Free Republic

Dorothea Puente, a serial killer, is becoming known to a whole new generation — decades after being arrested and convicted in a notorious crime. Puente ran a boarding house in Sacramento in the 1980s. Police found seven bodies in her backyard in November 1988. With the outward portrayal of a sweet granny, she drugged and buried her tenants — and then collected their Social Security benefits. After the bodies were found, authorities searched in California and Mexico for a week. She was eventually found in Los Angeles, where she was being held. When Sacramento sister station KCRA found out, there...

"US president shelves scheme in Poland and Czech Republic, citing new intelligence on threat from Iran....Barack Obama has abandoned the controversial Pentagon plan to build a missile defence system in Europe that had long soured relations with Russia....Obama said the new approach would offer 'stronger, swifter and smarter' defence for the US and its allies."

The U.S. Supreme Court quietly announced Monday that it would not review Bill Cosby’s sexual assault case, leaving him a free man and ending a two-decade legal drama that shifted the cultural landscape, destroyed the groundbreaking Black actor’s reputation, and sent him to prison for several years late in life. The high court, without comment, declined to review a stunning decision out of Pennsylvania that released Cosby from prison in June over the word of a former prosecutor who said he had made a secret promise to Cosby’s lawyers that he would never be charged. A Cosby spokesperson expressed “sincere...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Milwaukee County district attorney will not file charges against two Democratic members of the bipartisan Wisconsin Elections Commission, saying Monday there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they committed any crimes. District Attorney John Chisholm, a Democrat, rejected calls from the Republican Racine County sheriff to prosecute five members of the commission — three Democrats and two Republicans — who voted not to send election deputies into nursing homes in 2020 to assist residents with voting. That action has been cited by Republican critics of how the election was run...

President Joe Biden will continue resettling Afghans in American communities at least through August even as the federal government admits that its vetting protocols failed to properly vet tens of thousands already resettled in the United States. A State Department official told Bloomberg News that Biden is looking to bring thousands more Afghans to the U.S. for resettlement over the next six months. Currently, there are some 100,000 Afghans who have sought entry to the U.S. but who remain in Afghanistan.

Gasoline prices are pushing even farther above $4 a gallon, the highest price that American motorists have faced since July 2008, as calls grow to ban imports of Russian oil. Prices at the pump were rising long before Russia invaded Ukraine and have spiraled faster since the start of the war. The U.S. national average for a gallon of gasoline has soared 45 cents a gallon in the past week and topped $4.06 on Monday, according to auto club AAA. “I am looking at the possibility of walking to work,” said Asiya Joseph, who had just paid $4.29 a gallon...

Mathew Hamilton, a native of Ireland, had immigrated to Winona Minnesota and was serving as the Night Watch, a special policeman at the depot of the Winona and St. Peter Railroad just north of Lake Winona on East Mark Street. It was December 2nd, 1874. The beginning of the 4th coldest December Minnesotan’s had ever experienced. The country was in the last few years of the Reconstruction Era following the American Civil War, and Republican President Ulysses S. Grant was fighting for the protection of African Americans in the South through the use of the Enforcement Act passed by Congress....

In some wars, a single figure can be a strategic factor. A Lincoln, a Clemenceau, a Roosevelt. Churchill. Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelensky’s performance in the war’s first week has vaulted him onto that list. But as well as the comedian-turned-actor-turned-president has done, he’s also now being hunted by Russian forces. And what happens to him will change the course of the conflict. Russian Pres. Vladimir Putin’s declared war aim is to “demilitarize” Ukraine, but he’s also likely looking to overthrow the Ukrainian government. Reportedly, Zelensky and his family are at the top of the Russian target list, and the Kremlin’s...

Buttigieg said electric buses will create better, high-paying jobs and clean up congestion on freeways. He also said federal funds have been set aside to train the "diesel workers of today" to build and maintain the electric transit buses of the future. "Clean transportation can bring significant cost savings for the American people as well," Buttigieg said. He added that $5 billion have been invested into building a nationwide electric vehicle charging network "so that people from rural, to suburban, to urban communities, can all benefit, from the gas savings of driving an (electric vehicle)." "Today is about how we...

Researchers trained an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm with 7,414 recordings of pig noises, gathered throughout the life stages of 411 pigs – including slaughter. The algorithm could potentially be used to build an app for pig farmers that detects whether the animals are happy just from the noise they're making. As already revealed in previous research, there are more high-frequency calls from pigs (such as screams and squeals) in negative situations. At the same time, low-frequency calls (such as barks and grunts) occurred both in situations where the pigs experienced positive or negative emotions. With an even more thorough analysis...

