Free Republic

As the 10th anniversary of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games approaches, its legacy remains unmistakable from the smallest alleyways in the Chinese capital to the country's growing clout abroad. However, since the high of the capital's enthusiasm for the Games, many of the venues built for the lavish event have fallen into disrepair, leaving them unloved and abandoned. Logos bearing 'Beijing 2008' were left rusting at the deserted beach volleyball stadium in the city centre and broken statues of the Olympic mascots were left lying among trees behind unfinished buildings.

This wasn't the first time Lewis had claimed a correlation between crime with football. In 2011, when NFL owners locked out the players, he told ESPN he believed crime would increase if the lockout lasted into the regular season. "Do this research if we don’t have a season — watch how much evil, which we call crime, watch how much crime picks up if you take away our game,” Lewis said.

Feeling down, Mets fans? UMA Health, a New York-based online mental health marketplace, is offering free, confidential therapy sessions to Mets fans, who have watched their team make history in all the wrong ways this season. Not only did the bottom-dwelling Mets have the worst June in franchisse history, falling to the Nationals 25-4 on Tuesday. UMA health's website has a form to fill out, including "your most difficult Mets moment." The lighthearted promotion is meant to bring attention to the important role of therapy and eliminate the stigma of seeing a therapist. The injury-plagued Mets are 45-63 entering Sunday's...

Prelims on FX, now Main Card on PPV at 10 Eastern 2 titles on the line, the rematch between Dillashaw and Garbrandt for the Bantamweight Strap. And Demetrius Johnson defends his Flyweight title against Cejudo, also a rematch. Cub Swanson vs. Renato Moicano

Basketball legend Michael Jordan voiced his support for LeBron James on Saturday after President Donald Trump posted a critical tweet regarding the Los Angeles Lakers superstar. According to Geoff Bennett of NBC News, Jordan released a statement through a spokesperson that read, "I support LJ. He's doing an amazing job for his community." On Friday night, Trump questioned James' intelligence and suggested he preferred Jordan: @realDonaldTrump LeBron James was just interviewed by the dumbest man on television, Don Lemon. He made Lebron look smart, which isn’t easy to do. I like Mike! Jordan was the latest in a long line...

A California teenager was so mortified by his mom’s sexy dancing at a baseball game that he started blushing. The mother was seen dancing in short shorts and a white blouse during Monday night’s Padres game at San Diego’s Petco Park, much to the chagrin of her son, who looked incredibly embarrassed.

<p>Lamar Jackson’s debut as a member of the Baltimore Ravens flew high and not so high last night for the quarterback in the NFL Hall of Fame game’s unofficial start to a new season of football but ratings for the NBC broadcast match-up with the Chicago Bears definitely went down.</p>

Thanks to a friend of mine for alerting me to an issue concerning Safety Harbor Firearms and other manufacturers of .50 cal uppers. These manufacturers received a letter from the ATF. The letter claims that bolt action .50 cal AR uppers can possibly be considered firearms. I reached out to Walter Keller of Safety Harbor Firearms and he agreed to share the letter with TFB. (Snip) Then they segue into bolt action rifles. If you think of a traditional bolt action rifle, the serialized portion of the gun is the barreled action. So now the ATF is saying a bolt...

OS ANGELES -- The Dodgers are ready for their World Series rematch with the Astros. The Dodgers flexed their muscle in Thursday's 21-5 win over the contending Brewers, securing a series split behind seven home runs from five players and six solid innings from Clayton Kershaw. The Dodgers scored a season-high nine runs in the seventh; the 21 total runs are the franchise's most since July 21, 2001, in Colorado and the most ever at Dodger Stadium. Joc Pederson started the night with a leadoff homer and left the yard again in the seventh, Cody Bellinger broke the game open...

Ray Lewis, first-ballot Hall-of-Famer. As a lifelong Pittsburgh resident and Steelers fan, typing that phrase makes me queasy and stokes a sort of involuntary rage tic. But Lewis is a deserving first-ballot choice: a man who transcended arguably the most macho position in the most macho sport for the better part of two decades. Framing Lewis strictly in terms of what he did between the lines would not be an appropriate reflection on his career, however, because for many fans, what happened outside of them defines him just as much, if not more. No reflection on Lewis’ career is comprehensive...

