Free Republic

Church attendance in the United States is lower than it was before the Covid-19 pandemic, a new survey indicated. In the new Gallup survey, 31 percent of respondents said they have attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the last seven days. In Gallup polls conducted from 2020 to the most recent May 1-24, 2023 poll, an average of 30 percent of respondents said they had attended services in the last week. These data represent a modest decline of an average of four points since the four-year period before the pandemic, when an average of 34 percent of respondents said...

Gasbuddy.com says several stations in Houghton Lake, Michigan have lowered their prices under $1 per gallon, in what appears to be a price war. According to GasBuddy it appears these stations are currently the first stations in the country to see prices under $1 per gallon in years. As the situation unfolds, it's possible these stations re-raise prices back over $1/gallon. 78 cents per gallon was recorded at Beacon & Bridge Market while 95 cents per gallon was recorded at the Marathon in Houghton Lake. Prices were verified by GasBuddy after a review of photographs uploaded to GasBuddy's app.

The price of Crude Oil was $99.57 as of 11:15AM EDT today! And on a Sunday, no less. :oD

bn SINGAPORE - Oil prices dropped below $60 a barrel in Asian trading on Monday, and analysts attributed the bailout to high inventories and receding fears about supply threats. Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore, said hedge funds and investors were reacting to a soft market but noted that $60 is still a very strong price and said the market was still vulnerable to price spikes. Light sweet crude for November delivery fell 60 cents to $59.95 a barrel in midmorning Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Oil prices have dropped 23...

WASHINGTON - Oil prices fell more than 3 percent Monday, dipping below $70 a barrel amid concerns about weakening demand and rising inflation. Some analysts said the selloff was triggered by profit-taking. "This is demand destruction not on a consumer level. It's demand destruction on a trading level," said Michael Guido, Societe Generale's director of commodity strategy. "The reality of it is that the market was in desperate need of a correction," Guido said. "There was not a big change in the world economy." Still, the International Energy Agency said last week that high prices have pushed oil demand downward,...

Only once before in Israeli history has a smaller party formed a government - in 1999 - and it lasted only 18 months. Exit polls showed Kadima winning between 29 and 32 seats, but results based on a count of nearly three-quarters of the polling stations show Kadima winning only 28 seats. Labor, too, has dropped to 20 seats, while the National Union/NRP have 8 and Shas has 13. The original post-election forecasts gave the Likud between 10-12 seats, and Labor 19-22. Yisrael Beiteinu was to receive 12-15 seats, followed by Shas with 10-11. The National Union/NRP was estimated to...

FEARS FOR ANCIENT REMAINS BELOW WAVESBy Martin Neville DIVERS face a desperate race against time to recover 8,000-year-old artefacts from the bottom of The Solent before they are lost forever. The underwater site, off Bouldnor, is the only one yet discovered in Britain and dates from when the sea level was 12 metres lower than today, when the IW would have been much larger and The Solent was a dry coastal valley. It remains because it was covered in silt and protected from erosion as the sea rose above it. Most Stone Age sites on land have lost all associated...

When it comes to the law of unintended consequences, the McCain-Feingold campaign-finance "reform" is rapidly becoming a legal phenomenon. The latest example comes courtesy of the Federal Election Commission, where officials are being asked to extend the law to the very people it is supposed to empower: individual citizens. snip The problem facing the FEC is that McCain-Feingold broadly restricts coordination with, and contributions to, political candidates. So what is the agency to do with all those people who use their Web sites to praise a candidate? Computers and Web access cost money, which could be construed as a financial...

Minnesota's reputation for bitter winters earns bragging rights today when temperatures start to fall into a subzero cellar for a long, frigid weekend. The National Weather Service predicts a daytime high temperature in the Twin Cities of 9 degrees, though blustery winds will create wind chills in the region of 16 to 20 below zero. Then it will get colder. A metro temperature of 14 below is predicted for tonight, and readings should remain below zero until Monday. The predicted highs are 4 below on Friday, 7 below on Saturday and 6 below on Sunday. The last time the Twin...

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!

6 disabled protesters arrested in CapitolGary ScharrerAustin BureauAUSTIN -- Six activists in wheelchairs were arrested Thursday when they refused to leave Gov. Rick Perry's Capitol office at the close of the business day. The six were among about 40 disabled Texans, including 11 El Pasoans, who parked their wheelchairs near the governor's office demanding a meeting. The group wanted a commitment from Perry to help restore about $500 million in the state budget necessary to keep 60,000 disabled Texans from losing in-home health care. "I want to be a productive, independent person like I am right now. I need my...