Free Republic

The trial for the men accused of murdering 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery in a Georgia suburb began on Friday with lawyers from the prosecution and defense giving their opening statements. Monday marked the start of the full first week of testimony in the trial of Gregory and Travis McMichael, along with their neighbor William “Roddie” Bryan.Upon taking the stand, Ricky Minshew, the first officer to arrive on the scene after the shooting, stated that he spoke with Bryan, who told the officer that he “blocked,” “cornered,” and “cut off” Arbery as he fled from the armed men. “Should I have been...

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, widely considered to be Senate Republicans' top recruit in the country, took a pass on the race Tuesday morning, a clear blow for a GOP that was hoping to build momentum off of their strong showing in the 2021 elections

Gov. J.B. Pritzker has signed a bill changing the Health Care Right of Conscience Act that drew historic levels of citizen opposition, but it doesn’t take effect until next summer.

When the United States Postal Service launched a test program in September allowing people with business or payroll checks to get them loaded onto gift cards at four neighborhood post offices, it was seen as a primitive precursor to a postal banking system. But in order for the test to be successful and mature into a pilot, it has to actually be, well, tested. According to postal employees at Baychester Station in the Bronx, one of four locations nationwide where the test is being carried out, not a single business or payroll check transaction was made between September 13, when...

240 rescuers...from at least eight teams across the U.K. brought up the 40-year-old man on a stretcher Monday to the entrance of Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, also known as the Cave of the Black Spring, 54 hours after he fell. “The caver was very unlucky here. He’s an experienced caver, a fit caver. And it was a matter of putting his foot in the wrong place,” said Peter Francis, the spokesman for the South and Mid Wales Cave Rescue Team. “He wasn’t in a dangerous part of the cave, it’s just something moved from under him.” The cave system is located...

General Electric, the storied American manufacturer that struggled under its own weight after growing to become a sprawling conglomerate, will divide itself into three public companies focused on aviation, healthcare and energy. It is the culmination of an arduous, yearslong reshaping of a symbol of American manufacturing might that could signal the end of conglomerates as a whole. “It’s over now," said Nick Heymann of William Blair, who has followed GE for years. "In a digital economy, there’s no real room for it.” The company has already rid itself of the products most Americans know including its appliances and last...

Ancient Earth was hit by extreme 'hothouse' periods of intense dryness, followed by massive rainstorms, a new study reveals. These rainstorms were hundreds of miles wide and could dump more than a foot of rain in a matter of hours, Harvard University scientists report.... ... for multiple periods in Earth's history, our planet experienced hothouse' periods' that were around 20°F to 30°F hotter than it is today. Earth likely experienced these periods multiple times in its distant past and will experience them again hundreds of millions of years from now as the sun continues to brighten, say they team, who...

From medications to gloves to crutches, the strains of the global supply chain are hitting U.S. health care hard. Why it matters: Shortages of health care supplies can quickly jump from a nuisance to a life-or-death proposition. They indicate serious vulnerabilities in the U.S. health care supply chain. State of play: After seeing major supply shortages for protective equipment and ventilators in the early months of the pandemic, critical supplies stabilized and, in some places, demand for domestic products later bottomed out. Now global supply chain tie-ups are rippling across the industry again, leading to extended wait times for commonly...

The United States is setting up its own version of the 'Iron Dome' on the Pacific Ocean island of Guam as it begins testing the missile-defense system on the heels of China flexing its military might. Soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas flew to the US territory weeks ago to help set up the Iron Dome, according to a spokesman for the 94th Army Air and Missile Defense Command. The system arrived on Guam last week. ....

Sarah Silikula's son got into the car after school one day last month, upset and confused by what his teacher had just taught him. Armed with new knowledge, the eighth grader had an announcement and a revisionist history lesson for his mother. "I'm never getting vaccinated. I'm never getting any more shots of any kind. Did you know Trump's still president?" Silikula remembered him saying. The boy's middle school history teacher unleashed a rant during an Oct. 18 class at Anacapa Middle School in Ventura, Calif., KCAL first reported. She raved against coronavirus vaccines, the criminal justice system and the...

