Free Republic

Two bills making it easier to tap the Earth’s heat for on-demand clean power have passed the House. The CLEAN Act and HEATS Act remove many of the federal permitting regulations currently necessary to drill for geothermal power plants, which produce electricity by drawing on the boiling-hot rock miles below the earth’s surface. As House energy bills go, the measures were notably bipartisan. All Republicans voted for them, with 18 Democrats crossing the aisle to vote with the GOP on the HEATS Act, and 31 on the CLEAN Act. If they make it through the Senate, the CLEAN Act and...

Climate change is exacerbating the risk of potentially dangerous mosquito-borne diseases in California — threatening to turn more of those annoying-but-harmless bites into severe illnesses, experts say. California already grapples with West Nile virus, a potentially deadly disease that was first detected in the state about two decades ago. But officials are now warning of a potential new foe: dengue, a viral infection that in the most serious cases can also lead to life-threatening complications. Until last year, all dengue cases reported in California were associated with people traveling to a country where the disease is common. But Los Angeles...

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Sen. John Fetterman, of Pennsylvania, has tested positive for COVID-19 and is working from home, according to the senator's official account on X. Fetterman posted a message to X on Sunday afternoon, saying he is "experiencing mild symptoms" and is "following the appropriate CDC guidance." The full posting said, "After a busy week in D.C., I've tested positive for COVID-19 and am experiencing mild symptoms. I'm grateful to be fully vaccinated and will be working from home, following the appropriate CDC guidance." Fetterman's health has been a focus on the political scene in the past. In 2022,...

he importance of high-quality mask-wearing cannot be overstated in the ongoing battle against airborne threats like viruses, wildfire smoke, and environmental particles. Jennifer Veltman, MD, chair of infectious diseases, outlines the times to wear a mask in 2024

Rishi Sunak today insisted 'concerns' over delayed postal votes should be investigated. The PM stressed that 'every vote counts' on July 4 after anxiety was voiced across parties about Brits being disenfranchised. Royal Mail is adamant there is 'no backlog' ahead of the election, despite postal minister Kevin Hollinrake criticising preparations. He suggested the service should have anticipated extra demand for postal votes during the summer holidays. But in a statement a spokesman said: 'We have no backlog of postal votes and, whilst we are not complacent, we remain confident that postal votes handed to us on time will be...

Millions of middle-class California households are poised to pay an extra $24 per month for electricity, regardless of how much electricity they use. Regulators are hoping this utility billing policy will rescue their agenda to move everyone to electric cars and appliances by redistributing the massive costs of the state’s electric grid so utilities can lower their usage rates. But critics say the income-based premium will likely further hike utility costs for millions of Californians—nearly one-fifth of whom are already behind in paying their bills after household electricity rates almost doubled in the last decade—and likely won’t do much to...

A bird flu pandemic could be '100 times worse than Covid' and kill up to half of everyone it infects, experts have warned — as the White House says it is 'monitoring' the situation. Speaking at a briefing, virus researchers said the H5N1 strain of bird flu may now be getting 'dangerously close' to triggering a pandemic. Multiple cases of the infection in a variety of mammals, including cows, cats and, more recently, humans, are all raising the risk of the virus mutating to become more transmissible, they said. But others attending the briefing said it was too early to...

A video purportedly showing a congressional staffer having sex in a Senate hearing room has rocked Washington. An element of cruelty permeates these media feeding-frenzies, in which an inopportune moment from a person’s life suddenly rockets through global headlines. The staffer allegedly shown in the video has now left the Senate and is now a character in the Beltway drama factory infamous for cycling through the young and ambitious. For many observers, this latest controversy only underlines how politics has not yet returned to normal under Joe Biden. “Decency is on the ballot,” Jill Biden proclaimed during the 2020 election....

The Biden administration proposal to hike fuel economy standards through 2032 is not feasible and could cost automakers a total of more than $14 billion in fines, an automotive group said Friday. ...The record-setting penalties include $235.5 million for Stellantis for the 2018 and 2019 model years and $128.2 million for GM covering 2016 and 2017.

Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo harshly criticized COVID-19 mask mandates and lockdowns, and urged people to consider "refusing to participate." "What do you call re-imposing mask policies that have been proven ineffective or restarting lockdowns that are known to cause harm? You don't call it sanity," Dr. Ladapo posted last week on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. "These terrible policies only work with your cooperation. How about refusing to participate…" Some schools and companies are implementing mask mandates amid a rise in COVID-19 hospitalizations, even though some peer-reviewed research has suggested that face coverings may cause...

