Free Republic

Four months after the deadline for Veterans Affairs workers to be vaccinated against coronavirus, about 40,000 staffers remain unvaccinated but only a few have been fired for refusal, department officials said Tuesday. The new figures come as Republican lawmakers are renewing their calls to drop the vaccine mandate and allow VA employees to continue to work without penalty even if they ignore the department’s rules. As of this week, roughly 330,000 workers (89 percent) in the Veterans Health Administration are vaccinated, according to data released by department officials.

On April 15, 1994, Donald Ewing and Doniel Quinn were shot in the afternoon while they sat in a parked car in Kansas City, Kansas. Police quickly zeroed in on a man named Lamonte McIntyre, who lived just a mile from where the shooting took place. McIntyre had no connection to the victims and no motive to kill them, nor was there any physical evidence tying him to the case. In addition, five people were able to say where McIntyre was before, during, and after the murder. But police had two witnesses to the shooting who identified McIntyre from a...

The plush Florida hotel suite where 'America's dad' Bob Saget mysteriously banged his head and died is revealed for the first time today in haunting crime scene photos. Cops catalogued every surface and object inside room 962 at the Ritz-Carlton Orlando, Grand Lakes as they looked for anything that could have caused Full House legend Saget's fractured skull. The cache of images, released Tuesday by the Orange County Sheriff's Office, include a shot of the padded headboard above the comedian's bed as well as his walk-in shower, bathtub, desk and minibar. Investigators never determined exactly what killed Saget, 65, but...

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox vetoed a ban on transgender students playing girls’ sports on Tuesday, becoming the second Republican governor this week to overrule state lawmakers who have taken on youth sports in a broader culture war over how Americans view gender and sexuality. Cox joins Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb, who vetoed a statewide ban on Monday. Holcomb said Indiana’s Legislature had not demonstrated that transgender kids had undermined fairness in sports. Cox, for his part, referenced the potential effects on transgender youth. “I struggle to understand so much of it and the science is conflicting. When in doubt however,...

As Durbin resumed the hearing, Graham got up and walked out of the room, taking a bottle of soda with him.

By the time you read this the United States may have already surpassed 1 million (reported) Covid deaths. I say "reported" because we all know the game they play, but this very same game was used ruthlessly to attack former President Trump.Have you read many articles about the US nearing or hitting 1 million Covid deaths? How do you think the media would act if Trump was still president and this grim milestone occurred?The media went wild when the reported US Covid death toll reached 400,000 on Trumps last day in office. Blood on his hands': As US surpasses 400,000...

Unless you haven’t eaten in the past several months, or you already grow all of your own produce, you’ve probably noticed that the price of food, and everything else, has been rising dramatically...

An Arab assailant killed at least four people in Israel’s southern city of Beersheba on Tuesday in the deadliest such attack in years, before he was fatally shot by a Police identified the attacker as an Arab citizen of Israel, a former high school teacher who had been imprisoned over alleged links to Islamic State. Police spokesman Eli Levy said “a civilian took the initiative and shot and killed” the knife-wielding assailant, a confrontation on a busy city street that later played out in videos filmed by onlookers and broadcast on Israeli television. Tensions have been on the rise in...

Russian and Kazakhstan oil exports via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) from the Black Sea may fall by up to 1 million barrels per day (bpd), or 1% of global oil production, due to storm-damaged berths, a Russian official said on Tuesday. Pavel Sorokin, a Deputy Energy Minister, said the second berth could also turn out to be damaged after initial information about one of the three being damaged by a storm. Major global trading houses such as Vitol and Trafigura said on Tuesday they estimated the current Russian oil disruption at 2 million to 3 million bpd and added...

“They were talking about the massive corruption of Ukraine, and how horrible it was over there. And now, all of a sudden, they’re looking at it like they’re heroes.”.. Joe Rogan noted on his podcast that the Western narrative on Ukraine has flipped 180 degrees in a few weeks from the country having a horrible corrupt government to being heroic allies against the Russian scourge. “I have this screenshot that someone sent me,” Rogan stated, “about the way the people on the left were talking about the Ukraine situation before the war.” He continued, “This is one of the things...

