Free Republic

A large Covid-19 testing provider is being investigated by the UK’s data privacy watchdog over its plans to sell swabs containing customers’ DNA for medical research. Cignpost Diagnostics, a government-approved supplier trading as ExpressTest, said it intended to analyse the samples to “learn more about human health”, to develop drugs and products or to sell information to third parties, company documents show. Analysis of sensitive medical data can typically be carried out only with explicit informed consent. But customers booking tests through expresstest.co.uk were not clearly told their data would be used for purposes beyond Covid-19 testing. Instead they were...

A former housing official who served under the Trump administration launched a campaign last week for the U.S. House, entering a race where he will attempt to primary a fellow Republican representing a district in West Michigan. Republican John Gibbs is running against freshman U.S. Rep. Peter Meijer (R-MI), who voted to impeach President Donald Trump on a charge of inciting insurrection after an unruly mob stormed the U.S. Capitol in January.

When people are buying products, that creates more competition and prices become LOWER as sellers try to offer a better price than their competitors...at least that's what my twelve-year-old daughter said to me. Breathtaking that a "President" can't figure that out.

While we see media going to all kinds of Orwellian lengths to defend the failures of Joe Biden, the opposite side of the coin is how much media will spin reality to attack Republicans. Now, we’ve seen bias when it comes to media. But the Washington Post’s Jen Rubin exceeds bias and moves right into outright lunacy with this mad rant at Republicans. First, she falsely claims that the Republican Party has been endorsing violence. But then she gets to the meat of what she wants to say — that the media has to have “rules” for how they treat...

NBC News senior business correspondent and MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle said Sunday on “Today” that the “dirty little secret” about soaring inflation was, on average, people have the money to pay more for goods.

Explanation: What is that light in the sky? Perhaps one of humanity's more common questions, an answer may result from a few quick observations. For example -- is it moving or blinking? If so, and if you live near a city, the answer is typically an airplane, since planes are so numerous and so few stars and satellites are bright enough to be seen over the din of artificial city lights. If not, and if you live far from a city, that bright light is likely a planet such as Venus or Mars -- the former of which is constrained...

The parade was linked to the graduation of 250 freshly trained soldiers, defence ministry spokesman Enayatullah Khwarazmi said. The exercise involved dozens of U.S.-made M117 armoured security vehicles driving slowly up and down a major Kabul road with MI-17 helicopters patrolling overhead. Many soldiers carried American made-M4 assault rifles. Most of the weapons and equipment the Taliban forces are now using are those supplied by Washington to the American-backed government in Kabul in a bid to construct an Afghan national force capable of fighting the Taliban.

Local police as well as police specializing in counter-terrorism are investigating the explosion, which took place outside Liverpool Women's Hospital in northwest England Sunday. Authorities are keeping "an open mind as to what caused the explosion," an earlier police statement said. "So far we understand that the car involved was a taxi which pulled up at the hospital shortly before the explosion occurred," according to the statement. The injured person is being treated in hospital and has not suffered life-threatening injuries, police said. The incident occurred at about 11 a.m. local time (6 a.m. ET). Members of the public are...

Friends it's Sunday night again and time to relax. Warm up the tubes for another 4 hours of classic radio Americana. Listen LiveInfo *tonight's show will be available at the "Info" link starting tomorrow.

Ghislaine Maxwell is to emerge from her New York prison cell on Monday after a 15-month wait for the start of a trial for sex trafficking children, perjury and the enticement of minors while she was a close associate of the late financier Jeffrey Epstein. The 59-year-old, the youngest child of the British newspaper magnate Robert Maxwell, has been held on remand in a Brooklyn detention centre since shortly after her arrest in July 2020. During lengthy jury selection procedures, international interest will focus on two key issues: first, the likelihood that Maxwell and her lawyers will offer up details...

Three snow leopards at the Children's Zoo in Lincoln, Nebraska, died of COVID just a month after testing positive Ranney, Everest, and Malaku had first tested positive for COVID on October 13, along with a pair of Sumatran tigers who have since made a full recovery Veterinarians attempted to treat the snow leopards with an aggressive regimen of steroids and antibiotics that ultimately proved unsuccessful It remains unknown as to whether the three snow leopards were vaccinated against the virus Reports of COVID infections are on the rise in the US as zoos in Denver and in St Louis, Missouri,...

