Free Republic

Texas is the top destination for one-way U-Haul rental trips in 2021, while California topped the list for outward migration and even ran out of U-Haul trucks for people wanting to leave the state, a new report from U-Haul shows.The moving and storage rental company has a “U-Haul Growth Index,” which calculates the net gain or loss of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a state versus leaving that state in a calendar year.The southern states took the lead in the U-Haul Growth Index report, with Texas narrowly beating Florida as the top growth state of 2021. The Lone Star state notably...

A federal appeals court upheld a decision to temporarily block the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for federal contractors in three states.A judge in Louisville, Kentucky, issued a ruling blocking the mandate for Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee in November. And on Wednesday, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals upheld the injunction in a 2–1 ruling.The Sixth Appeals Court majority wrote in its Wednesday order that the injunction was upheld “because the government has established none of the showings required to obtain a stay.”States are “imminently threatened in their proprietary capacities should they renew those existing contracts (thus triggering the...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said the state will expand its COVID-19 vaccine mandate for healthcare workers to include booster shots, becoming the first state to require boosters for healthcare employees while also signaling that a growing number of institutions are increasingly aiming to mandate them.Hochul, a Democrat, said in a Friday news briefing that state healthcare workers are required to get the extra shots. The state will accept only medical—not religious—exemptions, consistent with previous mandates on COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 vaccines.Under the mandate, healthcare workers will have to get boosters within two weeks of their eligibility. Recently, the Food and...

At WakeMed and UNC hospitals, 100% of COVID-19 patients on ventilators are unvaccinated, they said. At all WakeMed hospitals, only 1 in 10 ICU patients are fully vaccinated, and at Duke, all the patients on ECMO, a form of life support used for only the sickest patients, are unvaccinated.

In November, she tweeted about why she had chosen to wear a trans flag pin on the show..."I think being trans is really cool!"

The Supreme Court heard two emergency challenges Friday to President Joe Biden’s vaccine-or-test mandates for large businesses and healthcare workers, testing the limits of executive power amid a relentless pandemic. The challengers are various religious organizations, private businesses and Republican-led states, which argued Biden has no authority to mandate a vaccine for them. After hearing the first challenge, which was a private business arguing against Biden’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration vaccine-or-test mandate, the Supreme Court ultimately seemed a bit wary of the mandates. The justices appeared particularly skeptical about whether Biden, along with OSHA, had the authority to impose...

Join together with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

A group of Chicago parents sued the Chicago Teachers Union after the union voted earlier this week to delay a return to classrooms due to COVID concerns. Chicago Public Schools and the union have yet to reach an agreement on whether in-person learning should return amid the recent uptick in coronavirus cases caused by the highly infectious omicron variant. Friday marks the third straight day classes in the district were canceled. The lawsuit, filed Thursday night by attorneys at the Liberty Justice Center, alleges that the school closures constitute an "illegal strike" and violate the union's own contract. "CTU’s resolution...

Branching Ratios for LENR David J. Nagel Branching ratios for nuclear reactions are significant for understanding their physics. They might also be practically useful. The relatively simple deuteron-deuteron fusion reaction has been heavily studied both before and after the 1989 beginning of the global study of LENR. The branching ratios for that reaction are very different for the high-energy (hot) fusion and low-energy (LENR) versions of deuteron fusion. The former are well known, but the latter are little known, even after one-third of a century of attention. This paper reviews the status of the study of branching ratios for...

You don’t have to actually watch sports to be aware of the country’s most famous teams — or wonder how they got their names. While some are obvious (the Boston Red Sox wear red socks!), others are anything but. If you’ve ever wondered what a knickerbocker is or what the reigning World Series champions have been “dodging” all these years, read on for the story behind seven teams’ unique names. New York Knicks A.K.A New York Knickerbockers Though almost always called the Knicks these days, New York’s oldest basketball team is still officially known as the Knickerbockers. If you don’t...

A SEAL pup swam 750 miles from Scotland for a New Year social — at a pub in Bristol. ...The sea mammal went down the west coast from Orkney, into the Irish Sea, along the Bristol Channel and up the River Avon. Neoprene finally clambered out of the water at Hanham, Gloucs — a suburb of Bristol....

