Free Republic

PARIS — Vice President Kamala Harris spent hours talking with Emmanuel Macron, the French president, managing to skirt a recent diplomatic rift between the two allies over an Australian submarine deal. She attended a conference on promoting democratic elections in Libya. And she secured a commitment for the United States to join a nonbinding international declaration to protect civilians against cyberattacks. During a tightly choreographed trip to France this week, Harris appeared determined to assert herself as a diplomatic asset for a president who believes he knows more about the process — and the vice presidency — than most. The...

CANAAN, Conn. (AP) — Eight residents of a nursing home in northwestern Connecticut have died during a coronavirus outbreak, while 89 residents and employees have tested positive for the disease, according to nursing home officials. The outbreak at the Geer Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Canaan began Sept. 30, officials said in a statement Friday. The eight residents who died had serious health problems, chief executive Kevin O’Connell and nursing director Cady Bloodgood said. Those who tested positive included 67 residents and 22 staff members. Officials said 48 residents and 21 employees have recovered.

Talks of longtime Democrat representative and Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-NY) retiring are starting to grow as other prominent committee chairman announce retirement and the party is losing momentum to keep their House majority in the midterms

The burgers were produced from Aug. 16 to Sept. 29, 2021. Trader Joe’s says the burgers have been removed from stores and are no longer for sale. However, consumers who bought these burgers, which are packaged in 1-pound boxes, and still have them in their freezer should check to see whether they’re part of the recall. The lot code to look for on the box is 2281, 2291, 2311, 2351, 2361, 2371, 2441, 2511, 2521, 2531, 2561, 2591, 2601, 2671, or 2721. In addition, the packages will have “EST. P-8276” printed near the USDA mark of inspection.

In pockets of the country, state education officials and local school boards are responding to complaints from some parents by removing books from schools and conducting widespread audits of school libraries, to weed out texts deemed inappropriate for students. But these efforts have sparked blowback from authors and advocacy groups, who say the removals -- which tend to target texts on culturally sensitive topics -- risk depriving certain students from reading books that reflect their own lives and enhance their cultural literacy. In northern Virginia, a state whose candidates for governor sparred this fall over critical race theory, a county...

Lukashenko’s regime...has eased entry requirements for arrivals from the Middle East and elsewhere who pay for Belarus-organized packages including visas, flights and hotels in Minsk before getting in taxis or buses to the border with Poland... Belarusian border guards help migrants get though the border fence and into Poland, according to interviews with more than a dozen migrants detained in Poland or stuck in the forests along the border. They described Belarusian forces pulling down or cutting through barbed wire and shuttling migrants up and down the 250-mile border — now heavily guarded and fortified by Poland — to find...

STATE COLLEGE, Pennsylvania—More than 200 people attended a medical freedom rally on the steps of Old Main at Penn State University on Friday. They are part of a national trend as more people facing unwanted COVID-19 vaccinations are gathering and speaking publicly about the difficult choice they face: get the shots or leave your job. The measure stems from President Joe Biden’s mandates requiring many workplaces to ensure employees are vaccinated. At Penn State, employees may apply for religious or medical exemption from the vaccine mandate. Those who get the exemption would have to get tested weekly to assure they...

Gov. Kevin Stitt on Wednesday named Brig. Gen. Thomas Mancino the new adjutant general for Oklahoma and commander of the Oklahoma Army and Air National Guard. Mancino had been assistant adjutant general for the Oklahoma Army National Guard since September 2019 and has been a Guard member for 35 years. "I am pleased to promote General Mancino to this new role,” Stitt said in a news release announcing the appointment. “He is a steady leader, a strategic thinker, an effective communicator and he is the perfect choice to lead the Oklahoma National Guard." Mancino served on the Governor's Solution Task...

Mihrigul Tursun, a survivor of China’s concentration camp system, urged the National Basketball Association (NBA) in remarks to Breitbart News on Friday to condemn China’s human rights abuses. Tursun also warned star player LeBron James, one of China’s biggest business partners in the league, to distance himself from the regime “because money cannot do everything.” Tursun was participating in a march Friday organized by the East Turkistan Government in Exile in Washington, DC, the purpose of which was to demand that the administration of President Joe Biden act to protect the Uyghur people from the ongoing genocide they are enduring...

The Department of Defense will respond "appropriately" to a decision this week by the Oklahoma National Guard to rescind the Pentagon's requirement for service members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Driving the news: "We are aware of the memo issued by the Oklahoma Adjutant General regarding COVID vaccination for Guardsmen and the governor’s letter requesting exemption. We will respond to the governor appropriately," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told Axios in a statement. "That said, Secretary Austin believes that a vaccinated force is a more ready force. That is why he has ordered mandatory vaccines for the total force, and that...