Biden Targets the Religious Freedom of Federal Contractors His Labor Department seeks to rescind a Trump-issued rule protecting them.Joe Biden is systematically eliminating the religious freedom protections that Donald Trump established. The latest example of Biden’s secularist program comes from his Labor Department, which is planning to undo Trump’s policy of defending the religious freedom of federal contractors.Trump’s Labor Department protected federal contractors who “hold themselves out to the public as carrying out a religious purpose.”“Religious organizations should not have to fear that acceptance of a federal contract or subcontract will require them to abandon their religious character or identity,”...

OKLAHOMA CITY – In a move to protect Oklahoma’s frontline healthcare heroes from religious discrimination, the State of Oklahoma filed a lawsuit on Friday to block Ascension Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest healthcare networks, from carrying out its plan to fire employees who have been denied religious exemptions from Ascension’s nationwide COVID-19 vaccination mandate. In court filings, the Oklahoma Attorney General’s Office of Civil Rights Enforcement says it began an investigation into Ascension Healthcare after receiving several civil rights complaints. In reviewing the complaints, the attorney general says it determined the hospital system was summarily denying religious exemption requests...

QUID EST VERITAS: What did the Pope Really say to the President?President Joe Biden does not have a reputation as a “truth-teller.” Mr. Biden said the armed forces generals all told him to pull out of Afghanistan without leaving a small force. Under oath in testifying to Congress the top generals contradicted the President. Mr. Biden didn’t really visit the border, as he claimed in a recent town hall. He only drove by. It’s been proven he did not visit the Tree of Life synagogue after the massacre as he claimed. Newsweek magazine calls it “tortured logic” that allows Joe...

A man had two of the best tickets for the Masters. As he sits down, another man comes along and asks if anyone is sitting in the seat next to him. "No", he says, "the seat is empty. "This is incredible!" said the man, "who in their right mind would have a seat like this, the biggest golfing event of the whole world, and not use it?" He says, "Well, actually, the seat belongs to me. My wife always would come with me, but she passed away. This is the first Masters we haven't been to together since we got...

Aseem Malhotra, a cardiologist and chairman of the Public Health Collaboration, a charity, noted how in war zones heart attacks and strokes often increased among civilians after the conflict had ended. He suggested that the impact of the pandemic might be creating a similar phenomenon, helping to explain a surge in heart attacks caused by partially blocked arteries in the west of Scotland, after lockdowns this year.

WorldPride 2025 will take place in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, which will be the first time a WorldPride will be held in an East Asian country. Kaohsiung Pride beat out Washington, D.C.’s Capital Pride Alliance to host the event. Today’s decision came after more than 300 member organizations from around the world voted during InterPride’s 2021 general meeting, which was held virtually this week. InterPride is the organization behind WorldPride. The meeting featured performances by nonbinary actor and musician Kat Cunning. ...

The former head of the Food and Drug Administration warned Sunday that there’s “no question” that there will be a surge in COVID-19 cases after Thanksgiving gatherings. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who sits on the board of Pfizer, said he anticipates the uptick in cases already seen in more than a dozen states to continue after the Nov. 25 holiday.

For centuries, concrete was everywhere in Roman Italy: in the awesomely durable breakwaters of artificial harbors, in the soaring vaults of great baths, in the foundations of the Colosseum, and - of course - in the spectacular dome of the Pantheon. But during late antiquity, concrete all but vanished from the Mediterranean world, and would not be used widely again until the twentieth century. This video explains why.Chapters:0:00 Introduction0:39 Understanding Roman concrete1:29 Early experiments2:25 The apogee3:33 Squarespace!4:19 Geographic limits of Roman concrete5:00 The decline of concrete6:28 Final notices7:26 Not forgotten, but goneWhy was Roman Concrete Forgotten during the Middle Ages?...

As Glenn Reynolds likes to say, they told us that voting for Donald Trump would mean Congress would pass big tax breaks for the rich — and they were right! Democrats have spent the last four years complaining about Trump’s 2017 tax cuts and insist they want the rich to pay their fair share. Their latest change to Joe Biden’s Build Back Better plan imagines that most millionaires have overpaid. ----SNIP--- Of course, this is by design, and it’s getting pushed by blue states that impose the highest tax burdens in the country. The new-ish proposal raises the deduction cap...