Free Republic

A bus driver was badly beaten by a group of teenagers on Saturday night and the entire attack was captured on cell phone video (video below). Chicago police said the incident occurred at about 9 p.m. on Dec. 4 in the 100-block of North Michigan Avenue, WMAQ reported. The driver told police that he heard a loud noise and stopped to investigate. But police said that when the driver got out of the bus, he was attacked by two people, WMAQ reported. Officials said that two individuals repeatedly punched the bus driver in the head. Cell phone video filmed by...

Just as Ethiopian government forces appear to have turned the tide in the country’s so-called civil war, the Biden administration is pushing for US citizens in Ethiopia to leave and is providing relocation assistance to those who can’t afford to buy a plane ticket. Meanwhile, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has visited Addis Ababa and has made it clear that China backs Ethiopia’s government fully. This, in contrast to the United States which has imposed sanctions on Ethiopia, but not on the rebellious Tigray. As Bloomberg reports: The US last month suspended duty-free access to its exports “because of gross...

Failure to repay a loan taken from China in 2015 to improve the Entebbe Airport resulted in the Chinese government taking possession of the country and its entire population. Ugandan Finance Minister Matia Kasaija admitted he had not thoroughly examined the terms of the loan documentation and apologized "for the hardships that will befall our people. As I now read the terms, our people are now the chattel property of the Chinese government and will be shipped as replacement workers for Uyghurs who succumb to the harsh conditions in China's solar panel factories. Perhaps it is somewhat consoling that the...

Bill de Blasio has managed in less than a decade to inflict as much damage on New York City as multiple Democrat mayors did in the 1960s through the 1980s. He's the overachiever of awful. And with his administration winding down in a matter of weeks, he decided to lob one more bomb at his beleaguered city. The mayor announced that any children over five who wish to participate in indoor activities must be double-vaccinated. And if attacking NYC's children isn't bad enough, he also mandated that all private-sector workers must be vaccinated by December 27. It's all in the...

President Biden wrapped a two-hour video call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday during which the U.S. president was expected to warn Moscow against invading Ukraine. Biden held the call with Putin as a Russian troop buildup on the border with Ukraine has exacerbated fears about a potential Russian military invasion of its neighbor. Biden and Putin connected over a secure video call just after 10 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to the White House, and the call concluded at 12:08 p.m.

Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. And Ahaziah fell down through a lattice in his upper chamber that was in Samaria, and was sick: and he sent messengers, and said unto them, Go, enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron whether I shall recover of this disease. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, Arise, go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria, and say unto them, Is it not because there is not a God in Israel, that ye go to enquire of Baalzebub the god of Ekron?...

MEMORIAL OF SAINT AMBROSE, BISHOP AND DOCTOR OF THE CHURCH MATTHEW 18:12-14 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus asks: “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?” Well, of course not! No self-respecting shepherd would ever think of doing that. If you were a shepherd, you’d cut your losses. That sheep is probably dead anyway if it wandered far enough away. But we are to understand that God is like that foolish shepherd. God’s love throws caution to the wind...

The omicron variant of COVID-19 has shown signs of being less virulent than other strains, with early hospital data out of South Africa indicating that patients infected with the variant require less intensive care. Researchers at Steve Biko/Tshwane District Hospital Complex, a major hospital complex in Pretoria, South Africa’s capital and the center of the omicron outbreak, reported last week that the majority of patients in the COVID-19 ward there were asymptomatic. Their findings reflect similar trends at hospitals across the province as a whole, leading some infectious disease experts to be cautiously optimistic that omicron may manifest in a...

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie is facing backlash for a Christmas card photo he posted to social media showing him and every member of his family holding large guns in front of the holiday tree. "Merry Christmas!," Massie, R-Ky., said in the tweet with the photo he posted Friday. "ps. Santa, please bring ammo." The photo was posted just four days after a high school shooting in Oxford Township, Michigan, left four students dead and at least eight wounded. Prosecutors say the parents of the accused shooter, Ethan Crumbley, purchased the gun used in the shooting just days before it happened....

Omicron is the unwelcome party guest at everyone’s holiday gatherings this year.Scientists are still trying to learn about the new Covid variant — including how transmissible it is, how well current vaccines work against it and where its biggest hotspots are. Many of those answers won’t be known for at least a couple weeks, just in time for Christmas. Without those answers, you may need to ask yourself a tough question: Is it safe to attend a holiday party? If everyone at your party is vaccinatedIf you’re vaccinated and gathering with other vaccinated people, the answer is a simple “yes,”...

