Free Republic

Michael Gove is leading the push for tougher Plan C Covid-19 restrictions, including 'pub passports', after pandemic modelling showed the Omicron variant could cause more hospitalisations than last winter. However, Boris Johnson and Downing Street are said to be resisting Mr Gove's calls for a new crackdown, as the Prime Minister faces a revolt from his own Conservative party in a vote over the introduction of Plan B rules. A commons vote is set to be held on Tuesday over the Plan B measures, which require face masks to be worn in non-hospitality venues, and ask people to work from...

Ex-Army officer Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a socialist looking to replace GOP Congresswoman Nicole Malliotakis, bared more than her soul at an anti-war burlesque show at a Brooklyn bar, video obtained by The Post shows. “In the era when Democrats are seen as disorderly and out of control, all this does it make it more difficult to elect Democrats.”

..... Professor Gili Regev-Yochay, head of the Infectious Diseases Department at the Gertner Institute for Health Policy and Epidemiology, on Saturday night briefed reporters on a new research done at Sheba Medical Center. The research showed that the COVID-19 vaccine is four times less effective against the Omicron variant than it was against the Delta variant. "Those who are vaccinated with a third dose have a much lower chance of serious disease from the Omicron variant, but there is still a chance they will contract it," Prof. Regev-Yochay said. According to her, the less great news is that those who...

On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg TV’s “Wall Street Week,” economist Larry Summers stated that “we’re going to entrench inflation way above 2%, perhaps in the 4% or even higher range, unless something happens to break the current mood,” and the Build Back Better reconciliation bill will increase inflation over the next two years, but it could be offset by the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy.

On Friday’s broadcast of Bloomberg TV’s “Wall Street Week,” Steve Rattner, who served as counselor to the Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration, said that it will “take multiple years” to work inflation out of the economy, and “it is going to be painful. And it’s going to be painful for growth. It’s going to be painful for jobs.”

A Chicago bus driver landed in the hospital after he was beaten on the streets Saturday night, resulting in a 15-year-old boy being arrested. The bus driver, 49, was inspecting his bus at about 9 p.m. after he heard a loud sound. He was reportedly pushed and punched by both a male and female, police said. An unidentified 15-year-old boy was charged with a felony count of aggravated battery of a transit employee and disorderly conduct in connection. Footage allegedly showing the incident has spread on social media. A large group of youths is seen surrounding the bus driver and...

Dad Joke of the Day

Video. No You Tube. A large explosion rocked a Palestinian Arab camp in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre on Friday night, Reuters reported. The explosion took place at a reported weapons depot belonging to Hamas terrorist organization, which maintains a presence in a number of Palestinian Arab camps in Lebanon, a PA source said. The Lebanese Army quickly cordoned off the area, according to the state-run National News Agency, which also reported deaths and injuries resulting from the explosion but the details of those are not yet known. Lebanese residents who are registered as “Palestinian refugees” and their...

A Florida man used a flamethrower on a car with three teenagers inside after he was angry about a running feud with his neighbor's parking habits. Andre Abrams, 57, admitted to using a flamethrower, which shoots flames up to 20 feet, towards his neighbor's parked car over what he says is a long-running feud over their parking. However, he denied targeting the teens, police said. "This family, how could I say this—the worst thing that could ever happen to a neighborhood," Abrams said. "They've had issues with other residents, and it needs to be brought to light." Armani Singleton, one...

The Hamas terror group held ceremonies throughout Gaza on Friday to mark the 34th anniversary of the outbreak of the First Intifada, which they claim was a sign of commitment to continue the struggle for the liberation of "Palestine." Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas figure, said in a rally in northern Gaza (as reported in the Falastin newspaper) that Hamas continues on the path of jihad and the struggle in all its forms, particularly that of armed resistance against Israel. According to him, Jerusalem will remain the organization's central purpose... Masri added that the "Palestinian" people are in an open...

CLAYTON COUNTY, Ga. (CBS46) -- Parents of students at Mundy’s Mill High School are begging administrators for a safer school, as videos of fights and social media threats circulate amongst students. One video shows a mob of more than a dozen teenagers punching one another. In an attempt to stop the attack, the school’s assistant principal throws one student to the ground, picks her up by the waist, and carries her upside-down away from the brawl. Parents like Teewanna Royal-Akins are frustrated and scared to send students to school. “It’s sad. There’s so much going on in that school and...

