Free Republic

Attorney General William P. Barr declared on Monday that a deadly shooting last month at a naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., was an act of terrorism, and he asked Apple in an unusually high-profile request to provide access to two phones used by the gunman.Mr. Barr’s appeal was an escalation of a continuing fight between the Justice Department and Apple pitting personal privacy against public safety. “This situation perfectly illustrates why it is critical that the public be able to get access to digital evidence,” Mr. Barr said, calling on technology companies to find a solution and complaining that...

Whether you like it or not, there’s plenty of evidence that the God of the Bible does not sanction same-sex relationships. You may not interpret the Good Book that way. Perhaps you’ve got reasonable theological reasons for it.

Assessing a politician’s life often requires looking again at the contradictions they tried to resolve, finds Ross Ahlfeld as he remembers Tanzania’s first president Julius NyerereThere are only really three essential components to create the perfect conditions for an edifying pilgrimage—an interesting destination, a decent packed lunch and a right good read for the train. Ideally, your book should be a devotional or a breviary of some kind, especially if you are travelling to a location of some spiritual significance. Having all three of these ducks in a row, I recently set out for Edinburgh, munching on a pork luncheon...

Hackers affiliated with the Russian military have taken aim at Burisma, the Ukrainian natural gas company at the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, according to the New York Times. Hacking attempts began in early November against the company on whose board former Vice President Joe Biden’s son sat, The Times reported. At the same time the House was investigating a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during which Trump asked Zelensky to investigate the Bidens. Security experts told the Times the hackers’ findings, as well as what they were looking for, remain unclear, but...

Aboriginal people had a deep knowledge of the land, said historian Bill Gammage, an emeritus professor at Australian National University who studies Australian and Aboriginal history. They can feel the grass and know if it would burn well; they knew what types of fires to burn for what types of land, how long to burn, and how frequently. Aboriginal techniques are based in part on fire prevention: ridding the land of fuel, like debris, scrub, undergrowth and certain grasses. The fuel alights easily, which allows for more intense flames that are harder to fight. The Aboriginal people would set small-scale...

Churches appear to be less indispensable to small communities than they themselves are inclined to think. The Dutch Catholic weekly Katholiek Nieuwsblad reached that conclusion after long-term research into the effects of church closure on village communities. The research of the Dutch Catholic weekly shows, among other things, that the pace at which churches are disappearing from the countryside will only increase in the coming years. It often results in painful closures or mergers, but the local village communities also seem to recover surprisingly quickly. The various social functions of the parishes are often taken over by local social organizations...

The 37-year-old clergyman was ordained on 3 January. His vocation came when others graduate from seminaries. He has worked with the youth ministry and wishes to continue as a spiritual guide for mature vocations. He also wants to help fellow Christians face societal challenges like land disputes.Dhaka (AsiaNews) – Fr Philip Tushar Gomes, 37, is the first priest from Bakshanagar, a village in Dhaka division, since Christianity came to the area 250 years ago. The new clergyman was ordained on 3 January in the presence of Mgr Shorot Francis Gomes and 500 Catholics. “God selected me to work for his...

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) sent a public warning shot on Monday night, saying that if Republicans support Democrats' impeachment witness requests then he will force votes during the trial on calling witnesses conservatives want to hear from. "My colleagues can’t have it both ways. Calling for some, while blocking others," Paul tweeted referencing a Politico report on a similar private warning his gave GOP colleagues against supporting Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer's request that former national security adviser John Bolton testify. "If we are going to give a platform to witnesses the Dems demand, I look forward to forcing votes...

The Theology of Benedict XVI: A Protestant AppreciationEdited by Tim PerryLexham Press, 272pp, £20.99/$25.89The theology of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is not the easiest thing to get a handle on. There is, first, the sheer volume of it. During his tenures as a theology professor, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and pope, Benedict wrote more than 70 books, three papal encyclicals, three apostolic exhortations, and countless articles, addresses and homilies. Second, there is such a wide variety of themes treated that it is difficult (if not impossible) to peg Benedict’s theology to any of the...

A coalition of mostly left-wing groups Monday rejected a bipartisan call for the immediate nomination and confirmation of six new members of the Federal Election Commission. The FEC has only three active members on its six member board, rendering it unable to meet its four member quorum to enforce campaign finance laws.

Surrounded by three coyotes in the backyard of his family's Highland Park home Monday night, a brave cat named Max held his own and tried to fight them off all by himself -- and the tense standoff was captured on video. Maya Gurrin and her husband were watching a movie in their home on Crestwood Way when they noticed a shadow of a tail through the window. The went outside to check it out and were stunned to find a group of coyotes in their yard. “I just kind of scream and lunge at them, and then they run away,...

