Free Republic

A highly infectious and deadly strain of avian influenza virus has infected tens of millions of poultry birds across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America. But scientists are particularly concerned about the unprecedented spread in wild birds — outbreaks pose a significant risk to vulnerable species, are hard to contain and increase the opportunity for the virus to spill over into people. Since October, the H5N1 strain has caused nearly 3,000 outbreaks in poultry in dozens of countries. More than 77 million birds have been culled to curb the spread of the virus, which almost always causes severe disease or...

The Biden administration is doubling down on the color-conscious policies that were the hallmark of its first year in office through a series of “action plans,” which it released through every executive bureaucracy last month. Only this time, in a bid to avert legal reversals, the administration is concealing its racial spoils system under bureaucratic euphemisms. As we explain in a new report, the administration’s 25 plans will implement discrimination as the official policy of the executive branch; make the government much less efficient; award contracts to uncompetitive bidders, thereby wasting taxpayer money, impair national defense, and further hamper the...

Travis Considine, chief communications officer for the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Tuesday that additional surveillance footage revealed that the teacher did actually close the door. "We did verify she closed the door. The door did not lock. We know that much and now investigators are looking into why it did not lock," Considine told the Associated Press.

The ruling classes of the globe are continuing to warn that the power grids all across the globe will be stretched thin this coming summer. There will not be electricity worldwide to meet the soaring demand for more energy, which is threatening more than one billion people with rolling blackouts. Power grids are already being stretched thin by fuel shortages, droughts and heatwaves, commodity disruptions, soaring prices due to the war in Ukraine, and the failed green energy transition where grid operators retired too many fossil fuel generation plants. Combine this all together, and a perfect storm of blackouts threatens...

"Our Omaha Fire Department has done a tremendous job at the 3-alarm fire at the Nox-Crete plant. Over the last 15 hours up to 75 firefighters have been on the scene. We are grateful no one has been injured and actions to protect the surrounding neighborhoods were successful. Thank you OFD!" Omaha Mayor Jean Stothert said in a statement addressing the fire. Nox Crete manufactures a variety of products, including form coating and deactivator, liquid floor hardeners, joint fillers, curing and sealing compounds and water repellents according to its website. Pottawattamie County Emergency Management advised the smoke posed no toxicity...

The Russian Federation is ready to continue negotiations with Ukraine to reach a peace agreement, said Speaker of the Federation Council of the Russian Federation Valentina Matvienko. This was reported by the Russian agency Interfax on Tuesday, May 31. Matvienko accused the Ukrainian side of disrupting the negotiations, talking about the "civil" war in Ukraine. "We are open to negotiations. We need diplomatic, peaceful solutions, but this requires the will of the two countries. We are ready for negotiations, signing an agreement that would end the civil war in Ukraine and lead to peace, but we do not see such...

Coles supermarket has announced that team members undergoing gender affirmation will now be entitled to up to 10 days paid gender affirmation leave. The retail giant said the policy change was an important step in its commitment to champion inclusion in the workplace. “We know that we have at least 900 team members who identify as transgender or gender diverse,” Coles Chief Legal and Safety Officer and chair of the Coles Pride Steering Committee David Brewster said.

A Chinese-government-controlled company has put in an offer to buy Forbes, the major American news company that built its name on financial analysis. According to the Free Beacon, Magnum Opus, the CCP-controlled company in question, announced its intent to acquire the property last August. Now, that deal looks to be nearing completion, and it’s drawing outrage from Republicans who are pointing out what a major security risk the move represents.

The Uvalde Police Department and the Uvalde Independent School District police force are no longer cooperating with the Texas Department of Public Safety's investigation into the massacre at Robb Elementary School and the state's review of the law enforcement response, multiple law enforcement sources tell ABC News. A spokesman for Texas DPS, which is running the state's investigations, declined to comment. The Uvalde police chief and a spokesperson for the Uvalde Independent School District did not immediately respond to requests for comment from ABC News. According to sources, the decision to stop cooperating occurred soon after the director of DPS,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Focused on relentlessly rising prices, President Joe Biden plotted inflation-fighting strategy Tuesday with the chairman of the Federal Reserve, with the fate of the economy and his own political prospects increasingly dependent on the actions of the government’s central bank. Biden hoped to demonstrate to voters that he was attuned to their worries about higher gasoline, grocery and other prices whiles still insisting an independent Fed will act free from political pressure. Like Biden, the Fed wants to slow inflation without knocking the U.S. economy into recession, a highly sensitive mission that is to include increasing benchmark...

