Free Republic

The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack on a town in northern Mozambique last week that forced hundreds of foreign contractors to flee amid fierce fighting. Local police and soldiers were reported to have secured control of most of Palma on Monday, after hundreds of Islamist insurgents who overran the small port last week withdrew to surrounding forests and fields leaving a trail of devastation. In a statement issued on official media channels, the Islamic State claimed insurgents killed more than 55 members of local security forces and Christians, including those from “Crusader nations”, and destroyed official buildings...

Former President Donald Trump on Monday attacked Drs. Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx after they faulted his management of the COVID-19 response. The prominent members of Trump’s White House Coronavirus Task Force said in a CNN special that Trump imperiled the public — but in his rebuttal, Trump accused them of shifting blame. Trump included jabs at Fauci’s botched opening pitch at a baseball game in July and Birx’s controversy involving a seemingly hypocritical Thanksgiving trip. “Based on their interviews, I felt it was time to speak up about Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, two self-promoters trying to reinvent history...

Detectives were investigating racially biased Instagram posts by a Glen Rock High School student when the teenage bigot struck again, this time targeting another classmate over gender identity on Zoom, authorities said. Detectives were a month into their investigation of racial bias when administrators at the high school showed them “questionable comments” entered during a school Zoom session, Police Chief Dean Ackermann said. The comment “appeared to target another student over their gender identity,” the chief said Monday. Using information provided by the teenage victims and the school’s IT department, Detective Sgt. Jim Calaski and Detective Lucas Doney identified the...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said in a press conference on March 29 that he will take emergency executive action shortly against the concept of Americans needing a vaccine passport to be able to travel domestically and internationally. “We’re not supportive of that. I think it’s something that people have certain freedoms and individual liberties to make decisions for themselves,” the governor said. “It’s completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply be able to participate in normal society.” DeSantis said that people shouldn’t...

Ghislaine Maxwell was hit with two new sex trafficking charges Monday — after a new accuser alleged the one-time British socialite recruited her for pedophile Jeffrey Epstein when she was just 14 years old, new court documents show. The alleged victim, who is now in her early 30s, claims she was recruited to provide Epstein with nude, “sexualized massages” at his Palm Beach residence starting in 2001 and ending in 2004 when the girl was between 14 and 17 years old, the superseding indictment against Maxwell in Manhattan federal court says. The teen, identified only as “Minor Victim-4,” met Maxwell,...

The God of Surprises: Go dancing with the stars!On March 6, the “God of Surprises” (aka Jorge Bergoglio) addressed an interreligious meeting with Muslims and Jews in Iraq. To no one’s surprise, he began by twisting Sacred Scripture in order to lend an air of credibility to the false claims he was about to make.Setting the tone for the address, he said:God asked Abraham to raise his eyes to heaven and to count its stars (cf. Gen 15:5). In those stars, he saw the promise of his descendants; he saw us.From there, Bergoglio (stage name: Francis) repeatedly invoked the theme...

The Massachusetts man accused of killing his domestic partner on a York beach Friday by striking her on the head with a rock told police that he did not remember the slaying, according to a court affidavit. Jeffrey Buchannan , 33, is charged with intentional or knowing murder in the death of Rhonda Pattelena, 35. The Bedford, Massachusetts, man is set to make his first appearance before a judge Tuesday afternoon at the York County Courthouse in Alfred.

(CNN)Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday encouraged "all Republican men" to get the Covid-19 vaccine, as new polls indicate many in the group are skeptical of getting the shot. "I can say as a Republican man, as soon as it was my turn, I took the vaccine. I would encourage all Republican men to do that," said McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, on Monday, when asked what kind of messaging he can push as the GOP leader to help encourage people, specifically Republican men, that the vaccine is safe and they should get it. McConnell added that there is "no...

He fatally shot an NYPD cop execution-style decades ago in a Queens bar — and now Richard Rivera is helping reform police in upstate New York as part of a state-mandated plan launched by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. The cop-killer — who murdered off-duty officer and dad-of-four Robert Walsh in 1981 — sits on a panel for Ithaca and Tompkins County as part of its “Reimagining Public Safety Collaborative.’’ The advisory group was formed after Cuomo ordered municipalities to submit police-reform plans to the state by April 1 following George Floyd’s death.

Something strange is going on out in Marin County, California. The elected officials there have instituted a pilot program offering a universal basic income in the form of a monthly stipend to a limited number of participants. That in and of itself isn’t unique, as programs such as this have been tested in other places, such as Stockton, California. A couple of aspects of this program, however, really are unique. The most glaring among these is the fact that in order to qualify, participants have to be women. No males need apply. On top of that, the program is not...

