Free Republic

Russian news director and anchor, Ekaterina Kotrikadze, speaks to CNN's Fareed Zakaria about the state of the country's news media after her station, TV Rain, shut down due to the Russian government's crackdown on local media over unfavorable coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Explanation: This was a very unusual type of solar eclipse. Typically, it is the Earth's Moon that eclipses the Sun. In 2012, though, the planet Venus took a turn. Like a solar eclipse by the Moon, the phase of Venus became a continually thinner crescent as Venus became increasingly better aligned with the Sun. Eventually the alignment became perfect and the phase of Venus dropped to zero. The dark spot of Venus crossed our parent star. The situation could technically be labeled a Venusian annular eclipse with an extraordinarily large ring of fire. Pictured here during the occultation, the Sun...

The Felicity Ace, the cargo ship carrying cars and SUVs from brands including Audi, Porsche, Bentley and Lamborghini, has now sunk. It had caught fire on February 16 and its crew abandoned the ship. The largely burned out ship was being towed back to a safe port when it sank yesterday, according to a report provided by the salvage team to MOL Ship Management of Singapore, which operates the Panama-flagged ship. A spokesperson for Volkswagen Group confirmed that the automaker was aware of the vessel sinking. The Felicity Ace had been carrying nearly 4000 vehicles from various Volkswagen Group brands....

Russian Ministry of Defense — “Ukraine’s SBU along with Azov have booby trapped a nuclear reactor at Kharkov institute of physics and plan to blow it up & accuse Russia of carrying out a missile strike onto it.”— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) March 7, 2022

A new U.S. intelligence assessment says more than 4,500 Russian soldiers have been killed here in Ukraine since the war began. The estimate, however, is made with ‘low confidence,’ officials say

#Russia began active preparations for disconnection from the global InternetAll servers and domains must be transferred to the #Russian zone no later than March 11. Detailed data on the network infrastructure of the sites is being collected. | EMPR via @nexta_tv#Ukraine pic.twitter.com/W82xFLNYPy— EMPR.MEDIA (@EuromaidanPR) March 6, 2022

On Sunday the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine is now under the command and operation of Russian forces, and that its communications are now restricted to the outside world. The UN nuclear watchdog agency further said it is “extremely concerned” with these developments, following the Thursday night into Friday widespread reports that it had witnessed heavy fighting and shelling. In those several alarming hours Ukraine’s government leaders claimed there could be massive radioactive fallout and sought to use the episode to attract greater Western military help and intervention. The IAEA itself...

“‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’” (Matthew 5:8). Throughout Scripture the heart is used metaphorically to represent the inner person, the seat of motives and attitudes, the center of personality. But in Scripture it also includes the thinking process, particularly the will. Proverbs 23:7 says, “As [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he” (kjv). The heart is the control center of the mind and will, as well as emotion. Jesus said that it is in the inner person, in the core of our very being, that God requires purity. This was not a...

2018 lecture in Finnish (subtitled in English), given by Martti Kari, a former Colonel working in military intelligence, with expertise in Russian “strategic culture”, and who is now at the university. Here he is explaining why Russians think and behave so differently from us in the West, which gives us some ways of guessing what they might do in the future. This has, for me, shed much light on the motivation behind the Ukrainian invasion and so much else that Russia has done. Finland, of course, borders Russia, and at various points in history has been part of Russia, fought...

There’s a crusade right now against American muscle cars and the V8 engines which power them. Those who seek to kill off such performance vehicles have enshrouded their movement in the aura of progress, but I’m about to show you how this was done before, proving it’s hardly a new or “progressive” movement. Back in the late 1960s American automakers were engaged in a horsepower war. It was a glorious time where enthusiasts of all ages could buy something with loads of power and miles of styling without paying wheelbarrows of cash. It birthed such legends as the Dodge Charger...

