Free Republic

The last time the federal government demanded Democrats obey the law and relinquish their cheap and exploited labor, they launched the Civil War. This time, it looks like they intend to burn down their own cities. I’m fine with that. I don’t live there. Insurrectionist Democrats choosing to burn their own cities rather than obey federal law is not my problem, nor is it an American problem… It is solely a Democrat-run city problem. If you voted for Karen Bass and are watching in horror as your city burns … again … all I can say is that “Karma” is...

Tiny, airborne smoke particles blowing in from Canadian wildfires resisted dispersal from a steady, light rain across the Chicago area Wednesday, concentrating even more Thursday to reach levels unhealthy for the general public. The smoke pushed northeast Illinois into its third day in a row of bad air quality Friday and the state into its first two air pollution action days of the year. Chicago’s air quality was ranked the worst in the United States on Thursday, according to Swiss air quality technology company IQAir. At one point during the day, The Washington Post reported, the city had the second-worst...

Russia, if you believe the Kremlin, is eager for peace with Ukraine. -snip- For more than a year, Russian forces have made incremental but glacial gains, seizing roughly 1,500 square miles of Ukrainian territory in 2024 – the equivalent of 0.7 percent of the country’s total landmass. But the cost in human blood has been enormous. According to Ukrainian estimates, Russia suffered 434,000 casualties last year: roughly 270 killed or wounded for every square mile seized. Now, however, momentum may be shifting. Last month, Russian forces advanced at the fastest pace since last November, seizing an average of 5.5 square...

This summer, vast numbers of radical leftists that absolutely hate Donald Trump, vast numbers of protesters that are deeply angry about the war in the Middle East, vast numbers of people that are in this country illegally, and vast numbers of ultra-violent predatory criminals will cause chaos in the streets of major cities all over America. Unfortunately, even though the official start of summer is still nearly a month away, it appears that our upcoming “summer of chaos” is off to an early start. Let me give you a perfect example of what I am talking about. On Saturday, radical...

The Spanish government has called for the removal of the listings of nearly 66,000 properties on rental platform Airbnb on the grounds that they breach regulations for tourist accommodation. The clampdown comes as protests against over-tourism have begun ahead of the summer season. Demonstrations in the Canary Islands on Sunday attracted thousands of people. The minister for social rights, consumer affairs and the 2030 Agenda, Pablo Bustinduy, said the rental properties in question had "violated various norms regarding housing for tourist use". The announcement followed a Madrid court ruling that Airbnb must immediately withdraw from the market 5,800 of the...

As summer 2024 draws to a close, the U.S. finds itself once again grappling with a surge in COVID-19 infections. This wave has taken many people by surprise, particularly as the country has largely consigned the pandemic to the past. While public life has pretty much returned to pre-pandemic norms — something almost none of us would have believed in the summer of 2020 — the virus itself has not. Mutations of the virus continue to occur, and new variants are emerging, posing ongoing challenges to public health and safety. As we look ahead to the remainder of 2024 and...

President Joe Biden appeared in public Wednesday for the first time in three days, joining his wife Jill Biden for a carefree day on the beach near their house in Rehoboth, Delaware. The first lady’s two sisters and her senior adviser Anthony Bernal joined them on the hot, sunny day, the Daily Mail reports. The group sat under two blue umbrellas. Some passers-by waved at them as they walked the beach and the president waved back as he sported colorful swim trunks, a white T-shirt and black cap, for his day of carefree relaxation. Biden, 81, arrived in Rehoboth Beach...

The owner of a luxury $1.8 million Hamptons vacation rental where two Maryland sisters died in a fire sparked by a shoddy electrical job has pleaded guilty to negligent homicide. Peter Miller, 56, admitted to building an illegal outdoor kitchen that overloaded the electricity system of his $ 8,000-per-week pad in Sag Harbor — killing Jillian Wiener, 21, and her 19-year-old sister Lindsay as they vacationed with their terminally ill father in August 2022, Suffolk County prosecutors said Monday. His wife, Pamela, who managed the popular summer rental, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of reckless endangerment.

A surge in COVID-19 infections has swept the country this summer, upending travel plans and bringing fevers, coughs and general malaise. It shows no immediate sign of slowing. While most of the country and the federal government has put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, the virus is mutating and new variants emerging. Even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) no longer tracks individual infection numbers, experts think it could be the biggest summer wave yet. So far, the variants haven’t been proven to cause a more serious illness, and vaccines remain effective, but there’s no certainty...

Health officials in Contra Costa County are recommending the use of face masks in crowded indoor settings as a summer wave of COVID-19 cases sweeps through the Bay Area. On Tuesday, county health authorities renewed their advice for residents, especially those at high risk of severe illness, to use masks as a protective measure. This recommendation aligns with current state guidelines and San Francisco’s recent advisory that masks remain an effective tool to limit the virus’s spread. Dr. Ori Tzvieli, the Contra Costa County health officer, pointed to the emergence of highly transmissible coronavirus variants, referred to as FLiRT, which...

