Free Republic

For the first time since late September, the number of people in Los Angeles County hospitals with COVID-19 surpassed the 1,000 mark Tuesday, echoing a sharp upward trend in infections and a dramatic increase in the rate of people testing positive for the virus. According to state figures, there were 1,069 COVID-positive patients in Los Angeles County hospitals as of Tuesday, up from 966 on Monday. Of those patients, 207 were being treated in intensive care, up from 200 a day earlier. The increase is being closely watched by public health officials concerned that hospitals -- which expanded capacity to...

As he drives his golf cart around his small, immaculate desert ranch, Ray Epps appears at ease. He walks through the property he has transformed into a thriving wedding venue business, emphasizing the rustic charm of the location. The peaceful scene just outside Phoenix, Arizona, could not be more different from another incident where he was involved – the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6. Epps, 60, is not only a genial wedding host for rural areas, he is also the former president of the largest chapter of the Oath Keepers. In video footage taken on the day...

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid died Tuesday at the age of 82. Reid was born in rural Nevada where he quickly made his name in the state, serving in the Nevada Assembly in 1968 and two years later being elected the lieutenant governor of Nevada. He then went on to serve in Congress where we served for 34 years, becoming a star within the party. In 1986, Reid won his race for Senate.

Newly released surveillance footage may corroborate a Minnesota woman's claims that she was trapped and beaten by police during the Jan. 6 Capitol protest, her attorney argued Tuesday.Victoria White faces six federal charges related to her attendance at the Stop the Steal rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6. Her attorney Joseph McBride is pointing to a video that he argues shows his client being hit nearly 40 times in more than four minutes by Capitol police officers after she was pushed into the west terrace tunnel of the building.McBride wrote on Twitter that the 39-year-old Rochester mother of four...

Oil's recent bull move has some predicting further pain at the gas pump in 2022. Gas price tracking outfit GasBuddy predicted in a new report on Tuesday — which it shared exclusively with CNN —that the national average price for gas will reach $3.41 a gallon in 2022 compared to $3.02 this year. GasBuddy didn't rule out gas prices hitting $4 a gallon by the Memorial Day holiday. "No question about it," said Streible, on whether gas prices will march higher in 2022. Streible thinks oil prices are at risk of hitting $60 in the near-term due to an Omicron-related...

Indonesian authorities are attempting to send the group back after providing supplies, clothes and fuel, as well as a technician to fix their damaged boat. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, navy official Dian Suryansyah said Rohingya were not Indonesian citizens and the army could not “simply bring them in as refugees”. “This is in line with government policy,” he added. The wooden boat was first sighted two days ago, stranded about 70 nautical miles (130km) off the Indonesian coast, according to a local navy commander.

Covid-19 antigen tests may be less capable of detecting the fast-spreading Omicron variant, the Food and Drug Administration cautioned on Tuesday. The new warning is based on preliminary studies by the National Institutes of Health’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative using patient samples with live virus — analysis that “represents the best way to evaluate true test performance in the short-term,” according to FDA. “Early data suggests that antigen tests do detect the Omicron variant but may have reduced sensitivity,” the FDA said on Tuesday. Omicron's large number of mutations have raised the possibility that it could evade protections against...

The United Arab Emirates (UAE)’s recent cancelation of its plan to buy 50 Lockheed F-35 fighter jets worth $23 billion from the United States showed that the close trading partnership between the UAE and China could be playing a role. The cancelation means that the UAE has chosen Huawei’s 5G technology over the F-35, which is used by the US as a “favor” to form military alliances with other countries. At the US request, the UAE previously agreed to halt the construction of a logistic port that is being built by China. But this time, strong US pressure has failed...

COVID-19 has ebbed and flowed. Originally, we were warned it could be a Black Death-style disaster; it turned out to be more like a very serious influenza season, with perhaps two or three times the mortality of a normal flu, mostly concentrated among the elderly—a nontrivial social cost, but still a manageable situation. At various times, it also appeared that we were out of the woods. The grim experience of New York in early 2020 was not repeated in most of the rest of the country. Rather, the initial wave came and went far less dramatically, with the vast majority...

About two and a half years ago, we told readers China was panic hoarding food, which was several months before the virus pandemic began to spread worldwide; Beijing has managed to stockpile more than half of the world's maize and other grains that have resulted in rapid food inflation and triggered famine in some countries. In August 2019, we asked the question: Does China believe that we are on the verge of a major global crisis? The communist Chinese government has always been very big into planning, and it appears that they have decided that now is the time to...

