Free Republic

Ash Williams says he's now making sure his work extends beyond the state of North Carolina. Ash Williams has been on the front lines for reproductive health in his state. Now, another challenge arises. Who is he? Williams is an abortion doula based in North Carolina. An abortion doula provides support for clients throughout the process of ending a pregnancy. North Carolina has been a haven in the South for people to receive reproductive healthcare this last year. Ash spoke with NPR's Destinee Williams last year in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned, about what his job was...

It's Victoria Day weekend in Canada, so we thought it appropriate to have a song from His Majesty's northernmost realm. And does it get any more Canadian than... I like New York in June How About You? Yes, indeed. That's a sufficiently Canadian song to be in the Canadian Songwriters' Hall of Fame, for reasons Mark will get to, eventually. In this Serenade Radio edition of his Song of the Week, Steyn talks to the composer of "How About You?", Burton Lane, and explores the origins of its most memorable line, with some of the best recordings across the decades....

A Chicago man who wore a neon yellow “peacekeepers” vest helped a group of people beat and rob a motorist in Little Village on Friday night, according to a Chicago Police Department report. Oscar Montes, 31, is scheduled to appear in felony bond court Sunday afternoon on charges of robbery, aggravated battery, and unlawful vehicular invasion, a CPD spokesperson said. City and state officials have lauded the use of “peacekeepers” as a tool they would deploy over the Memorial Day weekend to tamp down violence across the city.

Turkey’s incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared victory Sunday in his country’s runoff election, extending his increasingly authoritarian rule into a third decade. With nearly 99% of ballot boxes opened, unofficial results from competing news agencies showed Erdogan with 52% of the vote, compared with 48% for his challenger, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki” that the Republican Party was “addicted to chaos.” Murphy said, “Let’s just be clear I want to underscore something you said at the outset which is there is an enormous amount of damage that is already been to the economy this country. I came back from overseas and every international newscast has been leading for the last week with stories of this Republican imposed chaos in the United States. This Republican Party is addicted to chaos. The entire Trump presidency, January 6th, and now this threat to default...

The auditorium at Nathan Eckstein Junior High (now a middle school) in Wedgwood is standing-room only in October 1970 for a discussion of a proposal to bus 1,500-2,000 North End and Central Area students in order to desegregate the new Edmond S. Meany Middle School on Capitol Hill. Another 400 people in the lunchroom listened via loudspeakers as Superintendent Forbes Bottomly, left, school district attorney Gary M. Little fielded questions and comments. (Larry Dion / The Seattle Times, 1970) Asha Mohamed, an immigrant from Ethiopia, from left, and her daughter Hikma walk with Laura Stowell and her daughter Ella...

CHICAGO -- At least 34 people have been shot, eight fatally, in Chicago shootings so far this Memorial Day weekend. A man was killed and a woman was injured in a West Garfield Park shooting early Sunday, police said. The 35-year-old man and 30-year-old woman were sitting in a parked car in the 4100-block of West Taylor Street around 2:09 a.m. when someone fired shots, Chicago police said. The man was shot in the head and was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital. The woman was in critical condition at the same hospital with a gunshot wound to the side....

The CEO of one of the world’s foremost certifiers of so-called carbon credits announced that he will step down. David Antonioli, CEO of the climate-action nonprofit known as Verra announced that he will be leaving his position at the organization in June, although he plans to stay on in a reduced, senior-advisory role.Antonioli will be replaced by the organization’s current president, Judith Simon. The announcement comes after a recent investigation into the group found that approximately 90 percent of its so-called carbon credits are, essentially, worthless and have no measurable impact on carbon reductions.Antonioli, the organization’s founding CEO, didn’t mention...

If that's not treason, what is? The Biden administration tried to hide China’s balloon espionage and then put on a fake show of outrage when it was exposed by a viral video.“How will you manage the diplomatic relationship with China?” a reporter asked in the early morning briefing.“Well, number one, you’re right. We should have an open line [of communications]. With the Bali conference that’s what President Xi and I agreed that we were going to do and meet on,” Biden responded. “And then this silly balloon that was carrying two free cars worth of spy equipment was flying over...

Lovely Rita (Remastered 2009) · The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

That silence you heard last weekend was Europe not staging a freakout over an election in Greece. What a change from only eight years ago, when voting in the Aegean country triggered panic in Berlin, Paris and Brussels. The difference—although conventional wisdom is loath to admit it—is supply-side economic policies. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis slightly increased the vote share of his center-right New Democracy party compared to 2019 with nearly 41%. The far-left party Syriza, led by former Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, saw its vote share fall by about 11 points, to 20%… Greece was at the epicenter of the...

