Free Republic

The pain in the mortgage market is only getting worse as higher interest rates and inflation hammer American consumers. Mortgage demand fell more than 6% last week compared with the previous week, hitting the lowest level since 2000, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s seasonally adjusted index. Applications for a mortgage to purchase a home dropped 7% for the week and were 19% lower than the same week in 2021. Buyers have been contending with high prices all year, but with rates almost double what they were in January, they’ve lost considerable purchasing power.

(Bloomberg) -- Carnival Corp. is leading peers lower on Thursday after pricing one of the year’s largest equity sales at a steeper discount than usual. The world’s largest cruise line fell 13% after the sale priced 102 million of shares at $9.95 each overnight, according to a statement. The deal raised about $1 billion that Carnival says it might use to address 2023 debt maturities. The offering price reflects slightly more than a 10% discount to Wednesday’s close, the steepest awarded across at least five Carnival stock offerings conducted since the start of the pandemic. “This equity raise will cause...

I have always admired the tag corruptio optima pessima: the corruption of the best is the worst. Take the Ivy League. These super-rich, super-prestigious institutions are so wealthy and so beguiling because, once upon a time, they represented and — more to the point — successfully transmitted to their students the prime civilizational values of our culture. We’re told, and I have no reason to disbelieve it, that the light we see from distant stars is very old and, in some cases, is light from stars that were long ago extinguished. It is same with the Ivy League and their...

A Clay County parent’s dispute with his school board has gotten national attention after he had his microphone turned off while attempting to read a passage out of a book from the Fleming Island High School library, which he considered “pornographic.” Bruce Friedman is part of a national group called No Left Turn, which keeps a list of books parents have objected to across the country. He found at least three examples in Clay County Schools he wanted pulled from library shelves, including one book at the Fleming Island High School library, “Lucky” by Alice Sebold. The book’s description on...

The New York Times Opinion actually published a shocking project where eight of their columnists admitted they were wrong about either economics, tech, foreign affairs or politics. At the top of the list was none other than “transitory” inflation gaslighter Paul Krugman. The Times’s economic columnist published an op-ed with a headline that didn’t beat around the bush – for a change – and acknowledged how bad his unrealistic takes on the inflation crisis were for the past year. “I Was Wrong About Inflation,” says the headline. The disgruntled economist actually conceded that Biden’s irresponsible $1.9 trillion stimulus package was...

Those familiar with the most recent farmer protests in the Netherlands are saying that the Dutch government’s climate nitrogen-reduction policies targeting farmers, actually have a nefarious goal. Dutch farmers see it as an effort to seize their land and experts say these climate policies are a part of a global agenda to control the means of food production, that if allowed to play out will end in a global food crisis. Michael Yon, a journalist who has covered numerous major events and who is currently in the Netherlands covering the farmer protests, told The Epoch Times that the Dutch government...

… Monkeypox cases are climbing in San Francisco, prompting state and local leaders to ask for more vaccines to meet the growing demand from residents who want shots but are being turned away at clinics. California has reported 356 cases since July 19, more than a third in San Francisco. In total, California has the second highest number of known cases in any state, after New York, the CDC said. State Sen. Scott Wiener, along with 10 other lawmakers, advocated for the gay community in a letter on Wednesday addressed to Gov. Gavin Newsom. “Gay and bisexual men, transgender people...

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would both beat the two favorites for the GOP nomination in 2024—Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis—in either hypothetical matchup, according to a new poll. An Echelon Insights survey found that if the next election were being held today, voters would narrowly back Biden (46 percent) over Trump (44 percent), with the president also the preferred choice when up against the Florida governor (45 percent to 41 percent). When those taking part in the poll said who they would vote for between Harris and the two Republican frontrunners, the vice president also came out on top....

Before the SLS program was officially started, the five-segment SRB concept was proven out with three development motor (DM) firings in 2009, 2010, and 2011. Those previous firings flight-qualified the five-segment SRB. Now, the Flight Support Booster (FDB) tests examine overall process quality, changes, and modifications... FSB-2 will test a newly qualified motor ignition system along with qualifying a new ablative nozzle lining. A new thrust vector control (TVC) system will also be tested, as part of early testing related to the Booster Obsolescence and Life Extension (BOLE) boosters...planned to fly from Artemis IX onwards. There are enough Shuttle-era SRB...

