Free Republic

@HawleyMO Spending $40 billion on Ukraine aid - more than three times what all of Europe has spent combined - is not in America’s interests. It neglects priorities at home (the border), allows Europe to freeload, short changes critical interests abroad and comes w/ no meaningful oversight

The emergence of COVID-19 had doctors racing to define and treat the new disease, but they soon discovered it was not the only novel illness caused by SARS-CoV-2. A subset of children infected by the virus also experienced abdominal pain, headaches, rashes and vomiting. This new set of symptoms was labeled multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and had many of its pediatric patients requiring intensive care. As MIS-C rates rose, physicians began to note its similarities to a pre-pandemic illness, Kawasaki disease (KD), which has puzzled pediatricians for more than 50 years. MIS-C and KD share many symptoms, including...

@ElectionWiz TUCKER: Dan Crenshaw is “Eyepatch McCain". Clip...

Aftermath of alleged US airstrike in Somalia in prior years, file image. White House officials have announced that President Biden will reverse Trump’s Somalia withdrawal of US forces as the fight with al-Shabaab Islamic militants heats up. This includes talk of a return to a policy of indefinite “boots on the ground” – or as one senior official was quoted as saying – “a persistent US military presence” there. “President Biden has approved a request from the Secretary of Defense to reestablish a persistent U.S. military presence in Somalia to enable a more effective fight against al-Shabaab, which has increased...

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday ratcheted up his objection to Sweden and Finland joining NATO. Erdogan accused the countries of failing to take a clear stance against Kurdish militants and of imposing military sanctions on Turkey. “Neither country has an open, clear stance against terrorist organizations,” Erdogan said at a joint news conference with the visiting Algerian president. “We cannot say ‘yes’ to those who impose sanctions on Turkey, on joining NATO which is a security organization.”

A global study of asthma patients found a combination of two drugs dramatically reduces the chances of suffering an asthma attack. Results from the clinical trial show that a combination of albuterol, which provides relief from an asthma attack by relaxing the smooth muscles and is used for immediate asthma relief, and the corticosteroid budesonide, taken via an inhaler, lower the number of sudden episodes of shortness of breath, wheezing and coughing in patients. Such incidents, known as asthma attacks, can often lead to an emergency room visit. "This represents a paradigm shift in the treatment of asthma. We see...

Although immunotherapy has become the standard therapeutic method for fighting liver cancer, also called hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), its response rate has only been approximately 30% in patients with advanced disease. The tumor immune microenvironment (TIME) is the area inside the tumor in which various immune cells and other cell types interact and send/receive messages and signals. Within the TIME, the presence of tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes, one type of white blood cells, is critical because they can recognize tumor cells and help fight them. Additionally, expression levels of immune checkpoint proteins are also important, because these are targets of many immunotherapy drugs....

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...