Free Republic

Trevor Noah exited The Daily Show Thursday night, leaving tens of people wondering what they will do without him and 329,632,000 people asking Who? Trevor Noah? The Daily Show? Comedy Central? None of that rings a bell? Yeah, me neither. Noah replaced Jon Stewart as the Daily Show host in 2015. Stewart was also a ratings failure, gathering only a little over a million viewers every night. Noah, however, seemed determined to prove there is a number less than zero and proceeded to lose about 75 percent of Stewart’s already minuscule audience.

Once again, we have seen a high-profile shooting that wasn’t stopped by gun control but could have been stopped if law enforcement and prosecutors had done their jobs. Another shooting, another law enforcement failure that gun control wouldn't solve Another shooting, another law enforcement failure that gun control wouldn't solve A gunman in Colorado Springs killed five people and injured 18, and unsurprisingly, he was already on law enforcement’s radar. In June 2021, he allegedly threatened his mother with a homemade bomb. Neighbors were forced to evacuate from their homes, and a bomb squad and crisis negotiators were brought in....

Bright orange scooters now share — and sometimes command — Pittsburgh’s sidewalks. They’re an integral part of the Move PGH pilot project, the city’s plan to bundle transit options to help residents get around without owning a car, whether by bus, bike, scooter, zip car or more. Statistics reported by Move PGH, a year into its two-year pilot, are encouraging: People have taken more than 576,000 scooter trips for a total of hundreds of thousands of miles. They have biked tens of thousands of miles, and ridden Scoobi mopeds for more than 14,000 miles. Experience has dispelled Initial fears about...

Washington, D.C. – While on the campaign trail, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman claims he was “very successful” in reducing crime when he was mayor of Braddock, PA. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, according to publicly available data, crime SKYROCKETED in Braddock while Fetterman was mayor. And, in 2019, the first year in over a decade that Fetterman was not mayor, Braddock’s crime rate dropped by 61 percent.

Filatiev published “Zov" on the Russian social network VK in early August. The human rights organization Gulagu helped him leave the country a few weeks later, moving him from one place to another until finally helping him reach France. He spent two days inside the Charles de Gaulle airport, waiting to be approved for entry. In Russia, he said, “I understood that no lawyer could defend me,” he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. On his wrist, he wore a silver bracelet adorned with a crucifix. Filatiev said Russia's army is degrading by the day, unable to replace the...

It's not exactly what you think.. Joe Biden’s quick recovery from Covid will mark the end of the epidemic for all but the hardest-core hysterics. If a 79-year-old who can barely finish a sentence can beat the ro in a few days, even Molly Jong-Fast will have a tough time staying scared. Yes, another variant could change the calculus. But right now I am on an Acela from New York to Washington, about the most Covid-fearful environment left anywhere in the United States, and almost no one is masked. (Poor, poor New York Times. No one listens anymore:) ... The...

Veteran Afghanistan correspondent Lynne O’Donnell says she has never seen the Taliban more brutal or the millions of people the austere fighters again govern more wretched. “I really never expected to find it as bad and as awful as I did. It’s a very very sad, unhappy, traumatized, depressed place,” she said after revealing she was forced to retract hard-hitting reports on the fundamentalist Islamic group. “They’re worse,” she said, commenting on the changes in the Taliban since their first time in power more than 20 years ago. The Australian journalist was speaking during a phone interview after being ejected...

President Joe Biden’s Russia-Ukraine policy has been a monumental disaster. Russia’s forces are in the fifth month of laying devastation to Ukraine as Biden continues to write checks to Zelenskyy, with no end in sight.

Just two months in, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is the most monumental failure at the podium in recorded history: “It’s been a rocky first month for White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. Her answers have baffled reporters, and even made some of her White House colleagues wince.” Imagine how bad her performance really has been to induce neoliberal Politico into writing such an unflattering intro paragraph. That’s like a Hindu priest beating a sacred cow. Ordinarily, while covering a sacrosanct immigrant lesbian Person of Color© in such a position, Politico would fawn. Just how historically awful has Jean-Pierre...

[Catholic Caucus] Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi: An Admission of Failure Contemporary results of liturgical formation in the Novus Ordo, February 2022 (Holy Family, Inverness, Archdiocese of Chicago, USA) I do not see how it is possible to say that one recognizes the validity of the Council — though it amazes me that a Catholic might presume not to do so — and at the same time not accept the liturgical reform born out of Sacrosanctum Concilium... (Desiderio desideravi, 31)So writes Pope Francis in his Apostolic Letter Desiderio desideravi, released today, on the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, which...

Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) said on Monday that he is hopeful the Senate will pass some form of legislation to curb gun violence, adding that not doing so would be a “moment of moral failure.” Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas) have led bipartisan negotiations among Senate lawmakers to come up with a framework that could get enough votes to pass the chamber after the shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.

This is a replay of the live stream. The upper stage engine shut down early, causing a mission failure. Launch window: 12:00 - 2:00 pm EDT (16:00 - 18:00 UTC) Launch site: SLC-46, Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida Destination: Low Earth Orbit A commercial small satellite launch vehicle developed by Astra will launch the first pair of small CubeSats for NASA’s TROPICS mission. The Time-Resolved Observations of Precipitation structure and storm Intensity with a Constellation of Smallsats, or TROPICS, mission will measure environmental and inner-core conditions for tropical cyclones. Delayed from April. Thanks to NASASpaceflight and Chris Bergin for...

LOS ANGELES (AP) — It was the sort of diplomatic rebuff a small country like El Salvador generally can rarely afford to make. In the run-up to this week’s Summit of Americas in Los Angeles, senior U.S. officials frantically worked the phones seeking to boost attendance? Among those efforts, the State Department sent a message that Secretary of State Antony Blinken wanted to speak with President Nayib Bukele last weekend. In the end, Bukele didn’t take the bait and the call never happened, said two people close to the Salvadoran president, who insisted on being given anonymity to discuss sensitive...

Russia has failed to achieve its strategic goals in the first hundred days of the war and Ukraine need not cede substantial territory to end it, William Courtney, adjunct senior fellow at Rand Corporation, told CNBC’s “Capital Connection” on Monday. Russia began its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, calling it a “special military operation.” The war entered its 100th day on Friday. “Over 100 days, the Russians have pulled back their aims at least tactically, perhaps not strategically, quite a lot. The original goal was to seize three major cities: Kyiv, Kharkiv and Odessa. Russian troops had to withdraw...

CNN+ was pulled from air last month only three weeks after it launched, despite investing $300 million. Fox News defector Chris Wallace, who reportedly makes $9 million annually, joined the doomed streaming news service to pursue a lucrative job and get away from Tucker Carlson. It was unknown what his fate at Warner Bros Discovery would be. While other talent featured on CNN+ remains a mystery, including food industry star Roman, former NPR host Audie Cornish, former NBC hosts Kasie Hunt and Jemele Hill, and sports commentators Rex Chapman and Jemele Hill. The first day of official work for new...

The following excerpt is from “Jill: A Biography of the First Lady,” by Associated Press journalists Julie Pace and Darlene Superville. The book details the life of Jill Biden. Superville covers the White House for the AP; Pace, a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief, is now AP’s executive editor. ___ Joe’s first Senate reelection campaign demanded Jill’s participation. “It was a little overwhelming,” she said, the first time that Joe took her to a campaign event. A picnic at Archmere Academy, Joe’s high school alma mater, was one of Jill’s first political appearances as Joe’s wife. She...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden is making his first trip to the Pacific Northwest since taking office on Thursday to tout progress he has made on his agenda, particularly on infrastructure, ahead of the November midterm elections. Biden's visits to the cities of Portland and Seattle - part of a growing travel schedule ahead of the elections - will also see him participate in a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee. He will visit Portland's airport on Thursday to talk about investing in a runway that can withstand earthquakes and will spend Thursday night and Friday in Seattle, where...

The third attempt at a final prelaunch test for NASA's Artemis I mega moon rocket began Thursday morning, but the trial hit some snags and ended prematurely at 5:10 p.m. ET. The agency will host a news conference on Friday to share updates and next steps for the test. The mission team had been attempting to fuel the 322-foot-tall (98-meter-tall) Artemis I rocket stack, including NASA's Space Launch System and Orion spacecraft, at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but encountered a number of delays.

Bad Things Must Happen Don’t be surprised when bad things happen in New York, or in any other corrupt, big-government town or state. Bad things need to happen.On Tuesday morning in Brooklyn’s 36th Street subway station, a 63-year-old black man popped a smoke bomb in a subway car and started shooting passengers. At the latest count, 29 people were injured, 10 were shot, five were in serious condition, but no one has died. There was apparently little warning that this man posed a threat to society—other than a series of “bizarre threatening rants on YouTube” in which he said that...

Amid Europe’s largest land war since World War II, 7 in 10 Americans expressed low confidence in President Biden’s ability to deal with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a new NBC News poll, and 8 in 10 voiced worry that the war will increase gas prices and possibly involve nuclear weapons. And during the nation’s largest inflation spike in 40 years, overwhelming majorities said they believe the country is headed in the wrong direction and disapproved of the president’s handling of the economy. The erosion in Biden’s approval rating has been across the board among key demographic groups, including Black...