Eighty-two percent of Democrats are willing to wear face coverings indoors at all times due to fears of contracting the omicron coronavirus variant, a Tuesday Axios-Ipsos poll revealed. Overall, 62 percent of Americans are willing to wear a mask indoors at all times, while just 38 percent of Republicans are willing to do so.

Illustration of Earth's Black Box. (Earth's Black Box) At a distant end of the Earth – hidden somewhere on the remote Australian island of Tasmania – a strange structure is about to witness and record the end of the world as we know it. The project, called Earth's Black Box, is a giant steel installation, soon to be filled with hard drives powered by solar panels, each of them documenting and preserving a stream of real-time scientific updates and analysis on the gloomiest issues the world faces. Information related to climate change, species extinction, environmental pollution, and impacts on health...

Criminals have been emboldened like never before in Biden’s felons-first America. In major Democrat cities like Chicago, Baltimore, and San Francisco, where crime goes largely unpunished, people aren’t even able to count on the safety of their own home anymore.

Elon Musk has made it clear he's against a wealth tax on the richest Americans that could leave him with an annual tax bill in the billions. But he thinks taxing inheritances is a good idea. "Generally, I think the estate tax is a good tax," the Tesla CEO said at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit in response to a question about how billionaires should be taxed.

Anti-vaccine activists are targeting the ballot box, kicking off a process that could end in a statewide vote in their latest effort to change state law to ban vaccine mandates. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost’s office is reviewing a proposal for what’s called an initiated statute that would ban all vaccine mandates -- including coronavirus vaccines. The proposal is similar to House Bill 248, which stalled in the legislature for months before the House passed a relatively watered-down version last month that’s now being considered by the Ohio Senate. The new initiated statute effort is in the very early stages...

What if Japan had not attacked Pearl Harbor eighty years ago today? The attack is today regarded as an enormous tactical success, but a strategic failure. Several older battleships were damaged or destroyed, but the treachery of the attack spurred the United States to fully mobilize for war and to pursue that war with a vengeful fury. The attack also pushed the United States to adopt innovative tactics that would quickly overturn Japanese advantages in air and naval technology. What other military options did Japan have besides an attack on Pearl Harbor? It would have been extremely difficult for Japan...

Major tech companies Google and Uber have both postponed their office reopening dates indefinitely into 2022 due to the uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 omicron variant. As The Washington Post reported, both companies have postponed their returns to the office, previously planned for Jan. 10, to indefinite times in 2022. These postponements come after the companies had already pushed back their returns multiple times throughout 2021. In a memo that was obtained by CNBC, Google's vice president of global security, Chris Rackow, told employees that the company will wait until next year to assess when they will be able to safely...

Yet another lie animating the phony narrative about the events at the Capitol complex on January 6 is about to be exposed: the falsehood that Rosanne Boyland, a Trump supporter from Georgia, died of an accidental drug overdose that day. As American Greatness has reported for months, incriminating video footage and firsthand witness accounts instead support numerous allegations that D.C. Metro and Capitol police contributed to, if they did not directly cause, Boyland’s death in the late afternoon of January 6. Boyland’s family reportedly has hired an attorney to investigate the circumstances of her death at the age of 34;...

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote a letter to Hertz criticizing the company as they are giving shareholders up to $2 billion in stock buybacks while rental car prices increase. "This decision, and other actions taken before and after Hertz's bankruptcy process," Warren said in the letter to Hertz interim CEO Mark Fields, which was obtained by CNN, "reveals that the company is happy to reward executives, company insiders, and big shareholders while stiffing consumers with record-high rental car costs and ignoring the recent history that nearly wiped out the company." Warren specifically questioned why the company would put money toward...

<p>Short positioning increased on a relative basis as a result, “which may also have crowded demand to borrow particular issues over others,” the analysts wrote.</p><p>Those forces together could contribute to an increase in market dislocations.</p><p>Jerome Powell’s hawkish pivot shocked financial markets. A week later, stocks are higher. The S&P 500 staged its biggest rally since March to wipe out losses from the past week. The speculative fringe that was a smoldering wreck Friday was soaring Tuesday. An index of meme stocks rallied more than 4%, while one composed of airlines added 1.6%. A gauge of newly public companies advanced more than 4%, SPACs jumped more than 2% and even cryptocurrencies rallied, with Bitcoin powering back above $51,000.</p>