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We're finally on the brink of the cashless society that futurists and other have been forecasting for years. The average consumer owns at least two credit cards and early adopters have begun ditching plastic for virtual wallets. Even businesses that used to rely heavily on cash — think taxis, food trucks or even craft fairs — can now go cashless, thanks to new technology like Square. Yet, the more we abandon paper bills for plastic, smartphone payments and even cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, the perils of the new, cashless economy are becoming more apparent. Recent security breaches at Target, Neiman Marcus...

Ukraine has restarted a military offensive in the eastern part of the country after two brutally beaten bodies were discovered in the Donetsk region — one is thought to be a local politician. Acting Ukrainian President Oleksandr Turchynov said the politician’s name is Vladimir Rybak, reports the BBC. “The terrorists who effectively took the whole Donetsk region hostage have now gone too far,” the BBC reported Turchynov saying. Two “brutally tortured individuals” have been found near Sloviansk, in the Donetsk region where pro-Russian separatists have been strategically taking over key government buildings, Turchynov said in a statement reported by...

The Covanta Marion waste-to-energy facility in Oregon that incinerates British Columbia "medical waste," including aborted babies. VICTORIA, British Columbia, April 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The British Columbia Health Ministry has admitted that the remains of babies destroyed by abortion in B.C. facilities are ending up in a waste-to-power facility in the United States, providing electricity for residents of Oregon. The province’s Health Ministry said in an email to the B.C. Catholic that “biomedical waste” shipped to the U.S. to be incinerated includes “human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue.” “The ministry understands that some...

Hayes remembered as pioneer who declared San Jose "feminist Capitol of the world"San Jose is remembering its first female mayor. Janet Gray Hayes died Monday at a retirement home in Saratoga. Her family says she suffered a stroke over the weekend. Hayes was elected mayor of San Jose in 1974, becoming the first woman in the United States to lead a city of more than 500,000 people. “She was a trailblazer who helped open the door for women to serve their communities in public office,” Rep. Zoe Lofgren said in a statement. “She was the one who declared San Jose...

SIERRA VISTA — Brown Canyon, located on the Sierra Vista Ranger District, Coronado National Forest has reopened. The area was temporarily closed during the Brown Fire to allow for public safety from hazards associated with emergency fire suppression activity. Visitors are reminded that a wildfire recently burned in the upper reaches of Scheelite Canyon below Ramsey Peak, and to use situational awareness and caution when hiking in the area. For further information please contact the Sierra Vista Ranger District at (520) 378-0311.

The Legacy Lives On! Mark’s Lost Dog & Cat Rescue Foundation “Conservatism is the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles.” --Mark Levin in Liberty and TyrannyWelcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a virtual FRink.Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic.com! You can call Mark’s show: 1-877-381-3811

DENTON (CBSDFW.COM) - The Denton Independent School District is throwing traditional grading methods right out the window, shifting to a new way of assessing their students. The change is going to happen for kids from 6th to 12th grade beginning next year. Teachers will still be handing out letter grades, but the means of calculating those scores will be different than just about any other school district in North Texas. Hand in your homework late? You won’t get a zero. Want a higher grade on a test? Just take it again. Grades will no longer be reduced for failure to...

Video at the link Vladimir Putin has insisted that there are no Russian troops in eastern Ukraine - just like he insisted there were no Russian troops in Crimea until he admitted it last week. Now, the New York Times reports there are photos that clearly show known Russian military and intelligence people mixed in with pro-Russian militias, fomenting strife in Eastern Ukraine. For two weeks, the mysteriously well-armed, professional gunmen known as “green men” have seized Ukrainian government sites in town after town, igniting a brush fire of separatist unrest across eastern Ukraine. Strenuous denials from the Kremlin have...

The fee would pay for half of the annual operating costs of Connect for Health Colorado, the state Obamacare exchange, according to Health News Colorado. The exchange’s latest financial plan comes soon after its oversight board rejected a proposal to hike fees on those who use the website from 1.4 percent to 1.7 percent. Connect for Health Colorado staff has said the increase was needed to keep it solvent. Board members said staff should look at cutting expenses before raising fees, and many had the same reaction to the proposed $13 million fee, which is being called a “general market health insurer assessment.” Others call it...

Jeb Bush once again told a group he is thinking of running for president. The reason interest is high in an undeclared candidate with loud (if not numerous) opponents within the GOP is not hard to figure out. With each passing week it becomes more apparent that there is a gap in the GOP field, which Jeb or some other candidate needs to fill in order for the GOP to win the White House. That candidate may be among the group of governors who are considering a run, but we haven’t seen anyone step forward in commanding style to fill...

One of the biggest land grabs in American history occurred in 1976, when President Jimmy Carter signed into a law the “Federal Land Policy and Management Act.” That stroke of the pen transferred hundreds of millions of acres of land, located primarily in the western states, into the control of the federal government. In reaction, an alliance of ranchers, farmers, and other concerned citizens – the “Sagebrush Rebels” as they came to be known -- challenged the move and sought to return the land back into the hands of the states. Ronald Reagan, at the time running for president, supported...

Last August, as conservatives barnstormed the country seeking to build support for a cockamamie plan to shut down the U.S. federal government unless Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, said something surprisingly prescient about the president’s signature health-care law. “President Obama wants to get as many Americans addicted to the subsidies because he knows that in modern times, no major entitlement has ever been implemented and then unwound,” he said. The worry, according to Cruz, was that once the ACA went into effect, we’d all be “addicted to the sugar.” Then, it...

Guy analyzed this campaign spot earlier today, but I wanted to add some additional commentary as a follow-up. As my other colleague Cortney recently noted, Oregon Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dr. Monica Wehby is not pro-life. She is of the, shall we say, Joe Biden mold in that she is “personally” pro-life but supports abortion rights in practice. The GOP establishment, however, as Cortney lamented, has endorsed her candidacy over the pro-life candidate in the belief that she is -- and will prove to be -- more electable. We’ll see. (Personally, I don’t summarily object when the party endorses...

Via WaPo and RCP, another nugget mined from yesterday’s chat with Axelrod in Chicago. As with abortion, Paul’s “different kind of Republican” brand requires a compromise here. He knows that most voters, including those in his own party, support voter-ID laws; he also knows that those laws are easily demagogued as racist by lefties, which means that toeing the GOP line too closely could jeopardize Paul’s effort to connect with black voters. What’s a different kind of Republican to do? He insists that ID is a good idea — “I don’t think dead people should vote” — but concedes to...

In New York, Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown announced yesterday that a taxi driver, 69-year-old Rodolfo Sanchez, has been charged with stealing more than $28,000 from the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) by, “crossing the Robert F. Kennedy (RFK) Bridge and entering the Midtown Tunnel without making a toll payment on more than four thousand separate occasions by ‘piggybacking’ on cars directly in front of his cab between 2012 and 2014.” District Attorney Brown says that Mr. Sanchez would tailgate the a vehicle in front of his cab, “thus allowing both vehicles to pass through the toll lane before the...

The latest Winthrop Poll results show that U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham’s disapproval rating among registered voters has inched up. The survey of 877 adult South Carolinians conducted April 6-13 indicates that the incumbent senator is showing some vulnerability as the disapproval rating among registered voters 43.8 percent is higher than his approval rating of 39.6 percent. Poll Director Scott Huffmon cautioned that the difference between the two is just at the margin of error for the registered voter sample. “He will be in trouble when his disapproval ratings shoot significantly passed his approval ratings, and polls of likely primary voters...

...The National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), among other organizations were instrumental in bringing together teachers to provide specific, constructive feedback on the standards.

In a statement posted on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management website (BLM), federal officials denied any expansion of holdings along the Red River after Breitbart Texas brought the matter to national attention. The nuanced denial has drawn critical reactions from a number of elected Texas officials. BLM spokesman Paul McGuire said “The 140-acres in question were determined to be public land in 1986 when the U.S. District Court ruled on a case brought by two private landowners, each seeking to adjust boundary lines for their respective properties. The BLM was not a party to any litigation between landowners. The...

Should the United States deport people for entering the country illegally? A stupid question, and one that should not have to be asked. But there it is. Poll Here

Researchers at UNSW Australia have for the first time used electrical pulses delivered from a cochlear implant to deliver gene therapy, thereby successfully regrowing auditory nerves. The research also heralds a possible new way of treating a range of neurological disorders, including Parkinson's disease, and psychiatric conditions such as depression through this novel way of delivering gene therapy. The research is published today (Thursday 24 April) in the journal Science Translational Medicine. "People with cochlear implants do well with understanding speech, but their perception of pitch can be poor, so they often miss out on the joy of music," says...