Free Republic

Turkey has vowed to block two British Royal Navy ships intended for Ukraine to pass through its waters. Last month, Britain said it would transfer the two minehunter ships to the Ukrainian navy to help bolster its sea operations in its war with Russia. However, the Turkish presidency's communications directorate has now said it will not let the vessels through its Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits. When Russia first waged war on Ukraine in 2022, Turkey sparked an international agreement that blocks the passage of military ships through the passages for those at war. Today (Tuesday, January 2), the NATO member...

The U.S. Army published a story about Major Rachel Jones who claims to be a transgender woman that has recently come out and is now "living authentically." Jones is the U.S. Army Sustainment Command Cyber Division chief, G6 (Information Management), who "struggled with depression and suicidal ideation for most of her life. Today, she is living her truth and is no longer battling depression or suicidal thoughts."

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central” that former President Donald Trump and Republican lawmakers were to blame for threats to election officials.

Most do not realize that the West has been funding Ukraine’s entire government. Biden and other world leaders have promised Zelensky that they would fund the salaries and pensions for all Ukrainian politicians and government workers. Yuliia Svyrydenko, First Deputy Prime Minister, issued a warning that Ukraine will be unable to pay MILLIONS of government employees if the West does not resume payments. The figures are correct. The West has the salaries of 500,000 Ukrainian civil servants on its payroll, along with 1.4 million teachers. The highest priced item is the 10 MILLION pensioners living completely off of foreign aid....

A study by New Zealand’s Beverley Lawton et al. “proved” that receipt of the HPV vaccine reduced preterm births. However, when statistical sleuths questioned the data, the study was retracted, as it turned out that the findings were inverted. The story of the retraction is quite scandalous and is worth exploring! The study purported to provide “findings” of reductions in preterm births among HPV-vaccinated mothers.Supposedly, vaccination “reduced” very preterm births (under 31 weeks) by 23% (77% odds ratio circled in the picture below). However, in the retraction notice, the authors were forced to admit that the “findings were inverted,” and...

— Efforts to boost survival having a moment among medical and sports societies, legislatorsIn January, we reported on Damar Hamlin's collapse during a televised football game. In this report, we follow up on the resulting public interest on sudden cardiac arrest that made Hamlin the most searched person of 2023. During the final Monday Night Football game for the 2022-2023 National Football League (NFL) season, all gameplay between the Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals came to a halt when Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsedopens in a new tab or window after getting hit while making a seemingly routine defensive tackle....

Claudine Gay has resigned as the president of Harvard University. Gay first came under fire after testifying before Congress about the rise in antisemitism on college campuses. She has since been hit with a slew of plagiarism accusations. The university said it found "duplicative language" in Gay's doctoral dissertation, but it did not rise to the level of research misconduct. Gay was the first Black individual to lead the Ivy League school and only the second female.

— If a bill to schedule the veterinary sedative becomes law, will that be enough?In February, we reported on the emerging problem of xylazine-laced fentanylopens in a new tab or window. In this report, we follow up on what has happened since doctors first started raising concerns about this contaminant and its effects. Early in 2023, word started to spread among physicians that a veterinary tranquilizer called xylazine -- also known as "tranq" -- was being added to fentanyl sold on the streets, to boost the opioid's effects and extend its high. Xylazine's complications were startling -- particularly the necrotizing...

The decision will shrink the already razor-thin GOP House majority even further. Ohio GOP Rep. Bill Johnson will resign from Congress on Jan. 21 to become the new head of Youngstown State University, a move that will further shrink the tight House GOP majority. Johnson's departure, coming on the heels of the resignation of Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and the expulsion of Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), means Republicans will control just 219 seats. Once he leaves, the GOP can only lose two members of their conference for a vote to pass. "Bill submitted his official resignation from Congress today, effective...

Ken Block, whom the Trump campaign hired in 2020 to find voter fraud in the election, penned an op-ed Tuesday stating unequivocally that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen and that there was no evidence of voter fraud sufficient to change the outcome of the election. “Can a steady diet of lies and innuendo overcome the truth?” the USA Today op-ed began. “In November 2020, former President Donald Trump asserted that voter fraud had altered the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. The day after the election, his campaign hired an expert in voter data to attempt to prove...