MAE SAKOEP, Thailand (AP) — Thai soldiers began sending back some of the thousands of people who have fled a series of airstrikes by the military in neighboring Myanmar, people familiar with the matter said Monday. But Thai officials denied that as the insecurity on the border added a new dimension to an already volatile crisis set off by a coup in Myanmar. The weekend strikes, which sent ethnic Karen people seeking safety in Thailand, represented another escalation in the violent crackdown by Myanmar’s junta on protests of its Feb. 1 takeover. On Saturday, ( more than 100 people were...

The House Freedom Caucus continues to fight the onslaught of Democrat bills that pose an existential threat to America. The Leftists among the Democrats have attacked and continue to go after every fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution and have even changed the rules of the U.S. House of Representatives. The HFC has spent the last month using the few remaining procedural tools to try and slow the Leftist agenda. For instance, one of our members, Marjorie Taylor Greene, made multiple motions to adjourn the body in order to slow down a bill that spent $2 trillion. For that bill...

Moderna Inc, a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced that the Company has shipped the 100-millionth dose of its COVID-19 vaccine to the U.S. Government. More than 67 million doses of the Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine have been administered in the U.S., according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “I would like to thank the millions of people who have put their confidence in Moderna’s science and our COVID-19 vaccine. We are encouraged by the fact that more than 67 million doses have been administered in the U.S....” said Stéphane Bancel, Chief Executive...

Explanation: Who knows what evil lurks in the eyes of galaxies? The Hubble knows -- or in the case of spiral galaxy M64 -- is helping to find out. Messier 64, also known as the Evil Eye or Sleeping Beauty Galaxy, may seem to have evil in its eye because all of its stars rotate in the same direction as the interstellar gas in the galaxy's central region, but in the opposite direction in the outer regions. Captured here in great detail by the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, enormous dust clouds obscure the near-side of M64's central region, which are...

On Monday, attorneys laid out their cases in the murder trial of former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged in the death of George Floyd last spring.

[Catholic Caucus] Exclusive. Cardinal Sarah Asks the Pope to Lift the Ban on “Individual” Masses at St. Peter'sFor a week now, the basilica of St. Peter has been a silent desert. It is no longer enlivened, every morning, by the many Masses celebrated on its numerous altars. And all this on account of an ordinance issued on March 12 by the first section of the secretariat of state - the one that through the substitute has a direct line to the pope - that has banned all “individual” Masses and allowed only collective Masses, no more than four per day...

As we age, our abilities inevitably decline. The activities of daily livings (ADLs) capture those skills we need to remain living an independent life – primarily getting dressed, bathing and toileting, and eating meals. Bathing and hygiene are particularly crucial – simply put, if you cannot bathe and use the toilet where you are, you need to be somewhere else. Simple home modifications, a grab bar in the shower or tub, an elevated toilet seat, a shower seat all are inexpensive additions that “reduce injury, enable independence, preserve dignity, and improve quality of life in older people with irreversible disability...

Everything is getting real stupid real fast.I could leave it at that and go ice-fishing for the rest of the day. But I suppose I ought to flesh it out a bit. From a contributor to The New York Times and Esquire, Damon Young: Whiteness is a public health crisis. It shortens life expectancies, it pollutes air, it constricts equilibrium, it devastates forests, it melts ice caps, it sparks (and funds) wars, it flattens dialects, it infests consciousnesses, and it kills people—white people and people who are not white, my mom included. There will be people who die, in 2050,...

On this date in 1560 the second Baron de Castelnau, Jean Boileau, was beheaded as a Huguenot traitor. His was one of the opening casualties of France’s devastating Wars of Religion. We find Castelnau’s end before war began, when the Huguenot party — although it had been pressed sorely enough for martyr–making in the years of the Reformation — was perhaps not yet quite steeled for the measure of purposeful violence it would require to conquer state power. After the events in this post, the great Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny would remonstrate at a royal Council of Notables protesting...

“In the the Marine Corps, we don't have quotas, but we do have goals. And Marines accomplish goals," my officer-in-charge told me and a few other brand-new second lieutenants, each of us assigned to temporary recruiting duty while awaiting orders to Quantico. The captain then told us we had to sign up a certain number of college-enrolled racial minorities and females. No need to be too strict on physical fitness or academics, he said. Just bring them in. That was in 2009. Discrimination of this sort has been an ingrained yet lamentable part of the military's recruitment, retention and promotion...