Free Republic

In an October 9, 2021 article in the English-language Saudi daily Arab News, Lebanese media figure Baria Alamuddin writes that Hizbullah continues its globe-spanning drug trafficking activities, now using West African countries as major transit states for its drug shipments. She notes that Hizbullah and Syria, both sponsored by Iran, continue to bolster their status as the world's major source of the amphetamine-based drug Captagon. However, since Saudi Arabia banned the import of Lebanese produce earlier this year, Hizbullah has had to divert its Captagon shipments through transit countries to obscure the country of origin. West Africa has become a...

Vaccine efficacy refers to how well a vaccine performs in a carefully controlled clinical trial, and effectiveness describes its performance in real-world observational studies. Evidence demonstrates that the approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines are both efficacious and effective against symptomatic, laboratory-confirmed COVID-19, including severe forms of the disease. In addition, as shown below, a growing body of evidence suggests that COVID-19 vaccines also reduce asymptomatic infection and transmission. Rhesus macaque challenge studies provided the first evidence of the potential protective effects of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Janssen COVID-19 vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 infection, including both symptomatic and asymptomatic infection. Vaccinated macaques developed...

“Wisdom resteth in the heart of him that hath understanding: but that which is in the midst of fools is made known . . . The king's favour is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame” (Proverbs 14:33, 35).

An off-duty NYPD cop shot her ex-girlfriend and killed the woman’s new lover after catching the duo together at a Brooklyn home on Wednesday night, police and sources said. Yvonne Wu, 31 years old and a five-year veteran of the force, opened fire on the pair at the ex-girlfriend’s house on 19th Avenue near 79th Street in Bensonhurst at about 5 p.m., according to police and law enforcement sources. The jilted lover was waiting outside of the home when cops arrived and admitted in a very “calm and collected” manner that she shot “someone” inside the house, NYPD Assistant Chief...

A Pennsylvania elementary school teacher has been arrested after allegedly threatening to shoot district officials because janitors removed a plastic barrier he set up in his classroom to protect against the spread of COVID-19, reports say. Chad Gerrick, an educator at Sinking Springs Elementary School in York, is now charged with one misdemeanor count of terroristic threats, according to Fox43. Last Friday, a cafeteria worker said she heard Gerrick threaten to "shoot all them ....

New footage shows Star Trek's William Shatner marvel at his view of Earth from his mission orbiting the planet aboard Blue Origin's New Shepard rocket. Shatner, who is famed for his role as Captain Kirk in the 1960s sci-fi series, and newly minted astronauts Chris Boshuizen, Glen de Vries and Audrey Powers, ventured 351,186 feet above Earth's surface where they spent three minutes in weightlessness. They were captured floating weightlessly in wonder and excitement as they looked down on Earth. A new clip of the epic journey shows Shatner and crew adjust to their new conditions, with Shatner seemingly taken...

Cambodia continued construction work at its Ream naval base in August and September, advancing projects that the US suspects could support a Chinese military presence in a strategically valuable corner of Southeast Asia. Satellite photos taken by Maxar and Planet Labs and published by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative show that two new buildings were built on the north end of the base... ... work took place near the former site of the Tactical Headquarters of the National Committee for Maritime Security, a US-funded building that was officially opened in 2012 and unexpectedly demolished in September 2020...

Los Angeles' political and community leaders were stunned by the corruption indictment handed down Wednesday against Mark Ridley-Thomas, one of the city's best-known and longest-serving officials. Ridley-Thomas is accused of conspiring with Marilyn Louise Flynn, who at the time was dean of USC’s School of Social Work, to steer county money to the university in return for admitting his son Sebastian into the graduate school with a full-tuition scholarship and a paid professorship. Ridley-Thomas was on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors at the time... ...Ridley-Thomas, 66, is the third L.A. City Council member to face federal corruption charges...

Border Patrol documents show at least 160,000 illegal immigrants have been released into the country under the Biden administration with little oversight, monitoring, or risk for deportation — and have even been granted a level of legal status through temporary work permits — according to a new report. Of particular concern to former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott is that the documents show an abuse of the Biden administration's parole authority, which can be used to grant work permits to illegal immigrants. "By law and regulation, a parole shall only be granted on a case-by-case basis and only for significant...

The California attorney general's office has filed felony charges against the executive director of the state's largest labor union, alleging that an investigation into possible campaign finance violations revealed that Alma Hernández and her husband underreported their income by more than $1.4 million to evade taxes.... ...Named one of Capitol Weekly's Top 100 California politicos, Hernández is a seasoned political operator who helped activate an army of SEIU volunteers to fight the recall of Gov. Gavin Newsom last month. SEIU California President Bob Schoonover said the organization is deeply concerned about the allegations and will continue to fully cooperate with...

