Free Republic

Vladimir Putin sat down with NBC News for his first on-camera interview with a western news agency in more than three years.Putin avoided public commentary during much of the Trump Administration, but less than six months into the Biden Administration he came out swinging at Biden and the US on a host of issues.Putin spoke for nearly an hour and a half as Biden met with the leaders of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, from which Russia was suspended in 2014 after it annexed the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea.This interview was carefully orchestrated by Putin to follow along after...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge may have a viable solution to the single-use plastic dilemma: spider silk. Or, more accurately, a plant-based synthetic polymer that mimics the composition of spider silk, but doesn't actually come from the eight-legged arthropods. The researchers modeled their polymer after spider silk due to its durability and strength—if you could scale up a spiderweb to human size, it would be capable of trapping an airplane. In fact, spider silk is five times stronger than steel, and half as strong as Kevlar; it's considered one of the strongest naturally occurring materials on Earth. Incredibly, the...

Arizona Republican Congressman Paul Gosar grilled beleaguered FBI director Christopher Wray Tuesday in a hearing, pressing Wray on why the name of the law enforcement officer who executed unarmed Capitol protester Ashli Babbitt has not been released to the public. Wray dodged Gosar’s pointed questions. “Do you approve of lethal force against unarmed citizens, particularly a 110-pound woman with no warning, no use of non-lethal force prior, while lying in wait?” Gosar asked Wray. When Wray smugly replied “Not gonna try to answer a hypothetical, especially one based on a case that I just said I-” Gosar snapped back “That...

In a victory for oil-producing states and the American consumer, a federal judge issued an injunction barring the president and Department of the Interior officials from implementing a “pause” that stopped new federal lease sales and the issuance of new leases previously won in competitive bidding.Twelve states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, and West Virginia) joined Louisiana, led by Attorney General Jeff Landry, in bringing suit in the Western District of Louisiana.In a press release, AG Landry comments:“This is a victory not only for the rule of law, but also for the thousands of...

Since March, dozens of brown pelicans appear to have been seriously injured by a person or people in Orange County, conservationists said. The lifeguards in Orange County, Calif., brought the injured brown pelicans to the veterinarian one at a time, the birds’ large wings mutilated, their bones twisted and fractured... ...Of the 32 brown pelicans that Mrs. Wayns and her team have treated since March, only 10 have survived, she said. The low survival rate is tied to the “extensive injuries that have been brought to them,” Mrs. Wayns said in an interview on Tuesday. Debbie McGuire, executive director of...

Putting the hard in hardware, the top-notch customer service was a home run. A Seattle man claims he was attacked by a baseball bat-wielding clerk at an Ace Hardware location in an altercation that stemmed from his friend’s refusal to wear a coronavirus mask in the store. Bobby Dixon, the young man seen in viral video of the altercation, told Jason Rantz of KTTH Radio Seattle Tuesday that he went into the store masked, but his friend declined to put one on. "They pretty much told him, ‘put a mask on or get out,’" he said. "When he was walking...

“I’m going to get in trouble with mom and dad if I don’t do this the right way … ” This could be a normal comment by a 10-year-old who is being allowed to handle the microwave for the first time. But now replace the words “mom and dad” with “the staff” and what you have is a verbatim statement from President Joe Biden speaking to a gaggle of international media at the G7 summit. Mr. Biden’s overseas trip joining the G7 summit has been nothing less than a catastrophe, peppered throughout with reminders to the world that the American...

Lumber prices are falling back to Earth. Futures for July delivery ended Tuesday at $1,009.90 per thousand board feet, down 41% from the record of $1,711.20 reached in early May. Futures have declined 14 of the past 16 trading days. Cash lumber prices are also crashing. Pricing service Random Lengths said Friday that its framing composite index, which tracks on-the-spot sales, dropped $122 to $1,324, its biggest ever weekly decline. The pullback came just six weeks after the index rose $124 during the first week of May, its most on record. Random Lengths described a chaotic rout in which sawmill...

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer said that both right-wing and left-wing extremism had risen in Germany over the past year, as he presented the domestic intelligence agency’s (BfV) annual report in Berlin. Most alarmingly, Seehofer said that 40% of the 33,300 far-right extremists in the country were categorized as “violence-oriented,” the highest proportion ever. There had also been a 10% rise in the number of far-right violent crimes over the past year to 1,023, of which 842 were cases of physical assault. The BfV also registered a rise in left-wing extremists: 34,300 in 2020, compared to 33,500 in 2019, of...

