Free Republic

Mario Cordero, executive director of the Port of Long Beach, cites “significant progress” at California ports. Cordero said that the twin ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, which account for 40% of sea freight entering the United States, are working around the clock to offload containers. Since the announcement of the new fees, which have yet to be imposed, both ports have seen the lingering containers reduced by 33%.

yle Rittenhouse met with 45th President Donald Trump following his acquittal of all charges in his homicide trial. During an interview Tuesday, Trump said Rittenhouse and his mother recently visited him at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.The 45th president said the teen is a “really good guy” and added he should have never had to be put through trial. Trump went on to describe the trial as “prosecutorial misconduct” and said it’s happening all over the U.S. with the Democrats.Rittenhouse was found not guilty of all charges after fatally shooting two people and injuring another while defending himself during last...

The committee that sets interest rates for the Federal Reserve released the minutes from the November meeting where it first signaled that it could be dialing back all the economic help it’s been providing during the pandemic. Following the two-day session that concluded Nov. 3, the Federal Open Market Committee indicated it will begin cutting back on the monthly bond-buying program that had seen it purchasing at least $120 billion in Treasurys and mortgage-backed securities. The goal of the program was to keep money flowing in those markets while maintaining broader interest rates at low levels to boost economic activity....

America loves college football, loves its flyovers and cheers and opportunities to show patriotic pride, and doesn't want it tainted by politics.When college football came roaring back in September, sticking it to the Faucian fear porn that gathering with fellow fans in stadiums (or with anyone, anywhere) wasn’t “smart,” fans cheered the camaraderie of mass sports gatherings — as well as the lack of politicized messaging, in contrast to the wokeness of pro leagues like the NFL. Fans made their disdain for the COVID establishment known with chants of “F-ck Joe Biden,” and later the more tactful euphemism “Let’s go,...

British experts have sounded the alarm over a new Covid variant believed to have emerged in Botswana that is the most mutated version of the virus yet.

In what would be one of the biggest political comebacks in American history, former President Donald Trump has surged into a double-digit lead over President Joe Biden in the latest 2024 matchup poll. In today’s Rasmussen Reports survey, likely voters picked Trump to beat Biden, 45% to 32% if the election were held today, a gap that is even higher among independents who have become the critical swing group. They chose Trump 47%-20%. Rasmussen reported a sizable number of voters who want someone else, at 17%, and just 6% said they were on the fence. Also: 15% of Democrats said...

Geneva (AFP) – Covid vaccines reduce transmission of the dominant Delta variant by about 40 percent, the WHO said Wednesday, warning that people were falling into a false sense of security concerning jabs. The World Health Organization's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said many vaccinated people were wrongly thinking the jab meant they no longer needed to take any other precautions. "If you are vaccinated, you have a much lower risk of severe disease and death but you are still at risk of being infected and infecting others," said Tedros. "We cannot say this clearly enough: even if you are vaccinated,...

The Science Channel investigated a section of the valley and discovered many clouds of smoke pouring from beneath the ground. Using InSAR data that has been monitoring the region for the last 20 years, geophysicist Jared Peacock pointed out a worrying aspect of the caldera that might portend problems. InSAR is a remote sensing method that employs a laser to concentrate a beam of radiation on a target, bouncing back to a sensor on an antenna, providing a comprehensive map of a region. One of the most concerning sites in InSAR was near Mammoth Lakes, a hamlet in the Sierra...

When relationships end it might be because the spark has disappeared, or maybe you just can't make time for one another. But can climate change cause break-ups? It might do, according to a new study which suggests albatrosses - some of the world's most loyal creatures - are "divorcing" more. Just 1% of albatrosses separate after choosing their life partner - much lower than the human divorce rate in the UK. "Monogamy and long-term bonds is very common for them," says Francesco Ventura, researcher at the University of Lisbon and co-author of the study. But in the years covered by...

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An 82-year-old man was surrounded and assaulted by a group of people riding dirt bikes and ATVs in Boston last Thursday. Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying the suspects. The victim, a Brookline man, suffered serious injuries and remains in the hospital. He is expected to survive. State Police said the man was driving his 1996 Buick Century from Park Drive to Boylston Street when 30 to 40 dirt bike and ATV riders forced him onto the curb. Several of the suspects then began smashing windows of the victim’s car.

