Free Republic

President Xi Jinping is expected to promote more technocrats to key positions in the Chinese Communist Party to spearhead his technological ambitions. Whether they can deliver his goals remains unclear, but analysts said their ascendancy will redefine the party’s politics for years. Moreover, they said that many technocrats – who have background in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – already hold key ministerial and provincial positions. The party will undergo a major leadership shake-up at the party congress later this year , and more technocrats are expected to be elevated to the 200-member Central Committee, which is responsible for all...

As many as three Hillary Clinton donors — including one who also supported US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — are among the prospective jurors for former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann’s trial. Special counsel John Durham’s team objected to putting one Clinton contributor on the panel after the man said he would “strive for impartiality as best I can.” But the prosecution was overruled by Washington, DC, federal Judge Christopher Cooper, who said the man — who works in public policy for Amazon and appeared to be in his 40s — “expressed a high degree of confidence” that he could be...

One shocking fact that has come to light as the nation wrestles with a baby formula shortage is that half of U.S. infants receive WIC (federal food assistance). According to the USDA website, “The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides federal grants to states for supplemental foods, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income pregnant, breastfeeding, and non-breastfeeding postpartum women, and to infants and children up to age 5 who are found to be at nutritional risk.” “WIC serves 53 percent of all infants born in the United States,” the USDA proudly tells us....

Immunotherapy has transformed treatment for patients with stage 4 metastatic esophageal and gastric cancers. In patients with these malignancies, immunotherapy has been shown to prolong survival when patients' tumors exhibit a high expression of an immune-related protein called PD-L1. Researchers are now investigating whether immunotherapy benefits patients who do not have stage 4 metastatic disease. In these patients, tumors have not spread to distant organs. A study highlighting this research is published in Clinical Cancer Research. "The current standard of care for patients with nonmetastatic gastroesophageal cancer involves preoperative chemotherapy plus radiation and subsequent surgical resection of the primary cancer...

Ezra Miller admonished a police officer for calling them 'sir' and explained they identified as 'transgender non-binary' during their arrest in Hawaii back in March. In newly-released body cam footage from the arrest obtained by TMZ, Miller warned the officer that failing to refer to them by their proper pronouns again would be an 'intentional act of bigotry' and a technical 'hate crime.' Miller, 29, who uses they/them pronouns and came out as queer in 2012, and said in a 2018 interview with The Hollywood Reporter: 'Queer just means no, I don't do that. I don't identify as a man....

A significant percentage of Black men found to have normal lung function after race-based adjustments to spirometry were actually found to have emphysema on their computed tomography (CT) scans, according to research. "Black adults in the U.S. are more likely to have unrecognized emphysema than white adults. This is due in part to the normalization of lower lung function in people of color through race-specific interpretations of spirometry," said Gabrielle Liu, MD. "We found in this observational sample of middle-aged adults in the United States that 14.6 percent of Black men (vs. 1.7 percent of white men) with 'above-normal' spirometry...

Russian lieutenant-colonel is accused of shooting dead multiple injured troops on the battlefieldArmy intelligence troops captured by Ukraine say they saw the killings of five of their comradesUkraine has accused Russia of failing to take back its war dead, leaving piles of corpses Ukrainian troops have reached the Russian border to the north of Kharkiv, pushing back Kremlin forcesVideo also shows nuclear-capable Iskander missiles moving towards Finland amid growing NATO rowOne of Putin's top propagandists has declared Russia's offensive in the Donbas region has failed as incredible pictures show the inside of the steel plant at Azovstal which has been...

The Taliban’s defense ministry on Sunday claimed the “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” has amassed a standing army of over 130,000 troops with hopes to bring that number up to 150,000. Meanwhile, the Afghan economy is a wreck, poverty is rampant, and starvation is kept at bay only through massive international humanitarian efforts. “More than 130,000 people have been registered and this process will continue. With the completion of registration, the Afghans will see an independent, well-formed and committed military who will provide security and defend the Afghan soil and borders,” Defense Ministry spokesman Inayatullah Khwarazami boasted to Afghanistan’s independent Tolo...

Asking basic questions about the $40 billion blank check to the Ukrainians is just one of several savvy moves by the Kentucky senator on the political rebound.PHILADELPHIA—It’s been almost seven years since the dumbass livestream, a United States senator’s words, not mine. “The third question, most popular question from Google is: ‘Is Rand Paul still running for president?’” Sen. Paul read out from the campaign trail. “And, I don’t know, I wouldn’t be doing this dumbass livestreaming if I weren’t. So, yes, I still am running for president—get over it.” It wasn’t the official end of the Rand Paul for...

A perfect storm of war, extreme weather and Covid-19 will drive global food prices to levels that will cause social unrest in some parts of the world, according to David Beasley, head of the United Nations World Food Programme. “If people can’t feed their children and their families, then the politics unsettles,” Beasley told CNN during a conference on Thursday. Hit by high prices and supply disruptions, Beasley said the UN has been forced to ration food supplies to millions of people around the world. Often, that means diverting food away from hungry children to feed starving children. “If we’re...