Places with highest daily reported cases per capita Seven-day average of daily new reported cases per 100,000 residents

Congratulations to Steve Bannon for becoming the most trusted media source in America today. On Tuesday, far-left Media Matters announced the winner for ‘misinformer of the year’. This year’s award goes to Steve Bannon. What this proves is that Steve Bannon is constantly over the target. And as our readers know, Steve Bannon has been the absolute best at sharing the truth and unparalleled at confronting the Marxist onslaught in America today. If Americans want the truth all they have to do is watch Steve Bannon’s War Room and read The Gateway Pundit. Media Matters, the brainchild of dark and...

<p>While the fear of getting fired has risen sharply among C-suite executives due to various disruptive forces buffeting their businesses, a mere 3 percent identified COVID-19 as their top worry, according to the CEO of management consultancy AlixPartners.</p><p>In a Dec. 27 interview with Yahoo Finance, AlixPartners CEO Simon Freakley previewed some of the topline findings of the forthcoming 2022 AlixPartners Disruption Index, which surveyed over 3,000 senior executives globally across multiple industries to find out what keeps them awake at night.</p>

"I hope you don't mind if I do this," he began. "The world is mourning Bishop Tutu, who just died the other day. Can I remind the world that although he did some good things, a lot of good things on apartheid, the man was a rampant anti-Semite and bigot?" Dershowitz went on to claim that Tutu had minimized the Holocaust and "compared Israel to Nazi Germany." Dershowitz told Newsweek his remarks stemmed from Tutu's "criticism of Jews." "He didn't talk about the Israel lobby, he talked about the Jewish lobby," Dershowitz said. "He minimized the suffering of Jews during...

If you spend too much time observing the way politicians speak, you'll pick up an almost perceptibly mechanical gear-shift in their heads when the brain-groove reminds them to reproduce an anecdote or talking point they have formulated so many times before. Occasionally the subconscious rebels against the alienating monotony with apologetic prefix clauses like, "That's why I like to say," or "I always tell the story that," but the pre-sets mostly override such human twitches to deliver the desired political result.So it was for President Joe Biden's counterproductive "pandemic of the unvaccinated" slogan, which the White House COVID-19 Response Team...

“[Christ] is . . . the first-born of all creation” (Colossians 1:15). Christ is the preeminent inheritor over all creation. Puritan minister Thomas Manton once said, “Heresies revolve as fashions, and in the course of a few years antiquated errors revive again, and that by their means who did not so much as know them by name.” He was right: false doctrines keep repeating themselves through the ages, only to reappear under different names. From the Arians of the early church to the Jehovah’s Witnesses of our own day, cultists have sought to deny our Lord’s deity. One of the...

News AnalysisThere is a growing belief among some Western analysts that increasingly closer relations between Beijing and Moscow—driven by economics or great-power politics—could eventually blossom into a military alliance.Most, however, are more doubtful that the countries will be able to build, in Joseph Nye’s words, “a serious partnership to challenge the West.”Alliances are based on mutual utility: each partner must be demonstrably useful to the other. And, frankly, Russia offers little advantage to China.In the first place, Russia is barely a great power, let alone a superpower. The most generous economic data give the country a GDP of around US$4.3...

STOCKTON, Mo. (KY3) - A special prosecutor filed eight new charges against a Stockton doctor wanted for sex crimes while associated with the Agape Boarding School. Dr. David Smock, 56, is on the run from law enforcement. KY3 News learned of eight new charges filed by a special prosecutor, including one count of sexual misconduct, five counts of statutory sodomy, one count of child molestation, and a count of child enticement. Smock also faces charges of second-degree statutory sodomy, third-degree child molestation of a child less than 14 years of age, and enticement or attempted enticement of a child less...

Washington Democrats hope to go easy on drive-by murderers in order to promote racial equity for criminals. It’s the latest light-on-crime scheme pushed under the guise of being anti-racist. House Bill 1692 lessens the criminal penalties for drive-by shootings. It prohibits using a drive-by shooting as a basis for elevating a first degree murder charge to an aggravated first degree murder. The bill is also retroactive, lessening punishment for those already found guilty in drive-by shooting cases. It even offers carve-outs to release felons from jail if they committed their violent act when they were under 21-years-old. The bill’s sponsors,...

A family being checked for vaccine passports in NYC. Credit: Cyn Clagar/Twitter video screenshot New York City is one of the most restrictive cities in the country with a vaccine passport imposed to allow people to enter many public places — including restaurants — since September.But some folks against the mandates have been trying to challenge that, entering restaurants without the passport and protesting. In response, the NYPD has been making arrests.Last night some people went to a Burger King to order food. They were refused service because they didn’t have vaccine passports and were arrested. Five were charged...