Free Republic

After lurching from deadline to deadline, China Evergrande Group (3333.HK) is again on the brink of default, with pessimistic comments from the property developer raising expectations of direct state involvement and a managed debt restructuring. Having made three 11th-hour coupon payments in the past two months, Evergrande will again face the end of a 30-day grace period on Monday, with dues this time at $82.5 million. But a statement late on Friday saying creditors had demanded $260 million and that it could not guarantee enough funds for coupon repayment prompted authorities to summon its chairman - and wiped an eighth...

...A century later, the Italian military historian Flavio Russo suggested that the attribution should be settled by scientific investigation. Might an isotopic examination of the teeth reveal where the skull’s owner had spent his childhood? A campaign led by La Stampa eventually raised funds for a study of the relic at the hands of a scientific team fronted by popular historian Andrea Cionci. The results, released in January 2020 at the Museo dell’ Arte Sanitaria, were somewhat ambiguous. Isotopic examination of the lower jaw indicated a childhood consistent with the early life spent by the Elder Pliny in his north...

“Although He existed in the form of God, [Christ] did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself” (Philippians 2:6-7). Christ emptied Himself without ever surrendering His deity. Note the contrast in Philippians 2 between verses 6 and 7: Christ didn’t think equality something to be grasped but instead emptied Himself. Paul used the contrasting connective “but” to show that being equal with God didn’t lead Christ to fill Himself up but instead to empty Himself. The Greek verb translated “emptied” (kenoo) is where we get the theological term kenosis—the doctrine of Christ’s self-emptying as...

An investigation of data found in the USA’s Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) has revealed that extremely high numbers of adverse reactions, hospitalisations, life threatening events, permanent disabilities, and deaths among children have been reported against specific lot numbers of the Covid-19 vaccines several times.Meaning the most dangerous and deadliest batches of the experimental injections being administered to children have now been identified, and by comparing against adverse reactions among children to the influenza vaccines over a number of years we can see that the Covid-19 injections are proving to be extremely dangerous for children.The data used in the...

San Francisco Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, the ordinance's author, said in a statement suspending the business tax on cannabis will help support legal cannabis retailers as they struggle to compete with illegal cannabis sellers.

PACIFIC PALISADES (CBSLA) – After nearly two years of pandemic restrictions, a family’s party was supposed to be an opportunity to share holiday joy, but after partygoers were robbed at gunpoint inside their home, the westside residents are dealing with the trauma of being part of a growing statistic.“I’m feeling disturbed, violated that people were in our house with guns,” said the Pacific Palisades homeowner who did not want to give her name or show her face on camera.Security cameras recorded two men walking down the side of her home Saturday, while the holiday party was underway. Moments later, the...

One particularly important find is a cylinder-shaped seal made from the mineral hematite, with a cuneiform inscription from Mesopotamia (present day Iraq), which the archaeologists were able to decipher.“The text consists of three lines and mentions three names. One is Amurru, a god worshiped in Mesopotamia. The other two are historical kings, father and son, who we recently succeeded in tracking down in other texts on clay tablets from the same period, i.e., the 18th century BC. We are currently trying to determine why the seal ended up in Cyprus more than 1000 kilometres from where it was made.”Among the...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 <p> Religion Forum Threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 1 JOHN 5:14

ransomnote: Below, I broke the Twitter video into three parts to post it on FR. Twitter version is best.PART 1 PART 2 PART 3Dokter Bibber on Twitter: "@Brian99oo @777DEAN777 You might want to share this among your friends then. Greetz from Europe! https://t.co/dRSVX77GSL" / Twitter2:51 PM · Dec 4, 2021·Twitter Web App

6:28 AM · Nov 30, 2021·Twitter Web App

Please pray for my Wife Wendy as I just had to taker her to the Hospital(CHI-Mercy Council Bluffs IA), She has a BAD COVID Case-103 Deg F Fever and constant Coughing! They would not let me be with her :-(!

