Free Republic

Two American journalists have been told to remove rainbow-patterned articles of clothing by authorities at World Cup venues in Qatar in recent days. On Saturday, Los Angeles Times reporter Kevin Baxter was told by a police officer at the U.S. men’s national team’s Qatari training site that a rainbow-colored mask was not allowed. Two days later, at the Ahmad bin Ali Stadium, where the USMNT plays Wales on Monday night, longtime soccer journalist Grant Wahl said that he was told by security to change out of a shirt with a rainbow pattern around a soccer ball. FIFA told Yahoo Sports...

White Stripes Rocker Jack White Rips Elon Musk: Restored ‘Fascist’ Trump’s Twitter Account to Avoid Paying ‘Fair Share’ in Taxes White Stripes vocalist and guitarist Jack White attacked Elon Musk in a lengthy Instagram post on Sunday, complaining that the Tesla CEO restored former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account and claimed that Musk only supports Republicans because he hates paying taxes. “This is straight up you trying to help a fascist have a platform so you can eventually get your tax breaks,” White claimed of Musk’s move to restore Trump’s Twitter account. “How many more billions do you need that...

The House Ethics Committee is investigating whether Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) improperly solicited invitations to the Met Gala, a newly released report reveals.... ..."These efforts to gain free attendance may implicate the prohibition on solicitation of gifts under federal law and House rules," the report says....

Some remote workers are playing hooky from their company’s homebase these days, and bosses are catching on. The pandemic challenged the idea that the office was an important fixture of the workplace as people working from home were found to be just as productive. Some relished their newfound freedom away from their desks, giving rise to a growing crop of digital nomads life who worked from alternative living situations like a van on the road or from Airbnbs in countries offering digital nomad visas like Portugal. But such flexibility has been curtailed as companies increasingly push for a return to...

Canada is betting big on immigration to fill the gap in its economy left by aging Baby Boomers leaving the workforce - but not everyone is on board with bringing in so many people from abroad. Earlier this month, the federal government announced an aggressive plan to take in 500,000 immigrants a year by 2025, with almost 1.5 million new immigrants coming to the country over the next three years....

The wife of Jack Smith, the newly-appointed special counsel in the investigation into the documents former President Donald Trump brought to Mar-a-Lago at the culmination of his term, made political donations to President Joe Biden and Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) throughout the years and helped produce the 2020 Michelle Obama documentary Becoming. Federal Election Commission records show that Smith’s wife, Katy Chevigny, contributed $1,000 each to Biden’s 2020 campaign, Biden for President, and the Biden Victory Fund super PAC, on September 9, 2020. Moreover, she donated $150 to the Friends of Rashida Tlaib committee in July 2008 when Tlaib was...

The MetroHealth Board of Trustees confirmed on Nov. 21 that it has terminated the employment of President and CEO Akram Boutros, MD.,effective immediately. An investigation found Dr. Boutros authorized more than $1,900,000 in supplemental bonuses to himself between 2018-2022 without disclosing it to the Board, MetroHealth System Chair Vanessa Whiting said. The Board received the results of this investigation conducted by outside counsel into the compensation issues on Saturday, and the Board voted to terminate his employment for cause on Monday. Whiting shared the following statement on behalf of the MetroHealth Board of Trustees: “We have taken these actions mindfully...

Data from a laptop that the lawyer for a Delaware computer repair shop owner says was left by Hunter Biden in 2019 – and which the shop owner later provided to the FBI under subpoena – shows no evidence of tampering or fabrication, according to an independent review commissioned by CBS News... ...The independent analysis, by two cyber investigators from Minneapolis-based Computer Forensics Services, found no evidence that the user data had been modified, fabricated or tampered with. Nor did it find any new files originating after April 2019,....

John Ray III took over as FTX's CEO for $1,300 per hour on November 11 as he attempts to clean up the collapsed cryptocurrency company. FTX is bankrupt but is still paying key employees top dollar as the company tries to fix the mistakes made by founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Disgraced tech bro Bankman-Fried gave up control of his company after his Stanford law professor persuaded him to do so. The company is also paying their chief administrative officer and chief information officer about $975 per hour. Other contractors at the company that seeks to ensure the company remains ethical throughout...

