Free Republic

The Quaker Oats Company announced Wednesday it is permanently closing its factory in Danville, Illinois, with upwards of 500 employees to be impacted. The News-Gazette reports Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. confirmed the news to the wider community, with city officials saying: Today, we learned that after 65 years of production in Danville, Pepsico will close Quaker Oats effective June 8, 2024. The business has already ceased production but will continue to pay their employees through that time. While this shocks and saddens us, we will unite as a community to help those who have lost their employment. Williams said he...

Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley on Thursday blamed a “Democrat plant” for a question about what caused the Civil War. The presidential candidate neglected to include “slavery” in her list of reasons. During a town hall on Wednesday, a member of the audience asked the former South Carolina governor what caused the Civil War. She gave an unclear word-salad response. “I mean, I think the cause of the Civil War was basically how government was going to run. The freedoms and what people could and couldn’t do,” she said. “I think it always comes down to the role of...

The sole power plant in Gaza officially ran out of fuel on Wednesday amid fighting between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas, and was shut down. Israel cut off supplies — including food, water, fuel and medicine — to the area after Hamas, who controls the Gaza Strip, launched a surprise attack over the weekend. The access point into Egypt was also closed on Tuesday as a result of airstrikes. Counterattacks from Israel have destroyed neighborhoods in Gaza — home to more than 2.3 million Palestinians. At least 2,200 have been killed on both sides, officials said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Ukraine’s military intelligence has claimed, without offering evidence, that Russia is plotting a “large-scale provocation” at a nuclear power plant it occupies in the southeast of the country with the aim of disrupting a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive. A statement released Friday by the intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry claimed that Russian forces would strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, and then report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give the Russian forces the respite they need to regroup ahead of the...

A woman who is suspected of participating in the January 6, 2021 Capitol siege has been identified after her ex-boyfriend spotted her wearing a pink beret in a photo posted by the FBI on Twitter. Law enforcement were finally able to identify Jennifer Inzuza Vargas of Los Angeles after a man who used to date the a woman recognized her as being his ex-girlfriend who he had dumped for reading Hitler's manifesto, Mein Kampf. The man asked to remain anonymous over concerns him snitching could result in harassment and threats against him. He gave details to the FBI about her...

Russian occupiers are preparing a plan to evacuate [Russian collaborators and] Rosatom employees from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) in the city of Enerhodar.

Democrats have manned the walls in order to defend President Joe Biden and the recent discovery of classified documents in his possession. It probably wouldn’t be as big of a story had the Biden administration and the entirety of the Democrat Party not made Donald Trump’s possession of classified documents out to be a major national security issue that required an armed raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound in Florida. As the story developed, it was revealed that even more documents had been found, further putting the Democrats in the very awkward position of having to justify why it’s okay for...

Letting meat eaters drown is ethical because of the suffering they cause to animals, an Oxford University academic has controversially argued.

A former vice president for the EcoHealth Alliance, a major funder of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, claims that his organization "developed" SARS-CoV-2 through gain-of-function research that makes viruses more dangerous. "The process of developing SARS-CoV-2 was also described in detail in the proposal submitted to, and ultimately funded by, the National Institutes of Health (HHS NIH), The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), by EcoHealth Alliance with the WIV and [University of North Carolina] listed as collaborators," according to the sworn declaration of Andrew Huff, who is represented by the attorney Thomas Renz. The statement is included...

A heckler accused President Joe Biden of stealing the 2020 election while he was delivering remarks during a rally. During a rally on Thursday in Rockville, Maryland, the heckler could be heard shouting, “You stole the election! You stole it! You stole it…!” After the crowd began booing, Biden said, “No, no, no, no! Let him go. Let him go. Let him go. That’s okay.” Addressing the crowd a few moments later, Biden added, “Folks! Folks! Folks! Ignorance knows no boundaries.” The president received applause from the crowd. Biden continued to shout, “But we never gave up!” He added, “We...

CHICAGO, June 6 (Reuters) - A fifth-generation cattle rancher and consultant plans to build the country's largest beef plant in South Dakota with capacity to slaughter 8,000 head of cattle a day. The $1.1 billion project could help address the Biden administration's concerns about rising food prices and a lack of competition in the meat sector, though it would not be up and running until at least 2026. read more The project is spearheaded by Kingsbury and Associates and Sirius Realty, both run by Megan Kingsbury of a South Dakota ranching family. She told Reuters she expects construction on the...

Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery startup founded in 2011 by a former Tesla engineer, announced on May 3 plans for a new plant based in the United States that will mass-produce material for low-cost next-generation batteries with a longer range and is not dependent on manufacturing in China.“In a commitment to ensure America retains global leadership in the world’s transition to the new energy storage era, Sila, a next-generation battery materials company, today announced the purchase of a facility with more than 600,000 square feet of space located in Moses Lake, WA to be used to manufacture Sila’s breakthrough lithium-ion anode...

PASSAIC, N.J. — A fire at a New Jersey chemical plant with flames and smoke visible for miles in the night sky Friday has spread to multiple buildings, threatening to reach the plant’s chemical storage area, authorities said. Passaic Mayor Hector Lora told Northjersey.com that popping and small explosions within the fire at Qualco Inc. indicated it was getting closer to the chemicals, as residents were being evacuated from surrounding areas and told to keep their windows closed in at least one nearby municipality.

As he drives his golf cart around his small, immaculate desert ranch, Ray Epps appears at ease. He walks through the property he has transformed into a thriving wedding venue business, emphasizing the rustic charm of the location. The peaceful scene just outside Phoenix, Arizona, could not be more different from another incident where he was involved – the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6. Epps, 60, is not only a genial wedding host for rural areas, he is also the former president of the largest chapter of the Oath Keepers. In video footage taken on the day...

The world’s first plant-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate has proven to be more than 75% effective against preventing the Delta variant of the virus, a Canadian drugmaker said Tuesday. Medicago’s vaccine was 75.3% effective against the variant when enhanced with GlaxoSmithKline’s booster, according to a late-stage study from both companies. “These are encouraging results given data were obtained in an environment with no ancestral virus circulating. The global COVID-19 pandemic is continuing to show new facets with the current dominance of the Delta variant, upcoming Omicron, and other variants likely to follow,” GSK Chief Global Health Officer Thomas Breuer said in...

On Thursday, over 40 Republican senators sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to demand he share an update on the status of Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the Crossfire Hurricane Investigation and ensure the investigation is seen to completion and released to the public. Durham's inquiry began under Garland's predecessor, Attorney General William Barr, in 2019 to "conduct a review of the origins of the FBI's investigation into Russian collusion in the 2016 United States presidential election," the letter reads. Previously, Durham served as United States attorney for the District of Connecticut. “We write to request an...

An employee at an Alabama plant fatally shot two people and wounded two others early Tuesday, police and company officials said. The gunfire at the Mueller Company plant in Albertville broke out at about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday, WAAY reported, citing a company spokesman. Two people were killed while two others were rushed to a hospital for treatment, according to the report. The gunman then fled the scene in a vehicle, WAFF reported.

“...A bug known as a whitefly received a gene from a plant, and that DNA influx... changed it... The bug has been causing massive damage to tomato, potato, and tobacco crops, as the new gene allowed it to evade protections that plants develop against these pests.... ...As far as we know, ours is the first example of horizontal transfer of a functional gene from plant to animal,”... ...horizontal gene transfer occurs when a species gets genetic code from another species and... incorporates those genes in its DNA. Genes are typically transmitted vertically, from parents to offspring, and don’t involve inter-species...

Washington (CNN) — US Capitol Police on Wednesday afternoon arrested a West Virginia man who was armed with a handgun and 20 rounds of ammunition outside the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial, which is near the US Capitol, a spokesperson from the Metropolitan Police Department said. He was taken into custody for having a black .9mm Sig Sauer handgun and the ammunition, the report said. The arrest comes weeks after hundreds of rioters stormed the US Capitol in an attempt to stop the Senate's confirmation of President Joe Biden. Five people, including a police officer were killed. Security was...

Uncommitted voter asks Pres. Trump in a special @ABC2020 event: "Why don’t you support a mandate for national mask wearing? And why don’t you wear a mask more often?" https://t.co/eE0UNurElz pic.twitter.com/6u5n4Riepy— ABC News (@ABC) September 16, 2020