President Joe Biden’s nominee for a key Treasury Department role admitted that oil, natural gas and coal firms need to go bankrupt to prevent climate change, a resurfaced video showed. “Here what I’m thinking about is primarily the coal and oil and gas industry. A lot of the smaller players in that industry are going to probably go bankrupt in short order, at least we want them to go bankrupt if we want to tackle climate change,” Saule Omarova — who the Senate is considering to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — remarked in a clip...

General Electric, the storied American manufacturer that struggled under its own weight after growing to become a sprawling conglomerate, will divide itself into three public companies focused on aviation, health care and energy. The company’s announcement Tuesday is the culmination of an arduous, yearslong reshaping of a symbol of American manufacturing might that could signal the end of conglomerates as a whole.

The leading U.S. manufacturer of xylitol-based products says the federal government is deliberately trying to conceal a nasal spray it developed that it says has been scientifically proven to be effective in treating and preventing COVID-19. The U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit in federal court against Utah-based company Xlear on Oct. 28, saying it has deceptively advertised its nasal spray as a treatment and preventative of COVID-19. The lawsuit asks a federal court to permanently ban the company from promoting the nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19 and also asks that monetary penalties be levied against it....

China’s exports to the United States and the European Union now amount to nearly 30% of manufacturing GDP, after an unprecedented surge in shipments this year. US imports from China are 30% higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic, and Europe’s imports are 50% higher. These margins of increase have an important macroeconomic impact. Taiwan and South Korea, in turn, are important suppliers of industrial goods – especially electronics – to the West, and their imports from China include components that are re-exported to the US and Europe. This reflects closer economic integration among the major Asian industrial economies. In effect,...

Cadillac has largely completed a restructuring of its U.S. dealer network and expects to have 560 dealers by the end of this year, compared with about 920 three years ago, said Rory Harvey, head of the global Cadillac brand. GM (GM.N) has booked a total of $274 million in costs during 2020 and 2021 related to the effort to buy out Cadillac dealers who were not prepared to invest $200,000 to $500,000 per store in the equipment and training to support the brand's shift to an all-electric vehicle lineup, planned by 2030.

New York’s ex-creep-in-chief Andrew Cuomo lives up to the billing of his sex accusers in a scathing new tome by a female former press secretary.

“A large number of our staff had negative reactions to the COVID booster shot given at a clinic over the weekend, resulting in absences today (Monday),” the district confessed on Facebook.“As you may be aware, there is already a substitute teacher/staff shortage throughout the state of Michigan, further complicating the availability to cover those absences,” continued the statement.In a statement to ABC12.com, a Saginaw Twp. district rep explained the school’s closure was not due to Covid illnesses, but rather booster vaccine side effects.“At first, the blame might be leaning towards COVID-19, but a district spokesperson told ABC12 News that a...

The Premier of Queensland, Australia has announced that fully vaccinated Queenslanders will be “rewarded” by December 17th 2021, by being allowed to live their lives again, but they will only be able to do this by not mixing with the unvaccinated, because Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is banning them from all social, hospitality, and care settings indefinitely.By mid-December, authorities in Queensland are set to ease restrictions for entry into the state, citing that this is the date they expect at least 80% of Queenslanders, 16 years and older, to be double vaccinated.However, Premier Palaszczuk has decided that restrictions will remain in...

The Legislative Redistricting Advisory Commission released four draft concept congressional maps Tuesday evening. The redistricting panel, convened by Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) and House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) is tasked with drawing up congressional and legislative maps for the General Assembly to consider. Lawmakers are set to return to Annapolis on Dec. 6 for a special session to handle congressional redistricting. The four conceptual congressional maps are available online alongside information about the population and racial makeup of each district — but not the partisan political breakdown. Some of the configurations are vast departures from current...

The admission by Gaige Grosskreutz at the trial of Kyle Rittenhouse that he pointed his gun at the teenager before he fired his rifle in self-defense was so damning during the Kenosha shooting trial on Monday, that one of the prosecutors immediately planted his face into the palm of his hand in sad recognition of the collapse of his case. This was also immediately recognized by most observers of the trial. However, many media outlets, when reporting on that trial later that day, absurdly downplayed that dramatic moment by burying it in their reports. One example came from ABC News...