Free Republic

China has withdrawn its BRI (Belt and Road Initiative) funding for railway projects in Bangladesh, after the recipient country proposed significant cuts in costs. This happened amidst increasing tension between the two countries.According to media reports, the government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina found that Chinese companies were charging three times the normal price for construction, and slashed $5.72 billion from the China-funded Akhaura-Sylhet and Joydebpur-Ishwardi railway projects that are part of the BRI agreement signed between the two countries.The main conditions of the contract with China required that the contractors of the railway construction be selected by the Chinese...

Officers shot and killed a man who pulled a gun as they tried to keep him out of a complex of marijuana farms in the Lava Fire evacuation zone. Siskiyou County Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue told The Sacramento Bee that the man was trying to drive into the Mount Shasta Vista subdivision on Monday and pointed a handgun at a group of officers that included a sheriff’s deputy and local police.

In continuation to my previous post, I will start discussing how I solved the wireless distribution at my church in an economical way with a DIY Wireless Microphone Antenna Distribution setup. One of my many hobbies include amateur radio, which is the personal & experimental use of specific radio frequencies established by the FCC. My callsign is KD7QCU. Basically, I am a big nerd of radio stuff. I get to talk to people all around the world with my radio and antennas outside of my house. It is quite a fun hobby and our technological age with regards to RF...

Problematic Deplorable Seamstress barely survives cancellation. This is a continuation of the culture wars ripping apart knitting sites and sites like Etsy.

In updated guidance on COVID-19 testing strategies, the World Health Organization (WHO) says it does not currently recommend widespread screening of people without symptoms, citing the cost of such a strategy and its ineffectiveness. “Widespread testing of asymptomatic populations, including through self-testing, is not currently recommended, based on lack of evidence on impact and cost-effectiveness of such approaches and the concern that this approach risks diverting resources from higher priority testing indications,” the guidance stated.However, “countries with the resources and desire to expand testing to the general public (regardless of symptoms) should demonstrate that they have the necessary public health...

Midway through NBC Bay Area's interview with Oakland's head of violence prevention, Guillermo Cespedes, two robbers interrupted, holding up the crew and Cespedes. A "scuffle" took place, an Oakland police spokesperson told SFGATE, before a security officer with the news crew pulled out his own firearm and commanded the robbers to leave.

The Pennsylvania Senate on June 25 passed a voting reform bill after it passed in the State House on June 22. The bill then went to Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s desk. The Voting Rights Protection Act (HB1300) will require voter identification and a more stringent election audit. “This is a solid election reform bill, which simply ensures it is easier to vote and harder to cheat,” the bill’s primary sponsor, House State Government Committee Chairman Seth Grove, told Epoch Times. “It is one of the strongest integrity bills in the entire country. I’m really proud of the work of...

Gavin Newsom and his cohorts in the California Legislature are under the delusion that if a Recall Election is held sooner, rather than later, that it will benefit him. The ground operatives involved in the Gavin Newsom Recall saw this election manipulation coming, and I reported on it earlier in June:This Legislature is working hard to ensure their sitting governor stays seated. According to the current Recall law, the budgetary process can take up to 60 days to review the counties’ proposed estimates. However, the Legislature has introduced a bill which will basically give the Joint Legislative Budget Committee the...

<p>You may get some deja vu with the news about what just happened in the saga of the NYC mayoral election today.</p><p>The election was actually last Tuesday. But they’re still counting and don’t expect to be done until sometime in July.</p>

Neeva Inc., a new startup led by the former head of Google LLC’s multibillion-dollar ad business, launched a subscription-based search engine today that aims to compete with Google Search. The startup is backed by more than $77 million in funding from investors that include Sequoia and Greylock. Neeva provides a search engine that resembles Google Search in many ways, except it doesn’t display ads above users’ search results. According to the startup, taking ads out of results will facilitate a better user experience by reducing the amount of time that consumers have to scroll before finding the answer to their...

A prototype flying car has completed a 35-minute flight between international airports in Nitra and Bratislava, Slovakia. The hybrid car-aircraft, AirCar, is equipped with a BMW engine and runs on regular petrol-pump fuel. Its creator, Prof Stefan Klein, said it could fly about 1,000km (600 miles), at a height of 8,200ft (2,500m), and had clocked up 40 hours in the air so far. It takes two minutes and 15 seconds to transform from car into aircraft. 'Very pleasant' The narrow wings fold down along the sides of the car. Prof Klein drove it straight off the runway and into town...

