Free Republic

Former first lady Michelle Obama will be inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame (NWHF), the organization announced on Monday, International Women's Day. She will join several other inductees who will be honored with a ceremony in October. "Advocate, author, lawyer, and 44th First Lady of the United States—the first Black person to serve in the role—Michelle Obama has emerged as one of the most influential and iconic women of the 21st century," NWHF said in a press release about the 2021 inductees.

This is a rather odd story that I’ve been following for a while now, so bear with me. It’s been featured on a couple of the Travel Channel’s conspiracy theory shows and you’ll see why in a moment if you’re not familiar with it. But a recent development may bring it out of the tinfoil hat column and at least into the realm of possibility. The tale starts in the 1860s when legend has it that a large wagon full of gold bullion was either stolen or “went missing” in a remote area of western Pennsylvania. The shipment had supposedly...

A New York judge tossed the defamation lawsuit from the campaign of former President Donald Trump against the New York Times. Judge James d’Auguste granted the newspaper's motion to dismiss on Tuesday, which focused on a March 2019 op-ed published under the headline “The Real Trump-Russia Quid Pro Quo.” Max Frankel, the executive editor of the New York Times from 1986 to 1994, wrote in the op-ed that Trump had "an overarching deal" with "[Russian President] Vladimir Putin's oligarchy" against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election — an arrangement that would deliver “a new pro-Russian foreign policy,...

A top U.S. admiral has said that Taiwan is in China's military sights, warning of possible military action in the next six years, as well as fears Beijing could overtake America's global leadership role in the coming decades. "Taiwan is clearly one of their ambitions ... And I think the threat is manifest during this decade, in fact, in the next six years," Adm. Philip Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing Tuesday. Davidson also said China could overtake the United States' hegemony in global affairs and assume a world leadership role by...

Mexican drug cartels and human smugglers TAG 'asylum-seeking' migrants to the US with $500 colored wristbands that look like hospital bracelets to keep track of their movements U.S. Customs and Border Protection has learned that migrants illegally crossing the border have been using a system of colored wristbands The plastic wristbands were placed on the individuals by the drug cartels and human traffickers who ferried them over the Mexico-United States border The bracelets were marked 'arrivals' or 'entries' in Spanish and were spotted lying along the Rio Grande shore near the Texas border town of Penitas A Honduran migrant told...

The Supreme Court delivers another blow to a victim of egregious police abuse.On July 28, 2016, a group of Cleveland police officers dressed in plain clothes and driving in an unmarked car idled up to a house, where they spotted a man on the front porch. The man was named Shase Howse, and he lived in that house with his mother. The police proceeded to beat and arrest him. Last year a federal court ruled that those two cops were protected by the legal doctrine known as qualified immunity. And this morning, buried in the Supreme Court order, came...

So when we're determining the midpoint of Lent, we have two options. We can count out 20 days of the Lenten fast from Ash Wednesday forward (skipping the Sundays), or we can take the easier route and just count all the days from Ash Wednesday, stopping at 23 (since 23 is half of 46). Either way, we wind up at the Third Thursday of Lent. Since most Catholics don't attend daily Mass (and, historically, never have), the Church has long noted the milestone on the Sunday following the Thursday in the Third Week of Lent. The Fourth Sunday of Lent...

The Women's Prize for Fiction has made history by including a trans woman in its 2021 longlist. Torrey Peters has been listed for her debut novel Detransition, Baby, months after organisers faced fierce criticism for announcing entries will be accepted from anyone 'legally defined' as a woman. Detransition, Baby follows trans women Reese and Amy as they attempt to navigate forming an unconventional family when Amy de-transitions to become Ames and fathers a child from an affair with his boss Katrina.

Meghan Markle's former TV father is not impressed with the bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey that aired on Sunday. The actor, who played Robert Zane on Suits, slammed the interview as being "insensitive" due to it being carried out during the ongoing pandemic. "Today, 3,000 people are going to die in America from Covid. A couple of hundred people are going to die, even this hour, in the U.K.," he told LBC Radio. "It was quite insensitive and offensive that we are all complicit in this sort of palace gossip in the midst of so much death. I think it...

