Free Republic

Washington D.C. police chief Robert Contee slammed rising crime in the city Friday, insisting 'You cannot coddle violent criminals', and the White House's new strategy to tackle violent crime. A shooting Thursday night at the popular D.C. 14th Street dining area that left two injured and sent diners fleeing for their lives, sparked Contee's visit to the busy corridor to talk to business owners. 'People are really mad as hell right now, and I don't blame them, because I am too. That's the reality,' he said.

The cities of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago account for 13.4 percent of all unemployed people in the US, but only make up about 4.6 percent of the total population, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS data show that the nation's three largest cities have unemployment rates dramatically higher than the national average of 5.9 percent in June, with Los Angeles and New York at 10.6 percent and Chicago at 8.2 percent. Together, the three cities had a total of 1,272,464 unemployed people in June, accounting for more than one in eight of the...

A Nigerian court on Friday jailed 10 pirates for 12 years each over the hijacking of a merchant vessel last year, the navy said, in the second such trial under a new anti-piracy law. The pirates, all of them Nigerian, were convicted of hijacking the Chinese merchant ship FV Hailufeng II in the Gulf of Guinea in 2020. Kidnap attacks against ships for ransom have become common in the Gulf of Guinea, which runs from Senegal to Angola, taking in the southwest coast of Nigeria. The perpetrators are usually Nigerian pirates.

Former President Donald Trump is more popular with U.S. voters than President Joe Biden, according to a Rasmussen poll released on Friday. Fifty-one percent of voters have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of Biden compared to 52 percent who have a somewhat favorable opinion of Trump. More people have an unfavorable view of Biden (48 percent) than Trump (46 percent). However, former President Barrack Obama is more popular with voters than both Biden and Trump. Fifty-five percent of voters view Obama favorably, and only 26 percent have a very unfavorable opinion of him. “Comparing voter opinions of Biden and...

“If thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death, and those that are ready to be slain; If thou sayest, Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul, doth not he know it? and shall not he render to every man according to his works?” (Proverbs 24:11-12).

An ICU specialist at a South African teaching hospital has hit back strongly at claims made by a respected pulmonologist that ivermectin is of no use in treating Covid-19. Prof Nathi Mdladla, head of the ICU at Dr George Mukhari Academic Hospital and Sefako Makgatho University, said the claims made by Dr Emmanuel Taban that the drug offered little benefit and had contributed to liver failure in a number of patients were “scaremongering at its worst”. “I have treated more than 200 Covid-19 outpatients including relatives and friends and their contacts,” Mdladla said in a rebuttal sent to TimesLIVE. “Between...

Dr. Anthony Fauci said Friday that the return of local mask mandates due to the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19 is “quite understandable,” but stopped short of saying the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s should reverse current guidance regarding mask-wearing for vaccinated people. “The general CDC guidelines still hold, that you do not need to wear a mask indoors if, in fact, you’ve been vaccinated,” the White House chief medical adviser told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto. “But what’s very clear is that at the local level, in the trenches as it were,” Fauci went on, “you’re seeing...

Austin-Travis County's top health authority on Friday requested that residents return to wearing masks as the area moved back into Stage 4 coronavirus guidelines, a sign of worsening pandemic conditions in Central Texas due to the presence of a highly contagious variant known as delta. Dr. Desmar Walkes, Austin-Travis County's health authority, announced the stricter recommendations after the weekly average of daily hospital admissions reached 35 Thursday night, the highest it had been since late February. "In just five months, we have evidenced four new variants of this virus," Walkes, who was joined by five other local doctors during a...

TOKYO -- An Algerian judo athlete will be sent home from the Olympics after he withdrew from the competition to avoid potentially facing an Israeli opponent. Fethi Nourine and his coach, Amar Benikhlef, told Algerian media they were withdrawing to avoid a possible second-round matchup with Israel's Tohar Butbul in the men's 73 kg division on Monday. Nourine was drawn to face Sudan's Mohamed Abdalrasool in the opening round, with the winner facing Butbul, the fifth seed. The International Judo Federation's executive committee has temporarily suspended Nourine and Benikhlef, who are likely to face sanctions beyond the Olympics, which began...

Among the latest patients, 12 are imported cases and all the others are domestic infections in Ho Chi Minh City (1,611), Binh Duong (571), Long An (379), Dong Nai (184), Tay Ninh (176), Dong Thap (98), Tien Giang (58), Ba Ria – Vung Tau (58); Ha Noi (56), Khanh Hoa (51), Quang Ngai (26), Binh Thuan (24), Can Tho (24), Ninh Thuan (18), Phu Yen (15), Dak Nong (8 ), Tra Vinh (6), Binh Dinh (6), Binh Phuoc (4), Hau Giang (4), Bac Ninh (4), Vinh Phuc (3), Lam Dong (2), Ca Mau (2), Ha Tinh (2), An Giang (2),...

