Free Republic

<p>Two lawsuits filed by service members challenging the Defense Department’s now-defunct COVID-19 vaccine mandate have ended in a settlement, according to an agreement filed Tuesday in a Florida federal court.</p><p>A judge awarded Liberty Counsel, the firm representing plaintiffs in Navy SEALs 1-26 v. Biden and Colonel Financially Management Officer, et al. v. Austin, $1.8 million to cover legal fees incurred during the cases, which were filed following Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s fall 2021 announcement that the COVID-19 vaccine would become mandatory for all troops.</p>

A Texas pastor has been ordered to pay a woman her met online $2.45million after he gave her herpes. Ralph Douglas West II, the assistant pastor at Houston's The Church Without Walls, was found guilty of battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and fraudulent concealment. After a three-day trial and six hours of deliberation, a jury determined on Thursday that West gave the victim genital herpes after they met on Facebook five years ago. 'You can’t fix it, she’s got it for the rest of her life,' said the woman's attorney Shaun Murphy, as reported by Click 2 Houston. Douglas'...

A man who grew up in an incestuous, polygamist, Mormon cult with 14 mothers and 163 siblings has opened up about the horrors that he was subjected to by its abusive leader. Val Snow, 35, grew up in Utah in a strict Mormon community called the Kingston Group - officially known as the Davis County Cooperative Society and internally as The Order. The Order is a cult that was started during the Great Depression which promotes polygamy and incest to keep bloodlines 'pure.' Val is the oldest of 12 children that his mother gave birth to in the cult, and...

A study is the first to demonstrate the long-term efficacy of electrofulguration, a minimally invasive outpatient procedure that treats chronic urinary tract infections (UTIs) among postmenopausal women. Researchers reviewed the medical records of 96 women treated for recurrent UTIs (three or more a year) with electrofulguration between 2006 and 2012. Telephone interviews, conducted by a third-party researcher, were performed with patients who had not recently been seen by a physician. Among the patients, 72% were considered to have had successful treatment, with no more than one UTI annually; 22% had improved, with fewer than three UTIs annually; and 6% were...

A new method of controlling inflammation and sugar levels for oral and systemic disease prevention using a common diabetes drug has been discovered by a team of researchers. A team of researchers have found new ways of stopping periodontal (gum) disease and potentially reducing the incidence of diabetes and obesity. This new approach focuses on controlling inflammation and sugar levels in both the mouth and body with a common type 2 diabetes drug, Metformin. The only treatment strategy currently available to tackle gum disease is to deep clean the teeth to rid the mouth of bacteria, as well as prescribing...

Join with Fellow FREEPERS to Pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.'I Urge, then, First of All, that Requests, Prayers, Intercession and Thanksgiving be Made for Everyone: for Kings and All those in Authority that we May Live Peaceful and Quiet Lives in All Godliness and Holiness.' 1 Tim.2:1,2'And this is the Confidence that we have in Him, that, if we Ask Anything According to His Will, He Heareth us.' 1 John 5:14Religion Forum Threads Labeled [Prayer] are Closed to Debate of Any Kind.Philippians 2:9-11Wherefore God also hath Highly...

Does this sound like you? You wake up at the same time each morning, get the kids out the door, and rush to catch the subway to work. But at night, maybe you stay up until midnight doing laundry or 1 a.m. to catch up on the bills. Many Americans—about one-third of us—are in the same situation and habitually get only five to six hours of sleep instead of the recommended seven to eight hours. But even a mild chronic sleep deficit may heighten the risk of developing heart disease later in life: Surveys of thousands of people have found...

A Synodal Swampy MessWhile addressing a South American youth gathering in 2015, Pope Francis defined his pontificate when he told them to go out and “make a mess.” And a mess is what he has emanating from the Vatican.Enter the Synod on Synodality where barrels of ink have been spilled leading up to its initiation that is now underway in the Eternal City. And if the recycle dumpster is to be believed, much that has been written on the synod has been deposited unopened. Many baptized Catholics have no idea what a synod is or even care.The growing progressive wing...

The speech Corbyn read at the pro-Palestine demonstration mourned those murdered in the Negev desert, but did not mention the party responsible for the brutal attack. Former leader of the United Kingdom’s Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, has become increasingly vocal about Israel’s actions against the Hamas terrorist organization, and the casualties stemming from those actions. Corbyn, who has refused to condemn Hamas, wrote on X on October 12 that “We should condemn the targeting of all civilian life, no matter who does it. Why can't our politicians uphold this basic moral principle, and defend international law universally and equally? How...

