Free Republic

Walgreens will pay the city of San Francisco nearly $230 million, after a federal judge found the company liable for contributing to the city’s opioid epidemic. The settlement, which will be paid out over 14 years, will go towards addressing the city’s opioid crisis, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu announced on Wednesday. “Opioids have wreaked havoc across our nation leading to immense suffering and untold damage,” he said in a statement. “Cities like San Francisco have shouldered much of the burden of the opioid epidemic. “ “Following our win against Walgreens during the liability phase, this historic agreement ensures...

Shocking dashcam video shows South Carolina deputies getting into a shootout with a man who jumped out of a car and began firing after getting pulled over earlier this month. The dangerous gun battle began when deputies pulled the black Ford over along a highway. A second deputy had arrived on the scene to provide backup when he realized that the man in the passenger seat had a gun. That's when the passenger jumped out and began the shootout. Video shows the wild gun fight as one deputy is hit and another fires across the driver's seat, where the driver...

A study on monkeys found that stimulating a certain part of the forebrain wakes monkeys from anesthesia. Research suggests a tiny part of the brain plays a key role in enabling consciousness. The findings might someday be used to bring people out of comas, treat consciousness disorders or ensure patients stay anesthetized during intensive procedures. Past research has suggested that certain brain areas, like the parietal cortex and thalamus, are critical to consciousness. In the study, published in Neuron, a team of scientists used electrodes to stimulate various parts of the brains of two macaque monkeys. Macaque brains closely mirror...

A great-grandmother with dementia is fighting for life in hospital after being tasered by police at her nursing home in the NSW Snowy Mountains. Clare Nowland, 95, was home in Yallambee Lodge in Cooma when staff called NSW Police to the facility on Wednesday. Ms Nowland, who has lived at the aged care facility for more than five years, was believed to have been carrying a knife when officers tasered her. She was taken to Cooma Base Hospital where she remains in a critical condition. Ms Nowland is well-known in the local community, and on her 80th birthday she celebrated...

(Last Updated On: May 17, 2023) NATIONAL CHEESE SOUFFLE DAY | MAY 18 Each year on May 18, we celebrate National Cheese Soufflé Day. On this tasty day, take the opportunity to enjoy this French delight. #NationalCheeseSouffleDay A soufflé is a baked egg-based dish whose origins appear in France during the early 18th century. Earliest mention of the soufflé is given to French mastercook Vincent La Chapelle. However, master French chef Marie-Antoine Careme receives the honor for popularizing the dish by using a new elaborate style of creating dishes. The soufflé’s base consists of a French creme base made of...

(Note: The information coming from Bakhmut so far is confirmed. The rumors about the fate of Ukraine’s generals are not confirmed.) The Dnieper is absolutely strategic for Ukraine. If the Russians can reach its banks, Ukraine will be cut in half.....manpower remains Ukraine’s Achilles heel. It is becoming more and more difficult for Ukraine to recruit soldiers or dragoon young men into service. This will only multiply when the full impact of the Bakhmut defeat is known to the Ukrainian public. The Ukrainian army leadership also is in doubt. Its top leader, General Valery Zaluzhny, seemingly has disappeared. And so,...

Suspended FBI agents Garret O’Boyle, Steve Friend, and Marcus Allen testified Thursday before the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government to detail the alleged ‘abuses of power’ by the federal bureau’s leadership – ranging from discrimination against conservatives to inflation of domestic terrorism statistics. O’Boyle testified that he was transferred across the country only to be suspended on his first day of work...

Another day, another traveler with a bold new way to game the luggage fine system. An Australian teen was slapped with a fine after attempting to circumvent an airline baggage fee — by donning more than 13 pounds of clothing, as seen in a video blowing up online. “I looked like a bear. I’m small and petite but I looked like the exact opposite,” Adriana Ocampo, 19, told South West News Service of her backfired travel hack, which she attempted to pull during a Jetstar Airways flight from Melbourne to her hometown of Adelaide. The teen, who had just been...

Sam Brinton, the “nonbinary” activist tapped by Joe Biden for a key nuclear role before he was fired for repeatedly stealing women’s clothes, was arrested Wednesday night as a “fugitive from justice,” The Daily Wire has learned.Montgomery County, Maryland, police arrested him at his home on Wednesday, police logs show. He is currently in jail and being held without bond.A neighbor told The Daily Wire that “four unmarked police showed up last night, they would not let his spouse Kevin leave. After about an hour Sam Brinton was escorted out in handcuffs.”Brinton is set to appear for a hearing before...

[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...