Free Republic

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fled the country on Wednesday, hours before he was due to step down after a people’s uprising over a devastating economic crisis ended his family’s grip on the island nation.Later in the day, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared a state of emergency and a curfew with immediate effect as several hundred people demanding his resignation surrounded his office in Colombo. Police officers fired several rounds of tear gas and a military helicopter briefly circled overhead, but the protesters appeared undeterred.

Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time Matthew 11:25–27 Friends, in today’s Gospel, we see Jesus praying to his Father. We are being given a share in the inner life of God, the conversation between the first two Trinitarian persons. And what are the “things” that have been concealed from the learned and revealed to the little ones? Nothing other than the mystery of the inner life of God. Now why, precisely, is this knowledge concealed from the learned and disclosed to children? The clue is in the next statement:What is the essence of the divine life? It is a play of...

Former President Donald Trump continued his attacks against billionaire Elon Musk from his platform Truth Social on Tuesday, saying he’d be “worthless” without government subsidies. Recalling the billionaire’s visit to the White House during his presidency, Trump said that Musk wanted government subsidies for many of his projects that offered big promises without delivering many rewards. Trump said: When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless,...

NEW YORK (AP) — Soaring demand for the monkeypox vaccine caused the appointment system to crash in New York City, one of many places where supplies have been running out almost as soon as they arrive. City health officials acknowledged the frustration over the limited supply of the vaccine and vowed to build a “stable appointment infrastructure” as the vaccine supply increases. Infections now exceed 1,000 from the growing outbreak in the U.S. “After COVID, this should have been easy,” said Daniel Ross, 25, a Harlem man who was one of the many who sought to make an appointment Tuesday....

Senator Josh Hawley is “transphobic” and made gender dysphoric individuals vulnerable to abuse because he asked if men could get pregnant, according to one professor. Professor Khiara Bridges, who teaches law at the University of California Berkeley, made the accusation on Tuesday during a Senate hearing about abortion. “You’ve referred to ‘people with a capacity for pregnancy,’ would that be women?” the Missouri Republican asked. “Many women, cis women, have the capacity for pregnancy, many cis women do not have the capacity for pregnancy,” Professor Bridges said on Tuesday. “Cis” refers to “cisgender,” which means people “whose gender identity corresponds...

An Oregon Court of Appeals ruling earlier this year found the state’s initial award of $135,000 in damages against Sweet Cakes By Melissa showed signs of bias. The state of Oregon has drastically reduced financial penalties it assigned a Gresham baker who refused to bake a wedding cake for a lesbian couple nearly a decade ago. In compliance with a state appeals court ruling earlier this year, State Labor Commissioner Val Hoyle announced Tuesday that the Bureau of Labor and Industries is ordering Aaron Klein to pay $30,000 damages in the case, down from a $135,000 penalty handed out in...

"And entering into the sepulchre, they saw a young man sitting on the right side, clothed in a long white garment; and they were affrighted. And he saith unto them, Be not affrighted: Ye seek Jesus of Nazareth, which was crucified: he is risen; he is not here: behold the place where they laid him." "And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the...

Police said an 82-year-old man who was repeatedly punched and kicked in an unprovoked attack at a Portland bus stop late last month has died, Oregon Live reported. What are the details? Donald Pierce died Thursday of blunt force trauma after he and 88-year-old Edward Lichtenstein were knocked to the ground and beaten near Southwest 5th Avenue and Hall Street around 8:30 p.m. June 25, the outlet said. Portland police officers were responding to an unrelated call in the area when they saw the attack and arrested 29-year-old Keffer White, Oregon Live said. Witness statements and video of the incident...

Despite Tuesday's New York Times headline suggesting that half of Republican voters do not want former President Donald Trump to be the party's presidential nominee in 2024, two new GOP primary polls show Trump with a commanding lead over Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.Trump was a near majority favorite in the Times poll released Tuesday, earning 49% support among GOP voters, which was 24 points better than DeSantis (25%). Tuesday's Politico/Morning Consult Poll gave Trump a majority at 52%, which was 31 points better than his closest challenger, DeSantis (21%).Other polls are even more heavily in the former president's favor. The...

Let’s get ready to stumble! Bank of America is predicting 4 straight quarters of negative real GDP growth. 2022 is shaping up for a bad year.