The first Coaches Poll of the 2018 college football season came out Thursday. Here’s the full preseason top 25, topped by the defending national champion Alabama Crimson Tide: 1.Alabama 2.Clemson 3.Ohio State 4.Georgia 5.Oklahoma 6.Washington 7.Wisconsin 8.Miami 9.Penn State 10.Auburn 11.Notre Dame 12.Michigan State 13.Stanford 14.Michigan 15.USC 16.TCU 17.Virginia Tech 18.Missisippi State 19.Florida State 20.West Virginia 21.Texas 22.Boise State 23.UCF 24.LSU 25.Oklahoma State Also getting votes, and closest to the top 25: South Carolina, Florida, Oregon, Utah, Northwestern, Texas A&M, and Kansas State, among others. The Coaches Poll doesn’t matter much, but no polls do until December, so there’s no...

A female football team has called time on followers referring to them as ladies, deeming it offensive and suggestive that women belong in the kitchen. For more than 30 years Hackney Women's Football Club has welcomed women who love playing the Beautiful Game. But senior members of the team have now warned people to stop calling them a 'ladies' side because it carries the connotation that they should 'be in the kitchen and not on the pitch.' Club player and Treasurer, Kristina Maddocks, ignited the debate when she said she told people off for referring to them as 'ladies.' She...

The one-on-one match between Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson will take place over Thanksgiving at Shadow Creek Golf Course in Las Vegas, reports ESPN's Mike Greenberg. The Thanksgiving weekend event will be on either Friday, Nov. 23 or Saturday, Nov. 24, according to the report.

<p>His name is Clark Kent Apuada. And of course, they call him “Superman.”</p> <p>Over the weekend, Clark competed at the Far West International Championship in California, where he won the 100-meter butterfly in 1:09:38.</p> <p>That’s more than second better than the 100-meter butterfly record that Phelps set at the championship in 1995.</p>

Pay, diversity and safety are still obstacles for female bartenders in Chicago. Despite making up the majority of the bartending industry, women earn just 80 percent of their male counterparts’ income, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and The Wall Street Journal. Many female bartenders in Chicago carry a weapon at night or have a game plan for late-night commutes. Also, female bartenders of color tend to have less access to education, exposure and opportunities.

Johnny Manziel's long professional football drought is about to come to an end. The former Texas A&M and Cleveland Browns quarterback is set to make his debut for the Canadian Football League's Montreal Alouettes, the team announced Tuesday. Manziel, who was signed July 23, will start against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Friday, the team that formerly held his CFL rights. Manziel suited up for the Alouettes' game against Edmonton on July 26 but did not make an appearance. Fans chanted for the former Aggie standout to get in the game, something starter Vernon Adams Jr. reportedly wasn't thrilled about. Adams...

Mark Geragos, the lawyer who is representing Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid in a collusion lawsuit against the NFL, has been hinting all summer that there’s damaging information about the NFL that will come out of the case. But Geragos says the court is stopping him from letting the public know all the facts, which he suggested involve a conspiracy regarding President Trump and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones. “The president tweeted about how lame the national anthem policy was,” Geragos said on his Reasonable Doubt podcast. “Then Jerry Jones came out and said they’re going to stand during the anthem....

As NFL training camps opened this week, complete with interminable speculation about position battles, rookies who might make an impact and what players can or can’t do while “The Star-Spangled Banner” is playing, let’s remember two players who aren’t suiting up. Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid are good enough to be playing for someone. That much is beyond debate.

Volkoff began wrestling in 1967 and embarked on a career that lasted nearly 40 years. He spent the bulk of his time in the WWF and World Wide Wrestling Federation, Vince McMahon Sr.'s precursor to the WWF. He also spent time with the American Wrestling Association in the 1970s. Volkoff and The Sheik were one of the premier heel tag teams of the 1980s under the management of Classy Freddie Blassie. The pair won the WWF Tag Team Championship once before breaking up. Volkoff later teamed with Boris Zukhov as part of The Bolsheviks for the remainder of the 1980s before leaving the company in 1990....

Nikolai Volkoff, the burly wrestler whose brash Soviet persona and physical embodiment of Communism made him one of the most hated figures in professional wrestling, has died at the age of 70, World Wrestling Entertainment said. Volkoff was considered a heel, the wrestling term for a character who plays an enemy figure and riles up crowds. Amid the height of the Cold War in the 1980s, Volkoff antagonized American audiences by wearing all-red Soviet outfits, waving a Soviet flag and insisting that the crowds stand for the Russian national anthem and then loudly singing along.