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Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stormed off and headed home early after being snubbed by other diplomats at the G20 summit — who refused to take a group photo with him over his nation’s invasion of Ukraine. Foreign ministers who gathered in Bali, Indonesia, this week, did not pose for a traditional “family”-style group photo, after several of them reportedly refused to be pictured with Vladimir Putin’s chief envoy. The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken led the photo-op boycott.

Abortion is front and center in American news these days. As Americans figure out what the recent Supreme Court ruling against Roe v. Wade means for abortion access for women in each state, we mourn for the hundreds of millions of women in China who the Chinese Communist Party forced to have abortions against their will and the girl babies in China who have been killed just for being female.The Chinese Communist Party’s draconian one-child policy, which lasted until 2016, had unexpected consequences. Since male offspring are more valued in China than female, women who found out they were having...

GRAND FORKS — Grand Forks police and the FBI on Thursday visited the home of Jodi Carlson, a leading opponent of a new corn mill to be owned by the China-based Fufeng Group, following up on a social media post quoting the Declaration of Independence that mentioned the overthrow of the government. The authorities ultimately found no cause for concern, a police report states. The incident has provoked an angry response from opponents of the corn mill project, many of whom are part of the “Concerned Citizens of Fufeng Project in Grand Forks” group where the activity took place. “This...

Taiwan’s military repelled several Chinese fighter jets that crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait that separates the island from the mainland.The incursion comes amid a visit by U.S. Senator Rick Scott (R-Fla.) to Taiwan, which the Chinese communist regime condemned.Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense said that its air force “forcefully expelled” the intruders and deployed ground-to-air missiles while monitoring the situation.The ministry also said that the Chinese aircraft acted deliberately and provocatively, in a manner that “has seriously damaged regional peace and stability.”The median line, also known as the Davis Line, is the midpoint in the Taiwan Strait that...

A court in Moscow has sentenced an opposition councillor to seven years in jail for criticising Russia’s military actions in Ukraine, the first prison sentence handed out under the new laws that restrict criticism of the war. Alexei Gorinov, a deputy at Moscow’s Krasnoselsky district council and trained lawyer, was arrested in April on charges of spreading “knowingly false information” about the Russian army. According to the authorities, Gorinov committed the offence when he and a fellow opposition deputy, Elena Kotenochkina, spoke out against the council’s proposal to hold a children’s drawing contest and a dancing festival despite the war...

Ever wonder why there seems to be a limitless supply of Antifa terrorists in Portland, Ore., year after year, riot after riot, conflagration after conflagration? Why there’s no shortage of purple-haired screamers willing to toss Molotov cocktails, tag buildings with old-timey revolutionary slogans, set GOP headquarters on fire, firebomb pregnancy clinics, punch people they don’t like, loot stores, and point lasers into the eyes of police officers? Wonder no more. The Antifa summer camp for kids is back this summer for the first time since their fellow travelers in communist China unleashed the COVID-19 virus on the world. Once again,...

Joe Biden wants and needs to satisfy his rabid, ravenous base of pro-abortion fanatics by expanding access to the procedure and allowing more women to kill their unborn babies. Unfortunately for him, there’s a little thing called the Constitution of the United States that’s standing in his way. Try explaining that to the faces contorted with rage marching in the streets demanding Biden do something about abortion. The entire radical left of the Democratic Party has become unhinged. They have suggested all kinds of ludicrous alternatives, like building abortion clinics on federal lands or allowing a “carveout” for the filibuster...

FOURTEENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MATTHEW 10:16–23 Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus assures us that the Holy Spirit will help us when we face persecution. Speaking to his disciples the night before he dies, Jesus says that he and his Father will send another Parakletos (Advocate). That word, stemming from kaleo (to call) and para (for, or on behalf of), designates something like a lawyer, someone who would plead on behalf of another, who would support, advocate, encourage. Jesus is saying that while he will depart physically from the scene, he and his Father will send the Spirit as...

Western policy elites that claim not to have seen this war coming -- after the Biden administration treated Ukraine as a de facto member of NATO during all of 2021, and after Russia had been saying for nearly a decade that it would not tolerate Ukraine as a US military bulwark on its border -- are just plain fools. If they really were this blind, they were unqualified for their jobs.Before the war started, as late as December of 2021, the Russians very probably would have settled the Ukraine problem by a declaration of permanent Ukrainian neutrality (i.e., no NATO...

