Free Republic

"I want the entire world to know what these animals did to my daughter," Michael Kuch, father of 14-year-old Adriana Olivia Kuch, said. ... Four New Jersey high school students have been suspended indefinitely after they allegedly attacked a 14-year-old student in the hallway, who took her life 48 hours later after video of the attack surfaced online. Ocean County prosecutors reportedly told Michael Kuch, father of 14-year-old Adriana Olivia Kuch, that at least three of the girls involved are facing criminal charges for the February 1 attack on his daughter at Central Regional High School in Berkeley Townshi ......

RUSSIA has hundreds of thousands of soldiers, thousands of tanks, and hundreds of warplanes preparing for a new assault, Ukraine has warned. Vladimir Putin is believed to be preparing for a massive new offensive in the coming weeks to coincide with the first anniversary of the war in February 24. Ukraine has been monitoring the military build up as they continue to plea for Western support - including during Volodymyr Zelensky's visit yesterday to London. Zelensky hailed the UK for its support - but warned it may not be enough, and called for modern fighter planes. The new assault is...

Credit Suisse stock declined towards multi-decade lows amid worries about the company’s financial healthCredit Suisse reported a loss of $1.5 billion, the company’s biggest loss since the global financial crisis. The company recorded outflows of $120 billion in the fourth quarter as clients took their funds elsewhere. Assets under management declined from $802 billion at the start of 2022 to $583 billion at December 31, 2022. Credit Suisse, which is one of the biggest Switzerland’s banks, has never recovered from the 2008 financial crisis. The company’s shares touched highs near the $77.50 level in 2007 and have been moving lower...

Car crashes, opportunistic criminals, rotting food, decomposing bodies, bankrupt businesses, and water shortages. Welcome to life under South Africa’s power blackouts. Last week the grim extent of the outages was laid bare when South Africans were advised to bury dead loved ones within four days. In a public statement, the South African Funeral Practitioners Association warned that bodies in mortuaries were rapidly decomposing because of the unrelenting electricity outages, putting huge pressure on funeral parlors struggling to process corpses. The situation is so bad that the country’s President Cyril Ramaphosa is considering declaring a national disaster, similar to one in...

The parents and sister of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins are suing Alec Baldwin, claiming the cinematographer would have brought them to the US when war broke out in Ukraine if she was alive. The Hutchins family is being represented by Gloria Allred, who announced today at a press conference that they are seeking damages from Baldwin in Los Angeles. Halyna's mother, Olga, is a nurse treating the war wounded, and her sister, Svetlana, struggles at home with her two young kids while her husband fights on the front lines. The family had not filed any immigration case or visa request, but...

Update from Ukraine | The most stupid way to lose Tanks and Soldiers | Ruzzia learns nothing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yaBAbMYaKA Follow on Instagram up to date uploads. https://www.instagram.com/denys_pilot/ ****SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: NEW- https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-350-summary/ https://militaryland.net/maps/deployment-map

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Delaware man who threatened a Black police officer with a pole attached to a Confederate battle flag as he stormed the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Thursday to three years in prison. Kevin Seefried, 53, tearfully apologized for his participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot before U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced him. McFadden said it was deeply troubling that Seefried wielded the flagpole as a weapon against the officer. “Bringing a Confederate flag into one of our nation’s most sacred halls was outrageous,” the judge said. McFadden allowed Seefried to remain free until he...

Disney’s woke streaming services are still hemorrhaging money at an alarming rate, losing more than $1 billion a quarter at a time when CEO Bob Iger is trying to put the brakes on the company’s runaway spending habits. For its first fiscal quarter, Disney’s direct-to-consumer business — which includes Disney+, Hulu, and other services — lost $1.05 billion, a 78 percent larger loss from the same period a year ago. The figure represents a slight sequential improvement from the fourth quarter, which saw a $1.5 billion loss for the unit. The latest results come as domestic Disney+ subscriptions barely rose...

Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been restored. They were suspended in the wake of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump’s last Facebook post before his account was indefinitely closed called for his supporters to leave the Capitol. "I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!" A Meta spokesperson confirmed to NBC News on Thursday that Trump’s accounts had been reinstated. .....

Former Vice President Mike Pence has been subpoenaed by the special counsel overseeing probes into former President Donald Trump, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter. It's not immediately clear what information the subpoena from special counsel Jack Smith is seeking, but it follows months of negotiations between federal prosecutors and Pence's legal team. Smith was appointed in November to oversee the investigation into Trump's potential mishandling of classified documents after leaving the presidency and obstructing the government's efforts to retrieve them -- as well as a separate probe into efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the...

