Free Republic

The story behind the jazz legend’s final hit and, quite simply, one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The legendary New Orleans singer and trumpeter Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong had been making records since 1923, but in 1967 he released “What A Wonderful World,” which would become the biggest-selling song of his long and storied career. Though renowned as one of the pioneers of Dixieland-style jazz in the 1920s, Armstrong was no stranger to the pop charts in the 1960s, having topped Billboard’s Hot 100 with the Grammy-winning single, “Hello Dolly,” in 1964. But “What A Wonderful World” was very...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an effort to establish government oversight of the growing role of artificial intelligence in our society, President Biden has appointed Vice President Kamala Harris as "A.I. Czar." The President expressed hope that Harris's track record of slowing the spread of intelligence will be of use. "She's been fighting against the threat of intelligence her whole life," Biden said in brief remarks when the announcement was made. "When it comes to creating an environment where intelligence is restricted and unable to advance too far, Vice President Harris is more qualified for the job than anyone else. Racecar...

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) responded to a report that revealed he improperly claimed multiple tax credits by saying that “It’s a pretty common practice.” Brown, who is running for reelection in a red state, claimed two owner-occupancy tax credits — which potentially violates Buckeye State rules for such incentives, NBC News reported on Tuesday. Additionally, he and his wife have habitually paid their property taxes late. When asked about the report on Wednesday by Spectrum News’s Taylor Popielarz, the Buckeye State Democrat claimed, “It’s a pretty common practice, but once we learned about it, we fixed it.” Responding to paying...

Boston Red Sox fans at Fenway Park are seemingly walking past Bud Light vendors to purchase their stadium refreshments at other concession stands as the Dylan Mulvaney controversy continues to saddle the beer maker. A TikTok video posted Wednesday shows fans waiting in line while the adjacent stand that appears to be selling the blue Bud Light cans is deserted.

Ted Nugent's upcoming concert in Birmingham, Alabama, has been canceled by the venue. Nugent was scheduled to perform on July 18 at Avondale Brewing Co., which, along with promoter Red Mountain Entertainment, announced the show earlier this week. A wave of backlash from community members expressing opposition to Nugent's concert followed, with individuals criticizing the musician for his far-right beliefs and labeling him as homophobic, transphobic and misogynistic. The venue now said the show won't take place.

Search and rescue crews in Austell, Ga. are trying to find two parents wanted on felony child abuse charges. Brandon Augustine and Mildred Chestnut are accused of abusing their 4-month-old baby, and then leaving him at a hospital in North Carolina before vanishing in Georgia. Officials found their car in Cobb County more than a month ago. The car was ditched in the woods behind a trailer park off Veteran’s Memorial Highway in Austell. North Carolina investigators said there is a possibility the couple isn’t even alive. “The female possibly had ties in Georgia, but nowhere near Austell, Georgia,” Austell...

Republicans view former President Donald Trump more favorably than they do Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the latest Morning Consult survey released Tuesday found.The latest survey examining the current state of the 2024 Republican primary race shows the former president continuing to lead in terms of those who view him most favorably.Overall, 79 percent of potential GOP primary voters view Trump favorably, compared to 20 percent who have an unfavorable view.DeSantis comes in second place in terms of favorability, as 73 percent have a favorable view of the governor. Another 13 percent have an unfavorable view, and six percent said they...

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida say he'll decide "relatively soon" whether he will launch a 2024 GOP presidential campaign. DeSantis, who won an overwhelming 19-point gubernatorial re-election victory last autumn, said at a news conference on Friday marking the end of Florida's legislative session that "I felt very confident going into November ’22 we were gonna do very well, but you really had to put up or shut up on that."

My wife was working on her computer today and a Google.com photo of the front of our house popped up on her screen. Google had blurred out the American flag that was flying on the front of our house! Why would they do that?

If a pizza and an empanada had a baby, it would probably look something like a calzone. Shaped like a dumpling with a pizza flavor, the calzone is a perfect mix of the two revered foods. It's not hard to figure out why some may think the calzone is an American invention. After all, it's in the same realm as the stromboli, created in Philadelphia in the 1950s, and the size of your corner pizzeria calzone is like everything else in America: supersized. But, just like the pizza, calzones are inherently Italian. In fact, they share the same birthplace as...

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov said Friday he would send troops to fight in Bakhmut if the Wagner Group pulls out of the Ukrainian city. Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, made the pledge in a statement he posted on his official Telegram channel. Earlier in the day, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner Group of Russian mercenaries, announced he would be removing his fighters from Bakhmut on May 10 because of an ammunition shortage. Prior to his announcement, Prigozhin published a video in which he angrily blamed top Russian officials for the deaths of Wagner fighters...

A software developer who worked with Kim Kardashian on her lucrative 'Kimoji' app claims he's been left financially ruined and is living out of his car. David Liebensohn, 43, and two colleagues invented the Kardashian-themed emoji range, which resulted in thousands of downloads a second and the app supposedly generating $1million a minute. But they didn't see a cent after their deal fell apart after what he claims were misunderstandings and Kim and her no-nonsense lawyer Marty Singer gave them little option but to walk away from developing Kimoji, losing out on a fortune. Liebensohn sued Kim for $300million in...

She's a neurologist with 4,000 patients. Most were vaccinated with the COVID vaccine. The majority of those vaxxed got significantly worse after getting the shot.Steve KirschApr 29, 2023 Executive summaryYou can’t have the vast majority of your 4,000 patients get significantly worse after a “safe and effective” intervention.That’s not safe.The COVID vaccine should never have been approved.IntroductionWatch this video I took of her today: In fact, the damage to your brain from the COVID vaccine is quantifiable in a $600 MRI test. It’s called the NeuroQuant test and I just found out about it today. It takes just 8 minutes...

BMW is warning the owners of about 90,000 older vehicles in the U.S. not to drive them due to an increasing threat that the air bags might explode in a crash. The warning covers vehicles from the 2000 through 2006 that previously had been recalled to replace faulty and dangerous air bag inflators made by Takata. The company used ammonium nitrate to inflate the air bags in a crash. But the chemical can deteriorate over time when exposed to heat and can blow apart a metal canister, hurling shrapnel that can injure or kill drivers and passengers. Models involved in...

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...