Free Republic

An entire town in Texas was forced to shut down after half of the residents tested positive for COVID-19. Iraan, the west Texas town of 1,200, has had a 42 percent positivity rate with 50 people being infected within a two-week span in August, according to Iraan General Hospital CEO Jason Rybolt, CNN reported. Rybolt also cited a low number of ICU beds available in Texas, saying that one patient even had to be airlifted to an out-of-state hospital to receive care. Texas has experienced a scarcity of ICU beds due to lack of mask-wearing, low vaccination rates and the...

A dozen grocery stores around the state have been forced to close for two weeks because of a public health order issued by Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham at a time when the state’s residents are suffering from record high unemployment and food insecurity, critics say.The order requires businesses with four or more rapid responses of COVID-19 cases reported within in a 14-day period to close for two weeks.More than 25 essential businesses were shut down as of Monday afternoon, including a number of grocery stores and major retailers.The closures include two Walmarts in Albuquerque and one in Santa Fe, an...

My computer shuts down completely upon watching certain video. For example, the earlier posted Tom Cotton speech. When I clicked onto it, I was able to watch essentially the introduction, then, BLANK. The thing just shuts off. FR, or stuff like my library account, or the weather forecasts, etc, are fine. But the minute I switch to a video format, or try to watch a CD...blank. It suddenly shuts down completely. Is it my system, or is there a fix that I'm unaware of? I know there are many knowledgeable herein. Thank you all in advance.

The Obama administration has shut down a Bush administration federal project aimed at demonstrating “clean coal” technology. The $1.7 billion FutureGen 2.0 project was meant to build a coal-fired power plant in Illinois that captures carbon and pumps it underground. Congress authorized $1.1 billion toward the project in 2009 as a continuation of a 2003 project Bush proposed. “The U.S. Department of Energy has directed the suspension of FutureGen 2.0 project development activities,” Ken Humphreys, head of the public-private FutureGen Alliance developing the plant, said in a Tuesday statement. “The DOE has concluded that there is insufficient time to complete...

LONDON - Large swathes of London's sprawling transport network shut down Monday night after maintenance workers walked off the job, arousing commuter anger and drawing warnings the strike will inconvenience millions of Britons. Around 2,300 members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers left their jobs at 6 p.m. to begin a 72-hour strike, in a dispute stemming from the collapse of their employer, maintenance consortium Metronet. Many commuters were caught en route home when the strike took effect, forcing them to take overcrowded buses and taxis. London Underground urged passengers to walk if possible. "The buses...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - The Industrial Welfare Commission, the five-member state panel that sets minimum wages and other working conditions, has gone out of business because of lack of funding. The commission shut down Thursday after legislative budget writers cut off its $237,000 in state support. Union leaders lobbied for the cutoff. "We didn't think they were worthy of their money because they're were not fulfilling their mission," said Tom Rankin, president of the California Labor Federation. "They are there to protect low-wage workers. They're not there to protect business." But Katie Quan, chairwoman of the Center for Labor Research and...