Free Republic

PONCHATOULA- It's one of the most egregious cases victims' advocates tell the WBRZ Investigative Unit they have ever seen, after a judge awarded full custody to a woman's abuser and forced her to pay child support. This story dates back decades and involves a woman who was raped at the age of 16 by a man almost twice her age.

@JMPSimor Breaking: European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg grants rule 39 request to stop the flight to Rwanda from leaving. Basis: real risk of inhuman and degrading treatment (Art. 3 ECHR). Please share - government must comply.

Emmanuel Macron has been accused of betraying Ukraine after figures showed that French imports of Russian gas rose during the invasion of Ukraine. Figures show France received €900m worth of Kremlin gas while bombs rained down on Ukraine in the past two months.

The Navy has issued letters of censure to three Marine and two Navy officers in connection with the sinking of an amphibious assault vehicle off the Southern California coast in 2020 that killed eight Marines and a sailor. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro, in a statement Monday, faulted the officers for "inadequate leadership and execution of their oversight duties." Censure letters are put in service members' personnel files and are often career-ending for military officers, usually preventing them from further promotion or other progress. A Marine Corps investigation found that inadequate training, shabby maintenance and poor judgment by leaders led...

Flying economy for any extended period of time is an experience usually endured rather than enjoyed, but one airplane seat designer reckons his design could revolutionize budget travel. Alejandro Núñez Vicente's Chaise Longue Airplane Seat concept started small scale last year, as a college project for the then 21-year-old. A nomination in the 2021 Crystal Cabin Awards -- a top prize in the aviation industry -- swiftly followed, and the design became the focus of a flurry of online attention following a CNN Travel article. Since then, Núñez Vicente's been making waves in the world of aviation. He's paused his...

The global headquarters of Caterpillar Inc. will no longer be in Illinois. Wednesday, company officials announced the headquarters will move from its current location in Deerfield, IL, to the company’s existing office in Irving, TX.

New York’s highest court has ruled that Happy the elephant is not a “person” as it tossed a lawsuit seeking to free the animal from the Bronx Zoo. The 5-2 decision likely marks the end of the line for an animal rights group that since at least 2018 has been seeking to spring the 50-year-old Asian pachyderm through habeas corpus – a legal principal used for challenging wrongful imprisonment. But the state Court of Appeals on Monday rejected that argument, finding habeas corpus “has no applicability to Happy, a nonhuman animal who is not a ‘person’ subjected to illegal detention.”...

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) made an announcement on Tuesday morning that has many of the Democratic Party faithful concerned about the prospects of the partisan January 6 committee’s proceedings. Watch: “Congresswoman, I understand there is a bit of a change in the schedule pertaining to tomorrow’s hearing,” Mika Brzezinski said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’ “Do you know anything about when it will be and what’s going on?” “I think we’re just firming up,” Lofgren claimed. “There’s no a big deal, but I’ll tell you the putting together the video and exhibits is an exhausting exercise for our very small, you...

The Otero County Commission in Otero County, New Mexico, just announced that they will be withholding the recent primary election results in the county. Attorney David Clements released a video last night noting the significance of yesterday’s actions in Otero County, New Mexico. "So, what is the basis for withholding certification? One of the things that we advised last week, um, leading up to the vote where we’re going to get rid of Dominion in Otero County, that we’re going to get rid of the Zuckerberg drop boxes, was, uh, quite simple. That under New Mexico law, under our election...

After a few heady conversations with Google’s new chatbot, LaMDA, an eccentric “AI ethicist” just hit the big time as the latest Google whistleblower. Basking in the spotlight of a major Washington Post exposé, Blake Lemoine claims this chatbot exhibits the first stirrings of consciousness. Contrary to Luddite paranoia, Lemoine isn’t warning that a vicious superintelligence is about to go rogue and wipe out humanity. Quite the opposite. He’s imploring humanity to be more sensitive to his poor computer’s feelings—which is even worse. “LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for...

