Free Republic

Health departments in several states confirmed to The Epoch Times that they are looking into a steep surge in the mortality rate for people aged 18 to 49 in 2021—a majority of which are not linked to COVID-19.Deaths among people aged 18 to 49 increased more than 40 percent in the 12 months ending October 2021 compared to the same period in 2018–2019, before the pandemic, according to an analysis by The Epoch Times of death certificate data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).The agency doesn’t yet have full 2021 figures, as death certificate data has a...

PASSAIC, N.J. — A fire at a New Jersey chemical plant with flames and smoke visible for miles in the night sky Friday has spread to multiple buildings, threatening to reach the plant’s chemical storage area, authorities said. Passaic Mayor Hector Lora told Northjersey.com that popping and small explosions within the fire at Qualco Inc. indicated it was getting closer to the chemicals, as residents were being evacuated from surrounding areas and told to keep their windows closed in at least one nearby municipality.

One of the nation’s biggest satellite broadcasters, DirecTV, plans to drop carriage of the fringe right-wing cable outlet One America News, several months after a Reuters report revealed that AT&T, one of DirecTV’s owners, was responsible for a large part of the media outlet’s overall revenue. OAN is owned by Herring Networks, founded by the entrepreneur Robert Herring Sr. “We informed Herring Networks that, following a routine internal review, we do not plan to enter into a new contract when our current agreement expires,” DirecTV said in a statement. A spokesman would not comment on a report from Bloomberg News...

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to block President Biden’s vaccine-or-testing rule for large companies, General Electric said it would suspend the implementation of the mandate for its employees. The Boston-based maker of jet engines, wind turbines, and medical scanners confirmed the decision Friday via e-mail. GE is the first major company to announce a halt after the court’s decision to block the centerpiece of Biden’s push to boost COVID-19 vaccinations. GE holds a number of government contracts, so its 56,000 employees in the US originally fell under a separate vaccination mandate for federal contractors. The company paused that requirement in...

“Hello everyone, I am the artificial intelligence news anchor on National Business Daily. I am the virtual twin of the original host. I have been running—reporting the news—undetected for 70 days now,” the AI news anchor N Xiaohei revealed itself to its television viewers on Dec. 20, 2021, after 1700 hours of a continuous live news broadcast. On the same day, the Chinese state-controlled media National Business Daily (NBD) and the AI company Xiaoice jointly announced the official launch of their collaborative live news broadcasting TV programs run entirely by AI—the first of its kind. The TV program is named...

Two of the country’s largest retail pharmacies are temporarily closing stores on weekends due to an increase in the number of COVID-19 infections among staffers. The two chains said that the rapid spread of the Omicron variant has depleted staffing at several locations nationwide, affecting customer service and delaying key services like medication prescriptions and vaccinations.

More than 40 years after Al Gore started sounding the alarm that global warming threatened the planet and human existence, the former vice president is still preaching the perils of climate change. Gore’s 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth made him a wealthy man and he won an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize, even though his predictions have not panned out.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Two months after U.S. President Joe Biden announced an unprecedented effort among major oil consuming economies to work together to bring down rising fuel prices, prices are again approaching multi-year highs. And Biden has few options to stop the rally. Global benchmark Brent crude passed $84 a barrel on Wednesday and leading analysts are forecasting that oil could pass $100 a barrel in the first quarter. Biden spearheaded a coordinated release of oil from strategic reserves with Japan, India, South Korea, Britain and China in November that helped quell prices - even though, in the end,...

LOS ANGELES — Cannabis advocates, small farmers and business owners called Thursday for an overhaul of the California marijuana tax system as they struggle to keep afloat amid rising operating and regulatory costs. They gathered outside the State Capitol in Sacramento to make their case and warn that the industry could collapse if steps aren't taken soon. “We’re here today because the craft cannabis industry here in California is in crisis and on the brink of collapse,” said Amber Senter, a co-founder and the executive director of Supernova Women, a nonprofit organization that works to create opportunities for people of...

Details show Google employees fretting its ad tech auctions were ‘untruthful’ and based in ‘insider information’.. Google misled publishers and advertisers for years about the pricing and processes of its ad auctions, creating secret programs that deflated sales for some companies while increasing prices for buyers, according to newly unredacted allegations and details in a lawsuit by state attorneys general... Google pocketed the difference between what it told publishers and advertisers that an ad cost and used the pool of money to manipulate future auctions to expand its digital monopoly, the newly unredacted complaint alleges. The documents cite internal correspondence...

