Free Republic

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s new 988 hotline, intended to help anyone experiencing a mental health emergency, has been out of service for several hours Thursday. Those trying to reach the line for help with suicide, depression or other mental health crises are greeted with a message that says the line is “experiencing a service outage.” People can still reach a mental health counselor through the lifeline by texting “988” or opening a chat at 988lifeline.org. The Department of Health and Human Services, which oversaw the launch of the three-digit lifeline earlier this year, is in communication with the contractor...

Representative Greg Steube (R., Fla.) blasted the U.S. Naval Academy on Thursday after one of his constituents claimed she has been told she needs a Covid-19 vaccine to graduate. “Think about spending four years of your life in college and then not even being able to get a degree for the work that you’ve done,” Steube said during an appearance on Fox News on Wednesday. “This is a young woman who wants to serve her country and all because she doesn’t want to take the COVID vaccine based on religious exemptions that are being refused by this administration and the...

A reparations committee in California has suggested that descendants of slaves in the state should be compensated $223,200 each for 'housing discrimination'. The nine-member Reparations Task Force was formed by California Governor Gavin Newsom as part of the country's largest ever effort to address reparations for slavery. A focus of the California task force has been 'housing discrimination' - it has estimated the 2.5 million Black Californians require compensation of around $569billion, according to the New York Times.

Adam White jailed for 22 months for causing serious injury by dangerous driving.. Imprisoned for running them off the road while the crooks were spared prison .. White's story prompted fury from viewers who blasted the legal system.. Following the episode, White thanked viewers for their outpouring of support .. A father-of-two who was jailed for taking the law into his own hands when career criminals attempted to burgle his home has said he 'can't believe' the outpouring of support he has received. Adam White, 34, was jailed in February for 22 months for causing serious injury by dangerous driving...

A 10-year-old boy is in a Wisconsin juvenile detention center on allegations he shot and killed his mother because he wanted a virtual reality headset. Children's Court Judge Marshall B. Murray is holding the unidentified boy under a $50,000 bond on charges of first-degree reckless homicide. He is being charged as an adult, which is in accordance with state law when it comes to crimes of this degree. The boy admitted to police that he retrieved the gun from his mother's bedroom and shot her on accident on Nov. 21, according to the criminal complaint. His 26-year-old sister called the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Thursday said the Biden administration program to cancel student loans will remain blocked for now, but the justices agreed to take up the case in late winter. The court’s decision to hear arguments relatively quickly means it is likely to determine whether the widespread loan cancellations are legal by late June. That’s about two months before the newly extended pause on loan repayments is set to expire. The administration had wanted a court order that would have allowed the program to take effect even as court challenges proceed. But as a fallback, it...

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra is apparently advising Americans who got a coronavirus jab as recently as two months ago to get the “updated” shot now as well. “An updated COVID vaccine can help protect you from the worst outcomes of COVID,” Becerra said this week, urging those who got their coronavirus shot over two months ago to get another one. “If it’s been over 2 months since your last dose, make a plan to get one now,” he wrote: An updated COVID vaccine can help protect you from the worst outcomes of COVID. If it’s...

The freshly-militarized Internal Revenue Service will now predictably be used by the Left to target conservatives, and the process has already started. After adding 87,000 new armed “agents” this past summer, the tax-collecting bureaucracy is poised to target political dissidents and small business owners who are seen to be enemies to the regime. Now, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has demanded that tax exemptions be taken away from conservative groups who ignored masking orders and social distancing guidelines during the pandemic, the Daily Signal reported. The news has broken amidst the recovery of a 176-page document containing correspondence between Whitehouse and...

A canine humerus recovered from Erralla cave in the Basque Country, Spain in 1985 has now been dated to between 17,410 and 17,096 years ago. And multiple lines of analysis confirm it's not from a wolf, but a dog: Canis familiaris. This means that old, cracked humerus represents the oldest dog bone to date. That's an incredible datapoint for contextualizing dog domestication, and opens up new discussions about the timeline and the nature of remains of "dog-like wolves" thought to be an intermediate stage between wolves and dogs. When and how dogs diverged from their wolf (Canis lupus) ancestors, and...

