Free Republic

[Catholic Caucus] Vatican stamp inspired by monument celebrating colonial era stirs controversyROME – One of the hard lessons about being pope is that while it can require massive effort to accomplish something positive, it doesn’t take much at all to get you into trouble. As proof of the point, Pope Francis is facing blowback right now over a tiny piece of paper that measures less than two inches by 1.3 inches.The paper in question is a new Vatican postage stamp promoting the next World Youth Day, to be staged in Lisbon, Portugal, August 1-6.The stamp depicts Francis leading a small...

A Reddit user took to that platform after feeling stressed upon learning that his fiancé wants to raise their future children to be vegetarian. The user, who posted to the subreddit “TrueOffMyChest” on May 8, said that he and his fiancé do not have kids yet, but are having conversations about children. His wife-to-be believes that “eating meat is wrong” because it causes unnecessary suffering to animals, he wrote. The Redditor’s fiancé said she will not raise their children to think it’s OK to “torture animals,” he wrote.

State and federal health officials are warning US residents to cancel planned surgeries in a Mexico border city after five people from Texas who got procedures there came back and developed suspected cases of fungal meningitis. One of them died, officials said. The five people who became ill traveled to Matamoros, across the border from Brownsville, for surgical procedures that included the use of an epidural, an anesthetic injected near the spinal column, the Texas Department of State Health Services said Tuesday. Four remain hospitalized, and one of them later died.

Two Home Depot stores in Chicago were defrauded of $5.5 million by scammers who collected $900 credits more than 6,000 times for a single purchase made three years ago, prosecutors said Wednesday. Officials said the scam began in March 2020 when someone made a purchase of more than $6,000 from the home improvement chain’s 2570 North Elston location. Days later, someone returned to the store and said the purchase was for a tax-exempt church. A store employee accepted the tax-exempt documents and issued the representative a $900 gift card for the tax value, Assistant State’s Attorney Sarah Dale-Schmidt said yesterday....

A Utah doctor killed his teenage son and then himself in a shocking murder-suicide that has rattled their local community this week. The bodies of Parth Gandhi, 49, and his son, 16, were found on Saturday morning at the offices of Psychedelic Therapy and Research in Salt Lake City, KSLTV reported. Gandhi worked at the offices as a neuropsychologist and clinic director with a “focus on psychedelics,” the outlet said. SNIP It is also not yet known if psychedelic drugs or other substances were present in Gandhi’s body or that of his son, who has not been named due to...

A former vegan is claiming that eating meat again saved her life. Kai-Lee Worsley adopted a strict diet of no animal products after living with vegans. She moved from Canada to the West Coast in 2016, according to South West News Service. But six months into the diet, she began feeling sick and her hair started falling out. Her nails grew brittle and she could barely stand. “I was extremely tired all the time. I couldn’t form coherent thoughts,” she told SWNS. “I would just lie in bed multiple times a week and I would spend all day in bed...

The Democrat cities are urine-soaked hellholes that reek of pot where criminals stalk unmolested while the full fury of what is supposed to be the law hangs over the head of any citizen who dares do something about it, and that’s good. The idiots who live there voted for turning their urban landscapes into petri dishes of social pathologies, and they should enjoy the full benefits of their decisions. We normal people should avoid these socialist wastelands and elect legislators to Congress who will starve them of the federal funds that enable their decline. In red states, our legislators should...

Former California governor and Hollywood legend Arnold Schwarzenegger called a presidential run by current Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) a “no-brainer” on Tuesday in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. Schwarzenegger said: "I think [Newsom running for president] is a no-brainer. Every governor from a big state wants to take that shot. What do I think about his performance? When you become part of the club, you don’t criticize governors — because you know how tough the job is. It’s impossible to please everybody. Before I ran for governor, I had an 80 percent approval rating. As soon as I announced,...

FIRST ON FOX: Every administration since President Reagan has mishandled classified materials, officials from the National Archives and Records Administration testified to the House Intelligence Committee last month. The committee voted Wednesday to release an unclassified transcript, first obtained by Fox News Digital, of testimony from NARA officials after they appeared before the panel for a transcribed interview in April. The committee is investigating former President Trump, President Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence for their alleged mishandling of classified records.

JUST IN - Pentagon overvalued US equipment it sent to Ukraine by around $3 billion, a Senate aide and a defense official said on Thursday, an error that opens up the possibility of more weapons being sent to Kyiv for its defense against Russian forces, Reuters reports

May 18 (UPI) -- A Japanese ice cream company assembled some of the world's rarest ingredients to create an ice cream flavor that costs $6,696 per serving. Guinness World Records announced Japanese brand Cellato earned the record for the world's most expensive ice cream with its new flavor, dubbed Byakuya. The pricey treat's ingredients include a rare white truffle grown in Alba, Italy, that costs about $6,905 per pound. It also includes Parmigiano Reggiano and sake lees. Cellato developed the flavor with Tadayoshi Yamada, the head chef at Osaka restaurant RiVi. The company said it sought to combine European and...

