Free Republic

British movie star Orlando Bloom told Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday to “go win” the war against Russia during a meeting in Kyiv. In his first visit to Ukraine since 2016, the 46-year-old UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador praised the war-ravaged population and discussed solutions for the traumatized children. “(It is) so encouraging in so many ways to see just the remarkably stoic nature of the people of Ukraine,” Bloom told Zelensky, the Independent reported. “And of course, your messaging that I think is reflected in their courage, and in their determination and in their perseverance and resilience,” he added....

Thousands of dead fish and other marine life carcasses are washing ashore in the San Francisco Bay Area, creating a foul smell. Experts point to an unprecedented "red tide" algae bloom as the mostly likely cause. Abnormal numbers of dead crabs, bat rays, striped bass, white sturgeon and more have been spotted throughout the Bay area over the last week, officials say, notably at Oakland's Lake Merritt. The start of the fish die-off could date back even further—as the harmful algae bloom has been spreading since late July. The carcasses are worrying environmental scientists, as they mark a devastating loss...

well-known women’s rights lawyer sought to arrange compensation from donors and tabloid media outlets for women who made or considered making sexual misconduct allegations against Donald Trump during the final months of the 2016 election, according to documents and interviews. California lawyer Lisa Bloom’s efforts included offering to sell alleged victims’ stories to TV outlets in return for a commission for herself, arranging a donor to pay off one Trump accuser’s mortgage and attempting to secure a six-figure payment for another woman who ultimately declined to come forward after being offered as much as $750,000, the clients told The Hill....

Kathy Griffin INSANE Press Conference with Lisa Bloom 6/2/17. Kathy Griffin and is holding a press conference on Friday in order to react to the continued outrage over her controversial photo shoot with a likeness of President Trump‘s head. Griffin has hired attorney Lisa Bloom, who announced that today’s event will “explain the true motivation behind the image, and respond to the bullying from the Trump family [Griffin] has endured.” Griffin’s photo shoot became an instant source of controversy this week, and it was strongly condemned from figures on both sides of the political aisle. The backlash has cost Griffin...

Earlier today, the official Facebook page for Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County comic strip posted a letter purportedly from the legal team of President Donald Trump...In case anyone had their doubts that the letter is a hoax, comics journalism zine kingpin Christian Hoffer contacted the legal firm to check...it looks likely Donald Trump did not, in fact, threaten the creator of Bloom County over a Facebook meme

A mild winter followed by a spate of cold weather in Washington, made its mark on the city’s cherry blossoms, but the annual festival delighted first-time visitors on Sunday. The cherry blossom trees were a gift from Japan to the United States in 1912. The cherry blossom trees currently grow in three National Park Service locations, including the Tidal Basin, Hains Point and on the Washington Monument grounds. The cold weather killed half of the blossoms on the Yoshino cherry trees just as they were reaching their peak. The National Park Service says on its website that peak bloom was...

Readers' Forum In his Inaugural Address on Jan. 20, 2017, President Trump said: "We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate from the face of the Earth." Then, on Jan. 28, President Trump issued a National Security Presidential Memorandum, directing the Secretary of Defense, and other officials in his administration, to develop, within 30 days, a comprehensive strategy and plans to defeat ISIS. Relevant in this context, is the following new book published in December 2016: "The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Brought You ISIS,...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The city of Toledo has put its water quality on "watch" status because of the toxins that shut down Toledo's public drinking-water system for three days a year ago. The water is safe to drink, city officials said. Toledo Mayor Paula Hicks-Hudson said the water was put on watch because microcystin had been detected in the intake crib about three miles out in Lake Erie. The toxin was not detected in tap water, she said. "Our water treatment process is effectively removing the microcystin," according to the city's online water-quality dashboard. "We have an advanced warning system...

An old friend Bloom Energy is making news, and not in a good way. The San Jose Mercury News reported today that Bloom Energy, a political heavyweight, paid workers brought in from Mexico in pesos: "Authorities said Bloom Energy paid the Mexican workers in pesos by wiring funds back to bank accounts in Chihuahua. Bloom also paid for the men to stay in a Sunnyvale motel and provided each with a meal stipend of $50 a day." If true, that's stunning for a company with a board of directors that includes former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Silicon Valley...

