Free Republic

NEW ORLEANS — The man who killed two bicyclists after the Endymion parade in 2019 while driving drunk has had his prison sentence reduced. Tashonty Toney was serving 90 years in jail, the maximum allowed under law. However, court records show that Judge Laurie White has lowered his sentence to 65 years. Toney was caught in a video striking a group of bikers on Esplanade Avenue in Mid-City. In the video, you see the victims innocently pedaling their bikes on Esplanade Avenue after Endymion last March. Video of deadly Endymion Night bike crash shows Tashonty Toney flee scene Less than...

“Wisdom is before him that hath understanding; but the eyes of a fool are in the ends of the earth. A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him” (Proverbs 17:24-25).

Al Arabiya English Benjamin Netanyahu is preparing to become the Prime Minister of Israel for the third time. He has until December 21 to form a government before taking office. In a wide-ranging interview with a group of print and television journalists at Al Arabiya, Mr. Netanyahu discussed Israel’s relations with Arab states, the US alliance structure in the Middle East, unrest in Iran, Israel’s new hard-right government, the future of the US-brokered maritime border agreement with Lebanon, and the Russia-Ukraine war. Mr. Netanyahu reiterated the paramount importance of normalization with Saudi Arabia, which would be a “quantum leap” toward...

4 teens shot, 2 killed after classes let out at Benito Juarez High School in Pilsen Four teenagers have been shot, one of whom has been killed, after classes let out of Benito Juarez High School in the Pilsen neighborhood on Friday afternoon, according to emergency officials. DEC 16 2022 Benito Juarez High School in the Pilsen neighborhood on the city's Lower West Side. Update 2: According to police, the two deceased teens are 14 and 15, both shot in the head. The other teo victims are both 15. Update: According to Supt. David Brown, a second teen has died....

Afraid that the Republican House majority in the next session of Congress might do serious damage to the President, Democrats are weighing strategies to deter any investigation into the Bidens' alleged multi-million-dollar influence-peddling schemes. In hopes of negating prosecution of Hunter, his friend, agent and lawyer Kevin Morris, paid off $2.8 million of the back taxes he owed. Morris also called for a "more aggressive" response including hitting critics, such as Fox News, with possible defamation lawsuits and figuring out a way to destroy the credibility of potential witnesses--Hunter's former business partner Tony Bobulinski and John Paul Mac Isaac, the...

Democrats are racing to release information about former President Donald Trump's taxes before Republicans take control of Congress early next year. Politico reported Friday that the House Ways and Means Committee will meet privately Tuesday at 3 p.m. to review the tax documents and vote on whether all or a portion of Trump's tax returns will be publicly released. After a lengthy legal battle, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal got his hands on Trump's tax returns in November.... ...They consist of Trump's personal returns and returns from eight business entities, Politico said. Democrats believe they're on solid...

Striations and residue found on stone tools in China reflect harvesting methods.Anew Dartmouth-led study analyzing stone tools from southern China provides the earliest evidence of rice harvesting, dating to as early as 10,000 years ago. The researchers identified two methods of harvesting rice, which helped initiate rice domestication...Wild rice is different from domesticated rice in that wild rice naturally sheds ripe seeds, shattering them to the ground when they mature, while cultivated rice seeds stay on the plants when they mature.To harvest rice, some sort of tools would have been needed. In harvesting rice with tools, early rice cultivators were...

Man on parole charged in triple slaying outside Portage Park bar According to records, Parsons-Salas was charged with first-degree murder in a 2009 Albany Park home invasion but the case against him was separated and a lesser sentence received after his codefendant confessed. He was paroled in October 2022. Chicago Journal Chicago Journal DEC 13 2022 | 4 MIN READ Paroled in the fall of 2022, Samuel Parsons-Salas, 32, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder Tuesday in relation to the slayings outside Vera Lounge in Portage Park. | Photo: Chicago Police Update: We've updated this post to include...

Twitter owner Elon Musk released another batch of Twitter files exposing the leftist Big Tech platform’s extensive collaboration with Big Government on its bloated censorship operations. Independent journalist Matt Taibbi summarized the new files on Twitter: “Twitter’s contact with the FBI was constant and pervasive, as if it were a subsidiary.” Specifically, Taibbi reported the existence of “over 150 emails between the FBI and former Twitter Trust and Safety chief Yoel Roth” between January 2020 and November 2022. Then came the damning part: “[A] surprisingly high number are requests by the FBI for Twitter to take action on election misinformation,...

A federal judge granted government investigators access to email messages involving Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Scott Perry – the official whose cell phone was seized by the FBI in August, it was revealed Friday. U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell ruled that emails between Perry and other figures in former President Donald Trump's election overturn effort were not protected by privilege. This included 37 emails among Perry, former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, lawyer John Eastman, and Clark's aide Ken Klokowski, a former senior counsel in DOJ's Civil Division. That made them fair game for investigators .... ...The judge also ruled a...

