Free Republic

Wagner Group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin broke his silence Monday to claim his attempted coup against Russia was nothing more than a protest as some top Kremlin officials plotted to nix his mercenary army. Prigozhin, who has reportedly accepted a deal to be exiled to Belarus to avoid criminal charges, defended his short-lived weekend march to Moscow as a necessity after 30 of his troops were allegedly killed by Russian fighters “We started our march because of an injustice,” Prigozhin said in the 11-minute audio recording. “We went to demonstrate our protest and not to overthrow power in the country.” As...

The leader of the Justice Party, a South Korean formation in the opposition, began a hunger strike Monday in front of the Japanese embassy in Seoul to protest Tokyo’s plan to dump water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant at sea. Lee Jeong-mi, leader of liberal bloc, told the media in front of the embassy that she took the decision because the government of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol “remains in silence at a time when the water spill is imminent.” “We cannot bear to see our government accept the lies of the Japanese government,” said Lee, who accused Yoon and...

Radiation in the water will be diluted to almost-background levels, but some researchers are not sure this will be sufficient to mitigate the risks.Despite concerns from several nations and international groups, Japan is pressing ahead with plans to release water contaminated by the 2011 meltdown of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean. Starting sometime this year and continuing for the next 30 years, Japan will slowly release treated water stored in tanks at the site into the ocean through a pipeline extending one kilometre from the coast. But just how safe is the water to the...

The Planned Parenthood abortion business is closing three center in Iowa at a time when the huge abortion chain is laying off workers nationwide. The abortion company may be closing three Iowa facilities but that doesn’t mean it’s retracting its abortion agenda. The closings mean Planned Parenthood will be killing even more babies at the other six locations throughout the Midwestern state. According to a local news report: Clinics in Cedar Falls, Council Bluffs, and the south side of Des Moines will be closed, with staff and services moving to other locations. Planned Parenthood officials say it’s a response to...

The 2024 primary season is well underway. Most of the candidates will have announced by Independence Day; the first debates commence in August, and petition filing for ballot access in the primaries begins mere weeks after that. We have a recent incumbent president, a recent incumbent vice president, and a plethora of sitting and former politicians, not to mention a couple of unelected businessmen in the Trump model, already lined up to crowd our debate stage. Every other op-ed will address the qualifications of the candidates, their strategies and styles, their hopeful paths to victory. But one thing that perhaps...

San Fran and Manhattan - with owners set to default on billion-dollar loans this year Values for offices are down 27 percent since March 2022, according to experts $1.5 trillion in real-estate mortgages will come due within the next two years Office availability in San Francisco soared to 32.7 percent in the first quarter Commercial real estate has become a debt timebomb, experts have warned, as office towers remain empty in once-bustling cities. The new era of remote work means 'zombie' workspaces remain vacant - while higher interest rates make it more expensive to buy or refinance buildings. Some $1.5trillion...

Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has broken his silence after abandoning his armed uprising on Saturday evening, insisting that he marched on Moscow to stop the Kremlin taking control of his mercenary army and denying a plot to overthrow Vladimir Putin. Speaking in an 11-minute audio clip posted on Wagner-affiliated Telegram channels, Prigozhin claimed the armed uprising was a 'master class' on how Russia's assault on Kyiv should have looked. He said he only called off his group's surge for the Russian capital to avoid spilling Russian blood, adding that the uprising was intended to register a protest at the ineffectual...

The nation’s leading abortion industry political action committees have endorsed President Joe Biden for reelection in 2024 during the Biden administration’s weeklong abortion blitz, which includes “phoning abortionists” to thank them” for their service. On Friday, the three most powerful pillars of the nation’s abortion lobby — Planned Parenthood Action Fund, NARAL Pro-Choice America, and EMILY’s List — preemptively endorsed Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “We were grateful to have leaders in the White House like President Biden and Vice President Harris, who have been vocal advocates for [abortion-on-demand] across the government and across the country,” said EMILY’s List...

Francesca Gino, a prominent professor at Harvard Business School known for researching dishonesty and unethical behavior, has been accused of submitting work that contained falsified results. Gino has authored dozens of captivating studies in the field of behavioral science — consulting for some of the world's biggest companies like Goldman Sachs and Google, as well as dispensing advice on news outlets, like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even NPR. But over the past two weeks, several people, including a colleague, came forward with claims that Gino tampered with data in at least four papers. Gino is...

Whoopi Goldberg told her co-hosts Monday on ABC’s “The View” that she hoped evangelicals would “wake up and realize that God may not be on their side the way they think he is” while discussing former President Donald Trump at the recent Faith & Freedom Coalition convention. Co-host Sunny Hostin said, “What was shocking to me was the hypocrisy of the evangelical community, booing at the truth. I mean, we can all have differences of opinions, but the facts remain the same. And, he did these things, so it’s almost like they were going, ‘la la la la la la...

