Free Republic

Construction machinery company Caterpillar announced it would relocate its headquarters from Illinois to Texas after 100 years to 'attract new talent.' The company announced the news on Tuesday that it would be moving to Irving sometime this year and would be relocating most of its staff. The company told Fox News that it believes most of its roughly 230 Deerfield corporate employees will move. The company - which boasts more than 100,000 employees globally - has had a presence in the Republican state since the 1960s, but Illinois remained the largest concentration of employees in the world, Fox News reported....

WNBA star Brittney Griner has already been detained in Russia for 118 days. A timeline for her return home, according to a report from the Russian news agency TASS, has gotten longer. TASS reported Tuesday that a Russian court extended Griner's pretrial detention, forcing her to remain in custody until at least July 2. The Khimki district court of the Moscow region has already extended Griner's pretrial detention twice. Russia's TASS news agency reported reported that American basketball player Brittney Griner's pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended to July 2 at the request of investigators https://t.co/99NGuFIWZ5

#FoodShortage 🚨 (10,000 cattle die in a Kansas ranch. They’re blaming a “Heat Wave” (Climate Change). They all die due to WATER POISING. They are creating a Food Crisis in #USA)

Ruth Ben-Ghiat spends a lot of time thinking about authoritarianism. An historian at New York University, she is an expert on the rise of fascism in Italy and, most recently, author of the the book, "Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present," tracing the erosion of democracy from Russia to the United States of America. She is keenly focused on what happens when those in power lose their grip on it. "The authoritarian playbook has no chapter on failure," Ben-Ghiat wrote in a November 2020 piece for The Washington Post. "Nothing prepares the ruler to see his propaganda ignored and his charismatic...

Thanks for the ping Red Badger. Logic gates are the fundamental building blocks of computers, and researchers at the University of Rochester have now developed the fastest ones ever created. By zapping graphene and gold with laser pulses, the new logic gates are a million times faster than those in existing computers, demonstrating the viability of “lightwave electronics.” Logic gates take two inputs, compare them, and then output a signal based on the result. They can, for example, output a 1 if both incoming signals are a 1 or a 0, or if either or neither of them is a...

[Catholic Caucus] "Synodal" Pope Changes Canon Law to Prevent Bishops from Establishing New Traditional Priestly or Religious Communities in Their Dioceses Again: motus in fine velocior.According to a document released today (June 15) in the Bolletino, Pope Francis in an audience on February 7 with Braz de Aviz and José Rodríguez Carballo, O.F.M., the Cardinal Prefect and Secretary Archbishop of the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, approved a provision that effectively changes Canon Law concerning the diocesan bishop's right to erect a Public Association of the Faithful that wishes eventually to become an...

The White House is scrambling to help solve a massive surge in gas prices that increasingly is seen as a weight that could leave Democrats suffering a rout in this fall’s midterm elections. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm is expected to convene an emergency meeting in the coming days. Meanwhile on Wednesday, President Biden’s economics team gathered alongside outside advisers to discuss various options. More meetings are expected again on Thursday.

There's trash in the deepest ocean depths, at some 35,700 feet beneath the surface. There's also trash on Mars. While looking for hints of past microbial Martian life, NASA's Perseverance rover recently spotted landing debris caught in a jagged rock. It's thermal material the space agency used to protect the Perseverance spacecraft from extreme temperatures as it journeyed to Mars and plummeted through the Martian atmosphere. "My team has spotted something unexpected: It’s a piece of a thermal blanket that they think may have come from my descent stage, the rocket-powered jet pack that set me down on landing day...

MSNBC political analyst Cornell Belcher said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Deadline” that if Republicans win majorities in the 2022 midterms, we would “lose democracy.” Belcher said, “Whether or not Trump endorses these Republicans or, you know, he’s backing them is moot because they all propagate the big lie. The big lie now is larger than Trump. It’s bigger than Trump. The big lie right now really is about fear. It’s about being replaced. It’s about the other. It’s about losing power, and so record, regardless of whether they are backing or being endorsed by Trump or not, across the board, you...

