Free Republic

The Pentagon can require Oklahoma National Guard members to get the COVID-19 vaccine, despite the state’s highest-ranking military official insisting he will not mandate that members be inoculated, the Defense Department’s top spokesman said Monday. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin “has the authorities he needs to require this vaccine across the force, including the National Guard,” press secretary John Kirby told reporters. “It is a lawful order for National Guardsmen to receive the COVID vaccine. It is a lawful order,” Kirby later said. “Refusing to do that, absent an approved exemption, puts them in the same potential [for punishment] as active-duty...

ROME (AP) — British Prime Minister Boris Johnson arrived in Italy for a Group of 20 meeting on Friday with a stark warning: modern civilization could soon lie in ruins like ancient Rome if world leaders don’t act to curb climate change. Johnson has one big goal at the G-20 gathering: to persuade the leaders of the world’s biggest economies to put their money where their mouth is at the U.N. climate summit in Scotland that starts Sunday. Johnson will deploy his ebullience and his — admittedly divisive — charm to try to extract cash and carbon-cutting commitments from the...

VICTORIA - Crabs that have a normal diet of a type of plankton have been seen munching on methane-filled bacteria off B.C.’s coast in what experts say could be their way of adapting to climate change. Researchers with Oceans Networks Canada and Oregon State University discovered the snow crabs using other food sources because their main meal may be disappearing with a warmer climate. The crabs were previously thought to exclusively eat phytoplankton but researchers said in a study published this month in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science that there is first evidence that the commercial species is finding...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is frequently at odds with President Donald Trump, but told reporters Monday during a visit to Washington, DC, that he wanted to maintain a connection with the president in spite of it all. We’ve had multiple conversations over the last few months,” both by phone and in person, Newsom said. “I want to continue to have a relationship with the president on things that matter, and what matters is emergency preparedness, mitigation and suppression,” the governor said. “And that’s an area that should be above politics, apolitical, and I just think that’s critical and I want...