Free Republic

Zurich (AFP) – The World Economic Forum said Wednesday it was freezing all relations with Russian entities, and would not allow anyone on the sanctions list to take part in the annual high-powered meeting in Davos. "Following its condemnation of Russia's ongoing attack on Ukraine, the forum is complying with the evolving international sanctions and following the rapidly-developing situation," the WEF said. “Therefore the forum freezes all its relations with Russian entities, and will not engage with any sanctioned individual or institution in any of our activities, inclusive the annual meeting" in Davos, it added. The WEF usually hosts its...

AGreensboro man faces federal charges in a Ponzi scheme that defrauded at least 25 people out of about $6.8 million since 2014, authorities said. David Schamens, 64, was charged Monday with wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey. He is accused of using some of the money to repay earlier investors in the manner of a Ponzi scheme and to pay for his personal expenses, including a house and luxury car, according to the release. Authorities accuse Schamens of fraudulently soliciting investments in various...

A Florida special needs teacher who suffered serious injuries when she was attacked by a five-year-old, had been hospitalized by the same child several time before, her teacher's union claimed, Last week Trishia Meadows, 43, a teacher at Pines Lakes Elementary in Pembroke Pines, needed to be stretchered out of her classroom after allegedly being attacked by the five-year-old special needs student. According to a police report, the incident began when the troublesome child and a four-year-old student were throwing objects and flipping chairs in a pre-K classroom. Meadows, whos is mom to a young daughter, took the rowdy five-year-old...

Mike Gibbons and Josh Mandel lead the Ohio GOP Senate primary field as Republicans battle for the chance to run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Rob Portman (R), according to a poll released Tuesday. The Fox News poll shows Gibbons, an investment banker, leading the field with 22 percent support among GOP primary voters. Mandel, a former state treasurer, trails just behind with 20 percent, a difference that falls within the survey's margin of error. "Hillbilly Elegy" author JD Vance is in third with 11 percent, followed by former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken at 9 percent and...

TRAPPIST-1 Webb Space Telescope During its first operating cycle, the James Webb Space Telescope will set its sights on the TRAPPIST-1 system, an incredible collection of seven rocky exoplanets 41 light years away from Earth. Astrobiologists like Dr. Giada Arney from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center are excited about this system because TRAPPIST-1 is a perfect laboratory for studying habitability! It consists of seven rocky planets, distributed across the system’s habitable zone, or the area around a star where it is not too hot and not too cold for liquid water to exist on the surface of surrounding planets....

Tuesday on FNC’s “Jesse Watters Primetime,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) argued the Biden administration should have taken a more hawkish approach to deal with Russia in the lead up to its invasion of Ukraine. Graham told host Jesse Watters he was underwhelmed by President Joe Biden, who he said made former U.K. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who took a dovish approach in dealing with Adolf Hitler’s advance on Europe, look like his successor, former U.K. Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who led the British along with Allies to victory in World War II.

NASCAR's David Gilliland Racing (DGR) suffered an unspeakable tragedy on Tuesday when the driver of one of its team transport trucks was killed in a highway accident. Steven Stotts was driving team hauler to Phoenix Raceway

You paying more (and more) at the pump just means Biden gets one step closer to his anti-oil agenda. Don’t think he isn’t happy about it.Gas prices in the United States hit a new all-time high under President Joe Biden’s watch on Tuesday, clocking in at an average of $4.17 per gallon, surpassing the previous record of $4.11 set in 2008.A friend told me he recently saw prices jump 50 cents from the time he drove to work to the time he drove home. A gas station in Florida I stopped at last month had two “I did that” stickers...

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the largest population movements in Europe since World War II. As the Ukrainian army is fortifying the cities, many city dwellers have fled to the countryside, where they have discovered a rural population determined to resist for the long term. “It's much easier to survive outside the cities. I feel safer in this isolated place, I don't see why the military would waste time and ammunition to come here," Anna Martsinkiv, a sociologist who lives in a small house outside Obukhiv, about 40 kilometres south of Kyiv. The Russian invasion reminded...

Germany has emerged as the main barrier to tougher sanctions against Russia, threatening to spark a rift in western efforts to punish the Kremlin.Europe’s largest economy is the main power resisting attempts to add Sberbank to a list of Russian financial institutions cut off from the Swift payments system, Bloomberg reports.Sberbank, which is Russia’s largest lender, was left off the initial list as part of a decision to protect energy-related transactions, but calls are now mounting for the EU to tighten its sanctions.It’s not Germany’s only area of resistance, either. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has publicly opposed sanctions targeting Russia’s...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed sending money back to taxpayers to offset record-high gas prices but rejected calls to increase oil drilling, saying he wants to free the state “once and for all from the grasp of petro-dictators.” Newsom’s proposal would likely come in the form of a tax rebate. Dee Dee Myers, Newsom’s senior adviser, told reporters the rebate would likely total in the billions of dollars and be limited to people who have a car. People who are living in the country illegally would also be eligible for the rebate, which could occur as...