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The stars of “Chrisley Knows Best” were convicted in June of conspiring to defraud banks out of more than $30 million and evading taxes for several years.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) is urging President Biden to hold Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman “accountable” for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, criticizing the administration’s choice to grant immunity to the royal. “The State Department’s decision to intervene in this case undermined the ability to hold the Crown Prince accountable for his crime,” Wyden tweeted Monday. “I call on @POTUS Biden to honor his commitment to hold MBS accountable and to reexamine our relationship with the Saudis.” The Biden administration last week weighed in on a lawsuit filed by Khashoggi’s fiancée Hatice Cengiz in 2020, determining that Crown...

The collapse of cryptocurrency giant FTX has revealed an intricate web of donations and connections to the country's political establishment — Democrats and Republicans, regulators and academics — centered around the company's now-bankrupt founder, Sam Bankman-Fried.This extensive network, held together through political donations and personal relationships, exposes potential conflicts of interest in the coming investigations into Bankman-Fried and has raised questions about whether the former crypto mogul will be held accountable for alleged wrongdoing.Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), for example, has been pictured meeting with Bankman-Fried on multiple past occasions, both smiling with their arms around each other. She also traveled...

An analysis found that cancer patients with privatized, cost-saving Medicare Advantage were more likely than those with traditional Medicare to go to hospitals with physicians less experienced at performing complicated surgeries, and that they were more likely to die within the first 30 days after the removal of their stomach, pancreas or liver. With traditional Medicare, beneficiaries typically may go to any doctor or hospital in the U.S. that takes Medicare, whereas in most cases, Medicare Advantage beneficiaries can see only doctors and providers who are in the plan's network and service area. They found that cancer patients who had...

We’ve been covering the Biden energy crisis here for some time now, highlighting the various challenges facing the country in terms of keeping the lights on, keeping people’s homes heated in the winter, and generally keeping civilization humming along as you have a right to expect in a supposedly first-world nation. But pointing out shortcomings isn’t enough. There need to be concrete solutions put on the table and a willingness among the voters to demand action from the government. This week, one of the more comprehensive and coherent action plans to accomplish these goals landed on our collective doorstep and...

New research suggests aging is an important component of retinal ganglion cell death in glaucoma, and that novel pathways can be targeted when designing new treatments for glaucoma patients. Dorota Skowronska‐Krawczyk, Ph.D. describes the transcriptional and epigenetic changes happening in aging retina. The team shows how stress, such as intraocular pressure (IOP) elevation in the eye, causes retinal tissue to undergo epigenetic and transcriptional changes similar to natural aging. And, how in young retinal tissue, repetitive stress induces features of accelerated aging including the accelerated epigenetic age. "Our work emphasizes the importance of early diagnosis and prevention as well as...

A neighbor’s Mini Australian Sheppard was found filleted and skinned nearby the murder site of four University of Idaho students. This revelation has some believing that the two crimes are connected. “It was like a deer that someone had hunted,” Pam explained. “They cut him around the neck and just skinned him. His little legs had fur and his little face had fur, but the rest of him was just skinned.” The pair are rightfully shaken up. They have lived in their house for 39 years and they will now start locking their doors for the first time. The Colbert’s...

As Republicans make plans for taking control of the House of Representatives in January, members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus are warning that Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who won the GOP’s nomination for Speaker of the House last week, may not actually have enough votes to earn him the Speaker’s gavel.Just because he won the Republican nomination doesn’t mean Kevin McCarthy automatically becomes Speaker; he essentially needs the backing of every GOP House member when the entire chamber votes early next year. Here are the numbers:219: The projected number of seats that Republicans will hold in the new Congress.218: The...

Disney fired its CEO Bob Chapek after receiving several internal complaints from senior staffers that the exec was running the company into the ground, people familiar with the matter have revealed. Among those to air such concerns was Disney's Chief Financial Officer Christine McCarty, who the insiders said was among many to find Chapek, 62, unfit for the role, CNBC reported. The company's board of directors acted almost immediately after receiving the complaints, reaching out to his predecessor and former mentor Bob Iger, 71, Friday to come out of retirement and replace a man he less than a year ago...

Trump fans are clamoring for him to return to Twitter now that Elon Musk has lifted the company’s ban on the former president, but The Donald has already indicated he has no intention of resuming tweeting again. “I don’t see any reason for it,” he said via video when asked about a possible return.But Elon Musk clearly wants him back:And lead us not into temptation … pic.twitter.com/8qNOXzwXS9— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 21, 2022The problem is, Trump has reasons for not returning to the fold—potentially millions of them.At issue is the social media site Truth Social, the privately held property of...