Free Republic

Miami International Airport is showing off the first-ever airport team of COVID-19 detecting dogs. They're specially trained to detect and alert officials of any potentially infected travelers before they board. Miami-Dade Commission Chair Jose "Pepe" Diaz calls the new initiative a "big win for the community."

Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover have found that trained sniffer dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in human samples with a relatively high rate of accuracy, a study published on Thursday revealed. Eight sniffer dogs from the German Bundeswehr were trained for only a weekto distinguish between the mucus and saliva of patients infected with coronavirus and non-infected individuals. The dogs were then presented with positive and negative samples on a random basis by a machine. The animals were able to positively detect SARS-CoV-2 infected secretions with an 83% success rate, and control secretions at a...

The Independent reported Tuesday that “the US has stopped exporting bomb-sniffing dogs to Egypt and Jordan after a number of animals died from mistreatment and neglect, US authorities said.” Those US authorities are likely scratching their heads over this, wondering what on earth could possibly be the motive of Egyptian and Jordanian law enforcement in mistreating these dogs. The explanation is simple, but since it lies outside the bounds of the military establishment’s politically correct fantasies regarding Islam, it will almost certainly never be acknowledged. The clearest evidence of that is the fact that the decision to stop sending these...

ROME—Italian officials combating a national plague of tax evasion hit the jackpot in a swoop on a posh ski resort, catching 42 drivers of Ferraris and other luxury cars who had declared incomes of less than €30,000 ($38,700) a year. The technocrat government of Mario Monti is stepping up a war on tax evasion that robs the Italian exchequer of an estimated €120 billion a year, nearly four times the value of the prime minister's new austerity budget. Amid howls of protest from local officials, conservative politicians and shop owners, 80 tax inspectors fanned out through Cortina d'Ampezzo, one of...

Dogs have long been used by police forces to detect drugs and explosives. But now animals and machines are being trained and developed to sniff out a person's potential for aggression, if they are feeling guilty - even their race. I was walking into Fulham Broadway underground station a couple of years ago when I saw police officers holding dogs on leashes, encouraging them to sniff the crotches of passing commuters. What, I asked one of the policemen, was the purpose of this operation? "I can't say," he replied.

COLOMBIAN drugs traffickers have taken out a contract on the life of one of the police's top counter-narcotics agents - a golden labrador called Agatha. The contract is worth £5,000 and police have assigned her a bodyguard and are monitoring the preparation of her food to ensure she is not poisoned. Agatha, who had been abandoned, was trained into one of the police's most successful sniffer dogs, so far uncovering £10 million worth of cocaine, marijuana and heroin. In a call intercepted by police, a known drugs trafficker was heard saying: "There is an animal at the airport which is...

NEW DELHI - Hindu priests who look after the memorial of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi conducted a purification ceremony at the shrine after a visit from President Bush. But it wasn't the president who offended them, it was the sniffer-dogs who scoured the area ahead of his visit. After the dog visit, the memorial was cleansed with water brought from the Ganges river, which Hindus consider holy, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Sunday. Bush visited the memorial on Thursday during his three day visit to India. The site, where pacifist icon Gandhi was cremated, is considered sacred and all...

NEW DELHI Mar 5, 2006 (AP)— Hindu priests who look after the memorial of Indian independence leader Mohandas Gandhi conducted a purification ceremony at the shrine after a visit from President Bush. But it wasn't the president who offended them, it was the sniffer-dogs who scoured the area ahead of his visit. After the dog visit, the memorial was cleansed with water brought from the Ganges river, which Hindus consider holy, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported Sunday. Bush visited the memorial on Thursday during his three day visit to India. The site, where pacifist icon Gandhi was cremated, is considered sacred and all...

THE K-9 squad of the US Secret Service is living in the lap of five-star hotel luxury in India to keep President George W. Bush safe on his maiden visit to New Delhi, officials and media said today. The top dogs accompanying a huge security contingent checked into reserved rooms at two landmark premises ahead of Mr Bush who reached the Indian capital late yesterday. But the animals were at work before dawn today at New Delhi's Rajghat mausoleum of India's freedom icon Mahatma Gandhi where Mr Bush was to place a wreath later in the day, the officials said....

Almost 70 people gathered last Monday night at the Tel Aviv home of Canadian-American Menachem Feder and his partner Yael Fishman, to celebrate the launch of Pups for Peace-Israel, the Israeli arm of a Los Angeles-based organization that has donated 30 sniffer dogs to the Transportation Ministry and Israeli police force. In the past, the puppies were trained in California; the training operations have now moved to an army base in the Golan. "These dogs represent a nonviolent form of counterterrorism," said Feder, a who has lived in both Montreal and New York and is now the chairman of Pups...

BAGHDAD: A sniffer dog search sparked an anti-US protest in Baghdad and pipelines were set ablaze in north of the capital yesterday. "Down, down USA," shouted thousands of government employees angered by the detention of a woman who refused to be searched by US soldiers using a sniffer dog at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. Soldiers fired a few shots in the air to disperse the workers from the Oil Ministry and nearby ministries. "I have been coming here for 27 years and now they (Americans) are searching us with dogs. We are Muslims," Saadiya Ahmad, an oil ministry engineer...