The current hysterical actions and statements of Prigozhin are a consequence of his attempt to save himself from the anger of the Kremlin’s top leadership. ... The Wagner Group chief was also unable to capture Bakhmut after months of fighting, despite receiving Putin’s approval to recruit criminals strictly for the purpose. So, Prigozhin’s recent statements about withdrawing his group from Bakhmut and his extensive interview on the topic of how “we can f**k up Russia thanks to the Kremlin elite” are nothing more than an attempt at self-defense. Prigozhin is a product of the Putin system, but now his position...

…. “There are Trillions at Stake!” Overall, the New York Times is reporting a campaign support spending plan of more than $200 million. Essentially, these are payments from the billionaire Wall Street donors and multinationals, funneled through the SuperPAC, to influence the ’24 election. The context of the New York Times report sounds accurate. NYT – A key political group supporting Ron DeSantis’s presidential run is preparing a $100 million voter-outreach push so big it plans to knock on the door of every possible DeSantis voter at least four times in New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and five...

On Sunday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Velshi,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) stated that she is “really” “annoyed” that there are cuts for new IRS workers in the debt ceiling agreement between President Joe Biden and House Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), but “there is nothing I can do about it,” people shouldn’t refuse to vote for the deal over it, and she doesn’t think the IRS provision is going to be “enough to make anybody vote against the bill.” Dingell said that while she can’t say how she’ll vote on the deal until she actually sees the text of a bill,...

The Minister for Justice has said too many people are being sent to jail for minor offenses by the district court. Simon Harris told RTÉ’s This Week that support needs to be provided to district court judges about the sentencing options available to them. “I have spoken to district court judges during my tenure in terms of the suite of options available to them,” he said. However, the minister defended plans to increase prison capacity, as a means of dealing with overcrowding. He said increased capacity was required to modernize prison facilities, and also to recognize that people need to...

AU.S. family of four needs to earn a minimum of $85,000 a year on average to "get by," which is nearly three times the federal poverty line and $27,000 more than the estimated needed annual average 10 years ago, according to a new poll When asked, "What is the smallest amount of money a family of four needs to make each year to get by in your community?", the average answer respondents gave was $85,000, according to a Gallup Poll released Friday. In 2013, the average answer was $58,000 annually. The poll also found that 30% of respondents said a...

While meat lovers look forward to a Memorial Day barbecue, many people might be looking for a vegetarian option. With their high protein content, black beans lend meaty substance to veggie burgers. Too often, though, the patties turn to mush. So for this recipe from our book “Cook What You Have,” which draws on pantry staples to assemble easy, weeknight meals, we went looking for ways to improve their texture. The answer was three-fold. First, we only mash the beans coarsely so that when combined with other ingredients, we’re not left with a smooth paste. Second, we incorporate a significant...

The Washington Post received advance notice about a protest in which environmental activists vandalized a sculpture in Washington, D.C., the Justice Department (DOJ) said Friday. Joanna Smith and Timothy Martin were charged with conspiracy to commit an offense against the United States and with injury to a National Gallery of Art exhibit stemming from a protest where they smeared paint on a case holding “Little Dancer, Age Fourteen” by Edgar Degas on April 27, and each faces up to five years in prison for each charge, the DOJ announced. The Washington Post, though not named in the indictment, received advanced...

Atlas was booed as he encouraged the audience to save their country by committing themselves to the truth. No other event in recent memory exposed the hypocrisy, stupidity, and danger of the leftist elites like the Covid-19 pandemic. Nearly everything that was said and done concerning Covid was utter misinformation: lockdowns, ventilators, masks, “vaccines,” social distancing, the origins of the virus. And yet, these things were pushed hard for the next few years (Biden only ended his Covid national emergency last month) while dissenters were routinely marginalized and silenced. But when it comes to reflecting on the virus, the left...

It wasn’t that long ago that Mitt Romney was threatening former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard for suggesting the US was funding biolabs in Ukraine. Back in March 2022, RINO Senator Mitt Romney accused former Democrat Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of spreading ‘treasonous lies’ for simply talking about the US-funded biolabs in Ukraine. “There are 25+ US-funded biolabs in Ukraine which if breached would release and spread deadly pathogens to US/world.” Gabbard said at the time. “We must take action now to prevent disaster. US/Russia/Ukraine/NATO/UN/EU must implement a ceasefire now around these labs until they’re secured and pathogens destroyed,” she added. VIDEO: There...