Free Republic

LONDON — There is a realistic possibility of large waves of COVID-19 infection in the future in Britain and such waves might even be considered likely, epidemiologists who model the COVID-19 pandemic to inform government advice have said. The Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Modelling, Operational sub-group (SPI-M-O) said the emergence of new viral variants was the biggest unknown factor in the medium-to-long term, along with waning population immunity and changes in mixing patterns. “Large future waves of infection that need active management to prevent detrimental pressure on the health and care sector are, at least, a realistic possibility (high...

Alarm! US 30-year mortgage rates are up 100 basis points and climbing since January 4, 2021. Most of the increase has occurred since the turn of the year into 2022. According to the Bankrate 30-year mortgage rate index, the 30-year rate is up 57 basis points just since December 31, 2021 as the benchmark 10-year Treasury yield rises. Bear in mind that the REAL 30-year mortgage rate is now -3.2%. Get it while you can!! Given today’s surprise jobs report, The Fed now has a green light to raise rates. To quote Van Morrison and Them, “Here Comes The Night”...

NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Avenatti was convicted Friday of charges he cheated the porn actor Stormy Daniels out of nearly $300,000 she was supposed to get for writing a book about an alleged tryst with former president Donald Trump. Avenatti stared straight ahead as the verdict was read. It was another crushing defeat for the California lawyer, who has faced a host of legal problems after briefly rising to fame as one of Trump’s leading antagonists on cable news early in the Republican’s administration. Avenatti dumped his lawyers and decided to represent himself shortly after the trial began, setting...

Courtesy of Bel Brands USA With its distinctive red wax packaging, Babybel — which first launched in its mini form in 1977 — conjures up fond memories of opening up tiny cheese presents for a quick childhood snack. But though nostalgia may draw adults to the brand, Babybel is hoping a modern twist will inspire a new generation of fans: Babybel Plant-Based. Launched in the United Kingdom in January, a plant-based version of the classic Babybel cheese snack is slated to arrive on this side of the pond next month, according to Bel Brands USA. The company, which owns other...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The military investigation into the deadly attack during the Afghanistan evacuation has concluded that a suicide bomber, carrying 20 pounds of explosives packed with ball bearings, acted alone, and that the deaths of more than 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. service members were not preventable. The blast at Abbey Gate outside the Kabul airport on Aug. 26 killed 11 U.S. Marines, a sailor and a soldier, who were screening the thousands of Afghans frantically trying to get onto one of the crowded flights leaving the country after the Taliban takeover. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for...

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki was confronted with a new Johns Hopkins comprehensive study that shows “lockdowns” were a comprehensive failure worldwide.When asked about the irrefutable evidence that the lockdowns caused massive damage, but delivered no tangible benefits, Psaki went into full spin-mode.“We’ve not been pro-lockdown — most of the lockdowns actually happened under the previous President,” Psaki claimed.The study in question is a thorough review done by Johns Hopkins university. Its results are damning.“What does the evidence tell us about the effects of lockdowns on mortality?” We provide a firm answer to this question: The evidence fails to...

The top two sales were British, but after that, American motorcycles dominated more than at any time in the last decade. It appears that the pandemic has catalyzed a rise in prices in general, but for American bikes in particular.Mecum VIEW 74 IMAGES Upon reading last year’s report on this auction (due to Covid-19 the traditional Mecum Las Vegas auction was run in April/May instead of January) in 2021, it would have been easy to take the text, change a few dates and republish, at least for the topline information. Dig a bit deeper though, and there are all sorts...

If you're looking for a hit of '90s nostalgia, here are 12 of the most popular websites from the naughty nineties still up and running today. From its humble beginnings at CERN, the World Wide Web has indeed come a long way since it was first invented by the respected British scientist, Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. From plain-looking text-only websites to slow internet speeds and unreliable connections, the World Wide Web has survived and evolved into so much more, so much that we're now at the cusp of Web3. In this article, we'll go down memory lane to the historic...

Keeping with China’s “zero tolerance” approach to the pandemic, the 2022 Beijing Olympics will likely be remembered for its unprecedented security measures. However, this year’s Winter Games will also be cemented in history for its record number of openly LGBTQ competitors. At least 35 of this year’s Olympic athletes are openly lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer, more than double the amount of queer competitors from the 2018 winter competition in PyeongChang, South Korea. The queer competitors will be venturing to China’s capital from 14 countries, including Western superpowers such as the United States and France, and former Soviet republic...

Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently highlighted the failures of Baltimore's education system and how students, who are overwhelmingly black, are falling behind in critical education skills while having to contend with the city's high crime rate. In response to the segment, the Baltimore Sun Editorial Board and the mayor called Carlson a racist.

