Free Republic

During a meeting between President Joe Biden and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Friday, the Palestinian Authority’s honor guard welcomed Biden with a poor rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. “Just the Palestinian Authority’s honor guard completely butchering the American National Anthem…” tweeted Kassy Dillon, the U.S. Bureau News Editor for Jewish News Syndicate. Just the Palestinian Authority's honor guard completely butchering the American National Anthem… pic.twitter.com/dfcJjMj8Ff— Kassy Dillon (@KassyDillon) July 15, 2022 The brutal performance elicited mockery and criticism on Twitter, with some even suggesting that the Palestinian orchestra played poorly on purpose. Christopher Bedford, senior editor at The...

Donald A. Pierce, 82, was one of two victims in an unprovoked attack at a Portland bus stop Keffer James White, 29, approached Pierce and attacked him, kicking him repeatedly in the head Pierce sustained serious head and face trauma and died in the hospital over a week after the attack Crime has risen dramatically in Portland recently, with an increase in shootings and homicides

The Motown singer and prolific songwriter — who once fronted Smokey Robinson and the Miracles — is still going strong despite a recent bout with COVID-19 in 2020. “I was very sick — I was in the hospital for 11 days with it — but I came through,” Robinson said down the line from his L.A. home. The Detroit-born songwriter behind such classics as Shop Around — Motown’s first million-selling hit record — You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me, I Second That Emotion, The Tears of a Clown and The Tracks of My Tears, says the key to staying...

In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for political upheaval, as President Biden has found over the past few months. Polls continue to show his approval rating in poor shape, and even Democrats are asking questions about his political future amid broad dissatisfaction with the current state of the country. In fact, Biden is dancing with a bleak bit of history: His approval rating of 39 percent1 is now the worst of any elected president at this point...

A Rochester Police officer is on desk duty following an altercation with an EMT at a hospital’s emergency department, according to published reports. The incident happened Monday at Strong Memorial Hospital when the police officer’s car was hit by the EMT while unloading a patient in the ambulance bay. The officer wanted to get the EMTs identification, but the EMT wanted to bring the patient inside the hospital first. While the EMT was at the check-in desk, she was handcuffed and forcefully taken outside to a police car. The EMT was later released from custody. She was not charged or...

Explanation: On July 13 this well-planned telephoto view recorded a Full Moon rising over Lubovna Castle in eastern Slovakia. The photographer was about 3 kilometers from the castle walls and about 357,000 kilometers from this Full Moon near perigee, the closest point in its elliptical orbit. Known to some as supermoons, full moons near perigee are a little brighter and larger in planet Earth's sky when compared to full moons that occur near the average lunar distance of around 384,000 kilometers. Of course any Full Moon near the horizon can show the effects of refraction over a long sight-line through...

Ricky Martin's alleged domestic violence accuser is one of his own family members ... and now the pop star's reportedly staring down the possibility of a half-century behind bars. A new report Friday from Spanish news website Marca identifies Ricky's accuser as his 21-year-old nephew, Dennis Yadiel Sanchez, which would introduce incest into the case in Puerto Rico. The singer's brother, Eric Martin, reportedly identified the alleged victim ... and Ricky is going to court July 21. Under Puerto Rican law, there are harsher penalties for certain sexual crimes when the alleged victim is related to the accused, but it...

According to Fox News, one reporter said Jean-Pierre can act “uniformed” at times and ill-prepared to discuss the issues of the day. “If your M.O. is going to be reading prepared answers, you should have a lot of prepared answers so that you're not just deferring to reporters constantly,” the reporter said. Another said Jean-Pierre doesn’t take the time to answer reporter’s questions throughly, frequently admitting that she just doesn’t have an answer for them. “She is poorly received as she isn’t taking time to answer questions or banter with reporters on the issues of the day… a press secretary...

“Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, ‘I am willing; be cleansed.’ And immediately his leprosy was cleansed” (Matthew 8:3). The Mosaic law forbade the Jews from touching lepers, because they were unclean (Lev. 5:3) and would expose healthy people to ceremonial and physical contamination. But lepers, in their social ostracism, yearned for even a brief, up-close contact with another person besides a fellow leper. Jesus could have healed this man with just a single word, but He made a point of touching him. This action was truly amazing—not in a spectacular, sensational manner, but simply because the...

