Free Republic

The American Red Cross is changing its donor screening policy to allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood. The humanitarian organization announced the change on Monday, removing a historic barrier in the donation process by not considering sexual orientation as a risk factor. Other screening questions will remain the same. Potential donors will be asked about risk factors including sexual activity. Specifically they will be asked if they have had sexual contact with a new partner in the past three months and had anal sex. The Red Cross said the decision is supported by decades of data collection and...

* The pill works by killing a mutated protein which helps cancers to repair * Scientists hope it can be used as a standalone therapy or alongside treatments Scientists have developed a holy grail cancer drug that kills all solid cancer tumors while leaving other cells unharmed. The new molecule targets a protein present in most cancers that helps tumors grow and multiply in the body. It is significant because this protein - the proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) - was previously thought to be 'undruggable'. The drug was tested on 70 different cancer cells in the lab - including...

Home prices are ticking up again and reaching new highs in many markets across the country, according to a new report. Prices grew by 0.8 percent in June after slowing for more than a year, pushing prices to record levels in around 60 percent of the nation’s major housing markets, the report from Black Knight showed. Overall, annual price growth was greatest in markets in the Midwest and northeast regions of the U.S., while the strongest price growth was seen in Hartford, Seattle and San Jose. Median home prices in the pandemic-era boomtown Austin fell furthest below their 2022 peak,...

A woman has spoken out after her friend's two-year-old daughter was asked to cover up at a swimming pool. Katie Sturino from New York City took to Instagram to share an anecdote from a friend who took her toddler for a swimming lesson. The little girl was dressed in swimsuit bottoms when two lifeguards approached her mother and said that she must cover up, despite many of the other little boys at the pool also being half dressed. The lifeguard told the mother that there was no nudity allowed by the pool, but Katie has criticized this logic and said...

Federal workers have been authorized to leave work early as severe weather is expected to hit the Washington, D.C., area and parts of the Northeast region of the country. In a news release Monday, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) said federal employees located in the D.C. area were authorized to leave their workplaces two hours earlier than expected, and that all employees must evacuate their buildings “no later than 3:00 at which time Federal offices are closed.” Telework employees are also expected to receive weather and safety leave for the amount required for them to commute back home,...

We don't ask for much ... so it really shouldn't be too much to ask when we ask for THIS to pretty please with sugar on top happen. Antifa going to Sturgis to shut it down

A group of gun-toting youths was seen leveling firearms at the doorway of a seemingly random residence, an act that might fly in a big city but could be disastrous if tried in a more armed and rural area. The incident happened Thursday in University City, Missouri, in the metro area of crime-ridden St. Louis. The punks appeared to be armed with a variety of handguns and other weaponry, including a pistol-style AK-47. Video from the incident shows the thuggish and brazen behavior happening in broad daylight. As seen in the video, the weapons were leveled at the doorway camera...

A dying 10-year-old whose last wish was to get married 'tied the knot' with her childhood sweetheart - days before passing away from leukemia. Emma Edwards was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia in April last year but parents Alina, 39, and Aaron, 41, said they were hopeful that she'd be able to beat the illness. But in June the family were given the heartbreaking news that Emma's cancer, an aggressive form that affects white blood cells, was incurable and she only had days to live. Emma sadly passed away on July 11. Alina said Emma's dream was to marry boyfriend...

Officials have confirmed a migrant shelter will be built for 2,000 men on Randall’s Island’s kiddie soccer fields, with construction starting as early as Monday. The influx of migrants to New York City — including hundreds arriving daily — is “stretching our system to its breaking point and beyond,” Mayor Eric Adams said in a statement. “It has become more and more of a Herculean effort to find enough beds every night,” he said. Hizzoner said the state would be “covering the costs” of the shelter’s construction, maintenance and staffing, although officials have yet to say how much that will...

A bombshell FBI informant file describing a $10 million bribery allegation against President Biden and his son Hunter was released Thursday by Sen. Chuck Grassley, showing that a Ukrainian oligarch claimed that he was “coerced” into making the payoff. Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner of natural gas company Burisma Holdings, told the FBI informant in 2016 while meeting at a coffee shop in Vienna, Austria, that “it cost 5 [million] to pay one Biden, and 5 [million] to another Biden,” according to the redacted FD-1023 form. “Zlochevsky made some comment that although Hunter Biden ‘was stupid, and his (Zlochevsky’s) dog was...

