Free Republic

HENDRICKS COUNTY — Crews are battling a massive fire at a Walmart distribution center Wednesday afternoon in Hendricks County.The Plainfield Fire Territory confirms the fire at the distribution center on AllPoints Parkway. The Brownsburg Fire Department said this is now a 5-alarm fire. Walmart had 1,000 employees inside at the time the fire broke out, Plainfield Police Department Deputy Chief Joe Aldridge said.

Vice President Kamala Harris called for an intentional restructuring of the country’s economic systems on Tuesday, suggesting existing systems were inherently racist. Harris appeared at a forum hosted by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to discuss proactive ways to increase access to financial systems and capital for racial minorities.

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration said Friday that it did not know that a Baltimore factory had discarded millions of possibly contaminated doses of AstraZeneca’s coronavirus vaccine when President Biden last month released the company to ship vaccines manufactured there to Mexico and Canada. Canadian and Mexican officials said on Friday that they had assurances from AstraZeneca that the millions of doses they received were safe. Some of the doses have been distributed to the public in both countries, the officials said. Biden administration officials said they had not vouched for the quality of the AstraZeneca vaccine doses made at...

Pennsylvania’s initial doses of Johnson & Johnson’s COVID-19 vaccine will go into the arms of school employees and child care workers. The state is expecting to receive an initial batch of 94,000 doses of this new vaccine this week. It will be reserved to launch an educator vaccination initiative intended to get schools and child care centers back open for in-person instruction. Gov. Tom Wolf, along with members of the COVID-19 Vaccine Joint Task Force, plan to hold an 11 a.m. news conference on Wednesday to share further details about this effort. Wolf indicated at a Tuesday news conference that...

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” HHS Secretary Alex Azar said that New York, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin have “micromanaged” their vaccine rollouts and said those states are “failing and they’re just looking for somebody else to blame here, let’s be honest about it.”

The professional nags at the World Health Organization are at it again. Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the world was on the brink of a “catastrophic moral failure” for the inequitable distribution of the COVID vaccine. The WHO chief said that the “recent emergence of rapidly-spreading variants makes the rapid and equitable rollout of vaccines all the more important.” He said that there have been 39 million vaccine doses distributed in 49 rich Western countries, and only 25 doses in one of the poorest. Via CNBC: "Beginning his speech, Tedros had emphasized that the development and approval of safe coronavirus...

More than 70 percent of COVID-19 vaccines are still sitting in freezers in the US — as the country’s disastrous rollout has forced desperate Florida senior citizens to camp out overnight for their shot. Hundreds braved chilly 40-degree temperatures and slept in their cars overnight in Daytona Beach in the mad rush for inoculations, NBC Miami reported.

Total Doses Distributed: 29,380,125 Total Number of People Initiating Vaccination (1st Dose Received): 10,278,462 Doses Distributed for Use in Long-Term Care Facilities: 4,556,575 Number of People Initiating Vaccination (1st Dose Received) in Long-Term Care Facilities: 1,084,177

The Trump administration is expected to issue new guidelines Tuesday to expand COVID-19 vaccination eligibility to everyone age 65 and older in the U.S. in an effort to accelerate the nation’s lagging vaccine distribution, The New York Times reports. So far, more than 25.4 million doses have been distributed across the country, with nearly 9 million people receiving the first shot of the two-dose vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That’s a significant shortfall from the Trump administration’s estimate last year that 20 million people would receive the shot before the end of 2020. As...

The idea of a new vaccine being developed in less than a year was laughable before last year, before the COVID pandemic, before President Donald Trump. But it became a reality, an unmitigated success. You’d think that would be cause for celebration, in and of itself, right? And while Operation Warp Speed has received some plaudits, leftists can’t bring themselves to give it the full credit the Herculean effort deserves. And now, as the injections are going into people’s arms, the left has found a new way to downplay the Trump administration’s success: the injections themselves.How many stories have you...

Texas and Florida are bucking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines on distributing the vaccine, choosing to focus more on vaccinating vulnerable populations. Texas announced on Monday that it was breaking with CDC advice on who should receive the vaccine in early rounds of vaccinations. The CDC had recommended that after nursing home residents and healthcare workers, states should prioritize the elderly and workers deemed essential in sectors such as agriculture and education. While Texas is still in the beginning round of vaccinations going to healthcare workers and long-term care facilities, it will prioritize the most vulnerable to...

