Free Republic

Amid rising Covid cases in Los Angeles, Lionsgate has brought back the mask mandate for nearly half of the company’s employees at its flagship office at 2700 Colorado Ave. in Santa Monica. The policy change was announced internally by Sommer McElroy, Response Manager for Lionsgate/Starz, in an email, a copy of which was obtained by Deadline. Implemented in response to several employees recently testing positive for Covid, it involves a mandatory mask mandate effective immediately and until further notice for the 3rd and 5th floors of the five-story building, the email said. “Employees must wear a medical grade face covering...

Workers in a manufacturing facility in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou appear to have left to avoid COVID-19 curbs, with many traveling on foot for days after an unknown number of employees were quarantined in the facility after a virus outbreak. Videos circulating on Chinese social media platforms showed people who are allegedly Foxconn workers climbing over fences and carrying their belongings down the road. The Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, Henan province, is one of the largest factories in China that assembles products for Apple Inc., including its latest iPhone 14 devices. Not all the videos that showed workers...

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ‘zero covid’ policy shows exactly why Americans should never import communist responses to emergencies.In most of the United States, post-covid normalcy is asserting itself. But in deep blue enclaves, mask virtue signalers illustrate continued commitment in some quarters to unnecessary precautions originating from early pandemic hysteria.What must follow next is a reckoning for the politicians, health officials, bureaucrats, education officials, and unions who advocated for and imposed more than two years of lockdowns, school closures, and mask and vaccine mandates on the country. The health regime that pushed draconian lockdowns exasperating substance abuse and caused the...

The Novak Djokovic saga has a new twist, with fellow players starting to turn on the ‘selfish’ world No.1 amid accusations of favourable treatment over his anti-vaccination stance. As British great Andy Murray called on Djokovic to come clean over the outstanding questions relating to his botched visa documentation, Portugal’s Joao Sousa spoke out on the double standards that have allowed the defending champion to “find a way around (anti-vaccination) rules”. “I respect that he fights for what he believes and I can be empathetic with what he is going through in Australia, but it’s a bit selfish from him...

Screenshot from embedded video of Australians pushing past police barriers in protest of more draconian COVID lockdowns.The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting illness, COVID-19, has caused mass hysteria on global scale. Perhaps no response is as shocking as what we see in Australia. The country is included in the group of western democracies globally and among the Five Eyes intelligence community members. Yet, the nation’s response to the pandemic can only be described as authoritarian.A COVID-19 Delta outbreak emerged in Australia in June. The country adopted a “Covid-Zero” strategy early in the pandemic. The government has repeatedly imposed draconian...