Free Republic

U2 is releasing a merchandise collection — with items featuring an illustration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky drawn by Bono — to raise money to buy ambulances in Ukraine. The limited-edition collection announced Thursday includes $90 “Freedom and Fear” hoodies, $45 t-shirts and a $50 lithograph of Zelensky created by the U2 frontman and “Beautiful Day” singer. The Zelensky illustration — with the words “The choice is between freedom and fear” written above his head — first appeared on the June cover of The Atlantic.

Emergency patients across the country are forced to endure the longest average waiting times in recorded history - with ambulances sent to people suffering conditions like heart attacks and strokes taking more than an hour and a half. Average ambulance response times in England last month were the longest on record - as more than half of people at major A&Es had to wait longer than four hours for the first time since records began in 2011. The latest NHS England figures also showed a total of 50.4% of patients attending major A&E departments were not seen within the target...

China’s hospitals are so overwhelmed after the sudden reversal of the country’s “zero-COVID” policies that many have been forced to turn away ambulances and critically ill patients. Emergency rooms in smaller cities and towns outside Bejing are teeming with sick patients, slumped on benches and lying on the floor due to a lack of beds. With intensive care units at capacity, the facilities are not able to admit all of the patients being rushed to them in ambulances. Bejing-based doctor Howard Bernstein has not seen a situation so dire in the three decades he has been practicing medicine. “The hospital...

As ramping issues continue throughout Adelaide, the ambulance union says patients have been forced to catch taxis to hospitals. The Ambulance Employees Association (AEA) has revealed there were 15 emergency, "potentially life-threatening" cases waiting for an ambulance at about 6:00pm on Tuesday, with no ambulances available to send. Three cases waited more than 90 minutes for assistance. Audio taken from the metropolitan ambulance dispatch channel at 8:30pm on Tuesday stated several "uncovered" cases — where an ambulance was not on the way — in suburbs including Blackwood, Belair, Seacliff, Norwood, St Marys, Oaklands Park and Morphett Vale. AEA industrial officer...

Some London buses are being converted into ambulances as the city grapples with a devastating COVID-19 outbreak. Seats were removed on at least two single-decker buses to enable them to carry four patients, the Guardian reported. Bus company Go-Ahead loaned the vehicles to the National Health Service (NHS) and will provide four drivers, who have been vaccinated against the virus, the outlet reported.

By 2016, two years into the expansion of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), 17.6 million previously uninsured people around the U.S. had gained health insurance coverage. But with the expansion, researchers at the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Kentucky found that ambulance dispatches for minor injuries like abrasions, minor burns and muscle sprains rose by a staggering 37% in New York City. "Policymakers were operating under the assumption that the expansion was going to get people out of emergency rooms," says Andrew Friedson, PhD, assistant professor of economics at CU Denver. "Few people thought a larger enrollment...

Colorado Springs police responded this afternoon to reports of an active shooter at a Planned Parenthood facility:

The sniper's plan: kill six whites a day for 30 days By Harry Mount in New York (Filed: 25/05/2006) One of the two snipers who murdered 10 people in a killing spree that terrorised Washington has revealed their plans to kill hundreds of children, policemen and rescue workers in an attempt to shut down cities across the country. John Allen Muhammad, 45, and his accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 21, brought America's capital to a standstill in 2002 as they picked off white targets at petrol stations and shops in the city's prosperous suburbs. Muhammad: ‘a coward’ Malvo testified that Muhammad,...

PMW has documented the repeated use of foreign funding by both the PA and Hamas for terror and glorification of terror. The following is another case of well intended humanitarian assistance given to Palestinians that is appropriated for military or terror purposes: "The [Palestinian] Health Ministry stated yesterday that Hamas militias had raided 46 ambulances, donated by Arab states during the recent aggression on the Gaza Strip, of the medical equipment that they contained... and used them as military vehicles to arrest civilians, after painting [the ambulances] black. The Ministry's director of public relations and information, Dr. Omar Nasr... said...

SNIPPET: "Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Dave Gaubatz, the first U.S. civilian (1811) Federal Agent deployed to Iraq in 2003. He is currently the Director of the Mapping Sharia Project and the Owner of DG Counter-terrorism Publishing..." SNIPPET: "Below is a sampling of the results of the interrogations agents and I obtained: I have the documents, photographs, and contact information of Iraqis and U.S. personnel who were also aware. Anything I write or speak about can be verified. Simply ask VP Biden and our President to release the complete intelligence reports my team and I wrote in 2003. 1. When...

