Free Republic

As China declares victory over the pandemic, the landmark protests in November which spelled the end for zero-Covid rules have begun fading from memory. But as the country moved on, many of those who took part in the demonstrations went missing, taken by authorities in a quietly deepening crackdown on dissenters. Thousands rallied against restrictive Covid policies in the so-called White Paper protests, holding up blank white sheets in the dark. It was a rare show of criticism of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. Police made few arrests at the time. Now, months on, scores...

Residents of Elon Musk’s “space city” in southeastern Texas blasted the SpaceX CEO’s treatment of them as he transformed their quiet beach town into his grand Starbase vision, a report said. Boca Chica was a small, seaside village at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican border with just a few streets before SpaceX moved in, promising to turn the town into a terrestrial terminus for space travelers. The company broke ground on its launch facility in 2014 and started testing rockets there in 2019. As work on the project progressed, SpaceX gradually bought up most of Boca...

Rachel Levine, who is now assistant secretary for health in the Biden administration, discussed the potential revenue that could be generated by a gender clinic social worker who could advocate for child sex change procedures in emails, reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, with a pediatrician. Dr. Rollyn Ornstein, a pediatrician at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, believed a social worker for the hospital’s gender clinic would generate enough revenue to make funding the position worthwhile, noting that even with age restrictions for sex change surgeries, child patients would eventually turn 18 and be eligible for further interventions, according...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI)-A Temple University police officer has died following a shooting Saturday evening in North Philadelphia, authorities said. According to Philadelphia police, the shooting happened at about 7 p.m. near 18th and Montgomery Avenue. The officer was shot in the head and was on patrol at the time...

On Friday supporters of President Macron in the assembly dropped intense accusations that the "Left" was "nostalgic for the guillotine". It was also said that the pension reform opponents longed for the days of "The Terror" during the French Revolution. But in the end the debate ended at Midnight Friday without a full examination of the text as the government moved the proposal onto the Senate. The Senate must act by March 12th then 'pension reform' goes back to a joint committee of both the Assembly and Senate the final deadline for passage March 26th... As the debate between the...

oe Biden has appointed Susan Rice to be the chair of the new “White House Steering Committee on Equity” to conduct a sweeping “racial equity” progressive makeover of the federal government with the establishment of “Agency Equity Teams” in all departments that answer to Rice. Biden issued an executive order on Thursday titled, “Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.” The Agency Equity Teams will have power and funding to transform the federal government by “Delivering Equitable Outcomes Through Government Policies, Programs, and Activities.” Every year agencies will submit an “Equity...

North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan's west coast on Saturday afternoon after warning of a strong response to upcoming military drills by South Korea and the United States. "The surprise ICBM launching drill ... is an actual proof of the DPRK strategic nuclear force's consistent efforts to turn its capacity of fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces into the irresistible one," the state news agency KCNA said, using the abbreviation for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The state news agency said the missile had flown for 1 hour,...

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Republicans on Saturday picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for statewide office, one in which she unsuccessfully sued to throw out mail-in votes in Detroit and refused to concede. Ms. Karamo won a majority of delegate votes at the state party’s convention in Lansing, the state capital, after three rounds of voting that — slowed by paper ballots and hand counting — went on hours longer than the period for which the party had originally rented the convention space. Her victory...

BARTOW, Fla. — A man was arrested after he drove through a cemetery in Bartow, Florida. He damaged some headstones of some graves and ultimately crashed into a house. Police saw Timothy David Adams, 40, recklessly driving and witnessed him run a stop sign just after midnight Thursday, according to WFLA. Officers attempted to stop Adamas but he fled the area. Officers tried to chase Adams but he turned off his lights which made it harder to follow him, according to WTVT. Adams ended up driving through a fence near Stuart Street which was on the side of Wildwood Cemetary,...

Nine children under the age of 18 were shot outside a gas station in Columbus, Georgia on Friday night. The shooting occurred just after 10pm Friday night outside of a Shell Gas Station on Warm Springs Road. The victims ranged in age from 5-years to 17-years of age, and were comprised of seven male and two female victims.

