Free Republic

Al-Quda Brigades of Islamic Jihad confirmed on Sunday that the airstrike in the southern Gaza city of Rafah had killed Khaled Mansour, the commander, and two fellow militants.The Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group said an Israeli airstrike late on Saturday killed its top commander for the southern Gaza Strip, a day after Israel killed the Iranian-backed group’s commander for northern Gaza in an air raid that triggered the worst cross-border conflict between Israel and Palestinian militants since the end of an 11-day war in 2021. Al-Quda Brigades of Islamic Jihad confirmed on Sunday that the airstrike in the southern Gaza...

The housing and renting market continues to teeter on the brink, and the newest incoming data doesn't offer up any clear signs of stabilization. In fact, new data continues to suggest the opposite: that volatility in housing could only be beginning...and that we're going to have plenty of fodder on deflation, which we have talked about frequently, invoking the effects of a "reverse bullwhip" on the economy. A new report from Apartments.com examining multifamily rent growth trends for July 2022 shows that the Sunbelt markets are set up for what is being called a "a significant collapse of demand" heading...

Following an official visit of U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, relations between the island state known as the Republic of China and its direct neighbor, the People's Republic of China, have cooled considerably.Apart from an increasing number of military exercises off the coast of Taiwan stoking fears of an escalation of the long-running conflict, the People's Republic also has, to a certain extent, halted trade with Taiwan.While an import ban on certain Taiwanese fruits and fish is unlikely to become a source of global tensions, China's export stop on sand, a resource essential for...

COVID has killed a million-plus Americans. But the disastrous US policy response — blunt-instrument shutdowns and endless fear-mongering — has inflicted its own terrible toll, per numbers gathered in a Wall Street Journal report. One ugly example: Data show a serious spike in deaths from heart attacks (4.1%) and strokes (5.2%) in 2020 over 2019. Why? Likely because policies and rhetoric on isolation and social distancing caused people to miss doctor visits and avoid hospitals. And US drug-overdose deaths hit a hideous record, topping 107,000 in 2021, up about 15% increase from 2020, which was up nearly 30% from 2019....

Would leftists actually target a Christian school church service with a sexualized drag show? Of course they would. Students at Manhattan’s Grace Church High School say they were supposed to attend Wednesday church services on April 27th, 2021 when they were greeted with a surprise substitution show featuring a dancing drag queen in orange go-go boots called “Brita Filter” (the symbolism of the stage name is unknown). The event was sponsored by “Spectrum,” the school's LGBT support club and members of the school faculty.The students allege they felt pressured to participate and had to pretend they enjoyed the event. Some...

IN BRIEF DuckDuckGo has finally mostly cracked down on the third-party Microsoft tracking scripts that got the alternative search engine into hot water earlier this year. In May, DDG admitted its supposedly pro-privacy mobile browser wasn't blocking certain Microsoft trackers, while actively blocking other types of third-party trackers by Microsoft and other organizations, confirming findings by data-usage researcher Zach Edwards. This special exception for the Windows giant was due to "contractual commitments with Microsoft," DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg said at the time. This caused a storm among netizens, and provoked some sharp criticism from the competition. Now, late on Friday...

Senate Democrats on Aug. 6 advanced a mammoth spending bill on climate and energy, health care, and taxes, after overcoming unanimous Republican opposition in the evenly divided chamber.The procedural vote to advance the Democratic bill—which authorizes over $400 billion in new spending—was 51–50 after Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the Capitol to cast a vote, breaking the deadlock in the Senate over the measure that Democrats say would reform the tax code, lower the cost of prescription drugs, invest in energy and climate change programs, all while lowering the federal deficit.The vote means that senators will have 20 hours...

While I love the movie Crazy Rich Asians, not all Asians come from wealth and privilege. I was dumbfounded by a recent statement made by a school superintendent where I live, where she alluded that Asians get good grades because we come from rich families. “Asians” is a collective noun that represents a plethora of nations with different backgrounds and experiences. In fact, the largest wealth gap within any racial group in America is among Asian Americans, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center. I don’t come from a rich Asian family. Far from it. My parents,...

What is the first city that comes to mind when you think of the city with the highest murder rate? For me, it’s Chicago. The cities that frequently make the news due to high murder rates and other violent crimes usually include Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. However, a compilation of police data for the month of June from cities with populations of more than 200,000 was put together and the top 31 American cities with the highest murder rates might surprise you.AH Analytics co-founder Jeff Asher listed the top cities with the highest murder rates per capita...

A billionaire software developer who was fighting the biggest individual tax evasion case in US history died at his home in Houston Friday, according to reports. Robert Brockman, 81, a self-taught software entrepreneur who developed a system that helped car dealers run their operations virtually, had been fighting IRS allegations of money laundering and tax evasion worth more than $2 billion since 2020. Prosecutors said that Brockman, who had a personal net worth of $4.7 billion, owned an $8 million mansion in Houston, a Colorado ski cabin, a Bormbardier jet and a 209 foot yacht, named “Turmoil.”

