Free Republic

Never mind that President Joe Biden declared “the pandemic is over” during a 60 Minutes interview Sunday night. In Illinois, it’s apparently still a “disaster” that warrants a declaration covering the entire state – all 102 counties. Gov. Pritzker issued his 34th Disaster Proclamation on September 16, 2022, marking more than 900 days of Illinoisans living under emergency rules. The governor has retained the use of Emergency Powers for more than two-thirds of his time in office.

White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci attempted to walk back a statement made by President Joe Biden during a recent interview that the COVID-19 pandemic “is over.” “What [Biden] really meant is that the very severe stage of the pandemic of having … 3,000 deaths a day—that stage is no longer present,” Fauci told Politico. “People should not be cavalier that we’re out of the woods,” he added. In a “60 Minutes” interview that aired on Sunday night, Biden was asked about the trajectory of COVID-19 in the United States. “The pandemic is over. We still have a...

Fear Is the Enemy We Must DefeatIn the last six months, five people I’ve approached about bringing the story of who they are and what they do to a wider public have turned down my request for an interview. A farming and homeschooling family out West, for example, would have made a wonderful article about work ethic, education, and values. In another instance, a woman with a message about the power of movies to change the lives of young people might have shared her philosophy with hundreds of others.They are all active, busy people, but a tight schedule wasn’t the...

Officers with the Eufaula Police Department in Alabama responded to a home to remove a gray rat snake from the resident's toilet. Photo courtesy of the Eufaula Police Department/Facebook Sept. 19 (UPI) -- Police in Alabama responded to a residence to deal with an unusual situation when the homeowner found a snake in their toilet. The Eufaula Police Department said officers with the day shift responded to help a homeowner who found a snake in their toilet bowl. "We never know from one day to the next what kind of call we will receive during our shift," the department said...

The Pentagon has ordered a sweeping audit of how it conducts clandestine information warfare after major social media companies identified and took offline fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military in violation of the platforms’ rules.According to the researchers’ report, the accounts taken down included a made-up Persian-language media site that shared content reposted from the U.S.-funded Voice of America Farsi and Radio Free Europe. Another, it said, was linked to a Twitter handle that in the past had claimed to operate on behalf of Centcom.One fake account posted an inflammatory tweet claiming that relatives of deceased...

During President Donald Trump's presidency, the Left repeatedly assured Americans that Trump was simply intolerable — more unbearable than every other Republican — due to his rudeness, his crassness and his divisiveness. For four years, the President's Twitter account inspired outrage and hurt feelings amongst Democrats. We were supposed to believe he was history's worst president because he called reporters "crazy" and "wacko" and politicians "losers." Many even linked his rhetoric to actual violence. If Democrats truly felt this jarred by the rhetoric of the former president, where is their outrage against President Joe Biden? The president's latest speech, in...

According to Ukrainian defence officials, units of Russian troops are now trapped at the Dnipro river after the recent counter-offensive. During an appearance on the Ukrainian parliament’s television channel on Monday, September 19, Nataliya Humenyuk, the head of the joint press centre of Ukrainian Defence Forces of the South, claimed that units of Russian troops in the Kherson region are now ‘sandwiched’ between the right bank of the Dnipro River and the advancing Ukrainian forces. “The fire control that we maintain over crossings and transport arteries across the Dnipro makes them understand that they are sandwiched between the defence forces...

Pro-Kremlin separatist officials in Ukraine’s Kherson region announced on Tuesday they will hold a referendum this week to become part of Russia. The leaders called on Moscow to endorse the referendum results immediately, according to Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-appointed leader of Kherson. Saldo said in a Telegram post that he was hopeful Kherson would vote to be "a part of Russia, a fully-fledged subject of a united country.” Russian news agencies stated that the referendum would occur between September 23 and 27, and would be similar to other votes in regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian troops, Reuters reported. .....

For the first time, the number of arrests of undocumented immigrants along the southwestern border exceeded two million in one year, according to newly released government data, continuing a historic pace of undocumented immigrants coming to the country. The number of arrests at the border increased slightly from July to August, with a total of more than 2.1 million for the first 11 months of the 2022 fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30. In an unusual step, Biden administration officials gave some reporters a background briefing on Monday before Customs and Border Protection’s routine monthly release of data. Officials...

