Free Republic

(The Center Square) – One day before the deadline, the U.S. government has issued a refusal of new international health regulations that dramatically expand the World Health Organization’s international powers.The WHO’s 2024 amendments to International Health Regulations – adopted by the organization’s highest decision-making body, the World Health Assembly – were set to become binding if not rejected by Saturday.The revisions would have granted the WHO the power to order global lockdowns, travel restrictions, and any other measures deemed necessary to address “potential public health risks.”The State department along with U.S. Health and Human Services issued the Friday rejection, arguing...

Throughout his career, Gergen served four presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, and spent many Friday nights offering his insights and analysis on the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. @GeoffRBennett has more Gergen's life and legacy.

It’s common sense: Local challenges should be confronted and solved locally whenever possible. Protecting Americans’ health is no exception. Yet few realize that the World Health Organization still exerts influence over American health care, even as the United States has taken steps to separate from it. Earlier this year, a presidential executive order initiated the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the WHO, citing concerns that the organization prioritizes politics over science and public accountability. There is no question that leaving the WHO was and still is an important step forward for American patients, but there is much more work...

Dr. Joseph Giordano, the surgeon credited with saving President Ronald Reagan’s life after a 1981 assassination attempt and remembered for one of the pithiest comebacks ever uttered in an operating room, has died at the age of 84. Giordano’s family announced this week that he passed last month at a hospital in Washington, DC, from an infection caused by a lengthy illness. Giordano was in charge of the George Washington University Hospital (GW) trauma team that worked on the president after he was shot by would-be assassin John Hinkley Jr. on March 30, 1981, as the president emerged from the...

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Democrats who opposed Medicaid work requirements in President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” think “poor people are stupid.” Host Dana Bash said, “I’m sure you’ve seen and heard a lot of the concern, including, and especially from Republicans who are the most vocal in Congress, about the fact that those work requirements are going to be very cumbersome to actually prove. And it will inevitably force the people who need that Medicaid coverage off the rolls.” Bessent said, “Well, first of all, the Republicans are not the...

The Australian Medical Professionals’ Society (AMPS) has done an independent investigation into the WHO, its funders and the beneficiaries of the WHO’s decisions in order to determine whether the WHO is acting as an independent and impartial agency that can be trusted to protect public health. AMPS’ new report: “Follow the Money, WHO’s directing global health policy?” reveals how the World Health Organization (WHO) has allowed and encouraged commercial interests to corrupt global health policy. Executive Summary: The investigation by AMPS considered the potential for donors to the WHO to influence the Organization’s decisions on global health policy. To do...

The Oklahoma City Thunder have won the NBA Finals, capping a thrilling seven-game series against the Indiana Pacers with a dominant 103-91 victory. It is the Thunder's first NBA championship since the franchise relocated to Oklahoma City in 2008. And the Thunder are the seventh different NBA team to win a title in the past seven years, a remarkable run of parity for the league. "It doesn't feel real. So many hours, so many moments, so many emotions, so many nights of disbelief, so many nights of belief," the Thunder's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who was named Finals MVP, said in a...

A top adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been relieved of duty following the discovery of several anti-Israel social media posts. U.S. Army Col. Nathan McCormack was removed from his advisory role on Israel-related matters following the discovery of the posts. According to his LinkedIn profile, McCormack served as the Levant and Egypt branch chief within the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s J5 planning directorate. He reportedly posted several inflammatory comments on his X account, including calling Israel a “death cult” and referring to its government as “Netanyahu and his Judeo-supremacist cronies,” according to the Jewish News Syndicate. A...

Lou Christie, the pop singer who indeed had lightning strike in a big way with his “Lightnin’ Strikes” smash in the 1960s, died Wednesday at 82, his family announced on social media. No date or cause of death was given. Christie had three top 10 singles in the U.S. across a period of six years in the ’60s, the biggest being “Lightnin’ Strikes,” which was released in 1965 and hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1966. Written by Christie with Twyla Herbert, the MGM-label single was famous for a soaring hook with a nearly Frankie Valli-level...

Food Network star Anne Burrell has died. She was 55. A representative for the channel announced Burrell's death in a press release that was obtained by Fox News Digital on Tuesday. "It is with deep sadness we announce that Anne Burrell, 55, passed away this morning at her home in New York," read a statement from the network. "With her trademark spiky blonde hair and sparkling personality, Anne Burrell was the hugely popular and fan favorite host of Food Network’s hit show, ‘Worst Cooks in America.’ Burrell was an industry veteran and passionate teacher who prided herself on her work...

