Free Republic

After a year of protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, the city of Portland, Oregon, is grappling with an increasingly disgruntled police force amid an uptick in violent crime and continued calls to defund law enforcement agencies. City leaders have scrambled to address both staffing shortages within the police department and reform demands by activists, walking a tightrope between those calling for a return to the status quo and others pushing for a demilitarized police department. Last week, 50 police officers who volunteered for the city’s specialized crowd control unit resigned en masse, citing a lack...

By now, it’s become quite evident that the western half of the U.S. is facing one of the worst megadroughts in decades. We’ve spoken about fallow land and drying up reservoirs, but the question remains what happens next? Well, it’s not great, and it’s straight out of the playbook from the 1930s Great Depression when the same parts of the U.S. were transformed into a desert, triggering a grasshopper plague. A.P. News said federal agriculture officials are set to launch one of the largest grasshopper-killing campaigns in three decades amid an outbreak. The insects belong to the suborder Caelifera family...

A team of Israeli researchers has found that one dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine provides 100% protection to youth ages 12-15 within three weeks, raising the question of whether the second dose is necessary. Injecting a single dose could be considered for young teenagers in Israel “both because the second dose adds relatively little, if any, immunogenicity and we know that for some young people there can be complications like myocarditis,” Prof. Nadav Davidovitch of Ben-Gurion University, who led the research, told The Jerusalem Post.

Don’t think of this as a bad sign, it’s exactly what’s expected from an effective but imperfect jab. A MailOnline headline on 13 June read: “Study shows 29% of the 42 people who have died after catching the new strain had BOTH vaccinations.” In Public Health England’s technical briefing on 25 June, that figure had risen to 43% (50 of 117), with the majority (60%) having received at least one dose. It could sound worrying that the majority of people dying in England with the now-dominant Delta (B.1.617.2) variant have been vaccinated. Does this mean the vaccines are ineffective? Far...

Thursday morning, the massive piece of technology used concrete to help build a 1,550-square-foot home with three bedrooms and two baths. ”It’s a home where your wall are made out of concrete instead of wood that’s it,” said Zachary Manngeimer, CEO of Alquist, a 3D printing construction firm from Iowa City. “It’s mixed in a mixing bowl and from there it goes through a tube into a printer head and that printer head is programmed to go around and print the wall system,” said Chris Thompson, Director of Virginia Housing. The process to build the walls takes about 15 hours...

The Texas Supreme Court dismissed four lawsuits filed by survivors and the families of those killed during a 2017 mass shooting at a church in Sutherland Springs, ruling Friday that the retailer who sold the rifle conducted the required background check on a dishonorably discharged Air Force member who later used it to gun down 26 people. Academy Sports + Outdoors cannot be sued in connection to the 2017 mass shooting under the federal Protection Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which Congress passed in 2005 to protect firearm retailers and manufacturers from certain lawsuits seeking damages arising out of the...

France, Germany and Italy, among other countries, now advise only one dose of vaccine for people with a healthy immune system and a confirmed previous diagnosis. Studies show that people with previous exposure to SARS-CoV-2 tend to mount powerful immune responses to single shots, and gain little added benefit from another injection. What’s more, for people with immunity gained through infection, one dose typically boosts antibody numbers to levels that are equal to, or often greater than, those found in individuals who have not been infected and have received double doses. ...That’s where diagnostic antibody testing could help. Screening for...

A major witness in the United States’ Department of Justice case against Julian Assange has admitted to fabricating key accusations in the indictment against the Wikileaks founder. The witness, who has a documented history with sociopathy and has received several convictions for sexual abuse of minors and wide-ranging financial fraud, made the admission in a newly published interview in Stundin where he also confessed to having continued his crime spree whilst working with the Department of Justice and FBI and receiving a promise of immunity from prosecution. The man in question, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, was recruited by US authorities to...

Former Attorney General William Barr bluntly dismissed some of former President Donald Trump's election fraud allegations as "bulls***" in new interviews published Sunday in the Atlantic. “My attitude was: It was put-up or shut-up time,” Barr recalled at one point. “If there was evidence of fraud, I had no motive to suppress it. But my suspicion all the way along was that there was nothing there. It was all bulls***.”