... are really just saying "We're done bleeding the U.S. dry -- let's get some cash now from China and Russia et al."? Do they just see another new source for handouts, now that U.S. has driven itself into impossible levels of debt? This has been on my mind a lot lately. It took something like a decade for the EU to get its act together at the start -- and those countries, at least, had many things in common. I don't see how a BRICS-type arrangement can hold itself together for very long, with so many disparate cultures and...

The FBI source who reported President Biden’s alleged role in a bribery scheme said that a Ukrainian businessman claimed to keep as “insurance” 15 audio recordings of first son Hunter Biden and two of Joe Biden, a Republican senator revealed Monday. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) made the staggering claim in a Senate floor speech after FBI Director Christopher Wray last week allowed House Oversight Committee members to see a redacted informant file about the claim that Hunter and then-Vice President Joe Biden received $5 million apiece to serve the interests of Burisma Holdings owner Mykola Zlochevsky. “Congress still lacks a full...

People living with HIV are not more likely to be hospitalized with severe mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) unless they have advanced immune suppression, underscoring the importance of prompt antiretroviral treatment, according to study findings presented at the International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science (#IAS2023). To that end, experts recommend that people who present for mpox vaccination, testing or treatment should be tested for HIV if they do not already know their status and linked to care if they are not on antiretroviral therapy. “For individuals with unknown HIV status, mpox testing can be an opportunity for HIV testing,...

At least two homes in Juneau, Alaska, have collapsed into a raging river after a glacial collapse triggered flooding and a state of emergency at the capital. Harrowing video capture by local resident Sam Nolan shows the Mendenhall River eating away at the shoreline until an entire two-story home plunges into the water. The TikTok video opens with the river taking out a tree near the shore, with the house barely visible behind all the trees and foliage on Saturday. The video then speeds up to show the entire greenery slowly succumbing to the flooding river until the house is...

But to hear President Joe Biden and his team tell it, he was dealt an unusually bad hand back in January 2021 when he took the oath of office — one far worse than his predecessors. Although the COVID-19 economy had already begun to turn around in the last months of the Trump administration, to listen to Biden, the challenges he faced dwarfed those of other administrations. He couldn’t be more wrong. Reagan and Obama came into the White House in the midst of major economic problems. When Reagan took office, the country was reeling from 11.8 percent inflation and...

Former President Donald Trump Monday lashed out at special counsel Jack Smith and U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan even as the judge prepares to consider a gag order in advance of his trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election. Deriding Chutkan as “the judge of (Smith’s) dreams,” Trump called for a new jurist to be appointed to oversee his historic trial even though his defense team has not yet made any such motion in court. “Deranged Jack Smith is going before his number one draft pick, the Judge of his “dreams” (WHO MUST BE RECUSED!), in an attempt...

By Weijia Jiang, Eleanor Watson Updated on: August 7, 2023 / 10:02 AM / CBS News The U.S. Navy sent destroyers to the coast of Alaska last week after 11 Russian and Chinese warships were spotted patrolling nearby international waters. Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican from Alaska, called the size of the Chinese and Russian joint operation "unprecedented" and said the U.S. deployed four Navy destroyer ships near the Aleutian Islands in response. The destroyers were the USS John McCain, USS Benfold, USS John Finn and USS Chung-Hoon. U.S. aircraft were also in the area throughout the combined exercise, which...

First Lady Jill Biden is wielding her influence in the public sphere by meeting with drag queens while Americans suffer from rising prices and crime under her husband’s administration. A photo recently surfaced showing Jill Biden posing with drag queens at the San Francisco event space Welcome to Manny’s. The event space describes itself as a “community focused meeting and learning place” that encourages meetings and engagement with “civic leaders, elected officials, artists, activists, changemakers, and each other.”

Two Sikh 7-Eleven workers who attacked a thief after he repeatedly targeted their store are under investigation for assault, police in California have said. In a now-viral video, the workers are seen smacking the suspect with a stick after he entered the store in Stockton with a garbage can and began filling it with tobacco products from behind the counter. The attempted theft on July 29 was allegedly the third time in two days the man had targeted the store. On a previous occasion, he tried to intimidate staff by claiming he had a handgun. Despite widespread praise for the...

Explanation: The Pelican Nebula is slowly being transformed. IC 5070 (the official designation) is divided from the larger North America Nebula by a molecular cloud filled with dark dust. The Pelican, however, receives much study because it is a particularly active mix of star formation and evolving gas clouds. The featured picture was produced in three specific colors -- light emitted by sulfur, hydrogen, and oxygen -- that can help us to better understand these interactions. The light from young energetic stars is slowly transforming the cold gas to hot gas, with the advancing boundary between the two, known as...