Free Republic

Las Vegas cops made a startling discovery on Thursday when they found a severed head in the truck of a suspect wanted on theft and embezzlement charges. According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Eric Holland was wanted on charges of using another person's ID, auto embezzlement of more than $3,500, intent to use a false check and theft of more than $3,500 when he was stopped by Metropolitan Police near the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino at around 3.42pm on Thursday. Holland, 57, reportedly fled the scene, but the Metropolitan Police Department's air unit followed him and saw Holland switch...

“I do not see a scenario for any kind of shutdown,” New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio declared this week, as parts of New York were in fact shutting down all around him. Broadway canceled show after show. Restaurants closed their kitchens. De Blasio’s successor, Eric Adams, who will take office January 1, nixed his inauguration gala. There has been no March 2020–style universal shutdown, but New York is not back anymore, baby. For Brent Young, who runs a butcher shop and two restaurants in Brooklyn, it began last week when, one by one, staff members tested positive. “It’s...

Supply chain issues aren’t just showing up for consumer staples, they’re also starting to rear their head in rental cars. There has been a shortage in the rental car industry since earlier this year and while travelers are “encountering higher rates and few choices,” according to a new Wall Street Journal article, companies like Hertz are “struggling” to re-stock fleets after downsizing due to Covid. For customers lucky enough to even find a car, many are being forced to downsize or book vehicles they didn’t originally intend. At the same time, rental rates are skyrocketing. The daily rate is now...

Poor “Karen.” Her magical incantations of persuasion — “Put your f–king mask on, you piece of sh-t!” — for some incomprehensible reason, failed to have their desired effect on a man on a Delta Airlines flight from Tampa to Atlanta. Maybe her powers of persuasion failed because he knew something about mask efficacy. Maybe her magic words failed because he knew a bit about airplane filtration systems. Or maybe he was eating. He wasn’t at that moment wearing his mask to her satisfaction and “Karen” wasn’t having it. Video of the woman’s attack shows that her own mask was around...

The day after Christmas — or the second day of the twelve days of Christmas, in a more traditional coinage — is the feast of St. Stephen.* St. Stephen is well-known as the “protomartyr”, the first Christian to die for his faith. (Jesus doesn’t count.) There’s a St. Stephen’s Gate in Jerusalem so named for its supposed proximity to the site of the protomartyrdom. We get the Stephen story from the New Testament Acts of the Apostles, as given in this from the Tyndale-derived King James Version (Acts 6:8 – 8:3) And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great...

The Military and Fenway bowls were canceled Sunday as a result of COVID-19 issues with participating teams. Boston College had over 40 players unavailable to play in the Military Bowl against East Carolina on Monday. Virginia also had players test positive for COVID-19, making it unable to travel and play SMU at the Wasabi Fenway Bowl, set for Wednesday. Last season, Boston College made it through the entire year with only one positive COVID-19 case but declined the opportunity to play in a bowl game because of the toll the entire season took on everyone.

Surrounded and greatly outnumbered, the men of the 101st Airborne Division were not expecting a merry Christmas in Bastogne, Belgium, in 1944. Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe sent back just one word — NUTS! — to the German commander. When the German messengers appeared puzzled by the term, one of McAuliffe’s attaches told them that, loosely translated, they could “go to hell.” McAuliffe then penned a letter to his own troops, in recognition of the imminent holiday, informing them of the events that had transpired.

Thousands of Russian troops who participated in drills near the Ukraine border are marching home. More than 10,000 soldiers are returning to their permanent bases after a month of drills that ramped up international tensions over the region, Reuters reported Saturday, citing the Russian Interfax independent news agency. It’s not clear if their movements represent a reversal of the troop buildup that began in the spring and has seen up to 175,000 troops deployed on the border of the two former Soviet states. The moves came a day after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky held a video call with 20 US...

When Congress passed more than $6 trillion dollars in Wuhan coronavirus relief funds through a series of packages from 2020 through early 2021, criminals took notice. According to the Secret Service, more than $100 billion has been stolen through a number of programs. The agency is working to find and prosecute the thieves, in addition to recovering the taxpayer money. "While fraud related to personal protective equipment (PPE) was of primary concern to law enforcement, including the Secret Service, early in the pandemic, the release of federal funding through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act has attracted...

Just thinking. Have many Native American friends. Many wore Redskins hats. They were not offended. It’s the Woke white liberals who were. So just a thought: since the Washington NFL team hasn’t picked a new name, let’s give them one: The Washington Wimps. Spread the word? Let’s make this a meme?

