Free Republic

The “pandemic of the unvaccinated” was caused by a computer glitch. That was the conclusion of the Health Minister of Germany Karl Lauterbach, after months of vilifying the unvaccinated in the nation’s second largest city, Hamburg. In November 2021, news outlets reported on the increasing “incident numbers” in the city – where the figure grew from 111.6 infected people per 100,000 to 160 per 100,000 in a span of few of days. By the end of November, that number shot up from 209.2 to a record of 223.3. The ostensibly drastic increases have been used to legitimize new COVID policy...

COVID tests for fully vaccinated travellers arriving in England are being scrapped from 4am on 11 February, Grant Shapps has confirmed. Making a statement on the coronavirus rule change in the Commons, the transport secretary said those who have had two doses of an approved vaccination or one dose of a Janssen/J+J vaccine will no longer need to take a pre-departure or post-arrival test. The change will be introduced in time for the half-term break. Mr Shapps told MPs 2022 will be "the year in which restrictions on travel, on lockdowns and limits on people's lives are firmly placed in...

Opening statements are set to start Monday in Manhattan in a third criminal case against Michael Avenatti, the once high-flying celebrity lawyer who rose to fame by representing adult-film star Stormy Daniels in her bid to terminate a hush-money deal that silenced her allegations of an affair with former President Donald Trump. The former lawyer, a pugnacious Trump critic who once considered a presidential run of his own, fell from grace after being hit with three federal indictments in a six-week period in 2019. Prosecutors allege that Avenatti -- who helped negotiate the $800,000 advance for her September 2018 book...

On Thursday night (20 Jan 2022), prisoners began revolting in Gweiran Prison (in Hasakah, Syria), where thousands of suspected IS members have been held following the defeat of the terror group in 2019. On the same evening, fighters attacked the prison and a car bomb was exploded nearby, according to reports. Shami later said that some 89 prisoners had been recaptured, but fighting continued near the prison into Saturday. In a statement, the SDF said that 17 of its members and those affiliated with allied groups had been killed since the assault in Hasakah began. The SDF also reported that...

And they're off. Out of the gate its Coronovirus followed closely by Wuhan Style lockdown on the outside...

UKRAINE FOREIGN MINISTRY: “There have been no radical changes in the security situation recently. The accumulation of Russian troops near the state border began in April last year” https://twitter.com/JackPosobiec/status/1485600760628981765

Beloved, our dear friends at "Word of Truth Production" have created this amazing video which causes us to use our God-given common sense as we look at man's inventions versus Almighty God's highly complex creation and design (Gen. 1:1-3, Neh. 9:6; Prov. 3:19, Isa. 45:18, John 1:1-3, Rom. 1:18-32, 1 Cor. 8:6, Rev. 4-5)! The question that we need to ask ourselves is this, "Are we a product of time and chance or have we been designed by our ETERNAL RIGHTEOUS Creator with an ETERNAL RIGHTEOUS calling, vocation, and purpose (Matt. 4:19, John 1:12, 2 Cor. 5:17-21)?" As you watch...

A 22-year-old Kenyan man was found in the wheel well of a cargo plane that had traveled from South Africa to the Netherlands, Dutch police said Monday. The man, whose identity was not released, was discovered hiding after the plane touched down Sunday at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, police said in a statement. Flight Aware’s records show the plane maintaining an altitude of over 30,000 feet for the flight. “This is definitely very unusual that someone was able to survive the cold at such a height – very, very unusual,” Joanna Helmonds, a spokesperson for the Dutch Royal Marechaussee, a...

A California mother is taking legal action against a school district, claiming that two teachers secretly manipulated her 11-year-old daughter into believing she was a transgender boy. Jessica Konen filed a legal claim against Spreckels Union School District last Wednesday - with that claim a likely precursor to a lawsuit. She alleges that Buena Vista Middle School teachers Lori Caldeira and Kelly Baraki 'planted a seed' in her daughter's head that she was bisexual, then went on to convince the youngster that she was actually a transgender boy. Konen also claims that Caldeira and Baraki - who ran the school's...

Statement by Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of America 01/24/22 Really big crowd expected in Texas this weekend. The rallies are bigger than ever before—so much to talk about!

