Free Republic

You’ve heard a lot about fraud in the state’s unemployment system, but you’ve never heard this: A scammer spills his secrets — how he steals your taxpayer dollars, leaving those desperately needing benefits stuck in limbo. CBS 2 Investigator Dorothy Tucker went inside the scheme and uncovers why Illinois is a favorite target. Cynthia Sawaneh couldn’t believe what CBS 2 showed her on her computer. The information she was looking at usually lurks in the shadows, meant for criminals who are aiming to make millions, targeting taxpayers like Sawaneh. “This is really scary. Oh my God,” she said after reading...

There is something odd happening with the Deshaun Watson case. Watson is a 25-year-old star quarterback entering the prime of his career, and he’s now being accused of sexual assault by at least 14 different women. This story should be all anyone talks about regarding sports. Yes, the NCAA Tournament is in full swing, and that will drown out some of the coverage, but Watson is a superstar in the NFL. Where are all the hot takes from woke sports media personalities who usually love sharing their opinions? Well, OutKick founder Clay Travis says there’s a reason we aren’t seeing...

New research offers fresh hope for diagnosing Alzheimer's via a blood test, potentially years before symptoms emerge. The memory-robbing disease has no set test, with specialists assessing suspected patients via memory analyses, mental-agility evaluations and brain scans. The concept of an Alzheimer's blood test is not new, with past studies suggesting biomarkers circulate in a patient's blood before they show signs of the disease.

President Joe Biden’s job approval rating has slipped three points since Friday as Democrats in the House continue to pursue a range of far-left policy proposals, including the Equality Act, H.R. 1, and mass amnesty. Monday’s Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll showed the 78-year-old commander-in-chief garnering a 49 percent approval rating and 49 percent disapproval rating.

Katherine Diaz -- one of El Salvador's top surfers -- died on Friday after she was hit in a lightning strike during a training session near her home. The 22-year-old rising star -- who had been gunning to compete for El Salvador at the Olympics in Tokyo -- was surfing at a spot called El Tunco when the lightning storm hit. Katherine's uncle Beto Diaz told a local media outlet his niece had gone to hug a friend she spotted at the surf spot when lightening struck. "She, the friend, was thrown by the force of the lightening strike too,...

Former President Donald Trump says he didn’t heed the advice of Dr. Anthony Fauci in his response to the coronavirus pandemic, which has left more than 500,000 Americans dead and nearly 30 million infected, including Trump himself. "I listened to him, but I didn't do what he said," Trump told Fox News personality Lisa Boothe on the premiere episode of her podcast, which went live Monday.

A MASSIVE explosion at a government office in China has left several people dead. Video taken at the scene of the blast in Mingjing village in the south of the county shows rubble strewn inside the office after parts of it collapsed. According to the local public security office, the explosion happened at about 10am local time. Harrowing footage from inside the building shows bodies lying underneath rubble and blood on the walls. One witness told Beijing Tou Tiao she was working when she heard an explosion and the sound of glass smashing. “At the time I thought it was...

“Mr. President my name is Bruno Lozano, mayor of the city of Del Rio, Texas, and I am pleading and requesting with you to please put a halt to any measures regarding the release of immigrants awaiting court dates into the city of Del Rio and surrounding areas,” Lozano says as footage of empty store shelves and grocery store lines plays in the background. “We do not have the resources available to house and accommodate these migrants within our community… If you do send these individuals into our community, we will be forced to make a decision to leave them...

Along the banks of the Rio Grande in the scrubby grassland near Penitas, south-east Texas, hundreds of colored plastic wristbands ripped off by migrants litter the ground, signs of what US border officials say is a growing trend among powerful drug cartels and smugglers to track people paying to cross unlawfully into the United States. Human traffickers are sneaking hardened criminals across the U.S.-Mexico border by embedding them with families, according to Texas troopers. A Texas Department of Public Safety officer deployed to the border recently pulled over an adult man and a 14-year-old girl in Starr County and discovered...

A pair of proposals would invest in infrastructure, education, work force development and fighting climate change, with the aim of making the economy more productive. President Biden’s economic advisers are preparing to recommend spending as much as $3 trillion on a sweeping set of efforts aimed at boosting the economy, reducing carbon emissions and narrowing economic inequality, beginning with a giant infrastructure plan that may be financed in part through tax increases on corporations and the rich. After months of internal debate, Mr. Biden’s advisers are expected to present a proposal to the president this week that recommends carving his...