Amid Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s sexual harassment allegations, and the scandal over his administration hiding the disgustingly high number of nursing home and group home deaths, few are talking about the elephant in the room. The big scandal isn’t that Cuomo is a creep, because everyone knew that already. The scandal isn’t even that Cuomo lied about nursing home deaths. The real scandal is what lay behind the high nursing home deaths in New York and a handful of other states led by leftist governors such as Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer, Minnesota’s Tim Walz, and Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf. It is the story...

Open all hours S1 E1

Consumer goods conglomerate Unilever said Tuesday it will no longer use the word “normal” to advertise and package its beauty and personal care products and will ban the excessive photoshopping of models as part of its inclusivity policy. The company, which owns skincare brands like Dove and Simple and haircare brands like TreSemme and TIGI, said the word “normal” will be removed from the packaging of at least 200 products within a year. It also said it will increase the number of advertisements featuring people from diverse groups, and that it will not “digitally alter a person’s body shape, size,...

The United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) released an update on Friday about the United Airlines Boeing 777 engine incident. In late February, the aircraft was climbing out of Denver International Airport (DEN) when the pilots throttled up the engines in anticipation of turbulence. Shortly after that, a loud bang and fire coming from the engine led the pilots to bring the plane back to Denver. United Airlines, shortly after, voluntarily removed 24 of its Pratt & Whitney 4000-powered Boeing 777 aircraft from service. The airline is working to fill in the gaps in its schedules as these aircraft...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's top COVID-19 adviser, seemed to admit Wednesday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention coronavirus guidelines are not entirely based on science.

H.R. 1 would mandate same-day and automatic voter registration, and encourage vote trafficking of absentee ballots. It would eviscerate state voter ID laws and limit the ability of states to verify the accuracy of their voter registration lists. This would institutionalize the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election. But H.R. 1 would go even further in increasing the security weaknesses inherent in the current “honor” voter registration and voting system that exists in states across the country. Anyone who doubts that fraud occurs is living in a dreamland. When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Indiana’s...

Engine-related issues due to technological glitches are emerging as the latest source of setbacks for the airline stocks, which are already reeling under the coronavirus-induced weak air-travel demand. Notably, on Feb 20, 2021, United Airlines’ UAL Flight 328 made an emergency landing at the Denver International Airport following an engine failure. On Feb 22, a Delta Air Lines DAL flight made an emergency landing at the Salt Lake International Airport after a snag in the engine was detected. American Airlines AAL became the latest U.S.- based carrier to suffer a technological breakdown. Per a Reuters report, American Airlines’ Flight 2555,...

President Joe Biden has not held a press conference in the first 50 days of his presidency, taking longer to do so than the last two presidents combined. Wednesday, March 10, marks Biden’s 50th day in office, but he has yet to hold a single press conference, prompting critics to question his administration’s self-professed commitment to transparency.

Judge Peter Cahill granted a motion preventing the death of convicted felon George Floyd from being likened to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ during the Derek Chauvin murder trial striking a major blow to Black Lives Matter activists who had hoped to paint Floyd as a martyred holy figure . The judge was presented with the following motion on Monday: “The Defendant moves the Court for an Order precluding any expert from likening the death of George Floyd to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the ground that such analogy is prejudicial.”Judge Cahill agree with the motion and it was...

The latest example came to light this morning with a report of a 39-year-old single mother in Utah who mysteriously died four days after receiving the second dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. According to KUTV: SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — During a KUTV investigation into COVID-19 vaccine side effects and where to report them, we found four reported deaths, filed by Utah families and their caregivers to the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Reporting System. One case stood out, a 39-year-old single mom from Ogden who died four days after her second dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. Her family, who...

Aspirin, one of the oldest and most widely used drugs, is preventing COVID-19 infections, Israeli scientists have claimed in “exciting” findings. In the peer-reviewed research, they found that in a sample of Israeli PCR tests, patients who take small doses of aspirin were 29 percent less likely to test positive. They cross-referenced 10,477 results with medical records covering what preventive drugs patients take. “We were really excited to see a big reduction in the proportion of people testing positive, and this gives a promising indication that aspirin, such a well-known and inexpensive drug, may be helpful in fighting the pandemic,”...