Free Republic

...Maria Vyushkova uses open-source information to track how many Russian soldiers from the Siberian republic of Buryatia have been killed in the invasion of Ukraine. An ethnic Buryat born in Russia and member of the anti-war Free Buryatia Foundation, Vyushkova analyzes social media posts, official statements and media reports about funerals to estimate the number of Buryat deaths in Ukraine. “At the moment, activists have gathered information about 1,700 killed Russian soldiers of which 48 or 49 are Buryat. That is 2.8%. In comparison, Buryats only make up 0.3% of the Russian population,” said Vyushkova. The disproportionately high death toll...

Russia has unleashed heavy artillery barrages against multiple Ukrainian positions in the south and east of the country, amid conflicting claims over whether Russian forces were attempting to storm the last Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steelworks in Mariupol. (snip) While it is difficult to assess accurate casualty numbers, senior western officials who have briefed journalists recently suggested that Russian losses may have declined somewhat since the heavy casualties incurred during the failed campaign to take Kyiv. There are also suggestions that Ukrainian losses may be mounting under intense Russian artillery bombardments that have marked Moscow’s conduct of the latest...

People around the country gathered in protest of a recently leaked draft opinion from the US Supreme Court, which would overturn the federal precedent for abortion access. The opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, detailed the conservative majority view that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. The overturning of Roe would undo a half-century of guaranteed access to safe abortions in the US, and millions of people across the country could lose access to abortion care overnight. At this time, the ruling is not official, and nothing has changed for abortion rights. The final ruling from the court is expected later...

Russian armed forces arrested Canadian General Trevor Kadier in Mariupol on the night of 2-3 May 2022. He is currently in Moscow awaiting to stand trial.

The Catholic Church teaches that abortion is wrong in all circumstances and that life begins at conception. Activists such as Ruth Sent Me are now suggesting that the Catholics who sit on the Supreme Court bench are using their religious beliefs to roll back the ruling which has made abortion a constitutional right in the U.S. for nearly 50 years. Brian Burch, president of the Catholic advocacy organization Catholic Vote, urged President Joe Biden, who is Catholic, to "immediately and forcibly condemn these domestic terrorist threats" ahead of Sunday's protests. "Anti-Catholic zealots are plotting to intimidate and harass Catholics across...

Putin is facing a collapse in army morale, after Russian soldiers turning their guns on their Chechen comrades. Russian officers are alleged to have gone on strike and are refusing to carry out orders in protest at their conditions and the war. Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov is a close ally of the Russian despot and has been a strong supporter of Putin's war in Ukraine. He has sent his militias, known as the "Kadyrovtsy", to help bolster Russian forces in their invasion. Kadyrovites have a fearsome reputation and, in the past, have faced repeated allegations of abusing human rights. Part...

Trump painted McCormick as a “liberal Wall Street Republican” during Friday night’s rally and mentioned that the businessman “fought hard” for his endorsement. (snip) Trump then attacked McCormick for his comments about Trump’s involvement in the January 6 Capitol riots, in which he said Trump “has some responsibility, a lot of responsibility.” “David came out very strongly against me on numerous occasions. This was before he was going to run all of a sudden, he said, ‘Boy, I like this guy a lot.’ Including with respect to the disinformation spread about January 6, total disinformation,” Trump said. Trump added McCormick...

Police released video of a shooting in Prince George's County where a young boy and a teenager were shot. The shooting happened around 6:20 p.m. in the City of District Heights. The video shows a a dark van and a second dark vehicle stopping in the street near a group that is hanging out. Several people from those cars then fired shots at the group before driving off. A young boy and a teen were injured in the shooting, and a dog was killed. The minors are expected to survive. “Opening fire on a group of children and teens with...

The judge in the case of attorney Michael Sussmann will review a batch of Clinton campaign emails and other documents to determine whether they were improperly concealed from the court. Judge Christopher Cooper’s ruling is a victory for special counsel John Durham, who has pushed to introduce the documents as evidence in his case against Sussmann, who is charged with lying to the FBI in 2016 about his motivations for presenting the bureau with later debunked evidence of the Trump Organization communicating with Russia’s Alfa Bank. Hillary for America, the law firm Perkins Coi, and others involved in the allegations...

A family listened in shock as a pathologist revealed his belief that a 36-year-old mother-of-two died as a result of having a Pfizer Covid-19 vaccination. A post-mortem examination on the body of Dawn Wooldridge had previously proved inconclusive. But an inquest heard her unexpected death, which happened 11 days after the young mother’s first Covid jab, was probably a result of the vaccination. Ms Wooldridge was found dead in her home by her brother in June last year, after she failed to collect her five-year-old son from school. In a statement to the Berkshire coroner her husband, Ashley, said: “We...