“The first shipments should arrive Monday morning and extensive coordination will ensure that this occurs,” Perna said during a press conference on Saturday morning, hours after the Food and Drug Administration approved the vaccine for emergency use authorization. “Make no mistake, distribution has begun,” he said. “Now, boxes are being packed and loaded with vaccine and within the next 24 hours they will move the vaccine from the Pfizer facility to the UPS and FedEx hubs. Then it will go up to the locations nationwide which were identified by the states and the territories.” Perna said he expects 145 sites...

The long wait for a vaccine that could eventually spell the end of the coronavirus pandemic appears to be on the horizon. Last week, Pfizer said its vaccine in a trial has been 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, while Moderna on Monday announced similarly encouraging results. The companies could get emergency federal approval within weeks. Yet it will only be after the drugmakers ship millions of doses around the world that the real time crunch on the vaccination effort begins. Pfizer's vaccine must be kept at nearly minus 100 degrees Fahrenheit to remain effective. That's about 20 degrees colder than...

More people will be eligible to take a $100,000 coronavirus-related distribution from their retirement account. The IRS released guidance on Friday which details new rules for individuals affected by Covid-19 to take a withdrawal from a 401(k) plan or an individual retirement account. The CARES Act allows savers to take coronavirus-related distributions – emergency withdrawals – of up to $100,000 from their retirement plans and IRAs. And those who are under age 59½ can access the money without the usual 10% early withdrawal penalty.

On a friend’s Facebook thread, I recently posted the following. It was in response to a rather sanctimonious rant saying things defending socialism since Venezuela isn’t the only socialist country in the world. Also, the person asked if the millions going without health insurance in America mattered. Without the wealth that only free markets, free people and capitalism can create, there’s nothing to socialize. There’s nothing to redistribute. There’s nothing to steal or give away. Does that mean nothing to you? It should. Because in order to have wealth redistribution, you first have to get wealth! In order to socialize...

(CNSNews.com) - Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx told a crowd in North Carolina Tuesday that “only 49% of low-income neighborhoods have sidewalks” while more affluent areas have near 90%. In order to have a society where “everyone has a shot at the American Dream, than it’s imperative that we acknowledge these challenges.” Foxx made the comments to the Charlotte Rotary Club where he discussed the ways that infrastructure should connect people to opportunity. During his speech, Foxx referenced a map of Atlanta that showed areas of pedestrian and bicycle accidents. “The grey areas represent communities of concentrated poverty. This is representative...

Prosecutors: Gun used to kill Officer Sean Collier . A man who loaned a gun used by the Boston Marathon bombers to kill a police officer was sentenced Tuesday to the 17 months he has already served and apologized, saying his actions were "dumb." I was young, dumb, and thought I could outsmart everyone," 22-year-old Stephen Silva told a judge in U.S. District Court. He pleaded guilty to gun and heroin distribution charges last year.

If Wal-Mart, the world’s largest bricks-and-mortar retailer, is serious about competing more directly with Amazon - as it has suggested by testing a free shipping club - then it may have to spend well beyond a previously announced investment target on big distribution centers and other costs for its plan. Wal-Mart’s sluggish quarterly results that were released on Tuesday highlighted the importance of growing its online business. Online revenues grew 17 percent globally in the first quarter ended April 30, against a slight drop in overall sales. However, investments in e-commerce shaved 2 cents off the retailer’s earnings per share,...

This pretty much speaks for itself. At 1:05, I get a rude awakening. At 1:41, he starts talking about you. At 2:24, he says a "bad" word. At 3:50, he kind of breaks my brain. At 4:50, he lets you know how broke you really are. At 5:20, he rubs it in. And at 5:50, he points out that reality isn't close to what we think it is.

I can only hope that this means that we have solved the shortage (somehow I doubt it), but Paula Stern reports that she got gas masks in Jerusalem. This is significant because there really has been no distribution in and around Jerusalem until now (although we had our gas masks collected a number of years ago). The only reason we have gas masks already is that Mrs. Carl works in the center of the country and got them there. This comment from Paula is a great summary of what's so bizarre about this situation: This was more than I had...