Free Republic

By backing Cannes Film Festival opener 'Jeanne du Barry' and courting its mercurial star, the Gulf nation is continuing its post-Khashoggi push for legitimacy in the global film community. So far, it’s working.Earlier this year, Johnny Depp was given a VIP tour of AlUla (pronounced AL-yoo-lah), the historic region of Saudi Arabia being heavily touted as both a tourism and filming destination. His guide: Saudi culture minister Prince Badr (or, in full, Prince Badr bin Abdullah bin Mohammed bin Farhan Al Saudi), a well-connected royal and governor of AlUla’s Royal Commission. “Good times,” Badr posted on Instagram alongside a photo...

CNN faced backlash from opponents of former President Donald Trump for hosting him in a town hall on the network Wednesday, charging that they gave him a stage.“CNN should be ashamed of themselves,” lamented socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). “They have lost total control of this ‘town hall’ to again be manipulated into platforming election disinformation, defenses of Jan 6th, and a public attack on a sexual abuse victim. The audience is cheering him on and laughing at the host.”“This is a Trump infomercial,” lamented Meghan McCain.“This is an irresponsible disaster of journalism. We have absolutely learned nothing,” said Matt...

— Responses range the spectrum, from asking patients to mask, to not changing a thingA photo of a male physician showing his female patient a clipboard, both are wearing N95 masks. The end of the COVID-19 public health emergency in the U.S. may mark as close to an "end" to the pandemic as one could get, but that doesn't mean the lessons of the last 3 years have been forgotten. MedPage Today reached out to about a dozen clinicians to get their take on the way the pandemic has changed them and their practice -- and which alterations will carry...

A Republican Hispanic leader, Lydia Maldonado, organized what seems to be a Democrat Hispanic rally opposing Governor DeSantis’ bill signing for legislation to crack down on illegal immigration, and she’s running for chair of the local Palm Beach County Republican Party (REC). Maldonado claims to be against illegal immigration and supports SB 1718, ensuring that illegal immigrants will not be encouraged to come to Florida. Still, she was part of a group that tried to prevent DeSantis from signing the bill into law. It didn’t work. On May 10th, Governor DeSantis signed the bill, just in time for the end...

A man and a woman were allegedly assaulted and had homophobic slurs shouted at them when three men thought they were buying Bud Light beers. The suspects are accused of shouting anti-gay comments and physically attacking the shoppers outside the liquor store in Vaughan, Ontario. Police are now investigating the 'concerning, hate-motivated' assaults. Bud Light's disastrous marketing campaign with trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney has sent shockwaves across the US - and now it seems the steadfast boycott has sprawled into Canada. One of the suspects approached the 26-year-old man, believing he was purchasing the now-controversial beer, and uttered derogatory comments...

How the Media Became the Pentagon’s PlumbersLast month New York Times international correspondent David Philipps offered a mea culpa.“I just deleted a tweet that lacked nuance,” the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner wrote.Philipps, who in 2022 received the top award in journalism for his reporting on previously undisclosed US military strikes that killed thousands of civilians in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, was walking back an observation made following the arrest of 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of leaking state secrets. Philipps noted the Times had worked “feverishly” to assist the Pentagon in identifying Teixeira.“Ironically, if the same...

Activist and scholar Julia Serano defines cissexism as “the belief or assumption that cis people’s gender identities, expressions, and embodiments are more natural and legitimate than those of trans people.” It may be easier to break this concept down if you understand the pieces that make it up. The word cissexism is composed of two parts: the prefix “cis-” and the word “sexism.” “Cis” is derived from the term “cisgender.” Cisgender is a term used to describe someone who identifies with the sex and gender they were assigned at birth.

The New York democratic-socialist congresscritter known as AOC fumed on Twitter Wednesday night that CNN “set up a sexual assault victim to be targeted and attacked” by inviting Donald Trump to appear on a special town hall segment that evening. “People were sounding the alarm about this exact scenario,” she continued. “They let it happen anyway without a plan.” “This, the choice to platform election disinformation, lies about January 6th, totally unchecked and reckless claims about abortion… they need to take ownership of what just happened.” AOC said that CNN allowing Trump on the air “cannot be normalized. It’s dangerous.”...

A group of high school students in suburban Kansas City organized a walkout over a teacher who went public in an online op-ed about her problems with the district's diversity, equality and inclusion policies. The students at Shawnee Mission North High School were met with counter protesters who support English teacher Caedran Sullivan's outrage. According to her LinkedIn page, Sullivan has taught at the school for 15 years. Students accuse Sullivan of not using the correct pronouns when addressing transgender students and of critiquing non-white students experiences of racism, reports Fox Kansas City. 'It's not acceptable that she's still here,...

After years spent stoking weird culinary culture wars, the influential right-wing TV host has been beat by his ultimate made-up enemy: the Green M&M.The internet was set ablaze Monday when news broke that Tucker Carlson, the infamous right-wing news host, is out at Fox News. Almost instantly, Twitter and Instagram feeds were flooded not by think pieces, but with Green M&M memes. To some this may seem like a strange reaction, but Carlson and the Green M&M have had a long, caustic, and desperately one-sided relationship. The two go back to early 2022 (longer, in candy years), when they clashed...

