Free Republic

Remote learning appears to have choked off some back-to-school spending—although the effects have been uneven. Data released from the Department of Labor on prices paid by consumers and received by businesses suggest that this years back-to-school spending was anemic in several categories. Consumers are still spending—prices rose by more than expected in September, a sign of healthy demand—but not on many categories that traditionally benefit from back to school shopping.

I’m watching Comey Senate Hearings. Comey says he still believes Trump is a Russian Agent (with no evidence) and the Republicans, some of who told fond Jim Comey stories of their time together, said they are “disappointed” in Comey! Disappointed! This is worse than a disaster, Graham is doing painfully bad acting, and this is just over the top bad.

Early readings of the Tuesday phenomenon from the European-Mediterranean Seismological Center (EMSC) recorded a magnitude 6.5 earthquake off the shore of Atacama, Chile. The center's Twitter account revealed that the earthquake struck some 129 kilometers southwest of the Chilean city of Copiapó. Initial seismograph readings were revised from magnitude 6.3 to magnitude 6.5 within the first hour after the event. Spanish-language testimonials spanning more than 600 kilometers from the quake's epicenter have claimed the quake was noticeable and on the stronger side.

A top British epidemiologist on the UK’s official panel of COVID-19 advisors just admitted the decision to lock down his country was a colossal error. University of Edinburgh professor, Mark Woolhouse couldn’t have been clearer about how much he regrets the destructive measures he advised against COVID-19: “Lockdown was a panic measure and I believe history will say trying to control Covid-19 through lockdown was a monumental mistake on a global scale, the cure was worse than the disease. I never want to see national lockdown again. I believe the harm lockdown is doing to our education, health care access,...

Following an investigative report the paper of record has revealed that business owners who were stuck in the Capitol Hill Organised Protest ‘aren’t so sure about abolishing the police’. No sh*t Sherlock. The New York Times has done something distinctly out of character and actually produced some decent journalism. Taking a break from getting editors sacked for allowing Republican senators to write op-eds and forcing out the few remaining sane people on their staff for not quaffing the identity politics Cool-Aid enthusiastically enough, they dispatched a reporter to Seattle to pick through the remnants of the CHOP, a month after...

Businesses in the United States expanded their payrolls by just 167,000 in July, according to a report from payroll processor ADP. Economists had forecast around 1.9 million, with a range between 750,000 and 3.3 million, according to Econoday. In a sign of the extreme levels of uncertainty around jobs numbers in the pandemic era, economists surveyed by Dow Jones forecast a 1 million jobs gain.

Today, First Lady Melania Trump joined a conference call with the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Youth Preparedness Council (YPC) during their annual summit. The Council was formed in 2012 to bring together youth leaders interested in supporting disaster preparedness. Through national and local projects, they strive to engage children and provide the tools and resources needed to educate them on disaster preparedness.Administer Gaynor provided welcome remarks and discussed the importance of YPC and the many achievements of its members. The Administrator then introduced the First Lady, who thanked the YPC members for allowing her to join the Summit...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has asked President Trump for a federal disaster declaration in his state due to “extensive fire damage” and other destruction in the unrest that followed George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody on Memorial Day. “We need to come together to ensure Minnesotans who were victims of this destruction have access to critical infrastructure they need so they can go to the grocery store, pick up their medication, and live their lives,” Walz said in a statement Thursday. “Together, we will rebuild.” He also appealed to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for financial assistance to...

The US Census has developed a ranking of “Community Resilience” by county. It is very interesting. It already confirms many things we know about America’s urban areas. It focuses mainly on health conditions of citizens and thus their ability to respond/survive natural disasters (or man-made disasters?). I think it could and should be broadened to include many other categories like dependence on government, stability of power and water supply, etc… its an interesting concept and I’m interested to get FReepers’ thoughts.

We are playing God with the economy. Expect the worst.

“What we are seeing are scenes from a horror movie." Those words came from Artur Virgilio, the mayor of Manaus, about the coronavirus crisis developing in the middle of the Amazon rainforest in northern Brazil. The city had a record number of burials in April -- about 100 a day, or triple the average -- forcing authorities to do many en masse in improvised cemeteries. “We aren’t in a state of emergency. We are in a state of utter disaster, like a country that is at war but has already lost," Virgilio said. The city's public health system has already...

