Free Republic

All Americans ages 6 months and older should receive one of the new Covid-19 vaccines when they become available this fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Thursday. The recommendation comes as the nation faces a summer wave of Covid, with the number of infections rising in at least 39 states and territories. Most Americans have acquired immunity against the coronavirus from repeat infections or vaccine doses, or both. The vaccines now offer an incremental boost, remaining effective for only a few months as immunity wanes and the virus continues to evolve. Still, across every age group,...

For more than 54 years, a Bay Area woman has wondered what happened to her husband, a U.S. Air Force fighter pilot missing in action during the Vietnam War. Now at age 90, Joyce De Soto of Burlingame finally has answers. They were high school sweethearts at Balboa High School in San Francisco before tying the knot. "He had the most beautiful smile, and he was really sweet and really smart," De Soto said of her late husband Ernie De Soto. The De Sotos had three children and were married for 12 years before the family received devastating news: Ernie...

ABC News' Sunlen Miller Reports: On the first day of National Preparedness Month, President Obama cautioned that people “not be alarmed” but be prepared” for the second wave of the H1N1 virus this fall and gave a brief update on the administration’s efforts. “We know that we usually get a second, larger wave of these flu viruses in the fall, and so response plans have been put in place across all levels of government,” Mr. Obama said from the Rose Garden this afternoon, “Our plans and decisions are based on the best scientific information available, and as the situation changes,...

A state advisory board today recommended a 24.4 percent rate increase for workers' compensation insurance effective July 1, ignoring Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plea that a rate hike that big would overwhelm California businesses. The governing board of the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau approved the recommended rate increase during a morning meeting in San Francisco. WCIRB officials citing rising medical treatment costs -- not the number of accidents -- and other potential changes resulting from recent workers compensation appeals rulings. The bureau will now deliver its recommendations to state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, who is free to accept or reject...

PARIS (AFP) - A French judge recommended that Rwandan President Paul Kagame should face an international war crimes court over his alleged involvement in the death of a former Rwandan leader that sparked the 1994 genocide, court sources said. Jean-Louis Bruguiere, the judge leading a probe into the attack on a plane carrying the then president Juvenal Habyarimana, said Kagame should face charges at the international war crimes court for Rwanda in Tanzania. The attack on the plane carrying Habyarimana, an ethnic Hutu, in April 1994 ignited ethnic tensions in the country, sparking a genocide in which Hutu extremists slaughtered...

BAGHDAD, Iraq A U-S Army investigator in Iraq is recommending that four American soldiers face a court-martial. The soldiers are accused in the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl and the killing of her family. Military prosecutors allege the four soldiers also set the girl's body on fire to hide their crime. Colonel Dwight Warren, the investigator, says in a report that "reasonable grounds exist" for the case to go forward. The report was obtained by The Associated Press from the lawyer of one of the defendants. The soldiers, from the 101st Airborne Division, could potentially face the death...

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A U.S. Army investigator has recommended that four American soldiers accused of raping a a 14-year-old girl and of killing her and her family face a court-martial, a lawyer in the case confirmed on Monday. Col. Dwight Warren, the investigator in the case, said in a report issued Sunday that "reasonable grounds exist to believe that each of the accused committed the offense for which he is charged." The report was given to lawyers in the case and obtained by The Associated Press from David Sheldon, the lawyer of one of the defendants. The four soldiers of...

DoD Announces Recommended Holiday Mail Dates             The Department of Defense announced today the recommended mailing dates to ensure that holiday cards and packages for service members arrive overseas in time for the holiday season.               "To ensure delivery … to military APO/FPO addresses overseas and to international addresses, we suggest mail be sent by the recommended dates provided by the U.S. Postal Service," said Mark DeDomenic, the assistant deputy director and chief of operations for the Military Postal Service Agency (MPSA).  "Beat the last minute rush by bringing your mail to your post office by these suggested dates.”...

Folks, I got "tagged" with the "book meme" from my recurrent reading of the Against the Grain blog, the musings of the guy who keeps the Ratzinger Fan Club and other sub-sites. Looks like there are some questions going around a la chain-mail, regarding one's reading habits. Ok, here are the questions, and my answers: Total Number of Books I own: I estimate about 500+. There are not all in the same place, making orderly searches on specific questions quite a chore. The last book I bought: Aw, chucks, quite an unfair question. It so happens that I visited Detroit...

CHICAGO - Perhaps within five years, the government is likely to recommend annual flu shots for every American - not just young children, the elderly and other at-risk people, public health advocates predict. The government panel that sets U.S. vaccine policy already has begun discussing "universal immunization" as a way to boost vaccination rates and reduce flu-linked sickness and death, Dr. Scott Harper of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at a vaccine meeting this week. The end of a chaotic season where many people seeking flu shots were turned away because of a shortage might seem...

ICONOCLAST RECOMMENDED READING Naysayers exposed Rich Lowry, TownHall.com [EXCERPT] Much remains unknown about the ultimate fate of the U.S. intervention: Will we find weapons of mass destruction? Manage to form a decent post-Saddam Hussein government? But we already know whether the invasion was a military disaster, and whether the Iraqis cheered our arrival. On these two counts, the level of sheer, cussed wrongness among journalists and Bush critics is stunning........ Chinagate II: Time for GOP action Michelle Malkin, JWR Online [EXCERPT] Now we are at the dawn of Chinagate II. Overshadowed by the war on terror and ignored by the...

Attention Washington state voters: Please write-in Judge Steve Alexander for Position 4 on the Washington State Supreme Court. He is the only conservative in the race, and the only candidate who has not received a 100% rating by the Washington National Abortion Rights Action League Please visit JudgeSteveAlexander.com for more details. Forward this message around and help out the grassroots internet effort to elect Judge Alexander.

font color="333366" face="baskerville old face" size=5>Attention Washington state voters: Please write-in Judge Steve Alexander for Position 4 on the Washington State Supreme Court. He is the only conservative in the race, and the only candidate who has not received a 100% rating by the Washington National Abortion Rights Action League Please visit JudgeSteveAlexander.com for more details. Forward this message around and help out the grassroots internet effort to elect Judge Alexander.