Free Republic

"Union claims rise in COVID cases makes classroom instruction unsafe Chicago teachers are preparing to strike over what they say are unsafe working conditions caused by a spike in coronavirus cases. The Chicago Teachers Union has scheduled a Tuesday vote to determine whether its 25,000 members will refuse to return to the classroom, WBEZ reported. On Sunday, more than 6,000 union members at a virtual town hall said they would not feel safe resuming classroom instruction following winter break. Chicago schools were set to reopen Monday, though some schools have already moved to remote learning without district approval. ..."

"A few liberals appear eager to blame Virginia's Republican governor-elect for a mess he has no power over. Some social media accounts are blaming Gov.-elect Glenn Youngkin for the hundreds of drivers stuck on I-95 due to Monday's snowstorm, though Youngkin has not been sworn into office. [RIDICULOUS TWEETS] Several accounts responded immediately to these accusations, pointing out that Ralph Northam is still governor as of Jan. 4. Youngkin, who won the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial election, is expected to be sworn in on Jan. 15. ..."

"With wokeness and cancel culture becoming a common occurrence in the United States, and across the globe, one entertainment consultant is claiming that Glee sparked the movement, and gave said movement the terminology it frequently uses nowadays. Tumblr user twelveclara posted about the phenomenon on the blogging website in September of 2017, writing the following post: "[The Glee fandom is] not history, its blood. i still see it all over this website. the vague posts. the deactivated urls. where do u think the word problematic became popular. where do u think the representational anger started. glee was the hungry gaping...

The Chicago Teachers Union voted to teach virtually rather than in the classroom, triggering a cancellation of classes Wednesday which the school district leadership warned would happen if the union vote passed. Chicago Public Schools, the third-largest school district in the country, resumed in-person learning Monday in conditions union leaders described as unsafe as the Omicron virus variant sent Covid-19 cases soaring around the country. The union held an emergency meeting Tuesday evening to hold the vote by its delegates (elected union leaders for individual schools) on virtual teaching and then poll its 25,000 members electronically. The vote was 73%...

"Joe Biden has spent 95 of his 348 days President on vacation, mostly in Delaware. That equates to a quarter of the Biden regime’s first year in office, at the time of writing, being spent doing anything other than being President during one of the most crisis-ridden times in modern human history. ..."

BC Broadcaster Rabbi YY Rubinstein announced he would resign from the broadcasting corporation due to "inexcusable" antisemitism on Monday. Rubinstein posted his resignation letter on Facebook, writing it is "a very sad moment" for him. He wrote that his resignation was sparked by the broadcaster's coverage of a group of Jewish teenagers being attacked on a bus in London.... ...Rubinstein's resignation follows the BBC being named on the Simon Wiesenthal Center's "global anti-semitism 2021 top ten list" in December. The report criticized the BBC for both their reporting of the bus incident, as well as statements from BBC reporters considered...

[4:54 video clip] "Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis sounds off on ‘Hannity’"

Albuquerque police officers believe Isela Camarena set multiple fires at the Islamic Center of New Mexico. Surveillance video from the mosque shows a person in a black hoodie setting the fires. "I noticed that the media is playing, in reports, significant sections of the surveillance footage, yet those of us defending Ms. Camarena have not been provided those copies," Lindsey Rosebrough, Camarena's defense, said. Camarena appeared in court Tuesday. Prosecutors asked a district court judge to keep her locked up, but the argument didn't get far. "I'm asking for a continuance at this time," Rosebrough said. Islamic Center of New...

[3:41 video clip] "Owens discusses Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claiming Republicans want to ‘date’ her after being criticized for Florida trip on ‘Tucker Carlson Tonight."

With the conclusion of the first year of the Biden administration, White House chief of staff Ron Klain sought to end on a high, or at least higher, note by retweeting a column saying that 2021 was not "all bad." It was like bragging that a bad first date told you that the evening could have been worse. However, what really stood out in the column by Albert Hunt was the key rationale: the first year was "scandal free." ... ...Consider just three of the Voldemort scandals of 2020, or those scandals which must not be named by the media:

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...