Free Republic

NEW YORK — Mayor Eric Adams on Friday named his younger brother as a deputy NYPD commissioner, police sources said — a move that immediately raised conflict-of-interest questions. Bernard Adams was assigned to the office of new Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell, sources said. The post — which comes with a yearly salary of around $240,000, according to SeeThroughNY.net — is believed to be temporary. Sources expect Bernard Adams to be transferred elsewhere once other high-level personnel moves are finalized.... ...The appointment by Adams, who won office on a tough-on-crime platform, raised eyebrows among government watchdogs....

During a speech on the occasion of Friday prayers in the Iranian city of Mashhad which commemorated this week’s second anniversary of the US killing of IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, the top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ elite Quds Force (who was Soleimani’s replacement) vowed to take vengeance “from within the US”. Iranian state and other foreign regional media featured Brigadier General Esmaeil Qaani’s ultra-provocative words, translating them as follows: “We will prepare ground for the hard revenge against the US from within their homes, as we do not need to be present as supervisors everywhere.” IRGC Quds...

We’ve known for some time now that the omicron variant of COVID-19, which is driving the current surge in coronavirus cases, is more transmissible but less deadly than past variants.Recent studies have shown, for example, that while previous variants heavily attacked the lungs, omicron is far milder, mostly infecting the upper airways and not deep lung tissue.Not that that stopped the usual suspects from pressing the panic button.But evidence continues to grow that omicron is a signal that the worst of the pandemic is over. Scientists are now saying omicron appears to have a death rate 100 times less than...

Labour MP Jack Dromey dies at 73British lawmaker Jack Dromey passed away “suddenly” on Friday, his family said. He was 73.Dromey was the Labour MP for Birmingham Erdington, and the shadow minister for immigration. “Jack Dromey MP died suddenly this morning aged 73 in his flat in Erdington,” the family statement read. “He had been a dedicated Member of Parliament for Birmingham Erdington since 2010.” Dromey was the husband of Labour MP Harriet Harman, and they had three children together.The British prime minister said he was “deeply saddened” by the death of Dromey. “My thoughts are with Harriet and the...

The Ty-Nant cat sanctuary near Port Talbot in South Wales is 'a not-for-profit organisation that helps cats find loving homes'. It also raised more money in 2020 than one of the most high-profile, A-list charities in the world. So too did the Surrey And Hampshire Canal Society, the French Porcelain Society and the Hindley Amateur Rugby League Football Club — to name only a few with similar financial profiles that can be found in the Charity Commission's records. But that is not to say that these worthy — if somewhat niche — causes drew in millions of pounds of donations;...

New York has finally released hospital data that breaks out hospitalizations *with* Covid vs. those *from* Covid, finding 57% of cases statewide are “admitted due to Covid or complications from Covid”:New York has its first official breakdown of what share of people are hospitalized for COVID vs. how many are hospitalized with incidental COVID. In NYC it's 49% for COVID, everyone else just happened to test positive. pic.twitter.com/fNUmMK2DM9— Alyssa Katz (@alykatzz) January 7, 2022This follows what we’re seeing in other places, like in Florida:Across the Jackson Health System hospitals, we currently have 327 patients who have tested positive for COVID-19....

The Biden administration is delivering an additional 30,000 monoclonal antibody (mAbs) doses to Florida. And another 15,000 doses of Regeneron have been secured for Floridians to support new monoclonal antibody sites, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced. DeSantis has demanded that the Biden administration “get out of the way” of Florida’s efforts to provide early treatment for the coronavirus and release more monoclonal antibody drugs to Florida. When discussing coronavirus efforts with other governors on Monday, President Joe Biden said, "My message to the governors is simple. If you need something, say something. We're going to have your back any way we...

The Biden administration has been granted the request to dismiss a lawsuit filed by more than 20 GOP attorneys general challenging the revocation of the Keystone XL Pipeline’s permit. In his ruling, Judge Jeffrey Brown of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas ruled that because TC Energy, the pipeline company, abandoned the project, he could not determine whether Biden’s action was constitutional. TC Energy announced on June 9 that it would permanently stop construction on the pipeline and focus on other projects. Upon taking office, Biden canceled the pipeline’s federal permit by executive order on...

Despite being the only authorized outpatient medical therapy for preventing the worsening of COVID-19 symptoms in high-risk patients, there remains no steady supply of monoclonal antibodies from the federal government a year after its approval for use by medical regulators.Dr. Aldo Calvo, Medical Director of Family Medicine at Broward Health, shows a Regeneron monoclonal antibody infusion bag during a news conference at the Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Aug. 19, 2021. (Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP)Rolled out in the same month as the COVID-19 vaccines, monoclonal antibody therapies have not gotten the attention that vaccine treatments have after...

I see quite a lot of anger, resentment, and even talk of violence here on FR and it saddens my heart. And I am aware that there are other places on the internet (that I would not venture) that are a good deal worse. While reflecting on this, these words of Jesus came to my mind: Matthew 22:36-40 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and...

Even at the best of times, it’s human nature to want to decode the future.During times of uncertainty though, we’re even more eager to predict what’s to come. To satisfy this demand, thousands of prognosticators share their views publicly as one year closes and another begins. In hindsight, we see varying levels of success at predicting the future.In truth, as Visual Capitalist's Nick Routley details below, experts are merely guessing at what will happen over the coming year. In 2020, almost nobody had a pandemic on their bingo card. In 2021, NFTs completely flew under the radar of experts, and...

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...