Free Republic

Almost overnight, Japan has become a stunning, and somewhat mysterious, coronavirus success story. Daily new COVID-19 cases have plummeted from a mid-August peak of nearly 6,000 in Tokyo, with caseloads in the densely populated capital now routinely below 100, an 11-month low. The bars are packed, the trains are crowded, and the mood is celebratory, despite a general bafflement over what, exactly, is behind the sharp drop.

The discussions are taking place as part of a review of the oil company's five-year spending plan, on which the board is set to vote at the end of this month, the people said. It isn’t clear whether the board will make a final call on the Mozambique or Vietnam projects during the current review, according to the people. As part of the review, Exxon is analyzing the expected carbon emissions from each project and how they would affect the company’s ability to meet pledges to reduce emissions, people familiar with the matter said. The annual projected emissions from the...

At least 14 people were killed and several others were wounded in central Damascus on Wednesday morning in an explosion on a Syrian military bus, Syrian state TV reported. According to additional reports from Syrian and Lebanese outlets, the casualties were Iranian officers. Syrian state TV showed footage of the charred bus, reporting that the blasts occurred while people were heading to work and school. As of yet, according to the reports, no organization has claimed responsibility for the blast, which occurred at a main bus-transfer point under the Hafez al-Assad bridge, where vehicles converge and head out to different...

Even if you have never set foot in China, Hikvision’s cameras have likely seen you. By 2017, Hikvision had captured 12 percent of the North American market. Its cameras watched over apartment buildings in New York City, public recreation centers in Philadelphia, and hotels in Los Angeles. Police departments used them to monitor streets in Memphis, Tennessee, and in Lawrence, Massachusetts. London and more than half of Britain’s 20 next-largest cities have deployed them.

My cooperation with you comes as you declare My Word in conjunction with The Father's will for this is the meat of The "Substance of your Faith" in Me. Therefore My Spirit becomes life changing as you activate The Father's will through the laying down of all false pretenses and the taking up of My "Spoken Word of Truth" by declaring My Word into every situation not in abidance with my Word of Truth thus changing the outcome, erasing fear and catastrophe and instead revealing and activating the "Substance of Faith" upon the bones of Truth creating miracles that reveal...

California has long been a refuge for people big on ideas but short on realism. Whether it is the famous sunshine, its gorgeous coastline, or the state’s tolerance for even the most extreme buffoonery, California has played center stage for more than its fair share of “movements” – from beatnik and other counterculture revolutions to murderous cults. Knowing this history helps to understand why a state with an economy larger than most countries in the world, is swiftly heading towards total collapse. The people running California today are the same ones who for decades believed they could change the world...

CNN anchor John King revealed that he "was having a lot of trouble functioning" working to cover the 2020 election as he dealt with multiple sclerosis. "I hope nobody noticed it, but election week in America was probably one of my worst weeks last year," King said Wednesday morning. "I was having a lot of trouble functioning." King manned CNN's electoral map for days after Election Day last November, as results slowly came in across the country until President Biden was projected as the winner the following Saturday. He at times provided insight and analysis on the vote totals and...

A Florida judge on Tuesday rejected the latest petition asking that a hospital be ordered to administer ivermectin to a woman extremely ill with COVID-19, The Palm Beach Post reported. Palm Beach County Circuit Judge James Nutt, for the second time in three days, rejected the petition and asked that attorneys representing the husband of 47-year-old Tamara Drock and those for Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center try to resolve the dispute, the Post reported. Ryan and Tamara Drock both contracted COVID-19. Although Ryan recovered — he took ivermectin — his wife has been hospitalized and is in the intensive-care unit...

ProShares' bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) listed on the New York Stock Exchange today, and it was welcomed with explosive interest. "It absolutely obliterated," said James Seyffart, Bloomberg Intelligence ETF Analyst. At the time of writing, volumes for the so-called ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF (BITO) stood near $1 billion after its inaugural trading day. At last check, volumes stood at $999.473 million. Many expected a massive launch, but Seyffart told the Block that the volumes blew away expectations. Bloomberg Intelligence was expecting the product to top the launch of the VanEck Social Sentiment ETF ($BUZZ), according to Seyffart. $BUZZ did...

Chief Minister Michael Gunner Northern Territory Chief Minister Michael Gunner says his wife and son had to flee their home over the weekend as anger over his vaccination rules hits fever pitch in the Top End. Demonstrators yelled out Mr Gunner’s home address and threatened to attack him at a rally held in Darwin on Saturday — after the leader introduced some of the world’s toughest mandate laws last week. Mr Gunner told Sky News Australia he was extremely worried about his wife and son’s safety. “The priority was obviously people knew where we lived, it was at a rally...

