Free Republic

Fasting may be detrimental to fighting off infection, and could lead to an increased risk of heart disease, according to a study. Researchers aimed to better understand how fasting—from only a few hours to a more severe 24 hours—affects the immune system. They analyzed two groups of mice. One group ate breakfast right after waking up and the other group had no breakfast. Researchers collected blood samples in both groups when mice woke up (baseline), then four hours later, and eight hours later. When examining the blood work, researchers noticed a distinct difference in the fasting group. Specifically, the researchers...

CLARKSBURG, W.Va. (WBOY) — West Virginia State Treasurer Riley Moore Thursday announced that he is endorsing Donald Trump for President.The 45th president is running to become the 47th president as well. Just Wednesday, Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, where a train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals into waterways that run into the Ohio River. He criticized the federal response to the situation and thanked first responders.Treasurer Moore is currently running in the Republican primary to represent West Virginia’s 2nd Congressional District, which represents the northern half of West Virginia, including Lewis, Upshur, Randolph, Tucker, Barbour, Preston, Monongalia, Marion, Harrison, Doddridge...

Psyllium fiber protects against ulcerative colitis and suppresses inflammation by activating the bile acid nuclear receptor, a mechanism that was previously unrecognized, according to a study. The findings reveal that psyllium inhibits inflammation that can lead to colitis in mice by increasing serum bile acids, resulting in the activation of the farnesoid X receptor (FXR), a bile acid nuclear receptor. Fiber-rich foods promote intestinal and metabolic health, but the extent of protection varies for each fiber type. It has been unclear whether dietary fiber can benefit severe forms of intestinal inflammation, such as Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, which are...

A little-noticed provision of the omnibus spending bill could give the agency power to ban off-label use of approved therapies.. Secreted within the 2023 omnibus appropriations bill—4,155 pages, spending $1.7 trillion—is a 19-line section that could change the way medicine is practiced. Physicians routinely prescribe drugs and employ medical devices that are approved and labeled by the Food and Drug Administration for a particular use. Yet sometimes physicians discern other beneficial uses for these technologies, which they prescribe for their patients without specific official sanction. The new legislation amends the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, or FDCA, to give the...

US birth rates are alarmingly low. Recent studies show a disturbingly sharp decline in the number of babies being born in America. CBS News: Data collected by the National Center for Health Statistics — the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s statistic arm — showed a sharp decline in fertility rates in recent years, with most women having an average of 1.3 babies and an increasing percentage giving birth at age 35 or older.

Former President Donald Trump maintains a double-digit lead in a hypothetical 2024 Republican primary field, a recent McLaughlin & Associates survey revealed.###According to the survey, a plurality, 42 percent, support Trump in the hypothetical 2024 primary. No other potential candidate comes close. DeSantis falls 16 percent behind with 26 percent support from GOP primary voters. Nikki Haley, who announced her presidential bid last week, comes in third place with six percent support. Pence falls to fourth with five percent support, followed by Romney (three percent) and Pompeo (two percent). No other potential candidate saw greater than two percent. Anti-woke businessman...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Receives Cross of Ashes from a Token WomanCardinal Marx received the ash cross on Ash Wednesday in Munich's Liebfrauendom from a certain Ilaria Igliani, an artist who only graduated from the Munich Academy of Fine Arts in 2022.To this, Igliani even spoke the correct formula: "Remember man that you are dust and will return to dust." Comment on social media, "The circus continues."Position-swapping is a carnival custom. But since it's carnival all year round at the Council Church, it's safe to assume that the Academy of Fine Arts will soon be exhibiting sculptures created by Marx.

It appears CBS News also doesn’t want to interview Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Just days after the Republican governor’s communications team announced it was cutting off NBC News over a lie spread by reporter Andrea Mitchell, CBS News decided it would allow a similar falsehood in its Saturday morning show.

The group of Ron DeSantis’ top donors and supporters gathering in Palm Beach, Fla., this weekend includes some longtime backers of former President Donald Trump. The Florida governor’s three-day retreat at the Four Seasons hotel — just four miles down the road from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate — kicked off Friday evening with a cocktail reception and dinner for the approximately 150 attendees. The event, billed as a celebration of the “Florida blueprint,” precedes a likely DeSantis presidential bid that would pit him against Trump. And the roster of people there shows that the governor is appealing to major GOP figures...

ST. LOUIS — City judges asked the Missouri Supreme Court on Thursday to be excluded from deciding whether St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kimberly M. Gardner should be removed from office, arguing they had a conflict of interest. Presiding Judge Elizabeth Hogan filed the request hours after Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed suit in St. Louis accusing Gardner of negligence in office and asking her to be removed from her post. Hogan said all judges on the court's advisory committee could be called to testify during the proceedings and therefore couldn't preside over the case, according to the filing.