...When combined with military exercises and Russian officials’ public statements, this evolving doctrine seems to indicate that Russia has potentially placed a greater reliance on nuclear weapons and may threaten to use them during regional conflicts. This doctrine has led some U.S. analysts to conclude that Russia has adopted an “escalate to de-escalate” strategy, where it might threaten to use nuclear weapons if it were losing a conflict with a NATO member, in an effort to convince the United States and its NATO allies to withdraw from the conflict. Russian officials, along with some scholars and observers in the United...

The orchestra had an all-Tchaikovsky concert scheduled for next week, but has decided to change the programme having deemed it to be 'inappropriate' at this time The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra has removed Tchaikovsky from its programme of its upcoming concert ‘in light of the recent Russian invasion’.Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was due to be included in the orchestra’s upcoming all-Tchaikovsky concert at St David’s Hall on 18 March, but it was considered by the orchestra ‘to be inappropriate at this time’.The orchestra will instead present a programme centred around Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8, with John Williams‘s The Cowboys Overture opening the...

The Moscow stock exchange will stay shut Wednesday, Russia's central bank said, bringing the closure well into the second week. The central bank also halted sales of foreign currency, as tough sanctions threaten to crush Russia's economy. The Russian ruble is trading at less than 1 cent, and the country's stocks are seen as "uninvestable". Moscow's stock exchange remained shuttered Wednesday, extending its closure well into a second week, as escalating sanctions against Russia threatened to hobble the country's economy. Russia's central bank has opened trading on its currency market, even as it separately stopped the sale of foreign currencies....

BRUSSELS (AP) — Europe faces a tough choice: Is it worth a recession to choke off oil and gas money to Russia while it fights a war in Ukraine? The 27-member European Union faces far more economic pain from the war and resulting sanctions than the U.S. — true above all when it comes to the oil and gas that powers vehicles and keeps the heat and lights on. While the U.S. and British bans on Russian oil increase the pressure on Europe to follow suit, the continent’s dependence on Russia for energy makes an immediate embargo much more difficult....

Ukraine’s closed Chernobyl nuclear power plant has been disconnected from the nation’s power grid by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state-owned grid operator Ukrenergo said Wednesday, potentially jeopardizing the cooling of nuclear material still stored at the site. “Because of military actions of Russian occupiers the nuclear power plant in Chornobyl was fully disconnected from the power grid. The nuclear station has no power supply,” Ukrenergo said in a statement on its official Telegram page, using Ukraine’s spelling for the plant. Electricity is needed for cooling, ventilation and fire extinguishing systems at the closed site. In a statement on its Facebook page,...

During remarks at the White House Tuesday, President Joe Biden claimed his domestic climate agenda is not contributing to an increase in oil and gas prices for American consumers. "It’s simply not true that my administration or policies are holding back domestic energy production. That’s simply not true," Bide said. "In the United States, 90 percent of onshore oil production takes place on land that isn’t owned by the federal government. And of the remaining 10 percent that occurs on federal land, the oil and gas industry has millions of acres leased. They have 9,000 permits to drill now. They...

Lada cars have been a symbol of Russia’s self-reliance since they began rolling off assembly lines during the depths of the Cold War. On Wednesday, Lada’s factory floors ground to a halt as Western sanctions deprived its parent company of the parts and supplies it needs to make cars, according to people familiar with the matter. Thousands of workers have been placed on leave. ... Today, the Togliatti plant employs some 32,500 people. The plant makes a number of Lada models, including the XRAY, the Largus and the Granta. It also makes vehicles for the Renault brand.

The New York Times said vaccinations, booster shots and masks have not caused a major difference in case rates between parts of the country with different levels of COVID-19 precautions in a Wednesday morning newsletter. The article compared COVID-19 case rates for Democratic and Republican areas, noting that Democrats were more likely to wear masks, get vaccinated and boosted, avoid public spaces and shut down in-person schools over virus fears. “These factors seem as if they should have caused large differences in case rates. They have not. And that they haven’t offers some clarity about the relative effectiveness of different...

Last week's failed cloture vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act (or, more fittingly, the “Abortion on Demand Until Birth Act”) provided an important glimpse into the worldviews of America’s two major political parties. It also elicited some revealing comments from Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), an original co-sponsor of the bill. Although his staff told me they did not have an official reason for why Warnock missed the vote, the senator himself wanted to ensure everyone knew where he stood. Hours before the vote, Warnock tweeted, “I’ve always been a pro-choice pastor, and I believe a doctor’s office is too...