IRS Announces 2021 Mileage Rates for Business, Medical and Moving The IRS issued Notice 2021-02, announcing the optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical, or moving purposes. Beginning on January 1, 2021, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 56 cents per mile for business miles driven, "DOWN" 1.5 cents from the 2020 rate (YES DOWN)??? 16 cents per mile driven for medical* or moving purposes, down 1 cent from the 2020 rate 14 cents per mile driven...

Critical race theory is something very specific: It’s an attempt to deal with how race affects even neutral seeming laws. That’s what it actually is. And yet, over the past year or so, it has become so many other things that people don’t like about how people talk about race. It is important to actually define these terms. If you don’t like the book White Fragility, just say you don’t like that book—and explain why. Don’t try to lump that into this whole CRT label. […] Take white privilege, for instance. Most people have what I would call a fluency...

SNIP Berenson then notes that from the CDC’s own data they are seeing more children and young adults hospitalized from the COVID vaccine than they ever saw from the COVID virus.Via AlexBerenson:We can no longer trust the Centers for Disease Control to weigh honestly the risks and benefits of Covid vaccines for young people.That is the only possible interpretation of Wednesday’s CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) meeting about the link between Covid shots and serious heart problems in teens and young adults…At the meeting, CDC scientists presented horrendous data. It showed that even without accounting for underreporting, a...

"Don't let the fearmongers win..." That's part of the message on Twitter today from Republican US Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul noting a death rate of .08 percent for the "Delta Variant" of COVID-19 among the unvaccinated... Yesterday Republican US Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin involved in a news conference with families of those injured by COVID-19 vaccines... Maddie de Garay suffering from abdominal, nerve and muscle pain and a host of other issues including loss of feeling from the waist down. Maddie hospitalized three times for a total of two months. She is now confined to a wheelchair....

The Democratic primary race for mayor was thrown into chaos Tuesday as the city Board of Elections appeared to have botched the count amid the city’s first ranked-choice election. Preliminary results released earlier in the day showed a total of 941,832 cast for mayor, an increase of more than 140,000 from the 799,827 that were counted on June 22, the day of the primary. The glaring discrepancy went unnoticed until it was flagged by front-runner Eric Adams.

This piece first appeared in Cosmos Magazine in January 2020: we are republishing it in honour of World Microbiome Day. Two overarching questions confront would-be human spacefarers: where to go and how to get there. Much attention has been given to the latter question. For interstellar travel to become a reality, major engineering advances are required, probably involving radically new propulsion systems. Many proposals are highly speculative, but we know of no fundamental physical principles that forbid interstellar travel; whether or not it becomes a reality boils down to technology, cost and motivation. I wish to address the oft-neglected first...

With the stroke of a pen, the future of college athletics in Illinois took a dramatic turn for the better for student athletes. Governor JB Pritzker signed a bill Tuesday that will allow them to make money off their celebrity, beginning a new day in Illinois college athletics. "This isn't just a win for our student athletes, it's a win for the future of our entire state," Pritzker said

"I have read and considered the June 23, 2021 report titled “Report on the November 2020 Election in Michigan” from the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee. The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee concluded their investigation without examining appropriate evidence, expert reports, and requesting testimony from qualified experts. The report concludes that there was “no widespread or systemic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election”. And yet, the Oversight Committee Chair stated in his Executive Summary that “this investigation should not be considered exhaustive’ and that “every possible investigative avenue was not undertaken.” I am in receipt of evidence reflecting systemic election...

[Andrea Weiskopf] During the April 8 meeting of the Loudoun County School Board’s Equity Committee, a Loudoun County Public Schools teacher accused a local parents group of racism in response to that group’s continued allegations that LCPS is employing critical race theory in its employee training and student curriculum — something the school system has consistently denied. The public comments from Andrea Weiskopf — who teaches Latin at River Bend Middle School in Sterling — are the latest chapter in an ongoing conflict in the LCPS community over the school system’s “Culturally Responsive Framework.” “Over the past few weeks, a...