SUNNYVALE -- A prominent Silicon Valley clean-energy startup has been ordered to pay back wages and penalties for bringing in workers from Mexico and paying them about $2.66 an hour in pesos, the U.S. Department of Labor announced Tuesday. Sunnyvale-based Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cells and sells energy to clients including AT&T, Adobe, Coca-Cola, eBay, Google and Wal-Mart, was ordered by a judge to pay $31,922 in back wages and an equal amount in damages to 14 welders who were brought in to work alongside domestic workers refurbishing power generators. It followed a federal investigation that inspected records from...

"The Closing of the American Mind"If I had reread The Closing of the American Mind 10 years ago, when my own children were themselves under 10, I confess I would have thought Bloom’s portrait of educational decline was overwrought. And then they grew up and went off to college. ..............[Allan] Bloom wrote a moment before the population of modernity’s Holy Trinity - Marx, Freud, and Darwin - decreased by two-thirds. Marx lost his allure, at least nominally, after the collapse of the murderous regimes that had been built from his ideas. Freud was demoted from scientist to cultural observer, and...

One odd feature of this bizarre Republican primary season is what we haven't seen yet: a full-bore re-litigation of Mitt Romney's Mormonism. There was a one-day tizzy last month over the anti-Mormon comments by Southern Baptist Convention leader Rev. Robert Jeffers, a Rick Perry supporter, but that's pretty much been it, which is all the more notable given that Romney's not the only Mormon in the race. Instead, the only ones to really contend with the implications of Romney's Mormonism have been a few voices about as far from GOP circles as one can get. First, there was Chris Lehmann's...

Posted: 9:24 am EDT April 13, 2010 Updated: 9:49 am EDT April 13, 2010 SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. -- Missing 11-year-old Nadia Bloom was found alive Tuesday morning in woods by a church member volunteering with the search.

WINTER SPRINGS, Fla. -- Once daylight broke, search teams began a third full day of searching for a missing 11-year old autistic girl in Winter Springs. Police told Eyewitness News they are not giving up hope that they will find Nadia Bloom okay. The search for her has been going on since Friday afternoon when Nadia disappeared from the Barrington Estates neighborhood.

(CBS) In the world of energy, the Holy Grail is a power source that's inexpensive and clean, with no emissions. Well over 100 start-ups in Silicon Valley are working on it, and one of them, Bloom Energy, is about to make public its invention: a little power plant-in-a-box they want to put literally in your backyard. You'll generate your own electricity with the box and it'll be wireless. The idea is to one day replace the big power plants and transmission line grid, the way the laptop moved in on the desktop and cell phones supplanted landlines. It has a...

The Great Recession of 2008 and 2009 could be a turning point in history. It could be the event that shocks us into a new vision of ourselves, our past, our future, our mission, and our destiny. Or it could be the prelude to a long decline. Will that turning point be for better or for worse? Will it be a new beginning, a new opportunity to see what we've achieve with brand new eyes and to build on our foundations brilliantly? Or will it be the end? The beginning of the Chinese Century? The answer depends on something that...

The Man Behind the Curtain and his Drones. ...."In a November 2008 in and interview with Spiegel, Soros made some comments that accurately outlined precisely the course that President Obama's administration would eventually pursue in 2009: "I think we need a large stimulus package which will provide funds for state and local government to maintain their budgets -- because they are not allowed by the constitution to run a deficit. For such a program to be successful, the federal government would need to provide hundreds of billions of dollars. In addition, another infrastructure program is necessary. In total, the cost...

The Obama administration's auto czar on Tuesday said political interference by Congress could jeopardize the bailouts of General Motors and Chrysler.

In Cincinnati tomorrow, President Obama will announce that he's appointing Ron Bloom his Senior Counselor for Manufacturing Policy, White House sources tell ABC News. Bloom is currently Senior Advisor to Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner as a member of the President’s Task Force on the Automotive Industry, named to that position in February. He will remain in that position even while he takes on his new task. A key part of the team that advised the White House on the struggling U.S. auto industry, Bloom and team pushed U.S. automakers General Motors and Chrysler to come up with viable...

Reported during Your World that Steven Rattner would step down and be replaced by a member of the Auto Task Force. No print story currently available at site.