Free Republic

Dear Colleagues, At the start of the pandemic over 16 months ago, I committed to you that we would avail ourselves of all feasible strategies and resources to ensure the safety of our NSU campus community. Since that time, we have met the challenge by pivoting to flexible online learning modes, implementing remote work options, providing new safety measures, making available personal protective equipment, introducing new hygiene and social distancing protocols, and responding to the individualized needs of students, faculty, and staff. Planning for the start of the 2021 fall semester/term, we are facing the renewed challenge of the rise...

A ten-week trial found fermented food diet improved microbiome diversity and reduced inflammatory biomarkers while a high-fiber diet had little effectwollertz/Depositphotos ================================================================================== Investigating the relationship between diet, gut bacteria and systemic inflammation, a team of Stanford University researchers has found just a few weeks of following a diet rich in fermented foods can lead to improvements in microbiome diversity and reductions in inflammatory biomarkers. The new research pitted a high-fiber diet against a diet with lots of fermented food. Thirty-six healthy adults were recruited and randomly assigned one of the two diets for 10 weeks. “We wanted to conduct a...

Union Pacific is temporarily suspending eastbound service from West Coast port terminals to its Global IV intermodal facility in Chicago to help ease “significant congestion” at inland terminals, especially Chicago, and at the ports. The suspension is aimed at helping ocean carriers reduce backlogs. UP (NYSE: UNP) hopes this suspension, which will start on Sunday and last for about seven days, will not only help relieve port backlogs for Chicago-bound container traffic but also ultimately help address backlogs for containers destined to other markets. The suspension applies to UP-served terminals at the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Oakland,...

Marty Cetron, director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, defended the health agency’s federal mask mandate on Thursday, describing masks as a “powerful” part of their “arsenal.” Speaking to Reuters, Cetron reiterated that the agency’s “current position” is to keep the federal mask mandate, which requires travelers to wear masks on modes of public transportation, including planes and trains, despite mounting calls from lawmakers to end the practice.

(President Trump's Operation Warp Speed Update) (New Cases, Hospitalizations and Death curves are all accelerating upward - Vaccinations slow/steady) Administered: 336,604,158 (12,966,602 J&J) People Vaccinated, At Least One Dose: 185,424,899 Fully Vaccinated: 160,686,378

Pennsylvania on Friday reported 415 new COVID-19 infections, adding to a recent upward trend. As of Thursday, the state’s 7-day daily average of new cases stood at 273, up from 161 on July 4, according to tracking by Johns Hopkins. The daily average is still below Pennsylvania’s peak of nearly 10,600 in December. But it’s a cause for concern as new cases trend upward in much of the country, with the rise driven by the delta variant, which is more contagious. Pennsylvania also reported 4 new deaths on Friday, raising its total to 27,786. As of early Friday, 247 people...

A Facebook Oversight Board member says free speech is “not an absolute human right,” and must be balanced against “other human rights” when deciding what content to censor. The board member, former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt, said “free speech is not an absolute human right.” “It has to be balanced with other human rights,” she said Thursday at a Politico Europe event. The 20-member Facebook Oversight Board was set up last year to allow corporate executives to claim distance from politically sensitive decisions. The board in May recommended that the company uphold a continued ban on former President...

Quantavius Brown was hoping to get a degree in accounting and business management when he was 21 years old. That all changed the night of August 3, 2018. Brown was drinking at a local bar in Copperhill, Tennessee, when he met up with a woman he had met two years earlier, an acquaintance of his then-girlfriend. The two had previously been involved in a court case, and got into an argument about it, WRCB reported. Later, the woman – who has not been named in media reports because female accusers are always protected, even if the accusation was false –...

U.S.—An American manufacturer has been overwhelmed with preorders for its brand new "ejection porch," which is specially designed to detect when Biden's vaccine evangelists are at your door so it can launch them into the stratosphere. "Excuse me, sir, do you have a few minutes to talk about our lord and savior Dr. Fau-- AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" said one door-to-door vaccine auditor after the advanced technology in the porch detected his whiny and annoying government vaccine-evangelist voice and launched him into the sky, above the clouds, and out of sight. For anyone who can't afford an advanced and costly porch upgrade, the...

House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., received the ignoble distinction of four Pinocchios for his claim that Democrats have never opposed voter ID laws. A couple weeks ago, various Democratic leaders pivoted on their long objections to voter ID laws as the “new Jim Crow” laws, including Stacey Abrams. The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote “On the face of it, it seems absurd. After all, Clyburn has long been a foe of voter ID laws passed in his own state.” In an interview with Fox News anchor Neil Cavuto on Tuesday, Clyburn was confronted about the flip flop when he announced...

