Free Republic

MOSCOW, July 23 (Reuters) - Residents of Moscow who sign up to fight in Ukraine will receive a down payment of 1.9 million roubles ($21,777) from the city, taking their annual pay in their first service year to 5.2 million roubles ($59,600), the mayor's office said on Tuesday. Total pay will include the downpayment, wages from the defence ministry, as well as regional and federal handouts, the office of Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement. The new payments will enter into force immediately, it said. The increase means that annual pay for Russian contract soldiers from Moscow will...

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MN) mounted a silent protest during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on Wednesday, holding up signs that said “Guilty of Genocide” and “War Criminal” during his address. Netanyahu, who was received with a standing ovation, began his address by acknowledging the Israeli hostages and their families, and by honoring Israeli soldiers in the gallery, — including Ethiopian and Muslim soldiers, and soldiers who, though wounded, returned to the fight. He rebuked anti-Israel protesters, alluding to the thousands who had gathered outside the Capitol, noting that they stood with Hamas and with “evil,” and noting...

Law enforcement officers have uncovered a major embezzlement scheme involving Hr 138 million ($3.3 million) allocated from the state budget for the needs of Ukraine's Armed Forces, the Prosecutor General's Office announced on July 19. The investigation identified 30 suspected officials, including employees of housing and maintenance departments and representatives of commercial structures across Ukraine. According to prosecutors, 15 of these individuals were members of organized criminal groups. The charges include embezzlement and misappropriation of funds related to the procurement of fuel wood, electricity, natural gas, furniture, and construction work on military infrastructure at inflated prices. Some suspects are also...

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) announced he would boycott Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “wildly inappropriate” joint address to Congress on Wednesday, insisting he would rather serve the Israeli leader an arrest warrant for war crimes on the House floor. In a press release published shortly before the long-awaited congressional address, Pocan declared he would not attend the event, citing Netanyahu’s “deadly and excessive response” to Hamas’s unprecedented, unprovoked, and brutal October 7, 2023, attack, the deadliest against Jewish people since the Nazi Holocaust.

Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk revealed that he is a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and plans to attend his speech before Congress. Musk was spotted earlier on Wednesday at the United States Capitol ahead of Netanyahu’s 2:00 p.m. speech. Netanyahu was invited in June to speak before a joint meeting of members of the United States House and Senate. When Kelly Phares, a senior Capitol Hill producer with Fox News, asked if Musk was there for Netanyahu’s “address,” Musk said he was. “Do you plan to attend?” Phares asked Musk. “I do,” Musk added. ELON...

Economist Valentina Bondarenko is dead. She fell from her apartment window, the Russian news agency Tass reported. Newsweek called her "Russia's leading economist." She is yet another prominent figure in Russia to die this way since the invasion of Ukraine began. The tragedy was supposed to have happened on Monday evening, while Russian media reported the woman's death on Tuesday. 82-year-old Bondarenko was a leading researcher at the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow - explains the American "Newsweek". The Russian news agency Tass reported that the economist's fall "had no criminal background. - Valentina...

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said Tuesday that most recent immigrants who have come across the U.S.-Mexico border are “garbage.” Speaking to Larry Kudlow on Fox Business’s “Kudlow,” Tuberville segued from criticism of Vice President Harris as a presidential candidate to his views on immigration. “I mean, how can you put somebody in charge of a situation where you let 15, possibly even 20 million people come into our country? Now some of these people are good, but most of them are garbage. They come from jails and prisons in other countries,” he said. Tuberville repeated a series of false or...

On her first foreign trip as Vice President in June 2021, Kamala Harris was tasked with delivering a blunt message in Guatemala City. "I want to be clear to folks in this region who are thinking about making that dangerous trek to the United States-Mexico border: Do not come," she said at a press conference, pausing for effect. "Do not come." Three years later, that sound bite may come to haunt Harris' nascent presidential campaign. Despite her warning, border crossings reached historic highs during the Biden Administration. Republican critics cast the episode as a symbol of Harris’s ineffective tenure as...

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib is calling for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu as the Israeli prime minister is in Washington on Wednesday to address a joint session of Congress.“Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people,” the progressive Democrat claimed in a statement. “It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress. He should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court.”Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people. It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress. He should be arrested...

While the Ukrainian situation in the battlefield keeps getting from bad to worse, and in the aftermath of Joe Biden’s resigning from the Presidential race, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and his team have to re-caliber their approach to the bilateral relations with the US, without which they can’t continue their disastrous war effort. But in doing so, Zelensky has to pay close attention to the public opinion in his country, so he is presently doing parallel PR movements: one towards the Trump world and other publicly repudiating it for domestic consumption. It is now reported that his team has long...

