Free Republic

"We have seen them provide non-lethal support to Russia for use in Ukraine. The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they're considering providing lethal support,..."...Blinken confirmed that Chinese companies are already providing non-lethal support to the Russian effort. He noted the relationship between Chinese companies and the Chinese government, saying, "To date, we have seen Chinese companies and of course, in China, there's really no distinction between private companies and the state."

The U.S. Northern Command said Friday it recommended to conclude searches for two unidentified objects that were shot down in U.S. airspace earlier this month.Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin concurred with the recommendation, the command said in a statement.One of the unidentified objects was shot down on Feb. 10 over U.S. waters off the northern coast of Alaska, near Deadhouse. Another was shot down on Feb. 12 over Michigan’s Lake Huron.The objects are two of the four flying objects separately shot down over North American airspace earlier this month. They are also two of the three objects that remain unidentified.Search operations...

The Economist Democracy Index rates countries on the state of their governing system each year. In the latest published edition, corresponding to the year 2022, only 24 countries in the world have been rated as 'full democracies', representing 8% of the world's population.This category includes all Scandinavian countries, several Western European nations, as well as Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Mauritius, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Latin American countries Uruguay, Costa Rica and Chile.You will find more infographics at StatistaWith an overall average score of 5.29 out of 10, almost the same as the previous year (5.28), the index shows a...

A couple took their electric vehicle on a road trip from Michigan to Florida and said they experienced “range anxiety” the entire way. Bill and Joann Muller drove 1,500 miles from Michigan to Florida in a Kia EV6. “We were constantly thinking about where to charge next,” Joann Muller explained for Axios. "It occupied our minds more than where to eat or spend the night.” Muller said they stopped 12 times to charge, with each time lasting between 20 minutes and 55 minutes and ultimately adding anywhere from four to 11 hours to their trip. The couple also avoided using...

For quite some time now, one of the standard requirements to stay in the United States Navy has been the annual ritual of having to pass a basic physical fitness test. These exercises typically include the activities you would likely expect, including running, hiking, calisthenics, and keeping your weight under control. Failing such a test can be a factor in your removal from the service. But the navy has been having trouble meeting its recruiting goals (like the other branches of the service), so physical fitness assessment failures will now be scrubbed from sailors’ records according to a new policy...

A viral hoax showing a supposedly cleaned-out library as a result of a new Florida law banning explicit material in schools has resulted in a teacher being fired.Brian Covey, who was a substitute teacher for Duval County Public Schools (Jacksonville area), was told his services would no longer be needed after he posted a video making it seem as if the Mandarin Middle School library had been emptied out. When questioned about the situation at the time, Gov. Ron DeSantis denounced it as a fake narrative, noting that nothing in the law required any school to take any such action.Apparently,...

The opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of RedState.com.On February 3, a 141-car Norfolk Southern train derailed in the eastern Ohio town of East Palestine. About 50 of the rail cars were damaged, including five tank cars carrying toxic and carcinogenic vinyl chloride. Safety crews vented and burned the vinyl chloride. The town was ordered evacuated, ‘Leave Now’: Hundreds of Residents Near Site of East Palestine, Ohio Train Derailment Ordered to Evacuate.To call the official response tepid would give it too much credit.The Biden White House has essentially ignored the issue. Our...

Kathy Hochul’s dangerous and Orwellian “Hateful Conduct Law” suffered a major defeat, being struck down in the Southern District of New York by Judge Andrew L. Carter. That came after Rumble and a blogger teamed up to challenge the law in court.The law, which Hochul originally signed in the summer of 2022, would have forced social media companies to “report” hateful conduct to the state (in this case, New York) and also have policies in place to censor such speech.According to Judge Carter (Breitbart), that was a no-go given the protections afforded by the First Amendment.“The Hateful Conduct Law both...

A reimagined version of Dolly Parton's hit song, "Jolene," featuring the late Olivia Newton-John was released on Friday and it's giving a glimpse into the two stars' friendship. Their duet, which will be part of Newton-John's last album that she recorded before her death, "Just the Two of Us: The Duets Collection," was released with a music video on YouTube. In the video, Newton-John says that she "always wanted to sing with Dolly." "I'm so excited to be working with Olivia Newton-John, one of my favorites of all time," Parton says in another clip. "We've always kind of stayed close...

The two largest banks in the U.S. have reported rising delinquency rates on their credit cards. Both Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase said in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that their delinquency rates rose in January, two days after Discover Financial did the same. Bank of America reported that from December to January, its Master Credit Card Trust II’s delinquency rate rose from 1.03% to 1.09% and its net charge-off rate increased from 1.43% to 1.50%. JPMorgan Chase said that during those same months, its credit card delinquency rate rose from 0.76% to 0.83% but its...

