Free Republic

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Beat” that Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter shows America needed “rules of the road for big tech.” Melber asked, “You have warned about the growing power of big tech. What do you see in Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter?”

President Biden will travel to Asia next month, looking to solidify U.S. alliances with Japan and South Korea and keep Chinese influence at bay, even as much of the world’s focus is on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Biden will visit South Korea and Japan from May 20-24, the White House announced Thursday.

Any country trying to intervene in the Ukraine war will face a "lightning-fast" response, Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned. "We have all the tools no-one can boast of... we will use them if necessary", he said, in what is seen as a reference to ballistic missiles and nuclear arms. Ukraine's allies have stepped up the supply of weapons, with the US vowing to make sure Ukraine defeats Russia. Western officials say Russia is being hampered in its efforts in the east. Last week, Russia launched a major offensive to seize the Donbas region after withdrawing from areas around the...

WASHINGTON — Hillary Clinton on Wednesday injected partisan politics to the funeral of diplomat Madeleine Albright, the nation’s first female secretary of state, saying “fascism” could dominate the United States if “dictators and demagogues” aren’t stopped — taking a clear swipe at former President Donald Trump and his allies. Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, lost to Trump in a shocking upset and her attacks generally are welcomed by Republicans who describe her as an embittered and base-rallying foe.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration is making it easier for refugees fleeing Russia’s war on Ukraine to come to the United States from Europe while trying to shut down an informal route through northern Mexico that has emerged in recent weeks. Under a program announced Thursday, the U.S. will streamline refugee applications for Ukrainians and others fleeing the fighting, but will no longer routinely grant entry to those who show up at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum.

SNIP “The MLB has a very big problem with the baseballs — they are bad,” Bassitt said after his team’s 3-0 victory over the Cardinals. “Everyone knows it. Every pitcher in the league knows it. MLB doesn’t give a damn about it. They don’t care. We have told them our problems with them, they don’t care.” Bassitt said there is too much inconsistency among the baseballs being used this season, and the problem is exacerbated in different climates. “There is no common ground with the balls,” he said. “There is nothing the same, outing to outing.”

The Mossad: The Social Media Account @TheMossadIL Tweeted:How to tweet like a Palestinian: Starter Pack Step 1: Lie

@jonathanvswan not that any of this matters -- bc 80% of Republicans have reinvented themselves as Trump diehards just to survive -- but this tweet thread reminds me of the summer of 2016.. at that time Levin was a passionate Never Trumper and Thiel was on the RNC stage endorsing Trump. @marklevinshow 1. Johnny, you're a lightweight. I have explained this on air repeatedly. Ready? Someone who I believed was a surrogate for Candidate Trump made a vile comment. I said I cannot support Trump when his guy does something like this. 2. I received a call from Trump telling...

A six-year-old Connecticut boy is hospitalized with severe burns to his face and legs after he was intentionally lit on fire by another child, who poured gasoline on a tennis ball, lit the ball on fire and threw it at the child's face. The youngster, identified as Dominick Krankall, survived the vicious attack but is suffering from severe second-and-third degree burns to his face and legs. 'My six-year-old brother could've died. The kid covered a ball in gasoline, lit it on fire and threw it at him. All in a matter of seconds,' wrote the victim's sister, Kayla Deegan, on...

Two Americans volunteering in Ukraine’s armed forces were wounded by artillery fire during combat in southeastern Ukraine on Wednesday, April 27. US Army veterans Paul Gray and Manus McCaffrey were on a mission to destroy a Russian tank near Orikhiv, a small city in the path of Russia’s ongoing military offensive in the south and east of Ukraine. The pair were waiting for a Russian tank to appear on a road when an artillery round struck nearby at roughly 2:35 p.m., Gray told Coffee or Die Magazine via text message. McCaffrey suffered serious shrapnel wounds to his face, head, shoulders,...

