Free Republic

The Greek socialite Kyra Frosini was executed in Ioannina on this date in 1800 as an adulteress. Euphrosyne Vasileiou, to use her proper name, was the niece of the Bishop of Ioannina who made use of the frequent business absences of her wealthy Greek husband to carry on a torrid affair with the son of the Ottoman governor. This set her up to be the most famous prey in a dragnet when that legendary governor, Ali Pasha, decided that a morality crackdown was in order. She was arrested along with 17 other women on January 10, and the very next...

Rev. Dr. Victor Aloyo, Jr is the President of Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, GA, one of the 12 seminaries belonging to the heretical Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Previously serving as the Associate Dean of Institutional Diversity and Community Engagement at Princeton Theological Seminary (PCUSA), Aloyo recently preached a barnburner of a bad sermon at Saint Luke’s Presbyterian Church in Dunwoody, Ga. Here, Aloyo ripped into the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22, explaining, “If what we hear in today’s gospel is really what the kingdom of heaven is like, friends, then I am not interested.” Describing it as...

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)—a phrase that has echoed through the halls of corporations, academic institutions, and even churches, has become a topic of significant debate and concern. The roots of DEI programs are indeed deeply entrenched in ideologies that prioritize societal restructuring, and several recent findings shed light on the substantial financial resources being funneled into these initiatives. For example, in the 2022 to 2023 school year, the State University System of Florida spent a significant amount – $28 million – on critical race theory and diversity, equity, and inclusion programs. Notably, over half of this funding was taxpayer-funded....

The official position of the Canadian Armed Forces is that they – and the country they serve – are irredeemably racist and oppressive

(LifeSiteNews) — A court in Wisconsin has suspended a criminal sexual assault case against former cardinal Theodore McCarrick after a psychologist ruled the former prelate incompetent to stand trial. McCarrick was charged with fourth-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin for an incident in 1977 where the former high-ranking prelate and “another adult male” are accused of repeated sexual abuse of the then-18-year-old James Grein near a house at Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. According to Grein, the other alleged abuser next to McCarrick was Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, the former archbishop of Chicago, who died in 1996. The Walworth County court decision echoes that...

A politician bidding to run against Vladimir Putin in Russia's upcoming presidential election described the decision to go to war in Ukraine as a "big mistake" in comments to the wives of soldiers on Thursday. Boris Nadezhdin, representing a centre-right party called Civic Initiative that has no seats in parliament, is seeking to gather the necessary 100,000 signatures from people across Russia to enable him to stand against Putin. -snip- Nadezhdin has promised to present a plan for ending the conflict. Last week he also aimed sharp criticism at the authorities over heating outages that have struck parts of Russia...

British PM Rishi Sunak has briefed his cabinet on the imminent military intervention, the report adds The leader of the Yemeni rebels has threatened a ‘big’ response to the US and its allies if they proceed with such action against his group Britain is expected to join the United States in conducting air strikes on military positions belonging to the Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen “within hours”, the political editor for the Times newspaper reported on Thursday. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street office did not respond to a request for comment, while the US typically does not comment on...

Civil liberties advocates have long argued that “geofence” search warrants are unconstitutional for their ability to ensnare entirely innocent people who were nearby at the time a crime was committed. But errors in the geofence warrant applications that go before a judge can violate the privacy of vastly more people — in one case almost two miles away. Attorneys at the ACLU of Northern California found what they called an “alarming error” in a geofence warrant application that “resulted in a warrant stretching nearly two miles across San Francisco.” The error, likely caused by a typo, allowed the requesting law...

The 2024 Virginia General Assembly opens this week, and there is a small but powerful pro-abortion majority in both chambers. These pro-abortion members of the Senate and House of Delegates will block the passage of any strong anti-abortion bills and force through some dreadfully dangerous abortion measures that could turn Virginia into a location for unlimited abortion up to birth. The first thing a new pro-abortion majority is likely to do is to cast the first of two required votes in favor of a Virginia constitutional amendment allowing unlimited abortion right up to birth, which would start the process of...

Researchers have developed an intranasal COVID-19 vaccine that enhances the immune system’s response to the virus, providing longer-lasting, greater protection than vaccine injections, even against new and emerging variants. The novel vaccine candidate could mean fewer boosters in future. While the immediate threat of the COVID-19 pandemic has dissipated somewhat, with most returning to their pre-COVID lives, the continued rise of new virus variants means that vaccination is still necessary to protect the vulnerable in the community, such as the elderly and frail and those with pre-existing medical conditions. Breakthrough as hugely promising weight-loss compound made in yeast Although many...

