Free Republic

... At least a dozen FBI informants working with FBI handlers and undercover agents out of numerous FBI field offices engineered the hoax in 2020. Dan Chappel, a contract truck driver for the Postal Service, was hired as the key informant in March 2020; he primarily led the effort to stitch the random group of outliers together. The FBI compensated Chappel roughly $60,000 in cash and personal items, a sum Chappel admitted at trial had exceeded his annual salary. Chappel particularly fixated on Fox, who lived alone at the time in the dilapidated cellar of a vacuum repair shop without...

In the years since former President George H. W. Bush and his wife Barbara's deaths, a number of books have come out about the couple's lives and political careers. But Rev. Russell Levenson, Jr. believed one large part of the couple's lives was missing: their faith. Levenson serves as the rector at St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Houston and got to know the couple over more than a decade, as the Bushes regularly attended Sunday services. He has reflected a lot on his relationship with them and decided to chronicle not only their lives and deaths but also what he...

It should come as no surprise to Utahns or anyone who identifies as conservative that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) did not vote along party lines when it came to the $1.7 trillion spending bill/omnibus package. Well, he did vote along party lines, just not the party with which he is affiliated. Romney took to Twitter to explain his rationale...If you couldn’t stand a political version of a time-share pitch, let me summarize it for you:- It would cost less to pass it this year than next. - Republicans aren’t organized enough to get a speaker together, let alone budgets. -...

Whoopi Goldberg is again receiving criticism for her false claims about the Holocaust. In an interview published with The Sunday Times of London on Saturday – the sixth day of the Jewish holiday Hanukkah – the actor and "The View" co-host reiterated her claims that the Holocaust "wasn't originally" about race. Goldberg first made the public statements on an episode of "The View" about 10 months ago, saying at the time that "the Holocaust isn't about race," but rather, "inhumanity to man." She later apologized and was suspended from the show for two weeks for her comments. But she is...

For indoor gardeners who want to try something a bit more exotic, cultivating mushrooms can be rewarding and FirstBuild's Mella smart mushroom fruiting chamber promises to take some of the guesswork out of the challenge. New Atlas recently got its hands on one and we put it through its paces. Here's what we found. For centuries, mushrooms have been a mystery and often suspected as being something supernatural. Suddenly appearing out of nowhere, they were thought to be the works of the devil, or witches, or lightning, or shooting stars. Folklore even suggested that rings of mushrooms in a field...

China’s hospitals are so overwhelmed after the sudden reversal of the country’s “zero-COVID” policies that many have been forced to turn away ambulances and critically ill patients. Emergency rooms in smaller cities and towns outside Bejing are teeming with sick patients, slumped on benches and lying on the floor due to a lack of beds. With intensive care units at capacity, the facilities are not able to admit all of the patients being rushed to them in ambulances. Bejing-based doctor Howard Bernstein has not seen a situation so dire in the three decades he has been practicing medicine. “The hospital...

| Overview Searching for signs of life in the galaxy, identifying supernova outbursts, and finding evidence to support or refute modern physical theories are among the new astronomical observatory of x-rays’ objectives. The Square Kilometer Array Observatory’s (SKAO) construction has begun in its Australian and South African sites. The science and other stuff to know “It’s been a 30-year journey. The first 10 years were spent developing concepts and ideas. The second 10 were spent developing technology. And then the last Decade was spent on detailed design, securing the sites, getting governments to agree to set up a treaty organization,...

A Tennessee woman is accused of multiple armed carjackings including one in which she used her 5-year-old child as a shield after firing a gun, according to police. Bethany Wilson, 24, went on an alleged auto theft spree that ended with her crashing one of the stolen vehicles on an interstate Thursday, local ABC affiliate WZTV reported. Wilson, of Goodlettsville, reportedly stole at least three cars over a period of only a few hours before she was arrested Thursday night, Clarksville police told the station. She first allegedly took a 51-year-old woman’s Nissan Juke at a gas station around 4:42...

The federal minimum wage of $7.25 is in place for 20 states. Four states will have a $15-an-hour minimum wage by New Year’s Day, while 27 states are poised to raise the minimum wage in 2023. Some states are enacting the wage change after Jan. 1, so by the end of 2023 there will be six states that are set to have minimum wages at or above $15 an hour. They are California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon, and Washington, according to a report last week from the National Employment Law Project. Other states are gradually implementing a $15-an-hour minimum...

