Free Republic

Just because an artificial sweetener has zero or very few calories doesn't mean there are zero (or very few) health consequences to consuming the sachet. A randomized controlled trial recently found that regular consumption of sucralose (marketed as Splenda) and saccharin (marketed as Sweet'N Low) can alter microbes in the gut and elevate the body's response to sugar. These non-nutritive sweeteners are presumed to be chemically inert, but that may not actually be true. The findings of the recent trial, conducted among 120 participants who identified as strict abstainers from artificial sweeteners of any kind, suggest that regularly consuming some...

Voyager Illustration This artist’s rendering shows NASA’s Voyager spacecraft. On the boom to the right, the Cosmic Ray Science instrument, Low Energy Charged Particle detector, the Infrared Spectrometer and Radiometer, Ultraviolet Spectrometer, Photopolarimeter and Wide and Narrow Angle Cameras are visible. The bright gray square is an optical calibration plate for the instruments. The Golden Record, containing images and sounds from Earth, is the yellow circle on the main spacecraft body. The dish is the spacecraft’s high-gain antenna for communications with Earth. The magnetometer boom stretches out to the upper left. The radio isotope thermoelectric generators, Voyager’s power source, are...

New York City is giving more than $6 million in contracts to nonprofits working with “asylum seekers” as migrants arriving on buses from Texas flood the city. NYC’s Immigrant Affairs office announced Saturday it was awarding $6,750,000 in contracts to the organizations that would go toward “case management” and additional “critical services”

CNN anchor Chris Wallace speculated Friday on “New Day” that former President Donald Trump’s lawyers did not participate in the hearing to unseal the Mar-a-Lago affidavit because there’s probably a lot in the documents “that is very damaging” to Trump. Co-host John Berman asked, “So, Chris, there was this hearing before a judge in Florida over whether to release the affidavit to justify the search warrant into Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump had lawyers there for the arguments, but only there. Why is that important that they were there as observers and not more than that?”

Artist-teacher-gardener Jose Ramirez never considered a lawn for his Boyle Heights home. Instead, he created a smorgasbord landscape of fruit. This is no ordinary orchard, with trees carefully spaced in neat rows. In a densely built residential neighborhood, he's crowded more than 250 fruit trees along winding paths; multiple varieties of pluots, apricots, nectarines, apples, citrus and avocados are planted so close that their branches intertwine. Just a few steps out his back door, Ramirez and his family can pick fruit from 10 trees around a small deck — Bearss lime, papaya, cherimoya, mango, apple, guava, Meyer lemon, mandarin, nectarine...

Parasitic Government The parasite of big government thereby not only drains the productive of resources but saddles them with regulatory constraints that cripple and enslave them. All government is parasitic, but government without limits saps the life blood of its host in ways that imperil the private sector and eventually kill it. That is the kind of government the Biden Administration and Democrats in Congress are creating for America, a kind where the private sector is destroyed and government takes over in its place. The era of big government is back again, with a vengeance.What Joe Biden, Senator Chuck Schumer...

The recent killing of Al Qaeda leader and 9/11 mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri in a Taliban-Haqqani safehouse in Kabul should give American leaders and allies of the Afghan people a reason to reassess their current policy. If the clear links between the Taliban-Haqqani leadership and Al Qaeda are not enough, policymakers should quickly scan the reports about the deadly and misogynistic system that has been installed by the terror regime in Kabul. The Taliban are not going to change their thinking based on current diplomatic approaches, as this statement from Minister of Interior Sirajuddin Haqqani at the beginning of August made...

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Sen. Joe Manchin's deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer for an oil and gas permitting bill in exchange for the West Virginia senator's support for the White House's $739 billion climate change spending and tax hike, signed into law last week by President Biden, is in jeopardy, as progressives say they are not bound by any agreement and vow to oppose the legislation.

ISTANBUL. Aug 19 (Interfax) - Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday he had reminded Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at their meeting in Ukraine about his readiness to arrange Zelensky's meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Turkey if that becomes possible, the TRT television channel said. "Erdogan said upon his return from Ukraine he had reminded Zelensky of his readiness to host Zelensky-Putin talks," the channel said. According to Erdogan, Turkey "will continue to promote a settlement of the Ukrainian crisis by means of diplomacy and talks." Turkey is also ready to participate in Ukraine's recovery, Erdogan said....

