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A few months after the COVID-19 pandemic hit the United States, health experts started to notice that while the majority of those infected with the virus made a full recovery, there were also a lot of people who were still suffering from mysterious symptoms months after their initial infection. This group of people has come to be known by the term "long haulers," and researchers are still struggling to understand why they can't recover—especially since some of them experienced little to know symptoms during their initial infection. If you are currently suffering from unusual symptoms, it could mean that you...

President Obama firmly believes the United States is better off now than when he took office, even though the American people cannot “feel” it. During an interview with 60 Minutes’ Steve Kroft, Obama said, “the country is definitely better off than when I came into office.” “When I came into office, our economy was in crisis,” Obama said. The president then cited lower unemployment, private sector job growth, and deficit cuts as evidence of his administration’s success. “I can put my record against any leader around the world in terms of digging ourselves out of a terrible, almost unprecedented financial...

Here we sit on the good ship USA sailing merily along. We have tried repeatedly to tell passengers that there is an ice berg dead ahead, a fiscal cliff, Greece, etc. Despite our warnings they have not and will not listen to us. We have tried to tell the people about the pain being caused to them. Again, they will not and have not listened. Instead, they voted to not only stay on the ship but to stay on course. Understanding how (some) of the electorate got there is important. In my opinion some of it starts with the nature...

Healthcare reform fatigue has set in among Democrats, casting doubt that Congress will move much health-related legislation the rest of this session. Measures in jeopardy include bills that would require more information on healthcare prices, empower federal regulators to sign off on premium increases and strip insurers of their exemption from antitrust laws.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Lonely? Feeling low? Try taking a walk -- down the aisle. Getting married enhances mental health, especially if you're depressed, according to a new U.S. study. The benefits of marriage for the depressed are particularly dramatic, a finding that surprised the professor-student team behind the study. "We actually found the opposite of what we expected," said Adrianne Frech, a PhD sociology student at Ohio State University who conducted the study with Kristi Williams, an assistant professor of sociology. They expected to find that one spouse's depression weighed too much on the marriage, but "just mattering to...

Hamas and Syria feel Israel's fury By Tim Butcher in Rafah (Filed: 29/06/2006) Israel showed off its military might from Gaza to Syria yesterday as Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, threatened "extreme steps" to secure the release of an abducted teenage soldier. An Israeli soldier carries a shell to a 155mm mobile artillery unit firing towards Gaza Tanks occupied a small section of southern Gaza near Rafah in the early hours, forcing at least 20 Palestinians to flee their homes, while planes bombed nearby unmanned training camps belonging to Hamas. Aircraft also attacked three bridges connecting Gaza's northern and southern...

Children of the streets feel wrath of Mugabe By David Blair in Johannesburg (Filed: 16/05/2006) President Robert Mugabe began a new onslaught on Zimbabwe's poor yesterday when his regime announced that more than 10,000 street children and vagrants had been "rounded up" in Harare. Police described their latest assault on the capital's poverty-stricken street dwellers, codenamed Operation Round Up, as a crime-fighting measure. Last year they bulldozed thousands of "illegal structures" in the poorest townships, leaving 700,000 people without homes or livelihoods. The new operation appears aimed at those cast on to the streets by the earlier demolitions. A total...

MEXICO CITY (AP) -- This time around, the cry ``Caballeros arranquen sus motores,'' Spanish for ``Gentlemen start your engines,'' might not sound so foreign. A year after it held the first NASCAR race in Mexico, the Busch Series is south of the border again, preparing for Sunday's second installment of the Telcel-Motorola 200 without many of the concerns about security and logistics some teams raised before taking on the 2.518-mile Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course here in 2005. ``We put a system in place for operations and logistics last year, when the task was on us to prove that this...

Last spring, after the governor all but declared war on union leaders and other Democratic interests, Republicans sat and watched as the unions led an offensive that helped drag down the governor's poll ratings, and doom his special election agenda. Under the watch of new campaign manager Steve Schmidt and communications director Katie Levinson, both fresh off the plane from the Bush White House, Team Schwarzenegger is determined not to make the same mistake again. "For California Republicans who were frustrated last year by the lack of an aggressive response out of the governor's operation, they'll be very pleasantly surprised...

Many Gulf Coast Towns Feel Neglected Monday January 16, 2006 6:32 PM By MICHAEL KUNZELMAN Associated Press Writer GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) - Nicki Henderson has had plenty of reasons to be angry since Hurricane Katrina destroyed her Biloxi home, but it was a simple news item about dislocated dolphins that really made her blood boil. Henderson lost her temper when she logged on to her computer and spotted this headline: ``New Orleans Dolphins Find New Home.'' She knew the dolphins actually came from a hurricane-ravaged marine park in Gulfport, not New Orleans. The headline writer's error reinforced her belief -...

HADITHA, Iraq (Aug. 10, 2005) -- Insurgents in the Haditha region of the Al Anbar province were met by a group of unfamiliar faces Aug. 5 when the Marines of 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment arrived in support of Operation Quick Strike. The Marines traveled about 100 miles southeast of their area of operation in Al Qa’im overnight to help 3rd Bn., 25th Marines, clear the towns of Haqliniyah, Bani Dahri and Barwanah just south of the city of Haditha. The task force conducting Quick Strike included many different units task organized for the mission. Each unit, including those from...

Somewhere in America today, a child is going hungry while well-meaning people go to great lengths trying to save oiled Alaska birds destined to die shortly anyway. Why? Because rescuing these birds makes some people feel better about themselves. Because rescuing these birds makes them think they're doing something to benefit the environment. There is no doubt the intentions of bird rescuers are good. The reality, though, is that oiled-bird rescuers and the people who back them are little different from the people who take in stray cats and dogs by the dozens, sometimes hundreds, until they are overwhelmed. They...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Iran and Syria are next to feel the heat By Benedict Brogan and Anton La Guardia (Filed: 22/12/2003) Tony Blair will seek to use the diplomatic breakthrough with Libya to secure similar concessions on weapons of mass destruction from Iran and Syria. Ministers believe that his New Year offensive will restore his fortunes. Secret "back channel" talks, which have been going on for months with both countries, will be stepped up as London and Washington try to capitalise on the surprise U-turn by Col Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan dictator. The capture of Saddam Hussein and Libya's announcement on Friday that...