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Parents in a Pennsylvania school district have expressed outrage after a photo of a school employee using tape to affix a mask to a child's face went viral online. The school district has confirmed that the photo is genuine.

Google and Apple are furious with antitrust legislation getting a fresh look in Congress and warned that what’s bad for them is bad for America. As the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to review new antitrust proposals, the Big Tech titans are working to undermine support for the bills that could damage their market power. The judiciary committee is reviewing two proposals on Thursday: the Open App Markets Act, which intends to foster competition with Apple and Google’s app stores, and the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which seeks to block Big Tech companies from giving preference to their products...

A man was in custody last night charged with the murder of Ashling Murphy (23) just outside Tullamore, Co Offaly, last Wednesday. The accused man, 31-year-old Jozef Puska, appeared before a special sitting of Tullamore District Court. Det Sgt David Scahill gave evidence of the arrest, charge and caution and said Mr Puska replied “No” when the charge was put to him at 7.45pm. Insp Kieran Keyes applied to Judge Catherine Staines for a remand in custody, in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin, to a sitting of Cloverhill District Court next Wednesday, January 26th. The accused man, wearing a grey hoodie and...

An 11-month-old child was shot in the face while sitting in a car with his mother in the Bronx, a senior NYPD official told NBC New York. The shooting occurred on Valentine Avenue near East 198th Street in the Bedford Park neighborhood around 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, senior police officials said. The child and mother were sitting in the car when a shot was fired into the car, striking the infant in the left cheek, according a senior police official. A blood-stained pink baby jacket could be seen left in the street after the incident. The child was initially taken to...

@RepThomasMassie Cognitive dissonance: Left wing media outlets normalizing a former Oath Keepers president organizing protestors to go into the Capitol on January 6th, while simultaneously calling it a radical right-wing insurrection on par with 9/11 and Pearl Harbor

Democratic strategist James Carville said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that President Joe Biden was tough and showed stamina during his first solo news conference of 2022. Carville said, “I thought today was a very good day. The best time to plant an oak tree was 25 years ago. The second-best time is right now. I think President Biden planted an oak tree. He decided that, ‘Hey, look, our political situation has deteriorated here, and I’m going to personally take charge of it.’ It is not a minor feat to stand there for an hour and 50 minutes, on your...

When patients' hip or knee replacements were delayed in response to COVID-19 surges, chatbots delivering encouraging messages not only benefited the mental health of patients—they also experienced boosts to their physical health, too. A paper showed that twice as many of the patients who received the messages informed by psychotherapy experienced meaningful clinical improvements compared to those who didn't. "We think it is very significant that we saw benefits in both mental and physical health," Christopher Anthony, MD. "This demonstrates the importance of the relatively unexplored area between a patient's psychological well-being and their joint function." The study team employed...

The FBI on Wednesday said it was conducting "court-authorized law enforcement activity near what was reported to be the Texas home of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas)...

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a self-appraisal that didn’t always fit with the facts, President Joe Biden on Wednesday made the dubious assertion that he’s outperformed all expectations on the pandemic in his first year and inflated his contribution to COVID-era economic growth. A look at some of Biden’s comments in a news conference that stretched for nearly two hours: PANDEMIC BIDEN on COVID-19: “I didn’t overpromise. I have probably outperformed what anybody thought would happen.” THE FACTS: That’s a stretch. BIDEN: “We just made surprise medical bills illegal in this country.” THE FACTS: He ignores the fact that President Donald...

The Senate has failed to end debate on voting rights legislation -- a move that would have required 60 votes to move toward final passage.The vote was 49-51.After another round of remarks on the Senate floor, there will be a second vote to change the Senate rules to allow the legislation to pass with a simple majority. That would require 51 votes and is also expected to fail.

Wednesday, CNN political commentator Van Jones said on “OutFront” that President Joe Biden was “foggy and meandering” during his first solo news conference of 2022. When asked about Biden confirming Vice President Kamala Harris will be his 2024 running mate, Jones said, “I think a lot of Democratic voters appreciate that. That’s the one time that you don’t want to give any fuzzy, foggy, let-me-tell-you-a-long-story answer. Clear and direct, they are a team. He is staying together. They are going to fight it forward.”