In new interview, Abp. Viganò discusses ‘failure’ of Vatican II, Novus Ordo MassJune 15, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — Archbishop Viganò has given a new interview, this time to Abbé Claude Barthe, a French expert of the liturgy and a great supporter of the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum allowing the traditional Latin Mass to flourish in the Church. The interview dwells on liturgical questions, the Second Vatican Council, as well as the Society of St. Pius X.Abbé Barthe, who authored numerous books on the traditional liturgy of the Church, had a year ago entered into a supportive, public discussion with Archbishop Viganò...

A previously symptomless 86-year-old man received the first dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. He died 4 weeks later from acute renal and respiratory failure. Although he did not present with any COVID-19-specific symptoms, he tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 before he died. Spike protein (S1) antigen-binding showed significant levels for immunoglobulin (Ig) G, while nucleocapsid IgG/IgM was not elicited. Acute bronchopneumonia and tubular failure were assigned as the cause of death at autopsy; however, we did not observe any characteristic morphological features of COVID-19. Postmortem molecular mapping by real-time polymerase chain reaction revealed relevant SARS-CoV-2 cycle threshold values in...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis did not meet U.S. President Joe Biden today, June 15. Despite conservative media reports to the contrary, it does not appear the pope ever planned to do so. Biden has been in Europe since June 9 for his first trip abroad as president, taking part in a summit of G7 leaders in Britain over the weekend before hosting meetings with NATO and European Union officials in Brussels, Belgium, on June 14-15. During the afternoon on June 15, the president was due to travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for a hotly anticipated encounter the next day with...

Canadian pastor Tim Stephens arrested again by police in Calgary, Alberta. He's staying in jail rather than comply with bail conditions that demand he not hold church services.... Peoples Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier was arrested in the province of Manitoba for participating in a protest opposing coronavirus controls... Eight of the "fully vaccinated" at dead in Maine after contracting COVID-19. Some 457 "breakthough" cases of COVID-19 involving the "fully vaccinated" reported in the state... The talking point of the major media tonight 600-thousand deaths attributed to COVID-19 in the US. "Mask Dispute" leads to fatal shooting in Georgia......

US Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday announced the DOJ’s national strategy for countering domestic terrorism. Garland said the biggest threat comes from white supremacists and spoke about the investigations related to the January 6 riot.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is not a die-hard homophobe. Nevertheless, he makes overtly homophobic remarks now and then, for reasons of political expediency. In an interview last fall, Orbán drew a parallel between homosexuality and pedophilia: “Hungary is a tolerant, patient country with regard to homosexuality,” he said. “But there is a red line that must not be crossed: Leave our children alone!” That red line is the basis of a new law proposed by Orbán’s governing majority and passed by the Hungarian parliament on Tuesday. The bill led to an outcry in Hungary in recent days, with civil...

GENEVA, RUSSIA — President Joe Biden has announced to the world that talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin have been a massive success. “We had a real breakthrough, me and ol’ Putin,” said Biden triumphantly. “I stared him down and said, ‘Look pal, here’s the deal: You get whatever you want, but my son WILL get a cushy job over on the Russian pipeline.’” “Well, suffice to say my son is now employed again and the board of Nord Stream 2 will get my son’s expertise! Putin caved to my demands all in exchange for access to our nation’s secrets,...

Former President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he will be visiting the border with Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on June 30.

A Florida congressional candidate has obtained a stalking injunction against one of her likely opponents in the race, claiming he conspired with two other potential candidates to kill her. The Tampa Bay Times reports that Anna Paulina Luna, who is running in the Republican primary for the seat being vacated by Rep. Charlie Crist (D) as he seeks the governor's mansion, obtained a temporary injunction against William Braddock, who has previously stated his plans on running against her. “I received information yesterday (at midnight) regarding a plan (with a timeline) to murder me made by William Braddock in an effort...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday the House will move forward with investigating the deadly Jan. 6 insurrection, AP reports. Why it matters: The Senate last month failed to advance a bill that would create a 9/11-style commission to investigate the Capitol riot. Pelosi's comments come after military officials and FBI Director Christopher Wray testified earlier Tuesday on the Jan. 6 events. What she's saying: Pelosi met with several committee chairs prior to the hearing and said after that the final form of the probe is "to be determined," per AP. "Whether we have a commission today, tomorrow or the next...