<p>Federal Judge Mark T. Pittman, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, has issued a temporary restraining order against United Airlines over its vaccine mandate.</p><p>The order came on Wednesday and it stops United Airlines from imposing its vaccine mandate on employees, Breitbart News reported.</p>

American Airlines has 216 flights cancelled and 519 delayed so far todayThey had 19 cancelled yesterday— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) October 13, 2021 More than 230 American Airlines flights have been cancelled and 600 more have been delayed thanks to Hurricane Joe Brandon, just as CFP predicted and reported Monday night. Data provided by FlightAware

A female officer with Victoria Police, who served for 16 years, has resigned in protest against the use of police to enforce Covid-19 rules, saying in an interview that a “great majority” of her colleagues shared her sentiments.Acting Senior Sergeant Krystle Mitchell has appeared on The Discernible Interviews channel on YouTube on Friday, wearing her dark-blue uniform and revealing that she had been “troubled” by how police resources have been applied during the pandemic by state authorities.Victoria Police has been tasked with making sure that people in one of Australia’s most populous states abide by the lockdown restrictions, and with...

"Capitalism will continue to eliminate mass poverty in more and more places and to an increasingly marked extent if it is merely permitted to do so." – Henry Hazlitt "The superior freedom of the capitalist system, its superior justice, and its superior productivity are not three superiorities, but one. The justice follows from the freedom and the productivity follows from the freedom and the justice." – Henry Hazlitt "Since the State necessarily lives by the compulsory confiscation of private capital, and since its expansion necessarily involves ever-greater incursions on private individuals and private enterprise, we must assert that the state...

NEW YORK—An economic slowdown in China could ripple through the global economy and weigh on commodity prices and growth, star stock picker Cathie Wood of ARK Invest warned in a webinar on Tuesday.Wood, whose flagship $19.7 billion Ark Innovation fund was the top-performing U.S. equity fund in 2020, said that China’s recent steps to crack down on sectors ranging from gaming to education to financial firms are increasing the likelihood of a policy mistake that leads to a sharp slowdown.“I really do think that the policy makers in China are beginning to play with fire,” she said, adding “We will...

Oregon state Sens. Kim Thatcher and Dennis Linthicum, both Republicans, have petitioned Acting U.S. Attorney Scott E. Asphaug to launch a grand jury investigation into the measurement of COVID-19 statistics by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).Thatcher and Linthicum submitted the petition in a letter (pdf) on Aug. 16 after gathering signatures from 1,718 Oregonians and 53,032 Americans.In the petition, the senators expressed concerns over the measurement and reporting of COVID-19 vaccine adverse reactions including fatalities and injuries.The lawmakers stated that a whistleblower, under sworn testimony, said the data reported under...

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson on Oct. 13 allowed a new law to go into effect that will allow employees to opt-out of vaccine mandates by proving they have acquired immunity to the CCP virus or by submitting a negative COVID-19 test.The bill became law without Hutchinson’s signature under a provision in Arkansas law which makes bills awaiting a governor’s signature to become law after five days. Governors have previously used this legal mechanism to express their disapproval of certain legislation, according to The Associated Press.“I am opposed to the current mandate by the Biden administration, but the solution is not...

As Dollar Tree goes, so goes the country.I admit that I didn’t know what a Dollar Tree was up to a few years ago. I was visiting my parents and my mom asked me to go buy some water glasses at the Dollar Tree. After a “what’s that?” I went shopping. Everything was, in fact, a dollar. Well, no longer.Dollar Tree is raising its price. I listened to a woman complain vociferously about the planned price hike. She’s mad. So is the rest of the country. Inflation isn’t just hitting grandmas looking water glasses for a dollar, it’s going to...

There have been a lot of reports about alleged mistreatment of Jan. 6 defendants.Now a federal judge has held D.C. Corrections officials in contempt over the treatment of one of the defendants and is referred the case to the DOJ for a civil rights investigation into reports about the treatment of other defendants.U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth found D.C Jail Warden Wanda Patten and Quincy Booth, the director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, in contempt for the long delay in failing to turn over medical record needed to approve a needed operation for defendant Christopher Worrell.Worrell has non-Hodgkins...

SFGate reported on a recently released poll analyzing attitudes of those living in San Francisco, and it showed a remarkable number plan to flee the city in the near future. Joint Venture Silicon Valley, with the Bay Area News Group, conducted a poll of 1,610 registered voters across Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, San Mateo, and Santa Clara. The report notes:A shocking 71% of respondents said the quality of life in the greater Bay Area is worse now compared to five years ago. Fifty-six percent of respondents said they are considering leaving in the next five years — including 53%...