Free Republic

A judge sentenced That '70s Show star Danny Masterson to 30 years to life in prison Thursday for the rapes of two women two decades ago. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charlaine F. Olmedo handed down the sentence to Masterson, 47, after hearing statements from the women about the trauma they experienced and the suffering caused by the disturbing memories in the years since. The actor, who has been in custody since May, sat in court wearing a suit. He watched the women without visible reaction as they spoke. "When you raped me, you stole from me," said one woman...

A 120-year-old Illinois church could be forced to shutter and sell off its assets if its members fail to raise $300,000 in the next month to pay off a $487,000 federal court judgment against them to recover “long gone” donations a businessman convicted of running a Ponzi scheme poured into their coffers over 10 years. The church, Messiah Lutheran Church in Joliet, said they had no idea they were benefiting from the ill-gotten gains of convicted fraudster, Illinois resident Kenneth D. Courtright III. The Securities and Exchange Commission said Courtright and his company, Todays Growth Consultant Inc., raised at least...

In the summer of 2014, the cable and satellite bundle peaked. One hundred million households were subscribed to ESPN, the most successful channel in the history of cable, and the apex of the greatest business in the history of media had been reached. But no one knew it. Cable, satellite, and media executives were all blissfully unaware of what was coming. Fox Sports FS1 had launched the prior year — yours truly appeared on the very first show in the history of the network, a 2013 college football preview show. In the summer of 2014 the SEC Network would make...

A city in Wyoming has been overrun with an unprecedented homeless population that’s destroyed a vacant motel and has left hundreds of pounds of feces across the area, according to its mayor. Mayor Bruce Knell detailed the destructive behavior of roughly 200 homeless people in Casper, WY who have been creating a “mess” throughout the streets and parks, as well as a closed motel where squatters left millions in property damage. “They destroyed everything,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s horrible.” Homeless people who squatted at the Econo Lodge motel caused more damage than the flooding that initially closed the...

Four months after the Florida Baptist Convention informed members that they were the “victim of a highly sophisticated cybercrime” that used fraudulent emails to steal $700,000 earmarked for their Send Network Florida account, an investigatory report concluded there was “no criminal activity on the part of any Florida Baptist Convention staff person” to account for the losses, but instead “the crime was the result of sophisticated cybertargeting by, at this point, unknown perpetrators.” It’s a small consolation for the convention, which has been reeling from the loss. The report was delivered during their Aug. 24-25 meeting in Jacksonville. While they...

Top Democratic donors are doubling down on President Biden’s re-election – despite a Wall Street Journal poll that states 80% of Americans believe he’s too old, On The Money has learned. Biden, who is slated to come to New York City for the UN General Assembly the week of Sept. 18, is also slated to attend a slew of fundraisers during his trip. Those include a “Broadway for Biden” event where Lin-Manuel Miranda, Sara Bareilles and Josh Groban are set to perform. The event on Sept. 18 will be co-hosted by Lin-Manuel Miranda’s father — political operative Luis Miranda Jr....

CV NEWS FEED // A suspect is in custody for causing the fire that ravaged St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Salem, Oregon, this week. What began as a dumpster fire in the early hours of the morning of August 31 soon escalated, spreading to the roof of the church building. On the same day, the Salem Police Department announced the arrest of a suspect, Billy James Sweeten, in a statement shared with CatholicVote. “Due to the suspicious circumstances of the fire, arson detectives from the Salem Police Felony Crimes Unit responded to the scene for the investigation, resulting in the...

Lawyers for two defendants in Donald Trump's classified documents case ought to consider whether their clients should cooperate with investigators after a key witness flipped, according to a legal expert. Former federal prosecutor Michael McAuliffe was reacting to confirmation that Mar-a-Lago IT worker Yuscil Taveras changed his under-oath testimony and provided evidence against Trump, his aide Walt Nauta, and Mar-a-Lago maintenance worker Carlos De Oliveira in order to avoid perjury charges. Taveras had previously testified to a special grand jury in March that he was not aware of any attempts by Trump, Nauta, or De Oliveira to delete security footage...

It’s already very expensive to rent in a hot housing market like Southern California. Now landlords have found a way to make things even worse. A growing number of property owners and managers are hitting tenants with extra fees each month — a nickel-and-diming of people that the airlines, for one, have made a core aspect of their business model. It’s been common for years for landlords to charge more for a parking space or having a pet.

Religious freedom, Congress said unanimously in 1998, “undergirds the very origin and existence of the United States.” Today, however, an obsession with gender ideology is driving governments to ignore the First Amendment, defy clear Supreme Court precedent, and even violate their own laws and regulations to root out those with the “wrong” religious views about sexuality. This bigotry not only violates fundamental rights, but it also puts vulnerable children at risk. During the 2021-22 fiscal year, more than 9,700 children were placed in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, which had already acknowledged a serious lack...

