Free Republic

California's governor proposed a plan on Thursday to force homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders into treatment. The proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom would require all counties in California to set up a mental health branch in civil court to assist people in need of help but who won't accept services. The state would require counties to provide comprehensive treatment to those suffering from debilitating psychosis and people would be obligated to accept the care. Some advocates for the homeless have objected to forced care, but Newsom told the San Francisco Chronicle it is past time to...

Ukraine, with Russian troops on its borders, is pressing for membership. But President Biden and European leaders are not ready for that step. WASHINGTON — The tense talks this week among the United States, Russia and European members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have made one thing clear: While the Biden administration insists it will not allow Moscow to quash Ukraine’s ambitions to join NATO, it has no immediate plans to help bring the former Soviet republic into the alliance. If Ukraine were a NATO member, the alliance would be obligated to defend it against Russia and other adversaries....

At right, a Russian armored vehicle sits at a railway station in Rostov Oblast, Russia Feb. 25, awaiting deployment to Ukraine. At left, a Soviet tank sits on St. Joseph Boulevard in Budapest, on Nov. 6, 1956, two days after helping to crush the uprising in Hungary. I’m being asked for a sense of historical perspective to capture the gravity of what Vladimir Putin and his Russian troops are doing right now in the Ukraine. Is this unprecedented? Is there a parallel in recent Russian history? In recent Russian history, no. Modern Russia is post-Cold War Russia, the once-hopeful product...

The NFL and the NFL Players Association have agreed to halt all aspects of their joint COVID-19 protocols, effective immediately. Following nearly two years of restrictions, operations will return to normal, the league relayed in a memo Thursday, obtained by NFL Network's Tom Pelissero. It is a long-awaited awaited announcement as there will be no more requirements for masks, tracking devices, surveillance testing or capacity limits, unless they are required by state or local laws. "Based on current encouraging trends regarding the prevalence and severity of COVID-19, the evolving guidance from the CDC, changes to state law and the counsel...

The move effectively cuts off Russia’s ability to book flights on its own airline. Sabre, one of the largest airline ticket booking companies in the world, is terminating its distribution agreement with Russian air carrier Aeroflot, the company announced Thursday. The move could further restrict Russian air travel, which has already seen its planes banned from most Western countries’ airspace. State-owned Aeroflot is the flag carrier and the largest airline in the Russian Federation. The airline has about 200 aircraft in its fleet and travels to 146 destinations around the world. Being shut out of online booking software could make...

While there is no official checklist for membership, the alliance maintains a list of minimum requirements that aspiring countries should be able to meet: New members must uphold democracy, including tolerating diversity New members must be making progress toward a market economy Their military forces must be under firm civilian control They must be good neighbors and respect sovereignty outside their borders They must be working toward compatibility with NATO forces Once a country makes its desire to join the alliance known, NATO may invite the country to join the Membership Action Plan, which is a program that helps nations...

Global supply chain pressures eased in February as backlogs and delivery times improved in several key markets and a measure of ocean shipping costs declined, according to new data from the New York Federal Reserve released on Thursday. The New York Fed’s supply chain pressure index, first published in January to measure the coronavirus pandemic’s impact on global production troubles and prices, remains at a historic high. But from a peak of 4.5 in December, it has fallen over consecutive months and hit 3.3 in February, with 0 representing the index’s long-term average. The index combines measures of shipping costs,...

Ukrainian forces are attacking the 40-mile-long convoy that is attempting to converge on the capital city of Kyiv, the chief of the Defense Intelligence of Ukraine said. “We are striking the enemy’s columns,” Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times on Wednesday. “We burn many columns of the enemy.” “My intelligence officers and agents are directing and calling the strikes,” he said, adding that the forces are using Su-24 and Su-25 fighter jets, artillery, and missile barrages against Russian forces and equipment. The convoy of Russian troops was roughly 15 miles from Kyiv, a senior defense official told reporters on...

The YouTube oligarchs on Mount Censorlympus targeted one of its popular users An0maly for daring to post a clip of comments on masking by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). The video that sent the YouTube censors off showed DeSantis telling Middleton High School students at the University of South Florida: “You do not have to wear those masks.” An0maly, who has over 259,000 subscribers, suggested that either the war in Ukraine or terrible midterm polling numbers were causing Democrats to change their collective tune on COVID-19 and ease restrictions. “[N]ow that they’re easing off of restrictions, I think it’s really...

Nearly 90 years after the last thylacine died, a group of scientists at the University of Melbourne, Australia, are attempting to bring the extinct marsupial back to life Thylacines, also known as Tasmanian tigers (despite being a marsupial and looking nothing like a tiger apart from their stripy back), are thought to have gone extinct back in 1936, when Benjamin – the last confirmed member of the species – died in captivity at Hobart’s Beaumaris Zoo. Reports of thylacine sightings in the wild continued long after Benjamin died, with many people hopeful that they might still be alive out there...