Poland's Justice Minister and Prosecutor General Zbigniew Ziobro announced on Thursday he would ask the country's Constitutional Tribunal to declare the the EU rule of law conditionality mechanism is not compatible with the Polish constitution. Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro reminded at Thursday's press conference that his ministry, as well as his party United Poland, were both against said EU mechanism, but prime minister Morawiecki agreed to its adoption. Ziobro also said that after "a thorough legal analysis it's absolutely certain that the conditionality mechanism is a solution glaringly incompatible with the Polish constitution". "That's why I have decided to file...

How about this idea: any non-citizen at least 16 years of age shall be required to be fully inoculated against COVID-19 before receiving any monetary outlay from the Federal or several State governments. For families, every person of 16 years of age in the family would be required to be inoculated. The same mandate shall apply to distributions by charitable organizations to non-citizen individuals and families. Travel by air or ground (bus, train, etc) shall be restricted to fully inoculated individuals, regardless of citizenship. Air travel by non-citizens shall be required to show both proof of vaccination and a US...

The vaccines are making it more likely you'll be infected with Omicron 90 days after you are fully vaccinated. To keep vaccine effectiveness high against omicron, vaccination every 30 days is needed.Steve KirschDec 24 Worried about Omicron? Guess what? After 90 days, the vaccine they gave you is going to make you MORE likely to get infected from Omicron, not less. The longer you stay on the vaccine treadmill, the harder to get off in the future and the easier you’ll make it for the virus.In short, we’ve been lied to about the vaccine. It is protecting you less and...

Gina Sheldon had been traveling in Italy and France and bought more than $3,000 worth of gifts. When she opened up her luggage, she found dog food, an old T-shirt, and a bottle of shaving cream. The flight was booked through Delta but operated by Air France. In a statement to WMUR-TV, Delta apologized for Sheldon's experience.

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As the holiday weekend draws to a close, it has been anything but merry for tens of thousands of stranded airline passengers who had their flight canceled due to a flare-up of the omicron variant that resulted in staffing shortages of pilots and crew for several major airline carriers. Data tracker FlightAware.com shows US flight cancellations exceeded 2,400 in just the past 48 hours.The situation has yet to ease on Sunday as total cancellations within, into, or out of the U.S. topped 754 flights as of 1300 ET. On Christmas day, U.S. cancellations topped nearly 1,000. Henry Harteveldt, president of...

CNN is far behind FOX News and MSNBC in the ratings. It averages around half a million viewers in prime time and it recently hit a 7-year low in the demo. So it was the perfect time for Chris Wallace to leave FOX News for CNN+. Some might have thought that Wallace was leaving to fill Chris Cuomo’s slot at CNN. No such luck, though without Cuomo the failing news network’s ratings have crashed to new lows. But crashing to new lows is the default story at CNN. CNN Airport, its captive audience operation, shut down earlier this year. And...

Unvaccinated people could be paid a visit by Covid jab teams hoping to get more people protected from the virus, according to reports. Government Ministers are set to be considering a plan where door-to-door visits would be made in areas with low uptake of the vaccine, as another way to tackle soaring infection rates. The tactic would also help encourage people who may want to get jabbed but who don't have easy access to vaccine centres. A Cabinet Minister told the Mail on Sunday: "I think anything that encourages the vaccine-hesitant is sensible. "The mood in the country is hardening...

For weeks Kiev officials and many corners of Western media and the Washington national security establishment have hyped the Russian troop build-up in regions of Russia that are within 400km of Ukraine's border, accusing the Kremlin of planning an invasion of Donbass sometime in January. This month started, for example, with The Washington Post citing US intelligence to claim this would involve a whopping 175,000 Russian troops mustered near the border. But like with prior similar instances (such as failed predictions last spring that never materialized), it's looking like the opposite is set to happen, with on Saturday Reuters reporting...

Canada’s federal government admitted to secretly surveilling its population’s movements during the COVID-19 lockdown by tracking 33 million phones.The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) clandestinely tracked the devices to assess “the public’s responsiveness during lockdown measures,” the agency acknowledged last week, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, which first reported the disclosure.Canada’s entire population totals 38 million, according to Statistics Canada.“Evidence is coming in from many sources, from countries around the world, that what was seen as a huge surveillance surge — post 9/11 — is now completely upstaged by pandemic surveillance,” David Lyon, author of “Pandemic Surveillance” and the former...