Free Republic

Illinois House bill would force Chicago grocers, gas stations to hire armed guards A state lawmaker wants to force select Chicago businesses to hire full-time, armed security guards. Illinois state lawmakers are pondering a bill that would force Chicago grocery stores, gas stations, banks and pawn shops to hire their own armed security guards to cover all hours they are open to the public. State Rep. Thaddeus Jones, D-Calumet City, introduced the “Armed Security Protection Act.” It only applies to municipalities with more than 2 million residents, which in Illinois would exclusively mean Chicago. What the bill doesn’t mention is...

Explanation: What's causing that unusual ray of light extending from the horizon? Dust orbiting the Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from the inner Solar System appears prominently after sunset or before sunrise and is called zodiacal light. The dust was emitted mostly from faint Jupiter-family comets and slowly spirals into the Sun. The featured HDR image, acquired in mid-February from the Sierra Nevada National Park in Spain, captures the glowing band of zodiacal light going right in front of the bright evening planets Jupiter (upper) and Venus (lower). Emitted from well behind the...

A controversial Virginia school board member is taking heat for saying the Battle of Iwo Jima, a major US victory during World War II, “unfortunately happened” — and set a record for “human evil.” Abrar Omeish made the stunning statements during a Thursday meeting of the Fairfax County School Board while discussing the US’s recent Japanese Day of Remembrance, which commemorates the 1942 internment of Japanese Americans by the US. “Something for us to certainly reflect on as we learn our history and think about it,” she said of the annual event. “The days when, you know, Iwo Jima unfortunately...

Look for Mars shining very high in the southwest during dusk. An illustration of the night sky on Feb. 27 showing the moon and Mars in close proximity. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech) The moon and Mars will make for a nice spectacle in the night sky tonight. According to calendars and almanacs, Monday evening (Feb. 27) bring us a first quarter moon. It's also sometimes called the "half" moon, although as darkness falls across North America, close inspection with binoculars or a small telescope will reveal that there is actually a little more than half of the moon illuminated by the...

According to a new meta-analysis presented at the American College of Cardiology’s Annual Scientific Session Together With the World Congress of Cardiology, individuals suffering from heart failure may not receive any additional benefits from limiting their dietary sodium intake below the recommended maximum level of approximately 2.3 grams per day. In fact, the analysis of nine randomized controlled trials suggests that such restriction may even raise the risk of death. Cutting sodium below current recommendations could be counterproductive, research finds. For people with heart failure, restricting dietary sodium intake to levels below the standard recommended maximum of about 2.3 grams...

Former President Trump renewed his attacks on Fox News this week, accusing the network of underplaying a new poll showing him with a double-digit lead on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in a potential 2024 Republican presidential primary match-up. Trump, in reference to the Fox News poll published Sunday that showed him leading DeSantis by 15 points in a hypothetical match-up, knocked the media giant for “promoting” DeSantis “so hard and so much that there’s not much time left for Real News.” “Reminds me of 2016 when they were pushing ‘JEB!’ The new Fox Poll, which have always been purposely terrible...

U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has extended a conditional loan of $375 million to Canadian battery recycler Li-Cycle Holdings Corp., to construct a hub in Rochester, New York, the company announced Monday. The loan will be disbursed through the DOE’s Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing (ATVM) Program, and is part of the Biden administration’s wider goal of enhancing domestic battery manufacturing and having half of all new vehicles be zero-emission by 2030, according to the DOE Monday. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York — who visited Li-Cycle’s Rochester hub in September — advocated for the firm to receive...

Minor League baseball player and one-time Mets pitching prospect Matt Pobereyko died suddenly of a heart attack on Friday. He was only 31. The news was first reported by MLB insider Hector Gomez who noted that Pobereyko pitched in the Mexican League and Dominican Winter League this offseason. Former Mets minor league pitcher Matt Pobereyko passed away at the age of 31 due to a heart attack. He had pitched in the Mexican League and Dominican Winter League this offseason. pic.twitter.com/Mu1D3pBt8W — Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) February 26, 2023 Several of the U.S. Minor League teams he played for also announced...

ANALYSIS:▪ Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett discussed his efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. ▪ Pro-Russia commentators have focused on his saying that a peace deal was "blocked" by the West. ▪ But Bennett has clarified that no such deal existed — and said talks broke down because of apparent Russian war crimes.A former Israeli prime minister is walking back his suggestion that the United States may have "blocked" an agreement last year to end the war in Ukraine, a claim that had been amplified by Russian state media and Kremlin sympathizers in the West.But a reader...