The January 6 Committee has promised since the start of their hearings that they would produce the evidence to nail President Donald Trump. But as anyone can tell you, all they’ve produced is bad television that people have been avoiding like the plague because they know it’s a biased witch hunt. But after nine hearings, they have not produced evidence to support criminal charges, according to George Washington law school professor Jonathan Turley. As he notes, even former prosecutor (and Senator) Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) thought it would be “very tough” to get an indictment legally.Instead, what we’ve gotten is a...

Human muscle genes were successfully inserted into the DNA of baker’s yeast by biotechnologist Pascale Daran-Lapujade and her team at Delft University of Technology. For the first time, scientists have effectively inserted a crucial human characteristic into a yeast cell. Their research was recently published in the journal Cell Reports. Daran-group Lapujade’s previously succeeded in designing artificial chromosomes that operate as a DNA platform for building new functions into yeast. They wanted to test how far they could go with adding several human genes and complete metabolic pathways, and whether the cells could still operate as a whole. “What if...

Depending on who you ask, the 27-year-old inmate who impregnated two women in a New Jersey prison earlier this year is either a martyr to the transgender cause — or a cold-blooded killer who got involved in a messy love triangle behind bars. Demi Minor, as a troubled foster kid — then called Demetrius — had a record for burglaries and at least one carjacking at gunpoint before brutally stabbing foster father Theotis “Ted” Butts 27 times in 2011 at age 16. “It was the worst murder scene I have ever seen,” Brad Wertheimer, one of Minor’s defense lawyers in...

Democrats have been ignoring the crisis at the border, as border states are getting flooded by illegal aliens and then the Biden team has been releasing who knows how many people into the country. But Texas Gov. Greg Abbott finally got their attention by busing them up to Washington, D.C. and now, he’s included New York City.Abbott noted that NYC was an “ideal destination,” because just like D.C., it’s a sanctuary city. “I hope he follows through on his promise of welcoming all migrants with open arms so that our overrun and overwhelmed border towns can find relief,” Abbott said...

Ever-growing exodus figures show 2,465 police officers have filed to leave the department this year — 42% more than the 1,731 who exited at the same time last year, according to the latest pension fund stats obtained by The Post. More disturbing is the fact that the number of cops hanging up their holsters early — before reaching 20 years for a full pension — has skyrocketed 71% this year from the year before (1,098 from 641). NYPD Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Lynch said the so-called “voluntary quits” are driving the “stampede” — and not a big academy class...

We previously wrote about Big Tech giant Twitter getting both good and bad news on its lawsuit against Tesla CEO Elon Musk for dropping his bid to purchase the company in July. Sure, a judge had agreed with Twitter that a delay in starting the case until next February–as Musk wanted–wasn’t going to happen, with the proceedings now starting in early October. But the company also got the bad news that the “uncertainty” of the incomplete deal has shaken investor confidence, causing Twitter to post major losses to its bottom line.Now, the Musk legal team has officially responded to Twitter’s...

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban called out the progressive left at this years CPAC after he was welcomed to CPAC with a standing ovation. Speaking at the event on Thursday, Orban accused progressive liberals of trying to silence him and attempting to keep him away from the event. “They did not want me to be here, and they made every effort to drive a wedge between us,” said Orban. “They hate me and slander me and my country as they hate you and slander you and the America you stand for. We all know how this works. Progressive liberals didn’t...

For more than a decade, Democratic strategists have argued that social and demographic changes in the U.S. will inevitably deliver growing support for their party. After all, the white working-class population, which tends to vote Republican, is in sharp decline, while the nonwhite population, which is presumed to be politically liberal, keeps growing. On this theory of the “rising American electorate,” as it’s called, Democratic victory is simply a matter of getting this burgeoning nonwhite population to the polls. “Democrats are so obsessed with wooing conservative white working-class voters that they fail to see the ever-increasing ranks of people of...

Medicare Part A and Part B, also known as Original Medicare or Traditional Medicare, cover a large portion of your medical expenses after you turn age 65. Part A (hospital insurance) helps pay for inpatient hospital stays, stays in skilled nursing facilities, surgery, hospice care and even some home health care. Part B (medical insurance) helps pay for doctors' visits, outpatient care, some preventive services, and some medical equipment and supplies. Most folks can start signing up for Medicare three months before the month they turn 65. It's important to understand that Medicare Part A and Part B leave some...

Talking to the AFP on Wednesday, Alom said he was “mentally tortured” by the police and made to sign an “apology” bond for performing classical songs by Rabindranath Tagore and Kazi Nazrul Islam, the national poet of Bangladesh. He added that the police asked him to drop his moniker ‘Hero’, a claim that the police have rejected. Responding to the claims, Dhaka’s chief detective Harun ur Rashid said Alom was arrested for wearing the police uniform in his videos without proper permission. The chief detective added that they had also received several complaints against Alom for his take on old...