Venezuela is moving troops to the border with Colombia with technical assistance from Russia and Iran, Colombia's defense minister Diego Molano said on Thursday, calling the possible deployment "foreign interference." Molano, citing intelligence sources, said troop movements were registered in Venezuela opposite Colombia's Arauca province, the scene of fierce fighting between guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and FARC dissidents for control of the drugs trade.

90 Day Fiance alum Geoffrey Paschel received an 18-year prison sentence without the chance of parole on Thursday in a Knoxville, Tennessee court, in connection with his conviction of aggravated kidnapping, domestic assault and interference with emergency calls. Paschel, 44, was found guilty of the multiple charges last October in connection with a June 9, 2019 incident with his former fiancée Kristen Wilson, US Weekly reported. In the incident, Wilson told Knox County Sheriff's Office deputies that Paschel had attacked her, grabbed her neck and struck her head into a wall multiple times. Wilson told authorities that Paschel had thrown...

Back in the 1960s and 70s when the legal debate over abortion was heating up, evangelical Protestants were, to put it as mildly as possible, AWOL...major leaders, publications, and organizations of American evangelicalism forty years ago either openly declared their support for legal abortion, or defended the permissibly of killing the unborn. In 1968, just five years before Roe v. Wade, Christianity Today held a symposium of evangelical leaders to determine “the conservative or evangelical position within Protestantism” on “the control of human reproduction.” In their joint statement, they concluded that “the performance of an induced abortion” is necessary and...

As the Super Bowl approaches, a chicken wing frenzy is also on the horizon. As someone who doesn’t give a flying chicken wing about football, I consider the platters of food synonymous with the Super Bowl to be its only saving grace. But when your eyes meet that tray of wings, what do you prefer to pluck from the pile? There are the drumettes (already winning with a cute name like that), the flats, or the option to go boneless. Some people would take death over a “wing” without a bone, especially on Super Bowl Sunday, when wings are most...

"Our goal is to end the demonstration" Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly Speaks At News Conference-2/4/2022 The Ottawa police chief laid out the notion of an all out crackdown on protesters using all available laws including financial, traffic and insurance rules. Peter Sloly also using the expression: "surge and contain" to desribe future actions by law enforcement in Ottawa. Local police will get support from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Is this a Declaration of War o the trucker convoy protest? Canada's "Rebel News" discussed the matter in a mid-day live stream. An informed observer of Canada's scene sees the...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., says he will advocate for an "international convention of civilized countries" to gather and discuss the dangers of gain-of-function research. Paul has been one of few leaders in Congress pressing for a hearing on the origins of COVID-19. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) last year acknowledged its efforts to fund gain-of-function research on bats infected with coronaviruses at a lab in Wuhan, China, before COVID-19 broke out and forever altered life around the world. "Not only do we need restrictions in our country," Paul told Fox News Digital in an interview of the research method....

The COVID-19 pandemic has driven great interest in the therapeutic potential of repurposed drugs with well-established benefits and safety profiles (toxicity, bioavailability, etc.), many of which act via signal transduction pathways. One category of such drugs is those that reduce acid production in gastroenterological contexts. Acid-suppressing drugs belong to two main classes, based on their mechanisms of action: (i) proton-pump inhibitors (PPIs) sterically block H+/K+-ATPase pumps, impeding the final step of acid release in the gastric mucosa. (ii) Histamine H2 receptor antagonists (H2RA) competitively bind the H2R, a type of G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR),1 and block the natural stimulation of...

The WHO has strongly recommended that doctors use an arthritis drug called baricitinib to treat people with severe or critical COVID-19. The drug belongs to a class of medications known as Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors, which block the activity of immune signaling molecules called cytokines. In severe and critical COVID-19, an excess of cytokines in the body, or “cytokine stormTrusted Source,” sends the immune system into overdrive, with potentially fatal consequences. After reviewing the latest results from clinical trials, a panel of experts at the WHO concluded that there is good evidence that baricitinib improves survival, reduces the need for...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined "America Reports" Wednesday to react to a new study from Johns Hopkins University that concluded COVID lockdowns did more harm than good because they failed to reduce mortality and were "devastating" to the economy. RAND PAUL: Let’s hope we learn from our mistakes. In the 14th century, the pope surrounded himself with candles because they thought the infection could be burned out of the air to save people. It was a wrong-handed notion. It took a few centuries – really to the 19th century – to understand the germ theory. Now we have lockdowns which...

Astronaut Mark Kelly once smuggled a full gorilla suit on board the International Space Station. He didn't tell anyone about it. One day, without anyone knowing, he put it on.