A strong earthquake has shaken the eastern coast of Taiwan in the early hours of Wednesday local time. The tremor, estimated at 6.9 or 7.0 magnitude, was registered at the depth of 10 kilometers under the Philippine Sea, some 63 kilometers south of the city of Hualien.

Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) received backlash online for seemingly stating Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination showed that an “extraordinarily talented” individual “who also happens to be a black woman” was something “we’ve never seen before.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden's public approval rating fell to a new low of 40% this week, a clear warning sign for his Democratic Party as it seeks to retain control of Congress in the Nov. 8 election, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll. The national poll, conducted on March 21 and 22, found that 54% of Americans disapprove of his job performance as the country struggles with high inflation and Russia's invasion of Ukraine has pushed geopolitical concerns to the fore. While 77% of self-identified Democrats said they approved of his job performance, only 10% of self-identified...

Runny nose. Headache. Fatigue. Sneezing. Sore throat. Persistent cough. Hoarse voice. Chills or shivers. Fever. Dizziness. Brain fog. Muscle pains. Loss of smell. Chest pain.

Knee replacement surgery is increasingly common among people over 80 sidelined with knee pain, and the procedure isn't as hazardous for them as often assumed. That's the main message from a new study of more than 1.7 million seniors who underwent knee replacement surgery. Octogenarians do have longer hospital stays after knee replacement surgery and are also more likely to be readmitted to the hospital within 90 days than patients aged 65 to 79, but the two age groups tend to have similar risks for other complications, the study team found. Varghese conducted the study at Maimonides Medical Center, in...

CBDC Caution A central-bank-issued digital dollar could enable a dark future.Few likely paid much attention when, on March 9, President Biden signed an executive order directing the government to begin developing a “central bank digital currency” (CBDC) to be issued by the Federal Reserve, alongside a framework to regulate private cryptocurrencies. But this was a moment to which close attention is very much due. CBDCs have the potential to become an unprecedented totalitarian nightmare.As the term implies, a CBDC is digital money that a central bank issues directly. You might assume that you are already using “digital currency” regularly...

A new clinical trial found daily consumption of cranberries for one month improved cardiovascular function in healthy men. Those consuming cranberry had a significant improvement in flow-mediated dilation (FMD), which signals improvement of heart and blood vessel function. FMD is considered a sensitive biomarker of cardiovascular disease risk and measures how blood vessels widen when blood flow increases. Low consumption of fruits and vegetables is one of the top modifiable risk factors associated with a higher incidence of cardiovascular disease worldwide. Growing evidence continues to link the polyphenols from berries with heart health benefits. Cranberries are rich in unique proanthocyanidins...

A Miami man has been charged with sexual battery after he allegedly ran up behind a Walmart shopper and ripped her clothes off before trying to rape her. The sex attacker, who police say is Bredan Harvey, 28, of Miami Gardens, carried out the assault on the stranger in a Miami Dade store Saturday, while the victim was shopping. Harvey allegedly pulled up the woman's dress while she perused the supermarket's aisles, then grabbed her buttocks. The stunned shopper turned to face her attack her, only for the pervert to push her to the floor before grabbing at her thighs...

Explanation: What's that in the sky? An aurora. A large coronal mass ejection occurred on our Sun earlier this month, throwing a cloud of fast-moving electrons, protons, and ions toward the Earth. Part of this cloud impacted our Earth's magnetosphere and, bolstered by a sudden gap, resulted in spectacular auroras being seen at some high northern latitudes. Featured here is a particularly photogenic auroral corona captured above a forest in Sweden from a scenic perch overlooking the city of Östersund. To some, this shimmering green glow of recombining atmospheric oxygen might appear like a large whale, but feel free to...

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