A pro-Palestinian organization posted a video Wednesday in which it purported to have unleashed maggots and other critters at Washington, DC’s Watergate hotel, where some of the Israeli delegation was staying. The video showed critters spread out across a table flanked by Israeli and American flags in the background. “Palestine protestors manufactured chaos at the Watergate Hotel last night so that Netanyahu, Israeli Mossad agents, and the Secret Service had no peace as they continue to terrorize our people,” the Palestinian Youth Movement posted on X.

The growing undocumented immigrant population in the U.S. will lower the deficit by nearly a trillion dollars over the next decade, according to a study by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). CBO’s projections are based on the net sum of economic activity generated, taxes paid and benefits allotted to the immigrant groups included in the study. The nonpartisan agency estimates a net population increase of 8.7 million such immigrants between 2021 and 2026, averaging an increase of 1.7 million people per year above the pre-2020 average annual net immigration of 200,000. CBO based its projections on the economic effects that...

Pro-Palestinian protesters will make their presence known around the Capitol on Wednesday ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress, scheduled for 2 p.m. EDT. A group of Jewish protesters was arrested in the Cannon office building Tuesday afternoon, and thousands of demonstrators are expected to turn out for a rally on Wednesday, demanding the arrest of Netanyahu, who has been charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court. A number of Democrats have said they will boycott the speech, which comes at the invitation of Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), as anger boils...

Paris — Thousands of athletes and spectators from around the world have descended on Paris for the looming 2024 Summer Olympics. They've brought with them the potential for a COVID-19 outbreak to spread within the tightly confined Games atmosphere. Officials expect Paris to receive as many as 15 million visitors, including 2 million tourists from abroad, during the Games. Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and editor-at-large for public health at KFF Health News, said Wednesday on "CBS Mornings" that a current spike in cases across the U.S. is likely due to the coronavirus continuing to mutate, and to...

BERLIN (AP) – Climate activists glued themselves to the ground at Cologne-Bonn Airport in western Germany on Wednesday, forcing officials to suspend flights for a few hours, authorities said. Police said five people glued themselves to a taxiway at the airport early in the morning, German news agency dpa reported. Flights were suspended for about three hours from about 5:45 a.m. while officers worked to remove the protesters. The airport said that 31 flights were canceled and six had to be diverted. 📣 An international uprising w/ actions at airports to demand a #FossilFuelTreaty to phase out fossil fuels by...

The European Union has revoked Hungary of its right to host the next summit. The EU supposedly has a rotating presidency of council to maintain the appearance that each state has an equal say in the direction of the bloc. The truth of the matter is that the unelected elite in Brussels control all of Europe and will silence dissenters, as Hungray’s Viktor Orban recently learned. The next EU summit was to take place August 28-29 was slated to be Hungary’s opportunity to share its ideas for matters like foreign policy with the rest of the bloc. EU Foreign Policy...

The European Union's foreign policy chief, Josep Borell, has stripped Hungary of the right to host the next meeting of foreign and defence ministers over its stance on the war in Ukraine. It comes weeks after Hungary assumed the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union, a role in which it would normally host the event, and amid anger over a meeting Prime Minister Viktor Orban held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month. Mr Borrell said Hungary's actions should have consequences and that "we have to send a signal, even if it is a...

Anti-Israel protesters gathered outside of the hotel that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is staying at in Washington, DC, projecting a “wanted” sign with his face onto the building. Video footage posted to X showed Palestinian protesters gathered outside of the Watergate Hotel, chanting, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.” A sign that read, “WANTED: ARREST WAR CRIMINAL NETANYAHU,” with Netanyahu’s face was projected onto the outside walls of the hotel. Just now: Protesters project giant “WANTED: ARREST WAR CRIMINAL NETANYAHU” wanted sign onto Watergate Hotel. pic.twitter.com/Wbim7gg4BY — Ford Fischer (@FordFischer) July 24, 2024

A soldier is in hospital with serious injuries after a horrific knife attack near an Army Barracks in Kent. Police said they were called around 5.55pm on Tuesday to a report of a serious assault in Sally Port Gardens, Gillingham. The victim, in his 40s, suffered injuries consistent with stab wounds and was airlifted to hospital for treatment. A witness told The Sun that a man armed with two kitchen knives leapt off a moped and attacked the soldier in a frenzied assault.

On July 10, 2024, a 19-year-old tourist woman and her boyfriend hiking in Romania were attacked by a European brown bear. The couple was on the emergency phone line with authorities as the woman and man followed directions on how to handle a bear. The woman was attacked, dragged off, killed, and partially eaten. The bear attacked authorities attempting to recover the body and was shot and killed.The European brown bear in Romania is a sub-species of the worldwide population of brown bears. The species includes the North American Grizzly, the Japanese Ussuri brown bear, the Kodiak bear, and the...