A Bronx daycare worker has been arrested on child pornography charges after he was allegedly found with images of a child he was supposed to be looking after. Police said Silfredo Castillo Martinez worked at Lina's Garden Day Care for more than a decade and was arrested for possessing multiple images depicting child pornography. Computer crime investigators suspect Castillo Martinez has been dealing in child porn since July 2011, when he first began working at the center. He lives in the same building as the day care center, state records show, with the capacity to care for 12 children between...

President Joe Biden warmly welcomed New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern to the White House on Tuesday, expressing his interest in her views on gun control and online censorship in her country. “We need your guidance,” Biden said as he welcomed Ardern to the Oval Office. “And it’s a pleasure to see you in person.” He praised the prime minister warmly for making progress on issues like climate change, combatting “violent extremism online,” and gun control. “You understand that your leadership has taken a critical role on this global change, it really has,” he said. Ardern has become a darling...

THE DEEP STATE AND THE RATCHET: HOW POWER INSIDE THE US GOVERNMENT REALLY WORKS As the Biden administration attempted to create its own Ministry of Truth with the Disinformation Governance Board this month, it was common to hear conservatives and Republicans saying things like “just wait until President Trump or President DeSantis is the one appointing the head of that agency, then you’ll be sorry.” The underlying assumption is that, once the administration changes, the natural pendulum swing of democracy will act to punish the Left for overreaching and consolidating government power while in office. But that’s a common and...

- Photo: GreatLeap.com.my The cake pictured above is a Malaysian Lapis (layer) Cake. It’s usually made as a ‘spicy’ cake with cinnamon, cardamom, cloves, and it can take an entire day to make one. They are generally purchased for special occasions in Malaysia. If you’re up for trying something as colorful but not quite as gruelling to make, the blog ‘Mel’s Pantry Kitchen’ has posted a simplified ‘rainbow’ cake: https://melspantrykitchen.blogspot.com/2012/09/rainbow-lapis-legit.htmlhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarawak_layer_cake_______________________________________________________ I’ve been seeing an Arby’s commercial lately about a Chicken-Pecan salad sandwich. It looks wonderful in the ad, but there isn’t an Arby’s very convenient to us here, so...

Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Luke 1:39-56 Friends, today’s Gospel tells of Mary’s visit to Elizabeth. I’ve always been fascinated by Mary’s “haste” in this story of the Visitation. Upon hearing the message of Gabriel concerning her own pregnancy and that of her cousin, Mary “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” to see Elizabeth. Why did she go with such speed and purpose? Because she had found her mission, her role in the theo-drama. We are dominated today by the ego-drama in all of its ramifications and implications. The ego-drama is the...

This is kind of weird… The aircraft was in Uvalde for the first time this year during the shooting. The plane landed 3 minutes before the shooter crashed his vehicle. The plane then left 2 minutes before the shooter was killed. Why was this aircraft in Uvalde for the first time in 2022 at the exact moment that one of the deadliest US shootings was unfolding? Again, the plane landed 3 minutes before the shooter crashed his vehicle. The plane then left 2 minutes before the shooter was killed. The plane left Ft. Hood and it went straight to Uvalde....

The grandmother of the crazed gunman who killed 21 at a Texas elementary school last week worked at the school as a teacher’s aide, a close friend of the family told The Post. The friend, who asked to be kept anonymous, did not know if that’s why Salvador Ramos, 18, chose Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, as his target — but his grandmother’s employment there is the first direct link between Ramos and the school, which is a half-mile from her home. “His grandmother worked in one of those classrooms a lot of the time,” the friend told The...

Explanation: The launch of a rocket at sunrise can result in unusual but intriguing images that feature both the rocket and the Sun. Such was the case last month when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center carrying 53 more Starlink satellites into low Earth orbit. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows beyond its projection onto the distant Sun, the rocket itself appears oddly jagged, and the Sun's lower edge shows peculiar drip-like ripples. The physical cause of all of these effects is pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air deflecting...

Japan's Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T) on Monday said it missed its global production target for April as COVID-19 outbreaks and a parts shortage slowed its post-pandemic recovery. The world's largest automaker by sales produced 692,259 vehicles last month, a 9.1% drop from the same month last year, and falling short of an earlier plan of making about 750,000 vehicles worldwide.

The married church pastor publicly accused of taking a 16-year-old girl’s virginity on his office floor began grooming her as early as 14, her family have alleged to DailyMail.com. And victim Bobi Gephart, now 43, was held in a Svengali-like grip by 65-year-old preacher John Lowe II for at least eight years as he had sex with her ‘many, many’ times, they add. Lowe – forced to quit the large church he built from scratch in Warsaw, Indiana, because of the storm – was so desperate to keep his illicit lust secret that he verbally blackmailed her into staying silent,...