Chinese Vice Premier Sun Chunlan, the woman dictator Xi Jinping tasked with enforcing his brutal Chinese coronavirus lockdowns, issued public remarks on Wednesday claiming Beijing would soon “optimize” its coronavirus response with “new tasks in epidemic prevention and control.” The state news agency Xinhua reported that Sun – one of the country’s most hated politicians, who recently lost her Politburo seat at this year’s Communist Party Congress – made the remarks at the Chinese National Health Commission. Xinhua’s coverage did not note Sun saying anything on Beijing abandoning its brutal use of mass house arrest, business lockdowns, internment in quarantine...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America Reports,” Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said he isn’t that concerned about what Elon Musk does with former President Donald Trump’s Twitter account, but is worried about TikTok’s and Musk’s ties to China. Warner stated, “What I am interested in, and it’s why I’ve called out and am very concerned about what’s happening with TikTok and its parent company, ByteDance, the amount of propaganda and the amount of information it’s sucking from young Americans, I’ve been working with my friend Marco Rubio (R-FL) on that. What I’ve been...

The Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week is the longest-running cable television series in history, filling screens with sharky content every summer since 1988. It causes one of the largest temporary increases in U.S. viewers' attention to any science or conservation topic. It's also the largest stage in marine biology, giving scientists who appear on it access to an audience of millions. Being featured by high-profile media outlets can help researchers attract attention and funding that can help super-charge their careers. Unfortunately, Shark Week is also a missed opportunity. As scientists and conservationists have long argued, it is a major source...

Disney’s Hocus Pocus 2 star Bette Midler lost her cool Wednesday when a random Twitter commenter challenged her commitment to environmental activism, launching an unhinged and profane online rant in which she claimed “I bathe once a month!” Bette Midler lashed out at the sarcastic commenter who questioned whether or not the star has made any real sacrifices for her activism. “If you knew what I have done to mitigate the criminal environmental craziness in this country, you would kiss my ass,” she replied, before listing her forms of activism that include recycling, composting, and driving hybrid and electric vehicles....

Video footage: https://twitter.com/CatchUpNetwork/status/1598106691496972288https://twitter.com/hushsupply_/status/1586395731845210113https://twitter.com/gchahal/status/1591392916895051780Everyday French people have had it with climate ‘protesters’ sitting in the road and blocking traffic, as the following footage shows. Just like in Britain, people trying to drive to work are sick and tired of their daily commute being continually disrupted by people in orange vests crowing about the world ending in 800 days and gluing themselves to the road.

We’re honestly starting to lose track of all of the ‘hate crimes’ that have ended up being complete hoaxes over the past few years. More times than not, someone is looking to prove how HATEFUL America is by … faking hate. Because you know, that makes total sense. Our country is so hateful you have to lie about how hateful it is to prove it’s hateful. Or something. Case in point

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Thursday acknowledged “glitches” in America’s clean energy law that have raised concerns in Europe, but said “there’s tweaks we can make” to satisfy allies. Biden, who is honoring French President Emmanuel Macron with the first state dinner of his presidency on Thursday evening, said at a joint news conference that he and the French president spoke a “a good deal” about European concerns over his signature climate change law during an Oval Office meeting. Macron has made clear that he and other European leaders are concerned about incentives in the new law, known...

An Austin man faces felony charges after allegedly pulling out a gun and firing shots inside a local bar over the weekend. Witnesses said he should be in jail.

Warning! Evidence of a US recession is appearing. And with a recession, prices will likely fall due to lack of demand. Why might inflation be falling? Take a gander at ISM Prices Paid. They just fell to the lowest level since the infamous Covid economic shutdowns of 2020. M2 Money growth YoY is the lowest in years, but The Fed’s balance sheet remains elevated. But apparently the Covid-related sugar rush has ended.

250 people sentenced to “obligatory work” in Nizhny Tagil will serve their sentences at the Uralvagonzavod industrial plant, a nominal cargo-train manufacturer that also produces tanks and armored vehicles for the Russian military. This was reported by the Federal Penitentiary Service (FSIN) for the Sverdlovsk region. Convicts will work as machine operators, turners, milling and drill operators, grinders, electric welders, mechanics, and crane operators. The state garnishes between four and 20 percent of the salaries earned by people sentenced to forced labor. Still, FSIN officials emphasize that only convicts who are eager to “reform” themselves are eligible for these industrial...

Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust Inc. has been facing withdrawal requests exceeding its quarterly limit, a major test for the one of the private equity firm’s most ambitious efforts to reach individual investors. The news, in a letter Thursday, sent Blackstone stock falling as much as 10%, the biggest drop since March. “Our business is built on performance, not fund flows, and performance is rock solid,” a Blackstone spokesperson said, adding that BREIT’s concentration in rental housing and logistics in the Sun Belt leaves it well positioned going forward. This year, the fund has piled into more than $20 billion...