Free Republic

It’s coming together! Engineers for the James Webb Space Telescope have now completed two more phases of the seven-step, three-month-long mirror alignment process. This week, the team made more adjustments to the mirror segments along with updating the alignment of its secondary mirror. These refinements allowed for all 18 mirror segments to work together — for the first time — to produce one unified image. As you can see in the image above, this view of the star HD 84406 shows one image instead of the 18 views – one from each segment – that we saw earlier this week....

A Scott Rasmussen national survey found that 84 percent of voters believe that "parents should be able to see all curriculum plans and materials for classes their children take," while 12 percent said they disagreed and 5 percent said they are not sure. In addition, the survey found that 44 percent of voters believe many schools teach a radical ideology that would be offensive to parents, 36 percent disagree while 19 percent are not sure. Another factor in the support for transparency comes from the fact that 68 percent believe most public schools have lowered standards rather than demanding more...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2014, has resumed. Putin was not deterred. The threat of sanctions failed to stop Putin from launching a full-scale assault spanning the width and depth of Ukraine. This wasn’t just a nibble to expand the territory Russia holds in the Donbas; missile and aircraft strikes took place all through the country. Russian paratroops were reported in the western port city of Odessa, and Russian tanks have been filmed roaring nearby the abandoned Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Putin may not intend to take and hold all of Ukraine, but his newly stated objective—"the...

A Baltimore teen has been charged with murder after authorities say that he killed a woman who was delivering food for DoorDash. Cheryl McCormack, 51, was accompanied by a friend while working for the food delivery service on Jan. 24. Around 2 a.m., McCormack's vehicle ran out of gas. McCormack's friend set out on foot to find a gas station, leaving McCormack at the car. According to Fox Baltimore, the teen and another suspect allegedly approached the friend and attempted to rob him. Then, police say, they demanded that he return to the car with him. When they arrived at...

Violent crime continues to plague the majority of urban cities across our country, and as the violence increases, so has the danger officers face every day. Gun violence continues to devastate our communities, and countless victims are left without recourse as the failures of our criminal justice system are exposed. The Major Cities Chiefs Association (MCCA) has collected violent crime data since 2015 and in the most recent survey of the Association’s 70 U.S.-based member agencies, homicides in 2021 increased roughly 6% and aggravated assaults rose 3% compared to 2020. While those increases may seem small, they are anything but....

With no appetite for military confrontation, the U.S. and its allies are relying on sweeping economic sanctions to persuade Russian President Vladimir Putin to pull out of Ukraine. But the effectiveness of those measures are anything but certain, relying on a host of factors that includes how much China is willing to come to Moscow’s aid. Placing a stranglehold on Russia’s $1.5-trillion economy will not be easy, especially since it began trying to buffer itself from international sanctions after it annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014. Russia has sidelined growth to pare down its debt and built up its reserves...

As Russia pummels Ukraine in an invasion waged on Thursday, Moscow’s Deputy Ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, leveled the same type of sentiment at Israel as the Kremlin did towards Ukraine. “We’re concerned over Tel Aviv’s announced plans for expanding settlement activity in the occupied Golan Heights, which contradicts the provisions of the 1949 Geneva Convention. Russia doesn’t recognize Israel’s sovereignty over Golan Heights that are part of Syria,” he tweeted. Putin refused to recognize republics Donetsk and Luhansk as sovereign Ukraine like the Golan. Interestingly, Polyanskiy referred to Israel’s capital as Tel Aviv rather than Jerusalem. Russia has...

Seventh Week in Ordinary Time Mark 10:1-12 Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus defines the fundamental sacredness of marriage. I’m convinced that the deep sacramental and religious meaning of marriage—even within the Church—has been, in recent years, dramatically compromised. We say that marriage is a vocation, but do we mean it? We can look at human sexual relationships at a number of different levels. Two people can come together purely for physical pleasure, for economic reasons, or for psychological companionship. And we might witness two people coming together out of authentic love. But none of these levels is what the...