Statistics Norway wants to receive several million daily receipts from food stores, signalling a new era in state data collection. Privacy advocates and the supermarkets themselves are unhappy. People living in Norway are used to big government. But the latest news coming out of Oslo is a surprising new step down the road of data collection that not everyone is happy with. Statistics Norway (SSB) is the state-owned entity responsible for collecting, producing and communicating statistics related to the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. Because everything about an individual living in Norway is linked to...

An “economic hurricane” is coming. That ominous warning comes from Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase. “I said there were storm clouds. But I’m going to change it. It’s a hurricane. Right now it’s kind of sunny, things are doing fine, and everyone thinks the Fed can handle it. That hurricane is right out there down the road coming our way. We don’t know if it’s a minor one or Superstorm Sandy. You better brace yourself.” Of course, he isn’t the only CEO feeling this way. The most recent CEO Confidence Index suggests that most leaders are concerned about...

The largest newspaper chain in the US has told its editors to modify their op ed publication policy. CEO Mike Reed cited reader complaints for the policy shift, saying “our effort to fit in with the unity theme of the Biden Administration has not set well among our readers. They don’t want our papers to tell them how to think. They suggest that we hire writers who are not left-wing activists.” “The big problem is that the number of subscribers is declining,” Reed continued. “While 80% of our readers who are Democrats express trust and confidence, only 35% of our...

In the first quarter of 2022, the number of Russians living below the poverty line increased by 69%. This follows from the publication of Rosstat. According to Rosstat estimates, in the first quarter of 2022, the population with incomes below the poverty line was 20.9 million people. At the same time, at the end of 2021, the department reported 12.4 million Russians below the poverty line. Thus, over the three months of 2022, the number of poor people in Russia increased by 8.5 million, or 68.5%. In the first quarter of 2022, Rosstat proceeded from the bar of 12,916 rubles...

Long before they called Ron DeSantis “America’s Governor,” New Jersey’s Chris Christie cut a singular figure of his own. Christie, currently out of elected office, has not ruled out a run in 2024, a play that could put him on a collision course with DeSantis if both men run. Christie already derailed one Floridian’s presidential hopes, with a bruising takedown of Sen. Marco Rubio during the Primary debates of 2016. On the edition of the Ruthless Podcast released Tuesday, Christie suggested devising a strategy for dispatching DeSantis may be a bit tougher than handling Rubio was. “It’s going to take...

Women protesters looking for attention - secret service remove her from middle of road - she whopps the agent with her megaphone. The rest is sheer entertainment! Glad she was shown the pavement! https://twitter.com/HaileyBWinslow

The use of red flag laws when it comes to firearms has been brought back to the forefront of the national conversation in the aftermath of the mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas. Both shooters had histories of law enforcement being known to them for disturbing or criminal acts, though the Buffalo shooter was able to avoid New York red flag laws. Criticisms of such laws is that it is ripe for abuse since due process goes to the wayside and language of laws can often be too broad. PolitiFact attempted to debunk gun owners concerns about...

Some 80 pro-abortion protesters descended on Washington on June 13 to block streets and make known their opposition to the court’s looming decision on Roe v. Wade. “Whose courts? Our courts!” some of the protesters chanted, as they held a sign saying “Our Home Is On Fire.” “We are not your incubator. [expletive] the court and the legislature,” another chant went. Metropolitan Police Department officers and U.S. Capitol Police officers were standing on Monday outside the Supreme Court, which is situated near the U.S. Capitol, and walls were erected around the building in May. Protesters blocked several streets outside the...

'We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas' Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi on Sunday warned that overwhelming force would be used in Lebanon during the next potential war with Hezbollah. Speaking at the first National Conference on the Home Front, Kochavi detailed the IDF's strategy for responding to an attack from the radical Shiite terrorist group. "We will deal very big strikes in the war, but we will warn the residents and allow them to leave the areas. I say to...

A detailed list of the destroyed and captured vehicles and equipment of both sides can be seen below. This list is constantly updated as additional footage becomes available