Free Republic

Does the word "here" have one syllable or two? Does "France" rhyme with "pants" or "aunts"? Across Australia, linguists are revolutionising the understanding of how Aussies' voices differ from one another, fuelling new insights into what was once thought to be a monolithic accent. Felicity Cox is one of the researchers leading this effort at Macquarie University's School of Linguistics. "We didn't really start thinking about this wide range of variation until recently," Professor Cox says. Some regional accent differences: Here: WA says hee-YUH; NSW says HEER Pool: Queensland says PEWWL; SA says POOW Dance: In SA it sounds like...

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Three American service members were killed and “many” were wounded in a drone strike in Jordan, President Joe Biden said in a statement Sunday. He attributed the attack to Iran-backed militia groups. They were the first U.S. fatalities in months of strikes against American forces across the Middle East by Iranian-backed militias amid the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, increasing the risk of escalation. U.S. officials were still working to conclusively identify the precise group responsible for the attack, but have assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups are responsible. Biden said the United States “will hold...

[Catholic Caucus] Desperate Times, Desperate Measures: Clandestine Ordinations in a Time of Ecclesial ConfusionAustralian-born Dom Alcuin Reid is the founding Prior of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in the diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, in Provence in Southern France. The Monastère Saint-Benoît is an international English-speaking community which lives a classical monastic observance of prayer and work according to the Benedictine tradition and which celebrates the traditional Roman and monastic liturgy exclusively. In April 2022, Dom Alcuin, along with another monk, were ordained to the priesthood and to the diaconate respectively by an anonymous senior prelate, after the Bishop of Fréjus-Toulon was unable to...

The number of reported rapes and sexual assaults on cruises hit a new high in 2023... There were 131 reported incidents in 2023 compared to 87 in 2022 ... But the actual number of incidents is likely much higher... Nationally, two out of three sexual assaults go unreported, ... Earlier this month, MSC Cruises was sued for two alleged sex crimes on separate ships. One lawsuit alleged a crew member raped a passenger, and the other accused the cruise line of failing to protect an underage / 6-year-old girl from being molested . ... Jack Hickey .. cruise companies generally...

Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that she absolutely trusted the jury’s $83 million verdict for E. Jean Carroll in her case against former President Donald Trump. Anchor Kristen Welker said, “Let’s talk about the court cases. On Friday, a jury ordered Donald Trump to pay writer E. Jean Carroll $83 million in damages for defamation. This was a year after a different jury found him liable for sexual abuse. You have said, and you repeated here, maybe it’s fair, maybe it’s not. Let me just ask you, on the substance...

Oh Susie QT. The Fed loves you. And The Fed has put a spell on the economy. Where do we sit today? Bank credit growth has been negative for the last 26 weeks. As M2 Money growth has stalled. What will The Fed do? While the FOMC may start the discussions around tapering QT as soon as at this meeting, tapering itself is still a ways off, and the actual end of QT will come early next year. In January and May 2022, the FOMC published the principles and then the plan for QT. The fact of a taper this...

Yemen’s Houthi delegation meets in Moscow with the Russian deputy foreign minister Mikhail Bogdanov, where they discussed the situation in the region as well as the importance of intensifying efforts to pressure the United States and Israel to stop war in the Gaza Strip, the Houthi top negotiator says on messaging platform X.

NBC’s Saturday Night Live ended up with egg on its face when “Weekend Update” co-anchor Colin Jost attempted to make fun of former President Donald Trump for using the word “de-bank” — a well-known financial term used to describe the denial of financial services to political dissidents, frequently at the behest of the government. During Saturday’s broadcast, Colin Jost admitted to not knowing “what the hell” the term meant, while erroneously claiming Trump made the word up.

A new era in tennis may finally be upon us. Jannik Sinner upset Novak Djokovic 6-1, 6-2, 6-7 (6), 6-3 to advance to the finals of the 2024 Australian Open on Friday, a triumph that may finally mark the end of the Djokovic-Rafael Nadal-Roger Federer era in tennis. Sinner will face Daniil Medvedev in the final on Sunday. Medvedev defeated Alexander Zverev 5-7, 3-6, 7-6(4), 7-6(5), 6-3 in a five-set thriller in Friday's other semifinal. Sinner's victory ensures this will be the first time since 2014 that Djokovic, Nadal or Federer did not win the year's first major. The trio...

