Free Republic

Iran will play all three of its Group G matches on American soil yet base its operations across the border in Mexico... Mehdi Taj, head of the Iranian Football Federation, announced Saturday that the team's training base would relocate from Tucson, Arizona, to Tijuana, a border city in Baja California. He cited visa complications and security concerns stemming from the U.S.-Israel military campaign against Iran that began on February 28. "We will be based in the Tijuana camp, which is near the Pacific Ocean and on the border between Mexico and the United States," Taj said in a video posted...

World Cup fans are banned from bringing in pre-revolutionary Iran flags and apparel to stadiums this summer — while the controversial Palestinian flag will be allowed. FIFA has ruled items with the symbolism will not be permitted at this year’s iteration of the globe’s most-famous soccer tournament, The Athletic reported on Tuesday. FIFA says the flag violates their code of conduct, which states “banners, flags, fliers, apparel and other paraphernalia, that are of a political, offensive and/or discriminatory nature” will not be allowed at event venues. The Palestinian flag is an “officially approved flag of a member association of FIFA,”...

The Trump administration is suspending a requirement that foreign visitors from certain countries pay as much as $15,000 in bonds as long as they are confirmed FIFA World Cup ticket holders, the State Department told The Associated Press on Wednesday. The department imposed the bond requirement last year for countries that it said had high rates of people overstaying their visas and other security issues as part of the Republican administration's broader crackdown on immigration. Travelers to the United States from 50 countries are required to pay the new bond, and five of those countries have qualified for the World...

Iran’s football federation has shared a list of conditions with FIFA surrounding the country’s participation in the upcoming 2026 World Cup in the US, Canada and Mexico, including a ban on LGBTQ+ pride flags. The Football Federation of the Islamic Republic of Iran (FFIRI) told FIFA that it would compete in the competition “without any retreat from our beliefs, culture and convictions” and insisted that the hosts “must take our concerns into account”, as per Out Sports. The list of 10 demands for Iran’s participation comes after the FFIRI’s president, Mehdi Taj, was denied entry to Canada before the FIFA...

Soccer fans are not happy after Katy Perry was announced as the headliner for the 2026 FIFA World Cup Opening Ceremony. The 41-year-old singer was announced as the headliner on Friday, May 8, and many in the soccer community had strong opinions on the choice. Pop Crave shared the announcement on their X account and the comments section featured a mixed bag of reactions. Many were against the organization's decision to sign her as the headliner, with one commenter writing, "I honestly think they could've picked someone better." "On behalf of the football community we don’t know Katy Perry," another...

The man who ran security at 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and the 1996 Atlanta Games — where a bomber killed two and wounded more than 100 — warns that Iranian “sleeper cells” are likely plotting attacks during next month’s World Cup, as federal officials race to secure the 39-day competition. “I’m fairly confident there are Iranian sleeper cells or surrogate sleeper cells, and this would be an incredible opportunity for sleeper cells to attack,” Former LAPD Deputy Chief Bill Rathburn told The Post. His comments came after the feds warned about Iranian “prepositioned sleeper assets” in the US while the...

Patient Zero in the cruise ship hantavirus outbreak has been identified as ornithologist Leo Schilperoord, whose passion for birds may have cost him his life. The 70-year-old man and his wife, Mirjam Schilperoord, 69, were on a five-month trip to South America. They first landed in Argentina on Nov. 27, and traveling through Chile, Uruguay and then back to Argentina in late March, where they went on a fateful birdwatching adventure. The couple — from Haulerwijk, a small village of 3,000 people in the Netherlands — were identified in obituaries published in their monthly village magazine. They co-authored a study...

The US government is moving to evacuate American passengers from a cruise ship linked to a deadly hantavirus outbreak, with plans to transport them to a military base in Nebraska for quarantine and monitoring, federal health officials said Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the risk to the American public remains extremely low as officials move forward with a medical repatriation flight for passengers aboard the M/V Hondius. President Trump said earlier Friday that the situation appears to be under control, pointing to the virus being difficult to transmit. “We have very good people looking at it....

Four states are monitoring Americans who returned from a cruise ship where three passengers died during an outbreak of hantavirus. Virginia, Georgia, California, and Arizona all reported that residents of those states were on the MV Hondius, have returned home, but are not showing symptoms of the illness, according to Newsweek. The Virginia passenger “is currently in good health, not showing any signs of infection, and is under public health monitoring,” the state’s Department of Health said. “Generally speaking, we believe the risk to the general public to be low,” a representative of the department added. An Arizona Department of...