There was a moment during The X-Files season ten premiere that made me sit up and cheer. It wasn’t seeing Mulder or Scully’s face again after all these years. It wasn’t about seeing an alien space ship crash, or an alien autopsy. The moment didn’t include explosions or romantic tension between our beloved protagonists. It was a moment that involved a single name: Henrietta Lacks.Born Loretta Pleasant in Roanoke, Virginia, Lacks was a woman—a mother, a wife, a sister, a farmer, a human being—but for the longest time and long after cervical cancer took her life in 1951, she’d literally...

A bloc of House conservatives on Friday pressed Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to force a floor vote by next week to oust Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for blocking two Republicans from serving on the special committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection. Such a vote on what’s known as a “motion to vacate the chair” would be quickly rejected by Democrats, who control the majority, and some moderate Republicans. But the one-page letter from the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus represents a test for McCarthy, who likely will need Freedom Caucus support in his quest to secure 218 votes and become...

The state of California is reportedly offering contraceptives — including Plan B — to female inmates forced to stay with men identifying as “transgender.”

Covid-19 has thrown more than a few curve balls at Tokyo Olympic organizers -- but this isn't the first Games to battle a pandemic.A century ago, the 1920 Antwerp Olympics were held only a few months after the Spanish flu ravaged the world, killing at least 50 million people. In 2010, the Vancouver Olympics were threatened by an outbreak of H1N1. In 2016, the Zika virus prompted calls to cancel the Rio Games. And most recently in 2018, officials in Pyeongchang wrestled with an outbreak of the norovirus. Mass gatherings like the Olympics, that bring together people from all over...

St. Louis County in Missouri is mandating face masks for everyone over the age of 5 when indoors regardless of vaccination status amid the spread of the delta variant, officials announced Friday. Masks are also "strongly encouraged" for groups when outdoors. "We’ve lost more than 500 St. Louisans to COVID-19, and if our region doesn’t work together to protect one another, we could see spikes that overwhelm our hospital and public health systems," Dr. Fredrick Echols, acting director of health for the City of St. Louis, said Friday. St. Louis County reported 241 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 on Wednesday,...

A Florida man who had sex with multiple women without telling them he was HIV-positive has been sentenced to two years in prison. At least two of the women were diagnosed with HIV after dating the man. Burns, who was arrested after an ex-girlfriend contacted authorities, was also sentenced to 12 months of probation upon his release, the station reported. An investigation into Burns started in October 2019 when his ex told authorities she believed she got HIV from him while the pair dated in 2013, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Detectives later learned that Burns — who...

A man who joked about not getting vaccinated died of the coronavirus a little more than a month later. Stephen Harmon's death was announced by the Hillsong Church founder Brian Houston on Twitter on Thursday. Houston wrote on Instagram that Harmon was in his early 30s, a graduate of Hillsong College, and a "vital part of our church in California." "He was one of the most generous people I know and he had so much in front of him," Houston wrote.

Anthony Scaramucci, a hedge fund manager and past Trump administration official, mandated Friday coronavirus vaccines for office employees. “Make a decision… Get vaccinated. If you don’t want to get vaccinated, leave. That should be the message, and people will start getting vaccinated,” he said in an interview on CNBC. “We’re a private company. If somebody wants to fight me over the vaccine mandate, that’s fine. Let’s take it to the court,” Scaramucci threatened his employees before suggesting he does not “like the totalitarian nonsense.” But, he said:"It’s not about that. his is about once in a while we have to...

Several Arizona law enforcement agencies are among hundreds across the country testing a new de-escalation tool straight out of a comic book that's intended to help them stop and detain people without causing pain. The BolaWrap is hand-held like a Taser, but is shaped more like a cellphone and, once it is activated, it discharges an 8-foot Kevlar cord to "restrain uncooperative suspects or nonresponsive persons in crisis from a distance," according to its website.

Kamala Harris is facing a steep uphill battle if she wants to succeed her boss Joe Biden in 2024. Recent poll numbers show the vice president - and Biden's heir apparent - hovering at just 44.3 percent favorability, according to poll aggregator RealClearPolitics. Her unfavorability is slightly higher at 46.3 percent. Plagued by years' worth of accounts of a toxic work culture under her watch, as well as her very public missteps while handling the monumental task of fixing the border crisis, Harris' weaknesses are even apparent to Biden's supporters. A majority of people in almost every age group ranked...