Ukraine's military said it was working to evacuate all remaining troops from the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. "The 'Mariupol' garrison has fulfilled its combat mission," the General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said in a statement on Facebook. "The supreme military command ordered the commanders of the units stationed at Azovstal to save the lives of the personnel... Defenders of Mariupol are the heroes of our time." The rest of Mariupol is already under Russian control. The city had been under Russian siege since the start of the war.

The acting community is in mourning on Monday, with the news that The Andy Griffith Show star Maggie Peterson has passed away. The actress passed peacefully in her sleep at 81 years of age, it was confirmed by the actress' official Facebook page and the Andy Griffith Museum. She passed 'peacefully in her sleep with her family present,' with the Facebook post revealing she had been in declining health since the death of her husband of over 40 years, jazz musician Gus Mancuso, who passed in December. 'Maggie's health took a turn for the worse after the death of her...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/16/nyregion/nyc-truck-terror-attack.html Shortly after Sayfullo Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan, was arrested on suspicion of using a truck to kill eight people on a Manhattan bike path in 2017, President Donald J. Trump declared on Twitter, “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY.” Ultimately, Jeff Sessions, his attorney general, authorized federal prosecutors to seek capital punishment should Mr. Saipov be convicted. But with Mr. Saipov’s trial looming this fall, his lawyers have asked Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, appointed by President Biden, to withdraw the death penalty authorization, which would mean life imprisonment for Mr. Saipov if he were found guilty. Mr. Garland has...

Ukraine's military said on Tuesday it was working to evacuate all remaining troops from their last stronghold in the besieged port of Mariupol, ceding control of the city to Russia after months of bombardment...

Palestinian Islamic Scholar Mohammed Afeef Shadid: Our Right of Return Is Not Only to Palestine; We Must Use Palestine as a Starting Point to Conquer the World, Deliver It from Darkness to Light pic.twitter.com/ByX5DQ84iC— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 16, 2022

'Rust' producers have vowed to complete the Western movie where Alec Baldwin accidentally shot cinematographer Halyna Hutchins dead. The production on the movie, which is co-produced by Baldwin and Anjul Nigam, will pick up where it left off after Santa Fe authorities complete their investigation into the October 2021 fatal shooting. 'Rust is obviously a horrific tragedy. The investigation will hopefully be resolved soon and will unveil what happened,' ,' Nigam told the Hollywood Reporter. 'Obviously, there will be people out there who will have negative perspectives, but we're confident about continuing to make quality movies. We're confident we'll be...

Hulu has passed on “Rodham,” writer-producer Sarah Treem’s adaptation of the 2020 Curtis Sittenfeld novel that’s been in development at the streamer since summer 2020. But 20th Television is still is shopping the project to other streamers, now that Claire Danes and Dakota Fanning are attached to play Clinton at different stages of her life. In the package, Treem will write and executive produce, and James Ponsoldt will direct, with “Handmaid’s Tale” producer Warren Littlefield’s Littlefield Co. behind it. The news of the shuffle for Rodham comes a few days before the TV industry gathers in New York from May...

Oil prices are a common topic of conversation around the office water cooler these days. As you might expect, perspective matters. The folks at the Halliburton, (NYSE: HAL), office in Midland, Texas likely view the advent of $100 WTI much more warmly than many others whose living doesn’t depend on it directly. At the other end of the spectrum, truckers, the good folks who deliver everything from baby formula to hamburger patties, are pleading for relief from diesel prices that have doubled in the space of a year. The old saying, “One man’s meat, is another man’s poison,” probably never...

The price of gasoline is soaring, and diesel fuel is climbing right along with it. Florida has one of the highest diesel prices in the nation with an average of $5.63 a gallon. These prices are having a massive domino effect starting with America’s backbone, truckers. "The cost of diesel is single-handedly taking us out of the game one by one no matter how big you are," said Joshua Jenkins. It’s been a bumpy ride of late for Jenkins. The veteran trucker has watched drivers turn down essential shipments because the price to haul it is more than what the...

Hungary rejects sanctions against religious leaders, the state secretary for aiding persecuted Christians told public television on Sunday, commenting on the European Union’s plan to sanction Patriarch Kirill, head of the Russian Orthodox Church. Tristan Azbej, who also heads the Hungary Helps aid programme, said that whereas Hungary condemned Russia’s attack on Ukraine and supported various sanctions, Hungary supported brokering peace and “sees counterproductive, nonsensical sanctions as harmful”. The Russian Orthodox Church has some 160 million members and 40,000 priests worldwide, Azbej noted, adding that the EU’s “crazy” proposal would ban the patriarch from entering the bloc, isolating religious people...