Free Republic

With Russia now officially cut off from both the USDollar and the euro, Russia's VTB Bank is seeing a surge in Chinese Yuan deposits, attracted by the bank offering significantly higher interest rates as Putin shifts focus to 'friendly' nations.The state-owned bank is offering a Chinese yuan savings account with a maximum interest rate of 8%, hailing the currency as "one of the most affordable and promising options for investing funds" after the country was hit by Western sanctions.Putting that in context, the three-month deposit rate is 8% in dollars and 7% in euros, while the six-month rate for ruble...

With war raging across the world's bread basket, risk of World War 3 the highest it has been since the Cuban missile crisis, commodities hitting new all time highs every single day, inflation (even the watered down CPI version) set to hit 10% in a few months, and the Fed rushing to hike rates so high it slams the US into a pre-scripted recession (as it somehow hopes to make a "soft landing" even as fed funds futures signal a hard landing and at least 50 bps of rate cuts after the burst of hiking is over later this year),...

Two weeks after the Russia-Ukraine crisis began, the world is quickly moving toward a food crisis that could affect millions of people. A spillover of the crisis could soon spark agricultural mayhem in the US. The curtailment of agricultural exports from Russia and Ukraine will have dramatic knock-on effects on global food supplies. Both countries are known as the 'breadbasket of the world' and are responsible for a quarter of the international wheat trade, about a fifth of corn, and 12% of all calories traded globally. Another major problem is access to fertilizers, as Russia has banned exports of the...

Alcohol Detection Sensors Could Be The Next Big Controversial Safety Feature Required In Every New Car. The government is working on laws that would require new cars to be equipped with breath or touch sensors that can detect when a driver is impaired by alcohol. In order to make roadways safer, the technology would render a car undrivable if a blood alcohol level of more than .08 % is detected. The development is already started. In 2019, more than 10,000 people died in collisions involving an alcohol-impaired driver, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to...

“I used to be a patriotic, angry youth,” a Chinese student said from Kyiv, Ukraine. “I would fight immediately if anybody dared to say bad words about the Beijing authorities. Now, I will never believe in our regime. Never, never, never.”Mei Qinghe (a pseudonym) told the Chinese-language Epoch Times on March 10 that she fully trusted the Chinese regime and the Chinese Embassy in Ukraine before the Russia–Ukraine war broke out. Now, she has seen how the regime is lying to the Chinese people, while its embassy in Kyiv is cheating Chinese students, including her.Mei said the only reason she...

<p>Russian and Ukrainian negotiators said on March 13 that there has been progress in talks to potentially end the more than two-week-long conflict between the two countries, with results coming in days.</p><p>The Kyiv government is continuing to demand to “end of the war and the withdrawal of [Russian] troops,” according to Podolyak, who noted that there’s “understanding” and “a dialogue” with Russia.</p>

New data suggests that two doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine don’t provide very much protection from infection for children 5 to 15 years old against the Omicron variant of the CCP virus, according to new data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) journal Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.The CDC analyzed data from the Pediatric Research Observing Trends and Exposures in COVID-19 Timelines (PROTECT) study, which involved 1,364 children ages 5 to 15 from Arizona, Texas, Florida, and Utah. Weekly nasal swabs and surveys were submitted from July 2021 through last month, whether the children had...

“In the mouth of the foolish is a rod of pride: but the lips of the wise shall preserve them. Where no oxen are, the crib is clean: but much increase is by the strength of the ox” (Proverbs 14:3-4).

On “The Rubin Report” Thursday, BlazeTV host Dave Rubin reacted to "Star Wars" actor Mark Hamill's ridiculous post on Twitter after the Florida senate passed HB 1557, the Parental Rights in Education Bill. Democrats renamed the bill to the “Don't Say Gay” bill to mislead people, particularly those who don't bother to inform themselves before responding on social media, into thinking that the bill says something it doesn’t. Predictably, woefully woke lefties like Hamill fell right into their trap.

A bit of news on this Sunday evening: Mitt Romney is doing Mitt Romney things again.The “severely conservative” senator from Utah decided to take to social media and trash Tulsi Gabbard. But he didn’t just disagree with her viewpoint. Rather, he actually accused her of treason.(related Mitt Romney Decides to Cosplay as Liz Cheney)Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) March 13, 2022Given the timing of Romney’s outburst, it can only be in relation to one Gabbard comment because she’s only posted one thing in the last two days. Here’s...

