Free Republic

Cities America are spraying chemicals through their streets in response to a rise in several deadly mosquito-borne illnesses, in an unprecedented move. Massachusetts, New York, Texas and California are among the states deploying pesticides to repel the increasingly disease-ridden insects. The decision comes on the heels of an onslaught of mosquito-borne illnesses throughout the US, including West Nile Virus, which hospitalized White House Covid doctor Anthony Fauci this month, 'Triple E', a brain-swelling disease that has killed two Americans so far this year, and 'sloth fever', a disease transmitted from sloths to mosquitos. Officials are spraying the streets at night...

State health officials have advised residents in eight counties to avoid being outdoors during evening hours after three people died of a mosquito-borne disease in Michigan amid what officials are calling the “worst outbreak” in more than a decade. How that advice might affect events planned in those communities is less clear, with local school districts and other institutions still discussing whether they will take advice to cancel or postpone evening outdoor activities. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, in a news release sent Tuesday, Sept. 17, warned the public to avoid outdoor activities at dusk and encouraged...

LONGMEADOW, Mass (WWLP) — While Saturday wasn’t too hot or humid, like most of our summer has been, 22News found that our recent weather conditions have contributed to the arrival of a potentially deadly disease in the Bay State. Mosquitoes: we’ve talked about them for months, and for the first time this year mosquitoes have infected someone in Massachusetts with eastern equine encephalitis, or triple E. The Massachusetts Department of Health just confirmed that a July 15th laboratory test in Plymouth County has tested positive for EEE, a dangerous virus that can cause inflammation of the brain and in one...

Now and again Canadians get a tantalizing glimpse of the sort of radical innovator Prime Minister Stephen Harper might be if he were operating with a majority, instead of the half-mandate he was handed at the last election. One such glimpse came last week, when Harper appeared before a Senate committee and pretty much told Senator Jim Munson to "bite me" when Jean Chretien's former media flack complained that the PM wanted to make reform of Parliament's upper chamber an issue in the next election. "There are critics who believe that you would like nothing better than to fight an...

Prime Minister Steve Harper did it again last week. With little prior warning, he disclosed his intention of carrying out yet another promise he made during last winter's election campaign. He intends to launch a "step-by-step" reform of the Canadian Senate, arguably the most baffling and pointless legislative body extant in any Western democracy. To Ottawa's seasoned skeptics his announcement was doubly shocking. First, unlike almost all his prime ministerial predecessors, Harper apparently takes seriously the promises he made back then. One of those predecessors, Liberal Jean Chretien, announced at one point that he considered it unfair to demand that...