Free Republic

With diesel prices remaining elevated — forcing significant costs onto shippers and trucking companies — the impact of fuel costs on inflation could put a dent in consumer spending, according to experts.Diesel pump prices averaged $5.61 a gallon nationwide, 51% higher than diesel prices across the country in JanuaryEconomist Anirban Basu said the elevated price of diesel fuel damages the near-term U.S. economic outlook and “renders the chance of recession in 2023 much greater.” “These high diesel prices mean that despite the Federal Reserve’s early stage efforts to curb inflationary pressures, for now, inflationary pressures will run rampant through the...

President Biden warned Wednesday that “hurricanes are coming” as he received a briefing ahead of the Atlantic storm season — just a day after he pulled a Federal Emergency Management Agency nominee who Republicans claimed was “pro-hurricane.” “We know hurricanes are coming our way. They grow more extreme every season thus far,” Biden said.

The alleged Buffalo supermarket shooter shared his rambling plans for his deadly racist attack a half-hour before he gunned down 10 people on Saturday, a new report said. Payton Gendron, 18, invited people to a private chat on the Discord app that revealed his white supremacist views and outlined how he’d scouted the Tops Friendly Markets in a crazed plan to kill as many black people as possible, CNN reported.

*** Open-use drug havens such as San Francisco’s Tenderloin and L.A.'s skid row have become notorious and contentious, but those places have nothing on East Hastings, part of a neighborhood called Downtown Eastside. In every direction, there were needles in arms and butane lighters melting chunks of fentanyl, heroin and meth — the stench of burning chemicals was unavoidable. For many residents and business owners in Vancouver’s historic Chinatown, only a block away, East Hastings means theft, garbage, graffiti and a near-constant blare of sirens. I came to Vancouver to see what can be learned as we debate safe consumption...

Video LinkChris Salcedo of NewsMax TV lists the direct destroyers of our country and their aiders and abettors. Some of us have seen this coming for at least two to three decades. Some people for longer than that.

Americans are more interested in Johnny Depp’s defamation trial against Amber Heard than abortion, despite the establishment media’s hysteria and hyping the recent leaked Supreme Court draft opinion overruling Roe v. Wade. News about the defamation trial between Depp and Heard has amassed more total social media interactions (likes, comments, and shares) than the country’s biggest news stories, such as the the leaked Supreme Court draft opinion, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and inflation, according to data from NewsWhip.

CNN)US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday criticized the Trump administration's tariffs on China and voiced support for lifting some of the levies, in part to ease very high inflation pressuring the US economy. "Some of the tariffs that were imposed by President Trump in retaliation for China's unfair trade practices, some of them, to me, seem as though they imposed more harm on consumers and businesses," Yellen said during a press conference in Germany ahead of a G7 summit with finance ministers.

House members led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., introduced a resolution Monday calling for U.S. recognition of the "Nakba," a term meaning "catastrophe" that is typically used by Palestinians to refer to the establishment of the state of Israel. The resolution was submitted a week and a half after Israeli Independence Day, which coincides with Palestinian commemoration of Nakba Day. It calls for the U.S. to "commemorate the Nakba through official recognition and remembrance," while claiming that this "refers not only to a historical event but to an ongoing process of Israel's expropriation of Palestinian land and its dispossession of...

Attorney General Merrick Garland will meet with NAACP President Derrick Johnson on Friday to discuss the danger of white supremacy and how it is being fed online. The meeting comes after a gunman killed 10 people and wounded three at a supermarket in Buffalo, N.Y., in a predominantly Black neighborhood. The suspect arrested in the killings shared plans of his attack online before the shootings and made it clear he hoped others would follow him.

President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act on Wednesday evening to boost baby formula production and issued a directive for planes to bring in supplies from overseas, after growing pressure from Congress. In addition to invoking the Cold War-era law to compel suppliers to direct resources to infant formula manufacturers before any other customer, Biden announced 'Operation Fly Formula,' which will direct Defense Department and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Health and Human Services (HHS) resources to getting planes loaded with formula that meets FDA safety standards from other countries to bring it to American parents. The Defense Department...

MSNBC host Al Sharpton said Wednesday “Deadline” that activists must push for Democrats to act in light of the mass shooting in Buffalo, NY. Anchor Nicolle Wallace said, “Do you still have hope that the questions that people are asking in November can be questioned where it is obvious that the Democratic Party is the only one for saving our democracy, for protecting the rights? Do you still think the questions can be reframed ahead of the midterms?”

