Free Republic

Universities are supposed to be bastions of critical thinking, reason and logic. But the COVID policies they have adopted — which have derailed two years of students’ education and threaten to upend the upcoming spring semester — have exposed them as nonsensical, anti-scientific and often downright cruel. Some of America’s most prestigious universities are leading the charge. At Georgetown University, fully vaccinated students are randomly tested for COVID weekly. A positive PCR test, which can detect tiny amounts of dead virus, sends asymptomatic students to a room in a designated building where they spend 10 days in confinement. Food is...

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

The Department of Justice today announced a new rule to help enable the safe and secure storage of firearms and published a Best Practices Guide for federal firearms licensees (FFLs). This new rule implements the existing Gun Control Act requirement that federal firearms licensees that sell firearms to the general public (non-licensees) must certify that they have available secure gun storage or safety devices. “Today’s announcements build on the department’s efforts to reduce the risk of firearms falling into the wrong hands,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. “Gun safety is a Department of Justice priority, and we will continue...

An ancient Egyptian "garbage dump" discovered within a temple honoring the powerful female Pharaoh Hatshepsut is piled high with offerings to a fertility goddess, archaeologists report.Archaeologists unexpectedly found the rubbish heap in a tomb within the 3,500-year-old Hathor cult complex, a three-temple complex that sits within the Hatshepsut Temple at Deir el-Bahari (also spelled Deir el-Bahri), near Luxor. Even though the dump was hidden in an early Middle Kingdom tomb, many of the artifacts in the dump date to the New Kingdom, which includes the 18th, 19th and 20th dynasties...Many of these artifacts are votive offerings — special objects, like...

Al ha-mishmar⁩ - ⁨על המשמר⁩⁩ 20 July 1960 A German Weekly Reveals: Eichmann helped Arabia against Israel Bonn, Tuesday. - Adolf Eichmann continued his war against Jews at the end of World War II with the help of zealous Arabs - writes the widely circulated West German weekly "Bunte Deutsche Illustrierte". The weekly illustrated publishes a message, given to his correspondent Bruno Arnold, in the Sinai desert, by "Sheikh Ahmad," whose identity has not been disclosed. "Eichmann, who exterminated more Jews than all of us together, provided us with the weapons we are fighting against Israel. We swore to die...

...the sources of silver used to produce Roman coinage have largely been used up, making it difficult to determine which deposits Roman miners exploited...The Iberian Peninsula, which includes modern Spain and Portugal, is host to world-class silver deposits, especially in the southern region. These deposits contain galena, which is the main ore of lead and an important source of silver. To extract silver, the galena ore is smelted and purified, with refined silver for coin minting able to reach a purity of over 95%.To track the source of Roman silver, the team of researchers analyzed the silver and lead compositions...

Police in Jerusalem seized a hoard of stolen antiquities that date to a 1,900-year-old Jewish rebellion against the Romans. The cache had been dug up by tomb robbers from a tunnel complex.The hoard included hundreds of coins, incense burners and a number of ceramics with decorations on them, including a jug that has a carving of a reclining figure holding a jug of wine. Researchers believe that during the Bar Kokhba revolt (A.D. 132-135), Jewish rebels captured the items from Roman soldiers and stored them in a tunnel complex where modern-day robbers found them, the Israel Antiquities Authority said in...

A research team has found high levels of three toxic metabolites produced by gut bacteria in the cerebrospinal fluid and plasma samples of multiple sclerosis (MS) patients. The findings further scientists' understanding of how gut bacteria can impact the course of neurological diseases by producing compounds that are toxic to nerve cells. Previously published evidence has supported the concept that an imbalance in the gut microbiota—the community of organisms that live in the human intestines—may underly a range of neurological disorders. "Our findings suggest that MS patients' gut bacteria produce and release large amounts [of] p-cresol-sulfate, indoxyl-sulfate and N-phenylacetylglutamine into...

The Montana judiciary is in deep trouble. The Wall Street Journal picked up on a local story that has been exploding since last April but has just now started to get national attention. In April, the Montana judiciary was caught red-handed lobbying against bills that would lead to more accountability for judges. This comes right on the heels of the scathing Wall Street Journal report that found hundreds of judges refusing to recuse themselves from hearing cases in which they had financial investments — a story that reached even the Supreme Court — as the judiciary is being exposed. ......

Secretary of State Raffensperger says subpoenas could be forthcoming. Georgia authorities have launched an investigation into an allegation of systematic ballot harvesting during the state's 2020 general election and subsequent U.S. Senate runoff and may soon issue subpoenas to secure evidence, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger confirmed to Just the News. Georgia law strictly prohibits third-party activists from picking up and delivering ballots on behalf of voters, a tactic called "harvesting" that liberal organizers have tried to get legalized in many battleground states without success. The U.S. Supreme Court this summer rejected Democrat efforts to overturn an Arizona law...

