Free Republic

More than two-thirds of Germans are fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Nevertheless, significantly more people are currently dying due to the virus than they did in autumn 2020. Why is this happening?... ...current restrictions do not compare to those from last year. In the strict lockdown of last year, for example, clubs and bars were closed, and there personal meetings were tightly restricted. Indoor events were also largely prohibited... ..This considerable proportion of the population who are not vaccinated (or not fully vaccinated) plays a major role... Among people over 60, more than 3 million people have not yet been vaccinated....

Can the collective emission of the excited surface phonon trigger low-energy nuclear reactions? Song-Yuan Ding* , Jun-Rong Zheng, Zhong-Qun Tian State Key Laboratory for Physical Chemistry of Solid Surfaces, College of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, China E-mail: syding@xmu.edu.cn Low-energy nuclear reaction (LENR) in condensed matter is a very challenging topic due to the complex control parameters to reproduce the experiments, and the remarkable impact to human society. The resonant tunnelling optical model with coupled complex potentials [1] is very interesting due to its simplicity and interoperability. The model includes a complex Coulomb barrier with a...

...As residents took to the streets on Friday after the end of a 36-hour lockdown in Honiara, however, there was not yet any sign of the Australian peacekeepers, according to local journalist Georgina Kekea. And rioting continued in the center and east of the city. “It still hasn’t settled,” Kekea said in an interview. “I’ve been to Chinatown. There is basically nothing left there. There are only six buildings that are still standing, but otherwise most of the shops have been looted and burned. Scavengers are now … trying to look for whatever they can to carry back home.”.. ...Many...

A smuggler who sold copies of Netflix’s smash hit series “Squid Game” in North Korea has been sentenced to death by firing squad, according to a report. The man allegedly smuggled copies of the Korean-language show on USB drives from China into North Korea, where seven high-school students were caught watching the footage, sources told Radio Free Asia. A student who bought one of the flash drives received a life sentence, while six others who watched the footage have been sentenced to five years of hard labor. Teachers and administrators at the school were fired or face forced labor in...

Many people are enjoying some time off this week for Thanksgiving, but others are still hard at work. First responders, nurses, hotel employees and gas station attendants are just a few. “I’m happy I’m alive and might be able to help and be here,” Tom Arnold said. Arnold, who works at Go Go Gas in Essex Junction, says he’s grateful to be there, even on Thanksgiving. “I’m grateful for my health and what I’m able to do, sure. I’m 79 years old and I enjoy working,” he said. Like Arnold, Karen Norful, a front desk agent at the DoubleTree by...

MIAMI - The Biden administration’s plan to remove a Colombian rebel group from a list of foreign terrorist organizations barely caused a ripple outside Washington when the news broke this week. But in Florida, home to an estimated 150,000 Colombian American voters, it’s a different story. Biden’s policy is reverberating loudly among Democrats, leading some of the state’s top elected officials, strategists and activists to rail against the decision. “This is terrible. It’s bad policy. It’s bad politics,” said Florida state Sen. Annette Taddeo, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate who’s Colombian American. Calling the news “outrageous,” Taddeo criticized the Biden administration...

My latest song. This one is just a tad political.

A young woman who helped her boyfriend to target and murder an Irishman with the horrific drug devil’s breath has had her appeal application rejected by an English court. In March, Diana Cristea, 20, was convicted of helping her boyfriend Joel Osei kill Adrian Murphy in 2019 with an overdose of scopolamine. Osei targeted the 43-year-old through the gay dating app Grindr so they could drain his bank accounts and kill him.

Egypt unveiled a sacred road lined with thousands of statues on Thursday, which was used as a procession route for the gods 3,000 years ago. Called the Avenue of Sphinxes, this 1.7-mile stretch features more than 1,050 statues of sphinxes and rams that has been reconstructed with the hopes of attracting tourists from around the world. The ancient walkway, also known as the Way of the Rams and the Path of the Gods, connects the famous Karnak and Luxor temples in what was the city of Thebes, which used to be Egypt's capital in antiquity. ...The glitzy ceremony began at...

Dr Mario Lebrato had released the oceanic black tip shark back into waters just off the coast of Spain, however it was soon ambushed.Scientists were left in disbelief after spotting a 'zombie shark' still hunting for food - despite being half-eaten in an attack by other sharks. Dr Mario Lebrato had released the oceanic black tip shark back into waters just off the coast of Spain, however it was soon ambushed. The 35-year-old believes that the attack was carried out by bull sharks, which can weigh up to an incredible 400kg, according to the Mirror. Incredibly, the black tip shark...

“As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed. The slothful hideth his hand in his bosom; it grieveth him to bring it again to his mouth. The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason” (Proverbs 26:14-16).

