Free Republic

Yosemite National Park remains closed indefinitely as startling photos show popular parts of Yosemite Valley buried in snow. Heated tents in Curry Village and a shuttle stop near Yosemite Falls, both highly trafficked locations even during the cold season, were blanketed in snow. The park originally closed to visitors last weekend as severe winter weather approached the Sierra Nevada. The storm ultimately dumped "up to 15 feet" of snow in some areas of Yosemite, the park noted on Twitter, and created whiteout conditions across the region over several days. For its part, Yosemite Valley tallied 40 inches of snow Tuesday...

Indian leader calls on bloc to find common ground on global issues as he inaugurates the meeting set to be dominated by Ukraine war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has criticised global institutions for failing to address the world’s biggest challenges, calling on countries to find common ground on divisive issues. Speaking at the opening of the Group of 20 (G20) foreign ministers’ meeting in New Delhi on Thursday, Modi said that countries should acknowledge that multilateralism is currently “in crisis”. “The experience of the last few years – financial crisis, climate change, pandemic, terrorism and wars – clearly shows...

In Chicago on Tuesday, current Mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election. In a race where only the top two finishers would advance to the final round, Lightfoot finished third, with 17.1% of the vote. Of nine total candidates, the top two vote-getters were Paul Vallas (33.7% of the vote) and Brandon Johnson (20.3%). Those two will now compete in a runoff in April. The New York Times, which provided those voting data, described Lightfoot in its February 28 report as someone “whose outsider status and promises to enact sweeping reforms propelled her to office four years ago,” but...

Keen technophiles may recall that the internet is “a series of tubes” (not a “big truck”), and sometimes those tubes get congested. The late Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) fretted about streaming services crowding out other data packets. The analysis is highly technical, but do your best to follow: “Ten movies streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet? I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going...

After a mother found disturbing content on her 16-year-old’s phone, police investigated and arrested a Florida youth pastor, charging him with multiple counts of sexual misconduct. February 9, Human Trafficking detectives arrested Moises Escoto, 36, after learning he had made contact with the child two years earlier on a chat and meetup app called Sniffies. Sniffies is a map-based meetup app launched in 2018 for gay, bisexual, or curious men. While the site claims to have strict rules for regulating and reporting underage users, a discussion thread on Reddit suggests that many underage users lie about their age on the...

2 March 2023Thursday of the 1st week of Lent Saint Agnes of Bohemia Catholic Church, Chicago, IL Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: A(I).First readingEsther 4:17 ©I am alone, Lord, and have no-one but youQueen Esther took refuge with the Lord in the mortal peril which had overtaken her. She besought the Lord God of Israel in these words:‘My Lord, our King, the only one,come to my help, for I am aloneand have no helper but youand am about to take my life in my hands.‘I have been taught from my earliest years, in the bosom of my family,that you,...

Hail, light snow and graupel have reached areas across the southern counties, including Orange, Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside. Most winters, the rest of the country might be envious of the weather conditions in Southern California — where locals enjoy Christmas with perfect weather and the misery of shoveling snow is nonexistent for city dwellers. But this year, even Angelenos are not immune to snow, as white patches surround the Hollywood sign and graupel reaches the Happiest Place on Earth. “Right now we have really cold low pressure moving over Southern California ... bringing these scattered showers...

Click on link

If you value truth, ignore the "experts." Most aren't really expert at much. They prefer titles to original thoughts — and the more titles they insist on announcing, the more likely they seek nobility, not knowledge. They could more accurately be called "opinion connoisseurs." They are experts in fashionable opinion and possess an insatiable need to tell everyone else just what the very best people are supposed to believe. The "experts" told us that COVID came from a wet market, that two weeks of isolation would flatten the curve, that lockdowns posed few health risks, that closed schools posed few...

Ukrainian saboteurs infiltrated into the borderline district of the Bryansk region on Thursday morning. The Ukrainian militants incursion in the Bryansk Region is a terrorist attack, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday...

During the course of the 20th century socialist and communist regimes brutally murdered somewhere between 160,000,000-200,000,000 men, women, and children in their maddened attempts at building the ideal society free from evil, especially the ‘evils’ caused by Jehovah God, Original Sin, monogamous marriage, the two created sexes, and ethical restraints and cultural taboos. As with the “God is dead” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, they had stopped looking to heaven for their hopes and rewards, and declaring themselves “good” had become the very essence and face of evil.