A pro-Israel think tank expressed concern over Chinese investment in Israel, including proximity of Chinese company to US Sixth Fleet in Haifa. Chinese investments and infrastructure developments in Israel could undermine the US-Israel strategic relationship, according to a report by Washington think tank Jewish Institute for National Security of America (Jinsa) published on Monday. China's role in Israel has been a concern for the US. Last year, then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on Israeli officials to cease Chinese investments and partnerships in the country, claiming that it put “Israeli citizens at risk” and compromised intelligence sharing, communications and...

If you’re lucky, getting your second dose of a COVID-19 vaccine may make you feel worse than some people feel after getting infected with the virus itself. This apparent paradox is one of the consequences of how the vaccines currently available to Canadians are designed to work. And it relates directly to why the virus is so dangerous and insidious in the first place.

After a violent assault I had an MRI which showed I had suffered a stroke and had developed encephalomacia. I researched this condition and learned that depending on the severity it could end in coma and death. I had given my younger years committed to being a good military wife and a good mother to our children. When one of our daughters and granddaughters were abandoned we took them into our lives and loved them with all our ability to make sure they had what they needed to thrive. I started planning a bucket list of things I wanted to...

A statewide effort by Democrats to keep Gov. Gavin Newsom in office kicked off Saturday in Sonoma County as local political leaders and constituents gathered on the steps of Santa Rosa City Hall. Approximately 50 people turned out to the rally and march in the late morning, carrying signs and U.S. flags and wearing pins and stickers emblazoned with the slogan “Stop the Republican Recall.” “This election is bigger than one governor,” said State Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, to the crowd through a bullhorn. “Coming up this fall, our values are on the ballot.” The lieutenant governor has not yet...

The left's attempt to force coronavirus vaccines on every American has been both baffling and frustrating. Now, a new announcement from the Make-A-Wish America foundation has crossed the line into downright evil. According to its website, Make-A-Wish America exists to “create life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses.” (This includes children with terminal illnesses and those who grow into adulthood.) But apparently, those "life-changing wishes" are only for those who subject themselves to the organization’s preferred government regulations. In a video posted to Twitter Thursday, Make-A-Wish America President and CEO Richard Davis explains the foundation will lift certain COVID-19 restrictions,...

Ohio Republican Congressman Anthony Gonzalez has teamed up with Wyoming Republican Congresswoman Liz Cheney to form a joint fundraising committee, just hours before former President Donald Trump is set to hold a so-called "revenge rally" in support of Gonzalez's congressional seat challenger.

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, sent a letter to Microsoft president Brad Smith on Monday, alleging that while it has largely escaped the notice of House Democrats, the company is among the Big Tech companies "out to get conservatives."

There is a lot of misinformation floating around FR on the Miami condominium collapse. As a high-rise condominium manager, this story hit home. So here is a quick primer to help people combat fake news.First, this is not an apartment complex. In an apartment complex, an investor or group of investors owns the building and everyone is a transient tenant. It is a for-profit business. If there are major repairs needed, landlords can raise the rents to cover repairs.This is a condominium. Each unit has a separate owner, they purchase it with a mortgage or cash. Every month, unit pay...

Remember playing with your Kenner Star Wars Slave I playset back in the day? Yeah, well, according to Disney, Boba Fett’s ship isn’t called that anymore. At least it won’t be in upcoming LEGO sets. Now it’s just “Boba Fett’s Starship.” No, I am not kidding. Likely part of Disney’s continued diversity and inclusion initiatives, the LEGO version of Boba Fett’s iconic ship will drop the “Slave I” moniker and instead be referred by its new name. This at the request of Disney, according to LEGO Star Wars Design Director Jens Kronvold and LEGO Star Wars Lead Designer Michael Lee...

This month, climate change celebrates its 33rd birthday. On June 23, 1988, NASA scientist James Hansen testified that the greenhouse effect had been detected. “Global Warming Has Begun,” The New York Times declared the next day. Indeed, it had. A year older than Alexander the Great when he died, climate change took less than one-third of a century to conquer the West.Four days earlier, the Toronto G7 had agreed that global climate change required “priority attention.” Before the month was out, the Toronto climate conference declared that humanity was conducting an uncontrolled experiment “whose ultimate consequences could be second only...