Faced with the undeniable fact city kids attending charters schools do far better on state exams than those stuck in the regular public-school system, critics routinely complain that charters “teach to the test” — as if that’s somehow a bad thing. Tests, after all, measure what kids are supposed to learn. Schools that don’t “teach to the test” effectively aren’t teaching at all. In other words, the critics are just avoiding the fact that public charter schools work — and, most embarrassing to the vested interests that depend on the regular system, work far better for lower-income minority children. Indeed,...

This is bad, real bad! I don’t want to see that in my country! Swiss citizens are now facing forced evictions to house Ukrainian refugees. Just one step further and officials in Switzerland will start requisitioning private property and possessions for Ukrainian refugees. This has already started in Germany… In the latest news, the municipality of Seegräben in Canton Zürich is throwing out a long-term tenant out of his apartment because they are unable to find apartments to accommodate asylum seekers from Ukraine. I think this is just the beginning… Fight for your rights… Swiss tenant has to leave apartment...

[Catholic Caucus] FRANCIS CHURCH: Same-Sex Unions In, Latin Masses Masses OutIn this RTV Spotlight, Michael Matt discusses the truly unprecedented papal endorsement of sodomidical unions. Although Pope Francis says not one word about the act of sodomy, he is now calling for states to legalize same-sex unions, by which homosexual couples can establish themselves as a "family". He even encourages homosexual couples to bring their adopted children to church, as he brags about how he meets with them publicly inside the Vatican. Of course, Jesus met with the sinners, too, but He always admonished them to repent and sin no...

Ohio resident Mandy Breshears says her four-year-old son has had health issues since the train derailment in East Palestine and says Biden let them down.

Multiple newspapers have pulled the popular office comedy comic strip "Dilbert" after its creator Scott Adams made racist comments in his podcast, and then doubled down on them. "If nearly half of all Blacks are not okay with White people – according to this poll, not to me – that’s a hate group," Adams said during his "Coffee with Scott Adams" vlog, referring to a Rasmussen poll published this week. "That’s a hate group, and I don’t want anything to do with them." "And I would say, based on the current way things are going, the best advice I can...

Gov. Polis ran for reelection on promises of saving people money and state lawmakers claim one of their top priorities this session is finding ways to make housing more affordable. And yet they’re about to push homeowners and renters off a financial cliff when an enormous property tax bill of 26.5% comes due next year. Lawmakers could have done something to stop it, and there’s still time. But they’re too busy banning gun discharges on private property and legalizing drug injection sites to enable addicts. Michael Fields, president of the Advance Colorado Institute, writes in the Denver Post this week...

GOODYEAR, Ariz. - Two bicyclists are dead and 11 others have been hospitalized after a pickup truck struck a group of bicyclists in Goodyear, police said Saturday. The collision happened near MC-85 and Cotton Lane just before 8 a.m. on Feb. 25.

February has been a cruel month for Disney as the giant corporation slashed 7,000 employees in mass layoffs and announced a 2.4-million subscriber loss to streaming service Disney+. All of this came as the network endured yet another woke controversy as a kids cartoon show on the streaming service lectured children about "white fragility" and denounced Abraham Lincoln. But these latest problems for Disney are not new and are only the latest in what is closing in on a year of woke disasters, instability at the top of the company and financial problems. Here are some of the many problems...

Today is the National Day of Hate.There is a scene in Atlas Shrugged where one of the government officials says, "when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them." Ditto "white supremacists."That's what's going on with this "National Day of Hate." The very name gives it away as a #Democrat-@FBI psyop. This is the left's well-known bottom up, top down strategy.Nlot that the idiot white supremacists of the "alt-right" wouldn't organize a day of ahte, but do you really think they'd be dumb enough to bill it as such?The regime and the @FBI, OTOH, have every reason to organize it and...

A teaching aide who was brutally beaten by a 6'6" teen student is a 'humble' mom-of-two whose son attends the same high school, it has been revealed. Joan Naydich, 57, of Palm Coast, Florida, was thrown to the ground and knocked unconscious by an unidentified teen student on Tuesday at Matanzas High School after she took away his Nintendo Switch. The mother-of-two has a son Morgan, a senior, who attends the high school and a daughter who graduated in 2013. She has worked for Flagler County Schools since 2004 and has worked at Matanzas since 2021. 'Joan is humble, never...