A senior US military scientist working on advanced propulsion technologies allegedly tricked a contractor into hiring an unqualified sex worker — who then went on to service other scientists at the Air Force base. Dr. James Gord, a highly decorated civilian Air Force employee who died last September due to unspecified causes, had allegedly paid the 32-year-old sex worker $400 an hour for her services using a government charge card, according to a recently unsealed search warrant application obtained by the Daily Beast. According to federal investigators, Gord convinced Sukesh Roy, chief executive of Spectral Energies, a contractor based at...

It may sound unthinkable, but one mom said reporting her son to the police felt necessary after she found signs her son was planning a killing spree and attack on his school and home. Nichole Schubert, who first told The Wall Street Journal about her story, said she was cleaning her home in 2019 when she found her son's journal with plans that outlined how he would kill her at home first and then attack his Washington high school, where he was a 17-year-old senior at the time. "It was very descriptive," Schubert recalled in an interview with "Good Morning...

By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time... This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable, says study lead author Philipp Dumitrescu. The...

The mother of the 18-year-old gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde apologized when confronted Tuesday by relatives of one of the victims A tense confrontation between the mother of the Uvalde school shooter and relatives of one of the children he killed was caught on camera Tuesday. A Telemundo news crew captured the emotionally charged encounter between Adriana Martinez, the mother of the 18-year-old shooter, and relatives of Uvalde victim Amerie Jo Garza, the network reported. Reporter Edgar Munoz said in an Instagram post that the meeting was accidental and happened after...

The GLASS-z13 galaxy imaged by JWST. (NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI/AFP) Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday. Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years earlier than anything previously identified, Rohan Naidu of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics told AFP. "We're potentially looking at the most distant starlight that anyone has ever seen," he said. The more distant objects...

The United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for sustainable development informs government policies to restrict farming and transform the food systems in different parts of the world, said Alex Newman, an award-winning international journalist who has covered this issue for over a decade. The 2030 Agenda is a plan of action devised by the United Nations (U.N.) to achieve 17 sustainable development goals (SDG). The goals and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by all UN member states in 2015. Then-Secretary General of the U.N. Ban Ki-moon called the 2030 Agenda “the global declaration of interdependence,” (pdf) Newman said in...

Barberry Root Herbal Medicine The chemical berberine, which is found in the root of barberries (shown above), is believed to have health-promoting properties. The natural compound berberine, which is present in plants like goldenseal and barberry, has promise for the treatment of lung diseases. According to a recent study, the natural compound berberine, which is present in plants like goldenseal and barberry, inhibits the growth of lung cancer cells in the lab. It also lessens inflammation of the airways and reduces the damage to healthy lung cells exposed to the toxins from cigarette smoke. Around 1.8 million deaths from lung...

Nearly five months into its senseless war against Ukraine, Russia has concocted a wild new explanation for why the Kremlin’s plans for a quick takeover fell apart so spectacularly—because Ukrainian troops were turned into superhuman killing machines during “secret experiments” in American-run biolabs, of course. Never mind the myriad reports of Russian troops refusing to fight by the thousands, sabotaging their own shoddy equipment and even deliberately wounding themselves to abandon the war, Russian lawmakers claim the real setback for Moscow was “drugged up” Ukrainian soldiers. That claim was made Monday by two Russian lawmakers heading up a commission to...

The United States has established the $100 million Agriculture Resilience Initiative (AGRI) to help the Ukrainian agricultural sector amid the worsening of the global food crisis exacerbated by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The initiative takes place with the participation of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). It will be aimed at ensuring the continuous production of agricultural products in Ukraine until 2023 and solving urgent issues with its export, according to the website of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food. "Over the past four and a half months, the maximum efforts of the president of Ukraine,...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The White House held an emergency press conference after Biden's COVID diagnosis to assure the nation that whoever is actually running the country right now is still completely healthy."Yes, the President has COVID but the person running the country — Bob? I think Bob is in charge today — is in perfect health at the moment," said gay black Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. "Don't worry everyone! Bob's got everything under control!"The press room erupted into a flurry of questions wanting to know who "Bob" was, but Jean-Pierre ignored them to flip through her notebook for several minutes...

Former Trump Advisor Steve Bannon blasts Bennie Thompson and establishment after his court appearanceAfter the first day of his trial, Steve Bannon unloaded on the establishment and the crooked January 6th Committee outside of the courthouse.The former Trump advisor was charged by the January 6th Committee with contempt of Congress after claiming executive privilege and refusing to “cooperate” with them and their sham trial. Now, he faces a trial of his own as they move forward with the charges.Day one of the trial consisted of opening statements from both the prosecution and the defense, as well as the questioning of...