Explanation: Can a rocket make the Moon ripple? No, but it can make a background moon appear wavy. The rocket, in this case, was a SpaceX Falcon Heavy that blasted off from NASA's Kennedy Space Center last week. In the featured launch picture, the rocket's exhaust plume glows beyond its projection onto the distant, rising, and nearly full moon. Oddly, the Moon's lower edge shows unusual drip-like ripples. The Moon itself, far in the distance, was really unchanged. The physical cause of these apparent ripples was pockets of relatively hot or rarefied air deflecting moonlight less strongly than pockets of...

The Biden administration asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to lift an injunction imposed by an appeals court that allows Texas to keep wire barriers at the southern border, arguing the barriers inhibit Border Patrol agents from crossing. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit in December halted a lower court order that gave Border Patrol agents the green light to cut concertina wire that Texas put in place along the banks of the Rio Grande. "Texas's placement of the wire near the riverbank in Eagle Pass has proved particularly problematic for Border Patrol agents," the Justice Department...

Deputies say the large surf over the last week uncovered the inert military ordinance. The bomb squad removed it from the beach as a precaution. It was collected by personnel from Travis Air Force Base. Deputies say the large surf over the last week uncovered the inert military ordinance. The bomb squad removed it from the beach as a precaution. It was collected by personnel from Travis Air Force Base.

A couple was killed and numerous other people injured just hours into the New Year when a deranged man driving a car filled with explosives barreled into a crowd leaving a rock concert in upstate New York, police said. Law enforcement sources initially reported that the crash was being investigated as possible domestic terrorism but said Tuesday there was no terror link. The fiery crash occurred at 12:50 a.m. outside the Kodak Center in Rochester, where roughly 1,000 people were filing out after a New Year’s Eve show by the rock band Moe. Rochester officers were helping pedestrians cross the...

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is ripping into Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for sending migrants to blue states and cities. “It is shameful that a Republican governor — Gov. Abbott in Texas — is using migrants as a political stunt. That’s what he’s been doing,” Jean-Pierre insisted on CNN on Tuesday. When asked to specify what she was referring to, the press secretary said, “The busing of migrants, the putting them on flights. It is shameful that that is occurring.”

Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by two points nationally in a hypothetical head-to-head race and is dominating his opponents in the Republican primary field, according to a national USA Today-Suffolk University poll published Monday. The poll of 1,000 likely voters finds Trump with 39 percent of backing while 37 percent support Biden. His two-point lead falls just within the plus or minus 3.1 percent margin of error. Under this scenario, 17 percent of voters say they would vote for a third-party candidate.

Sorry, Mouse House. Mickey is ours now.

LUKE Littler, also known as Luke the Nuke, is the Cheshire darts wizard that at just 16 years old has reached the semi finals of the World Darts Championship. Playing tonight, January 2, at around 7.30pm UK time, he has his hopes on making the final tomorrow, January 3. Unassuming Luke, who celebrated his last two wins with a kebab and a KFC meal, has already made history as the youngest player to be in the last 16, beating a competitor 40 years his senior. Luke commenced his darts career at 18 months old with a magnetic board and has...

Home Secretary James Cleverly caused quite a stir recently as reports emerged that he had joked that “a little bit of Rohypnol is not really illegal”. At the end of December, reports began to emerge that the home secretary had made what his spokesperson described as an “ironic joke” at a Downing Street reception. The joke was made to a group of women and involved him stating that if he only put a small amount of date rape drug in his wife’s drink then it “wasn’t really illegal”. Ironically, this statement from the Home Secretary came just after plans to...

A Jewish family was accosted by raging pro-Palestinian lunatics while they were shopping at an upscale shopping mall in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The website, Stop Antisemitism, first reported the incident. The family, which included a 12-year-old and 16-year-old, were targeted because one of the kids was wearing a t-shirt supporting the Israeli Defense Forces.