Free Republic

Bay Area health officials on Thursday are expected to announce plans for an eventual end to the region’s indoor masking mandate.Health officials are finalizing criteria in which counties would be required to meet in order to lift the restrictions. Those criteria are likely to include case rates, vaccination rates and hospitalizations, according to officials.“We have been discussing this among the health officers in the region, and our intention and our plan is to develop a set of metrics we all share that are common across the region as to when to lift indoor masking,” Santa Clara County Health Officer Dr....

Source: Townhall Media/Julio RosasIt is long overdue that immigration (legal and illegal) into the United States be made fair, equitable and inclusive to all. This is what Wokeism is all about, right? Of the nearly 8 billion people on Earth, the population breaks out into five broad racial categories: Asian 54%, Black 15%, White 15%, Hispanic 8%, Middle Eastern 8%. In order to promote diversity, as well as be fair, equitable and inclusive to all, shouldn’t U.S. immigration policy be directly aligned with these global racial percentages? This is certainly not being done today — and, astonishingly, a massive and...

India may be staring at electricity shortages in the coming months because coal stocks at most of its power plants have dropped to critically low levels. As many as 63 of the 135 coal-fired power plants in Asia's third largest economy have two days — or less — of coal supplies, India's Central Electricity Authority (CEA) said in a report on Tuesday. Coal stocks at 17 of them have been run down to zero, it added. In total, 75 plants are running with five days worth of coal or less Coal accounts for almost 70% of the country's electricity generation.

TALIBAN thugs have hung the corpses of alleged criminals from diggers in shocking new photos from Afghanistan According to deputy governor Mawlawi Shir Ahmad Muhajir, the three men were killed after entering a man's home to rob him. In the graphic images shared on social media, the corpses are shown hoisted into the air and hanging by their necks in Obe district in Herat province. Onlookers were seen taking photos of the men as their bodies were displayed in public. Tuesday's gruesome display is another example of the kind of practices that feed international concern that the Taliban have returned...

A Texas high school was placed on lockdown after three people were shot on campus Wednesday morning, according to a report. The shooting occurred around 9:30 a.m. at Timberview High School in Arlington. The three victims were rushed to the hospital, police sources told the news station Fox4. No fatalities have been reported.

Four studies—including two from WHO—provide powerful evidence favoring the lab-leak theory. Where did Covid-19 come from? The answer can be found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus itself. Based on experience with SARS-1 in 2003 and MERS in 2012, we know that many people are infected by a host animal long before a coronavirus mutates to the point where it can jump from human to human. An extensive data set from late 2019—more than 9,000 hospital samples—is available of people exhibiting flulike (thus Covid-like) symptoms in China’s Hubei and Shaanxi provinces before the epidemic started. Based on SARS-1 and MERS, the natural...

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unveiled his government's mandatory vaccine policy today--a mandate that will require public servants to get their shots by month's end or be forced unto an unpaid leave of absence. All would-be travellers must also be fully vaccinated by Oct. 30 before boarding planes, trains or marine vessels. To bolster stalled vaccination rates, the federal government will require all of its employees in the "core public administration" and the RCMP to be fully vaccinated or to apply for a medical or religious exemption by the end of the month. Federal contractors, like cleaning staff, must also be...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In the latest reversal of a Trump-era environmental rollback, President Joe Biden is restoring federal regulations guiding environmental reviews of major infrastructure projects such as highways and pipelines. The reviews were scaled back by the Trump administration in a bid to fast-track the projects. The White House Council on Environmental Quality said Wednesday it will restore key provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act, a bedrock environmental law designed to ensure community safeguards during environmental reviews for a wide range of federal projects and decisions. Last year, President Donald Trump overhauled the rules in a bid to...

President Joe Biden floated the proposal Tuesday of getting rid of the filibuster rules in the Senate to raise the debt limit. “Oh, I think that’s a real possibility,” Biden replied when asked by reporters if he would consider the idea to prevent the country from defaulting on the nation’s debt.