President Joe Biden said Monday he did not lie in his repeated claims of never speaking with Hunter Biden about the family’s international business deals — despite mounting evidence to the contrary. After hosting an event in the East Room at the White House about the nation’s economic challenges, Fox News’ Jacqui Heinrich asked President Joe Biden, “Did you lie about never speaking to Hunter about his business deals?” “No,” Joe Biden replied: Q: "Did you lie about never speaking to Hunter about his business deals?" BIDEN: "No" pic.twitter.com/mWC3Xtd8sS — RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 26, 2023

(SOUNDBITE OF JELLY ROLL MORTON PERFORMANCE OF GIUSEPPE VERDI'S "MISERERE") SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And that is Jelly Roll Morton, the jazz legend, playing "Miserere" from the opera "Il Trovatore" for Alan Lomax in 1938. Jazz, of course, is born of the African American experience and draws from musical influences around the world, including opera. (SOUNDBITE OF JELLY ROLL MORTON'S "JELLY ROLL CARVES SAINT LOUIS") SIMON: The New Orleans Opera has commissioned a project on the subject of opera and jazz. It's featured on its website, and there you can see videos produced by our pal and former colleague here on...

The heart of Markowitz’s research was grounded in the basic relationship between risk and rewardHarry M. Markowitz, an economist who launched a revolution in finance, upending traditional thinking about buying stocks, died Thursday in San Diego. He was 95. Markowitz won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1990 for his breakthrough research in stock market investments, what became known as ‘modern portfolio theory’, widely referred to as MPT. The death, at a hospital, was caused by pneumonia and sepsis, Mary McDonald, a longtime assistant to Markowitz, said, the New York Times (NYT) reported. In 1952, he published his...

Acclaimed actor Sir Mark Rylance candidly revealed his scepticism during the pandemic, as he recalled alarm bells starting to ring in his head when he was told to have the Covid-19 vaccine.Sir Mark Rylance was “not convinced” that he needed the Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic, and an insistence that he needed it sparked “alarm bells” in his mind. Although he ultimately did get the jab, so he could visit his father in America, the 63-year-old told The Sunday Times that he used a distilled garlic solution and vitamin C daily to keep healthy while performing in the hit...

Prominent figures participated in the Toronto pride parade on Sunday, including Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau's Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland, among others. The parade, put on by Pride Toronto, included people walking in puppy play and furry costume fetish gear. Several adults exposed themselves to the audience in attendance. Bud Light helped sponsor the event. Children were seen taking part in the parade as well as in the audience itself. Meanwhile, adult male participants could be seen exposing themselves in the presence of children. Footage was captured by TPM's Beth Baisch. The men held signs saying things such as, "life...

'[T]hat’s why we put a rope on some of them and take them to the slaughterhouse,' the vice president of the district said about those who opposed DEIA California district administrator, who said he wanted to bring voices opposing diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives "to the slaughterhouse," was sued by a faculty member – along with the entire district – for allegedly violating his First Amendment rights. The Institute for Free Speech filed a lawsuit against district administrators on behalf of Bakersfield College professor Daymon Johnson, who said he was being targeted for investigation after being outspoken about his political...

Historic Big Apple pizza joints could be forced to dish out mounds of dough under a proposed city edict targeting pollutant-spewing coal-and-wood-fired ovens, The Post has learned. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection has drafted new rules that would order eateries using the decades-old baking method to slice carbon emissions by up to 75%. “All New Yorkers deserve to breathe healthy air and wood and coal-fired stoves are among the largest contributors of harmful pollutants in neighborhoods with poor air quality,” DEP spokesman Ted Timbers said in a statement Sunday. “This common-sense rule, developed with restaurant and environmental...

In a recent development, the Biden regime’s Department of Defense (DoD) has stated it will not interfere with a potential spy balloon reported over American airspace.

Attacks on art have been in the news fairy often in recent months. In July, climate activists glued themselves to a copy of The Last Supper believed to have been painted by Leonardo da Vinci’s students and scrawled “no new oil” beneath the image, and in May, the Mona Lisa made the headlines when a museum visitor smeared cake all over the protective glass that guards the famous painting. That incident was just the latest in a series of attacks on the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece.

This week an editorial by Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times proclaimed Robert F. Kennedy, jr. "a threat to democracy." The son of former US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, sr. earned this fearful emotion from the left-wing newspaper by daring to challenge President Biden for the Democrat nomination for president in the 2024 election. "We already have a Democrat in the oval office," he said. "There is no need for this disunifying intrusion." Despite Kennedy's impeccable lineage as a liberal Democrat, Hiltzik doesn't think he deserves an opportunity to run. "If you listen to some of the issues he...