The young female fought her own mother and 4 top-ranking males to seize control of her troop. In southern Japan, a young female macaque has upended societal norms by seizing control of her 677-member troop through a violent primate coup. Now, her hard-won empire could come crumbling down around her due to one unstoppable force: mating season. Meet Yakei, a 9-year-old female living in a Japanese macaque reserve called the Takasakiyama Natural Zoological Garden, where she has spent the last year reigning as the first female troop leader in the park's 70-year history. A New York Times article published Jan....

How convenient when a bureaucratic body has the power to switch COVID standards at the drop of a hat in order to allow it to continue moving forward and not shut down as the rest of us have been forced to do. COVID Standards around testing and quarantine rules are going from asinine and impossible to achieve to almost gone in the blink of an eye. Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced last week he was doing away with all COVID precautions from vaccine mandates to mask wearing, and instead, would rely on the judgement of its citizens to protect...

The time has come to terminate the pandemic state of emergency. It’s time to end the controls, the closures, the restrictions, the plexiglass, the stickers, the exhortations, the panic-mongering, the distancing announcements, the ubiquitous commercials, the forced masking, the vaccine mandates.We don’t mean that the virus is gone—Omicron is still spreading wildly, and the virus may circulate forever. But with a normal focus on protecting the vulnerable, we can treat the virus as a medical rather than a social matter and manage it in ordinary ways. A declared emergency needs continuous justification, and that’s now lacking.Over the last six weeks...

Center for Vaccine Development director Dr. Peter Hotez said Monday on “At This Hour” that it made “no sense” to lift mask mandates for schools right now. Bolduan asked, “What do you think about lifting school mask mandates right now?”

The foreign minister of Ukraine has pushed back on America’s announcement to evacuate family members of embassy members in Kiev, along with the voluntary departure of some government employees, calling the action “premature.” “While respecting the right of foreign nations to decide on safety and security of their diplomatic missions, we consider that this step by the U.S. is premature and stems from excessive caution,” Foreign Minister Oleg Nikolenko said in a statement on Monday. “There were no radical changes in the security situation lately: the threat of new waves of Russian aggression remains present since 2014, and Russia’s build-up...

CNN’s media correspondent Brian Stelter continued to run cover for NPR on Sunday, devoting only two minutes on his show to the now-infamous mask report that has been refuted by three Supreme Court justices. Last week, the left-wing anchor's newsletter praised NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg as "incredibly well-sourced" after she reported Chief Justice John Roberts "in some form" asked the justices to wear masks because of the omicron surge since Justice Sonia Sotomayor has diabetes, and Justice Neil Gorsuch refused.

Young children — those younger than 5 — have been newly hospitalized with COVID-19 at higher rates than at any point in the pandemic, according to federal data. Health officials say the rising numbers among children are the result of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, which is much more easily transmitted than earlier strains of the coronavirus. Rachel was emblematic of a common occurrence amid the latest surge: She hadn’t come in for COVID-19. She landed here because of another ailment, and then ended up testing positive. (There’s been no known transmission of COVID-19 between children and healthcare...

Computer whiz Danylo Kovzhun has taught his children to handle a pistol. Confectioner Roman Nabozhniak is training colleagues to run his business so he can focus on fighting Russians. Bar owner Vitaliy Kyrychenko keeps his gas tank full in case he needs to get out fast. Ukraine has struggled to maintain a sense of stability since it became an independent country in 1991, and has been at war since 2014. But with 100,000 Russian troops gathered nearby, threatening Europe’s biggest land war since the 1940s, people there say something feels different this time. “It became kind of normal to say,...

It used to be that 90% of the time, you accessed stuff only on your computer’s local network. Then in 1993 at the University of Illinois, Marc Andreessen developed Mosaic, the first internet browser, which allowed users to wander around the World Wide Web 90% of the time. He moved to Silicon Valley and founded Netscape. Mr. Andreessen is now a general partner at a top-decile venture-capital firm, better than 90% of its peers. Andreessen Horowitz recently raised $9 billion in new funds.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—As Russia continues to amass forces to invade Ukraine, sources say Ukrainians are feeling down about the whole situation. To help them deal with a very depressing week, White House Spokesperson Jen Psaki recommended Ukrainians just unwind with some kickboxing classes and margaritas to make themselves feel better. "Listen, I know this is a very sad time," said Psaki. "I want to encourage you to feel those emotions. Then go do some kickboxing, or maybe some hot yoga or pilates, and then drown your sorrows in tequila while at brunch with your girlfriends. Sometimes, that's all you can do!"