Free Republic

The crash happened about 10 p.m. on East 9th Street near St. Clair Avenue, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said. A Chevy Cruz driven by a 19-year-old man was driving south on East 9th Street when he struck the woman on the scooter from behind. The woman was thrown from the scooter and fell onto the road, Ciaccia said. She was taken to MetroHealth, where she died. ... The 19-year-old man was taken to St. Vincent Charity Hospital for evaluation, but he was released and booked into county jail. He is facing an aggravated vehicular homicide charge.... Cleveland police...

The Italian actress and director Asia Argento was among the first women in the movie business to publicly accuse the producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault. She became a leading figure in the #MeToo movement. Her boyfriend, the culinary television star Anthony Bourdain, eagerly joined the fight. But in the months that followed her revelations about Mr. Weinstein last October, Ms. Argento quietly arranged to pay $380,000 to her own accuser: Jimmy Bennett, a young actor and rock musician who said she had sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room years earlier, when he was only two months past...

Hours and Divine Liturgy (Mass) for the Feast of the Transfiguration. (English appx 2 hrs)

Here's what you need to know: * The PM has abandoned the emissions reduction target section of his National Energy Guarantee * Cabinet ministers have openly admitted this morning they were facing an outbreak of disunity within the party over energy * It's been suggested the Coalition's Longman by-election loss sparked a push for Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to challenge Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's leadership * The PM says Mr Dutton has given him "his absolute support" and Cabinet ministers maintain Mr Turnbull has the confidence of the party

Alan Dershowitz says, "I prefer to be around Democrats who hate me than Republicans who love me." (49:03) What does that mean? Does it mean that Democrats who hate him will come up with more creative legal arguments because they are pissed off? Does Alan prefer hate filled Democrats because he enjoys the challenge of correcting their flawed ways of thinking? Does it mean that despite their hated he still wants to be accepted by Democrats -- like the prodigal son coming home to Martha's Vineyard? Does it mean that he is a phony on Fox News or Judge Jeanine...

President Trump’s former personal lawyer is being investigated over more than $20 million in loans to taxi companies owned by him and his family — and could face charges within the next two weeks, according to a new report Sunday. Michael Cohen is also being probed over deals to buy the silence of women who claimed they had affairs with Trump, The New York Times reported. Federal authorities are in the final stage of their investigation and are weighing charges including bank and tax fraud and violations of campaign finance law, people familiar with the matter told the paper. Prosecutors...

Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., joked about how somebody saving a drowning President Trump would be a "catastrophe" at the start of an event in Sunshine, Fla., on Sunday. In a video reported by the Daily Caller, Hastings said he first learned of the joke from Ari Silver, whose father is former Florida state legislator and rabbi Barry Silver. “Do you know the difference between a crisis and a catastrophe?” Hastings said, retelling the joke. "A crisis is if Donald Trump falls into the Potomac River and can’t swim,” Hastings said. A "catastrophe," he added, "is anybody saves his ass.'” Cheers...

It is worth noting that some in the American press, most explicitly CNN, have fundamentally misunderstood these protests, mischaracterizing them as internal struggles between political hardliners and “reformists”. This is an almost comical error, and causes one to wonder whether anyone making it has actually seen the demonstrations. The people in the streets are shouting phrases like “marg bar dictator” (meaning ‘down with the dictator’, a reference to Iranian Grand Ayatollah and Supreme Leader Khamenei) and “marg bar Rouhani” (“down with Rouhani”, the current Iranian president). Their opposition to the brutal regime under which they suffer could not be clearer....

President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee is walking into the middle of a political firestorm over his work for President George W. Bush. Access to paperwork from Brett Kavanaugh’s years as a White House lawyer and staff secretary for Bush has become a lightning rod in the nomination fight. The issue will take center stage as he sits down with Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, this week. Both senators are expected to press Kavanaugh on whether he'll support releasing all of his Bush-era documents, which they say would...

The big difference in President Donald Trump's re-election campaign in 2020 could be the level of support he receives from the black community. And, the man most despised by the black community could become the most pro-black president of the modern era. A Rasmussen poll released last week indicates growing support for Trump among blacks. A big part of that is economics. For the first time ever, black unemployment has fallen below six percent. That means record numbers of black men, women, and youth are employed. Trump has created opportunities where for decades, the Democrats have offered only unfulfilled promises....