Today, New York health care professionals have asked for emergency relief from the U.S. Supreme Court in their lawsuit against Governor Kathy Hochul, Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Howard A. Zucker, and Attorney General Letitia James against the state’s unlawful COVID shot mandate. The health care workers have alternatively also asked the High Court to review the case. The case goes to Justice Sonia Sotomayor for review. The plaintiffs appealed to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The “Mandatory COVID-19 Vaccination Policy” applies to health care workers in...

“Pastors cannot be expected to have the same level of skill, training and experience as professional therapists,” said Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE). “Pastors have a shepherding and counseling role to play, but should refer when people need the next layer of care. Pastors should also play a role in minimizing stigma around seeing therapists.” Several evangelical leaders noted that a key challenge for pastors is discerning when they have both the skill and the necessary time to help, and when they should refer. Most leaders indicated that pastors deal well with mental health issues...

The Planner and the Purloiner. I love to plan family events and this year for thanksgiving I almost had my best laid plans purloined! I was in Walmart trying to purchase a smoked ham and so I asked an employee where they were. She began guiding me to the open freezer where they were displayed. She stated “there is one left, I think”. Oh my! I thought, and so I put my scooter on rabbit speed and raced ahead! On the way and almost there I saw a man hurrying towards the freezer too. Oh no! I used my scooter...

Saule Omarova, President Joe Biden’s nominee for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), called during a March 2021 virtual conference to eliminate all private bank accounts and deposits. Omarova discussed one of her papers, “The People’s Ledger How to Democratize Money and Finance the Economy,” which would help “redesign” the financial system and make the economy “more equitable for everyone.” She said it would change the “private-public power balance” and democratize finance to a more systemic level. During her conference speech, she said, “There will be no more private bank accounts, and all of the deposit accounts...

The Walgreens in San Francisco's Noe Valley neighborhood was temporarily closed this week because of a "severe rat infestation," and the store will not reopen until it passes an inspection, a report from the San Francisco Department of Public Health revealed. Inspectors visited the store at 1333 Castro, near 24th Street, on Nov. 8, and ordered immediate closure of the store due to "imminent health hazards that could not be immediately corrected." A report from the inspector noted that food was "contaminated and/or adultered" by vermin on the sales floor and in an upstairs storage area. "Observed containers of noodles,...

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Another Kansas school district is extending its Thanksgiving break to a full week to give overwhelmed staff a reprieve. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the school board approved a plan Friday to turn Nov. 22 and Nov. 23 — a Monday and a Tuesday — into wellness and self-care days. Staff already had the rest of the week off. Superintendent Anthony Lewis told the board during the meeting that the time off was needed because faculty and staff were at a breaking point from the stress and other difficulties caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic...

The same couple that was caught on video stealing shopping carts full of laundry detergent and several hundreds of dollars of items from a Connecticut supermarket has now been recorded rolling several large screen TVs out of another store. Police said they have identified at least two of the suspects and linked them to similar crimes across Connecticut and outside the state. Cops are withholding publicly identifying the two suspects because investigations are still ongoing, FOX 61 News reported. The thieves would face only misdemeanor larceny charges because the total value of the stolen goods was between $1,000 and $2,000....

Blues guitarist Robert Cray has dropped out of Eric Clapton’s U.S. tour citing the British guitar legend’s anti-lockdown stance as well as his public opposition to coronavirus vaccine mandates. In an interview with the Washington Post, Cray said he backed out from a tour with Clapton after the latter released a song last year comparing lockdowns to slavery. The song in question is “Stand And Deliver,” a joint release with fellow sceptic Van Morrison that saw Clapton sing: “Do you wanna be a free man / Or do you wanna be a slave? / Do you wanna wear these chains...

Dr. Aditi Bhargava, professor in the department of Ob/Gyn at the University of California, gave her testimony during a three-hour panel discussion hosted by U.S. Senator Ron Johnson on 3 November in Washington D.C.Prof. Bhargava is a molecular neuroendocrinologist with research focus on sex differences in stress biology and immunology. She has written several articles about Covid injections and – with Dr. Peter Doshi, senior editor at the British Medical Journal – co-authored an article titled, Vaccine Passports: Institutionalised Segregation.Her testimony in Washington D.C. covered vaccine safety, vaccine trials and natural immunity which is the “gold standard” and “mandates to...

It’s no secret that pandemic-related government policy is driving at least some of the inflation currently being experienced in the United States. Indeed, real disposable income per capita has deviated from a linear trend in a meaningful way since 2020. The recent “breakout” in real disposable income was on top of the (much smaller) juicing provided by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in 2018, so it’s fair to say households have been feeling flush for some time now. As we will get to shortly, flush households mean more consumer spending. More consumer spending drives prices higher, especially when supply...