Free Republic

A federal judge ruled Wednesday that Gov. Greg Abbott’s executive order prohibiting mask mandates in schools violates the Americans with Disabilities Act — freeing local officials to again create their own rules. The order comes after a months long legal dispute between parents, a disability rights organization and Texas officials over whether the state was violating the 1990 law, known as the ADA, by not allowing school districts to require masks. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel barred Attorney General Ken Paxton from enforcing Abbott’s order. “The spread of COVID-19 poses an even greater risk for children with special health needs,”...

Heaps of garbage have been piling up across New York City as about 1,440 of the city's 7,200 sanitation workers, nearly 20%, are placed on administrative leave for not complying with Mayor Bill de Blasio's vaccine mandate for municipal workers – which Mayor-elect Eric Adams has promised to revisit. Adams won yesterday's mayoral election with a landslide 68 percent of the vote over Republican opponent Curtis Sliwa's 28.8 percent. He has already promised to sit down with unions to negotiate vaccine mandates that have not only impacted waste collection throughout the city but have also stretched the FDNY thin. As...

The study, published in the journal Nature and part-funded by the UK charity Worldwide Cancer Research, uncovers how palmitic acid alters the cancer genome, increasing the likelihood the cancer will spread. The researchers have started developing therapies that interrupt this process and say a clinical trial could start in the next couple of years. Newly published findings, led by researchers at IRB Barcelona, Spain, reveal that one such fatty acid commonly found in palm oil, called palmitic acid, promotes metastasis in oral carcinomas and melanoma skin cancer in mice. Other fatty acids called oleic acid and linoleic acid—omega-9 and omega-6...

U.S. consumers are spending more and ramping up credit card balances, reversing a shift during the COVID-19 crisis, when they scaled back spending and substantially paid down debt, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report showedon Tuesday. After rising by $17 billion in both the second and third quarters, credit card use appears to be returning to pre-pandemic patterns, the researchers said. However, balances were still $123 billion lower than at the end of 2019, according to the quarterly report on household debt and credit. "As pandemic relief efforts wind down, we are beginning to see the reversal of...

The Five' panel discuss day seven of the Rittenhouse trial in which the judge admonished the prosecution multiple times

In a nauseatingly melodramatic performance he choked back snot as he appeared to sob about how he feared for his life the day he shot and killed two people at a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Defense attorney Mark Richards tried to paint Rittenhouse as a misunderstood honorable, patriotic Boy Scout who simply liked to shoot guns. Rittenhouse is anything but. In a dramatic turn, Prosecutor Thomas Binger was scolded by Judge Bruce Schroeder after trying to impeach Rittenhouse's contradictory testimony about what led to the events on the day of the killings. Regardless of how Rittenhouse tries...

LANSING, MI—As fuel prices skyrocket across a country already dealing with porous and insecure borders, the Biden administration confirmed that it will shut down an oil pipeline in Michigan so it can be repurposed to carry illegal immigrants into the heart of America. Critics question whether the Biden administration’s decision to decrease the availability of gas while increasing the flow of illegal immigrants is a good decision, but those people are racist, according to experts. “We were told by MSNBC just this morning that inflation is actually a good thing,” said Press Secretary Jen Psaki, “That’s why this new migration...

The Justice Department is asking for the so-called QAnon Shaman, who wore a headdress and posed shirtless on the Senate floor during the siege of the US Capitol, to be sentenced to a prison term of more than four years, the longest incarceration prosecutors have asked for any guilty January 6 defendant so far, according to a new court filing. Prosecutors' request for the high-profile Capitol riot defendant Jacob Chansley is as a harsh assessment of his crime and calls him "quite literally, their flagbearer" among the mob on January 6. In their sentencing request to the judge filed late...

[Catholic Caucus] Don’t Avoid The SSPX. Avoid The VC II Church.The Diocese of Denver has “warned” their faithful from attending Mass at a chapel of the SSPX. Some people really are tone deaf. Such an appeal would have been dumb enough in normal times. People don’t attend at the SSPX chapel because they happen to be in the neighbourhood. They attend there because the TLM gives them a nourishment the Novus Ordo never could, and they want to give witness of sound Catholicism in the time of Francis. The dumbness becomes, then, absolutely idiotic if you consider that we live...