President Joe Biden claimed the country was moving in the right direction in a press conference on Wednesday at the White House. “What is the trajectory of the country? Is it moving in the right direction now?” he asked. “I don’t know how we can say it’s not.”

QuantBioRes is working on a treatment not a vaccine, but CEO says tennis star is ‘not anti-vax’ Novak Djokovic is the controlling shareholder in a Danish biotech firm aiming to develop a treatment for Covid-19 that does not involve vaccination, it has emerged. The world No 1, who was deported from Australia this week after the government cancelled his visa in a dispute over a medical exemption relating to his unvaccinated status, bought an 80% stake in QuantBioRes in 2020. Ivan Loncarevic, the company’s chief executive, confirmed the investment to Reuters. He subsequently told the Financial Times that he had...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ Until We See Each Other Again! The South Carolina National Guard conducts a deployment ceremony Jan. 16, 2022 in Florence, South Carolina to recognize the 133rd Military Police Company's mobilization in support of Operation Spartan Shield. Approximately 150 U.S. Army National Guard Soldiers with the 133rd Military Police Company, 51st Military Police Battalion, 59th Troop Command, South Carolina National Guard, will deploy to the Middle East for approximately nine months. While deployed, the 133rd Military Police Company's mission will be to provide support to customs operations. (U.S. Army...

Ann Spurbeck was an "elegant grande dame" of the violin who played a record 52 years with the Memphis Symphony Orchestra while also playing on records by Elvis, Isaac Hayes and Al Green. For most of her life, she interpreted music by Bach, Beethoven and the other greats of European classical composition. But she also was a part of the vital new music being created in the town she called home. She performed on some of Elvis Presley's essential "comeback" recordings, after his 1968 television special, and she contributed expressive strings to Isaac Hayes' Oscar-winning "Theme from Shaft."

McLean, Va.-based ID.me was originally launched in 2010 with the goal of helping e-commerce sites validate the identities of customers who might be eligible for discounts at various retail establishments, such as veterans, teachers, students, nurses and first responders. These days, ID.me is perhaps better known as the online identity verification service that many states now use to help stanch the loss of billions of dollars in unemployment insurance and pandemic assistance stolen each year by identity thieves. The privately-held company says it has approximately 64 million users, and gains roughly 145,000 new users each day. Some 27 states already...

Five towns in Vermont opted to extend their mask mandates another month, nearly two years after the start of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. The Vermont legislature wrapped up 2021 by passing a measure allowing local governments to impose their own mask requirements. Republican Gov. Phil Scott emphatically approved the measure, pitching it as a way to avoid issuing a statewide mask mandate. In a November letter to members of the legislature, Scott said the legislation had to be “limited to facial covering requirements indoors within a municipality’s jurisdiction (except schools, which shall remain governed by the policies set forth by...

In a letter to the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccines and Immunisation, more than 30 politicians, doctors and medical experts said long-term effects from COVID vaccines could compromise the life expectancy of the country’s children. By The Defender Staff Dozens of medical professors, heads of scientific organizations, MP’s and experts in immunology asked UK regulators to overhaul the country’s COVID-19 vaccine rollout for 12- to 15-year-olds. Miss a day, miss a lot. Subscribe to The Defender's Top News of the Day. It's free. Dozens of medical professors, heads of scientific organizations, MP’s and experts in immunology asked UK regulators to...

A woman spewed anti-Semitic threats at three kids — telling them “Hitler should have killed you all” — before spitting on an 8-year-old boy in Brooklyn, cops said. The hateful suspect stormed up to the boy and along with two other kids — all of whom are Jewish — on Avenue P near Coleman Street in Marine Park around 12:30 p.m. Friday and snarled, “Hitler should have killed you all. I’ll kill you and know where you live,” cops said. Footage released by the NYPD Tuesday shows the woman standing directly in front of the kids as she spat on...