Free Republic

Index giant S&P Dow Jones Indices said Friday it is removing all stocks listed and/or domiciled in Russia from its benchmarks in light of the country's invasion of Ukraine, further isolating the nation from the global economy. The removal, effective prior to the open next Wednesday, also affects Russian American depositary receipts (ADRs), S&P Dow Jones Indices said. The firm, which is the keeper of the Dow Jones Industrial average and the S&P 500, also said it will declassify Russia as an emerging market and categorize it as a standalone group. Earlier Friday, the NYSE halted trading in three Russian...

Russia said Friday it would block access to Facebook, adding to the country's growing isolation during the invasion of Ukraine. Russia's media regulator, Roskomnadzor, said in a statement it was cutting off access in response to Facebook's decision this week to block Russian media outlets such as RT and Sputnik for people within the European Union. "On March 4, 2022, it was decided to block access to the Facebook network (owned by Meta Platforms, Inc.) in the Russian Federation," the regulator said. It cited "26 cases of discrimination against Russian media and information resources," actions it said are prohibited by...

NATO nations will not impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, despite pleas from some in Ukraine. Secretary Jens Stoltenberg called it a "painful decision," saying that NATO has a responsibility not to escalate the conflict by engaging Russian forces directly in Ukraine, either on the ground or in the air. Enforcing a no-fly zone would involve NATO planes in Ukraine potentially shooting down Russian planes, Stoltenberg said Friday. President Biden's administration has likewise ruled out such a move, saying it is "not going to happen." RUSSIA INVADES UKRAINE: LIVE UPDATES "We understand the desperation, but we also believe that if...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) realized he may have gone a tad too far on Thursday night when he called on Russians to assassinate their president Vladimir Putin. Appearing on Fox News again on Friday morning, he instead called for Putin’s arrest. [cut]Lindsey Graham has toned down his comments from calling for Putin to be taken out repeatedly last night to calling for his arrest this morning on Fox & Friends pic.twitter.com/OKJBJdsmmR— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 4, 2022

The Belarusian army did not take part in the Russian "special operation" against Ukraine and does not plan to do so, said Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko, reports the Telegram channel Pool 1. "The Belarusian army did not take part in the "special operation" and does not intend to do it," Lukashenka said and added that Belarus is protecting the state border from Brest to Mazyr on its own. "The hybrid war that has been started against Belarus, especially the sanctions war in the economy and finance, is for a long time. They clutch us with a concrete grip. This is...

Video

Food Crisis Imminent: Hungary Bans All Grains Exports Effective Immediately (Update 1:25pm ET) – Those who have it, are no longer giving it away, and those that don't will soon find themselves in the middle of an epic food crisis. Just hours after we reported that Russia effectively banned exports of fertilizers, moments ago Hungary – one of Europe's most grain rich nations – has circled the wagons and realizing which way the wind is blowing, just announced that it will (begin) banning all grain exports effective immediately, in a statement . Expect wheat prices, already at record highs, to...

A 392-pound mother who drank nearly a gallon of soda every day has lost more than half her body weight — but now she has excess skin that “flaps around.” Chessie Passmore, 36, said her comfort eating following the birth of her children contributed to a “weight rollercoaster” of failed fad diets. “My biggest downfall was fizzy pop, pasta and bread. I’d drink 12 cans per day,” she told Jam Press. “I had knee issues and I could barely walk around.”

A man who was given six months to live with an inoperable form of cancer claims he is alive today due to a low-carb keto diet. Pablo Kelly decided to reject traditional and recommended treatments in favor of a meat and fat-heavy diet after he was diagnosed with a brain tumor. The dad, from Plymouth, first noticed something was wrong when he began to suffer headaches. Then, after trying to ignore the pain, Pablo suffered a seizure at work before being rushed to hospital.

Valve’s Steam Deck is capable of being much more than a handheld game console. It doubles as a powerful Linux PC that could realistically be your daily driver. Because of that, some experienced PC gamers may feel completely out of their depth when booting into the Steam Deck’s desktop mode. ... And remember that Generation Z grew up without a basic understanding of filesystems and operating system folder structures. It’s not their fault. Everything is an app or Google search away now. They main their smartphones, not laptops. These users are asking very honest, very innocent questions. Don’t laugh. Don’t...