Good Friday Fellow Freepers. What follows is a copy of an email I just received today from the local civilian personnel office at the military installation I work at. As you can see, the crux of the email deals with the continued stay on the federal Covid mandates. I thought you all would want to see this. Have a great weekend everyone! -------------------------------------------------- From: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Sent: Tuesday, July 5, 2022 3:29 PM To: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Cc: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Subject: CPS Transmittal: XXX/XXX Msg#2022-0056 -- Status of COVID-19 Vaccination Mandate Injunction for Civilian Employees Colleagues: Please disseminate to HR Professionals, Supervisors and Employees....

The work is being conducted by scientists from the Animal Welfare Epidemiology Lab at the University of California Davis. Last fall, the team recruited volunteers who owned exactly two cats to look at cat videos on the internet, as part of a project to study how well owners could read feline body language

July 8, 2022 The country is making enormous investments in defense and will soon become one of Europe’s pre-eminent land powers.As the war in Ukraine – now in its fifth month – becomes a grinding battle of attrition, a new geostrategic realignment along NATO’s Eastern Flank is in full view: a fault line has emerged, running north-south, from Scandinavia and the Baltics down through Poland and into Romania and Bulgaria.In this reconfigured Europe, Poland is the hub of NATO’s effort to assist Ukraine, serving as the principal transit route for equipment and ammunition shipments to Ukraine, and providing a...

The sky over Sioux Falls, South Dakota turned green just before severe weather slammed the area earlier this week.

NPR deleted a tweet on Friday calling Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was assassinated on Friday, “a divisive arch-conservative.” “Former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, a divisive arch-conservative and one of his nation’s most powerful and one of his nation’s most powerful and influential figures, has died after being shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan, hospital officials said,” tweeted NPR. NPR reprinted the Associated Press report on Abe’s death, the first paragraph of which read the same as the tweet.

Lovers of hummus and falafel beware: data shows that global supplies of chickpeas, the main ingredient for both dishes, may dip up to 20% this year. A combination of Russia’s war in Ukraine, poor weather and transportation issues is leading to the shortage, which is predicted to increase prices and make cheap hummus harder to come by, Reuters reported on Thursday. Farmers in the United States, the fourth-largest chickpea exporter in the world, planted less of the protein-packed legume this year due to less than ideal weather conditions in the spring.

HUGE BREAKING NEWS! The Wisconsin Supreme Court today ruled that absentee drop boxes are illegal in the state. The court ruled 4-3 that the drop boxes can only be placed INSIDE election offices. This is horrible news for Democrats. The recent documentary “2000 Mules” revealed how Democrats used the ballot drop boxes in severarl states in an organized national ballot trafficking scam. The movie revealed that hundreds of thousands of votes were stolen in 2020 using the ballot drop boxes.

VIDEOThis video will make you want to take the cell phone that "Bloomberg Surveillance" host Tom Keene was playing with during a crucial part of an interview and smack him over the head with it. The interview was with Heather Boushey, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers that works out of the White House, and when she begins talking about the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Keene was paying attention to the cell phone. Whether he was doing that on purpose or because he is too lazy to PAY ATTENTION is an open question but what is important is that...

Much of the world awoke Friday to news that former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe had been assassinated by a deranged suspect with a homemade shotgun. Instead of eulogizing Abe and expressing condolences to the Japanese people, CBS Mornings decided it would join the Associated Press and National Public Radio (NPR) in smearing Abe as “a polarizing figure,” “right-wing nationalist, and conservative” whose “political opinions were controversial.”

A Florida inmate who was hailed a hero for rescuing Hillsborough County deputies from being murdered by other inmates on two separate occasions is getting out of jail and into a treatment program.

Amid the rise of solar, wind, and other non-fossil energy sources, far too many lawmakers and regulators were eager to toss aside fossil fuel-based energy. Upon the first signs of scalability on the part of renewables, they not only pursued policies that subsidized and incentivized renewables' growth, they also rushed to make traditional energy sources less economical through countless restrictive policies and heavy-handed regulation. The result converted the energy sector into a sort of artificial market – one that encouraged and rewarded renewable energy while actively discouraging and even punishing fossil-based energy through a maze of tax credits on one...