Free Republic

Adidas has said the ending of its collaboration with Kanye West is "hurting" the business, with sales in North America hard hit. The sportswear giant cut its ties with the designer and rapper, known as Ye, late last year after he posted anti-Semitic comments on social media. West designed trainers under the Yeezy brand and Adidas said the loss of the business cut sales by €400m (£350m) in the first quarter of the year. Overall, total revenue fell by 1%. Despite the dip, the figures were better than analysts had been expecting and Adidas said that sales were up 9%...

A trail of starlight thought to possibly indicate a runaway supermassive black hole may be something much more mundane: a spiral galaxy seen edge on, a new study finds. In February, astronomer Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University and colleagues reported spotting a line of stars near a compact galaxy in Hubble Space Telescope images. The researchers’ analysis suggested that three galaxies had interacted and merged, kicking a supermassive black hole out of its host galaxy (SN: 3/10/23). The black hole then traveled through a nearby gas cloud, the scenario goes, triggering the formation of stars in a line that...

At least 400 women are in the second week of a hunger strike in a high-security prison in Iraq's capital Baghdad, the BBC has learned.They are in prison for being part of the Islamic State group, after what they say were unfair trials. The group is said to include foreign nationals from Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Syria, France, Germany and the US. It is thought about 100 children are also being held at the facility. The Islamic State group, also known as ISIS, waged a brutal campaign to establish a self-declared caliphate - an Islamic nation - across Syria and...

In response to a rise in hate crimes Governor Gavin Newsom announced the launch of CA vs Hate. CA vs Hate is a new multilingual statewide hotline and website that provides a safe, anonymous reporting option for victims and witnesses of hate acts. CA vs Hate is in direct response to the rise in reported hate crimes in California, which in recent years, reached their highest levels since 2001 – jumping almost 33% from 2020 to 2021, according to the Governor’s Office. Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Torrance) started the conversation to create a state hotline to report hate crimes in 2021....

A film promoting an anti-vaccine conspiracy theory has been accused of helping to drive the harassment of bereaved families. In a rare interview with the BBC, the man behind it says he is "happy" about its influence - and believes the people responsible for Covid vaccinations should be executed.We met the film's creator, Stew Peters, in a warehouse he had rented for the occasion, on an industrial estate in Vero Beach, Florida. His crew had set up a makeshift studio and were filming us as we filmed him - to get their own message out. Mr Peters is a former...

Why didn't they warn us at the time? Instead, they remained silent. The mandates should have been the opposite: hospitals should have fired anyone who got vaccinated.Steve KirschApr 30, 2023 Most people didn’t read the September 17, 2021 FDA briefing document so let me highlight the top of page 22 for you. With a little simple math (shown here), it’s clear that you are 2X more likely to be infected during the time you are vaccinated. The p-value is <.001. This was not just a fluke. It was validated in the Cleveland Clinic study. Executive summaryThe Cleveland Clinic study, which...

Both chambers in the Florida Capitol have approved a bill that grants businesses more leeway to file lawsuits against local governments and municipalities if their profit margins are affected by “unreasonable” ordinances. The bill requires a local government to stop enforcing the ordinance being challenged if a lawsuit is permitted to proceed and mandates that the legal challenge is prioritized to make a decision as quickly as possible. The measure also requires cities and counties to produce a “business impact estimate” prior to passing an ordinance to be published on the local government’s website and include economic forecasts and indicators.

Sienna Weir, a 2022 Miss Universe finalist and fashion model, has died days after a tragic horse riding accident. She was 23. The statuesque blond died Thursday, her representatives and family have confirmed, News.au first reported. Weir was riding at Windsor Polo Grounds in her native Australia on April 2 when her horse took a tumble. She was rushed to Westmead Hospital where she spent two days on life support before dying from fatal injuries.

Can We Really Blame Trump (and the Reality Boom) on the 2007 Writers Strike? (Article can only be linked to, per FR rules.)

May 4 (Reuters) - U.S. federal and state officials are assessing whether "market manipulation" caused the recent volatility in banking shares, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday, as the White House vowed to monitor "short-selling pressures on healthy banks."