Archaeologists from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) have uncovered two objects in Oslo inscribed with Norse runic text.Excavations were being conducted in Oslo’s Medieval Park ‘Middelalderparken’ in what was once the southern part of the medieval city of Oslo. The park contains the ruins of St. Clement’s Church, St. Mary’s Church, and the former Oslo Kongsgård estate royal estate.Researchers discovered a bone inscribed in Norse and a piece of wood with inscriptions on three sides in both Norse and Latin.Professor Kristel Zilmer from the University of Oslo, who specialises in writing culture (runology) and iconography has studied...

Record-breaking Jeopardy! contestant Amy Schneider fell victim an armed robbery close to her Oakland home, which saw her phone, credit cards and ID stolen. Schneider, 42, revealed she'd suffered upsetting crime on her Twitter account on Monday, shortly before she was seen on TV later on the same evening scoring her 24th straight victory on the iconic game show. 'Hi all! So, first off: I'm fine,' she tweeted earlier on Monday. 'But I got robbed yesterday, lost my ID, credit cards, and phone. I then couldn't really sleep last night, and have been dragging myself around all day trying to...

A total of 280 patients presenting 280 eyes were enrolled and received a series of ocular examinations. Each of our specially designed capsules contained 190 mg bromelain, 95 mg papain and 95 mg ficin. Results: In Experiment 1, 80 subjects with one SVO (symptomatic vitreous opacity, or “eye floater”) were reduced to 24 cases (30.0%; 24/80), 40 participants with multiple SVOs were decreased to 11 cases (27.5%; 11/40) three months later. In Experiment 2, the numbers of patients with SVOs in the placebo group was similar after three months. The disappeared rates of SVOs by treatment with fruit enzymes was...

Dublin, Ireland, Jan 4, 2022 / 12:00 pm (CNA). Ireland is preparing to follow France in offering free contraception to women under 25 years of age. The French government introduced the measure on Jan. 1, while the Irish authorities have promised to make contraception free for women aged between 17 and 25 years from August. French officials said that the change would apply to three million young women out of a population of 67.4 million people. Contraception is already free for minors (under 18s). Along with Sweden, France has the highest total fertility rate of the 27 member states of...

Ghislaine Maxwell could lodge a claim of mistrial after it emerged one of the jurors who convicted her was a victim of child sex abuse. Scotty David said he had helped the other members of the jury understand things from a victim's point of view. He also claimed the five guilty verdicts returned last week, possibly condemning Maxwell to spend the rest of her life behind bars, were for 'all the victims'. But legal experts said if he did not disclose his past experiences before the jury deliberations, Maxwell could have grounds to claim a mistrial and have her convictions...

Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany shared a video that could potentially damage Joe Biden's political reputation. Republican personalities, pundits and independent websites are accusing President Joe Biden of telling lies that he will shut it down (you know what I'm talking about) and it has not been shut down yet. Biden is by no means a medical expert and for him to constantly say...

An affiliated Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group has been removed from the organisation’s online directory and ‘separated’ for saying the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ and including some Christian content in their meetings. The group, which was hosting the meetings in a church in Yeovil, Somerset, was told that it would be removed from AA’s register because a new member of the group felt ‘uncomfortable’. AA was formed in 1935 through the inspiration of an American Lutheran Minister, Frank Buchman. Buchman had suffered from alcoholism before a dramatic conversion to Christianity in Keswick which transformed his life. Buchman went on to co-found the Oxford...

Seven-year-old children performed better on a challenging task requiring sustained attention if their mothers consumed twice the recommended amount of choline during their pregnancy. The study, which compared these children with those whose mothers had consumed the recommended amount of choline, suggests that the recommended choline intake for expectant mothers does not fully meet the needs of the fetal brain. "Our findings suggest population-wide benefits of adding choline to a standard prenatal vitamin regimen," said Barbara Strupp, professor. Choline—found in egg yolks, lean red meat, fish, poultry, legumes, nuts and cruciferous vegetables—is absent from most prenatal vitamins, and more than...

COMMENTARY: Forty years later, the papal correction Pope St. John Paul II directed at the Society of Jesus still hasn’t taken hold.Forty years ago on New Year’s Eve there was heightened anticipation in Rome, even tension, for the singing of the Te Deum — the Church’s traditional hymn of thanksgiving to God — at the conclusion of the civil year. What would St. John Paul II say at the end of 1981? Would he comment upon the assassination attempt in May, or the declaration of martial law in Poland in December? Those tragic topics were not the source of tension....

Research has shown for the first time the scale of the impact of a condition associated with benign tumors that can lead to type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Up to 10 percent of adults have a benign tumor, or lump, known as an 'adrenal incidentaloma' in their adrenals—glands situated on top of the kidneys which produce a variety of hormones. The lumps can be associated with the overproduction of hormones including the stress steroid hormone cortisol, which can lead to type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure. Previous small studies suggested that one in three adrenal incidentalomas produce...