VIDEO AT SOURCE: Jury reaches verdict in trial of 3 white men accused of killing Ahmaud Arbery: ABC News Live ABC News Live Stephen B. Morton/AP A Georgia jury has announced it has reached a verdict in the trial of three white men accused of chasing down Ahmaud Arbery in their pickup trucks and fatally shooting the 25-year-old Black man. The prosecutors and defense attorneys in the Glynn County Superior Court case have been given 10 minutes to return to the Brunswick, Georgia, courtroom, where the jurors are expected to announce their unanimous decision. The panel sent Judge Timothy Walmsley...

The jury has reached a verdict in the trial of Travis McMichael and his father, Gregory, and their neighbor, William "Roddie" Bryan. The three men, who are white, each face charges of malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault, false imprisonment and criminal attempt to commit a felony in the shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery, 25, who was Black, on Feb. 23, 2020, in Georgia. They face up to life in prison if convicted of the more serious charges. The nearly all-white jury, which has one Black member, began deliberating the men's fate on Tuesday.

The Biden administration approved an offshore wind farm off the coast of Rhode Island on Wednesday as part of a plan to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030. The administration expects to review at least 16 construction and operations plans for commercial offshore wind energy facilities by 2025. “We have no time to waste in cultivating and investing in a clean energy economy that can sustain us for generations,” Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said in a statement. “Just one year ago, there were no large-scale offshore wind projects approved in the federal waters of the...

Inappropriately and dangerously low bail recommendations have been a hallmark of the Milwaukee District Attorney’s Office since Democrat John Chisholm was first elected.Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm has launched an investigation into what he called the “inappropriately low” bail set for Darrell Brooks, Jr., the suspect in the deadly Christmas parade attack in nearby Waukesha, Wis. Sunday afternoon.Brooks, who faces five counts of first-degree intentional homicide, was freed after posting $1,000 bail even though he faces serious felony charges in two different open cases in Milwaukee. In the most recent, he allegedly “ran [the victim] over with his vehicle”...

The Salvation Army wants its white donors to give it more than just money this Christmas season. Its leadership is also demanding they apologize for being racist. It's part of a push by the Christian charitable organization to embrace the ideas of Black Lives Matter, an activist group working to, among other things, "dismantle white privilege" and "disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure." The Salvation Army's Alexandria-based leadership has created an "International Social Justice Commission" which has developed and released a "resource" to educate its white donors, volunteers and employees called Let's Talk about Racism. It asserts Christianity is institutionally...

President Biden on Wednesday announced his plans to nominate Shalanda Young as director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) after the longtime Capitol Hill aide spent months serving as acting director. If confirmed, Young would be the first Black woman to run the agency. She has served as acting director since Neera Tanden's nomination for OMB director was withdrawn in March. Biden also announced his intent to nominate Nani Coloretti as deputy director of the OMB. Coloretti would become one of the highest ranking Asian American or Pacific Islanders in the administration if confirmed. The president praised both...

The ex-con charged over the deaths of six people at a Wisconsin Christmas parade shared social media posts calling for violence against white people — and suggesting “Hitler was right” for killing Jews. Darrell Brooks Jr. — who has a decades-long rap sheet — shared a series of disturbing memes and messages on social media, most of which have been deleted since his arrest for Sunday’s deadly carnage. They included numerous posts attacking cops, comparing them to Ku Klux Klan members and calling them “violent street gangs” — as well as calling for violence toward white people, according to screenshots....

As I’ve argued before, the two key events giving rise to the Great Awokening (the sudden increase in woke sentiment beginning in around 2012) were the launch of social media and the Occupy Wall Street protests. These two events led to the formation of a bootlegger-baptist coalition, with social-media activists as the self-righteous baptists, and woke corporations as the self-serving bootleggers. This woke coalition then proceeded to engineer the most rapid cultural shift in recent history. However, those two events didn’t occur in a vacuum. While they may explain the timing of the Great Awokening – why did it get...

Australian authorities are removing COVID-19-positive patients and residents in the Northern Territory to a quarantine camp in Howard Springs, after nine cases were identified in the community of Binjari, according to a local official. Hard lockdowns were implemented in Binjari and nearby Rockhole on Nov. 20, according to Northern Territory’s chief minister. “Residents of Binjari and Rockhole no longer have the five reasons to leave their homes,” Chief Minister Michael Gunner said in a Facebook post dated Nov. 20. Australia’s five allowable reasons for people to leave their homes include going to work or school, buying food or supplies, exercising,...