Former deputy national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, K. T. McFarland, joined Maria Bartiromo’s Wall Street on Friday to discuss the Durham Report and others.In a stunning allegation, McFarland said that the FBI, Justice Department, and CIA are planning to rig the upcoming 2024 U.S. presidential election.According to McFarland, these intelligence agencies, having succeeded in rigging the 2016 and 2020 elections, aim to prevent Donald Trump from winning.“We now have black-and-white evidence that the FBI interfered in the 2016 election. When they failed to elect Hillary Clinton, they set out to destroy the Trump administration,” said McFarland. ......

For the first time, the world is seeing two simultaneous outbreaks of the Marburg virus – one in Equatorial Guinea, the other in Tanzania. The Marburg virus is just as deadly as Ebola, to which it is closely related, but it has been extremely rare until now. The situation with the Marburg virus entered uncharted territory on March 21, when Tanzania announced an outbreak of the disease in addition to the one in Equatorial Guinea, on the other side of the African continent. Five people have died out of eight confirmed cases as of April 6, according to the US...

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Local media in China’s capital of Beijing report that with only two weeks to go before the Winter Olympics begin, city health authorities have resumed a controversial practice from early in the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic: using anal swabs to check for infections. Insider on Wednesday translated a report from the state-owned Beijing News that described at least 27 residents of an apartment building in the Haidian district getting the anal swab test last week. The Beijing News article mentioned the curious practice in passing. There was only a single reference to the swabs piled up among the equipment carried by...

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) predicted Tuesday that a long-sought Democratic agreement on President Biden's domestic policy agenda is imminent, saying a deal could be announced as soon as Tuesday afternoon. "The president's working very hard on this, and the Speaker's been working very hard on it," Hoyer said during a press call. "And so there's a lot of work that's been done and I think it could come together relatively quickly in the next few hours." Such a timeline appears highly optimistic — some lawmakers said improbable — given the number of sticking points remaining as Democratic leaders...

Perhaps it's no surprise, but when it comes time to vote, Canadians are very good about doing it politely, and in queues. While Americans are still embroiled in a bitter feud over voting rights and the outcome of the 2020 election, their neighbours to the north are hardly breaking a sweat as they head to the polls to vote in their country's general election on 20 September. Things like widespread advanced voting, mail-in ballots, and federally-run elections seem to make it easier for Canadians to show up at the polls - voter turnout in Canada was higher (62%) than in...

The End of the Long MarchThe army and the police have not capitulated to Wokeism—yet. Remember those halcyon days when our biggest concerns were Howard Zinn textbooks and mainstream media bias? The left is long past that. Victory begets victory, and they feel no pressing need to shore up their wins. Now they’re gunning to control the guns—and not necessarily in the way you think.There are only two institutions left for the left to conquer—institutions filled with the backward, white supremacist, irredeemable troglodytes that liberal arts undergraduates must be psychologically and emotionally strengthened to confront when they go home every...

The administration is literally out of gas. None of their monetary policy (print it out of thing air by the bucket loads) has worked. People noticed. None of their immigration policy (tell everyone to come, travel to neighboring nations & give US tax dollars away, beg & plead for their help) has worked. People noticed. None of their anti-crime policy (threaten lawful gun owners with confiscation) has worked. People noticed. None of their foreign policy (embolden Iran, play footsie with China, ask the UN to investigate Americans, take the side of the Cuban regime, undermine the Abraham accords) has worked....

(CNN)Poll of the week: A new Gallup poll finds that 59.2% of Americans say they're thriving. Additionally, 73% of Americans said they experienced enjoyment for a lot of the previous day.The former is the highest rating Gallup has ever recorded on the measure dating back to when it was first taken more than 13 years ago. The latter is the highest since the coronavirus pandemic began early last year. What's the point: The last year has been tough for a lot of Americans. Among other issues, the coronavirus dominated our lives, and there was a very contentious presidential election. But...

Price Hikes The maker of Huggies diapers and Scott paper products said the percentage increases would be in the mid- to high-single digits and take effect in late June. They will apply to the company’s baby- and child-care, adult-care and Scott bathroom-tissue businesses. Cheerios maker General Mills Inc. (GIS) said it will raise prices to partly offset higher freight and manufacturing costs, in addition to rising commodity prices. “Our competitors and retailers are facing the same thing we are,” General Mills Chief Executive Jeff Harmening said. Hormel Foods Corp. (HRL)said in February it raised prices of its turkey products, such...