A Duke Energy Corp. subsidiary for North Carolina electric customers has asked state regulators to let them raise residential rates by 16.6% in the coming months largely to recover their fuel costs, which it said soared mainly from natural gas prices last year. Duke Energy Carolinas serves about 2 million households and businesses in western and central North Carolina. It said Wednesday that if the request is approved by the state Utilities Commission, the typical residential customer's monthly bill would increase from $115.01 to a little over $134.11. The Charlotte-based utility emphasized such approved requests don't widen anticipated profits, but...

We’ve had enough of the left’s guilt-tripping anyone who drives a gasoline-powered car. If anyone should be ashamed, it is those who are smugly plugging in their cars each night. They are the ones responsible for raping the planet, poisoning entire communities, enriching genocidal tyrants, and creating a massive hazmat problem while doing nothing to stop “climate change.” Does that sound harsh? Here’s one recent bit of evidence. A Bloomberg investigation found that the aluminum Ford is using to build its “eco-friendly” EV pickup comes from Brazil.

My friend and I sometimes argue about media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. Why do they spread misinformation? A. Are they grossly uninformed? B. Do they know the truth but tell falsehoods anyway? C. Do they think we are stupid or naïve? My buddy feels that the media outlets know the truth but lie about it. To me, it is more complicated. The nice-looking journalists who read the teleprompters are genuinely ignorant. On the other hand, the news producers probably know the truth but spread misinformation anyway. Producers are the ones who select the topics, construct the programs, and hire...

Could the collapse of South Africa, so long foretold by pessimists, finally be arriving? The United States government thinks it’s possible. On February 15, the U.S. embassy in Pretoria advised Americans in South Africa to have at least seventy-two hours’ worth of food, water, medicine, and hygiene supplies in case of power outages, which have reached record levels in recent weeks, leaving users across the country without electricity for hours at a time. In January, the U.S. State Department’s Overseas Security Advisory Council held a meeting, which was leaked to journalists in an audio recording, to discuss the need to...

A new Lewis Center for Church Leadership report compares characteristics of disaffiliating churches with those remaining in The United Methodist Church. The report draws on data from the denomination’s General Council on Finance and Administration and other sources. Among the findings is that disaffiliating churches are more likely to have a male pastor and to have a majority white membership. Info courtesy of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership, graphic by Laurens Glass, UM News.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has made it known before that she's a beauty girlie through and through (in addition, of course, to being a progressive political leader). And on Monday while traveling in Asia, the congresswoman took to Instagram Stories to speak on a subject of which plenty American skin-care obsessives are all too aware: Sun protection is absolutely crucial, and the United States lags painfully behind other countries in terms of access to modern sunscreen ingredients. Once again, for the cheap seats in the back: Daily sunscreen is a skin-care essential (for everyone, regardless of skin tone!) that protects against cancer,...

A cute mystery animal found huddling near a dumpster has rescuers scratching their heads in Dallas, Texas. Earlier this week, officers from the Dallas Police Department found the sweet little puppy eating out of a dumpster and stranded all alone. However, upon closer inspection, the adorable puppy looked an awful lot like a baby fox or coyote, leaving rescuers with the question: Just what kind of animal is it, exactly?

In a nutshell, the EU Food Commission has approved the use of insects to be part of our diet. I do not doubt that they are intending to eventually remove real meat and have us eat this crap. https://food.ec.europa.eu/safety/novel-food/authorisations/approval-insect-novel-food_en

Beijing will speed up its “reunification” plan for Taiwan, a deputy to the top legislature said ahead of its annual meeting that starts this weekend. “The [Communist] Party’s overall strategy for resolving the Taiwan issue in the new era has basically taken shape, and the strategic goals and focus of the future reunification cause have also become very clear,” National People’s Congress deputy Li Yihu said. “The mainland will promote national reunification on a fast development track,” Li told China Review News Agency in an interview published on Monday. Tensions have escalated across the Taiwan Strait, which separates the island...