A week after a deadly attack that took Israel by surprise, the chair of Israel’s National Security Council said Saturday that he made a mistake when he previously said that Palestinian group Hamas had been “deterred." "I made a mistake when I said Hamas was deterred after Operation Guardian of the Walls," Tzachi Hanegbi told a press conference, referring to Israel's Gaza attacks in 2021. The setback Israel suffered on Oct. 7 “reflects the mistakes made in all assessments over the past years and especially in recent times, from which we thought Hamas, which was hit hard in the operation...

Patients who had common procedures performed outside of the operating room (OR) were more likely to go home instead of to a long-term care facility when they were discharged from the hospital if their sedation was administered or directed by an anesthesiologist, rather than by a physician who is not a trained anesthesiologist, according to a study. Patients who need catheters placed in a vein, angiograms (X-ray of the blood vessels), image-guided biopsies and many other procedures typically are treated in the interventional radiology (IR) suite instead of the OR and given sedation. In the study, 9,682 patients had sedation...

our local Rite Aid drugstore could soon disappear, a casualty of years of losses and failed mergers. In the end, Rite Aid was too small and too poor to pay the costs of lawsuits related to the opioid epidemic. Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy on Sunday in New Jersey, unable to find the money to settle hundreds of federal, state and private lawsuits alleging it oversupplied prescription painkillers.

Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that everyone in the U.S. 6 months and older receive an updated Covid vaccine targeting the XBB.1.5 variant. Since then, some notable voices, including Paul Offit, have publicly questioned whether the updated vaccine is needed for those who are not in a high-risk group. He recently wrote, “At this point in the pandemic, it is hard to make a case for vaccinating everyone. Let’s focus on those who are most likely to benefit. Otherwise, we run the risk of further confusing and frustrating the American public.”Of course there is room...

Update from Ukraine | Crazy Record Ruzzian losses on the East | The Disaster of the Ruzzian Army https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c-Egu5Xwvw Recap Deployment Map changes – Week 41 zhutatko – October 15, 2023 https://militaryland.net/news/recap-deployment-map-changes-week-41/ https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-599-summary/ *** Great interactive maps with viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use for each Front! https://militaryland.net/maps/

Two simple solutions could help prevent severe bleeding (postpartum hemorrhage) after cesarean delivery, suggests research. Both solutions help address uterine atony, which causes up to 80% of postpartum hemorrhage. Uterine atony is when, after delivery, the uterus remains soft and weak. The researchers found that calcium chloride reduced the amount of bleeding that patients experienced during their cesarean delivery by nearly a measuring cup (more than 200 mL). The double-blind, randomized, controlled trial included 120 women who required a cesarean delivery after labor with an oxytocin infusion (which increases contraction of the uterus during labor), placing them at much higher...

On this date in 1942, the Japanese military occupying the atoll of Tarawa beheaded 17 New Zealand Coastwatchers, along with five civilians. Tarawa, a fishhook-shaped atoll that belongs to the Republic of Kiribati, was one of many specks of South Pacific land to which Australia and New Zealand deployed World War II Coastwatchers. These small teams of mixed civilian and service personnel, as well as locals, kept up 24-hour watch for Japanese naval movements.* The tips provided by coastwatchers in the Solomon Islands during the Guadalcanal campaign led Vice Admiral William Halsey to exclaim that “the coastwatchers saved Guadalcanal, and...

When a country is invaded by a foreign power, the only sane response is to retaliate with massive, overwhelming, disproportionate force. And when an invader commits the kinds of atrocities that we have seen over the last week, unprecedented in modern times, vengeance must be the order of the day. War is a terrible thing. But the Gazans started this war, and war is what they are going to get. Every resulting casualty should be laid at the foot of Hamas and all Gazans who have supported and collaborated with Hamas–a large majority, by all indications.But there is something else...

COMING TO OTTAWA FOR A LIMITED RUN The story of Michelle from the little girl growing up in the southside of Chicago who always asking “Why can’t I?” who made her way through Princeton University to Harvard Law School on to a successful career as a corporate lawyer and eventually becoming First Lady. A new musical by Canada's most prolific writer of musical theatre in the 21st century, Gord Carruth, a national ACTRA award-winning playwright/composer. This is the first Canadian-written Black musical ever presented in Ottawa featuring a cast of Black actors. The musical features two outstanding local performers Racquel...

Disturbing.

Israeli foreign minister expects clear, unequivocal condemnation from Vatican over Hamas' attack: reportsIsrael PM says he 'expects the Vatican to come out with a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the murderous terrorist actions'The Times of Israel reported that Cohen told the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States Paul Gallagher that the people of Israel "expects the Vatican to come out with a clear and unequivocal condemnation of the murderous terrorist actions.""It is unacceptable that you put out a statement expressing worry primarily for Gazan civilians while Israel is burying 1,300 who were murdered," Cohen said, according to the Foreign...