A Congressional hearing on abortion access grew heated on Wednesday when Republican Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana demanded a gynecologist give her stance on performing the procedure when an infant is 'halfway out of the birth canal.' The doctor shot back that she could not even 'fathom' such a scenario, adding as a comparison: 'Just like you probably can't imagine what you would do if your daughter was raped.' The House Judiciary Committee is hearing from a panel of experts including Dr. Yashica Robinson, a board-certified OB-GYN and a board member with Physicians for Reproductive Health, as tensions mount over...

A Maryland woman returned home from vacation to find two strangers in her bed and more than $49,000 in possessions stolen.(snip) When the woman and her friend left for vacation on March 28, the apartment had been "fully furnished." Upon their return, they found the whole house in disorder. "The living room was completely empty except for black trash bags filled with items, trash on the walls, the kitchen was completely empty and the cabinet doors were missing, the second bedroom was completely empty, the closets were completely empty and the bedroom was empty except for the bed the suspects...

Pope Francis: ‘God is not afraid of our prayer of protest’Pope Francis urged Catholics on Wednesday to feel free to protest spontaneously to God when faced with suffering and injustice.Reflecting on the Book of Job in his general audience address in St. Peter’s Square on May 18, the pope said that “God is not afraid of our prayer of protest.”“Sometimes I meet people who approach me and say: ‘But, Father, I protested against God because I have this and that problem…’ But, you know, friend, that protesting is a way to pray when it is done like that,” he said.“When...

A former Disney intern has been arrested after threatening to blow up Cinderella Castle in Walt Disney World with a bomb. On May 16, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers (CBP) arrested Canadian resident 22-year-old Matthew Carney at the Ogdensburg Port of Entry, which connects Canada and New York. According to Fox 35, Carney was part of a Disney internship program when he made the threat back in July 2019. The Miami Herald reported that the incident began when he walked through a metal detector at Magic Kingdom without setting it off and told the security guards, “it's ok if...

The Voyager 1 probe is still exploring interstellar space 45 years after launching, but it has encountered an issue that mystifies the spacecraft's team on Earth. Voyager 1 continues to operate well, despite its advanced age and 14.5 billion-mile distance (23.3 billion kilometers) from Earth. And it can receive and execute commands sent from NASA, as well as gather and send back science data. But the readouts from the attitude articulation and control system, which control the spacecraft's orientation in space, don't match up with what Voyager is actually doing. The attitude articulation and control system, or AACS, ensures that...

Francis Urges ‘Visible Unity’ With AnglicansFormer queen's chaplain: Rhetoric of 'ecumenical flattery' won't workVATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) - Pope Francis has reiterated his call for union with Anglicans, despite irreconcilable differences between the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion on women's ordination and same-sex marriage. Pope Francis meets members of ARCIC on Friday The pontiff told members of the Anglican–Roman Catholic International Commission on Friday that "visible unity between us" was the goal Jesus "desires and indicates to us," and such unity "is a unity to be welcomed with humility" and "as a grace of the Spirit." "Ecumenical dialogue is a...

“Whatever we did to make the Chinese angry, we have to stop doing it, because it’s hurting us.” That was an argument that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) heard from an executive at an airplane maker recently after China stopped buying their planes and switched to Europe. The company blamed the switch on U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods. American companies’ dependence on the Chinese market is one leverage that the communist regime uses to pressure the U.S. administration to adopt policies friendly toward Beijing, according to Rubio. Beijing’s goal, he said, is to pursue its military ambitions, be it the takeover...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday invoked the Defense Production Act to speed production of infant formula and authorized flights to import supply from overseas, as he faces mounting political pressure over a domestic shortage caused by the safety-related closure of the country's largest formula manufacturing plan. The Defense Production Act order requires suppliers of formula manufacturers to fulfill those orders before other customers. Biden is also authorizing the Defense Department to use commercial aircraft to fly overseas formula supplies that meet federal standards to the U.S., in what the White House is calling “Operation Fly Formula.” Supplies...

Valerie Biden Owens, younger sister to President Biden, told reporters Wednesday that her brother is "absolutely" going to run for re-election in 2024. In an interview with "Good Morning Britain," Biden Owens praised her brother's performance. She went on to claim the president was a perfect fit for the situation the U.S. currently finds itself in. "Joe is the right person at the right time for the right job," Biden Owens said. "There's lot of things still to do." Pressed by her interviewer on whether she believed Biden would be running for re-election in 2024 despite his low approval ratings...