Canada's tight labor market is forcing many companies to offer regular Covid-19 testing over vaccine mandates, while others are reversing previously announced inoculation requirements even as Omicron variant cases rise.

Bringing the Bradford pear tree to Maine seemed like a good idea at the time. Fast growing with early spring blooms of white flowers, the tree, also called callery pear, is a popular ornamental in the state. But it’s also an invasive species that smells incredibly bad and if it gets a foothold in Maine’s natural landscape, could have a devastating effect on native species. That’s what is happening right now in the southern United States. It’s gotten so bad in South Carolina that officials there are planning to outlaw the sale and purchase of the tree by 2024 and...

A 22-year-old University of New Hampshire student was found dead Sunday afternoon in a marshy area near the campus after he was reported missing a day earlier, authorities said. Vincenzo Lirosi disappeared after a night of drinking, police said, and he was last seen early Saturday morning shortly after leaving a fraternity party where he reportedly got into a fight, a pal of his, Jordan Blanchard, told WMUR-TV. “It’s pretty uncharacteristic of him,” Blanchard told the news station. “This is his first fight ever.”

Archaeologists excavating the Roman coastal retreat of Herculaneum have unearthed the remains of a victim from the Vesuvius eruption in AD 79... During the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, the town was buried under thick layers of ash and pumice, followed by pyroclastic material that carbonised organic remains...Previous excavations in the 1980’s of the towns shoreline discovered skeletons on the beach and in the first six so-called boat sheds. Archaeologists at the time suggested that these victims were waiting for rescue, when they were killed instantly from the heat generated by a pyroclastic flow att temperatures of around 500 °C.For the...

On Friday, two of the largest tire suppliers in the U.S. announced they are choosing to pool resources rather than continue to compete against one another. Arizona-based Discount Tire is in the process of acquiring Indiana-based Tire Rack, and the transaction is expected to close at the end of this year on December 31. With unpredictable rubber supply challenges and price increases in play, this could mean a stronger base for the two suppliers. Both family-run brands, Discount Tire and Tire Rack have similar histories. Bruce T. Halle rented an old plumbing supply building in Ann Arbor, Michigan with an...

No "Ecumenical" Prayer: Francis' Dreams Dissolve Into Thin AirThe Greek-Orthodox "didn’t want" an ecumenical celebration with Francis, Athen's Catholic Archbishop Theodoros Kontidis SJ, 65, told Aleteia.org (December 3).He explains that for them a common prayer means full unity and they do not want to participate in it,“Since there isn’t agreement on all points, they feel that one cannot pretend that the differences do not exist.”

תיעוד הפיגוע בירושלים: המחבל מתנפל ודוקר - כוחותינו מחסלים כנדרש pic.twitter.com/qjOxhSiwbS— Hallel Bitton Rosen | הלל ביטון רוזן (@BittonRosen) December 4, 2021

Pope Francis apologizes for mistakes of Catholics in meeting with Greek Orthodox leaders in Athens, GreeceAthens, Greece, Dec 4, 2021 / 09:00 amPope Francis apologized for the ways Catholics have contributed to division with Orthodox Christians during a meeting with Greek Orthodox leaders in Athens on Saturday.“Shamefully, patriarch, — I acknowledge this for the Catholic Church — actions and decisions that had little or nothing to do with Jesus and the Gospel, but were instead marked by a thirst for advantage and power, gravely weakened our communion,” the pope said on Dec. 4.“In this way, we let fruitfulness be compromised...

A sick trove of child porn found on Josh Duggar's work computer was protected by the same password used for his family's Instagram account, a court heard today. Prosecutors say Duggar used his business HP to download videos of minors being humiliated and abused but hid his sordid activity behind a device called a Linux partition. The Linux system effectively created a second, secret operating system on the same computer that could only be accessed by rebooting the machine, hitting F9 and manually typing in the password intel1988. It's behind this partition that the government says Duggar used encrypted 'peer-to-peer'...