ASHLAND, Ky. (WSAZ) - A gas station clerk says if not for the brave actions of a couple regular customers, she could’ve been badly hurt or worse. Baljindei Kaur owns the store in the 2200 block of Winchester Avenue in Ashland. After her husband died last month, her niece Navpreet Kaur came from California to help out. A little before 9 a.m. Thursday, Navpreet was behind the counter when she says a woman, later identified as 36-year-old Felicia Helton, came into the store and paid $2 for gas. The clerk says Helton came back in soon afterward with a pop...

Police said an estimated 44,000 people attended the demonstration on Saturday, the latest in a string of huge weekend protests since Austria last month became the first EU country to say it would make COVID-19 vaccinations mandatory. “No to vaccine fascism,” read one protest sign. “I’m not a neo-Nazi or a hooligan,” said another. “I’m fighting for freedom and against the vaccine.” Vaccination is to be obligatory from February for all residents older than 14, except in the case of a dispensation for health reasons. Nobody will be vaccinated by force, the government has said, but those who refuse the...

Wisconsin is a case study in the kind of ho-hum execution of elections that chips away at Americans' confidence in our elections. After a 10-month review of the 2020 election in the Dairy State, the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty has compiled its findings — which set off alarm bells about the state’s massive election integrity shortcomings and reveal weaknesses the swing state must shore up before the next election. The review, which WILL said it approached “without presumption as to what it would find,” included polling, surveys, an inspection of the law, interviews with elected officials, an analysis...

China continues to rely on its connections with dozens of U.S. universities to collect what it deems is sensitive information in a collaborative effort to build up its military modernization, a report found this week. A report released Thursday by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank found that China is using its existing relationships with U.S. universities to collect information and technological know-how "to achieve Chinese military dominance." "China’s civilian university system play a major role in China’s military-industrial complex, including its nuclear and cyber-espionage programs," the report found. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has "ordered" civilian universities...

Observations | Local/National Analysis Aerial Damage Photos | Ground Damage Photos | Xenia F5 Track Map The April 3-4, 1974 Super Outbreak affected 13 states across the eastern United States, from the Great Lakes region all the way to the Deep South. In all, 148 tornadoes were documented from this event, of which 95 were rated F2 or stronger on the Fujita scale and 30 were F4 or F5. Aside from all the castastrophic damage they left behind, the tornadoes resulted in Detailed Super Outbreak tornado path and intensity analysis, hand drawn by Dr. T. Theodore Fujita of University of...

Julian Assange has had a stroke in Belmarsh Prison, his fiancee Stella Moris revealed last night. The WikiLeaks publisher, 50, who is being held on remand in the maximum-security jail while fighting extradition to America, was left with a drooping right eyelid, memory problems and signs of neurological damage. He believes the mini-stroke was triggered by the stress of the ongoing US court action against him, and an overall decline in his health as he faces his third Christmas behind bars.

President Joe Biden will not attend the annual Army vs. Navy football game on Saturday according to his weekend schedule. The president’s public schedule for Saturday is empty after Biden and his wife, first lady Jill Biden, traveled to their home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday night for the weekend.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, in his last few weeks in office, is attempting to silence parents critical of public education policies, according to two parent leaders. Proposed Chancellor’s Regulation D-210 would give the Department of Education (DOE) the authority to “discipline and remove” elected parents from Community Education Councils (CEC) — the city’s version of a school board — if they criticize the school district they are charged with holding accountable, write former District 2 CEC president Maud Maron and current District 2 CEC vice president Danyela Souza Egorov in the New York Post.

A Fordham University professor was fired after mixing up the names of two black students in class, according to a report. Hours after what he called an “innocent mistake,” lecturer Christopher Trogan, 46, sent a rambling, nine-page email to students in his Composition II classes explaining the faux pas — and defending, without being asked, his “entire life” of working on “issues of justice, equality, and inclusion,” the campus newspaper reported. “The offended student assumed my mistake was because I confused that student with another Black student,” Trogan wrote, according to a Nov. 29 article in the Fordham Observer. “I...