The right-wing extremist who federal authorities say led the failed plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic has been sentenced to 16 years in prison — dodging what could have been a life sentence that federal authorities had sought in the rare domestic terrorism case. Adam Fox, 39, was convicted in August on two conspiracy charges relating to the kidnapping scheme and another to obtain and use a weapon of mass destruction related to a side plot to blow up a bridge in order to distract authorities. Federal prosecutors identified Fox as...

@julie_kelly2 Judge: “This is what law enforcement is supposed to do. I don’t see anything on the entrapment front. In my mind, law enforcement deserves a pat on the back.” He claimed the FBI informants “pulled the plug early” and commended the agency for its “careful monitoring.” 🙄 This same judge has aided DOJ in this bogus case from the start, denying defense motions to present damning evidence at trial and refusing to compel testimony from FBI informants, agents for defense. His conduct in retrial was a disgrace

My husband and I spent our first seven years of marriage building our careers. When our second child was born, we realized how expensive day care would be. My husband decided to stay at home with the kids, and I grew my career — and our family thrives. Sixteen years ago, my husband and I decided to make a big shift for our family. Peter and I had spent the first seven years of our married life without kids, supporting each other in our separate career goals. When our son was born, we continued to balance it all, but when...

Shin Bet and police say Eslam Froukh committed deadly attack in November on his own, and allegedly planned further attacks before being detained . The act, the murderer. Tadasa Tashume Ben Ma'ada, 50, (right) and 16-year-old Aryeh Schupak, killed in a bombing attack at the entrance of Jerusalem, November 23, 2022. (Courtesy)

SHE TOOK THE LONG WAY HOME. A mischievous black bear was deemed so disruptive to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park—stealing backpacks from hikers and nabbing food from picnic tables—that she was rehomed at a nature reserve in eastern Tennessee. But the bear decided she liked her previous home and its amenities just fine, and she made that known by trekking 1,000 miles through four states over six months, back to the national park. She was tracked near the picnic tables where she has been causing trouble in the first place. Read on to find out more about the bear's...

Tokyo’s Shibuya Ward announced Friday that two public restrooms in the ward, known as “see-through toilets,” in which the glass walls of the restrooms become opaque when in use, had a problem that allowed people to see inside while in use. The walls of the toilets are made of special glass, which becomes opaque when locked. Yomiuri Shimbun file photo Two toilet cubicles are seen in Shibuya Ward, Tokyo, in November. The cubicle’s glass becomes opaque when in use, as seen on the right.

The year began with a lesson in pronouns and pretending, or dishonesty-on-demand, courtesy of the suddenly ungendered Laurie Penny – now, it seems, a they, depending on who’s nearby and how fashionable they are. And so, we pondered animal pronouns, clown pronouns and pronouns that can change randomly, depending on whim, several times a day. Such is the hamster-wheel world of competitive self-definition. We also flicked through the pages of The Atlantic, where senior editor Honor Jones, a woman oppressed by comfort and fidelity, shared a somewhat bewildering account of her divorce from a loving and faithful husband. Chief among...

Anndel Taylor, 22, was killed while waiting out the massive snow storm Taylor sent a final video to her family members from inside the car Across Erie County, New York, 35 people have been killed during the storm Three were found in cars despite an ongoing ban on personal road travel New York Governor Kathy Hochul has declared a state of emergency *************************************************** A 22-year-old woman has tragically frozen to death after spending 18 hours in her car while trying to wait out a historic snowstorm currently devastating Buffalo. Anndel Taylor died over the weekend after her vehicle was stranded...

Consequences can come at you fast or slow. If you’re a trillion-dollar company, you get to choose which, a bit, but you can never escape completely. Amazon is burning billions on Alexa because voice assistants need massive infrastructure but can't be monetized. Google Cloud is $700 million in the red as of last earnings and heading south to a state of madness like a New Jersey retiree. These are mature products in saturated markets. You don't need an MBA to know what will happen. But even the dean of Harvard Business School can't say when.The big confounding factor is reputation....

Texas Republican Representative Carl Tepper has introduced a bill that seeks to forbid diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at all public universities in the Lonestar State. The bill, introduced Dec. 13, seeks to ban “the funding, promotion, sponsorship or support of any office of diversity, equity and inclusion” as well as any “initiative or formulation of diversity, equity and inclusion beyond what is necessary to uphold the equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment.” The legislation, HB 1006, also seeks to mandate that all higher education institutions adopt a policy that “demonstrates a commitment to intellectual freedom and...

Ants are sweet, nutty little insects, aren't they? I'm not talking about their personalities, but how they taste. Stinkbugs have an apple flavor, and red agave worms are spicy. A bite of tree worm apparently brings pork rinds to mind. This information will come in handy for those of us following the latest recommendation from the United Nations: Consume more insects