Free Republic

Diets rich in phosphate additives, commonly found in processed foods, can increase blood pressure by triggering a brain signaling pathway and overactivating the sympathetic nervous system that regulates cardiovascular function, researchers discovered. Their findings could lead to treatment strategies for patients with hypertension caused by overconsumption of foods containing high levels of phosphates. "This research uncovers a previously unrecognized brain-mediated mechanism by which high dietary phosphate intake promotes hypertension and sympathetic overactivation, highlighting central fibroblast growth factor receptor signaling as a novel therapeutic target," said Han Kyul Kim, Ph.D. Inorganic phosphate is often used as a preservative or flavor enhancer...

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act is notable for implementing significant changes to the U.S. tax code, including making 2017’s individual income tax brackets permanent.But there are non-tax-related items in the bill that will impact the lives of everyday Americans, affecting travel, women’s health care, immigration, and welfare benefits.Here are ten major non-tax areas that are addressed in the legislation, which President Donald Trump signed into law on July 4.Air Traffic ControlThe new law provides $12.5 billion to the Transportation Department to institute long-overdue reforms to the nation’s air traffic control system.That includes $4.75 billion to upgrade copper telecommunication infrastructure...

President Donald Trump on Saturday defended Attorney General Pam Bondi as doing a "fantastic job" after she came under fire from some Trump supporters over the Department of Justice’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files. "What's going on with my ‘boys’ and, in some cases, ‘gals?' They’re all going after Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is doing a FANTASTIC JOB," Trump wrote in a lengthy post on Truth Social on Saturday. "We’re on one Team, MAGA, and I don’t like what’s happening." He referred to Epstein as the "guy who never dies," adding, "For years, it’s Epstein, over and over...

One of Donald Trump’s popular campaign promises was to work on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, so we could see how many people still in power were clients of the infamous child trafficker. In a new mystifying message, Trump not only supported his attorney general in not releasing the files; he bashed his own base.Voters love Trump for defying the Deep State, for promising to drain the swamp, for vowing to track down criminals — especially child abusers. He was elected on promises of enforcing the law against criminals. Now Attorney General Pam Bondi is claiming that the Epstein files...

Trump administration border czar Tom Homan fired up the crowd at Turning Point USA’s Student Action Summit Saturday night when a heckler asked Homan, “Are you an MS-13 member?“ But the heckler’s comments added fuel to Homan’s fire as he delivered fiery closing remarks, saying, “Tom Homan is going to run the biggest deportation operation this country has ever seen. Take it to the bank.” “U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A,” the crowd chanted as Homan exited the stage. About five minutes into Homan’s speech, he was interrupted by a heckler who was escorted out by security, lighting a fire for the rest...

A leftist woman who’s been hassling U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents ran to the media to whine after she was unsurprisingly detained. The woman, a 71-year-old grandmother named Barbara Stone, showed up at the San Diego Courthouse Tuesday with the explicit intent to “document” ICE agents, according to local station KGTV. She claimed she was a volunteer for a left-wing pro-illegal alien group named Detention Resistance that goes around “showing support for … asylum seekers,” according to Stone’s own words. Speaking with KGTV, her lawyer added that the purpose of her volunteer work is to “film[] the...

A new analysis of published data finds no evidence to indicate that the long-standing practice of having patients fast for a period of time prior to surgery prevents post-surgical aspiration: vomiting that is followed by gastric contents getting into the lungs, which in turn causes what is known as aspiration pneumonia. Patients dislike is not being able to eat before undergoing a procedure. This is done to avoid the risk of vomiting when anesthesia is given. The research, however, shows that there is no association between pre-surgery fasting and post-procedure vomiting to support this recommendation. The researchers reviewed randomized clinical...

Newsdump Commentary: Iran Is Still On The Chopping Block For Regime Change Israel And The US Oppose Resolution Decrying Treatment Of Women And Girls In Afghanistan... All of this Jeffrey Epstein Drama and the need to kick the matter down the road coinciding with the four-day visit of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington DC. Personality clashes or blaming personalities gets us to nowhere. President Harry Truman had that sign on his desk... Beyond Jeffrey Epstein This is the show that reminds you the Iranian men and the Israeli men go to... "The researchers estimate that this amounts to...

Some A-10 Warthogs could get a reprieve from total retirement as Congress moves to reverse some of the Pentagon’s most dramatic Air Force cuts in its proposed fiscal 2026 budget. The Pentagon’s budget, which the department released in June, calls for the Air Force to retire its remaining 162-plane fleet of A-10 attack aircraft in 2026, two years earlier than originally intended. It also calls for canceling the E-7 Wedgetail program in favor of E-2D Hawkeyes and space-based sensors, and cutting the planned purchase of F-35A Joint Strike Fighters down to 24, or nearly in half. The proposed E-7 and...