When vladimir putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine, he dreamed of restoring the glory of the Russian empire. He has ended up restoring the terror of Josef Stalin. That is not only because he has unleashed the most violent act of unprovoked aggression in Europe since 1939, but also because, as a result, he is turning himself into a dictator at home—a 21st-century Stalin, resorting as never before to lies, violence and paranoia. To understand the scale of Mr Putin’s lies, consider how the war was planned. Russia’s president thought Ukraine would rapidly collapse, so he did not prepare his...

TO THEIR champions, cryptocurrencies are supposed to be a libertarian utopia. Because tokens are created and moved by loose, decentralised networks of individual computers based in dozens of countries, they are in theory free from control by intermediaries, such as banks, which can be regulated by governments. Critics of crypto-finance have long looked askance at the same system. To statists, it represents the tyranny of techno-anarchy. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the West’s subsequent sanctions on Russian banks, companies and elites have intensified this debate. Warnings from politicians and regulators in America and Europe suggest fears are high that people...

Nelly Korda, the No. 2 ranked golfer in the Rolex Women’s Rankings, announced on Sunday that she has been diagnosed with a blood clot and is recuperating at home in Florida. Korda, 23, released a statement on Instagram outlining her condition. ... Korda said she was in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., on Friday for a photo shoot and commerical appearance. After working out in the morning, she noticed swelling in her arm. At the advice of her doctor, she went to the emergency room, where the diagnosis was made. The LPGA Tour has played the last two weeks in Asia,...

When Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine on February 24th, it caused a lot of problems for voices on the right and the left. Putin has a lot of fans in both corners, and these fans had spent years portraying him as a tactical genius, bamboozling us all with his four-dimensional chess moves. Right up until February 23rd, these Putin stans had been assuring us that Putin would never do something as dumb as launch a full-scale invasion of a sovereign democracy. Ever since then, the right have been able to change gears on Putin fairly seamlessly. This is WAR, and...

To help fend off another wave of Covid-19, people will need a fourth dose of vaccine, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CBS on Sunday. "Many variants are coming, and Omicron was the first one that was able to evade -- in a skillful way -- the immune protection that we're giving," Bourla told CBS' "Face the Nation." "The protection we are getting from the third (dose) it is good enough -- actually quite good for hospitalizations and deaths," Bourla said. Here's what could lie ahead for the third year of the pandemic But protection after three doses is "not that...

A couple who stayed at a Pennsylvania Target overnight for their YouTube channel is now facing up to seven years in prison for the prank. Police said the YouTube couple, 24-year-old Charlotte Fischer, and 25-year-old Johnson Larose — dubbed "Saucy and Honey"— were arrested and charged with conspiracy and third-degree criminal trespassing they did not take any merchandise from the store

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A federal judge has again ruled against a northern Virginia school system that he found guilty of discriminating against Asian American students when it overhauled its admissions policies at a highly selective high school. For decades, Black and Hispanic students have been woefully underrepresented in the student body. In the wake of criticism over a lack of diversity, the school board scrapped a standardized test that had been at the heart of the admissions process. A parents' group sued in federal court, arguing that Asian Americans, who constituted more than 70% of the student body at TJ,...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Approximately two dozen Portland Public Schools students rallied outside the district's headquarters Friday morning over its decision to make masks optional once the statewide mandate is lifted this weekend. Students protest Protest over mask mandate in Portland "I think that honestly telling people to take off their masks is really selfish to people who don't have that option," Franklin High School student Serafina Sabatini said. Starting Saturday, March 12, masking will no longer be required in indoor public places, including schools, in Oregon. This means masking will be optional in schools beginning Monday, March 14. Sabatini is...

A nuclear war would be disastrous for the earth’s climate, according to a recent piece in the Atlantic that drew harsh criticism for its focus on the harms posed to the environment by a potential nuclear exchange. The essay, titled “On Top of Everything Else, Nuclear War Would Be a Climate Problem,” was penned by Atlantic staff writer Robinson Meyer. He warned of imposing a “no-fly zone” over Ukraine, claiming it would lead to an open war between the U.S. and Russia, with a likely chance of a nuclear exchange that would ultimately prove disastrous for the climate. “And it...