Free Republic

Iran said on February 20 that three more people have tested positive for a new coronavirus in the holy Shi'ite city of Qom, where two people the previous day had died of the illness caused by the virus. The IRNA state news agency reported that all schools and universities, including religious Shi’ite seminaries, were closed in the holy Iranian city, located about 140 kilometers south of the capital, Tehran. Amid fears of the virus spreading, neighboring Iraq banned border crossings by Iranian nationals after already suspending flights to Iran. The country’s Health Ministry said the same day that there were...

Evisceration of rich shorty.

A death row inmate who was convicted of killing four people — but who saved the lives of three corrections officers while in prison, according to his lawyer — is scheduled to be executed Thursday night. Tennessee Governor Bill Lee denied Nicholas Sutton’s clemency on Wednesday. “After careful consideration of Nicholas Sutton’s request for clemency and a thorough review of the case, I am upholding the sentence of the State of Tennessee and will not be intervening” Lee said in a statement. Sutton, 58, was sentenced to die for fatally stabbing a fellow inmate in 1985, when he was serving...

Trump’s “Deal of the Century,” or, officially, “A Vision to Improve the Lives of Palestinian and Israeli People” (the Plan) was published during the height of the shameful bluffpeachment, so it flew under the radar in America. Apparently, the ostentatious political correctness of the Plan (the opposition of “Israelis” and “Palestinians,” “two-state solution,” etc.) misled most pundits – and the Plan quickly disappeared from front pages everywhere. The Deal of the Century was referred to as another futile effort to achieve an ephemeral peace in the Middle East. However, if one puts aside the politically correct newspeak (I understand that...

Former Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.) spoke with ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Thursday about biphobic rhetoric playing a part in her resignation. Stephanopoulos asked Hill on ABC's "Good Morning America" if she regrets not fighting for her position, with Hill affirming that she "made the right call" stepping down from office. "I did not want to be a liability to my colleagues," she said. "We knew from the people who had obtained the [explicit] photos that there were hundreds more images and text messages out there that I had no idea what they could be, or taken out of context." SNIP...

RUSH: Now, let’s get to the debate last night. We got audio sound bites from the debate and a lot of reaction from the Drive-By Media. The Drive-By reaction to this debate last night is predictable. By the way, I don’t mean to sound cynical, and I don’t mean to sound bored by it. I’m never bored by any of this, so don’t misunderstand any tone in my voice. It’s just it’s so easy now to predict how the media is going to cover or not cover an event or a story. It’s so easy to predict how they’re going...

RUSH: Now, I checked the email during the break, and a number of you have asked why I haven’t provided an update on treatment. Folks, this is a tricky answer because there’s two sides to this. One of the things that I have learned in the short period of time since I’ve been diagnosed is, if you’re not careful, this disease can take over your life. It can take over everybody in your family’s life and it becomes all consuming, which I don’t think is good. I’m trying to avoid that happening. I don’t want every day to become scans,...

Prosecutors in Michoacán state said decomposed bodies were found in the house in Coeneo, a township west of the Michoacán state capital of Morelia. Some of the bodies found had been dismembered and buried in the patio of the house, which was under construction. The dead included five women and 19 men, whose ages ranged from about 20 to about 40. Many had either had their throats slashed or been decapitated.

... Patients are understandably confused. They see hospitals consolidating and creating vast medical empires with sophisticated marketing campaigns and sleek digs that resemble luxury hotels. And then there was the headline-grabbing nugget from a Health Affairs study that seven of the 10 most profitable hospitals in America are nonprofit hospitals. Hospitals fall into three financial categories. Two are easy to understand: There are fully private hospitals that mostly function like any other business, responsible to shareholders and investors. And there are public hospitals, which are owned by state or local governments and have obligations to care for underserved populations. And...

But he went all-in tonight, not fully prepared and completely untested. It didn't go well. But credit is due to the other five candidates who at various times went all-in on making tonight's debate unique out of the nine held so far: It wasn't a snoozefest. Tonight's most interesting detail, however, is the one we'll never know: How many NDAs will be signed after Bloomberg is done berating his people who sent him swimming among the sharks?

Three relatives of an 11-year-old girl who gave birth in the bathtub of her suburban St. Louis home are facing criminal charges. An adult female and adult male are charged with child endangerment. A 17-year-old male is charged with incest as well as statutory rape and statutory sodomy of a child younger than 12. All three live in St. Charles.