Acute myocarditis—sudden inflammation of the heart—causes mild symptoms in most cases, but about 10% of acute myocarditis cases can be sudden and severe. Now a team is using a new class of drugs that target inflammation to treat acute fulminant myocarditis patients. "Our group has developed several animal models of myocarditis and we became interested in a group of enzymes called Janus kinases (JAKs) that seem to serve as communication nodes between immune cells," said Javid Moslehi, MD. "JAKs become hyperactive during acute heart inflammation, exacerbating the already activated immune system." Moslehi and his team therefore reasoned that targeting these...

"The Mamdani effect is going to metastasize in the Democrat Party. Now, how successful it will be in a general election, I don’t know, I still have my skepticism. But the Mamdani effect is grievance-based politics, playing into people’s bitterness, and also playing into the economic disorder that Biden left us," Kirk said. President Trump is going to fix this, and he is aiming to fix this," Kirk continued. "But understand, for the younger voters that I represent and the younger voters that delivered the White House for President Trump, they can’t afford homes, they’re increasingly renting, they’re not getting...

One year after coming millimeters from a very different outcome, Trump, according to friends and aides, is still the same Trump. But they see signs, beyond being on higher alert on stage, that his brush with death did change him in some ways… Roger Stone, a longtime friend and informal adviser, noted that Trump has had other brushes with death, including a last-minute decision not to board a helicopter to Atlantic City that crashed in 1989 and another near-assassination two months after Butler when U.S. Secret Service agents spotted a man pointing a rifle through the fence near where Trump...

The federal government on Saturday dismissed charges against a Utah plastic surgeon accused of throwing away COVID-19 vaccines, giving children saline shots instead of the vaccine and selling faked vaccination cards. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a post on the social media platform X that charges against Dr. Michael Kirk Moore, of Midvale, Utah, were dismissed at her direction. Moore and other defendants faced up to 35 years in prison after being charged with conspiracy to defraud the government; conspiracy to convert, sell, convey and dispose of government property; and aiding and abetting in those efforts. The charges...

“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote in a post on his social platform X, alongside a video of the former president standing and raising his fist after being shot in the ear. The tech billionaire, who owns Tesla and SpaceX along with the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has feuded with President Biden in recent years and indicated he would be supporting GOP candidates. In March Musk said on X he voted “100% Dem until a few years ago,” but “now, I think we need a red wave or America is...

NBC News National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki analyzes what Republicans are up against as they seek to protect their majority in both chambers of Congress in the upcoming midterm elections.

"This display of force has only one purpose: to provide a spectacle for the news channels, to rummage through the private correspondence of the leading opposition party, to seize all our internal documents" National Rally (RN) President And Back Up Presidential Candidate Jordan Bardella... ...There could be legislative elections in France on short notice with the government lacking a majority in the National Assembly and the 2027 presidential election is drawing closer. Polling data points to the strength of the National Rally (RN) leading polling for the first round of legislative elections and the first round of presidential elections. Two...

Capsular tension ring (CTR) implantation is associated with improved stability of the intraocular lens (IOL), according to a review. Haowen Lin, M.D. and colleagues examined the association of CTR implantation with IOL position in a systematic review and meta-analysis that included 11 randomized clinical trials and seven cohort studies, with 809 eyes with CTR and 822 eyes without CTR. The researchers found that compared with the control group, the IOL tilt and rotation were smaller in the CTR group (mean difference, −1.04 and −0.82 degrees, respectively). Heterogeneity between the subgroups stratified according to IOL haptic design was seen in the...

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. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men,...

The International Osteoporosis Foundation (IOF) Bone and Cancer Working Group has released a comprehensive review detailing the often under-recognized impact of modern anti-cancer treatments on bone health. It highlights the need to address cancer treatment-induced bone loss (CTIBL), including in patients undergoing cutting-edge therapies. The publication provides a review of the bone effects of major anti-cancer therapies currently in use, including newer agents, and discusses their known cellular impacts, effects on bone mineral density (BMD), and fracture incidence by drug category. Among the key messages: —Drugs such as glucocorticoids, hormone therapies, antiangiogenic drugs, and immune checkpoint inhibitors show varying degrees...

While Lorenzo Sewell was in high school, his dad got incarcerated and his brother got murdered in East Detroit. “I was mentored by murderers. I was a student of the street,” said the former drug abuser, drug dealer and gang leader. But Lorenzo found God in Paul-like conversion in his senior year in 1999 and now pastors the dynamic 180 Church in Pontiac, Michigan. When Donald Trump asked to visit his church to listen to members talk about their issues, Pastor Lorenzo thought it was a prank call. When he subsequently got invited to speak at the Republican National Convention,...