On a fateful night in April 2019, John Paul Mac Isaac was working at his store, The Mac Shop in Wilmington, Del., when a customer walked in who would upend his life. In his forthcoming book, “American Injustice: My Battle to Expose the Truth,” Isaac will tell his story — and here, in an exclusive first look, he describes the moment he met Hunter Biden. It was a Friday night, 10 minutes before the shop’s closing time. I was checking out a website about CNC machines and woodworking. I had no intention of working late; I was ready to go...

The White House announced on Thursday that Karine Jean-Pierre, a veteran anti-Israel activist who is married to CNN correspondent Suzanne Malveaux, will replace outgoing press secretary Jen Psaki, raising potential ethical quandaries. The announcement drew celebratory headlines in the mainstream press: Jean-Pierre is the first black woman and openly gay person to serve in the role. But her relationship with the CNN reporter raises ethical questions about her new role. The White House did not respond to a request for comment about whether Jean-Pierre would recuse herself in dealing with CNN. Malveaux's colleagues include Valerie Jarrett's daughter, CNN justice correspondent...

Initial Results from the Battle of Donbas and What It Portends for the War’s Next Phase – When Russia redeployed tens of thousands of armored troops from the environs north of Kyiv and Sumy last month to the northern shoulder of the Donbas front, there was concern that the added manpower would produce an armored breakthrough of Ukraine’s lines. However, after almost three weeks of fighting, the Ukrainian troops have held the line. Russia’s failure to affect a breakthrough represents a noteworthy accomplishment for the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF). Whether that initial success can carry Ukraine to an ultimate victory...

The mother of Egor Shkrebets, a conscripted sailor who had served on the cruiser Moscow and went missing, told The Insider she and her husband were at a hospital in Rocky Bay, where the wounded from the cruiser were brought. There were about 200 injured sailors, she said. In all, according to Schkrebets' mother, there had been over 500 people on board the ship. «We looked at every burnt kid. I can't tell you how hard it was, but I couldn't find mine. There were only two hundred people, and there were more than five hundred on board the cruiser....

Elon Musk's unassuming $50,000 Texas home can be revealed for the first time by DailyMail.com – complete with a rocket-shaped kids' playhouse, Tesla solar panels and CCTV cameras hidden in palm trees. The world's richest man and new Twitter owner has sold seven Californian mansions in the past two years after vowing to offload his property portfolio and most of his possessions. He's also denied claims he secretly lives at a friend's $12million mansion in Austin – insisting: 'My primary home is literally a $50k house in Boca Chica/Starbase that I rent from SpaceX … it's kinda awesome though.' Boca...

A Mexican couple has sparked fury after holding a Nazi-style wedding honoring Adolph Hitler. Fernando and Josefina tied the knot at a church in the state of Tlaxcala - east of Mexico's capital - on April 29, the anniversary of Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun. Fernando and his three groomsmen wore replica suits of the Schutzstaffel, a paramilitary unit that served the Nazis - while Josefina wore a white gown. The themed wedding was condemned by Simon Wiesenthal Center in a statement. 'Our institution strongly condemns the distortion and trivialization of the memory of six million Jews murdered in the...

Sila Nanotechnologies, a battery startup founded in 2011 by a former Tesla engineer, announced on May 3 plans for a new plant based in the United States that will mass-produce material for low-cost next-generation batteries with a longer range and is not dependent on manufacturing in China.“In a commitment to ensure America retains global leadership in the world’s transition to the new energy storage era, Sila, a next-generation battery materials company, today announced the purchase of a facility with more than 600,000 square feet of space located in Moses Lake, WA to be used to manufacture Sila’s breakthrough lithium-ion anode...

After the 2020 election, government officials and their allies in the media repeated the mantra that the election was the “most secure in American history,” Dinesh D’Souza pointed out before the premiere of his new documentary film 2000 Mules at Mar-a-Lago, Wednesday night.But how would they know that? D’Souza wondered. Even if they couldn’t prove the election was rigged, “it still doesn’t follow that it was the most secure election in history,” he said. “The only way you could prove that would be if you were to compare the amount of fraud in 2020 with 2016, with 2012, with 2008,...

Since Twitter’s Board of Directors accepted Elon Musk’s offer to buy the social media platform, interest in employment opportunities at the tech firm has accelerated, new data shows.In the week of Apr. 24, interest in Twitter job openings on Glassdoor surged 263 percent, according to Daniel Zhao, a senior economist and data scientist at the job insights website.Zhao noted the 263 percent number is based on average daily clicks on Twitter job openings on the platform compared to all of March. Although this might not relate to job applications, the notable jump reflects curiosity about work opportunities at the business.The...

A four-member team of astronauts launched to the International Space Station by SpaceX touched back down on Earth in the Gulf of Mexico on May 6.The return via a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule came just one day after the group undocked from the space station following a six-month mission in which they conducted science experiments and did maintenance.Dragon and Crew-3 astronauts consisted of Raja Chari, a U.S. Air Force combat jet and test pilot who served as mission commander, Tom Marshburn, a medical doctor and former NASA flight surgeon, Kayla Barron, a U.S. Navy submarine officer and nuclear engineer, and...