Free Republic

Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of war | A former Canadian soldier, identified as Shadow, tells CBC’s David Common about the violence he’s witnessed, the courage of Ukrainians and why he went over to fight. #ukraine #canada #ukrainewar Watch The National live on YouTube Sunday-Friday at 9 p.m. ET Subscribe to The National: https://www.youtube.com/user/CBCTheNa... Connect with The National online: Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/thenational Twitter | https://twitter.com/CBCTheNational Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/cbcthenational More from CBC News | https://www.cbc.ca/news The National is CBC's flagship nightly news program, featuring the day's top stories with in-depth and original journalism, with hosts Adrienne Arsenault and Andrew Chang in Toronto,...

With a rueful smile and a fond wave Serena Williams left the Centre Court on Tuesday night, possibly for the last time. If this was the last occasion we saw her at Wimbledon then at least she left with the indelible print of a superb contest against a poised and youthful opponent. Harmony Tan, the world No 113 from Paris, said she was scared when she saw her first round draw, but she showed remarkable composure in pulling off a 7-5, 1-6, 7-6 victory that may go down as Williams's final defeat at SW19. Going into a new deciding super...

Shannon Vavra Mon, June 27, 2022, 11:14 AM Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Ukrainian State Emergency Service / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Russia fired a series of rockets at a shopping center in Kremenchuk, Ukraine, on Monday, raising alarm bells that Russia is stepping up its attacks on civilian structures regardless of the loss of life. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday there were more than a thousand civilians inside the shopping mall and the casualties to come might bring even more shock and horror to Ukrainian people already confronting so much death and destruction as...

Austria, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands announced plans this week to prepare to resurrect old coal plants as gas supplies dwindled. The moves came just days after Moscow reduced natural gas flows to several European countries, including Italy and Slovakia, alarming leaders who are worried about energy reserves ahead of winter. That’s not the direction in which these government wanted to move. A return to coal would controvert climate policy already in place in Amsterdam and Berlin. Some officials are concerned about the longer-term threat such a move would post to efforts to fight climate change in Europe. “We have...

After Rep. Tom Rice became the first electoral victim of Donald Trump's revenge campaign against the Republicans who voted to impeach him, a GOP colleague who had also backed the former President's impeachment reached out to the South Carolina lawmaker and attempted to console him. "I told him afterward, I said, 'So much for the adage that members of Congress are more concerned about their next election than their job here,'" retiring Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan recalled telling Rice, in a nod to the fact that his impeachment vote is likely what cost him in last week's Republican primary...

WNBA star Brittney Griner has already been detained in Russia for 118 days. A timeline for her return home, according to a report from the Russian news agency TASS, has gotten longer. TASS reported Tuesday that a Russian court extended Griner's pretrial detention, forcing her to remain in custody until at least July 2. The Khimki district court of the Moscow region has already extended Griner's pretrial detention twice. Russia's TASS news agency reported reported that American basketball player Brittney Griner's pre-trial detention in Russia has been extended to July 2 at the request of investigators https://t.co/99NGuFIWZ5

Russia’s announcement that it would reduce natural gas flows through a key European pipeline by roughly 40% appears to be a political move rather than a result of technical problems, Germany’s vice chancellor said Wednesday. Russia’s state-controlled energy giant Gazprom also told Italian gas giant Eni that it would reduce gas through a different pipeline by roughly 15% on Wednesday. The reason for the reduction has not been made clear, and the Italian company said it was monitoring the situation. The reduced flows follow Russia’s halt of natural gas supplies to Bulgaria, Poland, Finland, Netherlands, Denmark as Europe works to...

Putin's gloating TV stooges laugh at death sentences handed down to two Britons captured fighting in Ukraine as they slam Liz Truss and accuse her of 'doing nothing' to help the men Vladimir Solovyov, 'Putin's mouthpiece', mocked death sentences handed to Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner after they were captured fighting in Ukraine Propagandist was told by guest that Liz Truss does not recognise the sentences 'So if something terrible happens and they are executed, they will not recognise their deaths,' Solovyov shot back, to the amusement of his guests Olga Skabeyeva also attacked foreign secretary over stance on the...

Russian forces could be just weeks away from seizing control of the key Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine — as Ukrainian officials continued to appeal for more heavy weapons and ammunition from the West. An unnamed senior US defense official told The Washington Post that the cities of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, which have seen some of the fiercest battles in recent weeks, could fall to Russia in the coming days. Russia has been making steady gains in the strategically important Donbas region — comprised of Luhanks and Donetsk — by pounding the area with heavy artillery day after day and...

The euphoria that accompanied Ukraine’s unforeseen early victories against bumbling Russian troops is fading as Moscow adapts its tactics, recovers its stride and asserts its overwhelming firepower against heavily outgunned Ukrainian forces. Around 200 Ukrainian soldiers are now being killed every day, up from 100 late last month, an aide to President Volodymyr Zelensky told the BBC on Friday — meaning that as many as 1,000 Ukrainians are being taken out of the fight every day, including those who are injured. But the odds against the Ukrainians are starting to look overwhelming, said Danylyuk, the government adviser. “The Russians are...