The headline pretty much tells the story: We know Donald Trump called one of his friends, pro golfer John Daly, on Friday. We also know Trump told Daly that as president, he warned Russia’s Vladimir Putin the U.S. military would hit Moscow if Putin did “it” — presumably, if Russia invaded Ukraine, given the timing of the phone call.But before we get too far down the tracks, what we don’t know is if Trump actually told Putin he’d bomb Moscow. Either way, the story is a perfect illustration of the stark contrast between Donald J. Trump Sr. and Joseph Robinette...

Senators and DC officials from both parties participated in the Ukraine influence process. Part of those influence priorities was/is exploiting the financial opportunities within Ukraine while simultaneously protecting the background activity of Joe Biden and his family. This is where Senator John McCain and Senator Lindsey Graham were working with Marie Yovanovitch You might also remember Marie Yovanovitch, George Kent and U.S. chargé d’affaires to Ukraine, Bill Taylor, testifying against President Trump in the ridiculous impeachment effort surrounding Ukraine. It was former Ukraine Ambassador Bill Taylor who engaged in carefully planned text messages with EU Ambassador Gordon Sondland to set-up...

Remember that catchy expression from the Bush years, “No Blood For Oil!”, thinly veiled virtue signaling expressing moral outrage over the false notion that the evil George W. Bush and his cronies would gladly spill the blood of innocents in their greedy quest for the power and wealth of oil? Events in Ukraine have made it all too clear that Biden and the merry band of green new fascists that control him are just fine with blood and death if it destroys the energy sector and threatens capitalism…

TikTok has suspended all live streaming and content sharing on its platform in Russia, joining American Express and PricewaterhouseCoopers, the latest of several companies to boycott the country amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The social media giant made the announcement Sunday in response to the country's new controversial 'fake news' law, which threatens imprisonment for sharing what authorities consider to be false information. 'TikTok is an outlet for creativity and entertainment that can provide a source of relief and human connection during a time of war when people are facing immense tragedy and isolation,' the company said they had 'no...

Avocados are wildly important in the U.S., and most are imported from Mexico. This week, the U.S. briefly banned Mexican avocados after a U.S. inspector in the state of Michoacan reported receiving threats. But avocados and limes have long been used by drug cartels to help finance their violent business plans. Emily Green reports for VICE News from Mexico and joins us from Mexico City. Thanks so much for being with us. EMILY GREEN: Thanks so much for having me on. SIMON: How would you describe the role cartels have in the agricultural business, specifically avocados and limes? GREEN: Well,...

Shino Tanikawa, the newest member of the state Board of Regents, is a leftist who believes “toxic whiteness” is everywhere — and has a history of griping about it on social media

Crude Oil Apr 22 (CL=F) NY Mercantile - NY Mercantile Delayed Price. Currency in USD 125.66+9.98 (+8.63%) As of 06:30PM EST. Market open.

There’s no doubt about it: the vaccine companies have a license to kill. They can kill as many people as they want and nobody in America is going to stop them. It’s all perfectly legal.Steve KirschMar 5 The most frustrating thing about this pandemic is that there is no doubt that the drug companies have killed over 150,000 Americans, yet nobody with authority to stop these vaccines wants to talk about the evidence. The vaccine program is done under the pretext of saving 10,000 lives (the Pfizer Phase 3 trial showed the drug saved approximately one COVID life for every...

The war in Ukraine poses a palpable threat to Western democracies, but this has little to do with Russia posing an inherent strategic threat to the United States or its European allies. No — more so than the Russian state, the threat to the West comes from within, a consequence of our congealing perceptions towards the conflict. Bombs are not raining down on our cities; instead, what we are experiencing is the psychological weaponisation of war — and its exploitation as a tool of indoctrination and statecraft in the hands of the establishment. The Ukraine crisis is undoubtedly a tragedy,...

he Russian media outlet RIA Novosti released documents that the Ministry of Defense points to as evidence that Ukraine was undertaking research in U.S.-funded biolabs that has the capability to be used for bioweapons. Major General Igor Konashenkov, an official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, provided the information to journalists. Moscow said that the documents, allegedly originating from employees of Ukrainian biological laboratories, confirmed that “components of biological weapons were being developed in Ukraine, in close proximity to Russian territory,” as reported by RIA Novosti. Watch: