Free Republic

Financially-Strapped Vatican Opens Its First-Ever Shopping MallROME — The economically-ailing Vatican has inaugurated a 120,000-square-foot shopping mall to cater to the millions of tourists and pilgrims that visit it each year.After eating millions of dollars in losses on bad investments and running a serious deficit for several years in a row, the Vatican has opened the “Caput Mundi” Mall a stone’s throw from Saint Peter’s Basilica as an added revenue stream to supplement its flagging finances.The new mall boasts over 40 boutiques featuring select Italian and foreign brands and includes clothing, accessories, jewelry, toys, cosmetics, and an exclusive and innovative...

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) praised the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) regulatory gun control push during Thursday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing and claimed stabilizer braces turn firearms “into killing machines.” The House Judiciary Committee hearing centered on the ATF’s recent AR-pistol stabilizer brace rule, which requires stabilizer brace owners to register their braces with the ATF or do one of the four following alternatives: Turn in the entire firearm with the attached “stabilizing brace” to ATF; Destroy the whole firearm; Convert the short-barreled rifle into a long-barreled rifle; Permanently remove and dispose of, or alter, the...

In January, Harvey resident Jordan Henry was found guilty of three counts of aggravated vehicular hijacking, two counts of armed robbery, and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon, among other charges. The 29-year-old had attempted to carjack a driver outside a 7-Eleven in February 2022. When the victim fled the scene with their car keys, Henry stole their phone and left in his own car. Henry then carjacked a 69-year-old Uber driver at gunpoint and stole his Volkswagen Jetta. When police spotted the stolen vehicle, Henry accelerated and led the police on a highway chase....

“The Young Turks” co-host Ana Kasparian on Thursday set the internet ablaze when she ripped woke “trans inclusive” terms for being “degrading” to women. Kasparian, an unapologetic member of the Left, has caught flak from some extremists on her side of the aisle in the past for engaging in debate and discussion with people on the Right, most notably Daily Wire emeritus Ben Shapiro back in 2021. “I’m a woman,” the pundit tweeted Thursday. “Please don’t ever refer to me as a person with a uterus, birthing person, or person who menstruates. How do people not realize how degrading this...

Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded the bulk of grain and fertiliser to be exported under the Black Sea Initiative must be channelled to Africa. -snip- Speaking to African government ministers on Monday during the International Parliamentary Conference, dubbed "Africa in a Multipolar World", in Moscow, Putin said his key demands were that Africans should be the biggest beneficiaries. "We insist on the package nature of this deal - above all, in the interests of African and other developing countries, considering that they need large amounts of food - we insist on full compliance with Russia's key requirements, first of...

[Catholic Caucus] French bishop moves to end Traditional Latin Mass standoffA Traditional Latin Mass on the steps of the hospital chapel in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France. Screenshot from VA (toujours) Plus YouTube channel.French Catholics who have attended Traditional Latin Masses outside a closed chapel for more than two years will now be offered regular Sunday Masses using the 1962 missal in a local chapel.The Diocese of Versailles announced March 16 that Bishop Luc Crepy had approved a proposal for the Masses to take place in the Franciscan chapel in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, a town in the western suburbs of Paris, beginning March 19.The diocese...

. You can see where this is going. The FOX News $$$ recruits every person representing the Republican View on TV / Radio to say it’s not the Trillions to failing, unaccountable Cities - but the people getting 25k a year for the 45 years they paid into it. This Conversation, which will be the RNC platform, neglects to say that Congress allowed and incentivized Corps (Donors) to do away with Pensions and Retiree Healthcare and change their systems to assume (adequate) Social Security Income at 62 which moved to 65 in exchange for donations from those Corporations. From Hannity...

Amnesty International has admitted that Ukraine is using children and other civilians as human shields in its war against Russia, launching attacks from populated areas and turning schools, hospitals, and homes into military outposts; all things that Amnesty International says constitute a violation of humanitarian law.Amnesty International is frequently cited by the globalist class as the foremost organization on human rights and has been openly in favor of taking down Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin. However, a recent admission by the globally-operating NGO sheds light on the human shield tactics that Ukraine is using as the war with Russia...

A super PAC that has closely aligned itself with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has begun preparations for the 2024 presidential race by adding Sen. Ted Cruz's (R-TX) former campaign manager to its ranks, a report revealed Wednesday. Although DeSantis has yet to make an announcement on a presidential bid, discussions surrounding his possible candidacy have been going on for months. A move to secure Jeff Roe, who ran Cruz's 2016 presidential campaign, for a seat on the super PAC, is another signal that an announcement could come this summer. Roe has signed on to be an adviser to the super...

It looks like the FBI may have known about Hunter Biden’s shady business dealings longer than anyone realized. An executive working for an Israeli think tank reportedly exposed Hunter to the FBI in 2019 after Hunter Biden allegedly “tipped... off” a Chinese energy official about an upcoming U.S. federal investigation, allowing him to flee law enforcement and potentially avoid punishment. Gal Luft is the co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security. The Washington-based think tank describes itself as a “non-profit organization which directs attention to the strong link between energy and security and provides a stage for...

President Joe Biden on Thursday celebrated the 13th anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, an expansion of government-subsidized health insurance that he said had “changed America” but is under threat from his Republican opponents. Foreshadowing a major theme of what is expected to be his bid for a second term in 2024, Biden said he was working to lower costs in the notoriously expensive US healthcare system while fending off Republican pressure to cut government funding. “Even now, MAGA Republicans in Congress are intent on repealing the Affordable Care Act,” Biden told a White House celebration event, referring to the...

A Portland, Oregon, community is on edge after a homeless man attacked a resident and a growing homeless encampment encroaches on the neighborhood "It’s terrifying," Gwen Ingram, a resident living near Portland’s Southeast 111th Avenue and Powell Boulevard, told Fox 12 Oregon of the encampment. "People scream at you, yell at you, threaten you." Ingram told the outlet that the area was a peaceful "Leave it to Beaver"-style neighborhood until the first homeless resident showed up in a camper and the population grew so large that homeless individuals are now allegedly sleeping on private property, stealing things and breaking into...

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- From a flying couch to crushed cars, a collection of videos and images show just how powerful Tuesday's storm was across the San Francisco Bay Area. The winds were so strong in San Francisco, city officials say they toppled at least 900 trees and branches -- resulting in two deaths. VIDEO AT LINK.................. Video from a high-rise in the city showed a couch flying through the air as it narrowly missed a person on the ground below. While images out of Santa Cruz showed high surf battering the already damaged coastline from January's storms. Watch the...

Lex iniusta non est lex: An unjust law is no law at all. Seventy-five years ago, it was established at the Nuremberg trial for doctors that never again would we allow medical experimentation upon human beings without their consent. Well, here we are, 5.5 billion people into the human experimentation of the COVID injections that have killed and maimed millions, and the principle of informed consent is dead. All the government officials, pharmaceutical executives, and doctors involved in defrauding the public with taxpayer funding and violating the consent of humanity to mandate dangerous shots are absolved of liability. Meanwhile, a...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Thursday praised Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for calling Russian President Vladimir Putin “a thug” and “a war criminal.” “Governor @RonDeSantisFL description of Putin being a thug and a war criminal is spot on. What do you call a national leader who uses their army to kidnap children of a neighboring state? A War Criminal,” Graham tweeted.

On 19 and 20 March, some 40 African delegations travelled to Moscow ahead of the Russia-Africa summit scheduled for July in St Petersburg, to discuss cooperation and the fight against the influence of “former colonial powers”. There is but one step between Vladimir Putin’s office and the Duma in central Moscow. It was at the Russian parliament’s headquarters, just a few metres from the Kremlin, that the conference “Russia-Africa in a multipolar world” was held from 19-20 March, the second of its kind devoted to strengthening cooperation between African and Russian parliamentarians. The meeting came ahead of the next Africa-Russia...

Popular San Francisco radio host Jeffrey “JV” Vandergrift was found dead this week, nearly a month after he posted an alarming message on social media and went missing, authorities said. JV’s body was found by police around 5 p.m. Wednesday in the San Francisco Bay by Pier 39, KRON4 reported. No cause of death has been determined, the outlet said. The tattooed on-air personality, 54, was reported missing on Feb. 23, just hours after he posted a concerning Instagram update thanking his followers for “a wonderful life-filed w joy, laughs, pain & struggle.” He also changed his Twitter location to...

Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) stumped yet another Biden judicial nominee on Wednesday with a basic legal question. During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing for several judicial nominations, including U.S. Magistrate Judge S. Kato Crews' nomination to serve as a U.S. district court judge, Kennedy asked Crews an elementary question about evidentiary discovery. "Tell me how you analyze a Brady motion," Kennedy asked Crews. In a Brady motion, a defendant compels prosecutors in a criminal case to turn over potentially exculpatory evidence, that is, evidence that would help prove the innocence of the defendant. Brady Motions are central to the...

Wokeness has replaced competence and merit across the banking sector, and San Francisco Fed Chief Mary Daly is the poster child of this pernicious trend. A protege of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and short-list candidate for Federal Reserve vice chair, Daly was supposed to be supervising Silicon Valley Bank but apparently was too busy playing politics and pushing woke agendas to regulate rogue banks like SVB, the second-biggest bank failure on record. ... Daly missed all the warning signs of runaway inflation, which led to the steep interest-rate hikes that made SVB’s investments worthless. ... she said inflation didn’t affect...

When it comes to all matters military, I have been following a handful of analysts among whom Croatian Admiral Davorin Domazet (retired) emerged as perhaps my favorite. He has deep and detailed command of technical matters (like Andreiy Martyanov he insists that you can’t prevail in modern warfare without deep knowledge of of advanced mathematics and probability). More importantly, he has perhaps the clearest understanding of the broad historical context of today’s clash between Russia and the western powers.