As China declares victory over the pandemic, the landmark protests in November which spelled the end for zero-Covid rules have begun fading from memory. But as the country moved on, many of those who took part in the demonstrations went missing, taken by authorities in a quietly deepening crackdown on dissenters. Thousands rallied against restrictive Covid policies in the so-called White Paper protests, holding up blank white sheets in the dark. It was a rare show of criticism of the ruling Chinese Communist Party and its leader Xi Jinping. Police made few arrests at the time. Now, months on, scores...

Residents of Elon Musk’s “space city” in southeastern Texas blasted the SpaceX CEO’s treatment of them as he transformed their quiet beach town into his grand Starbase vision, a report said. Boca Chica was a small, seaside village at the mouth of the Rio Grande on the Mexican border with just a few streets before SpaceX moved in, promising to turn the town into a terrestrial terminus for space travelers. The company broke ground on its launch facility in 2014 and started testing rockets there in 2019. As work on the project progressed, SpaceX gradually bought up most of Boca...

Rachel Levine, who is now assistant secretary for health in the Biden administration, discussed the potential revenue that could be generated by a gender clinic social worker who could advocate for child sex change procedures in emails, reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation, with a pediatrician. Dr. Rollyn Ornstein, a pediatrician at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital, believed a social worker for the hospital’s gender clinic would generate enough revenue to make funding the position worthwhile, noting that even with age restrictions for sex change surgeries, child patients would eventually turn 18 and be eligible for further interventions, according...

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI)-A Temple University police officer has died following a shooting Saturday evening in North Philadelphia, authorities said. According to Philadelphia police, the shooting happened at about 7 p.m. near 18th and Montgomery Avenue. The officer was shot in the head and was on patrol at the time...

On Friday supporters of President Macron in the assembly dropped intense accusations that the "Left" was "nostalgic for the guillotine". It was also said that the pension reform opponents longed for the days of "The Terror" during the French Revolution. But in the end the debate ended at Midnight Friday without a full examination of the text as the government moved the proposal onto the Senate. The Senate must act by March 12th then 'pension reform' goes back to a joint committee of both the Assembly and Senate the final deadline for passage March 26th... As the debate between the...

oe Biden has appointed Susan Rice to be the chair of the new “White House Steering Committee on Equity” to conduct a sweeping “racial equity” progressive makeover of the federal government with the establishment of “Agency Equity Teams” in all departments that answer to Rice. Biden issued an executive order on Thursday titled, “Executive Order on Further Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through The Federal Government.” The Agency Equity Teams will have power and funding to transform the federal government by “Delivering Equitable Outcomes Through Government Policies, Programs, and Activities.” Every year agencies will submit an “Equity...

North Korea launched a long-range ballistic missile into the sea off Japan's west coast on Saturday afternoon after warning of a strong response to upcoming military drills by South Korea and the United States. "The surprise ICBM launching drill ... is an actual proof of the DPRK strategic nuclear force's consistent efforts to turn its capacity of fatal nuclear counterattack on the hostile forces into the irresistible one," the state news agency KCNA said, using the abbreviation for the North's official name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The state news agency said the missile had flown for 1 hour,...

LANSING, Mich. — Michigan Republicans on Saturday picked Kristina Karamo to lead the party in the battleground state, fully embracing an election-denying Trump acolyte after her failed bid for statewide office, one in which she unsuccessfully sued to throw out mail-in votes in Detroit and refused to concede. Ms. Karamo won a majority of delegate votes at the state party’s convention in Lansing, the state capital, after three rounds of voting that — slowed by paper ballots and hand counting — went on hours longer than the period for which the party had originally rented the convention space. Her victory...

BARTOW, Fla. — A man was arrested after he drove through a cemetery in Bartow, Florida. He damaged some headstones of some graves and ultimately crashed into a house. Police saw Timothy David Adams, 40, recklessly driving and witnessed him run a stop sign just after midnight Thursday, according to WFLA. Officers attempted to stop Adamas but he fled the area. Officers tried to chase Adams but he turned off his lights which made it harder to follow him, according to WTVT. Adams ended up driving through a fence near Stuart Street which was on the side of Wildwood Cemetary,...

Nine children under the age of 18 were shot outside a gas station in Columbus, Georgia on Friday night. The shooting occurred just after 10pm Friday night outside of a Shell Gas Station on Warm Springs Road. The victims ranged in age from 5-years to 17-years of age, and were comprised of seven male and two female victims.