A Catholic priest in Malta is under fire for what his archbishop called “inflammatory and hurtful comments” against gay people. In a post on Facebook, Father David Muscat said that being gay is worse than being “possessed”. He was forced by the archdiocese of Malta to delete the post, which had caused uproar in the European island nation. In a televised homily on Thursday night, Archbishop Charles Scicluna apologized in the name of the Church, while the archdiocese released a statement saying that a formal warning against the priest had been issued. He was also instructed to stop using hurtful...

“Epiphany, Baptism, and a Tale of Two Herods” (Matthew 2:1-12; Luke 3:15-22) Every year, the Epiphany of Our Lord always falls on January 6, which was this past Thursday. The Gospel reading for Epiphany is the visit of the wise men, from Matthew 2. On the first Sunday after the Epiphany, which is today, we always observe the Baptism of Our Lord. And this year the Gospel reading is the account from Luke. This past Thursday, we had to cancel our Epiphany service. So now today, I decided to combine the readings for the two services, the Epiphany of Our...

Just a day after his hiring was announced, Vice President Kamala Harris‘ new communications director is the center of a controversy over things he said and posted on social media. In two tweets drawing the most criticism, Jamal Simmons wondered why undocumented immigrants weren’t being apprehended by federal immigration authorities.... ..These aren’t the only tweets and comments Simmons, a longtime political pundit, made in the past that are raising eyebrows. Last January, Simmons suggested that former President George Bush wasn’t impeached for waterboarding people because it was intended to protect the country.... ...Simmons also once cautioned Biden not to get...

There’s a reason CNN’s Jake Tapper is intent on branding me a “menace” and “a liar,” and why he refuses to debate me on the merits of facts and scientific evidence. Here’s the back story. Apparently, appalled by robust sales of my bestseller, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” CNN anchor Jake Tapper — in lieu of critically reviewing the work — used his Twitter feed to unleash a barrage of ad hominem insults against me. Breaking with the traditional restraints of journalistic neutrality, professional propriety and intellectual rigor, he branded me “dangerous,” a “menace,” a “liar,” a “grifter,” a fraud, “unhinged”...

Sen. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) achieved the impossible on Thursday by bringing all Americans together. How did she manage to pull off this phenomenal feat? By commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Capitol riot with a song from the cast of the hit musical Hamilton.... While the public was busy sparring over the significance of Jan. 6—which saw Republicans spreading conspiracy theories to pass off the blame as Democrats made outlandish comparisons to 9/11 and Pearl Harbor—the D.C. establishment was busy shooting itself in the foot. Pelosi presented to her fellow lawmakers a pre-recorded clip over Zoom of the Hamilton cast...

A dog and her puppies are being credited with helping to save a newborn who was abandoned in a field in India, possibly because she was a girl. The Epoch Times reports local residents in Chattisgarh, India reported finding the infant while going out into the field to work in late December. According to Chattisgarh Police, the newborn girl was naked and her umbilical cord was still attached. Local residents said the baby was surrounded by a dog and her litter of puppies, and they believe the animals kept the baby warm by snuggling up against her through the night,...

The New York state attorney general on Friday released footage of a man bursting into flames after being tased by cops inside an upstate police station in October, an encounter that led to his death. The disturbing surveillance video shows members of the Catskill Police Department running away, leaving the man as he desperately tries to put out the flames engulfing his upper body and head. Jones is seen dousing his bare torso and hair with flammable hand sanitizer from a large pump bottle that was on a table. Within seconds, three officers advance towards him. One of them draws...

A Rhode Island hospital is dealing with a Covid-19 outbreak with patients after it asked staff who had tested positive, but were asymptomatic, to come in due to a staffing shortage. Eleanor Slater Hospital, a state-run facility with campuses in Cranston and Burrillville, reported it had 28 infected patients as of Thursday, according to the Boston Globe. The hospital has roughly 200 patients. On Saturday, the hospital had two Covid-positive staff members come into work and three on Monday, according to a memo posted on the official Rhode Island state website. "The decision to utilize covid-positive staff who are asymptomatic...

On November 9, an Arizona Appeals Court declined to grant the request of private corporation Cyber Ninjas Inc. to prevent the Arizona Republic, a Gannett owned publication, from forcing them to turn over their private communications 100 Percent Fed Up reports – Cyber Ninjas Inc., a private corporation retained to serve as the primary vendor to audit voting equipment and ballots cast in the Maricopa County election in November 2020, sought relief from Superior Court Judge John Hannah’s order that it turn over copies of public records that it possessed. Jack Wilenchik of Wilenchik & Bartness appealed the decision.