In the gospel of Luke, we read the story of a Pharisee named Simon who invited Jesus to his house to have a meal. I’m not sure why any Pharisee would invite Jesus for dinner, let alone bring in other strict religious men to eat with him. A likely reason for the invitation was that Simon and his friends wanted to determine whether Jesus was a prophet or, really, to discount him as one. The passage makes clear that Simon knew of Jesus’ reputation as a prophet (see Luke 7:39). Scripture doesn’t tell us what this group discussed around that...

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ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A plan by Florida health officials that likely would restrict Medicaid insurance coverage for gender dysphoria treatments for transgender people lacks sound medical justification and may be politically motivated, according to a group of academics from Yale University and other schools. The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration said puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex reassignment surgery have not been proven safe or effective in treating gender dysphoria. But a group of seven scientists and a law professor from Yale and other schools said in a report last week that the Florida’s agency’s conclusions are “incorrect...

Los Angeles County reached a “high” level of COVID-19 infections on Thursday, according to public health officials, meaning a mask mandate could be imposed in two weeks as the highly transmissible Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 make waves across the country. The health department bases its decision on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s three-tier criteria of community high, medium or low levels of COVID-19 rates. L.A. County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer expressed concern to reporters Thursday about the new infections, saying “we have a ton of transmission right now,” and stressed her position on masking up.

LIMA, Peru (AP) — A dispute over a gender-neutral bathroom has endangered Peru’s plan to host the next gathering of the Organization of American States’ top decision-making body. The OAS had requested at least one gender-neutral bathroom be available and Peru did permit bathrooms open to people of any sex during the 2018 Summit of the Americas in Lima. But Congressman Ernesto Bustamante of the conservative Popular Front party — who heads the Foreign Relations Commission — said allowing a gender-neutral bathroom would inevitably “introduce the existence of trans bathrooms and neutral bathrooms and common bathrooms in Peru’s internal law.”...

In one traffic stop, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Otay Mesa LPOE in San Diego County confiscated enough fentanyl to kill more than 23 million people. Otay Mesa is the busiest commercial port in California. In FY21, CBP agents processed 5 million vehicles, 1 million trucks, and 2.1 million pedestrians. On July 3, they confiscated more than 100 pounds of fentanyl hidden in food products smuggled in by two men entering California from Mexico. They confiscated 42.46 pounds of powder and 59.08 pounds of pills, with an estimated street value of more than $1.2 million. Roughly two...

A popular female DJ in Houston, Texas plummeted to her death in the early hours of July 4. Her girlfriend claims she watched her climb onto a chair on the 13th floor balcony and accidentally fall over the railing. Darian Lewis, 23, also known as DJ D Baby, died more than a week after being hospitalized from the devastating fall. 'There’s no way I could have pushed her over, she was only able to get over because she climbed onto the furniture. I would have literally had to pick her up & throw her over which is absolutely absurd! WE...

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah this week asked a state court to throw out a lawsuit challenging its ban on transgender kids who want to compete in youth sports, as the culture war flashpoint moves from statehouses to courtrooms throughout the country. In the Utah case, three transgender girls and their parents claim the outright ban passed by the Republican-majority Legislature this year wrongly keeps their children from participating in the sports. Their attorneys argue it violates provisions of the state constitution that prohibit discrimination and guarantee equal rights and due process. Utah’s attorneys in a motion Wednesday argued...

Former British finance minister Rishi Sunak won the most votes in the second round of voting to succeed Boris Johnson as leader of the Conservative Party and prime minister, as one candidate was eliminated.

Eating chocolate is typically discouraged by nutritionists, as it is can be high in calories, fat and sugar. Cocoa, however, chocolate's primary ingredient derived from the seed of the cacao plant, has been found to have numerous qualities that could be beneficial for both the body and mind. Most notably, pure cocoa is highly nutritious and is a powerful source of antioxidants, substances that can prevent or slow down cell damage caused by free radicals. Free radicals are unstable and highly reactive molecules produced by the body when responding to environmental stresses, which are associated with aging and disease. In...

Alaska police are investigating allegations of a woman who said she avoided a traffic citation after presenting officers with a “White Privilege” card during a traffic stop. Mimi Israelah was driving to a pizzeria in Anchorage after flying in from California for a Trump rally on Saturday when she was pulled over by police, according to a now-deleted Facebook post. However, when officers asked for her license, she said she couldn’t find it — instead offering a card that read “White Privilege Card Trumps Everything.” “When I saw my White Privilege card, I gave to him if it’s ok,” she...