Free Republic

Subpoenaed memo records allegations from a confidential human source in mid-2020 about a foreign pay-to-play scheme when Joe Biden was Barack Obama's vice president. multiple officials said. They did not identify the informant. The hunt for answers in the long-running Hunter Biden investigation is returning to questions that prompted the scandal four years ago: did Joe Biden trade U.S. policy for money his family was receiving from overseas sources like Ukraine. Prompted by a whistleblower, House and Senate Republicans investigators on Wednesday issued a subpoena for an FBI memo they say documents allegations of a pay-to-play bribery scheme involving the...

First Horizon Corp. and TD Bank Group have mutually agreed to end their merger agreement, which was valued at $13.4 billion when it was first announced more than a year ago, the companies announced Thursday morning. First Horizon shares were plummeting 45% in premarket trading after the announcement. Prior to the announcement, First Horizon stock had been trading well below the $25-per-share deal price, a sign that investors were skeptical that the deal would go through.

An ex-FBI official who allegedly urged rioters to "kill" officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was previously the supervisory special agent in charge of Homegrown Violent Extremism for the FBI New York Field Office's Joint Terrorism Task Force, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News. Jared Wise was arrested in Oregon this week, charged with four misdemeanor counts. After he entered the Capitol and exited through a broken window, an FBI affidavit alleges, Wise yelled at officers outside the Capitol. "You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can’t see it," he...

The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday approved the world's first RSV vaccine: a shot for adults ages 60 and up, made by pharmaceutical giant GSK. The milestone was decades in the making. Researchers first attempted to develop a vaccine for respiratory syncytial virus roughly 60 years ago. In a late-stage clinical trial, the single-dose shot lowered the risk of symptomatic illness by 83% and of severe illness by 94%. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must still recommend the vaccine before it becomes available to the public. A CDC advisory committee is scheduled to meet in June to...

New York/London CNN — Another US regional lender caught up in the worst banking crisis since 2008 is looking for help. PacWest Bank (PACW), based in California, confirmed Thursday that it is exploring “all strategic options” after its share price was cut in half in after-hours trading following a Bloomberg report that it was considering a sale. “Exploring strategic options” is Wall Street lingo for “please help.” The last bank to announce it was exploring strategic options was First Republic Bank (FRC). That regional bank failed Monday, and JPMorgan purchased most of its assets. “In accordance with normal practices the...

If the latest employment trends continue and economists' forecasts prove true, Friday's jobs report could bring back that pre-pandemic feeling. Economists expect the US economy to have added 180,000 jobs in April, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv. Excluding the losses during the first year of the pandemic, that would be the smallest monthly gain since December 2019. It could also hammer home the fact that the US labor market has indeed cooled down from its red-hot recovery over the past two years. Earlier this week, the latest labor turnover report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the Job...

A group of attorneys general from across the U.S. is going after one of the country’s largest banks, which it claims treats some Christians unfairly. In a letter recently sent to JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, the groups said the bank preaches “openness and inclusivity,” but it has “persistently discriminated” against some religious liberty groups. “Chase cannot call itself ‘inclusive’ and say that it ‘opposes discrimination in any form’ while simultaneously disenfranchising its clients over religious and political differences,” Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, who took the lead in the effort, said. “I’m leading this coalition to stand up...

A Ghana national pleaded not guilty in federal court Wednesday to stealing about $2.4 million from the Wisconsin Republican Party in a wire fraud scheme. Paul Williams Anti, 59, was charged in February with embezzlement, online court records show. According to court documents, scammers manipulated state GOP employees’ email accounts in October 2020 to divert funds meant for vendors into the scammers’ bank accounts. Williams Anti allegedly controlled two of those accounts. A cybersecurity firm that the state GOP hired to investigate found that an employee's email account had been altered so that any message with the words “invoice,” “wire...

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, said he will veto a proposed bill that would ban abortions after 12 weeks. According to House Speaker Tim Moore and Senate leader Phil Berger, House and Senate Republicans came to a consensus on legislation that would enact the legislation. Currently, state law prohibits abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy with the exceptions of circumstances involving rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or when the life of the mother is at risk. Those exceptions remain in the new legislation, which Cooper has called an attack on women’s freedom to choose. “It will effectively ban access...

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VIDEOWARNING! If you vote a certain way in 2024, it could result in MSNBC's Mike Barnicle reaching for his pill bottle and swallowing it whole. If you think this is an exaggeration, you won't after watching this clip of Barnicle moaning how deeply deeply DEPRESSED he is over a certain Orange Man who ruined his life. Yes, it appears that poor Mike is suffering from terminal TDS to the extent that the Mean Tweeter has such complete control over him that it has removed any trace of happiness from his life resulting in sending Barnicle into a deep, deep depression.

Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022. Prior to Musk’s taking control, there had been many complaints, particularly from the right, of Tweets getting suppressed, down-graded, “shadow-banned,” or the like, but without anyone having detailed information of exactly what Twitter was up to. Then in December 2022 a group of journalists recruited by Musk — e.g., Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Glenn Greenwald, Alex Berenson — started releasing lengthy Twitter threads documenting exactly how pre-Musk Twitter had “moderated” politically sensitive content to manipulate the public discussion. The releases, known as the Twitter Files, show Twitter executives in the...

The World Health Organization has fired a senior scientist who had a heavy role in claiming the COVID lab-leak theory was 'unlikely' over sexual misconduct accusations. The agency said Peter Ben Embarek, a Danish scientist who previously headed up its 'One Health' initiative on diseases jumping from animals to humans, was removed from his post last year. 'Peter Ben Embarek was dismissed last year following findings of sexual misconduct against him that were substantiated by investigations, and corresponding disciplinary process,' said WHO spokesperson Marcia Poole. In a statement, Ben Embarek said he contested the accusation of harassment and was challenging...

Jamie Foxx remains hospitalized more than three weeks after suffering a medical emergency. While Foxx's exact condition remains unknown to the public at this time, sources close to the 55-year-old actor echoed this plea, per TMZ: "Pray for Jamie"—a possible indication that things with the actor's health may be more complicated than fans had hoped they would be. His daughter and Beat Shazam co-host/DJ Corinne originally announced on April 12 that her father—star of Ray, Just Mercy, Django Unchained, Disney's animated flick Soul, and countless other blockbuster hits—had experienced a "medical complication" the day prior. The Hollywood heavyweight was in...

A chain of undersea volcanoes, also known as seamounts. (NOAA Ocean Exploration) Less than one-quarter of Earth's entire ocean floor has been mapped, leaving gaping holes in our understanding of the underwater realm. Accidents await in the void: undiscovered seamounts – ancient mountains formed by volcanic activity – can rise thousands of meters in the darkness, putting unsuspecting submarines at risk. Led by earth scientist Julie Gevorgian of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California, a team of scientists has just discovered more than 19,000 new seamounts using a new batch of satellite data. That so many underwater peaks have...

Going woke means more than, as the saying says, going broke. It also means the ultimate loss of life. The grip of wokeness on our society will eventually kill Americans. Let’s begin with health care. Medical school students, whose learning should be focused on the healing arts, are being taught social justice ideology. Apparently, white supremacy, oppression, and structural racism must be addressed by America’s doctors-to-be, as well as the sin of being white. Diversity, equity, and inclusion studies are being required at some schools, which of course crowds out time used in the past to acquire the knowledge and...

Russia claimed Thursday that the United States was behind an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin that it said was a Ukrainian attempt to assassinate President Vladimir Putin. The accusation, made without citing evidence, comes less than 24 hours after Moscow said that it had foiled an overnight drone strike on the building that acts as the heart of the country’s government and Putin’s residence — something Kyiv strongly denied. But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov went further Thursday, claiming Washington had masterminded the incident. The U.S. swiftly rejected the accusation, saying it had nothing to do with it. “We are...

School board chair Dr. Kelly Coker said Greene told her as early as April 17 that she was considering retirement. That conversation came about a month after the Duval County School Police Department arrested a longtime music teacher at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts accused of lewd conduct involving a student and removed three other DA teachers from classrooms as part of a probe at the school into claims that abuse had been tolerated for years.

"THIS IS GETTING RIDICULOUS." Off the Charts Scientists are alarmed as ocean surface temperatures have continuously set new record-breaking highs over the last month. According to data analyzed by the University of Maine's Climate Change Institute, daily ocean surface temperatures breached historical record highs since at least 1982 in April. That means we are in uncharted territory as global warming continues to take its toll with extreme weather events becoming more common by the year — and scientists are clearly shaken by the spiking temperatures. "This is getting ridiculous," physicist and climate change expert Rober Rohde tweeted. "For the last...

As Connor MacLeod said in the film Highlander, “There can only be one!” The US banking system under Joe Biden’s Reign of Error is like the film Highlander: apparently, there can only be one bank. And it is likely JP Morgan Chase. Take the JP Morgan Chase (JPMC) acquisition of First Republic Bank: In Acquiring First Republic Bank, JP Morgan Has: Bypassed laws against acquiring bank while controlling 10%+ of US deposits Shared $13 billion in losses with the FDIC Received a $50 billion loan from the FDIC Effectively bought back its own deposits Expects to profit $5 billion+ over...