Among many challenges in treating tumors is the difficulty in getting anti-cancer drugs to the right locations, and in the right amounts. A new type of implant developed at Rice University tackles both these issues, carrying the cellular machinery needed to produce and deliver continuous doses of anti-cancer compounds, and doing so with such potency that they took out 100 percent of ovarian tumors in mice in the space of a week. The bioengineers behind this promising new form of immunotherapy treatment for cancer describe it as a "drug factory," in that once it is in place, it can go...

Notice Allegedly Posted by way of an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet taped to the front desk window at Jackson River Pediatrics in Covington, VA: "Student Athletes: "Sports physicals are done primarily to make sure you are not at high risk for sudden cardiac death on the playing field. "Covid vaccination affects your risk. "In response to worldwide experience and vaccine adverse-event monitoring, we are adopting a more precautionary sports physical sign-off policy: "If you have received doses of any COVID shot, we will not be able to clear you to compete in sports without performing lab work and perhaps...

Does it strike anyone as fascinating that the hotspots of world tension right now –- Ukraine, Beijing and Moscow –- are the very places the family of our sitting President, led by son Hunter, has done business to the tune of billions of dollars? It boggles the mind. As Russia continues its invasion of neighbor Ukraine, the revelations concerning Hunter Biden’s longtime business affairs in that part of the world, and in China, continue as well. The New York Post’s Miranda Devine, author of the bestselling LAPTOP FROM HELL, reports that Hunter’s old business partner Devon Archer was sentenced on...

Former Attorney General Bill Barr writes in his new memoir that surveillance footage he has viewed proves convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein really did kill himself. The sudden death of Epstein in August 2019, ruled a suicide by a New York medical examiner, prompted conspiracy theories that he was murdered because of the things he knew. But Barr said he has seen surveillance video from the prison that shows no one else entered his cell the night he died.

MUKACHEVO, Ukraine — Russia was moving Thursday to extend its control over Ukraine’s southern coast, with ground forces seizing or encircling cities, as the governor in the port of Kherson reported that Russian forces had captured a key government building. In Mariupol, farther east, the mayor said that a Russian siege and hours of shelling that battered rail links and bridges had cut off water, power and food supplies. And in Odessa, a major port city on the Black Sea, the mayor said in videos that it was preparing for its defense amid unverified reports that a large fleet of...

MOSCOW, March 3 (Reuters) - Russia has decided to stop supplying rocket engines to the United States in retaliation for its sanctions against Russia over Ukraine, Dmitry Rogozin, head of the state space agency Roscosmos, said on Thursday. "In a situation like this we can't supply the United States with our world's best rocket engines. Let them fly on something else, their broomsticks, I don't know what," Rogozin said on state Russian television. According to Rogozin, Russia has delivered a total of 122 RD-180 engines to the U.S. since 1990s, of which 98 have been used to power Atlas launch...

As demand for COVID-19 vaccines collapses in many areas of the U.S., states are scrambling to use stockpiles of doses before they expire and have to be added to the millions that have already gone to waste. From some of the least vaccinated states, like Indiana and North Dakota, to some of the most vaccinated states, like New Jersey and Vermont, public health departments are shuffling doses around in the hopes of finding providers that can use them. State health departments told The Associated Press they have tracked millions of doses that went to waste, including ones that expired, were...

An expose by the Washington Times indicates that many left-wing Democrats — who advocate aggressive measures to deal with climate change — have sold their interests in renewable energy sources and switched their investments to profit from high returns in fossil fuel investments during the past few weeks. Rep. Lois Frankel (Democrat from West Palm, Florida) who says she is a strong supporter of the Green New Deal, sold her stake in a solar energy business and invested as much as $60,000 in fossil fuel companies. Because House rules permit members to estimate their holdings in ranges, precise numbers are...

President Joe Biden, with ashes on his forehead in honor of Ash Wednesday, speaks to reporters before boarding Marine One with first lady Jill Biden on the South Lawn of the White House on March 2 in Washington, D.C. WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, a Catholic, declined to discuss why he supports abortion rights despite Church teaching prior to boarding Marine One ahead of a flight to Duluth, Minnesota, on Wednesday, March 2. “I don’t want to get into a debate with you about theology,” said Biden, after being asked by EWTN correspondent Owen Jensen about how he is able...

On Wednesday, a Russian-born banker and entrepreneur posted on the social networking website LinkedIn offering a $1 million bounty to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin for war crimes. In a post that’s no longer viewable on LinkedIn, Alexander Konanykhin said, “I promise to pay $1,000,000 to the officer(s) who, complying with their constitutional duty, arrest(s) Putin as a war criminal under Russian and international laws.” “Putin is not the Russian president as he came to power as the result of a special operation of blowing up apartment buildings in Russia, then violated the Constitution by eliminating free elections and murdering...