According to her record as both an attorney and a judge, Jackson lacks the dispassionate and unbiased disposition that Americans expect of Supreme Court Justices. Instead, her career is marked by far-left political activism. In 2008, Judge Jackson was an election poll monitor for the Obama for America Presidential Campaign. Since 2007, she has been a frequent speaker at events hosted by the liberal and progressive lawyer’s association, the American Constitution Society. Her commitment to progressive causes is so well-known (and appreciated) that she has earned the endorsement of just about every far-left association there is, including Demand Justice, People...

Two Chinese state-owned banks will restrict financing for Russian commodity purchases, suggesting there are limits to Beijing's support for Moscow as the Kremlin confronts severe economic sanctions over its attack of Ukraine.

Russian forces entered major Ukrainian cities—including Kyiv and Kherson—for the first time on February 25. Russian forces’ main axes of advance focused on Kyiv (successfully isolating the city on both banks of the Dnipro River). Russian military operations along Ukraine’s northern border have been less well-planned, organized, and conducted than those emanating from Crimea. They have also been less successful so far. The divergence in performance likely arises in part from differences in the composition and organization of the Russian ground forces elements in the Western Military District and Belarus (to Ukraine’s north) and Southern Military District and Black Sea...

Protests in Russia continued during the second day of Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, with prominent Russians joining in major cities across the country. Russian authorities arrested over 1,700 individuals Thursday as citizens took to the streets of Moscow, St. Petersburg and other major cities to denounce the invasion of Ukraine and demand an end to hostilities, according to OVD Info, an independent organization monitoring political persecutions.

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Zelensky's spokesman said that Ukraine and Russia are consulting on the place and time of the negotiation process after Zelensky requests a ceasefire

France's foreign minister said Russian President Vladimir Putin should understand that NATO also has nuclear weapons when making threats to deploy his arsenal. Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian was speaking with French television network TF1Info when he was asked if Putin's remarks were "tantamount to threatening Russian use of nuclear weapons in the Ukraine conflict," Reuters reported. He said he believed so.

If there's one person who shouldn't pontificate about dealing with Putin and Russia, it's Hillary Clinton. As Obama's Secretary of State, Hillary staged that pathetic, supposed, "reset" of relations with Putin's Russia, capped by laughingly pushing her [mistranslated] reset button with Putin's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Subsequently during Obama's tenure, Putin invaded and annexed the Crimea region of Ukraine, as Obama meekly responded with some feckless sanctions. So much for your reset, Hillary. But there was Hillary on Friday's Morning Joe, opining at great length about how America should respond to the invasion. Joe Scarborough rolled out the red carpet...

Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention outlined the new set of measures for communities where COVID-19 is easing its grip, with less of a focus on positive test results and more on what’s happening at hospitals. The new system greatly changes the look of the CDC’s risk map and puts more than 70% of the U.S. population in counties where the coronavirus is posing a low or medium threat to hospitals. Those are...

From the moment President Biden promised to nominate a Black woman to the Supreme Court, Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson has been the likeliest pick. And that is who he he nominated Friday to fill retiring Justice Stephen G. Breyer’s seat. “She cares about making sure that democracy works for the American people,” Biden said Friday as he nominated her, also saying “For too long the government and the courts have not looked like America.” Here’s what you need to know about her. She’s got a background made for a Supreme Court nominee: Jackson grew up in Miami, her mom a...

If you want to make your vote count in Texas in 2022, you should vote in the March 1 primary. Here’s why: the general election in November—the one that pits Republicans against Democrats—will likely be the least competitive in a long time, at least when it comes to congressional and statehouse races. The candidates who prevail in the primary will by and large be shoo-ins in the fall. The culprit is gerrymandering. New district maps drawn by Republicans in the Texas Legislature last year have dramatically reduced the number of congressional and statehouse districts in which both the Republican and...

U.S. consumer spending increased more than expected in January, offering the economy a strong boost at the start of the first quarter, but price pressures continued to mount, with annual inflation surging at rates last experienced four decades ago. Growth prospects were further brightened by other data on Friday showing solid demand by businesses for equipment last month. The reports from the Commerce Department suggested underlying strength in the economy that could sustain the expansion as the Federal Reserve starts raising interest rates to quell inflation, and provide a shield from the fallout from Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The first...