(IsraelNN.com) Hamas - and not Israel - was the reason ambulances could not reach victims, a Gaza ambulance driver told the Sydney Morning Herald. He said that Hamas terrorists tried to hijack an entire fleet of Al-Quds ambulances during Operation Cast Lead. Foreign media quoted Hamas officials and Gaza Arabs several times during the war that Israel blocked ambulances from reaching dying victims, but Mohammed Shriteh, a 30-year-old driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, told the Australian newspaper Monday that the Israel Defense Forces actually worked with the Red Crescent. "We would co-ordinate with the Israelis before we pick...

Israel's air force fired around 20 missiles at targets in Gaza City on Saturday, causing heavy damage, a Reuters witness said. The IDF has confirmed the report. (Hanan Greenberg and Reuters)

SNIPPET: "Rocket range extended: Palestinian gunmen respond to IDF operation in Gaza by firing three rockets beyond Ashkelon area, some 40 km away from Strip. Building in moshav near Ashdod; air raid siren sounds in Yavne area" ARTICLE SNIPPET: "After a day which saw dozens of Qassam rockets fired at Israel, Palestinian gunmen resumed the fire on Sunday morning. Three rockets, believed to be Grad missiles, were fired from the Gaza Strip and landed east of the city of Ashdod. One of the rockets caused damage to the windows of a house in a moshav near Ashdod. Explosions were also...

Numerous Minneapolis-Saint Paul area EMS agencies, headed by the U.S. Secret Service, undertook special preparations to handle EMS operations during the Republican National Convention held Sept 1-4, 2008. Following is an inside account of the experience along with some lessons to take away for future events. Fake Ambulance Spotted On Tuesday, the second day of the RNC, a Twin Cities Paramedic spotted an "ambulance" with unusual generic markings in the city of St. Paul. The medic had attended RNC briefings on the need for heightened awareness, and as an Iraq War Veteran, he was well-educated and possessed a keen eye...

Terrorists linked to Al-Qaeda may be planning to buy former NHS ambulances and police cars to mount suicide bomb attacks in Britain, MI5 has warned. They may import a tactic already used in Iraq and Israel, according to a report by MI5’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre to chief constables. In a statement to The Sunday Times, the Association of Chief Police Officers also warned of the risk of such an attack. It said ministers must legislate to stop the sale of such vehicles. Its move has been backed by Lord Carlile of Berriew, the government’s terrorism watchdog. He said he...

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan, Feb. 12, 2008 – Doctors and medics here received a new tool to aid in the treatment of wounded servicemembers on the battlefield. The tool is a little too big to carry in a medic’s aid bag, and it comes equipped with armor and a crew-served weapon. The newest configuration of the mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicle -- the MRAP ambulance -- was shown to the Combined Joint Task Force 82 staff yesterday. Having the MRAP ambulance brings survivability to the battlefield, Army Lt. Col. Coll Hadden, the forward MRAP joint program manager, said. Hadden said the vehicles...

SPC suspect jailed in Michigan The man, who tried to buy St. Petersburg College vehicles, has terrorist ties, police say. By NORA KOCH, Times Staff Writer Published October 28, 2004 A former Clearwater man who tried to buy an old ambulance and two surplus police cruisers from St. Petersburg College in August is an "affiliate of a terrorist organization," according to police documents obtained Wednesday. Abdalla Deiab, 51, was arrested in Michigan on Wednesday on a warrant charging him with failing to return a hired vehicle, a Largo rental car, Pinellas County sheriff's and Largo police officials said. In a...

JERUSALEM - The international media this week buzzed with the news that Israel had accused the UN of allowing its ambulances in Gaza to participate in terrorist activities, only to back down when local representatives of the world body fought back. But far less attention was given to the fact that the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) in the Gaza Strip openly admitted Monday to having Hamas members on the payroll.

On Monday the Israeli ambassador to the UN demanded the resignation of Peter Hansen, the head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, accusing him of complicity in terror. However, the story began to unravel when the agency claimed that the object in the video was too thin and light to be a missile and that a militant would be more careful in handling a crude, homemade explosive device. A day later the agency produced the driver of the ambulance in question, who said that the object was a rolled-up stretcher and his crew had been on...

Bush forces UN refugee chief to go Israeli pressure backed by conservative and Jewish groups in US stops reappointment of controversial head of relief agency Chris McGreal in Gaza City Thursday January 20, 2005 The Guardian The Bush administration has blocked the reappointment of the UN's Palestinian refugee agency chief, Peter Hansen, after a campaign by conservative and Jewish groups in the US, and the government in Jerusalem which accused him of being an "Israel hater". Some European and Arab governments were keen for Mr Hansen to stay on at the end of his nine-year tenure but the US supported...