The data in VAERS can be used to prove the vaccines are killing people. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Here's how to respond to all their arguments and turn the tables on them.Steve KirschMay 3, 2023 Figure 1. Death reports in VAERS. Can you spot the unsafe vaccine? If you can’t, you can get a job as a “fact checker” for any mainstream media. Or a job in safety monitoring at the CDC! Despite what the CDC wants you to believe, the higher red bars are not due to social media hype, more doses, or different reporting requirements. I...

Similar report from Europe highlights growing demand and shrinking availability of nonhuman primates for biomedical studies Rhesus macaques at the Tulane National Primate Research CenterKATHLEEN FLYNN/REUTERS The supply of monkeys for research is shrinking, and access to remaining animals is becoming increasingly unreliable. That’s the dire message of a U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report released today, which concludes that the situation is compromising critical biomedical research now—and will continue to do so well into the future. The new report is the strongest government statement yet on the precarious state of monkey research. Sponsored by the U.S....

President Biden and Vice President Harris took a quick jaunt to Northeast Washington to pick up tacos for Cinco de Mayo on Friday. Their surprise and unplanned trip outside of the White House was to Taqueria Habanero, a Mexican restaurant in the Bryant Street shopping mall. The president ordered a chicken quesadilla, churros and an assortment of tacos for White House staff, according to the White House.

'If the moons had benefited from long-term heating, then they could have maintained a thick ocean.' NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured this shot of Uranus and six of its 27 known moons. A number of background objects, including distant galaxies, are also visible. (Image credit: SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI IMAGE PROCESSING: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)) The four biggest moons of Uranus may harbor salty oceans below their frozen surfaces, a new study suggests. Scientists taking a fresh look at 40-year-old data sent home by NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft say that the satellites Titania and Oberon, which orbit the farthest...

Anyone who tries to claim OpenAI’s ChatGPT is an apolitical artificial intelligence tool is selling the American people a bill of goods, especially in light of the chatbot whipping out the pom-poms for President Joe Biden. MRC Free Speech America researchers gave ChatGPT a series of prompts and questions to determine whether the AI chat bot showed any explicit political bias toward either of the two leading candidates in the 2024 presidential race. The chatbot didn’t even attempt to hide its bias. When confronted with the simple prompts “Trump” and “Biden,” ChatGPT painted former President Donald Trump in a negative...

The proposal would cap the price of at least 80 percent of the electricity consumed by energy-intensive industries in Germany. Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck on Friday presented plans to cap the price of electricity used by energy-intensive industries to insulate the sector against sharp cost increases, but the proposal immediately sparked criticism. The cap, which would be set at 0.06 euros ($0.07) per gigawatt hour (GWh), would apply until 2030 and cover at least 80 percent of companies' electricity usage. Energy costs rose sharply in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as Moscow dwindled critical gas supplies...

Jill Biden on Friday met with Kate, Princess of Wales, and Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, after she touched down in England ahead of King Charles III’s coronation. Kate shared a snapshot of the trio on social media Friday, saying it was “lovely” to see Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wife, the screenwriter Zelenska. In the photo, the group is all smiles as they pose together. The gathering comes a day before Charles is poised to be crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.

Attorneys representing Fox News are threatening legal action against the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America for airing leaked behind-the-scenes clips showing the network’s now-former host Tucker Carlson. The letter from Fox attorneys is in response to a series of stories published in recent days by MMFA, the liberal pressure group founded by Democratic Party operative David Brock, under the headline “Foxleaks.” The footage shows Carlson, the highly rated primetime cable host who was dismissed by Fox News on April 24, during commercial breaks making comments denigrating the network. MMFA’s most recent installment of “Foxleaks” shows Carlson having makeup...

"I declare on behalf of the Wagner fighters, on behalf of the Wagner command, that on May 10, 2023, we are obliged to transfer positions in the settlement of Bakhmut to units of the defence ministry and withdraw the remains of Wagner to logistics camps to lick our wounds," Prigozhin said in a statement....."

This list only includes destroyed vehicles and equipment of which photo or videographic evidence is available. Therefore, the amount of equipment destroyed is significantly higher than recorded here. Small arms, ATGMs, MANPADS, loitering munitions, drones used as unmanned bait, civilian vehicles, trailers and derelict equipment are not included in this list. All possible effort has gone into avoiding duplicate entries and discerning the status of equipment between captured or abandoned. Many of the entries listed as 'abandoned' will likely end up captured or destroyed. Similarly, some of the captured equipment might be destroyed if it can't be recovered. When the...