Free Republic

BOSTON — New research suggests the protection the Moderna vaccine gives against COVID-19 lasts for at least six months. The report Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine echoes what Pfizer said last week about its vaccine, which works in a similar way. Both reports were based on follow-up tests in dozens of people who received the shots during studies that led to the vaccines’ use. Those studies were done before troubling new variants, or versions of the coronavirus, had emerged and started to spread. A separate report in the medical journal adds to concern about the variants. Scientists...

Firstly, by any standard of reasoning, whether it involves spiritual understandings, or knowledge of physical things, the logical conclusion for both believers, and nonbelievers in God is that the world as we know it in its present state, is temporal. At some point, whether it is near or very very far off, as surely as there was a beginning, there shall be an end. Indeed, and this reality holds even truer for the believer, who comprehends things by both spiritual understandings of the scriptures, and from a stand point of science and the physical realities of the universe. Therefore, there...

A revolutionary technology developed within the Trabolsi Research Group at NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD) could dramatically improve the wellbeing of diabetic patients: an insulin oral delivery system that could replace traditional subcutaneous injections without the side effects caused by frequent injections. Using prepared layers of nanosheets with insulin loaded in between layers to protect it, the researchers developed gastro-resistant imine-linked-covalent organic framework nanoparticles (nCOFs) that exhibited insulin protection in the stomach as well in diabetic test subjects whose sugar levels completely returned to normal within two hours after swallowing the nanoparticles. Led by NYUAD's Research Scientist Farah Benyettou and Program...

The U.S. financial services sector is getting edgy as the Federal Reserve’s initiative for a digital dollar or Fedcoin steps up its research to reveal prototypes as soon as July, Bloomberg reported on Monday (March 22). The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, at work on the research and creation of prototypes for a Fedcoin platform, could unveil their findings in July, according to James Cunha, the project leader for the Boston, per Bloomberg. Banks fear that such a reality could cut into their own profits, prompting the industry’s central trade group — the American...

Nursing mothers who receive a COVID-19 vaccine may pass protective antibodies to their babies through breast milk for at least 80 days following vaccination, suggests new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. "Our study showed a huge boost in antibodies against the COVID-19 virus in breast milk starting two weeks after the first shot, and this response was sustained for the course of our study, which was almost three months long," said first author Jeannie Kelly, MD, assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology. "The antibodies levels were still high at the end of our study, so...

President Trump may be back in office very soon. No, not as President but as Speaker of the House. There is increasing speculation in Washington, D.C., that former President Donald Trump may be planning to play a major role in the upcoming 2022 congressional midterm elections, with a potential payoff that would greatly impact the future of President Biden’s term in office. If Trump is successful in helping the Republican Party gain back a majority in the House, something that is likely given the GOP’s shockingly strong performance in the 2020 election cycle, a new Republican majority in the House...

Cruising for Covid in Los Gatos

(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (I got my first Pfizer yesterday - no noticeable effects) Total Vaccine Doses Delivered: 219,194,215 (12,068,500 J&J) Administered: 168,592,075 (4,299,901 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 108,301,234 Fully Vaccinated: 63,016,976

The influential and controversial Swiss theologian Hans Küng died Tuesday at the age of 93. The German Catholic Church’s official website said that Küng died on the afternoon of April 6 at his home in Tübingen, southwest Germany. Küng served as a theological adviser at the Second Vatican Council but repeatedly clashed with Rome in the years that followed. The tensions culminated in a 1979 declaration by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that Küng had “departed from the integral truth of Catholic faith, and therefore he can no longer be considered a Catholic theologian nor function...

SEPTA riders are candid about what they see on buses, subways and the Market-Frankford elevated line. And some of them say what they have seen has made them reluctant to ride right now — which is a huge problem for a transit agency that gets hundreds of thousands of people to work daily. “Dirty trash. I’ve seen empty needles,” said Charles Williams of West Philadelphia. “It was filth everywhere”, said Mona Scruggs of Northeast Philadelphia. “I had to buy a newspaper every day, just so I could sit on the newspaper, because I didn’t want to sit on the seat.”...

A high school in Portland, Ore., has postponed changing its mascot to the evergreen tree after a committee member raised concerns over the possible racist connotations. The Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School’s namesake is the Pulitzer Prize-winning African American journalist who extensively reported on and protested against lynching, reports the Portland Tribune. Originally, the evergreen tree was proposed because, according to Ellen Whatmore, a mascot committee member and a teacher at the school, evergreens “are characterized by the life-giving force of their foliage, the strength of their massive trunk, and the depth of their roots—in an individual tree and as...

