Free Republic

Somebody told me there was a H-1B application for a head pickleball professional, so I had to look it up. Sure enough. (Jumbo's pickleball) https://guestworkervisas.com/gwv/h1bjunkiesviewtest.php?jobtitle=pickleball

The 2020 census was marketed as an “actual enumeration,” a neutral count of people for apportionment and funding. It was not. The same official who helped block a basic citizenship question in 2018, John M. Abowd, then the Census Bureau’s Chief Scientist, pushed through a new, opaque methodology in 2020 called differential privacy. The new system deliberately injected mathematical noise into every block count in America, turning the census from a headcount into a model with knobs. The knob that mattered most was a single parameter, epsilon, a secrecy shroud known only to a small inner circle. Abowd argued that...

Summary China detains dozens of underground church pastors Crackdown heralds new wave of religious persecution, church spokesperson says U.S.'s Rubio condemns detentions, urges pastors' release BEIJING, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Police in China detained dozens of pastors of one of its largest underground churches over the weekend, a church spokesperson and relatives said, in the biggest crackdown on Christians since 2018. The detentions, which come amid renewed China-U.S. tensions after Beijing dramatically expanded rare earth export controls last week, drew condemnation from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called on Sunday for the pastors' immediate release. Pastor Jin Mingri, the...

Doug Lebda, the founder and chief executive of LendingTree, died unexpectedly in an all-terrain vehicle accident over the weekend, the company announced Monday. He was 55. The online lending marketplace said in a statement that Lebda’s death occurred Sunday and described him as a “visionary leader whose relentless drive, innovation and passion transformed the financial services landscape, touching the lives of millions of consumers.” The Charlotte-based company’s board appointed president and chief operating officer Scott Peyree as president and CEO, effective immediately, and named Steve Ozonian, a longtime director, as chairman of the board. “The news of losing Doug was...

North Carolina Republican lawmakers announced plans Monday to redraw their state's congressional map, part of a nationwide redistricting effort aimed at shoring up the party's narrow majority in the U.S. House ahead of next year's midterm elections. “President Trump earned a clear mandate from the voters of North Carolina and the rest of the country, and we intend to defend it by drawing an additional Republican Congressional seat,” North Carolina House Speaker Destin Hall said in a statement. Under North Carolina's current map, Republicans control 10 House seats to Democrats' four. To give Republicans another seat, the GOP-controlled Legislature could...

A New Jersey county that could play a decisive role in the next month’s statewide elections will be reprinting its general election ballots after the Republican National Committee successfully argued that a ballot redesign unlawfully favored Democrats.The dispute began late last month when Democratic County Clerk James Hogan replaced Gloucester County’s legally required party-column ballot format, where each political party’s candidates appear under a single vertical heading, with an office-block layout that grouped all candidates for each race together, regardless of party.Republicans argued the change undermined their visibility on the ballot and blunted their “Vote Column A” campaign after winning...

The United Kingdom has slapped 4Chan with a £20,000 (around $26,000) fine in a bid to clamp down on platforms that are hindering Online Safety Act (OSA) investigations. UK telecoms regulator Ofcom says the fine was issued after the controversial social media site ignored “legally-binding information requests” related to global revenue and its illegal harms risk assessment. Starting from tomorrow, 4Chan additionally faces a daily penalty of £100 (around $133) for either 60 days or until 4Chan complies with the information requests, up to a maximum of £6,000 (around $8,000). “Today sends a clear message that any service which flagrantly...

PUSHMATAHA COUNTY, Okla. (KTEN) — An Antlers woman was killed and her mother was seriously injured after being struck by a pickup truck in Pushmataha County late Saturday night. Oklahoma Highway Patrol deputies said 46-year-old Heather Linn-Schutt and her daughter, Emma Marie Linn, 22, were involved in a physical altercation in the northbound lane of State Highway 2 north of Antlers at 10:15 p.m. As the women were fighting, they were struck by a pickup truck driven by a Plano, Texas man

In America today, our two major political parties are moving in opposite directions. For Republicans, it might be the “best of times.” Under the leadership of President Donald Trump, the GOP is feeling confident. Republicans have a strong chance to retain control of the Congress in 2026 midterm elections despite the party out of power traditionally gaining many new seats. This political environment is different. President Trump has had an incredibly successful first nine months of his second term and this will help Republicans in the midterm elections. After four years of no border security under the previous administration, it...

Daniel had predicted the exact day Israel’s Messiah would arrive (69 weeks of years; 173,880 days after the command to restore and rebuild Jerusalem on the Jewish calendar; Dan. 9:25; Neh. 2:1-8). That day had arrived. He and His 12 disciples were walking toward Jerusalem. They were approaching the towns of Bethpage and Bethany on the Mount of Olives (Luke 19:29). He sent two of the 12 ahead to look for a colt that had never been ridden and to bring it to Him. They found the colt, took it back to Jesus, cast their garments on the colt, set...