Dr. Anthony Fauci walked back his comment that the US was no longer in the “pandemic phase” of COVID-19 — the latest jumbled messaging from President Biden’s chief medical adviser on the coronavirus. Biden administration officials and Fauci were scrambling Wednesday to emphasize that the country is still in the midst of a pandemic and that emergency measures are still needed after Fauci told PBS the precise opposite. “Here we are. It’s the end of April. It’s the spring of 2022. How close are we to the end of the pandemic?” Judy Woodruff of “PBS NewsHour” asked Fauci Tuesday.

Paul Ryan has one big complaint about former President Donald Trump: He wasn't willing to pursue cuts to the safety net programs Ryan had championed for years. "He and I fought about Medicare and entitlement reform all the time," the former GOP House speaker said Wednesday at a book event at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. "It became clear to me there was no way he wanted to embrace that."

Pope Francis ends automatic dismissal of religious-order priests for [sexual] abuseLess than a year after he strengthened the Code of Canon Law’s section on crimes, Pope Francis has issued an apostolic constitution motu proprio (on his own initiative) that alters the wording of one of the canons.As a result of the alteration, religious-order priests who sexually abuse minors and other vulnerable persons, or who commit canonical crimes related to child pornography, will no longer be automatically dismissed from their religious institutes.In addition, religious-order priests who “force someone to perform or submit to sexual acts” will no longer be automatically dismissed...

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr shot down calls from left-wing activists for the government agency to block African-American tech philanthropist Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, and criticized the “hard left” for believing “the free exchange of ideas is incompatible with the outcomes that they want to see at the ballot box.” “Yesterday, the Open Markets Institute issued a release that called for the FCC, FTC, and DOJ to block Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter,” the FCC said in a statement released on Wednesday.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., announced on Wednesday that she has tested positive for COVID-19, but is experiencing no symptoms. Waters said that she is not experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and is currently isolating.

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — In 1994, Kyle Hedquist led a teenager down a remote logging road, then shot her in the back of the head because he feared she might tell police about burglaries he’d committed. This month, Oregon. Gov. Kate Brown granted clemency to Hedquist, who was serving a life sentence without parole after being convicted of murdering Nikki Thrasher when he was 17. Brown’s act is unleashing a storm of criticism from prosecutors and law enforcement. “The executive clemency granted by Gov. Brown in this case is shocking and irresponsible,” Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said Tuesday in...

Disney-Marvels’ The Avengers star Mark Ruffalo is threatening City National Bank with a Hollywood boycott if its parent company doesn’t cave to pressure from environmental activists over the Coastal GasLink pipeline in Canada. In an op-ed for Rolling Stone magazine, Mark Ruffalo demanded that the bank’s parent company, the Royal Bank of Canada, immediately divest from the Coastal GasLink “or Hollywood and many others will just divest from them.” Los Angeles-based City National Bank is known as the “Bank to the Stars” for its celebrity clientele and deep financial ties to the entertainment industry.

@CharlesPHerring OAN EXCLUSIVE: Sen Rand Paul Tells OAN in a sit-down interview, "I think what is important for people to understand is, there is NO JUSTIFICATION for Putin invading another country – for the war in Ukraine. But there is an EXPLANATION.” Hear the full interview exclusively on OAN.

The family of a woman killed in a West Los Angeles crash involving a speeding Lamborghini last year will receive at least $18.85 million after a wrongful death settlement was reached with the then 17-year-old driver, the family’s attorney announced Wednesday. The law firm representing the family called the agreement one of the largest settlements in California history for a single plaintiff in a wrongful death case. Monique Muñoz, 32, was killed on Feb. 17, 2021, when she was heading home from her job at UCLA Health. She was heading west on Olympic Boulevard and was waiting to turn left...

In a statement quietly posted April 21, Disney informed investors that despite the recent law abolishing its special tax district by 2023, the state of Florida can’t actually do that unless it also covers all outstanding debts associated with the district. Subsequently, the company told investors it intends to conduct business as usual for the time being. In the statement, first reported by WESH in Florida, officials for the Reedy Creek Improvement District — the official name of the tax district in which Disney operates its Florida theme parks and also functions as the local government — assured investors that...