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says that the bipartisan $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill, which cleared Congress on Friday and is awaiting President Biden's signature, is a “godsend” for his state. McConnell spoke in Morehead, Ky., on Monday, noting the Bluegrass State has "a lot" of infrastructure needs after touring a facility for indoor farming company AppHarvest, according to CBS News affiliate WKYT. He pointed to Kentucky's infrastructure report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers, which gives it a C-minus. “I’m surprised we even got a C,” McConnell told WKYT. “We have a lot of infrastructure needs, both...

World leaders are currently meeting at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, also known as COP26, in Glasgow, Scotland to review the progress that has been made since the 2015 Paris Climate Accords and negotiate new, more ambitious goals for the future. On Wednesday, six major automakers—including Ford, General Motors, and Mercedes-Benz—and 30 national governments signed a pledge to stop sales of new gas and diesel vehicles by 2040 globally, and by 2035 in “leading markets.” However, the governments of three of the most significant car markets—the United States, China, and Japan—refrained from joining the pledge, as did major...

The North Palm Beach Country Club has added one more hazard on the course — a crocodile.The Village of North Palm Beach is warning people about the crocodile that's living in the golf course's ponds."It's kind of menacing looking and kind of scary with all the kids that we have here and all the activity out here," resident Jeff Egizio told WPTV.Egizio is one of the many residents who have taken notice."I haven't gotten that close and I don't think I will," he said.But Egizio has given the American crocodile a name — "Crikey." The village said the crocodile can't...

Video

A woman suspected of possessing and selling counterfeit COVID-19 vaccine cards has been arrested, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said Tuesday. Detectives began investigating after receiving a tip from the Department of Homeland Security Investigations about fake coronavirus vaccination cards shipped into the U.S. from China, according to a sheriff’s news release.

A Newsmax journalist has been permanently banned from Twitter for spreading Covid-19 misinformation just hours after getting her account back. A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to The Daily Beast that the social media platform had permanently suspended Newsmax White House correspondent Emerald Robinson after she repeatedly violated its rules against spreading Covid-19 misinformation.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins called on Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel to resign on the Todd Starnes Radio Show Wednesday. The Christian conservative leader told host Todd Starnes that McDaniel announced the “RNC Pride Coalition” without consulting RNC leadership over the weekend. “I think it’s time for her to take up something else and leave the party to those who I think can chart a path forward, restore what has been lost, and make sure that the Republicans, the conservatives regain the majority – both in Congress and continue to see victories in states across the...

"This is truly pure evil. Pfizer was given the go-ahead this week from the CDC to give the experimental COVID vaccine to children. Children have a greater chance of drowning, dying in a car wreck or dying from the flu than from the coronavirus. Children are not forced to take the flu vaccine. More children in Chicago have been shot this year than died from the coronavirus across the country. But Pfizer sees a new market potential of one billion humans for their experimental product. And they’re going for it. Pfizer released this disturbing ad telling children they’ll get superpowers...

'If this was a real investigation, that'd land you in jail for prosecutorial misconduct,' Rep. Jim Banks said.Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney ran to CNN a few weeks ago to accuse conservative stalwart Rep. Jim Banks of falsely presenting himself as the Jan. 6 commission’s ranking member. Banks is, in fact, congressional Republicans’ choice to be their top investigator on the committee, but he has been prevented from fulfilling his duties by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. However, it’s Cheney who appears to be misrepresenting herself as the ranking member — that is, the top Republican — on the committee....

Explanation: Many think it is just a myth. Others think it is true but its cause isn't known. Adventurers pride themselves on having seen it. It's a green flash from the Sun. The truth is the green flash does exist and its cause is well understood. Just as the setting Sun disappears completely from view, a last glimmer appears startlingly green. The effect is typically visible only from locations with a low, distant horizon, and lasts just a few seconds. A green flash is also visible for a rising Sun, but takes better timing to spot. A dramatic green flash...

The near certainty the United States would be drawn into WW II prompted creation of an autonomous Army Air Force. Until the war in Europe began, dominate Army doctrine gave the air corps no mission beyond supporting the ground forces. In opposition to this entrenched position, Giulio Douhet, an Italian general and air power theorist, maintained air power could shatter civilian moral and elicit demands to surrender by destroying a country’s vital centers. Now air power advocates fought and won the Pentagon battle for the authority to prove the theory that bombers could win wars.The instruments for this initiative in...