It’s that time of year for hunkering down to watch a Christmas film with the family – and to hold the annual debate over whether or not Die Hard actually counts as one. This debate has now become, in some film history circles, as big a question as to the meaning of “Rosebud” in Citizen Kane or whether Han Solo or Greedo shot first in Star Wars. It’s even important enough to warrant a poll from YouGov, which concluded that Die Hard is not a Christmas film. The arguments around the “Christmassiness” of the 1988 movie revolve around three themes:...

When modern humans first migrated from Africa to the tropical islands of the southwest Pacific, they encountered unfamiliar people and new pathogens. But their immune systems may have picked up some survival tricks when they mated with the locals—the mysterious Denisovans who gave them immune gene variants that might have protected the newcomers’ offspring from local diseases. Some of these variants still persist in the genomes of people living in Papua New Guinea today, according to a new study.Researchers have known for a decade that living people in Papua New Guinea and other parts of Melanesia, a subregion of the...

The head of a historically black college has defended police being called to arrest a student who was arguing with her professor. Addressing the viral video of Leilla Hamoud, 20, being detained at Winston-Salem State University following a fallout with lecturer Cynthia Villagome over her essay, Chancellor Elwood Robinson said the school was in the right. 'We understand that the weaponization of police is a prevalent problem in our community, however, that is not what happened in this incident,' Robinson wrote in a letter to students and staff, adding that initial 'de-escalation efforts' had failed. 'We strive for a safe,...

Further excavations may reveal if the stones of the previously unrecorded cairn were raised to honour the dead or to display dominance over the area.An archaeological survey has identified a previously unrecorded Bronze Age monument in the Haaga district of the city of Turku on Finland's southwest coast. The site could possibly date back as much as 3,500 years.The cairn -- a pile of granite stones typical of Bronze Age burials -- is located at the highest point of a rocky hill area overlooking the Aura river.Stone burial cairns were typical for western Bronze Age culture which in Finland is...

Please join fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Banking, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.IF YOU WERE ARRESTED FOR BEING A CHRISTIAN, WOULD THERE BE ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO CONVICT?

'The inscriptions were part of psychological warfare... to terrorize the opponent and unite the warriors'A 2,200-year-old lead sling bullet was recently discovered by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) in the central Israeli city of Yavne, bearing a magic inscription for victory and which possibly belonged to a Greek soldier.On the bullet is the Greek inscription "Victory of Heracles and Hauronas" – a pair of gods that were considered to be the "divine patrons of Yavne during the Hellenistic period," according to Prof. Yulia Ustinova from southern Israel’s Ben Gurion University of the Negev."Actually, the inscription on a sling bullet is...

A judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by Mark Finchem with prejudice and confirmed the election of Adrian Fontes as Arizona Secretary of State-Elect. The lawsuit focused on issues in the 2022 election, as well as the fact that Secretary of State Katie Hobbs did not recuse herself despite the fact she was running for governor. Finchem's lawsuit called to take back the certification of Adrian Fontes and Ruben Gallego and reconduct a state-wide election. The election would be conducted without the use of electronic tabulation machines and no mail-in ballots. Each ballot would be counted by hand. The judge also...

This is a question that many people ask themselves in quiet moments but would never have enough nerve to say out loud. What is considered rich? As it turns out, the definition seems to be changing.What’s the Dollar Figure for Being Considered Rich?How much money do you need to be considered rich? According to Schwab’s 2022 Modern Wealth Survey (opens in new tab), Americans believe it takes an average net worth of $2.2 million to qualify a person as being wealthy. (Net worth is the sum of your assets minus your liabilities.)To get a clearer picture of where you rank,...

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge tossed a lawsuit on Friday filed by former GOP candidates Mark Finchem and Jeff Zink that challenges the results of November’s general election. Judge Melissa Iyer Julian dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, which means it cannot be filed again. The judge also confirmed Adrian Fontes won the election and is the secretary of state-elect for Arizona. Finchem, who ran for secretary of state, and Zink, a former candidate in Congressional District 3, filed a lawsuit on Dec. 9 to overturn the results of the election. The lawsuit claimed that current Secretary of State Katie...

Trenches are not new to Ukraine. Trench warfare has long been a feature of the battle in eastern Ukraine for the Donbas region. Ukrainians fight from their own trenches on their side of the line near Popasna, where Russians are waging an intense campaign to dislodge Ukrainian troops from the city of Bakhmut. But the pace and the scale of Russian construction over the last couple of months is unmatched. All of the structures in the image above appeared within six days. The fortifications show how Russia’s military is trying to set up more robust, defensible positions against Ukrainian pressure,...