Free Republic

China’s recovery after years of Covid-19 lockdowns will likely look a lot different from previous ones. And for many parts of the world, economists warn, it could be less potent than governments and businesses hope. China has historically relied on government stimulus and heavy investment to power itself out of slumps. That mix helped yank the global economy out of the doldrums after the 2008 financial crisis. This time, China is deeply in debt, its housing market is in distress, and much of the infrastructure the country needs is already built. As a result, its latest revival will be led...

Eating too much salt is not only bad for our blood pressure and cardiovascular system—it could also adversely impact the immune system. A team is reporting that salt can disrupt key immune regulators called regulatory T cells by impairing their energy metabolism. The findings may provide new avenues for exploring the development of autoimmune and cardiovascular diseases. A few years ago, research revealed that too much salt in our diet can negatively affect the metabolism and energy balance in certain types of innate immune cells called monocytes and macrophages and stop them from working properly. The researchers further showed that...

Democrats in the Rhode Island General Assembly have introduced legislation that, if passed, would grant localities the ability to give non-U.S. citizens the right to vote in municipal elections. The measure marks the latest attempt by leftists to give foreigners and, in this case, even illegal immigrants the opportunity to influence the U.S. electoral process. Under the new bill (H 5461), cities and towns would be permitted to “allow all residents of the municipality to vote in municipal elections for municipal officeholders regardless of the immigration status of the residents.” The measure also stipulates that the locality’s board of canvassers...

A battery storage system in the UK has begun delivery of reactive power services to the grid in what has been claimed as a world first contract of its kind. Developer-investor Zenobe Energy also said that its 100MW/107MWh battery energy storage system (BESS) in Capenhurst, Chester, is currently the largest battery project directly connected to the transmission grid anywhere in Europe... The BESS will reduce the amount of curtailment of renewable energy, particularly wind, in the Mersey region of north-west England where it is located, as well as reducing the amount of gas-fired generation needed to balance the supply and...

Former President Donald Trump spent part of his Monday disputing a report that he’s conjuring up nicknames for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who’s widely viewed as his strongest potential ​rival in the 2024 Republican primary. “All of the Fake News is reporting that I spend large amounts of my time coming up with a good ‘nickname’ for Ron DeSanctimonious, who is obviously going to give the presidential ‘thing’ a shot,” the 76-year-old Trump said Monday on his Truth Social platform. “They are all 100% wrong, I don’t even think about it — A very unimportant subject to me!!!” he added....

A lovely aphorism holds that education isn’t the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. But too often, neither are pails filled nor fires lit. One of the most bearish statistics for the future of the United States is this: Two-thirds of fourth graders in the United States are not proficient in reading. Reading may be the most important skill we can give children. It’s the pilot light of that fire. Yet we fail to ignite that pilot light, so today some one in five adults in the United States struggles with basic literacy, and after more...

Signs of unrest surfaced almost immediately after the team's defeat Sunday Heartbroken fans reportedly swarming City Hall and clashing with police Mayhem broke out in the City of Brotherly Love last night following the Philadelphia Eagles' narrow Super Bowl loss to the Kansas City Chiefs. Signs of unrest surfaced almost immediately after the team's 38-35 defeat Sunday night - with disgruntled fans swarming City Hall and clashing with cops that had been stationed throughout the city in case of such an outcome. Police scanner audio after 10:30pm suggested police had made multiple arrests, as citizens were seen scaling lampposts, chanting...

President Biden fired Architect of the Capitol Brett Blanton on Monday, a White House official told The Hill, following outrage over an inspector general report that found Blanton misused a government vehicle and allegedly impersonated a law enforcement officer. “After doing our due diligence, the Architect of Capitol was terminated at the President’s direction,” the official said. The president’s move comes just hours after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called for Blanton to step down or be removed by Biden. House Administration Committee Chairman Bryan Steil (R-Wis.) and ranking member Joseph Morelle (D-N.Y.) had also called for the resignation of...

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) expressed “a sense of urgency” on Sunday to find out whether President Joe Biden is compromised by his family’s foreign business dealings in China, Russia, and Ukraine. “There’s a sense of urgency for our investigation to be able to determine whether or not this administration is compromised,” Comer told the Wall Street Journal. Comer, who is investigating the Biden family for nine violations, including tax evasion, money laundering, and wire fraud, has sent out demand letters to Hunter and James Biden, demanding their financial records and communications with business associates to ascertain whether...