You could say that the U.S. is more than flirting with yet another Covid-19 surge. Chances are that a surge has already been occurring for at least a month—since early June. And the “FLiRT” variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have been front-and-center of this surge. Now, the U.S. still doesn’t have a comprehensive surveillance system that can catch surges before they happen or soon after they start happening even though it’s been over four and a half years since the the SARS-CoV-2 first surged in the U.S. Plus, nowadays, you don’t see the public health...

WASHINGTON – Ukrainian pilots will take to the skies in American-made F-16 fighter jets in the coming weeks to deter Russian airstrikes, the leaders of the US, Denmark and the Netherlands announced Wednesday. Kyiv is set to receive 78 F-16s from a consortium of NATO countries who got President Biden’s permission last year to dispatch the American-made aircraft and train Ukrainian pilots. “The transfer process for these F-16s is now underway, and Ukraine will be flying operational F-16s this summer,” Biden, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a joint statement. Denmark and the...

These days, summer in New York means fun in the sun — and blood in the water. There were 13 reports of shark bites recorded on Long Island in just the past two years, a disturbing trend experts say is here to stay even with New Yorker’s 1 in 4 million chance of getting nibbled on by a sea predator. “It’s a new norm that people are familiar with now — shark interaction occurring on the beaches here on Long Island specifically,” Frank Quevedo, an environmental scientist and executive director of the South Fork Natural History Museum, told The Post....

A summer COVID surge is underway in the U.S., warns the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — so should you be concerned? As of June 25, 2024, the CDC estimated that COVID-19 infections are "growing or likely growing" in 44 states and territories, according to a news alert on its website. Despite the rise in cases, hospitalizations and deaths remain low, the data shows. Given that the pandemic was declared officially over as of May 5, 2023, public health officials don’t collect the same amount of COVID data as they once did.

Climate change alarmists are reacting to recent warm weather, pointing to global warming as the monster belching summer heat. “Summer is quickly becoming the season of grim extremes,” writes Evan Bush for NBC News, citing “record heat” across the Northeast, “flooding” in the Midwest, and a “tropical storm” in Texas. While hesitant to attribute any particular weather-related incident to global warming, the article goes on to contend that the “specter of climate change lurks behind many of the recent events.”

Science Alert warned Monday “worsening human-induced climate change” is contributing to an increase in heat-related deaths as the United States languishes under a “heat dome.” “Despite being preventable, the leading weather-related deaths in the US are caused by heat,” the article states, adding that heat-related deaths “are rising as heat waves like this one occur more regularly thanks to worsening human-induced climate change.” “Extreme heat events are also increasing in their intensity and duration, bringing along greater fire danger too,” it contends, arguing that “millions are at risk” from the intense heat.

(NEXSTAR) – Warning signs that could signal a rise in COVID infections are appearing in parts of the U.S. Wastewater testing, which can help detect the spread of a COVID in a community, has shown a significant uptick of the virus in several states. Testing sites in Montana and Florida are reporting “very high” levels of COVID, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Levels are “high” in wastewater across Alaska, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland and New Mexico. Emergency room visits related to COVID-19 are also on the rise, the CDC says, spiking 12.6% in one week. The biggest...

S​ummer 2024 is likely to be one of the hottest on record in the United States, according to an updated outlook released Friday by The Weather Company and Atmospheric G2. The heat will be widespread. Above-average temperatures are expected from the Southwest and Rockies to the East Coast, with parts of the Midwest, Plains, northern New England and the Southwest being the most above average. "We've run out of superlatives to describe what we expect as an historic summer." - Todd Crawford, Vice President of Meteorology, Atmospheric G2 The lone exception may be the West Coast, from western Washington to...

Many Americans do not plan to enjoy a summer vacation in President Joe Biden’s America, a Fox News poll found in May, underscoring the economy as the number one 2024 issue for voters. The Fox News poll found: Of the 55 percent who are not taking a summer vacation, 73 percent do not have enough money to do so. Seventy-two percent said higher prices impact their summer plans. Fifteen percent do not have time and must remain focused on the daily grind. The last time a pollster asked Americans this question, in 2010, of those who were not going on...

(NEXSTAR) – New predictions for the summer season, released by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center this week, show weather is likely to heat up in almost every corner of the United States. The forecast, which covers June, July and August, indicates nearly every U.S. state with leaning toward a hotter-than-normal summer season. The highest chances are found out West, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and parts of Colorado have a 60% to 70% chance of above-average temperatures over the next three months. Several other Western states plus the Northeast are also strongly favored to see above-average heat. The only exception to...