Establishment Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is giving is “more proof of who he is” with his recent visit to Ukraine, the senator’s GOP challenger, businessman Mark Lynch, said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday. Host and Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle asked Lynch to respond to the fact that Graham recently traveled to Ukraine to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. “I mean, yesterday we were talking about it. When did he become our Secretary of State?” Lynch asked. “You know, like you said, a week ago, Zelensky and Lindsey were left there by themselves. Putin and...

China has pledged to give $500 million to the World Health Organization as the country is set to replace the United States as the group’s top state donor, expanding Beijing’s global influence in the wake of Washington’s retreat from international cooperation. Chinese Vice Premier Liu Guozhong told the World Health Assembly that his country is making the contribution to oppose “unilateralism,” a trait Beijing often ascribes to Washington as relations between the two powers deteriorate. “The world is now facing the impacts of unilateralism and power politics, bringing major challenges to global health security,” Liu said Tuesday in Geneva. “China...

NEW YORK, May 23 (C-Fam) The World Health Organization (WHO) released a new guideline on preventing adolescent pregnancies in low and middle-income countries. The proposed framework advances a vision of sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) for young people that promotes controversial ideas, and norm changes inconsistent with what governments have agreed to. Revised for the first time in over a decade, the guideline focuses almost exclusively on preventing adolescent pregnancies through increased and prolonged contraception use, including “self-administered injectable contraception,” and access to sexuality education. In its recommendations, the WHO frames adolescents’ choice to discontinue “contraceptive use due...

In secret labs all over the planet, researchers are playing around with the deadliest diseases that humanity has ever known. In some cases, the goal is to make those diseases even more deadly and even easier to spread. If a terrorist organization or one of our enemies really wanted to create complete and utter chaos in our society, releasing a weaponized disease in a heavily populated area would be one of the easiest ways to do that. A bomb could kill hundreds or even thousands of people, but a highly infectious pestilence could spread like wildfire all over the country...

Billionaire Barry Diller has come out as gay - but insists he enjoyed a full sexual relationship with fashion designer wife Diane Von Furstenberg. Diller, a renowned media exec who previously served as CEO for both Fox and Paramount, opened up about his homosexuality in a soul-baring article penned for New York magazine Tuesday. The 83-year-old credited with creating the Fox channel wrote of Von Furstenberg: 'While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman. 'And she didn’t come into my life until I was 33 years old.' Diller and Von...

After great reviews and buzz, Ryan Coogler's vampire film had an extraordinary second weekend at the box office. It's a victory for a wholly original big-budget film in a cinema landscape dominated by familiar franchises. …Featuring Michael B Jordan as a pair of twins defending their juke joint from vampires, Sinners is a horror film – but it's also a blues musical, a gangster thriller and a deeply-researched period drama about Mississippi in the 1930s. It doesn't stick to the rules of one particular genre, and it isn't based on existing intellectual property (IP), so audiences don't come to it...

The frontman of the influential, avant-garde rock band was heralded for his untamable voice and spiritDavid Thomas, the founder and frontman of the influential, avant-garde rock band Pere Ubu, died yesterday (April 24) at his home in Brighton, England, the band wrote on Facebook. The statement attributed his death to a long illness, adding, “MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be ‘thrown in the barn.’” Thomas was 71 years old. During their initial run from 1975 to 1982, Pere Ubu were an...

JoJo Siwa made a major discovery about her sexuality while competing on “Celebrity Big Brother UK.” “I’ve always told myself I’m a lesbian, but I think you — I think being here, I’ve realized, ‘Oh no, I’m not a lesbian, I’m queer,'” the pro dancer told co-star Danny Beard, a “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” alum. “I think that’s really cool. I’m switching letters!” she said, referencing the LGBTQIA+ community. Siwa’s epiphany comes after she and her other housemate Chris Hughes engaged in flirtatious behavior throughout their time on the show, in which celebs move into a house and cut off...

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announced on Wednesday that its negotiators had completed a final draft of a proposed international legal document to govern pandemic response, to be voted on at the World Health Assembly in May. Negotiations on drafting the pandemic agreement took years of often heated debate as W.H.O. negotiators pressured countries to agree to provisions to share medical technology with poor countries at discounted prices and accept international authority on public health policies. The drafters have not yet apparently agreed on what kind of international legal document the agreement will be — a covenant, treaty, or other...

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s visit to the FDA made headlines as he schooled employees on everything from past CIA experiments, mind control and the Deep State. Kennedy, who also warned FDA employees against becoming “sock puppets” of the industries they regulate, didn’t hold back.