Free Republic

Stubborn inflation, exorbitant borrowing costs, bankruptcy risks and a growth slowdown: the Russian economy is facing a slew of negative headlines, as the costs of the Ukraine war and Western sanctions mount. “The root cause of the economy’s problems is labor starvation and sanctions ... the symptom is an inflationary surge,” said Anton Tabakh, chief economist at the Russian ratings agency Expert RA.

As President Trump is warmly received on the world stage, it's not hard to think that Joe Biden back home is jealously stewing and thinking up ways he can throw a few number-twos into Trump's punch bowl ahead of his taking office. That's obvious enough in his response to President Trump's statement that the U.S. should stay out of Syria's civil war, particularly since the Russians and Iranians are on the run and will no longer be players. Biden instead decided to escalate U.S. involvement upon hearing that, with airstrikes and approximately 900 U.S. troops on the ground. Biden normally...

Will Western governments now start to admit that there is such a thing as the global jihad, and that it is advancing? No, they’re much more likely to continue in their delusions and fantasies until the jihadis get around to confronting them directly.

Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) has stated that the recent terrorist attack in Moscow Oblast is a deliberate provocation by Putin’s regime and had been anticipated by the international community. Source: Andrii Yusov, representative of DIU, in a comment to Ukrainska Pravda Quote: "This is the deliberate provocation by Putin’s special services that the international community warned us about. The Kremlin tyrant started his career like this, and he wants to end it the same way: committing crimes against his citizens."

False. I monitor their official networks. This is not them.

During his national address, Putin blamed Western governments for the war in Ukraine, accusing them of ‘letting the genie out of the bottle’ and plunging the world into chaos. He said Ukraine and the West started the war and Russia was “using force to stop it”. "Ukraine and Donbas have become a symbol of total lies," Putin said.

The company is taking a $950 million charge to unwind the last vestiges of the Nokia deal. div class="c-entry-content"> Microsoft is further scaling back its flagging phone business, exiting the consumer market and cutting another 1,850 jobs.As part of the move announced Wednesday, Microsoft will take a $950 million charge and cut what little remained of its Finland-based phone hardware business, unwinding the last of its disastrous $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia's phone unit. Last week, Microsoft announced separately that it was selling what was left of its low-end "feature phone" business.The company has been scaling back its phone ambitions...

CLEARWATER -- Police Chief Sid Klein hoped the day would never come. But later this year, Klein will lose 13 police officer positions on his force. The losses come because federal grants that fund the positions have run out. Klein was hoping the city would absorb the positions, but city leaders say they cannot afford it. So during the past few months, Klein has formed a plan to brace for the losses. No police officers will lose their jobs. Positions will be eliminated through attrition, including several in community policing and traffic enforcement -- two areas Klein considers prized programs....