Explanation: The 16th century Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew had plenty of time to study the southern sky during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth. As a result, two fuzzy cloud-like objects easily visible to southern hemisphere skygazers are known as the Clouds of Magellan, now understood to be satellite galaxies of our much larger, spiral Milky Way galaxy. About 160,000 light-years distant in the constellation Dorado, the Large Magellanic Cloud is seen in this sharp galaxy portrait. Spanning about 15,000 light-years or so, it is the most massive of the Milky Way's satellite galaxies and is the...

Pastor Nate Schlomann took a two-by-four to the talking heads at the Acts 29 Network commenting on a video between Justin Anderson, the Director of Church Planting for Acts 29, and Mike Sullivan, lead pastor of Emmaus Church in Worcester, MS sharing strategies for churches to show ‘gospel hospitality’ to our LGBTQIA+ friends and family with conviction and love. Acts 29 was founded as an evangelistic church planting network designed to exemplify a deep biblicism, mainly on the back of its Calvinistic soteriology. However, downgrade has crept in over the years, facilitated by a leadership that refuses to diligently and...

Pro-choice groups advertise 'Abortion is Good/El Aborto es Bueno' T-shirtsColorado Gov. Jared Polis might want to have checked with a few more Democrats before declaring that they believe abortion is “bad.” The pro-choice governor landed in hot water with some fellow Democrats and abortion rights groups as he sought to find common ground between the parties by saying both sides agree that elective pregnancy termination isn’t a good thing. “Democrats don’t believe that abortion is good. We believe it’s bad. It should be minimized,” Mr. Polis said in a July 23 interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “How do...

Premise Polling conducted by 538 Project [DATA HERE] shows President Donald Trump with a commanding 50-point lead over the rest of the field. President Trump holds 62% of primary voters, while Ron DeSantis shrinks even further to 12%. This poll, along with all the state polls show a similar trend pattern. President would win all the delegates in the key primary states.In a head-to-head matchup with only Trump and DeSantis, President Trump crushes the Florida Governor 67% to 24%. The demographics are again consistent with Trump dominating every subset of voter and DeSantis holding tepid support from rich white men...

The director-general of the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced that “COVID is here to stay and that we will continue to need tools to fight it.” During a press briefing on “global health issues” on September 6, WHO chief Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus furthermore urged “at-risk people” to receive “an additional dose [of the COVID-19 shot] if it’s recommended for you.” “The increase in hospitalizations and deaths shows that COVID is here to stay and that we will continue to need tools to fight it,” he said. According to the WHO director-general, one of these “tools” is the dangerous...

Mar-a-Lago IT worker Yuscil Taveras has struck a cooperation agreement with the special counsel’s office in the federal case over former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents, Taveras’ former defense attorney said in a new court filing. Taveras struck the deal with prosecutors after he was threatened with prosecution, defense attorney Stanley Woodward wrote in the filing dated Tuesday. Taveras is referred to in the filing and in the superseding indictment as “Trump Employee 4,” and CNN has identified him as that employee. According to the terms of the deal explained in the filing, Taveras agreed to testify in...

Photo: AlamyPresident Trump is dominating his Republican rivals by such a large lead that a recent survey shows he is poised to win all of California’s delegates. The Los Angeles Times shared the results of a poll conducted by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which showed that President Trump is set to win all of California’s delegates for the Republican convention next year. The director of the UC Berkeley poll, Mark DiCamillo, said, “Californians have turned away, by and large, from DeSantis. The biggest beneficiary of DeSantis’ decline is the former president. There’s no question he’s well-liked by...

Is it possible to run a daily television program without succumbing to workplace toxicity? In the last few years, we’ve seen exposés from the sets of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show, and Dr. Phil, featuring accusations of bullying leadership styles and deteriorating mental health among staffers. The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon can now be added to that number, as more than a dozen current and former staff members from that show have spoken to Rolling Stone about a culture of fear and anxiety behind the scenes that largely stems from Jimmy Fallon’s own “erratic” behavior. The...

While a new subvariant is causing increasing hospitalizations across the country and we await the updated Covid-19 vaccines, now may be a good time to put your mask back on, doctors say. Especially in certain settings like on plane rides and trips on the subway. The percentage of people who said they wore a mask outside of their home in the U.S. decreased from about 57% in January 2022 to around 27% in January of 2023, according to data compiled by the Covid States Project.

“The United States is committed to empowering Ukraine to write its own future. In the crucible of President Putin’s brutal and ongoing war, the United States and Ukraine have forged a partnership that is stronger than ever and growing every day. We will continue to stand by Ukraine’s side,” Blinken said after a meeting with Ukraine’s foreign minister. Blinken also said the Ukraine War was a fight “we must and will win.” “Now, we have no illusions that the path forward will be easy, but this is a fight that we must and we will win for any country threatened...