KEY MOMENT — Police Chief says Chauvin’s knee was on George Floyd’s shoulder blade, not neck…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEk3BGkJu_M Minneapolis Police Chief Arradondo agrees that Derek Chauvin‘s knee appears to be on George Floyd’s shoulder blade in the close-up bodycam footage.BREAKING: Chief of Police admits Chauvin knee may have been on George Floyd’s shoulder blade after shown body cam video from another perspective side-by-side pic.twitter.com/xam9FwKqY2— Jack Posobiec (@JackPosobiec) April 5, 2021

Photo: www.facebook.com/Orbán Balázs ------------------------------------------------------------ Yesterday, a rainbow-coloured statue in honour of the Black Lives Matter movement was inaugurated in Budapest. According to the plans, it would have stayed in the ninth district of the Hungarian capital for two weeks. However, the statue could not stand there for as long. It was revealed earlier that a work related to the BLM movement would be exhibited in Budapest. This was opposed by many, including the Our Homeland Movement, who said the statue was “an anti-European, anti-white, anti-heterosexual, and anti-Christian symbol”. However, the statue had been made, and it was inaugurated yesterday. It...

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended Tuesday the strength of the Southern border after two suspected terrorists were apprehended after crossing into the United States through Mexico. “First let me convey that these sets of incidents are very uncommon,” Psaki said when asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy about whether President Joe Biden was keeping the border safe.

Even before the handgun was tossed in the trash, the question is why and how he was able to even own it. Hunter Biden, who was also discharged administratively from the U.S. Navy after testing positive for cocaine, has a history of drug addiction, something his father never tried to hide on the campaign trail. While it could be seen as admirable that Joe stood by Hunter, the question must be asked: How did Hunter “legally” obtain the handgun? Clearly, this is a case of a failure of a background check, or is it? Politico has obtained copies of the...

Could this be the spark that causes World War 3 to erupt? At this hour, Russian and Ukrainian military forces continue to rush toward the conflict zone, and to say that things are "tense" in the region would be a tremendous understatement. When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed Decree No. 117/2021 on March 24th, it was essentially a declaration of war against Russia. Since that time, Russian forces have been massing along the borders in numbers that we have never seen before. Video after video of Russian tanks, military vehicles and troops being moved toward the conflict zone have been...

TAIPEI, Taiwan—The Chinese communist regime is accelerating its plans to invade Taiwan, an expert warns, as Beijing ratchets up military maneuvers against the island. Twenty Chinese military aircraft—including four nuclear-capable H-6K bombers, 10 J-16 fighter jets, two Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft, and a KJ-500 airborne early warning and control aircraft—entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) on March 26, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense. It was the largest incursion ever reported by the ministry. Taiwan’s ADIZ, located adjacent to the island’s territorial airspace, is an area where incoming planes must identify themselves to the island’s air traffic controller.

Picture the street outside your home. Now erase the power lines. Imagine interstate highways without the unsightly cable towers that dot the expansive United States landscape. This could be the wireless future of energy if a partnership between New Zealand’s government and a startup called Emrod works out—and it all dates back to the wildest dreams of Nikola Tesla. Wireless electricity sounds like science fiction, but the technology is already realized and primed for a utility-scale case study. And in this first-of-its-kind pilot program, Powerco—New Zealand’s second-largest electricity distributor—will test Emrod technology beginning in 2021. “IT SOUNDS FUTURISTIC AND FANTASTIC...

Virginie MONTET Tue, April 6, 2021, 12:28 PM·3 min read Proposed by the United States, supported by the IMF and welcomed by major economies including France and Germany, a global minimum tax rate on corporations is gathering momentum toward becoming a reality. The reform aimed at ending tax competition between countries and the use of tax havens by companies will be on the agenda of G20 finance ministers when they meet virtually on Wednesday, and the group could unveil a proposal by July. The idea has been promoted by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development but received a fresh...

From the personal defense files comes the latest broad daylight lesson from the great northwest about armed self defense and the effectiveness of orders of protection in deterring From KOMO News . . . Kennewick (Washington) Police say they were called out at about 1:20 p.m., to the 2700 block of south Sherman Street on Thursday. KPD says a woman called about an armed man with a two-by-two steel pipe, who was trying to break down her door. Police say the woman had a gun and barricaded the back door while waiting for officers. The 65-year-old creeper who tried to...