Officials report the train was carrying "hazardous materials, prompting Union Pacific to monitor air quality at the site of the crash, according to the Splendora Police Department."

President Donald Trump this week made his policy intentions for America’s energy independence clear.In the aftermath of Biden’s elitist and out-of-touch rhetoric in his State of the Union address, President Trump saw the opportunity and, taking up arms for the middle class, released a video Thursday outlining his own policy pathway for America to saunter en route to independence.In the video, President Trump immediately went after Biden, stating that “Joe Biden’s war on American energy is one of the key drivers of the worst inflation in 58 years, and it’s hitting every single American family very, very hard.”It is a...

Ukrainian Citizens Views on Acceptable Ceasefire terms: * Russia removes all troops from Ukraine - 93% * Russia removes all troops from Ukraine, except Crimea - 11% Ukrainian evaluating on carrying on fighting: * If conventional bombing of Ukrainian cities - 95% * If nuclear weapon over Black Sea - 91% * If nuclear weapons used on battlefield - 89% * If nuclear weapons used on cities - 89%

Bad news: On basically every other front, crime is winning. It sure looks like the NYPD just lacks the resources needed for an across-the-board sea change, at least as long as the Legislature refuses to fix its disastrous criminal-justice reforms. And the mayor’s occasional claims that public fears about crime are just a “perception” are wildly false. Major crimes — the ones most tracked by CompStat: murder, robbery, burglary, grand larceny, car theft and rape — hit 126,588, up 22.4% from 2021 and a post-2007 high. Every category except homicide last year topped the 2021 level. And those categories don’t...

At a conference this morning, Transportation Secretary Peter Buttigieg, aka Pothole Pete, failed to mention the 50-car train derailment in Ohio. It led to a controlled burn sending some poisonous gases into the air in East Palestine, Ohio, and in the direction of Pennsylvania and New York City. Some people complained of fish and livestock dying after the plumes permeated the air. Buttigieg did, however, say too many white people work construction. He’s still on the racist jobs, racist roads, racist everything. His solution is to hire people by race. He should really address this with the unions. Apparently, he...

Super Bowl ratings dating back to the very first game in 1967. The Super Bowl ratings record remains a 49.1 for 49ers-Bengals in 1982, but the viewership record was set more recently, 114.4 million for Patriots-Seahawks in 2015. The 2022 Rams-Bengals Super Bowl ranks as the lowest rated since Super Bowl 3 in 1969 with a 36.9 rating, marking the second-straight year the game has averaged less than a 40 rating

If you qualify for special checks or rebates related to either tax surpluses or inflation in 2022, you might want to hold off on filing your tax return, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) says. The agency is clarifying whether these special state tax rebates should be taxed federally, an IRS spokesperson tells CNBC Make It.

I know we've been told that black people can't be racist. You know, there's no such thing as anti-white racism, because white people are the ones with all the power. But, I don't know, this leaked message from the Black Student Union at Auburn University in Alabama seems pretty racist to me. The messages include numerous comments by students making fun of white people as a whole, and the group created a Google document for members to create new racial slurs for white people. The document includes over 200 anti-white slurs like, "snow pigs," "saltine cracker," "unseasoned chicken, "colonizer," "cotton...

Explanation: No, Comet ZTF is not going to hit Mars. Nicknamed the Green Comet for its bright green coma, C/2022 E3 (ZTF) did, however, pass almost in front of the much-more distant planet a few days ago, very near in time to when the featured picture was taken. The two sky icons were here captured behind a famous Earth icon -- the Matterhorn, a mountain in the Italian Alps with a picturesque peak. Both the foreground and background images were taken on the same evening by the same camera and from the same location. The comet's white dust tail is...

230,000 children who failed to show up for class when public schools reopened after the pandemic. It’s a tragedy without parallel in American history as many of the no-shows are very young — K through 3rd grade. Critical skills learned in early education were not taught to these kids, who are now hopelessly behind. ... Consider the fact that 65% of American fourth-grade students can barely read. This is a result of a radical shift to a new way of teaching children how to read. What was wrong with the old way? Well, it was old. ... What exactly are...

Go to the where there is 14:50 left in the video - towards the end. The "Cancellation" portion. Matt's reaction to the subject is the best expression of these sentiments I've heard in quite a while.