Service says there was a "physical encounter", agent briefly detained and questioned by police; woman claims she told him he was drunk and behaving badly, prompting alleged assault A member of the US Secret Service was sent home earlier this week after he was detained by police over an altercation with a woman at a Jerusalem leisure venue. The woman told police that US Secret Service Counter Assault Team member assaulted her when she told him he was drunk and behaving inapppropriately outside a bar in the Mahane Yehuds Market, according to Hebrew media reports. The agent was out drinking...

Noticed that your flights are frequently canceled or delayed? You can thank government mandates and Obama-era training policies.More than 1,400 U.S. flights were canceled and over 17,000 were delayed over the July 4th holiday weekend, according to the flight-tracking website FlightAware. And in recent years, airlines including American, Delta, and United have ended or cut back service to large numbers of small and midsize cities across the country. We are facing a massive pilot shortage and air travel is only going to get worse and it’s thanks to these three coalescing events: regulatory changes by Obama when he was president,...

Using Covid as an excuse for more restrictions, the CCP and its lackeys in Hong Kong are hoping to further assimilate the city into the top-to-bottom-run system used in China.In a bid to further cripple the freedom of their citizens, Hong Kong government officials are ramping up their response to Covid with a series of new draconian policy measures.On Monday, the city’s Health Secretary Lo Chung-mau announced several new restrictions allegedly aimed at curbing the spread of the virus, including a mandate that requires positive Covid patients quarantined at home to “wear an electronic tracking bracelet.” Used earlier during the...

Special counsel John Durham requested a federal court to issue 30 subpoenas for testimony in the trial against Igor Danchenko, British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s alleged main source for his discredited dossier. Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI, which Durham says he made about the information he provided to Steele for the dossier. His trial is scheduled for October. The DOJ’s watchdog said FBI interviews with Danchenko “raised significant questions about the reliability of the Steele election reporting” and concluded Danchenko “contradicted the allegations of a ‘well-developed conspiracy’ in” Steele’s dossier. He has pleaded...

By Nov. 15, the world’s population is projected to reach 8 billion, and by 2023, India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country, according to a new report from the United Nations.The international agency listed these projections among several key highlights in its annual World Population Prospect report, released to mark World Population Day Monday.“This year’s World Population Day falls during a milestone year, when we anticipate the birth of the Earth’s eight billionth inhabitant,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said, reacting to the report’s findings.“This is an occasion to celebrate our diversity, recognize our common humanity,...

North Korea on Wednesday recognised two Russian-backed breakaway "people's republics" in eastern Ukraine as independent states, a separatist leader and a Russian state news agency said. The move makes North Korea only the third country after Russia and Syria to recognise the two breakaway entities, the Donetsk (DPR) and Luhansk People's Republics (LPR), in Ukraine's Donbas region.

It turns out that the clinical trials for Pfizer's covid vaccine were fraudulent. A whistleblower filed a lawsuit pointing this out. Pfizer has asked that the lawsuit be dismissed because "the FDA was fully aware of the fraud, but made no objection. In fact, the federal government went on to buy multiple billions of dollars worth of Pfizer vaccines. These payments prove that the government was fully satisfied by our vaccine, clinical trials to the contrary notwithstanding." Robert Barnes, attorney for the whistle-blowing plaintiff, called Pfizer's argument "astounding. The vaccine in question was injected into hundreds of millions of people....

As leftist-run cities around the country deal with spiking crime that increasingly goes unpunished by so-called "progressive" prosecutors who treat suspects as victims, there are more and more stories showing how deeply flawed woke bail "reform" measures are and what the real-world impacts of them turn out to be. This week, there's another example from New York City where two men from the other side of the country were arrested with more than one million dollars worth of methamphetamine by federal agents. Over 150 Pounds of Crystal Methamphetamine is Seized in Manhattan: Two Men from Southern California ArrestedRead full press...

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland -- The U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the PGA Tour's handling of its players and whether it has engaged in anticompetitive behavior during its ongoing battle with the LIV Golf Invitational Series, a new circuit being financed by Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund. The inquiry, according to player agents who have been contacted by DOJ officials, is focused on the PGA Tour's actions regarding the Official World Golf Ranking, warnings it has issued to players who were contemplating joining LIV Golf and suspensions that have been levied against players who left by PGA...

Just 18% of Americans say President Biden should run for reelection in 2024, according to the latest Yahoo News/YouGov poll — the lowest number to date. Nearly two-thirds (64%) say he should bow out.And for the first time, more Democrats now say Biden should pass on a second term (41%) than say he should pursue one (35%).No U.S. president has declined to run for reelection since Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, and Biden has repeatedly insisted — both publicly and privately — that he will compete for a second term.But given his advanced age (he’ll turn 82 shortly after...