While speaking to reporters on Monday, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) said that he is keeping an open mind on which witnesses he wants to hear from in the Senate impeachment trial, and wants to hear from former National Security Adviser John Bolton. Romney said, “I support the Clinton impeachment model, which is a vote on witnesses later. But as to which witnesses I’d want to hear from, and so forth, that’s something which I’m open to until after the opening arguments.” He added that Bolton is “someone who I would like to hear from, and presumably, I’d get the chance...

Sam Whittet, 24, left Peter Roberts with a fractured skull and bleed on the brain after flying into an uncontrollable rage in December 2016A vicious thug who killed a Good Samaritan with a single punch in a booze-fuelled rage has been jailed for just two years and eight months. Sam Whittet, 24, went on a violent rampage at a working man’s club after an evening drinking on December 10, 2016. A court heard he flew into an “uncontrollable rage” during which he punched a 15-year-old boy who had his back turned to him in completely unprovoked attack. Whittet then became...

A Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputy is on paid leave after apparently leaving his badge and a loaded gun that were found by a child at a South Lake Tahoe rental home. Josh Segarra, 9, found the gun in a bedroom drawer 10 minutes after arriving at an Airbnb rental near the Heavenly ski resort over the weekend, the boy’s father, Jon Segarra of Hayward, told KTVU-TV. At first, the family thought the items were fake. They didn’t touch the gun — a Ruger .380 handgun — but contacted local police.

A Wisconsin judge held three state election commissioners in contempt on Monday and ordered them to proceed immediately with purging more than 200,000 people from the state’s voter rolls. The ruling by Judge Paul V. Malloy of Ozaukee County Circuit Court doubled down on his finding last month that thousands of voters who are believed to have moved should have their registrations canceled in Wisconsin, a narrowly divided state that has become a focal point of the 2020 presidential battle. The debate over whether voters should be purged from the rolls has become a proxy for the state’s tense partisan...

The good folks at ReasonTV put together this 15-minute highlight reel of Bernie Sanders’s greatest socialist hits, and I expect we’ll see parts of this rolled out by other campaigns—especially Bloomberg but ultimately Trump’s campaign—if Bernie does well in the early primaries. Worth it alone for the quote at the very beginning on the virtue of food lines in socialist countries. That one quote alone ought to kill Bernie’s campaign cold. P.S. In case you didn’t already know, Bernie is an actual Communist. Chaser: Bernie Sanders Despised Democrats In 1980s, Said A JFK Speech Once Made Him Sick Vermont senator...

LONDON — Iran is caught in a wretched economic crisis. Jobs are scarce. Prices for food and other necessities are skyrocketing. The economy is rapidly shrinking. Iranians are increasingly disgusted. Crippling sanctions imposed by the Trump administration have severed Iran’s access to international markets, decimating the economy, which is now contracting at an alarming 9.5 percent annual rate, the International Monetary Fund estimated. Oil exports were effectively zero in December, according to Oxford Economics, as the sanctions have prevented sales, even though smugglers have transported unknown volumes. The bleak economy appears to be tempering the willingness of Iran to escalate...

<p>DONALD JOHN TRUMP Coalition forms to back Trump rollback of major environmental law Canadian CEO blasts Trump over downed plane in Iran: 'I am livid' Business groups worry they won't see a Phase 2 Trump-China trade deal MORE plans to divert $7.2 billion from the Pentagon to go toward border wall construction this year, an amount five times greater than what Congress authorized in the budget, the Washington Post reported.</p>

Lovers of Champagne and other French sparkling wines should brace for big cost increases if the United States makes good on a threat to impose 100% tariffs on French goods in a dispute over the country’s planned digital services tax. A $70 bottle of Moet & Chandon Grand Vintage could surge to $130, for example, said David Parker, chief executive of Benchmark Wine Group, the largest U.S. supplier of fine and rare wines for wine retailers. The U.S. government said in December it may slap duties of up to 100% on $2.4 billion in imports from France of Champagne, handbags,...

[Catholic Caucus] Critics Slam Benedict for New Book Defending Priestly Celibacy The retired pontiff breaks his silence — and not all are happy DETROIT (ChurchMilitant.com) - Critics are slamming Pope Benedict XVI and Cdl. Robert Sarah for defending clerical celibacy in their forthcoming book, From the Depths of Our Hearts. Scheduled for release in February, the collaboration is a timely work that tackles the crisis in the Church, especially in relation to the priesthood, with a key focus on the question of priestly celibacy. Father Joseph Fessio, founder and editor of Ignatius Press, described the book as about "the lasting crisis that the...