WORLD—The world is in disbelief today upon hearing the news that Dr. Fauci, also known as the living embodiment of SCIENCE itself, has come down with COVID. "How could this happen? What if SCIENCE dies? We'll be lost! LOST WITHOUT SCIENCE!" cried Brian Stelter on CNN. "What does this mean? Is Fauci—blessings upon him—merely a human? I don't know what's true anymore!" Brian then curled up on the couch to have a good cry and watch A Christmas Kiss 2 on the Hallmark Channel. Thousands of devoted followers of SCIENCE have gathered around the Fauci residence to call upon the...

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered Otero County commissioners to certify primary election results by the end of this week, raising the stakes of a dispute over election integrity issues that has generated national attention. The ruling by the state’s highest court came one day after Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver fired a petition, arguing the county commission’s refusal to approve the June 7 election results violates state election law and could nullify votes. The three-member Otero County Commission, in its role as a county canvassing board, voted unanimously Monday against certifying the primary...

Australia cannot survive if Australia forgets the lessons of WW2. How American help was indispensable in fighting off the Japanese. And how we had to work with peoples conquered by Japan. To paraphrase Walt Whitman: "We are large. We contain multitudes."

Subpoenas went out Wednesday to local election officials and a former Republican Party chair in a rural Georgia county, with attorneys seeking to find out how a covert team of 2020 election conspiracy theorists were able to improperly access and copy a voting system server last year. The eight subpoenas, issued by attorneys representing voting rights activists in an ongoing lawsuit, were greenlit by U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg. She expressed “great concern” last week about the unauthorized access of a voting system server following an investigation by The Daily Beast that revealed details about who was involved in this...

President Joe Biden signed an executive order Wednesday aimed at combating a historic number of anti-LGBTQ bills introduced in state legislatures across the country. The order will direct federal health and education agencies to expand access to gender affirming care and advance LGBTQ-inclusive learning environments at American schools.

Day 110. Today, we discuss the latest updates from across Ukraine and Europe, look at how much money Russia has made from selling fossil fuels this year and discuss the history behind the policy of Russification in the occupied regions of southern Ukraine.

President Joe Biden marked the tenth anniversary of the DACA work permit giveaway by touting the migrants’ role in the U.S. economy, even as Americans’ wage gains fall below the inflation rate. “These young people contribute to our community in ways that are both big and small,” Biden said in a White House video about the foreign population in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, adding:

World Health Organization experts are debating whether the rare virus's global spread should be considered a public health emergency. MASSACHUSETTS — Tuesday afternoon the Massachusetts Department of Public Health confirmed a fourth case of monkeypox in the state. The particular patient is an adult male who is in isolation, health officials said. Testing was initially completed last Monday at the State Public Health Laboratory in Jamaica Plain and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be handling the remainder of the testing. On Sunday, health officials confirmed two more cases of monkeypox in Massachusetts, as more than 50 have...

The mother of a 14-year-old boy is imploring Modesto City Schools to help after her son made threats to bring an AK-47 assault rifle to school and shoot fellow classmates. “I am literally begging you to help keep the school safe, help keep our community safe and help my son get well,” she said during a Modesto City Schools meeting last week. “I am telling you, I’m a psychiatric nurse, this isn’t something to play around with … he’s a ticking time bomb.” The mother said she believes the best way to ensure the public’s safety is for the district...

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, has tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday and is experiencing mild symptoms. The 81-year-old Fauci is fully vaccinated and has received two boosters. “Today, Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and Chief Medical Advisor to President Biden, tested positive for COVID-19 on a rapid antigen test. He is fully vaccinated and has been boosted twice.” the NIH said in a statement. “He is currently...

Authorities in Saudi Arabia have been seizing rainbow-colored toys and children's clothing, which they claim encourage homosexuality, state TV says. An Al-Ekhbariya report showed commerce ministry officials removing a range of items from shops in the capital Riyadh. They included hair clips, pop-its, t-shirts, hats and pencil cases. One official said the items "contradict the Islamic faith and public morals, and promote homosexual colors targeting the younger generation."...