Free Republic

American multinational energy corporation Chevron is now importing an average of 250,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude oil per day into the United States, the BBC reported Tuesday.According to recent reports, Venezuela’s monthly crude oil exports have once again surpassed one million barrels per day. Andy Walz – president of downstream, midstream, and chemicals at Chevron – confirmed to the BBC that the company is importing the equivalent a quarter of a million barrels of Venezuelan oil per day. The BBC detailed that the crude oil tanker Minerva Gloria recently docked at a wharf in the Mississippi sound, carrying 400,000 barrels...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ We Having Fun Yet?! MSG Sean Phal of the 120th Infantry Brigade performed the Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) on Nov 8, 2023 at Fort Cavazos, Texas. The ACFT is to assess the Soldier's muscular strenght, muscle endurance, power, speed, agility, coordination, flexibility, balance, reaction time and aerobic capacity. (U.S.Army Reserve photo by MSG Connie Antolok) Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Happy Birthday USMC!! A family poses for a...

SummaryEver since the early years of the twentieth century, with the largely accidental discovery and subsequent raising (mostly from the Aegean sea bed) of a significant number of wrecks whose main cargo was works of art, researchers in the field of Greco-Roman archaeology have concentrated their most enthusiastic efforts on stylistic studies of these artefacts, while at the same time attempting to establish exactly when the ships transporting them sank. That these shipments of beautifully crafted masterpieces (mainly bronzes), coming from the Eastern Aegean, were destined for Rome, a city rapidly emerging into the historical spotlight, has always been and...

Joe Biden and his wife Jill ventured out in Santa Monica, Calif., amid his battle with cancer, Page Six is told. Spies spotted the former first couple at celeb favorite Giorgio Baldi with Scott Miller, the former Ambassador to Switzerland, and his husband, LGBTQ+ activist Tim Gill. Fellow diners told us that Joe — who was diagnosed in May 2025 with an aggressive form of stage 4 prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones — was quiet for much of the dinner, but piped up to sing “Happy Birthday” to guests celebrating at a neighboring table. “Jill did most...

A massive six-alarm fire destroyed a 1.2-million-square-foot Kimberly-Clark distribution center in Ontario early Tuesday morning. Police arrested 29-year-old Chamel Abdulkarim, an employee of a third-party distribution partner, on suspicion of felony arson. While no injuries were reported among the 20 employees onsite, the building and its contents are considered a total loss. SNIP

Let the Stones Speak The earliest evidence of a grouping of iron blooms has been discovered in a shipwreck off the Carmel coast. A recent study announcing the discovery was published in NPJ Heritage. According to the researchers, the analysis of the ancient cargo "provides unique and unprecedented insight into early bloom production, handling and maritime transport during the Iron Age" -- around 2,600 years ago, the time of the biblical King Josiah. On today's program, host Brent Nagtegaal interviews lead author Prof. Tsilla Eshel of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, University of Haifa, about the discovery. Israeli...

A federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday denied Anthropic’s request to temporarily block the Department of Defense’s blacklisting of the artificial intelligence company as a lawsuit challenging that sanction plays out. The ruling comes after a judge in San Francisco federal court late last month, in a separate but related case, granted Anthropic a preliminary injunction that bars the Trump administration from enforcing a ban on the use of its Claude model. “In our view, the equitable balance here cuts in favor of the government,” the appeals court said in its decision. “On one side is a relatively...

LOS ANGELES — A federal judge on Wednesday handed down a sentence of 15 years in prison to a woman who pleaded guilty to selling actor Matthew Perry the ketamine that killed him in 2023. "You're going to have to show some epic resilience," Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett said to Jasveen Sangha, echoing the defendant's words earlier in the hearing about her self-improvement. Citing the unique role Sangha admitted to playing in Perry’s death and her broader drug-dealing business, the judge gave the 42-year-old a sentence that will almost certainly be more than all four of her co-defendants combined. The...

Hollywood Decline: Sony Pictures Set to Lay Off Hundreds Signage for Sony Group Corp. displayed at the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show in YokohamKiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images Warner Todd Huston8 Apr 2026140 3:25 Sony Pictures Entertainment is reportedly set to lay off hundreds of employees across its TV, film, and corporate offices as Hollywood continues to contract. According to Variety, one of the top layoffs will be that of Colin Davis, EVP of Comedy Development. Sources tell the paper that the layoffs are not “cost driven” but are “targeted and strategic” and are an effort to reorganize for...

A former San Francisco human rights boss accused of squandering city funds to pay for personal projects and her son’s tuition is still collecting a taxpayer-backed check as she faces a battery of criminal charges in court. Sheryl Davis — 57-year-old former head of the San Francisco Human Rights Commission who resigned in September 2024 after she was accused of conflicts of interest — is receiving a retirement benefit of $4,952.23 per month, according to the San Francisco Employees’ Retirement system. Davis was hired in 2018 to lead the troubled Human Rights Commission and earned close to $340,000 in total...