As I write this, the people of Israel, Gaza, and the world hope that the Gaza war is finally coming to an end. Will there be more delays? Probably. Has Hamas been removed? Over time, will Hamas be reborn or will a Hamas-like entity rise to take its place? The heart of terror is hatred, and this war has not snuffed that out. Still, the present peace deal appears to be an enormous achievement for President Trump and his administration. It has been praised from such divergent points of view as former Secretaries of State Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice....

Chuck Grassley@ChuckGrassleyThis document shows the Biden FBI spied on 8 of my Republican Senate colleagues during its Arctic Frost investigation into "election conspiracy" Arctic Frost later became Jack Smith's elector case against TrumpBIDEN FBI WEAPONIZATION = WORSE THAN WATERGATE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to meet with President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday, according to an administration official, a Western official and a Ukrainian embassy spokesperson. Ukraine's ambassador to the U.S., Olga Stefanishyna, confirmed that Trump invited Zelenskyy to a meeting this week, Ukrainian Embassy spokesperson Halyna Yusypiuk said. The visit, previously reported by the Financial Times, comes as Trump said the U.S. is considering approving Tomahawk missiles for Ukraine, adding that they would be “a new step of aggression” in that country's war against Russia. If the administration provided the long-range missiles, it would...

Women won't choose motherhood in a climate that undermines women's healthMy late grandmother and I share two things: A very mean glare when irate and a history of domestic abuse. An unwitting feminist before feminism was en vogue, she ensured a key difference in our fates. Thanks to my grandmother's adamant emphasis on educating girls in our family, I could do what she couldn't: leave. All women should have the chance I had -- the choice my grandmother didn't have but gifted to me. The advancement of women's rights has blessed us with freedom. We can be mothers, and we...

Law enforcement officials have identified the 16 victims who died in an explosion at a munitions plant in the state of Tennessee. The names were released during a press briefing on Monday outside Accurate Energetic Systems in Hickman County, where an early-morning blast levelled a company building on 10 October. There were no survivors.Sheriffs Chris Davis of Humphreys County and Jason Craft of Hickman County alternated reading the victims' names and emphasised a "need to take care" of their families at this time.No cause of the blast has been identified. Agents from the national Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and...

Many questions about the famous moai statues on Easter Island, Chile, have long eluded scholars—from their cultural significance to how they were made and transported. A recent study in the Journal of Archaeological Science by archaeologists Carl Lipo of Binghamton University and Terry Hunt of the University of Arizona poses the theory that the 92-ton statues were transported in a vertical position, with movers using ropes to “walk” the moai across the island and onto their ahu, or platforms. This theory is supported by the oral traditions of the island’s Indigenous Rapa Nui people, which reference the moai “walking” from...

Both Israel and Hamas have met the initial terms negotiated in Egypt with U.S. and Arab mediation. The Israeli government says that it has released thousands of Palestinian prisoners in exchange for the hostages held by Hamas as part of the ceasefire deal mediated by the United States. Cheering crowds met some of the former prisoners who were released into the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The prisoners include 250 serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis and 1,700 detained in Gaza during the war, the Associated Press reported. Those not delivered to Palestinian territories will be sent into...

Possible identity of "Mona Lisa of the North" has been revealed by a British art historian.A mysterious girl with a pearl earring from Johannes Vermeer's famous painting was likely the daughter of the painter's commissioner, a historian has revealed. The 17th-century Dutch painter Vermeer worked almost exclusively for Pieter van Ruijven and Maria de Knuijt, a Dutch husband and wife in Delft. This has been revealed by Andrew Graham-Dixon, the art historian and TV presenter, claiming the girl wearing the pearl earring in the renowned oil painting is likely the couple's daughter, Magdalene. The wealthy family were members of a...

“That is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy.”Even more than Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama led the most radical effort to politicize the United States military. An effort that his allies and Sen. Warren’s continued under the Biden admin.Between firing commanders in what many described as a ‘purge’ and rewarding wokeness while punishing conservative ideals when it came to promotion, saddling the military with leftist priorities like DEI and green energy, Obama drastically weakened the military by politicizing it resulting in such disasters as Benghazi and the capture of US military personnel by...

Two activists from the climate group Futuro Vegetal were arrested on Sunday, October 12, the date Spain commemorates the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas, after throwing biodegradable red paint on a painting of Columbus at the Naval Museum in Madrid. Per reports from El Confidencial and El País, the paint damaged the left portion of José Garnelo’s 1892 First Tribute to Christopher Columbus, which is displayed at the museum entrance. The activists also unfurled a banner reading “October 12, nothing to celebrate. Ecosocial justice.” Futuro Vegetal said in a statement that the incident aimed to call attention to...