The Army’s recruiting of white soldiers in 2023 had dropped almost by half in the last five years, according to a report. That dramatic decline has coincided with a push by the service to increase recruitment of a more diverse population, according to a report. The decline of white recruits has also coincided with the Army missing its target of 65,000 recruits in 2023 by 10,000. Military.com reported Wednesday that Army internal data showed that a total of 44,042 new Army recruits were categorized by the service as white in 2018, but that number has fallen consistently each year to...

— Being a PA is a close second, according to the U.S. Being a nurse practitioner (NP) is the best job in healthcare, and the physician assistant (PA) is a close second, according to U.S. News & World Report's 2024 rankingsopens in a new tab or window. Indeed, the NP ranks first overall in the publisher's top jobs list for this yearopens in a new tab or window, beating out financial manager, software developer, and IT manager. The PA comes in fifth on the main list, according to the rankings. "The 10-year outlook for this occupation [NP] is strong, with...

In recent months, videos and images of migrants boarding U.S. commercial airline flights have flooded social media. This month, North State Journal reported on an American Airlines flight out of Arizona carrying non-U.S. citizens to Charlotte’s Douglas International Airport. Within hours of the article being posted online, a General Assembly staffer who wished to remain anonymous relayed a similar encounter at an Arizona airport while returning from a conference on Dec. 1, 2023. Per the staffer, the individuals all appeared to have brand-new backpacks and were carrying plastic bags with what looked like “snacks.” The staffer said most of them...

More than 1,600 ancient genomes have helped to trace the roots of a host of genetic traits found in modern Europeans. The genomes suggest that many characteristics — including a heightened risk for multiple sclerosis — were carried to Europe by people who migrated to the continent in three distinct waves starting around 45,000 years ago. The findings provide evidence that some of the regional variation in certain traits was caused by differences in migrants’ dispersal patterns. That contradicts the idea that genetic differences arose mainly as people adapted to conditions in specific locations in Europe. ... Europe was settled...

Experts say some Americans aren't accessing available vaccines and treatments.Why are so many Americans still dying of COVID? For the week ending Dec. 9, the last week of complete data, there were 1,614 deaths from COVID, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The last four weeks of complete data show an average of 1,488 weekly deaths. By comparison, there were 163 weekly deaths from the flu for the week ending Dec. 9, according to CDC data. MORE: JN.1 variant makes up a majority of COVID cases in the US. Here's what to know While high, these...

Some 20,000 people in the cities of Klimovsk, Lyubertsy, and Podolsk, in the Moscow region, have been left without heating for days — some of them for weeks — as temperatures have dropped below -25C last week, Russian Telegram channel Baza reported. Local authorities declared an emergency. “Due to sanctions and overblown military spending, Russia does not have enough resources to spare for annual checkups of its outdated housing and utilities sector,"

Julia Roberts has been in over 50 movies during her decades-long career in Hollywood — yet she hasn’t done a gone au naturale in any of them. During her new cover story with British Vogue, published Thursday, the iconic actress, 56, revealed that she has purposely avoided taking any racy roles in order to have a “G-rated career.” When asked if she has “any feelings of responsibility to other women” when choosing scripts, the “Pretty Woman” star told interviewer Richard Curtis that it’s more about what she “chooses not to do.” “You know, not to be criticizing others’ choices, but...

You wouldn’t jump out of an airplane wearing a tie. So, naturally, the most famous skyjacker to never be found, the dapper D.B. Cooper, took his tie off on Thanksgiving Eve, 1971, just before dropping out of a Northwest Orient Airlines plane somewhere south of Seattle. Now, 52 years later, Eric Ulis—the amateur sleuth who has made it his mission to solve the enduring D.B. Cooper mystery—thinks the infamous tie yields enough clues to finally reveal the skyjacker’s true identity. “I would not be surprised at all if 2024 was the year we figure out who this guy was,” Ulis...

A massive fire near Moscow has destroyed a plant that supplies body armour for Vladimir Putin’s troops. Video footage shows flames engulfing the plant on Entuziastov Avenue, Obukhovo, in the Moscow region this morning, and no casualties have been reported. Law enforcement in Russia is investigating whether the inferno was caused by an act of sabotage or arson. The fire has destroyed 86,000 feet of a warehouse and a workshop. Workers were evacuated from the plant just as it took hold and more than 100 firefighters tried to save the key production line. It has been sanctioned by Ukraine for...

Yes, it’s Biden’s fiscal inferno! And getting worse as the Presidential election approaches! Remember when I showed that the “stealth” secret sauce behind Bidenomics was nothing more than a massive, multi-trillion debt-fueled spending spree, which led to the biggest peactime, non-crisis budget deficit in US history, with the total deficit for fiscal 2023 ending just over $2 trillion, or double the prior year, something which BofA’s Michael Hartnett called the “era of fiscal excess”? Well, we have news for you: if 2023 was bad, 2024 – an election year of course – is shaping up to be far worse. Moments...