To study American history is often an exercise in learning partial truths and patriotic fables. Textbooks and curricula throughout the country continue to center the white experience, with Black people often quarantined to a short section about slavery and quotes by Martin Luther King Jr. Many walk away from their high school history class — and through the world — with a severe lack of understanding of the history and perspective of Black people in America. Last summer, the New York Times’s 1619 Project burst open a long-overdue conversation about how stories of Black Americans need to be told through...

'Squad' congresswoman Ilhan Omar told friends years ago that the man who went on to become her second husband was in fact her brother, DailyMail.com can confirm. And now for the first time one of those friends has come forward to reveal exactly how Omar and Ahmed Elmi scandalized the Somali community in Minneapolis. Abdihakim Osman is the first person to go on record to speak of how Omar said she wanted to get her brother papers so he could stay in the United States, at a time when she was married to her first husband Ahmed Hirsi. But hardly...

McFARLAND, Calif. — As an immigrant in the country illegally, Maribel Ramirez does not officially have a say in the affairs of the small agricultural town in California’s Central Valley that she has called home for 20 years. But late into the night Tuesday, she stood with hundreds of field workers and other residents outside McFarland’s City Council chambers, a bullhorn in her hand. “No ICE! No GEO! We’re farmworkers, not delinquents,” they chanted in Spanish, led by Ramirez, 42. At issue was a multibillion-dollar corporation’s proposal to convert two state prisons slated for closure into detention centers for immigrants...

Former National Security Advisor John Bolton admitted Wednesday that his testimony in President Donald Trump’s recent impeachment proceedings involving Ukraine would have had no impact on the trial’s outcome even after sections of his upcoming book leaked attempting to convict the president in its final days. “People can argue about what I should have said and what I should have done,” Bolton said at Vanderbilt University Wednesday night during a forum with his predecessor Susan Rice, according to ABC News. “I will bet you a dollar right here and now my testimony would have made no difference to the ultimate...

Former New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg donated a total of $463.8 million to his self-funded presidential campaign by the beginning of February, according to a Federal Election Commission filing posted Thursday. Of that money, Bloomberg has spent $220 million in January alone — more than several of his opponents have raised in the entire cycle. Axios estimated that equalled a spending of $7.1 million a day, broken down into $4,942 spent per minute and $82.37 per second. Bloomberg, who’s worth over $50 billion, has been spending heavily on TV advertisements, especially on Super Tuesday states on March 3. The...

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren on Thursday decried an Arizona bill that would prevent biological males from competing in girls sports, calling the legislation “cruel.” “Trans athletes are not a threat,” Warren wrote in a tweet. “We need to protect trans kids - and all LGBTQ+ kids - and ensure they feel safe and welcomed at school. I urge the Arizona legislature to reject this cruel bill.” The “Save Women’s Sports Act” would assign high-school students to interscholastic and intramural leagues by their “biological sex” rather than the gender with which they identify, grouping biological females together and likewise for...

BERLIN - A German court ruled on Thursday that Tesla Inc can continue to clear forest near the capital Berlin to build its first European car and battery factory, in a defeat for local environmental activists. The court said in a statement it had rejected urgent applications to stop the land being cleared of trees from several environmental groups, adding its ruling was final. It had temporarily halted the tree felling earlier this month. The U.S. electric carmaker announced plans last November to build a Gigafactory in Gruenheide.

A federal judge issued a permanent injunction against the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector on Wednesday, telling the agency that it cannot hold migrants, including families with children, for longer than 48 hours. In his 40-page decision, U.S. District Judge David C. Bury ruled the conditions at the sector's eight stations are "presumptively punitive and violate the Constitution," and he blocked Border Patrol and parent agency U.S. Customs and Border Protection from holding people who have been processed by agents for more than 48 hours from "book-in time." "Detention may not extend into a third night under the 'no longer than...

The third (yes, third) Democratic primary debate of the month will be held in Charleston, South Carolina, on Tuesday, February 25. It is co-hosted by CBS and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, and will air from 8 pm to 10 pm ET on CBS, BET, and Twitter. The debate is the last of a deluge scheduled for February, and it’s taking place just days before the South Carolina primary...Candidates’ performances onstage could play a critical role — in New Hampshire, many voters...indicated that the debate right before the primary influenced their ultimate decisions. This debate will also be the final...