"It's very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blonde hair being killed." These were the words of Ukraine's Deputy Chief Prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, during a recent BBC interview about the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It wasn't so much what he said, it was more what was implied; that not all lives have equal value. And that idea -- the belief that some races are superior to others -- is a fundamental principle of racism. It's alarming to me that Sakvarelidze was left unchallenged during his interview. ITV News correspondent Lucy Watson on ITV reporting...

OAKLAND, Calif. - A 14-year-old boy was killed in East Oakland before his body was dropped off in the hills, bringing this year's total homicide count to 19 in the city.

Ohio State lost a legend this week. Charles "Chuck" Csuri – a Buckeye football great, a World War II veteran and a pioneer in the field of computer art – died at the age of 99 on Sunday, Ohio State announced. Csuri was a three-year letterman for the Buckeye football team, playing for head coach Paul Brown from 1941-1943. Dubbed by Brown “the perfect tackle,” Csuri led Ohio State to its first national in 1942 and was named All-American and the team’s Most Valuable Player. He was the last living member of Ohio State's 1942 national championship team. After serving...

Shane Warne, one of cricket's all-time greats, has died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 52 in Koh Samui, Thailand, while on holiday. Warne, who was named one of Wisden's Five Cricketers of the Century, claimed 708 Test wickets in a 15-year career for Australia between 1992 and 2007, and was also an ODI World Cup winner in 1999. According to his manager Michael Cohen, he died of a suspected heart attack. "Shane was found unresponsive in his villa and despite the best efforts of medical staff, he could not be revived," Cohen's statement read. "The family...

In modern American Christianity there is a lot of, frankly, unscriptural teaching about matters of race and ethnicity. Much of it, of course, is found in the mainline denominations, but has even reached into conservative and Evangelical denominations as well. This teaching implicitly supports a woke, globalist approach which is perfectly in accord with the antichrist spirit of our present age. It is, of course, the doctrine of multiculturalism and “critical race theory” that has made the jump from secular cultural Marxism into the so-called Christendom. I won’t go into a lot of detail about this here, but you can...

Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs when a group forms a quick opinion that matches the group consensus, rather than critically evaluating the information. Mass hysteria can be seen as an extreme example of groupthink.The term "groupthink" was coined in the early 1970s by psychologist Irving L. Janis.1 In 1972, Janis published his book Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.Janis defines "groupthink" as "a psychological drive for consensus at any cost that suppresses dissent and appraisal of alternatives in cohesive decision-making groups."The group members feed off each other's emotional reactions, causing the panic to...

State Dept. urges embassies not to retweet Russian ‘war crime’ post: reports The US State Department is urging US embassies across Europe to not repost a tweet from the US Embassy in Kyiv which called Russia’s attack on a nuclear plant “a war crime,” according to multiple reports. An internal message obtained by NBC News and CNN revealed the Department is urgently urging the embassies to avoid sharing language posted by the Kyiv envoy, or delete their post if they already have. “All – do not/not retweet Embassy Kyiv’s tweet on shelling of the facility being a possible war crime”...

President Biden is seeing a boost to his approval rating following his first State of the Union address this week, with a poll released Friday showing him at 47 percent. The latest NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist National Poll found that 47 percent of Americans surveyed approve of the job he is doing as president, which is a jump from the 39 percent approval rating he had in the same poll last month.

Talking about a "clean energy" economy

Every day for the past week, Russian forces have tried to fight their way through this suburb of Kyiv to reach the Ukrainian capital. And every day, Ukrainian troops have forced them to retreat, leaving burning tanks and armored personnel carriers behind. “We go out to hunt and destroy them,” said Volodymyr, a Ukrainian special-forces team leader, as his squad, armed with a British .308 sniper rifle and British-made antitank weapons, waited for the latest Russian attack. “They certainly didn’t come here expecting that, expecting that we know how to fight.”