A transgender Twitch star claimed she has been forced to move out of her home after being 'harassed and stalked' by people online - who allegedly sent a threat to local politicians under her name, which resulted in her being arrested at gunpoint. Clara Sorrenti, who goes by the name Keffals online, 28, said a SWAT team stormed her home in London, Ontario, on August 5, after someone pretending to be her sent alarming messages to Canada officials claiming she was going to commit 'mass violence.' She claimed that someone 'stole her identity and used it to weaponize the emergency...

A new study on cardiovascular impacts of the COVID vaccines done in Thailand is particularly troubling: 29% of the young adults experience non-trivial changes in their cardiac biomarkers.It is amazing what you find when scientists doing a study are honest and want to know the truth.“Why isn’t a study like this being done in the US?” asks UCSF Professor Vinay Prasad.Heck, we don’t even know the d-dimer of people before vs. after the vax.This is just more evidence of corruption of the medical community that nobody was calling for any of this data.These vaccines are a disaster. Every day, the...

A Michigan judge ruled that county prosecutors cannot enforce a near-total abortion ban on the books since 1931, ruling in favor of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Lawyers representing the governor had asked the court to grant a temporary restraining order after the judge held a two-day evidentiary hearing. Judge Jacob Cunningham granted Whitmer's request for a preliminary injunction, arguing not issuing this injunction would cause harm to the public. "This court finds it is overwhelmingly in the public's interest to let the people of the great state of Michigan decide this matter at the ballot box, assuming the constitutional amendment...

Russian president Vladimir Putin and France’s Emmanuel Macron have agreed to push ahead with an urgent safety mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, Europe’s largest, which both sides in the war say is at risk from the fighting around it.A senior French official said Putin had agreed in a call with Macron on Friday that the IAEA inspectors could visit from Ukrainian-held territory — as demanded by Kyiv — and would not be obliged to access the power station from the zone invaded and controlled by Russian forces, although the Kremlin...

California voters overwhelmingly do not want President Joe Biden to seek a second term, according to a new poll released Friday. The Berkeley Institute of Government Studies poll, which surveyed 9,254 registered voters across California over the last week, found that 61% said Joe Biden should not run again, compared with 31% who think he should. Broken down by party affiliation, the numbers are even more striking. Nearly all (87%) of the state's Republican voters do not want Biden to run again, compared with 9% who do. California Democrats, on the other hand, are evenly split: 46% said they think...

Still feeling an overwhelming sense of dread every time you head to the gas station? That suffocating squeeze as you watch the price counter shoot up really fast compared to the gallon counter? Well, just relax. Because, as CNN points out, if you really stop and think about it, you’re actually getting a raise!

Nike is facing a wrongful death lawsuit, filed by a grieving mother, whose son was murdered during a violent incident over a pair of shoes. In the filing, the woman claims on August 11, 2021, her 26-year-old son was working at the store during a Nike shoe release event. At the time, a raffle was being held to determine who would get the new shoes, a pair of Nike "Dunk Low" sneakers. On that day, the mother says her son died at his workplace, "attempting to defend his girlfriend and coworker from a group of violent men at a Nike...

Walmart on Friday told employees that it will expand abortion and related travel coverage, according to an internal memo. The change comes about two months after the Supreme Court struck down the federal right to access the procedure. Effective immediately, Walmart’s health care plans will cover abortion “when there is a health risk to the mother, rape or incest, ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage or lack of fetal viability,” according to the memo to employees, which was reviewed by CNBC. Employees and their family members who are insured through Walmart will also have travel costs covered, if they cannot access a legal...

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies gas from Russia to Europe under the Baltic Sea, will be shut down for three days from Aug. 31 to Sept. 2 as its only remaining gas compressor requires maintenance, Gazprom said on Friday. The closure will bring further disruption to Europe's gas supplies with the pipeline already running at only 20% of its capacity, with Gazprom previously citing the need to repair other compressors, and fears Russia could halt supplies completely heading into the winter heating season. After maintenance is complete, flows of 33 million cubic metres (mcm) a day - in...

TWENTIETH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME MATTHEW 22:34–40 Friends, in today’s Gospel, some Pharisees challenge Jesus to answer which commandment of the Law is the greatest. Jesus responds that every power, every capacity in us must be given over to the love of God. But what exactly does it mean to love God? St. Bernard of Clairvaux is helpful here. He said that the goal of the spiritual life is to love God alone, for the sake of God alone. Obviously, there are many things that compete for the love of God alone—money, sex, power, pleasure. But what Bernard saw is...