The House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed phone records of a phone belonging to President Joe Biden that Hunter Biden’s business paid for, according to Peter Schweizer, Government Accountability Institute president in an interview on Tuesday. Schweizer said in an interview with 77 WABC’s Cats & Cosby that it was discovered on Hunter Biden’s laptop that he was paying a phone bill for his father from 2009 to 2017, which encompassed the time Biden was vice president. “We obtained that phone number and we’ve shared it with individuals and the Oversight Committee in Congress is going to subpoena those phone records....

NBC News used deceptive imagery in an apparent attempt to gloss over an outrageous sexually explicit book being pushed on children. Twitter’s Community Notes participants were having none of it. NBC News tweeted out its story of how “[a]n Illinois teacher offered her middle schoolers a bestselling LGBTQ-themed book. Parents filed a police report over her book choice.” But the featured photo for the article included the teacher in question holding up a book titled: “Igniting Social Action in the ELA Classroom: Inquiry as Disruption.” Except, that wasn’t the book parents reportedly complained about, as Community Notes exposed. The book...

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is pointing a finger at Republican lawmakers for their failure to respond to a flood emergency that is inundating their districts of the Golden State. In a stern letter sent to House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), Newsom reminded the legislators that local leaders have been warning with “great urgency” that their “constituents are ‘in a path of destruction’ from floodwaters.”

Shill Mitchell is now claiming that DeSantis accounts are being shadow banned. pic.twitter.com/3GRBkqAZRO— MAGA Catholic ✝️ 🇻🇦 🇺🇸 (@daddy38456) May 18, 2023----------------I probably get better impressions than he does, and I have a bit over 5k. I don't believe it's because of what he is saying. Before he blocked me for the second time, I noticed that most of his followers were there to troll him. lol— Suhr Majesty ™ (@ULTRA_MAJESTY) May 18, 2023He went rino woke now he's going broke 🤣— Paddy Davidson (@PaddyDavidson) May 18, 2023Why is DeSantis paying people to like him? 15 pro DeSantis post's already...

Anti-ESG crusader Consumers’ Research is set to parade mobile billboards on streets in the heart of Washington Thursday as top government officials and influential voices gather at an event to discuss energy and green initiatives ... featured speakers include Department of Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Democrat Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, and sustainability executives at Citi and Microsoft .. in the battle to implement and enforce ESG standards to combat climate change. ... we will be reminding them of what their far-left ESG agenda really means,” said Consumers’ Research Executive Director Will Hild. “The Biden administration and woke corporations continue...

Update from Ukraine | Bakhmut Situation Both sides on Attack | Ruzzia Lost 200k Army in Ukraine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xk5PY-jBStw&t=749s ****NEW SUMMARY Military MAPS & COMMENTS here: Invasion Day 448– Summary May 17 , 2023 Jerome News The summary of the situation of Russian re-invasion to Ukraine covering the last 48 hours, as of 2023 – 22:00 (Kyiv time). https://militaryland.net/news/invasion-day-448-summary/ *** Greatly appreciate the viewer controlled Map magnification tool to use on each Front map!

On Wednesday, March 8 of this year, the holding company for the federally-insured Silvergate Bank announced it was winding down the bank. It had little choice but to do so. It was experiencing a bank run and had incinerated its reputation by focusing on deposits from crypto companies, including those majority-owned by indicted crypto kingpin, Sam Bankman-Fried. According to testimony from the Chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Martin Gruenberg, before the Senate Banking Committee on March 28, “in the fourth quarter of 2022, Silvergate Bank experienced an outflow of deposits from digital asset customers that, combined with...

The allegations from FBI whistleblowers is the subject of a hearing on Thursday.. The Federal Bureau of Investigation obtained the financial records of Americans from Bank of America "without any legal process" following the January 6, 2021 riot, according to an interim staff report from the House Judiciary Committee and Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The report containing allegations from FBI whistleblowers is the subject of a select committee hearing on Thursday. "Just like FBI whistleblowers [Garret] O’Boyle and [Stephen] Friend, retired FBI Supervisory Intelligence Analyst George Hill provided the Committee with detailed allegations of FBI...

In the information age with hi-tech devices, computers and GPS tracking devices is it reasonable to believe that human beings can still experience a vision or an apparition?