Free Republic

Pope says money at root of opposition to annulment reformVatican City — The potential loss of money and authority are often at the heart of the opposition against reforming the Catholic Church's annulment process, Pope Francis said.Departing from his prepared remarks during a Jan. 29 meeting with members of the Roman Rota, a tribunal handling mostly marriage cases, the pope said that after implementing reforms that streamlined annulments in 2015, he "received many letters" and encountered "so much resistance.""Almost all of them were lawyers who were losing clients. And therein lies the problem of money," he said. "In Spain, there...

Shouldn’t Chicago just get it over with now and make Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey the mayor? He’s already the boss. And he’s the one acting like the mayor of Chicago. He dictates terms. And Mayor Lori Lightfoot? She’s that kid being bullied in the schoolyard by Sharkey and his pals. But there is no school, is there? There’s been almost no in-person learning for about a year. And remote instruction really isn’t school. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it’s safe to open public schools, that children are being hurt by not being in class. And...

U.S. Marshals and local law enforcement captured two inmates on Thursday, five days after they escaped from a Florence, Ariz. prison. The final pursuit and takedown was captured by an officer’s body camera.In a field roughly 10 miles from the prison, bodycam footage showed a number of law enforcement officers closing in on the fugitives and demanding they get on the ground before a U.S. Marshal is seen tackling one of the escapees.

Last week, Google proposed something quite extraordinary: pulling its search service from Australia if Canberra passed new legislation targeting internet giants. Google Australia managing director Mel Silva argued the bill — which would force tech giants to pay for news they linked to — would create "unmanageable financial and operational risk" to its business. The proposed law — the News Media Bargaining Code — would also order Google to establish commercial agreements with every news outlet, otherwise the search engine could face forced arbitration. It's not the first time Google has found itself in a situation like this. In 2010,...

Another bout of selling gripped the U.S. stock market Friday, as anxiety mounts over whether the frenzy behind a swift, meteoric rise in GameStop and a handful of other stocks will damage Wall Street overall.The S&P 500 dropped 1.9%, giving the benchmark index its biggest weekly loss since October. The Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq each fell 2%.GameStop shot up nearly 70%, clawing back much of its steep loss from the day before, after Robinhood said it will allow customers to start buying some of the stock again. GameStop has been on a stupefying 1,600% run over the last...

The border fencing around the Capitol is becoming permanent, and former president Trump has taken advantage of the opportunity by taking a photo op of himself crying at the border wall. Trump took the heartfelt photos as he wept uncontrollably near the fence separating Americans from their representatives. "Look at this horrible, racist wall! Sad! Not good!" Trump said as he wept near the fence. "No more congressmen in cages! Racism! Systemic oppression! The worst, maybe ever!" Trump then took a deep breath and began screaming at the sky: "NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" Pictures from another angle quickly surfaced, however, and it was...

Sensing seizures is all in a day's work for 14-month-old labrador Echo. After a sweat and saliva test to check compatibility, Newcastle woman Cassie was matched with Echo when the pup was just eight weeks old. The pup has enabled Cassie to live home alone "I live alone and really the only reason I can do that is because I have an assistant dog," Cassie said. "If I'm home, I have a vital call alarm system. "So she's been taught to learn my body language. Cassie was matched with Echo when the pup was just eight weeks old.(ABC Newcastle: Anthony...

Amid the coronavirus crisis, Americans are abandoning cash almost entirely in favor of “tap and go” transactions....Experts say that the growing trend of contactless payments is here to stay even when the pandemic is over. Not wanting to touch anything is having a dramatic impact on consumer habits. Americans are abandoning cash almost entirely in favor of "tap and go" transactions and have finally embraced contactless and digital payment methods after years of reluctance. The U.S. Mint has pleaded with the public to use coins again, but the opportunities to do so are fewer and farther between. Since the start...

Rumble — At the stroke of a pen... liberal economics kills jobs

A bunch of videos put out by an absolute legend of alternative takes on news. Australian Max Igan gives his take on newpolitik in a most soothing way. Its ideal to stay sorta informed, yet not have your blood pressure spike. Always a pleasure to watch, even though I do not agree with much of what he says. IE, Trump is controlled oppo, that’s laughable, and am not remotely sold on 5G being an issue. Really sucks that I want to introduce you all to his pleasing diatribe against the enemy of mankind, but, his two most recent videos are...