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Former SAS soldiers warn the prolonged war crimes investigation into Ben Roberts-Smith threatens to create life or death hesitation for troops in combat situations.The father of an Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan has questioned why a dedicated team of investigators has spent six years building a case against Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith while his son’s killer remains free.It comes as former SAS soldiers warn the Office of the Special Investigator’s (OSI) prolonged investigation into alleged war crimes is causing mental health issues to military families and creating life or death issues for soldiers in combat.Hugh Poate’s son Robert was...

Australia’s most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith faces five war crimes murder charges, but a retired army Colonel and ADF legal expert claims prosecutors will struggle to secure a conviction.Prosecutors squaring up against the nation’s most decorated soldier will struggle to get a successful war crimes conviction regardless of the quality of the evidence, according to a retired colonel of the Australian Army Legal Corps.Bruce Levet, who served the Australian Army Legal Corps until 2022, told The Daily Telegraph he did not believe Victoria Cross recipient and former Special Air Service corporal Ben Roberts-Smith would be convicted of five counts of...

A genetic study of Neanderthal remains recovered from Denisova Cave in Siberia's Altai Mountains revealed that two individuals who lived 10,000 years apart belonged to closely related lineages linked to each other by a common ancestor, according to a Live Science report. The first individual, known as D17, was male and lived about 110,000 years ago. The second genome belonged to a female, known as D5, who lived about 120,000 years ago. "It is likely that Denisova Cave was part of a broader landscape used repeatedly by these Neanderthal populations over time, rather than a site occupied by a single...

U.S. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) has fired back at fellow GOP Texas Congressman Brandon Gill over his remarks on the Dignity for Immigrants while Guarding our Nation to Ignite and Deliver the American Dream Act (DIGNIDAD). “The Dignity Act is mass amnesty and would constitute a terrible betrayal of our voters,” Rep. Gill claimed in a post on X. In response via X, Congresswoman Salazar wrote, “READ. THE. BILL. BEFORE. YOU. OPEN. YOUR. MOUTH.” “Calling the DIGNITY Act 'amnesty' isn’t just wrong. It’s a deliberate distortion and it exposes just how little you know about the bill,” Rep. Salazar...

Photo At first glance, watching the Criterion Collection‘s new 4K Blu-Ray release of 1976’s Network, it’s hard at first to match up the volcanic anger of Paddy Chayefsky’s writing with what we remember about the state of television in the mid-1970s. It all seems so quaint and nostalgic in retrospect — the news came in reassuringly small dabs of a half-hour of local info at 6 p.m., followed by a half-hour of national news at 6:30, rather than today’s competing 24-hour news channels on the cable dial. Weeknights ended with the urbane yet accessible and largely politically neutral Johnny Carson...

Aim To examine the prevalence of severe psychiatric morbidity among gender-referred adolescents, focusing on gender differences and outcomes related to medical gender reassignment. SNIP Conclusion Severe psychiatric morbidity is common among gender-referred adolescents and appears to be more prevalent in those referred after the recent surge in referrals. Psychiatric needs do not subside after medical gender reassignment. Summary Gender-referred adolescents show high psychiatric morbidity, yet gender differences and mental health trajectories after medical gender reassignment remain poorly understood. These adolescents had markedly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls before and after referral, with treatment needs often persisting and even intensifying after...

The FBI arrested Courtney Williams, 40, of Wagram, North Carolina yesterday and a federal grand jury indicted her today in connection with her alleged transmission of classified national defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, including a journalist (the Journalist). Williams allegedly violated 18 U.S.C. § 793(d). “Clearance holders accept a solemn obligation to protect the classified information entrusted to them,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security John A. Eisenberg. “That they do so is critical to the security of our Nation. When clearance holders violate that trust, the National Security Division will act swiftly to hold...

Davey Lopes, a four-time All-Star second baseman as part of the vaunted Dodgers infield of the 1970s and one of the greatest basestealers in history, passed away on Wednesday at the age of 80. Lopes played for the Dodgers, A’s, Cubs and Astros over a 16-year Major League career before coaching in the big leagues from 1988-2017, ultimately spending nearly a half-century career in baseball. He served as manager for the Brewers from 2000-02 and was the first-base coach and outfield/baserunning instructor for the 2008 Phillies club that won the World Series. He also coached for the Dodgers, Nationals, Orioles...

A Cincinnati man was arrested after standing outside a Franklin Township home with a knife, threatening to kill a man “in the name of Allah,” according to the Warren County Sheriff’s Office. Anthony Tyrone Jessie Long, 23, was taken into custody and charged with aggravated menacing and aggravated trespassing after deputies were called to a home just before 1:30 a.m. Sunday, April 5, on reports of a suspicious person, records from the sheriff’s office state. A woman told dispatchers that a man was walking around the front of the property and knocking on the door while holding a knife and...