The first week in December 2018, the United States exported more oil than we imported, for the first time in nearly 70 years. This is known as energy independence. And it happened not because of the previous 50 years of dubious federal “energy programs” heavily regulating oil and gas, while promoting alternative energy, but despite them. This took place under then-President Donald Trump, who said, “The year 2019 marked the first time in 67 years that American annual gross energy exports exceeded gross energy imports.” “Then President Donald Trump took office and announced a radical departure from 50 years of...

CHEYENNE – U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., joined congressional candidate Harriet Hageman at a town hall here Monday morning. The two mainly focused on criticism of Dr. Anthony Fauci, and what they said were abuses of power by the federal government. Hageman spoke to a ballroom packed with supporters Monday morning at Little America Hotel and Resort in Cheyenne. The Goshen County native is running against current Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. Hageman's official campaign announcement came in September, just hours after an endorsement from former President Donald Trump. Paul endorsed...

Brian is criticized for not letting his own band members play the music. But he was influenced by Phil Specter and knew it could be better and much, much better it was. Ironically, Glen replaced him for 6 months when he just took a time out one year. Kudos to Brian for making it as great as it could be.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) doubled down on his call for Russian President Vladimir Putin to be assassinated in the wake of Moscow’s military invasion of Ukraine during a Monday interview with TMZ. INTERVIEWER: You’ve been courageous in calling out Putin when many people want to say it but haven’t said it. Have you been surprised by the feedback that you’ve gotten from it? SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Yeah. I think most Americans understand that Putin is a war criminal, and the sooner he’s gone, the better. The only way this ends in a sustainable fashion is for the Russian people to...

It is unclear how many people will come to the Bay Area but humanitarian group organizers say they want to be readyDesperation is growing Wednesday as Ukrainians rush to leave the country they love. More than a million have fled in just the last week and some of those refugees have arrived in the Bay Area to make this their new home. “Some of the people already arrived,” said Igor Markov of NOVA Ukraine. “A friend of mine was just at SFO meeting his parents.” Refugee camps are popping up across the border in Poland, Moldova, and Romania, and...

We know now that the 11th of March, five days from today, it’s happening. That’s the day that the telco’s of the west disconnect Russia from SWIFT. This is why Russia wants all their businesses to be ‘native’, with their IP’s within their geographic boundary by the 11th. So, in a very real sense, the 11th is Zero Day. Now is it really THAT Zero Day? We will only know in hindsight. But we do know that the 11th is a key Khazarian majic day, housing many events in the past, such as Fukushima Nuke Disaster. This 3/11 may well...

A man was arrested after he impersonated a police officer in south Monterey County. According to law enforcement, Clemente Martinez, 28, was arrested for impersonating a police officer. Matinez had allegedly equipped his car with red and blue flashing lights. Martinez was discovered when he attempted to pull over an off-duty Monterey County sheriff's deputy.

With a white, closely trimmed beard and deep crevices around his mouth where dimples might once have been, Colonel Stetsenko cuts an unusual figure on the battlefield. He is 56 and had been retired from the military for a decade when he decided to re-enlist in 2020. By then, Ukrainian forces were already fighting a Kremlin-backed insurgency in eastern Ukraine, and Colonel Stetsenko felt he needed to do his part. “I knew that many people who had already served were tired,” he said. “It is difficult to live for so long without their families, and we needed people to serve....

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is expected to sign an executive order on cryptocurrency this week that will mark the first step toward regulating how digital currency is traded. The order is expected to describe what government agencies, including the Treasury Department, need to do to develop policies and regulations on digital currencies. It is expected to include a request for the State Department to ensure that American cryptocurrency laws are aligned with those of U.S. allies and will ask the Financial Stability Oversight Council — which monitors the stability of the U.S. financial system — to study illicit...

The Santa Barbara City Council has given restaurant Chick-fil-A 90 days to fix its traffic problems on State Street or face the possibility of being declared a public nuisance. Why? A local woman who “never liked Chick-fil-A,” not because of their product, but “for their social positions,” found a reason to cancel them.Independent.com reported: What spurred Hobbs to local action, however, was watching the upper State Street restaurant’s overcrowded drive-thru line spill constantly and precariously into the road, a public safety issue that has persisted for the better part of the decade, unabated, with no apparent consequences for either the...