Satan plays a long game. We know from the Gospel of Luke that Satan intended to sift like wheat Peter and the apostles.Writing recently in National Review, Fr. Benedict Kiely has called the Church’s present trial the “summer of shame.” Before our eyes, the successors of the apostles are being sifted as well. Many Catholic commentators are saying the weakness of these wicked prelates is finally being exposed. I fear they may be wrong. Perhaps it is the diabolical strength of these prelates on display.This moment has been building for centuries. Steve Skojec recently observed that “only a structure already...

Self-described "ass-kicking, motorcycle-riding, Texas Democrat" MJ Hegar, a candidate for Texas’ deep-red 31st district, has a novel approach to environmental politics: she doesn’t care if her supporters believe in man-made climate change, but says it's hard to deny the corrupting effects of petroleum dependence on American foreign policy. "Our dependence on foreign oil is just so damaging to our country on so many levels," Hegar told ABC News in a June interview. "I respect other people’s freedom to be discerning and to make their own decisions. But they can’t deny that the U.S. military pays the price for our dependence...

Cardinal Wuerl's resignation Donald Cardinal Wuerl submitted his letter of resignation as archbishop of Washington. Of course, this was done on 12 November 2015, when Wuerl turned 75 years old, as required by the new code of canon law.  Wuerl has been archbishop since 2006, when he replaced his friend and ally, Theodore McCarrick, in the position. At the time of his hand-delivered letter of resignation, nearly three years ago, Wuerl told Religion News Service:  "Now if the Holy Father were to accept it tomorrow, I would be well-prepared to take time to write, to read, to pray a lot more."...

A host of historic artifacts, including a lock of Napoleon’s hair, will be up for auction in the U.K. on Saturday. The unusual object is in an early 19th-century composite locket frame with a lock of hair from Napoleon’s wife, Empress Josephine. “These are remarkable history,” auctioneer Andrew Aldridge of Henry Aldridge & Son told Fox News. A manuscript note accompanying the locket frame states: “The Emperor Napoleon's hair cut off after his death given to the Countess of Ranfurly by Madame La Croix housekeeper to the Empress Josephine from the time when she was Madame De Beauharnais to her...

Pennsylvania is one of America's most populous when it comes to gun owners. Almost one in three Pennsylvanians owns a firearm, or 31 percent. So where do they learn how to shoot? (Legally, that is.) I'm under-educated on the gun-owner side of our national debate. So, I persuaded my editors to let me take a gun class, learn gun safety, and understand more about gun culture. --SNIP-- First, the thrill. It's for real. I'm holding a firearm in my hands. It's horrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Later, I'll shoot "dry-fire" — essentially, blanks — and then real bullets....

WASHINGTON—President Trump is expected to nominate a former operations officer who played a critical role in the 2011 raid targeting Osama bin Laden to head of the U.S. Special Operations Command as part of a series of military promotions in coming months, according to U.S. officials. The changes, which include commanders for the Middle East and Europe, will mark the administration’s largest imprint on military leadership thus far. The personnel moves stand to affect top officers overseeing conflicts in the Middle East, U.S. policy to counter Russia, the detention center on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as well as stealth operations globally.

While everyone feigns shock at the revelations out of Pennsylvania this past week, this isn't news to the faithful in the pews.  We have been calling for accountability for years.  We all know someone or of someone who has been a victim of abuse or targeted for such abuse.  When confronted, prelates turned a deaf ear and a blind eye.  The abuse that came to light almost 15 years ago was an opportunity to cleanse the Church.  The result was a superficial cleaning that didn't touch the root problems, make amends with victims, nor administer appropriate penalties for offenders. The...

Ted Haggard was once one of the most power evangelical leaders in America. New Life Church leader Ted Haggard was once one of America's most charismatic and powerful evangelical leaders, with an audience of more than 30 million people. Ted began counseling foreign dignitaries and consulting on a weekly basis with President George W. Bush. By 2005, Time magazine named him one of the most influential evangelicals in America. But no one—not even his devoted wife, five children and his Colorado Springs, Colorado-based congregation—suspected that Ted was paying an admitted male escort for crystal meth. In November 2006, Mike Jones...

I am looking to switch over a few email accounts to more secure providers. Any suggestions?

There's a sort of radio wave that bangs its way around Earth, knocking around electrons in the plasma fields of loose ions surrounding our planet and sending strange tones to radio detectors. It's called a "whistler." And now, scientists have observed bursts like this in more detail than ever before. Whistlers, typically created during certain lightning strikes, usually travel along Earth's magnetic-field lines. Humans first detected them more than a century ago, thanks to their ability to make a "whistling" sound (really more like a ghostly recording of laser blasts in a "Star Wars" movie) when picked up by a...