Jan. 28 (UPI) -- The Senate on Thursday advanced the nomination of Alejandro Mayorkas to serve as President Joe Biden's secretary of Homeland Security after voting to break a GOP filibuster. ... Mayorkas is the first of Biden's Cabinet selections to face a filibuster as Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, led a group of GOP senators in calling for an additional hearing before the Senate judiciary committee after the Senate Homeland Security committee voted to move his nomination to the floor on Tuesday.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), who has long billed herself as an enemy of Wall Street, is urging the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to review the recent surge in stock for video game retail company GameStop that was spurred by an online Reddit community. *snip* Warren is asking the SEC to respond by February 5 to a series of questions, including “What were the causes of the recent dramatic shifts in GameStop share prices?” and “Did these shifts represent a ‘fair, orderly, and efficient’ market function?” Notably, Warren asks the SEC to “what extent did online message boards,...

Former Ohio governor John Kasich, in an interview with CNN anchor Don Lemon, suggested some Trump supporters “are redeemable.” Kasich (R), who unsuccessfully ran against former President Trump in 2016 and endorsed Joe Biden in 2020, suggested to Lemon that supporters must confess their sins before being welcomed back into the fold. In other words, confess that the Capitol riots were as bad as the media portrays and the whole event is all Trump’s fault. “Honestly, Don, what we have to ask ourselves are, who’s redeemable?” he said. “Who we bring over to say this is — this is just...

Blue checkmarks and Democrats took to Twitter on Thursday to condemn a call for violence against Gov. Andrew Cuomo and the people in his administration. The quote in question, however, was actually a call to violence against former President Donald Trump and his supporters from U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., that a Twitter troll account called “Cuomo Watch” satirically modified to say “Cuomo.” “‘If you see anybody from the Cuomo Administration in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them...

WASHINGTON -- Two pipe bombs left at the offices of the Republican and Democratic national committees, discovered just before thousands of pro-Trump rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol, were actually placed the night before, federal officials said Friday. The FBI said the investigation had revealed new information, including that the explosive devices were placed outside the two buildings between 7:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on Jan. 5, the night before the riot. The devices were not located by law enforcement until the next day. It is not clear whether that means the pipe bombs were unrelated to the next day’s riot...

As carjackings skyrocket in the Philadelphia area, one of the city's latest victims is a cancer-stricken woman who was preyed on by three brazen suspects. Angela Palumbo says her mother, 78-year-old Angelina Bellisma, was parking the car around the corner from their home on Bancroft Street and Oregon Avenue after unloading groceries when she was attacked in broad daylight. --SNIP-- Bellisma is among the 68 other victims involved in carjackings since the beginning of the year. Last year, police reported a total of 410 incidents. "We have seen an uptick, which is odd to see so many carjackings occurring," said...

The astronomical rally in GameStop has imposed huge losses of nearly $20 billion for short sellers this month, but they are not budging. Short-selling hedge funds have suffered a mark-to-market loss of $19.75 billion year to date in the brick-and-mortar video game retailer, including a nearly $8 billion loss on Friday as the stock kept ripping higher, according to data from S3 Partners. Still, short sellers mostly are holding onto their bearish positions or they are being replaced by new hedge funds willing to bet against the stock. GameStop shares that have been borrowed and sold short have declined by...

Explanation: On January 21, light from the Moon near first quarter illuminated the foreground in this snowy mountain and night scene. Known as The Lions, the striking pair of mountain peaks are north of Vancouver, British Colombia, Canada, North America, planet Earth. Poised above the twin summits, left of Deneb alpha star of the constellation Cygnus, are emission regions NGC 7000 and IC 5070. Part of a large star forming complex about 1,500 light-years from Vancouver, they shine with the characteristic red glow of atomic hydrogen gas. Outlines of the bright emission regions suggest their popular names, The North America...

A Baptist minister who works as an abortion activist praised President Joe Biden this week for forcing American taxpayers to fund Planned Parenthood and other abortion groups. The Rev. Katey Zeh, CEO of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, told the Huffington Post that protecting “choice” is a moral issue and one that Biden has a responsibility to support. “As people of faith who support reproductive freedom, we believe that everyone has the capacity to make sacred decisions about their bodies, lives, families and futures,” Zeh told the news outlet. “Any attempt to control, restrict or interfere with that decision...

Total Doses Distributed: 49,216,500 Number of People Receiving 1 or More Doses: 22,858,318 Number of People Receiving 2 Doses: 4,780,888