Free Republic

New York City’s private employer vaccine mandate and the school mask mandate imposed on children five-and-under will remain in place indefinitely, the city’s new health commissioner announced Friday. “I think it’s indefinite at this point,” Dr. Ashwin Vasan said at COVID-19 press briefing. “People who have tried to predict what will happen in this future for this pandemic have repeatedly found egg on their face, as they say. And I’m not going to do that here today.” “I would love for me to sit here and say, I can give you a date or a data point for when we...

Foreign fighters in Ukraine have ridiculed an American who fled the country when he was faced with fighting Russians in Kyiv with supplied gear, and complained in a viral video that he had been lured into a 'trap'. Henry Hoeft, 28, was among thousands of foreigners to answer the call of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to help repel Moscow's invasion of his country - including a reported 3,000 U.S. citizens. Hoeft, who also goes by the name of Henry Locke, is a 28-year-old former U.S. Army infantryman with associations with the American far-right group Boogaloo Boys. But according to other...

President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. spoke today with President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The conversation focused on Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. President Biden outlined the views of the United States and our Allies and partners on this crisis. President Biden detailed our efforts to prevent and then respond to the invasion, including by imposing costs on Russia. He described the implications and consequences if China provides material support to Russia as it conducts brutal attacks against Ukrainian cities and civilians. The President underscored his support for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis. The two...

As children in Texas face permanently disfiguring gender experiments and homosexual adults face a high risk of disease, Austin’s school officials are dedicating an entire week to endorse those behaviors. Austin Independent School District is hosting a “Pride Week” March 21-26 to not only promote LGBT sexual conduct to school children, but to teach them “trans” ideology—the idea that you can turn into whatever biological sex or creature you feel like. Austin ISD is providing each school campus an “inspiration guide of suggested activities for PRIDE Week” as well as “Pride Swag” stickers, posters, flags, “pronoun buttons,” and more. Pride...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has hailed the country's "special operation" in Ukraine at a rally marking the anniversary of the 2014 annexation of Crimea. Moscow's Luzhniki stadium, which hosted the World Cup final in 2018, was packed for the rally, with patriot songs, and crowds waving Russian flags and shouting: "Russia! Russia! Russia!" Images and video from the stadium showed a sea of red, blue and white flags and banners, with one reading: "For Putin!" Mr Putin gave a speech from a stage at the venue - after discussing Moscow's military operation in Ukraine with his security council on Friday,...

"And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us...

House Republicans are discussing whether to impeach Chief Justice Maureen O'Connor after the Ohio Supreme Court rejected a third set of legislative maps and effectively ended all hope of a full May 3rd primary. The court struck down the maps on Wednesday with O'Connor as the deciding vote, sending the Ohio Redistricting Commission back to the drawing board for the fourth time. A ruling on the latest congressional maps is expected any day. O'Connor, a Republican, is seen as an independent voice on the court and sided with Democratic justices to throw out multiple sets of maps, arguing they did...

Some are accusing Twitter of applying its policy on hateful conduct unequally after it allowed a tweet from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton that intentionally misgendered Assistant Health Secretary Rachel Levine to remain on its platform. On Sunday, USA Today honored Levine, the first openly transgender Senate-confirmed federal official, as one of its “women of the year.” In a tweet Thursday, Paxton shared an image of Levine from the USA Today feature and called her “a man.” Intentionally misgendering a transgender person, meaning referring to them with the wrong pronouns or by their birth gender, is offensive, and research has...

Even though Shenzhen, China, allowed factories and public transport to restart Friday after six days of lockdowns to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, global supply chains have already been impacted. A.P. Møller – Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container shipping company by capacity, told clients China’s zero-tolerance approach against the virus has already produced new supply chain snarls and logistical delays. “While manufacturing also takes place in other parts of the country, these delays will still affect output, though not drastically,” Maersk said in a memo to clients obtained by Bloomberg. Maersk has activated contingency plans in China following the...

Are Russia and Ukraine Closer to a Ceasefire Deal?

Like much of the rest of the leftist news media, CBS tried to suppress the news about Hunter Biden's infamous laptop and the emails it contained when it came to light in 2020 after the New York Post broke the story in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. It was such a taboo subject for CBS that when President Donald Trump brought up the subject during an October 2020 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl, it was edited out of the final broadcast as you won't see here.Fortunately, the Trump campaign recorded the segment left on the 60 Minutes...

