Free Republic

He's turning 80 in two days and he can barely speak.

Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday named a special counsel to investigate the entirety of the criminal probe into the unlawful retention of national defense information at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, Fox News has learned. Garland appointed former Justice Department official Jack Smith to the role. Smith, a former assistant U.S. attorney and chief to the DOJ's public integrity section, will oversee the investigation into Trump's retention of classified documents after leaving the White House and whether the former president obstructed the federal government's investigation into the matter.

TOKYO -- China has submitted the most research papers accepted at a prestigious international academic conference focused on semiconductors, underscoring the country's growing presence in the field and bumping the U.S. into second place. This is the first time China has taken the top spot in papers accepted by the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), which is considered the Olympics of the semiconductor sector. The annual event opens in February in San Francisco. Universities and companies in China -- including Hong Kong and Macao -- submitted 59 papers, or 29.8% of all 198 research documents accepted by the ISSCC for...

There has been a lot of alarmism about health risks of PVC Christmas trees. What's the truth on it, anyone know?

C. cooki, measuring about 10 millimeters (0.4 inches) long. (Jeff Goddard) **************************************************************** A species of clam known only by the 28,000-year-old fossils it left behind has turned up alive and well on an American shoreline. The small, translucent bivalve, known as Cymatioa cooki, was recently discovered hiding in the rocky intertidal zone of southern California – a place carefully combed over by scientists for many, many years. "It's not all that common to find alive a species first known from the fossil record, especially in a region as well-studied as Southern California," says marine ecologist Jeff Goddard from the...

This clip is from one of the earliest known filmed live concert performances of the Stones. This is unique from the standpoint that there aren't the typical throngs of screaming girls in the audience and so you can actually hear what they're playing

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A judge refused Friday to quash a subpoena issued to former White House press secretary Jen Psaki that seeks her deposition in a lawsuit filed by Missouri and Louisiana, alleging that the Biden administration conspired to silence conservative voices on social media. Psaki filed a motion in federal court in Alexandria seeking to quash the subpoena, saying that she had no relevant information to provide and that a deposition would place an undue burden on her. The Justice Department supported her efforts to quash. U.S. Magistrate Ivan Davis said during a hearing Friday that he was...

The ringing, rushing sound of tinnitus is a complex condition. It's caused by a range of factors, so there's no known one-size-fits-all treatment. But researchers are reporting excellent results with a combination treatment in a smartphone app. Some 5% of people experience tinnitus at some point in their lives – I'm one of them. It can develop after repeated exposure to loud noise; that's probably where I picked it up, thanks to a long association with drums, live music and loud motorcycles. But it can also arise thanks to wax buildup, the effect of medication, inflammation due to illness, the...

A video circulating on social media appears to show a woman attacking Robinson, and WSOC-TV reported that Robinson’s mother identified the people in the video as her daughter’s friends. "Quella, can you at least fight back?" A man can be heard saying in the background while another woman can be seen beating an undressed Robinson.

President Joe Biden warned Americans on Friday to expect setbacks in his ongoing attempts to fix the economy. “It’s going to take time to get inflation back to normal levels as we keep our job market strong, so we could see setbacks along the way,” he said at the White House, promising to stay “laser-focused” on the economy. He also claimed that inflation at the grocery store was “down slightly,” even though the cost of food at home is up 12.4 percent from the previous year. The president met with a group of business and labor leaders on his imitation...

Sam Bankman-Fried, the embattled CEO of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, was a massive donor to the Democratic Party. But you wouldn’t know it from the reporting on the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), who have so far almost completely hidden that salient detail from their audiences. MRC analysts examined all FTX coverage between November 11 and November 17 on those broadcast networks’ flagship morning and evening news programs. We found that neither CBS nor NBC even mentioned Bankman-Fried’s status as a Democratic megadonor, while ABC spent only three seconds (a single mention) on it. All told, discussion...

Canada's Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan said on Thursday it will be writing down about $95 million of investments it had made in bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX Group by the end of the year.

A Canadian bank has launched a new credit card that tracks the “carbon footprint” of the account holder.The launch of the new card makes Canada the first country to track its citizens’ actions to monitor their impact on “climate change.” (snip)

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AP) — U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry has tested positive for COVID-19 at the U.N. climate talks in Egypt, a spokeswoman said late Friday night, the latest setback for what appeared to be stalled negotiations that were already going into overtime. Kerry’s illness was sure to add to worries about the speed of negotiations, which were scheduled to end Friday but are continuing with no clear end in sight.

The Missouri State Employees’ Retirement System lost between $800,000 and $1 million because a private equity firm it invested in was invested in FTX, the embattled cryptocurrency exchange that filed for bankruptcy last week. https://www.aol.com/news/missouri-state-pension-system-lost-193325945.html

Ford is recalling over 550,000 F-150 vehicles in North America, according to a Friday report. The recall affects F-150 vehicles across the United States and Canada and is the result of a concern that their windshield wiper motors might fail, causing wipers to not operate at all. The inoperative wipers on the 2021-2022 models could lead to reduced visibility and an increased risk of accidents, Ford said. At least 453,650 vehicles in the United States and 103,076 in Canada have been recalled, the report noted. Owners of the vehicles will receive notification letters by Jan. 3, and front windshield wiper...

Moscow's commanders have secretly moved almost 100 air defence missiles from Belarus to Russia sparking fears of a bigger escalation in Ukraine including whether Vladimir Putin would use a dirty nuke bomb. Air-freighting scores of S-300 and S-400s is either a precaution against a retaliation from Ukraine for Russia’s recent blitz - or a sign of a much bigger atrocity yet to come. One Russia expert told the Mirror: “Whatever Russia has in mind to inflict on Ukraine the Kremlin appears to be expecting retaliation on its own soil from Ukraine or the West. “Analysts believe with these missile moves...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden cautioned on Friday that “it’s going to take time” for inflation to recede, but he offered fresh assurance that legislation he signed earlier this year will soon help limit costs for health care and energy. … At Friday’s event, Biden said his trip overseas showed “the United States is as well or better positioned as any nation in the world to lead the world on the economy in the years ahead.” He conceded that “it’s going to take time to get inflation back down to normal levels.” However, he said that “in six short...

According to Scott Ritter, the Ukrainians deliberately launched the Ukrainian S300 missiles into Poland. NATO knows it is a Ukrainian missile, and it was deliberately fired into Poland. But Zelensky might not know the truth. There are elements in the Ukrainian military who would do it unilaterally, Ritter believes. The Ukrainians want Patriot missiles and a no-fly zone since they are losing badly, especially under the barrage of missiles from Russia. They’re losing their energy systems. Zelensky and his military don’t seem to care if they start World War III.

As of November 17, 2022, 54% of all state legislatures in the United States are Republican while 44% are Democratic. There are 7,383 state legislative seats in the country. Republicans hold the majority in 56 chambers, and Democrats hold the majority in 39 chambers. One chamber (Alaska House) is organized under a multipartisan, power-sharing coalition. As of November 17, control of four legislative chambers remained uncalled following the 2022 elections. Click here for more details. Democrats hold 860 state Senate seats and 2,396 state House seats, and lost 16 seats since September of this year. Republicans hold 1,097 state Senate...