Source: Katie Pavlich/TownhallA Virginia school district has made a lot of national news lately. Many teachers, parents, students, and community members disagree with Loudoun County Public Schools’ adoption of policies that force teachers to promote radical ideologies that they believe will harm students and further divide the school community. Several of these courageous citizens have publicly expressed their disapproval of these policies at school board meetings. One of those citizens, LCPS elementary school teacher Tanner Cross, was suspended after he spoke in opposition to a proposed policy that would force teachers to refer to “gender-expansive or transgender” students using any...

While many isopods eat dead or decaying animals, Rocinela isopods tend to be parasites that carve out cozy homes on the backs or among the internal organs of other sea creatures. Most members of the genus appear dull and brown, but it's possible that Fukushima's famed sushi isopod may have taken more than just a meal from one of its former hosts, Hibino said. Fishers caught the peculiar isopod in a net near the coastal town of Rausu on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island. The creature was captured at a depth of 2,600 to 4,000 feet (800 to 1,200 meters) and...

NBA great Kareem Abdul-Jabbar writes in Jacobin arguing that athletes like Kyrie Irving aren’t making a “personal choice” by refusing the COVID vaccine — they’re jeopardizing the public health of all through their platforms. =========================== I'm a huge fan of LeBron James, both as one of the greatest basketball players ever and as a humanitarian who cares about social injustice. I have written his praises many times in the past and undoubtedly will in the future. I admire him and have affection for him. But this time, LeBron is just plain wrong — and his being wrong could be deadly,...

Using DNA as a high-density data storage medium holds the potential to forge breakthroughs in biosensing and biorecording technology and next-generation digital storage, but researchers haven't been able to overcome inefficiencies that would allow the technology to scale. Now, researchers at Northwestern University propose a new method for recording information to DNA that takes minutes, rather than hours or days, to complete. The team used a novel enzymatic system to synthesize DNA that records rapidly changing environmental signals directly into DNA sequences, a method the paper's senior author said could change the way scientists study and record neurons inside the...

At long last the Zodiac Killer -- perhaps Northern California's most infamous serial killer -- has been identified, but he's already dead ... according to an independent team of investigators

Going back to the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, the party of first-term presidents gained seats in House midterm congressional elections only twice. Karl Rove reminded readers a few months ago in his Wall Street Journal column that, since World War II, the average loss of House seats of the party of each first-term president in congressional midterms is 28. The largest loss was 63 in the first midterm elections in Barack Obama's first term. This was after Democrats rammed through the Affordable Care Act without a single Republican vote. Given that Republicans need to pick...

TWENTY-SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME LUKE 11:1-4 Friends, our Gospel for today gives us an opportunity to reflect on the great prayer that Jesus taught us. Think how this prayer links us to all of the great figures in Christian history, from Peter and Paul to Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, John Paul II, and right up to the present day. A desire to pray is planted deep within us. This just means the desire to speak to God and to listen to him. Keep in mind that prayer is not designed to change...

<p>But a short time later, Lightfoot brushed off Foxx’s claims and announced that she’d effectively circumvented her by asking U.S. Attorney John Lausch to review the evidence in the gang-related gunfight Friday morning in Austin that left one shooter dead and two suspects wounded.</p>

A Virginia family is reporting the death of their 10-year-old daughter. The latter died of coronavirus after she was potentially exposed to the virus while fulfilling her duties in school as a class nurse. The girl, Teresa Sperry, had been assigned by her teacher to be escorting her sick classmates to the school nurse at Hillpoint Elementary School.

A Texas high school was placed on lockdown after “multiple” people were shot on campus Wednesday morning, police said. The shooting occurred at Timberview High School in Arlington, news station DFW-TV reported. Police said the victims were rushed to the hospital, though they didn’t provide further details about their condition.

Per NBC DFW shooting at Timberview and multiple victims shot and taken to local hospitals. 🚨 PARENTS advised to go to Student Nutrition Center on Webb. MISD trying to get buses to campus to transport students to nutrition center pic.twitter.com/jIHHQ1UNrX — Brian Gosset (@Gosset41) October 6, 2021 VIDEOS AT LINK........................ Police confirmed a shooting at Timberview High School in Arlington, Texas. Nearby schools are reportedly on lockdown. Police are currently searching for the shooter and “multiple victims” have been confirmed. The Arlington Police Department is liaising with the Mansfield and Grand Prairie Police Departments, as well as the school district’s...