In his 1930 book The Revolt of the Masses, Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset addresses what he considers to be a strange byproduct of the prevalence of specialization in everything, specifically the intellectual sphere. “Previously,” he writes, “men could be divided simply into the learned and the ignorant, those more or less the one, and those more or less the other.” Now, however, a new kind of person has emerged, “an extraordinarily strange kind of man,” who cannot be called “learned for he is formally ignorant of all that does not enter into his specialty,” yet at the same...

The number of coronavirus-related deaths in New York is dropping for the first time, Gov. Cuomo said Sunday during his daily press briefing. However, Cuomo emphasized that it's "too early to tell" whether the drop is significant. The governor added that ICU admissions are also down, daily intubations are slightly down, and the hospital discharge rate is "way up.

RINGTOWN, Pa. - When Dan Wowak went to live alone in the wilds of Patagonia in 2016 for a chance to win a half-million dollars on reality television, he was allowed to bring 10 items. Toilet paper wasn't one of them. Wowak, a Mahanoy City native, did bring an ax and saw, a sleeping bag and a ferro rod, which you can strike to make sparks in just about any condition. He also chose fishing line and hooks, which proved invaluable. Over 51 days, he ate nothing but fish he caught in a lake: nine of them. "I lost 54...

When disaster strikes, some people lose their heads, some people become cool and effective, but by far most people act as if they've suddenly forgotten the disaster. They behave in surprisingly mundane ways, right up until it's too late. Around the world, researchers are wondering how to combat normalcy bias. If you spend the beginning of your flights staring in disbelief at the cabin crew gesturing towards the emergency exits and asking you to look at them and think about walking to them in an emergency, you may be surprised that doing exactly that has saved one person. When two...

South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg declared himself the winner in Iowa after technical glitches and snafus prevented the state party from announcing any caucus results Monday night. Buttigieg, who was hoping to get a boost out of the nation's first caucus state to drive past more seasoned rivals, went beyond any of the other Democratic presidential contenders his his caucus-night speech. 'We don't know all of the results. But we do know that by the time it's all said and done, Iowa: you have shocked the nation. Because by all indications we are going on to New Hampshire victorious,' Buttigieg...

KIEV (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 01st February, 2020) The power unit No. 3 of the Rivne nuclear power plant (NPP) in northwestern Ukraine got disconnected from the power grid on Saturday, state company Energoatom said, adding that causes behind the incident were yet to be established. "On February 1, 2020, at 2:24 a.m. [00:24 GMT], unit No. 3 of the Rivne NPP got disconnected from the power grid. The reactor facility is operating at 35 percent of its rated capacity. The causes of the shutdown are being investigated," the company's website said. Power units No. 2 and 4 with...

More Americans are going without health coverage and the pace of spending on health care nationally is rising in part because of an Affordable Care Act tax on insurers, Trump administration officials said Thursday. A federal report from actuaries at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services documented trends that are likely to further fuel the battle between Republicans and Democrats over how to slow health-care spending growth that has already put the U.S. far ahead of most comparable wealthy countries. Overall, national health-care spending rose to $3.65 trillion in 2018, up 4.6% from 2017. The U.S. spent $11,172 per...

To all the hyperventilating Freepers. THIS IS YOUR THREAD....:) PLEASE compose your best "TRUMP EULOGY" and post below. We will revisit your pearl clutching words of concern after President Trump is REELECTED in 2020 Thank you for your concern. Have at it.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is allowing Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., to control the Trump impeachment inquiry because she does not trust another one of her senior colleagues, according to Mollie Hemingway. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has led several closed-door hearings related to the inquiry rather than House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Hemingway noted Wednesday on "Special Report." "It's also very interesting that Nancy Pelosi is having Adam Schiff run the impeachment inquiry instead of Jerry Nadler," she said, alluding to the fact the Judiciary Committee has taken a leading role in past impeachment...