Retail sales in the U.S. declined sharply in December, indicating that the worst inflation in decades is hitting consumers harder than analysts expected. Total retail sales dropped 1.9 percent in December, typically a month of robust holiday shopping, Commerce Department data showed Friday. The figures are not adjusted for inflation, suggesting that price-adjusted purchases were even weaker. The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in December. The results were far worse than analysts expected. The median estimate by analysts was for sales to be flat to down just one-tenth of a percentage point. Retail sales were better than expected in...

At this point in the vaccine rollout, most believe that there’s nothing that can be done to convince those who refuse to get vaccinated to change their minds. President Biden’s attempts to force a federal mandate on workers via OSHA was blocked by the courts. But that hasn’t stopped Wall Street from barring the unvaccinated from its facilities, even though vaccinated employees are just as likely to spread the virus. Not long after Citi became the first megabank to announce plans to fire workers who refused to comply with vaccination policies, private equity giant Blackstone will now prohibit any workers...

Americans, beset by product shortages, rising prices and the arrival of omicron, sharply cut their spending in December after a burst of spending in the fall that helped bolster the holiday season Retail sales fell a seasonally adjusted 1.9% in December compared with the previous month when sales increased 0.3%, the U.S. Commerce Department said Friday. Sales at department stores fell 7%. restaurant sales slipped 0.8% and online sales fell 8.7%. Omicron was identified by the World Health Organization in late November, and the December report from the Commerce Department is the first to capture some of its effect on...

The Biden administration laid out an ambitious plan Wednesday for government-funded wind farms along the east coast, which it said would sustain millions of Americans’ energy needs. Multiple federal agencies are planning to collaborate on the project, which will be completed by 2030, Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland said during a renewable energy conference in Boston on Wednesday. Overall, at least 30 gigawatts will be produced by offshore wind farms by decade’s end. “The Interior Department is laying out an ambitious roadmap as we advance the Administration’s plans to confront climate change, create good-paying jobs, and accelerate the nation’s transition...

Microsoft announced on Thursday it has hired a law firm to review how the company handled sexual harassment allegations against some of its top executives - including founder Bill Gates - and is expected to release its findings in the spring. The review will be conducted by Washington, D.C.-based Arent Fox LLP, which the board of directors selected because it has experience in dealing with sexual harassment allegations and has not conducted much work with the company in the past. After the law firm's findings go public, Microsoft is set to release a report detailing its sexual harassment investigations and...

For companies that were waiting to hear from the U.S. Supreme Court before deciding whether to require vaccinations or regular coronavirus testing for workers, the next move is up to them. Many large corporations were silent on Thursday’s ruling by the high court to block a requirement that workers at businesses with at least 100 employees be fully vaccinated or else test regularly for COVID-19 and wear a mask on the job. ...Dan Simons, co-owner of the Founding Farmers chain of restaurants in the Washington area, said vaccine mandates are “common sense.” He requires his 1,000 employees to be fully...

The Department of Energy (DOE) invested $1.1 billion in carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects, many of which were unsuccessful or canceled, over the last decade, according to a federal watchdog report.The DOE’s $684 million investment in coal CCS projects resulted in just one operational facility and seven canceled projects, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) report published in late December. One of three facilities that received a share of the department’s $438 million investment in industrial CCS projects was also nixed.The department ultimately failed to properly evaluate the projects — which use advanced technology to reduce emissions from...

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated five Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) individuals responsible for procuring goods for the DPRK’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and ballistic missile-related programs. These actions are in line with U.S. efforts to prevent the advancement of the DPRK’s WMD and ballistic missile programs and impede attempts by Pyongyang to proliferate related technologies. They also follow the DPRK’s six ballistic missile launches since September 2021, each of which violated multiple United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRs). “Today’s actions, part of the United States’ ongoing efforts to...

Mexican state oil company Petroleos Mexicanos will take control of the Deer Park refinery in Houston, Texas on Jan. 20, three sources with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday. Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) in May agreed to sell its majority stake in the Deer Park refinery, which can process up to 340,000 barrels per day (bpd), to Pemex (PEMX.UL), its long-time partner in the plant, for about $596 million.

Most of the past forty-eight hours have been spent either in, or en route to and from, the Midland-Odessa region. Far out in west Texas’s Permian Basin, the two cities — towns, really — have a relationship that I still can’t quite unpack. On my last visit, which turned out to be the first time I ever actually set foot in Odessa, a woman told me: “Midland is where you raise families. Odessa is where you raise hell.” She was from Odessa. Midland-Odessa sits in the vast expanse of the old Llano Estacado, the “staked plain” discovered by the Spanish...