House Democratic leadership on Thursday coalesced around a strategy for combating rising gas prices, a growing political liability for the party ahead of the midterm elections. But some Democrats continued to push alternative approaches to limiting pain at the pump, reflecting divisions within a party that has sought to curtail fossil fuel use to fight climate change. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Thursday said that oil companies should be forced to use drilling permits or lose them — an approach commonly described as “use it or lose it.” However, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), on Thursday [said] that he would...

Ransomware. I got this email. I donated to some Republican politicians and someone sold my email address. I get about 100 emails a day asking for donations. Well the ransomware crooks got my email address. These crooks do not know that my operating system is Linux Mint on a home built computer from parts. I have no camera or microphone. I would like to report this to the FBI, but do not know how. Is there a way to track down the crooks by using their Bitcoin wallet and address. The email uses my address as the 'sent from' address....

Syrian President Bashar Assad has promised to provide some 40,000 militants to the Russian Federation for the war in Ukraine, The Ukrainian Defense Ministry reported on Thursday afternoon. According to Ukrainian intelligence, weapons and other equipment will be transferred to Russia and Belarus from Syria in the near future, the statement reported, in addition to as many as 40,000 militants. A report on March 13 from Ukrainian intelligence indicated that Russia had already opened 14 recruitment centers across Syria, in Damascus, Aleppo, Hamma, Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, in order to strengthen its forces. Russia is reportedly paying foreign mercenaries a...

On the eve of Purim, a signed agreement resurrecting the Iran deal looms imminent. For those who forgot, another lucrative agreement between a politician and a Persian ruler signed 2,500 years ago was also intended to annihilate the Jewish people. Still, it didn’t work out as planned. Rafael Grossi, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy, said in an interview with France 24 on Tuesday that as long as Russia receives written guarantees from the US that its demands will be met, all of the involved parties are on the verge of finalizing an agreement on the recent talks being...

<p>At the heart of every black hole sits a problem. As they sizzle away into nothingness over the eons, they take with them a small piece of the Universe. Which, quite frankly, just isn't in the rule book.</p><p>It's a paradox the late Stephen Hawking left us with as a part of his revolutionary work on these monstrous objects, inspiring researchers to tinker with potential solutions for the better part of half a century.</p>

CHICAGO (AP) — A judge in Chicago ruled Friday that an attorney for Jussie Smollett might have defamed two Black brothers who testified that they participated in a fake racist and homophobic attack on the actor when she suggested they had been wearing “whiteface.” U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland’s ruling centers on comments Tina Glandian made on NBC’s “Today” show in March 2019, shortly after the Cook County State’s Attorney announced it was dropping charges accusing Smollett of lying to police about the incident two months earlier. Discussing how Smollett had told police that one of his attackers was white,...

Russia is refusing to take back its dead soldiers to "prevent mothers, wives and daughters from learning the true scale of the war waged by Vladimir Putin", Ukraine has claimed. Iryna Vereshchuk, Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister for Reintegration of Temporary Occupied Territories, said the Russians are "refusing to negotiate" on the issue. She said Vladimir Putin is hiding the scale of the war from Russian families, who many claim were "deceived" by authorities into sending their sons to fight. "Obviously, believing that the bodies of servicemen of the Russian Federation are not worthy to return to their...

Transcript of Riccardo Bosi's warning ["No consent. No consent. No consent"]Q is the result of the sacrifices and commitment of countless patriots to win back our captured country from the Deep State and achieve the transformation President Trump promised in this campaign video. President Trump has said the awakening of the public is key to this transformation.Q describes this awakening as follows: "The Great Awakening ('Freedom of Thought’), was designed and created not only as a backchannel to the public (away from the longstanding 'mind’ control of the corrupt & heavily biased media) to endure future events through transparency and...

(Reuters) - Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension of messaging app Telegram, following a request from the country's federal police, local news broadcasters TV Globo and CNN Brasil both reported on Friday. The decision comes after the messaging app, which is widely used by Brazil's far-right President Jair Bolsonaro and his allies, failed to respond to court orders to block certain accounts that had been found to disseminate disinformation, Globo reported.