Pagan cultists in Los Angeles are defying the CDC with a new indoor mask mandate, even if you are vaccinated. The CDC tells us that those of us who are vaccinated are in almost no danger of contracting the China Flu, and if we do catch it, the chances of it blowing up into something serious or fatal are almost nil. Therefore, the CDC revoked its mask recommendations for the vaccinated. What’s more, for more than a year, we’ve watched states such as North Dakota, Florida, and Texas choose not to force their citizens to wear masks, and the per...

Spending is now rotating back to services like travel and entertainment, with at least 160 million Americans fully immunized against COVID-19. Retail sales are mostly goods, with services such as healthcare, education, travel and hotel accommodation making up the remaining portion of consumer spending. Restaurants and bars are the only services category in the retail sales report. U.S. stock index futures held gains after the data. The dollar was steady against a basket of currencies. U.S. Treasury yields rose.

Today, the CDC chief warned of a "pandemic of the unvaccinated." As the Delta variant becomes the dominant one worldwide, cases are rising in the USA in almost every state, but most dangerously in states with the lowest vaccination rates. Where exactly? Read on to see where Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), said were the latest hot spots, during today's White House COVID-19 Response Team Briefing.The CDC chief began with some disturbing numbers. "CDC reported more than 33,000 new cases of COVID-19. Our seven day average is about 26,300 cases per day....

Health officials in seven Bay Area counties — Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Sonoma — on Friday urged vaccinated people wear masks again indoors to prevent the spread of the highly infectious delta variant of the coronavirus. The officials said in a joint statement that while fully vaccinated people are well protected from developing serious illness from all coronavirus variants, asking everyone to wear masks indoors can help protect unvaccinated people. A universal rule makes it easier to verify that unvaccinated people are masking up, the officials said.

ANALYSIS: Pope restricts ‘divisive’ Traditional Latin Mass, says 52-yr-old Novus Ordo is ‘unique expression’ of Church’s liturgyPope Francis has made several sweeping changes to the permissions granted to the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.ANALYSISVATICAN CITY, July 16, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis has today issued a new motu proprio restricting the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, declaring that the liturgy of Paul VI, or the Novus Ordo, is the “unique expression of the lex orandi of the Roman Rite.”The document, entitled “Traditiones Custodes,” is written “in light of the experience” of the survey carried out by the Congregation...

Dozens of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters are down for engine repairs, top military officials disclosed Tuesday, as the services grapple with an engine shortage that has afflicted the Pentagon for more than a year. Testifying before the House Subcommittee on Tactical Air and Land Forces, Air Force Lt. Gen. Eric Fick, who runs the F-35 program, disclosed that his service has been the hardest hit by the shortage. As of July 8, the Air Force had 41 aircraft in what's known as "Mission Impaired Capability Awaiting Parts," or MICAP, status, for engines. That means the planes can't be used on...

STORY AT-A-GLANCE Researchers analyzed the CO2 content of inhaled air among children wearing two types of masks, as well as wearing no mask CO2 in inhaled air under surgical and filtering facepiece masks came in between 13,120 ppm and 13,910 ppm; the German Federal Environmental Office set a limit of CO2 for closed rooms of 2,000 ppm Younger children appeared to have the highest CO2 values; a level of 25,000 ppm was measured from a 7-year-old wearing a facemask The researchers believe the use of facemasks could lead to “impairments attributable to hypercapnia,” which is a buildup of CO2 in...

Researchers have found new evidence about the positive role of androgens in breast cancer treatment with immediate implications for women with estrogen receptor-driven metastatic disease. In normal breast development, estrogen stimulates and androgen inhibits growth at puberty and throughout adult life. Abnormal estrogen activity is responsible for the majority of breast cancers, but the role of androgen activity in this disease has been controversial. Androgens were historically used to treat breast cancer, but knowledge of hormone receptors in breast tissue was rudimentary at the time and the treatment's efficacy misunderstood. Androgen therapy was discontinued due to virilising side effects and...

Scott Bieser is the author of the libertarian comic series Quantum Vibe. He has created book covers, graphic novels and a ton of webtoons. And I had the opportunity to interview him. Tamara Wilhite: Why are you most famous for the “Quantum Vibe” series? Scott Bieser: Probably because I’ve been at it for a decade, as both writer and artist. All my other projects have been collaborations, usually with L. Neil Smith.

e new Russian 5th generation stealth fighter jet. (Image via Rostec) on Jul. 15, 2021, Photos started circulating on Twitter of an aircraft believed to be Russia’s new 5th generation stealth fighter jet, but it is unclear this is a mock-up of a future fighter or real prototype. A Russian next-generation single-engine fighter jet has been spotted at the Zhukovsky International Airport outside Moscow. The jet, covered by black canvas, was rolled to the static display at the MAKS 2021 show, which starts next week. The appearance of the mysterious aircraft did not come completely unexpected. On Jul. 11,...