Anybody have a vibrating football game as a kid? (See picture in thread.)

French farmers are using their tractors to set up road blockades and slow traffic across France to seek better remuneration for their produce, less red tape and protection against cheap importsTwo climate activists hurled soup Sunday at the glass protecting the Mona Lisa at the Louvre Museum in Paris and shouted slogans advocating for a sustainable food system. This came amid protests by French farmers against several issues, including low wages. In a video posted on social media, two women with the words “FOOD RIPOSTE” written on their t-shirts could be seen passing under a security barrier to get closer...

House Republicans announced two articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas Sunday, accusing him of failing to do his job by allowing thousands of asylum seekers to enter the country amid record-breaking illegal crossings. The articles accuse Mayorkas of willful and systemic refusal to comply with the law and breach of public trust. The House Homeland Security Committee is expected to approve the charges at a Tuesday hearing and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) vowed Friday to hold a floor vote “as soon as possible.” Mayorkas, 64, would be the second Cabinet secretary in US history to be...

So the Texas National Guard seems to have locked this area down and said okay this is now ours, of course. Border Patrol says yo you can't do this now, obviously. Border Patrol right, they they seem to have said, "Hey listen we're not going to fight the Texas National Guard this is for the courts to decide", and so the overall showdown is between literally between the Texas National Guard, who's currently occupying and has actually put up constantina wire to block border patrol from entering this park and Border Patrol who says, "Hey listen we are empowered to...

When Rigel Robinson was elected to the Berkeley City Council in 2018 — just months after graduating from UC Berkeley — he was determined to tackle the city's housing crisis as its youngest-ever council member. Little did he know that six years later, at 27 years old, he would be handing in his resignation notice. As an undergrad serving on Berkeley's student government, Robinson grew passionate about building more affordable student housing in the notoriously expensive city. After being elected, he built on those efforts to shape the city government as the Chair of the Land Use, Housing, and Economic...

Moscow and Tehran will strengthen their security partnership and team up to counter sanctions imposed by the West, a key architect of Vladimir Putin's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has said. Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia's Security Council, announced closer cooperation between the allies after a meeting with the head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council Ali Akbar Ahmadian. Ties between Tehran and Moscow have deepened since the start of the war in Ukraine, with Iran supplying Russian forces with Shahed unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) which have wreaked havoc on Ukrainian infrastructure.

As taxpayers move to red states, democrats admit moving illegals in to blue states to gain number of Representatives in Congress.

The elites are loving this...because they hate Trump, and they hate you. President Trump has been robbed of his freedom of speech. None of this has happened by accident. There has always been a political purpose behind the laws and the indictments and the extortion. In the age of King John of England, the law was used to oppress. The judicial system existed then and now to keep the people in line. One of the great mythic stories from Middle Ages is that of Robin Hood, who was an outlaw on the run in Sherwood Forest with his merry men....

28 January 2024 4th Sunday in Ordinary Time ST. THOMAS AQUINAS UNIVERSITY PARISH, Charlottesville, VA Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: B(II).First readingDeuteronomy 18:15-20 ©I will raise up a prophet and put my words into his mouthMoses said to the people: ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like myself, from among yourselves, from your own brothers; to him you must listen. This is what you yourselves asked of the Lord your God at Horeb on the day of the Assembly. “Do not let me hear again” you said “the voice of the Lord my God,...

Even as global attention is pulled in a dozen different directions, the fighting in Ukraine continues amidst a winter cold that provides better conditions than the mud seasons. . Russia's offensive has focused on Avidiivka, but fighting has been hard at multiple places along the front. In this episode, we look at the recent fighting, from Avidiivka to the great Patriot missile road trip, examine the available loss data, look into the question of casualties and mobilisation (including some Sergei Shoigu math) and close out by touching on the wider sustainability issues probably deserve further discussion.

The disclosure comes amid congressional scrutiny and a Federal Trade Commission crackdown on commercial data brokers. ... The letter by the National Security Agency, obtained by The New York Times, is the latest disclosure to highlight a legal gray zone on privacy ... The National Security Agency buys certain logs related to Americans’ domestic internet activities from commercial data brokers ... Intelligence and law enforcement agencies sometimes purchase potentially sensitive and revealing domestic data from brokers that would require a court order to acquire directly. ... The U.S. government should not be funding and legitimizing a shady industry whose flagrant...