The CIA put four bottles of "vintage wine" and a basket containing wine and cognac given by undisclosed foreign parties to "official use," while destroying other items like wristwatches given as gifts to agency employees. Because the CIA is a clandestine intelligence service, many of the details about gifts given to CIA employees from foreign dignitaries and sources are kept secret. But a foreign gift disclosure document released by the State Department Thursday shows gifts many CIA employees received were destroyed, including watches ranging in value from $500 to $10,000. Gift-giving is a major part of foreign relations, a sign...

BREAKING: Katie Hobbs and Runbeck election services have been named as recipients of Sinaloa cartel bribes via deeds of trust and phony mortgages in AZ senate investigation. When are the criminals running this country going to be held accountable? A California-based law firm has accused Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, Runbeck Election Services, and a slew of other election officials, mayors, judges, city councilman, and county supervisors in the state of receiving bribes from the Sinaloa cartel. During a Thursday hearing before the Senate Elections and Municipal Oversight & Elections Joint Committee, the principal investigator for...

O’Keefe begins again okeefetips@protonmail.com

Jay Valentine, the Director of the Fractal Technology Software Team at Omega4America, released an Open Letter to Shane Hamlin, the Executive Director at ERIC the outdated and inefficient voter roll maintenance program founded by far-left activist David Becker. The ERIC system is now used in 32 states despite the fact that voter rolls in those states are more bloated with phantom voters than ever in US history. The Gateway Pundit has reported on the ERIC Systems in a series of articles and follow-up reports. ** ERIC Part 1: Who’s “Cleaning” Our Voter Rolls? ERIC Now in 31 States ** ERIC...

Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning on Monday refuted a US Department of Energy assessment report that claimed the COVID-19 pandemic most likely came from a lab leak in China and said that the "origins-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 is about science and should not be politicised." Mao Ning in a regular press conference said, "The origins-tracing of SARS-CoV-2 is about science and should not be politicized. China has always supported and participated in global science-based origins-tracing." She also said that “a laboratory origin of the pandemic was considered to be extremely unlikely” in a "science-based, authoritative conclusion reached by the experts...

What Happened to the Wealth of Crassus? | 0:31 / 11:20toldinstone | 336K subscribers | 31,781 views | February 24, 2023Chapters:0:00 The wealth of the Roman elite1:51 Investment strategies2:20 Passing wealth to the next generation3:23 Masterworks4:58 It's tough being rich6:21 Elite infertility7:50 Infant mortality8:57 The example of Crassus9:32 Long-lasting families

Hizbullah Official Abdullah Kassir: Your Motivation For Getting Married And Having Children Should Be To Produce Soldiers For The Imam Mahdi Hizbullah official Abdullah Kassir said on a February 15, 2023 show on Al-Manar TV (Hizbullah-Lebanon) that his motivation for getting married and having children was to "produce soldiers" for the Imam Mahdi, who is the messianic figure in Shi'ite belief. He explained that Sheikh Ragheb Harb, who was a senior Hizbullah commander in the early 1980s, used to say this as well, and the show's host responded: "This is the main strategic goal." Kassir also said: "Today, all the...

Rep. Greg Steube is demanding answers from the Smithsonian about the treatment of a group of Catholic pro-life students, who last month were forced to leave the facility after being harassed by staff. The students, from Greenville, South Carolina, were in Washington for the March for Life. They toured the National Air and Space Museum on Jan. 20. While present there, the group wore blue knit caps that read “Rosary Pro-Life.”

Years after the rollout of vaccine mandates that led to the firing of thousands of workers, the Lancet has reported that natural immunity is just as effective as two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer shots in preventing both reinfection and serious illness from COVID-19. The findings, which were published in the February edition of the prestigious medical journal, were based on a review of 65 separate studies from 19 different countries. “Although protection from reinfection from all variants wanes over time, our analysis of the available data suggests that the level of protection afforded by previous infection is at...

Trump said to achieve his goal, he would phase in a system of universal, baseline tariffs on most foreign products. Trump said higher tariffs will "increase incrementally depending on how much individual foreign countries devalue their currency." Trump also said countries devalue their currency and "subsidize their industries, or otherwise engage in trade cheating and abuse, and they do it now like never before." "We had largely stopped and it was going to be stopped completely within less than a year," Trump said, reflecting on his administration. "As tariffs on foreign producers go up, taxes on American producers will go...

The Virginia Military Institute continues to face intense pushback from an alumni group that opposes the military school’s ongoing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The activists in recent months upped their efforts by seeking to redirect the institute’s alumni fundraising in an effort to persuade campus leaders to pull back on critical race theory policies and programs. “The only way you can influence them is by hurting their pocketbook,” alumnus Gene Rice told The College Fix in an interview.