・Bloomberg reported on Friday that Moderna’s hantavirus research is “early-stage and ongoing” and began well before the cruise-ship cluster was identified.・No hantavirus vaccine is currently approved anywhere in the world, and human clinical trials for Moderna’s candidates have not yet begun.・Moderna’s vaccine sales have undergone a dramatic post-pandemic decline.Shares of Moderna Inc. (MRNA) closed 12% higher on Friday, clocking its best day in over two months, after the company confirmed it has been pursuing early-stage research into mRNA-based vaccines against hantaviruses.Moderna’s ongoing hantavirus efforts, reported by Bloomberg, coincide with heightened public attention on a rare outbreak linked to the Dutch-flagged...

Liberals are getting their masks back out ... or maybe they still have them on because Covid killed us all and this is the afterlife, but we can't be sure it's the afterlife, so they're still wearing them to be safe. Here's the new trend in Libtardville now that hantavirus is trending. [Warning: Three F-bombs 1 minute in] She literally admitted that she's been wearing her mask since 2020.

Despite a stream of alarmist headlines, the World Health Organization is emphasizing that the risk to the general public is very low. "This is not the start of a COVID pandemic," said Maria Van Kerkhove, the director of epidemic and pandemic management at the WHO, speaking at a press conference on Thursday. "This is not COVID, this is not influenza. It spreads very, very differently." There are not many cases of human-to-human transmission, so medical professionals and scientists ... believe that hantavirus spreads primarily between people who are showing symptoms and in close contact. between people who are showing symptoms...

An update, for those of you who are Monitoring the Situation™. About 40 passengers from a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak disembarked on St. Helena, according to Dutch officials. Authorities did not confirm where they are now. https://t.co/LMn08mkjsG— The Associated Press (@AP) May 7, 2026More than two dozen passengers left a cruise ship hit by a deadly hantavirus outbreak on April 24 without contact tracing, nearly two weeks after the first passenger died on board, the ship operator and Dutch officials said Thursday. ... The company said Thursday 29 passengers left the vessel at St. Helena, while...

A hantavirus outbreak aboard a luxury cruise ship that has left three people dead is veering into the fringe. Online, a growing number of social media users are floating ivermectin as a possible treatment for the rare infectious disease, which can cause life-threatening heart and lung complications. Yes, you read that right — the antiparasitic drug used in livestock that became a pandemic-era flashpoint after being touted by media figures, politicians and even some doctors as a Covid cure is back in the spotlight. “Hantavirus is a RNA virus, and ivermectin should work against it,” Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, a...

A leading expert has warned that masks might need to return to stem the deadly outbreak of Hantavirus. The world is currently watching as the outbreak originating from a luxury cruise ship in the South Atlantic has claimed three lives and left several others fighting for survival. Health officials have issued urgent “mask up” warnings for those in close contact with potential cases, as fears grow over the potential for human-to-human transmission of a strain typically found in South America, as a result. The crisis began aboard the Dutch-flagged polar expedition vessel MV Hondius, which departed Argentina last month. What...

An outbreak of hantavirus on board a cruise ship is not the start of a pandemic, the UN health agency has said. Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the World Health Organization (WHO), told a news briefing that it was not the same situation as six years ago with Covid-19, because hantavirus spreads through "close, intimate contact". Health authorities are racing to trace dozens of people who have recently disembarked from the Dutch vessel MV Hondius. On Thursday, the WHO said that overall, five of eight suspected cases of hantavirus had been confirmed. Three people have died, including...

International health officials are trying to track down dozens of passengers who left a cruise ship where a hantavirus outbreak killed three people and sickened several others. They disembarked after the first death, and some have reportedly returned to California. What started as an expedition cruise to Antarctica has now sparked global concerns, as there have been three deaths and five confirmed cases of the hantavirus linked to the MV Hondius ship. Health officials said passengers scattered across the globe before anyone realized the full scope of what was happening on board, and some of those passengers came back home...

An infection can rapidly progress and become life-threatening. Experts say it can start with symptoms including fever, chills, muscle aches and maybe a headache — much like the flu. Symptoms of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome usually show between one to six weeks, or more, after contact with an infected rodent. As the infection progresses, patients might experience tightness in the chest as the lungs fill with fluid. The other syndrome caused by hantavirus — known as hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome, which can cause bleeding, high fever, and kidney failure — usually develops within a week or two after exposure. Death...

Rare human-to-human transmission of the hantavirus may have happened aboard a cruise ship of nearly 150 passengers, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Tuesday, after three passengers died and at least four others were left sickened.

SOUTH CARIBBEAN — A couple trapped on a hantavirus-infected cruise ship reportedly have declined to be rescued by a nearby Carnival cruise, saying they'd rather take their chances with hantavirus instead. "We appreciate the offer, we really do," cruise passenger Arthur Pendleton shouted down to rescue workers through a megaphone while wearing a hazmat suit. "But we've weighed our options. On one hand, we have fever, severe muscle aches, potential respiratory failure, and death. On the other hand, we have the deafening DJ deck, a hundred guys on board named Chaz, and the inevitable all-out violent brawl ending in death....