If a permanent Martian settlement of any scale is to be established and maintained, it’s likely women will need to get pregnant and give birth beyond Mother Earth. NUS Centre for Biomedical Ethics’ Victor Cole looks at the implications.If humans are to survive as a species, the late cosmologist Stephen Hawking once argued, at some point we will need to make our home among the stars because the Earth will one day be engulfed by the Sun. More imminent threats to humanity’s survival include nuclear or biological war, runaway artificial intelligence, and climate change. The colonisation of the Earth’s Moon,...

Boat branded an 'icon of Russian power' is being fought over in the High Court A Russian-owned £38 million superyacht seized by the UK government at the start of the invasion of Ukraine is at the centre of a High Court tug of war. The Phi was called an 'icon of Russian power' by the then-Transport Secretary Grant Shapps last year. National Crime Agency officers boarded and detained the enormous 200ft cruiser, which is owned by Sergei Georgievich Naumenko, in March 2022. Naumenko wants an order setting aside the decision to detain the Phi following the outbreak of war in...

Transphobes are protesting Bud Light after its partnership with actress Dylan Mulvaney. But 50 years ago queer activists organized the original beer boycott against Coors.Amid 2023’s wave of anti-trans hate, right-wing beer drinkers are calling for a boycott of Bud Light—a beer that gay people definitely love—over its recent brand partnership with transgender actress Dylan Mulvaney. In the ad Mulvaney holds five cans of the beer and says she is excited for March Madness. She has since been subject to unrelenting harassment and truly unhinged reactions. Kid Rock has shot cases of Bud Light; country singer Travis Tritt banned the...

Disney (DIS) CEO Bob Iger revealed that more price hikes will be coming to the company's streaming services. "The pricing changes we've already implemented have proven successful, and we plan to set a higher price [for] our ad-free tier later this year to better reflect the value of our content offerings," Iger said during Wednesday's quarterly earnings call. Disney currently offers ad-free options for Hulu and Disney+. He added the company will "continue optimizing our pricing model to reward loyalty and reduce churn, to increase subscriber revenue for the premium ad-free tier and drive growth of subscribers who opt for...

-Actor Aubrey Plaza took heat after starring in a campaign that mocked plant-based milk with the fake brand "Wood Milk." -Social media users have been quick to call out Plaza, as well as others like Emma Roberts, for recent collaborations with Big Milk. -Last year, Gen Z purchased 20% less cow's milk than the national average, market research shows. For you: Insider Today newsletter — the day's most fascinating stories. Big Milk is once again enlisting the help of celebrities to sell its products, but unlike the iconic "Got Milk?" ads of the 1990s and early 2000s, these new campaigns...

https://archive.ph/hPjcr .... Archive link only since the UK Telegraph is blocked here due their obsolete complaining from 20 years ago.

Judicial Watch settled its election integrity lawsuit against Pennsylvania after the commonwealth acknowledged it removed more than 178,000 ineligible registrations on its voter rolls, the watchdog group announced Thursday. The settlement commits the commonwealth and five of its counties to publicly reporting the number of registered and eligible voters, both active and inactive, for the next five years. “[Pennsylvania] also agreed to publish the total number of address confirmation notices sent to registered voters and the number returned as undeliverable or not responded to,” according to Judicial Watch, and “the total number of voters removed from the registration rolls on...

More than 10,000 migrants were apprehended while trying to illegally enter the US Wednesday — the third straight day of record-high numbers — as Department of Homeland Security agents prepare for the end of Title 42 with riot drills and training exercises. Agents with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) continued their record-setting pace Wednesday, the third consecutive day of apprehending a never-before-recorded number of migrants, Fox reported. The figure is expected to be even higher when more thoroughly tallied. More than 11,000 migrants — up from the 10,300-plus previously reported — were arrested Tuesday, according to NBC News, setting...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Appearing before the Senate beneath a mysterious, hooded robe, California Senator Diane Feinstein addressed the hushed audience, speaking in a gravelly, Sidious-like voice. "An attempt on my life by the Jedi has left me scarred and deformed, but I assure you my resolve has never been stronger," said Feinstein to roaring applause. "I feel great now! The Democrat Party is a pathway to many abilities some would consider to be... unnatural." Feinstein then said proclaimed that she hopes to serve in Congress for another 100 years. "Power! Unlimited power!" shouted the scarred senator over the applause while...

A federal jury convicted a Salt Lake City woman and former postal worker Wednesday for delaying and destroying immigration mail. During her time working the night shift as an express mail clerk at the USPS Processing and Delivery Center in Salt Lake City, Diana K. Molyneux was responsible for sorting and processing express and priority mail. After immigration mail from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services went missing in the fall of 2017, Molyneux's coworkers reported to supervisors that they found the mail in places it wasn't supposed to be, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a news release....