Cdl. McElroy invokes synodal ‘process’ to push LGBT agenda during university address'It is clear that the church in the US must transform its outreach to LGBT+ persons if it seeks to be a truly welcoming presence in the world,' Cardinal Robert McElroy said.SAN DIEGO (LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego has again invoked the “process of renewal” of the Synod on Synodality to justify greater inclusion in the Catholic Church of those who live homosexual lifestyles. Speaking on January 28 at the closing plenary session of a two-day conference titled “Re-Imagining the World: Saint Francis and Pope Francis,”...

On Jan. 30, the affluent town of Hillsborough held a city council meeting to discuss its floundering housing element plan. The plan, which lays out how towns and neighborhoods will meet state-mandated housing targets within eight years, was supposed to be submitted to California’s Department of Housing and Community Development by Feb. 1. It wasn’t. And it remains in limbo more than a week later. More troublingly, a Hillsborough resident proposed a loophole that’s been popping up in other affluent Bay Area towns trying to meet their housing requirements: build a segregated development specifically for developmentally disabled adults, thus preventing...

FATHER MARTIN'S BRIDGE: Crossing into Critical Queer CatholicismEditor's Intro: This is the most devastating takedown of the Big Lie that is Pope Francis's Church of Accompaniment I have ever read. The fact that is written by a Jesuit-trained homosexual man -- who is calling out Father James Martin by name in order to make his case -- only makes it that much more effective. This article needs the widest possible circulation, especially during the lead-up to the Synod on Synodality. Among those who have suffered the most collateral damage as a result of the Big Lie are, ironically, people with...

Ukraine could soon face a tough decision over tactically withdrawing from Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region, as the fate of the city hangs in balance. Bakhmut has been intensely fought over by Russian and Ukrainian forces for months, with Moscow viewing its capture as a strategic goal and a way to cut Ukrainian supply lines in Donetsk. Russian officials recently claimed that Moscow’s forces have almost entirely encircled Bakhmut. On Wednesday, one special forces commander said Russian troops now occupied several streets in the city. Ukraine disputes how far Russia has advanced into Bakhmut, although it concedes – in...

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) praised Joe Biden Thursday for waiting until the China spy balloon had crossed the entire United States before shooting it down over water. Romney spoke to reporters after an all-senators classified briefing on the spy balloon. ..... Snip..... "My questions were satisfactorily answered and I believe the administration, the president, our military and our intelligence agencies acted skillfully and with care. At the same time, their capabilities are extraordinarily impressive,” Romney told reporters after the briefing. "Was everything done 100% correctly? I can't imagine that would be the case of almost anything we do. But I...

A bond-market gauge of impending U.S. recessions fell just shy of reaching its most negative reading since October 1981, when interest rates were 19% under Paul Volcker’s Federal Reserve. That gauge, which measures the spread between 2- TMUBMUSD02Y, 4.492% and 10-year Treasury yields TMUBMUSD10Y, 3.662%, finished the New York session on Thursday at minus 82.5 basis points. In other words, the 10-year yield was trading 82.5 basis points below the 2-year yield. Over much of the day, the spread appeared to be on track to surpass its Dec. 7 low of minus 84.9 basis points and seemed headed for the...

"But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." "But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd." "And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house; and putting his hands on him said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and...

Mark 7:24-30,p> Friends, in today’s Gospel, a feisty woman engages Jesus in an argument. It is one of the only scenes in the Gospels where someone cajoles Jesus into doing something he wouldn’t ordinarily do.There is a long tradition that stresses the woman’s perseverance in the face of the “test” that Jesus sets for her. There is another reading that shows how the woman exemplifies the proper attitude toward God, a combination of humility and boldness, of deference and defiance.But the reading I want to emphasize is one conditioned by the philosophy of the “other.” The Old Testament speaks insistently...

After years of being a mediocre swimmer on the men’s team, Thomas woke up one morning and identified as transgender, transitioned, joined the women’s team, and started breaking records against his female teammates and tournament competitors. Since robbing real women of opportunities wasn’t enough for him, he also disrespected his teammates by exposing his male genitalia to them in the locker room. And now, Riley Gaines, a former teammate of Thomas, is calling for changes to be made by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). “We were not forewarned beforehand that we would be sharing a locker room with Lia....

On Thursday, Republican representative Matt Gaetz is introducing a resolution that will call on the Biden White House to end military and financial aid to Ukraine. The resolution will also urge all nations involved with the ongoing war to search for a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.