CANNES, FRANCE - MAY 22: Woody Harrelson attends the photocall for "Triangle Of Sadness" during the 75th annual Cannes film festival at Palais des Festivals on May 22, 2022 in Cannes, France. (Photo by Samir Hussein/WireImage) Legendary “Cheers” actor Woody Harrelson told Bill Maher the “last people” he would trust with his own health is “Big Pharma and Big Government” — and he explained why. During the 61-year-old actor’s appearance on the “Club Random with Bill Maher” podcast Sunday, the TV actor and host discussed the response to the COVID-19 pandemic over the last two-plus years. The two agreed that...

The number of people killed on U.S. roadways fell slightly from April through June, the first decline in two years as pandemic-era reckless driving appeared to ease. But the government says the number of deaths remains at a crisis level. Estimates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration show that 20,175 people died in crashes from January through June, a 0.5% increase over the same period last year. Yet the second-quarter decline ended a string of seven straight quarterly increases that began in the summer of 2020 with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The agency estimated that 10,590 people...

Two decomposed bodies were found in the home of a former longtime Rhode Island mayor on Monday, according to a report. The shocking discovery was made by police in the city of Woonsocket, according to WJAR, where an elderly man and elderly woman were found in the home of ex-Woonsocket Mayor Susan Menard. Menard served as the city’s leader for more than a decade, beginning her tenure in 1995 before she left office in 2009, according to the city. Her tenure as mayor is apparently the longest in the city’s history. It’s not yet known if Menard is one of...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ plane he used to send 50 migrants to affluent Martha’s Vineyard is on the move again – heading for President Biden’s Rehoboth home in Delaware. DeSantis last week sparked a spectacular escalation in the ongoing immigration war between the Republican GOP’s in charge of the border states and Democrat officials in so-called ‘sanctuary cities’. It now appears that he is sending the Ultimate Air Shuttle to Georgetown, which will touch down at around 1.30pm. The plane had started its journey from Longview, in Texas, before heading to San Antonio, and then Crestview, in Florida. An hour...

The number of new HIV diagnoses in San Francisco rose in 2021 for the first time in nearly a decade, although this could be due to changes in testing in the wake of COVID-19, according to the latest HIV Epidemiology Annual Report from the San Francisco Department of Public Health (DPH). And for the first time ever, gay and bisexual men who don’t inject drugs accounted for less than half of new cases. HIV care indicators have generally improved or remained stable, but disparities persist, especially for people experiencing homelessness.

Russia on Tuesday gave support to plans by separatists which it backs in Ukraine to hold referendums paving the way for the annexation of swathes of additional territory, a direct challenge to the West that could sharply escalate the conflict. After nearly seven months of war, including a critical battlefield defeat in northeastern Ukraine, Putin is pondering his next steps. In what appeared to be choreographed requests, Russian-backed officials across 15% of Ukrainian territory - an area about the size of Hungary or Portugal - lined up to request referendums on joining Russia. The self-styled Donetsk (DPR) and the Luhansk...

CHICAGO -- A 3-year-old girl is among at least 63 people shot, nine fatally, in weekend shootings across Chicago, police said. The girl was one of at least five minors shot in Chicago over weekend and 20 minors shot overall in the past week. "It's like you get immune to it; it's a way of life now," one person said. She was a passenger in the back seat of a vehicle about 11 p.m. in the 4200-block of West Cermak Road when gunfire shattered the back window and grazed her head, according to Chicago police. She was taken to Stroger...

Windfall profits made by fossil fuel companies should be taxed to pay for climate damage, according to the UN Secretary General. Antonio Guterres told the General Assembly that polluters should pay for the impact of climate-related events. Having recently seen the devastating flooding in Pakistan for himself, Mr Guterres is now doubling down on the need for the rich world to urgently address the demands of the poor. And there's little doubt whom he believes is responsible for the world's climate emergency. "The fossil fuel industry is feasting on hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies and windfall profits while...

(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden said in an interview that aired Sunday that the “pandemic is over,” but neither COVID-19 cases nor pandemic-related relief efforts have entirely disappeared. Biden made the remarks during an interview on “60 Minutes,” but as of Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still classified the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic.

While much attention has been paid to Donald Trump’s continuing fixation on denying the results of the 2020 presidential election and the possibility of a repeat in 2024, a more immediate threat to democracy is looming: an alarming number of Republicans across the country are now gearing up to cast doubt on the outcome of the midterm elections this November. The New York Times reports that “six Republican nominees for governor and the Senate in key midterm states … would not commit to accepting the November outcome.” Five others refused to answer the question. The Washington Post found a similar...