A new photograph showing a moving object in the middle of the Solent has caused eyewitnesses to question if it was the Loch Ness Monster enjoying a holiday. The extraordinary sighting of three humps bobbing up and down in the water comes just days after a similar shape was spotted in The Thames by the O2 Arena in London. The picture - taken 630 miles away from Loch Ness - has resulted in Trevor and Jo Wilde questioning if it was Nessie swimming past. Three humps emerged from the water as the Nessie-shaped creature - first brought to the world's...

In BriefThe Facts:Amish communities of thousands in Lancaster, PA chose to not lockdown and instead went on with life in 2020. Their communities were infected by COVID but death rates were not any higher than other places. They lived life normally, did not wear masks and stuck to their values and culture.Reflect On:How much value should we put on living life to the fullest instead of focusing on reducing COVID cases at all costs? How many lives were lost as a result of harsh lockdowns?Pause - set your Pulse...Take a breath. Release the tension in your body. Place attention on...

A band of more than 17,000 crypto enthusiasts, identified as ConstitionDAO, had crowdfunded more than $40 million via social media earlier this week.Ken Griffin, billionaire CEO of hedge fund Citadel, paid $43.2 million for a first-edition copy of the U.S. Constitution at a Sotheby’s auction on Thursday, outbidding a group of cryptocurrency investors. The amount more than doubles its $20 million high estimate, setting a world auction record for any book, manuscript, historical document, or printed text, according to Sotheby’s. A band of more than 17,000 crypto enthusiasts, identified as ConstitionDAO, had crowdfunded more than $40 million via social media...

Staff at the the Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital in New York were given two options, get vaccinated, or be barred from working. Some chose the latter, causing a freestanding emergency room to cease operations. The Mount Sinai South Nassau hospital's freestanding emergency room in Long Beach has temporarily ceased operation after a New York state requirement that medical workers had to be vaccinated was not followed by all employees. The New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH)’s vaccine mandate was announced in August by then-governor Andrew Cuomo, and as The Daily Wire reports, exemptions were few and far between....

Click here to view the full articleWest Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin has been a thorn in the side of President Joe Biden and his administration and now he is fighting against one of the first things the president did.When Biden got into the White House, he ended the Keystone Pipeline and Sen. Manchin wants him to change his mind, The New York Post reported.Sen. Joe Manchin (D‑WV) shrugged at the Biden administration’s release of 50 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve on Tuesday, describing it as a “Band-Aid” on a “self-inflicted wound” and calling on the...

The youngest and most conservative service with some of the most consequential missions also has the lowest levels of compliance to the mandatory vaccine orders.The Marine Corps faces a defining moment leading up to its Monday deadline for all Marines to have received a coronavirus vaccine, with reports of a significant number who have refused the shot clashing with the service’s meticulously crafted image as the military’s most disciplined fighting force – and its most potent. Roughly 10,000 of its 186,000-strong active duty force are positioned to miss the deadline the Department of the Navy set for all Marines and...

A grandpa’s haunting Thanksgiving ghost story appeared to help two brothers uncover a near 200-year-old “murder mystery.” Bill and Frank Watson were told a chilling tale about 57 Irish immigrants who died at a railroad site in Pennsylvania during the cholera epidemic in 1832. The area is now known as “Duffy’s Cut” as the rail workers’ boss was named Philip Duffy. It is a stretch of tracks located around 30 miles from Philadelphia. The brothers were told the chilling tale by their grandpa – a railroad worker – every Thanksgiving. They believe the rail workers died violently and not from...

Disney-owned ESPN subscribers dropped precipitously in the last 12 months, shrinking another 10% to end fiscal 2021 on Oct. 2 with 76 million US households, according to a Friday SEC filing noted by Deadline.Within ESPN, college sports-oriented ESPNU fell from 62 million homes in 2020 to 51 million over the last year, while ESPN News slipped from 62 million to 50 million over the same period.The company said the drop - based on data from Nielsen, includes traditional Multichannel Video Programming Distributors (MVPDs) such as Comcast and DirectTV, as well as most digital Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming packages.For reference, ESPN boasted...

A former professional Premier League footballer has called for an investigation after yet another player suddenly collapsed in the middle of a match last night.Sheffield United midfielder John Fleck fell to the ground during his team’s game at Reading and had to be taken off on a stretcher after receiving lengthy treatment and being given an oxygen mask.The 30-year-old Scottish international “went down unchallenged before team-mates quickly waved medics on,” reports BBC News.Fleck was taken to hospital where he is said to be in good condition.The player becomes yet another unfortunate addition to a lengthy list of footballers and other...