Russian forces are holding hundreds of people in “torture chambers” in occupied Kherson, a Ukrainian official has said. “According to our information, some 600 people are … being held in specially converted basements in the region of Kherson," the Ukraine presidency’s permanent representative in Crimea, Tamila Tacheva, said.According to Ukrinform, Ms. Tacheva said that Russian invaders have confined these prisoners within “specially equipped rooms, in torture chambers,” Ukrinform reported. Most of those being held in “inhuman conditions” are “journalists and militants” who organized “pro-Ukrainian gatherings” in Kherson following its occupation by Russian forces in 2014.

Russia has stolen around 600,000 tonnes of grain from occupied Ukrainian territory and exported some of it, the deputy head of Ukraine’s agricultural producers’ union said on Wednesday. Ukraine will demand Russia provide compensation for both the theft of the grain and the destruction of the property of farmers, Denys Marchuk, the head of the UAC. "To date, about 600,000 tonnes have been stolen from agricultural companies and taken to the temporarily occupied territory of the Crimean Peninsula and from there it moves to ports, in particular to Sevastopol, and from there, ships go to the Middle East," Marchuk said....

Politicians from Western countries are beginning to push Ukraine to conclude peace with Russia on terms favorable to the Russian side. At that, Kiev does not know anything about this, since it is not invited to discussions. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made the corresponding statement, Ukrainian Pravda reports."Everyone really wants to push us as much as possible to some result that is definitely not desired for us, because we have not been asked yet, but beneficial for certain parties that have their own interests," the head of state said.Zelenskyy noted that fatigue from the war in Ukraine is growing in...

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced this week that his league lost “hundreds of millions” after Chinese TV outlets imposed a television blackout on all NBA games following Daryl Morey’s tweet in support of the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong in 2019. Morey, then the General Manager of the Houston Rockets, wrote in October of 2019, “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” The tweet was posted at a time when demonstrators in Hong Kong were protesting China’s ever-tightening grip on free speech rights in the former British colony. Those two simple sentences drew Beijing’s immediate and harsh reaction as the...

...This was to be the successful road back to normalcy for public schools. But after two large COVID-19 surges, a year of angry school board meetings, parents claiming teachers were grooming kids for abuse, and fights over everything from mask mandates for students to what books they can read, teachers were already at a breaking point with nearly 500 quitting even if it meant losing their license. On top of all of that, Texas passed a law last year prohibiting teachers from discussing “a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs," the state's so-called "critical...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a presidential address given Thursday that violence by Russian troops in the Donbas region of Ukraine could eventually “make the region uninhabited.” “The current offensive of the occupiers in Donbas can make the region uninhabited. They want to burn Popasna, Bakhmut, Lyman, Lysychansk and Severodonetsk to ashes. Like Volnovakha, like Mariupol,” Zelensky warned. He added: “All this, including the deportation of our people and the mass killings of civilians, is an obvious policy of genocide pursued by Russia.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that Russia has blocked the embattled country from exporting 22 million tons of food products. Speaking with media representatives following a meeting with Portuguese Prime Minister António Costa, Zelensky said that the worldwide energy crisis would be followed by a food crisis if other countries do not aid Ukraine in unblocking its ports and resuming exports. Food prices are already skyrocketing around the world, causing some countries to ban the exports of key agricultural commodities.

Russian forces have riddled Ukrainian fields with mines and destroyed equipment in areas they once occupied, in what returning farmers and the Kyiv government allege is a campaign by Moscow to hobble the country’s agricultural industry. Russia’s invasion already has decimated shipments of corn, wheat and sunflower oil from what was until recently one of the world’s biggest food exporters. Prices have soared, adding to global food-price inflation and heaping misery on developing countries that had been dependent on imports from the region. The extent of damage to some farms, together with port disruption and a shortage of fertilizer, demonstrates...

Ukraine is believed to be running out of weapons as it continues to hold off Russian forces, amid warnings some countries have failed to send promised aid. Western nations have thrown their support behind the war-torn nation following Vladimir Putin's invasion on 24 February. According to The Times, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told Boris Johnson that his country was getting through a week's supply of weapons in just 20 hours as the Russian attack and constant shelling comes on multiple fronts. But while many countries have promised weapons to help bolster the Ukrainian arsenal, some have not kept up...

An anonymous man in his 30s who had to be hospitalized after contracting COVID-19 last July now claims that the disease left him with a shrunken penis and erectile dysfunction. "When I got out of the hospital, I had some erectile dysfunction issues. Those gradually got better with some medical attention, but I seem to be left with a lasting problem. My penis has shrunk," the man wrote in a letter to Slate's "How To Do It" podcast. "Before I got sick, I was above average, not huge, but definitely bigger than normal. Now I've lost about an inch and...