Army Reservist Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, who was known among colleagues for sporting a "Hitler mustache," was demoted and discharged after he was charged in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday. “This was a knee-jerk reaction to the charges,” Jonathan Crisp, Hale-Cusanelli’s attorney, told the Post. Hale-Cusanelli is the first known discharge from the military due to charges in connection with the assault. Crisp called the June less-than-honorable discharge “improper,” citing his client’s inability to defend himself due to his incarceration and inability to make comments without violating his Fifth Amendment rights in the Capitol...

Francis Needs Our Weakness to Build His Ape ChurchWould you have thought that such a situation could ever arise? Keeping in mind that the ape religion was similar enough in external form to the Catholic Church that it would “deceive even the elect,” what would you have thought the new religion would look like? Would you have been confident that you would not be deceived by such a new religion?Whether we call it an ape church or not, the reality is that we have a situation tragically similar to the one Bishop Sheen foretold. Imagine that as you were pondering...

In their landmark 1990 book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the 90s, gay strategists Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen laid out a brilliant plan for changing American attitudes towards homosexuality. They stated that “to desensitize straights to gays and gayness, inundate them in a continuous flood of gay-related advertising, presented in the least offensive fashion possible. If straights can’t shut off the shower, they may at least eventually get used to being wet.” Looking back from the vantage point of 2021, we can now say that this was not a matter...

A ransomware attack at Sinclair Broadcasting Group has caused disruptions at WSBT-TV in Mishawaka as well as other TV stations owned by the company. In a release, the Maryland-based company said it discovered Sunday that “certain servers and workstations in its environment were encrypted with ransomware, and that certain office and operational networks were disrupted.” External phone lines were out on Tuesday at WSBT-TV, and one person indicated that the problems were affecting software needed to produce content for TV. Broadcasts in the South Bend region on Sunday and Monday were affected by the malware attack. On the noon newscast...

My 2 cents. She will do whatever she has to do to sabotage Trump. Just look at what W and all the other GOP deep staters did in supporting Hillary and then following up with Biden in '20. Liz could run as an independent thereby splitting the republican party leading to its funeral. Could she do what Perot or Mullin(Utah) tried to do? I'm just saying there's nothing she won't do. The party and the nation be dammed.

BETHESDA, Md. - A military base in Montgomery County that is home to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center is under lockdown after an ‘active shooter threat’ and ‘bomb threat’ investigation Wednesday morning. The incident was reported around 8:45 a.m. at Naval Support Activity Bethesda – home of Walter Reed and just north of Washington, D.C. Officials tweeted that the base received a phone call from an anonymous source stating there is a bomb at or near Building 10. "Go indoors into the nearest building and shelter in place. All commands initiate building emergency plans to shelter in place,"...

The man accused of raping a stranger on a metro Philadelphia train full of bystanders who cops say stood and filmed is a Congolese national present in the US illegally, according to a new report.

Novavax on Wednesday issued a statement reinforcing its position that its vaccine will be ready for global use this year, following a POLITICO report on Tuesday that it had fundamental manufacturing issues that would delay its ability to contribute to the global fight against Covid-19. The company said it plans to file “within the next couple weeks” in Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and to file for emergency use in the U.S. by the end of 2021. Novavax did not address the assertions of two people with direct knowledge of the company’s processes that it has...

(CNN) -- Nearly 66 million people in the United States who are eligible still have not gotten vaccinated against Covid-19, no matter how much danger that puts them in and no matter how many incentives or mandates have been thrown at them. States and public health officials have tried all sorts of novel ideas. They've offered donuts, beer and even cold hard cash to entice people to get the vaccine. At least one tactic, lotteries, did not seem to do the trick, according to a new study published Friday. The study, published in JAMA Health Forum, looked at vaccination records...

Alibaba shares surged more than six percent on Wednesday after billionaire founder Jack Ma was reported to be in Europe, fuelling investor hopes that the worst of China's regulatory crackdown for the internet giant might be over. Ma has kept a low profile ever since mainland officials spiked what would have been a world record $37 billion initial public offering for Alibaba's financial group Ant last November. That shock decision kicked off what became a cascading series of crackdowns by Chinese authorities on a host of tech and other industries deemed to have become too powerful, unregulated or monopolistic. Ma's...