An Alaska woman pleaded guilty to killing her "best friend" after a man she met online said he would pay her $9 million if she sent him photos and videos of her committing murder. Denali Brehmer, 22, pleaded guilty Wednesday to first-degree murder in the June 2019 death of Cynthia Hoffman, the Alaska Department of Law said. Hoffman, 19, died from a gunshot wound to the back of the head. Her body was dumped in the Eklutna River, about 27 miles northeast of Anchorage, court documents state. The Anchorage District Attorney’s Office previously said that Brehmer, who was 18 at...

Individuals who were previously infected with COVID-19 are at least as well-protected against severe disease in the long run and may even have better protection, according to a recent study published in The Lancet. The study reviewed 65 different findings on natural immunity, with the results suggesting that natural immunity is at least 88% effective against hospitalization and death from all COVID-19 variants, for around 10 months after infection. However, the study did not account for the XBB.1.5 subvariant, also known as Omicron. Natural immunity provided less protection against the BA.1 subvariant of Omicron, which recorded a 36% efficacy against...

Environmental groups on Tuesday accused the Biden administration of putting the profits of big agribusiness over public health and critical pollinators by attempting to obstruct the Mexican government’s ongoing push to ban genetically engineered (GE) corn. “The U.S.’s shameful efforts to strong-arm Mexico into accepting GE corn it has rejected is nothing short of 21st-century imperialism,” Lori Ann Burd, environmental health director at the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity. “Our government is working tirelessly to pad the multibillion-dollar profits of domestic agribusiness corporations by pushing GE corn, even though our glyphosate-drenched GE cornfields are playing an outsized role in driving...

A Florida man reportedly fended off a bobcat attack on his daughter’s dog by swinging his fists, clocking the wild animal in the face. Paul Broadhurst told Fox 32 Orlando that he was walking the dog, Koda, on Feb. 11 in the Stoneybrook neighborhood of East Orlando when the bobcat pounced. “The bobcat, he clawed into me pretty good, and I end up having to punch the bobcat in the mouth to get it off of me,” Broadhurst said. “He was walking down the sidewalk that bobcat was just over the top of him. He no sooner got there, and...

Lab-grown meat, touted as the “cruelty-free” food of the future by everyone from the World Economic Forum to Hollywood mega-celebs like Leonardo DiCaprio, may have a fatal problem, according to a new Bloomberg story. The problem is that the materials used to make the product – “immortalized cell lines” – replicate forever, just like cancer. Which means, in effect, that they are cancer. Although these cell lines are widely used in scientific research, they’ve never been used to produce food before. Industry types are “confident” that eating such products poses no risk – although there isn’t any hard data –...

This movie the East side kids find in a 'haunted house' a printing press that has Nazi propaganda on it, 'how to destroy the allies' and the pamphlet that is being printed is titled, "New Order". No kidding.

Mark 9:2-13 Friends, today’s Gospel presents the Transfiguration of Christ. What is the Transfiguration itself? Mark speaks literally of a metamorphosis, a going beyond the form that he had. If I could use Paul’s language, it is “the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” In and through his humble humanity, his divinity shines forth. The proximity of his divinity in no way compromises the integrity of his humanity, but rather makes it shine in greater beauty. This is the New Testament version of the burning bush.The Jesus who is both divine and human is...

Ann Coulter: Trump is “profoundly stupid.”

Left-wing advocacy groups that have supported the controversial "defund" police movement have received tens of millions of dollars from a Texas billionaire who has backed efforts across the United States to overhaul the criminal justice system, records show. John Arnold, a former Enron executive, has emerged as a major donor to organizations that have supported policies such as cashless bail that Republicans argue lead to crime spikes. Through his limited liability corporation, Arnold Ventures, the billionaire has steered $17.2 million to four organizations behind efforts and calls to strip law enforcement of crucial resources, according to records reviewed by the...

Why did the CDC update its page for vinyl chloride nearly two weeks before the Ohio train derailment? The CDC edited its profile for vinyl chloride just recently, removing a section on how the chemical affects children. On February 3, a Norfolk Southern Railroad train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, emitting toxic clouds into the air and water supplies. The Environmental Protection Agency has deemed the water "safe to drink" – despite the existing reports of wildlife dying in the affected area. Now it seems even the CDC is minimizing the effects of the chemicals involved in the crash, one...