Video feed is from www.ruv.is - Icelandic national broadcaster. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O46nVKTdpBc

People have been crossing the Goethals Bridge between Staten Island and New Jersey for decades, so they definitely noticed when a new guide sign went up and something didn’t look quite right. A green, diagrammatic guide sign that recently went up on the New Jersey-bound lanes of the Staten Island Expressway had a misspelling on it. The white letterings had two letters swapped places and they read “Geothals Bridge.” …

Born March 22, 1931 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, William Shatner has been an indelible part of popular culture for a good portion of a century. Though he’s most recognizable as Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek film and television franchise, Shatner’s career has encompassed everything from the earliest days of television to spoken-word recordings to his own sci-fi book series (TekWar). The nonagenarian will have a birthday celebration the weekend of July 23, 2021, in Ticonderoga, New York, when he attends a gathering at a replica Enterprise set. In the meantime, we’ve compiled 90 of the more compelling...

Two Irving Park men burglarized their downstairs neighbor’s apartment and stole his camera-equipped doorbell, prosecutors say. You’ve probably already figured out how they got caught. The alleged victim came home Wednesday afternoon and realized items were missing from his apartment on the 3700 block of North Albany. So, he pulled up footage from his surveillance camera network Much to his surprise, the video showed his downstairs neighbors, Chad Palmer and Denue Kerr taking a laptop, iPads, and boxes of property from his residence,

Parisians thronged the streets of the French capital at the weekend to enjoy the spring sunshine despite the city being plunged back into strict lockdown measures. Prime Minister Jean Castex last week told people in Paris, Lyon and Nice to stay inside unless absolutely necessary with all non-essential shops closed in an attempt to slow down a third wave of Covid. But he was undermined by Emmanuel Macron who insisted on Friday that people were allowed to go outside and socialise and dismissed talk of 'lockdown' - saying it was not the right term to describe the new measures.

The known evidence against Cuomo is both compelling and overwhelmingWith each new accuser, the prospect of Gov. Andrew Cuomo surviving the many claims of sexual harassment against him diminishes. The once-powerful New York governor stubbornly refuses to resign in the face of mounting evidence that he is a serial abuser of women in the workplace. He insists that everyone should reserve judgment until an independent investigation by the state attorney general is concluded. But if Cuomo believes that the probe will somehow exonerate him, he is sorely mistaken. More likely, he is trying to buy time in the vain hope...

No, I hadn't see this news item late last week, about George Bush suddenly not "owing" another president his "silence," in his string of lip-curling insults directed at President Trump. Guess I don't view him as worth watching much. But sure enough, he had plenty of hateful things to say about President Trump for the left-wing media, and he's the smaller for it. Here were his three worst whoppers, as cited by Business Insider: In an interview with the Texas Tribune's Evan Smith, Bush described how watching the January 6 attack "really disturbed" him, both then and now. "I was...

We know from the recent past how the American news media work. When the Covington Catholic boys, resplendent in MAGA caps, stood accused of attacking a peaceable elderly Indian on the Washington Mall, the media went berserk with stories accusing them of being bigotry-driven bullies. Any ambiguity in the evidence was discarded. The media just knew that these white, Catholic school Trump supporters were the villains, and this poor old Indian man was their target. It fit the narrative. Almost none of that was true. It turned out that the schoolboys had been cruelly taunted by members of a black...

Leftists heavily criticized Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) this month after he lifted restrictions across the state, including the statewide mask mandate, which had been in effect since July. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has continued to come under the same level of criticism throughout the pandemic, as he stood as one of the few governors who refused to take executive action on masks. The Florida governor, particularly, has continued to confront members of the establishment media for selective outrage, telling reporters last month they do not seem to care as much about public health compliance, such as masking and...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn) has introduced legislation—The Rent and Mortgage Cancellation Act—that would cancel rent and mortgages nationwide through the duration of the coronavirus pandemic. Her bill would grant full payment forgiveness and bar any negative impact on credit ratings. The bill is cosponsored by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo) and Rep. Jerrod Nadler (D-NY). "The need for this legislation was made clear by a ruling from a Texas judge that declared the Centers for Disease Control's moratorium on evictions during the pandemic is unconstitutional," Omar said. "Millions of Americans are now at risk of homelessness because of one inhuman judge."...