed the 1964 New York Times v. Sullivan landmark decision requiring plaintiffs to prove 'actual malice' by defendantsSilberman claimed the ruling has only increased the power of the press, which is almost completely controlled by the Democratic Party 'Two of the three most influential papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, are virtually Democratic Party broadsheets,' he wroteHe named Fox News, The New York Post, and The Wall Street Journal as the 'few notable exceptions to Democratic Party ideological control'

The massacres at three massage parlors in the Atlanta area this week, leaving eight human beings dead, others injured, and their families scarred, were horrifying. Read this deeply moving story about the son of one of the women killed to remind yourself of this. It’s brutal. The grief will spread and resonate some more. But this story has also been deeply instructive about our national discourse and the state of the American mainstream and elite media. This story’s coverage is proof, it seems to me, that American journalists have officially abandoned the habit of attempting any kind of “objectivity” in...

Bitcoin Depot Expects to Grow by 200% in 2021 According to the company, almost 115 BTC ATMs will be installed, doubling its current count in the last six months. Globally, the ATM network has surpassed 2,000 kiosks, boosted with launching the new ATMs in the United States. Per the distribution, 14 new kiosks will be deployed by the Atlanta-based company across Alabama, 13 in Minnesota, 12 will be installed in Florida, and the last 12 across California. Brandon Mintz, Bitcoin Depot President and CEO, commented on the expansion: