Free Republic

Walgreens announced Tuesday it would be closing five of its San Francisco locations due to "organized retail crime," but police department data, local officials, and policy experts are casting doubt on that reasoning, according to a report published by the San Francisco Chronicle on Saturday.While the report said the chain has experienced retail theft, other factors like the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaturation of stores were cited as potential factors behind the decision to close the stores.However, San Francisco Police Department data obtained by the Chronicle contradicts Walgreens' claims, with one of the stores slated to close reporting only 23 shoplifting...

The price of pretty much everything is rising precipitously. The CPI for September came in above expectations with a month-on-month increase of 0.4%. Peter Schiff appeared on Unfiltered with Dan Bongino to talk about inflation in Joe Biden’s America. Peter said you should stock up now because things could get ugly really quickly. Bongino pointed out that while wages are rising, they aren’t rising as fast as prices. Wages have risen 4.6% while inflation has surged by 5.4% — according to government numbers. Peter said that is typically the trend. The price of labor never keeps up with the price...

Yan Daixiang squinted through dense, freezing fog as she struggled to make out her surroundings. Runners were scattered everywhere—off the trail, in ravines, on the other side of the mountain—dotting the hillside in brightly colored athletic gear. It was hard to tell loose clothing and people apart. People trudged in every direction, struggling against freezing wind and rain. Others huddled around bushes or boulders. Some runners passed Yan, heading back down the mountain. They’d tried to reach the race’s third checkpoint at mile 17, but failed. They were retreating now, back to the second checkpoint, to drop out. “It’s way...

Apple CEO Tim Cook and a team of Apple executives will host the company’s Apple’s “Unleashed” special event today, Monday, October 18th, at 10am PDT / 1pm EDT.It's official: Apple to hold special event on October 18thThe event will be webcast from the Apple Park campus in Cupertino, California.MacDailyNews will offer live notes during Apple’s event on this page. We’ll see you here just before 10am PDT/ 1pm EDT!You can watch the event live right here:Apple Event: Unleashed!>Live notes from Apple’s “Spring Loaded” special event in reverse chronological order: End of event Cook recaps announcementsMacBook Pro 14 and 15 –...

Progressive Catholic cardinal of Washington, D.C., pours praise on America's embattled pressWith a controversial Catholic in the White House, there was no way for Cardinal Wilton Gregory to face a pack of Beltway journalists without fielding political questions.Job 1 was addressing President Joe Biden's statement: "I respect them – those who believe life begins at the moment of conception and all – I respect that. Don't agree, but I respect that."The leader of the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, D.C., has made it clear that Biden can receive Holy Communion. However, Gregory also noted: "The Catholic Church teaches, and has taught,...

By this year’s standards, the process that led to Obamacare seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government.How quickly Democrats forget. A dozen years ago, President Barack Obama faced strong and justified criticism for backtracking on his promise, made numerous times during the 2008 presidential campaign, to televise health-care negotiations on C-SPAN:By this year’s standards, however, the process that led to Obamacare—the law that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-California, said we had to pass in order to find out what’s in it—seems like a veritable exercise in transparency and open government. It’s gotten so bad that press reports...

Democrats in both chambers of Congress have long emphasized their $3.5 trillion budget bill’s climate policies as constituting a crucial element of the bill; however, moderate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.) remains unconvinced on these, even as Democrats speed toward another legislative deadline at the end of October. For most Democrats in Congress, policies to reduce carbon emissions and to move away from fossil fuels have been a keystone of their policy priorities for months. When Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), who drafted the original budget framework, introduced the bill on the Senate floor, he promised an “extremely aggressive … [transformation...

...The latest example of COVID hypocrisy, if you have enough hard-drive space to keep track, is a viral video of President Biden traipsing through a ritzy DC eatery with no mask, in defiance of the city’s strict rules. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was photographed at a basketball game, the only bare face in a sea of muzzled fans. This kind of thing has been so common that it is hard to stay outraged, even though we should. But there is another, deeper question at play here. Why won’t the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention update its masking guidance...

Fox News anchor Chris Wallace on Monday remembered the late former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his controversial speech before the United Nations in 2003 about weapons of mass destruction before the Iraq War began. "I think the low light of his career was in 2003, when he addressed the United Nations and made the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. He didn't want to make that speech," Wallace said during Fox's coverage of Powell's death. "He took a lot of pressure from people in the Bush 43 white house including vice president Cheney who was...

The U.S. has seen 23 percent more flu cases this year compared to last year’s influenza season, though flu activity is still below normal pre-pandemic years, according to data collected by the Walgreen Flu Index. According to the flu index, which includes data through the week ending on Oct. 9, Nevada leads the U.S. in the number of flu cases reported this year, followed by Mississippi and Texas. The market area with the most flu activity the week of Oct. 3 was Las Vegas which, according to a statement from Walgreens, is potentially because it is a top tourist destination.

One of Australia’s largest coal miners is planning to raise $1 billion (US$740 million) through the sale of bonds in China and Asia amid increasing financial pressures locally due to climate change activism. Kevin Ball, the chief financial officer of Whitehaven Coal—which operates four coal mines in northwest New South Wales (NSW)—said Asian debt capital markets would be able to provide funding for “decades to come.” “We expect that to grow and expand over the next decade, so that is really why we want to try and put a foot in that,” he said during the company’s Quarterly Production Report....

@ClarkeMicah Dignified and strong from Labour MP Mike Kane.'Catholics believe that extreme unction helps guide the soul to God after death' . Suggests an Amess amendment ensuring that Catholics should be able to receive the sacrament, whether at a crime scene or in a care home. Clip...

Colleges have begun hiring student hall monitors to enforce mask and distancing restrictions, a move that has given students authority over their peers for their obedience to the state's COVID diktats.How much would you have to be paid to commit social suicide? What if a paycheck wasn’t the only perk, but it also entitled you to a sickening sense of self-righteousness and an air of superiority? This appears to be the tradeoff many college students have made this semester as universities’ “Student Health Ambassadors,” paid adult hall monitors whose job is to patrol their campuses and enforce mask policies and...

Western Australia, an Australian state that comprises 32.9 percent of the continent, is being compared to Nazi Germany or Communist China over a controversial new proposal to ban biker gang members from showing off their tattoos or hanging out together in public.Set to be voted on by the Parliament of Western Australia sometime soon, the Unlawful Consorting and Prohibited Insignia Bill explicitly stipulates that biker gang members are “banned from wearing their patches and associating with one another in public.”The Sydney Morning Herald notes that a “patch” includes any type of “insignia, including tattoos.”According to a press release from the...

The owner of a New York City supermarket chain predicted the food prices will increase sharply in the coming months, with some increasing 10 percent in the next two months. John Catsimatidis, the billionaire supermarket owner of Gristedes and D’Agostino Foods, warned that food giants such as Nabisco, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola will prioritize raising prices on products. “I see over 10 percent [price increase] in the next 60 days,” he said in an interview with Fox Business on Monday, adding that the trend will not drop “anytime soon.” Catsimatidis cited rising inflation and supply chain bottlenecks that are currently plaguing...

Claim: Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg sought to put a positive spin on inflation on Sunday by pointing out that retail sales were up a lot in September and record high imports of goods were responsible for stressed supply chains. Verdict: Misleading.

Germany remains the top destination for people seeking protection in Europe, with the number of asylum applications filed in the country already exceeding the 100,000 mark in 2021. Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) said that by the end of September it had received 100,278 initial applications from asylum-seekers. This is 35.2% more than in the same period last year. Most of the asylum-seekers who applied for protection for the first time came from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Of those, 40,472 initial applications came from people from Syria (up 57.1%), and 8,531 from people seeking protection from Iraq...

Press Secretary Jen Psaki says Biden is asking OPEC to pump more oil

Research conducted by George Washington University found that an aspirin therapy tested on 400 COVID patients in hospitals around the United States cut the need for ventilation by 44%, reduced ICU admission by 43%, and reduced overall in-hospital mortality rates by 47%. Dr. Jonathan Chow, one of the study's researchers, said, "as we learned about the connection between blood clots and COVID-19, we knew that aspirin — used to prevent stroke and heart attack — could be important for COVID-19 patients. Our research found an association between low-dose aspirin and decreased severity of COVID-19 and death. Aspirin is low-cost, easily...

“……. The decision to choose Israel to mass test his coronavirus vaccine was not based on “emotional connection,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Tuesday. In a video message shared at the Jerusalem Post Annual Conference, he shared that Israel “has a special place in my heart." "It not only represents the fulfillment of a dream, but a safe harbor that we feel can protect us and our children from things that happened in the past.” Bourla is a Jewish man from Thessaloniki, Greece, and the son of Holocaust survivors. Watch the Jerusalem Post 10th Annual Conference video >> However,...