Free Republic

Workers at a Tennessee battery plant have voted to join the United Auto Workers (UAW) — marking a significant victory in the union’s ongoing campaign to organize both the Southeast and the electric vehicle (EV) industry. “Southern workers are ready to stand up and win our fair share by winning our unions. And when we have a free and fair choice, we will win every time,” Trudy Lindahl, a worker at the Ultium plant in Spring Hill, Tenn., said in a statement. General Motors (GM), the Detroit-based automaker that runs the plant as a cooperative venture with South Korea-based LG...

Vice President Kamala Harris once again used her fake southern accent to speak with auto workers in Detroit, Michigan, on Thursday. The accent raises concerns about Harris’s sincerity. Voters are often attuned to inauthentic politicians. Two-time failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, for example, used a fake accent in 2016, when former President Donald Trump defeated her in a historic victory. “You know the one thing about all of us is we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work is good work,” Harris said with a twang. “The thing that we like about hard work is we have...

People living in southern Australia won’t have failed to notice how cold it is. Frosty nights and chilly days have been the weather for many of us since the start of July. As winter continues, we are left wondering how unusual the cold is and whether we can expect several more months of this. Warmer conditions are in the forecast but winter has a long way to go. Further cold snaps could occur. Cold conditions have been in place across southern Australia for the past few days. Temperatures have fallen below zero overnight in many places.

The left-wing Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is cutting staff numbers in what the nonprofit calls an effort to streamline operations. Sixty jobs are believed to have been axed in the move. Fox News reports several of the reported layoffs hit top officials in the organization’s union, which was reportedly formed in 2019 to fight “inequitable” practices amongst the workforce. “Today, SPLC — my employer — laid off over 60 of our union members, essentially shuttering multiple departments,” Hannah Gais wrote on X. today, SPLC — my employer —laid off over 60 of our union members, essentially shuttering multiple departments....

The Mayor’s Office did not immediately provide information about which city had safety concerns. Adams was invited to head south to Mexico by Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in San Juan. “But due to safety concerns at one of the cities we were going to visit in Mexico flagged by the U.S. Department of State, we have decided to pause this visit at this time,” Cockfield said.

President Joe Biden has overseen a record-breaking level of illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border — a large portion of which is being released directly into American towns and cities. From February 2021 through January 2024, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) data shows that more than 7.2 million illegal aliens have arrived at the nation’s porous southern border. Thus far in Fiscal Year 2024, with only four full months completed, nearly a million illegal aliens have crossed the southern border. In Fiscal Year 2022, Biden broke records by overseeing close to 2.37 million illegal aliens at the border, and...

U.S. Steel issued layoff warnings to 1,000 employees of its Granite City, Illinois, mill this week, saying they expect to fire 60% of them due to indefinite idling of iron and steelmaking operations at the facility. The warnings rocked the local community, which will be severely impacted by the move. "You’ve got these small businesses that depend on that income to come in, and these businesses want these people to come in and spend their money," Edith Arnold, a woman whose relative has worked at the mill for more than 30 years, told local KTVI. "You shut them down, what...

President Biden will send 1,500 US soldiers to the US-Mexico border in anticipation of the end of Title 42, the public health policy that has allowed authorities to turn back millions of asylum seekers. The active-duty Army units will focus on data entry, warehouse support and other administrative tasks so Border Patrol agents can devote their resources to stemming the expected tide of tens of thousands of migrants at the US-Mexico border when Title 42 ends May 11. The deployment was first reported by Fox News. The service members would be armed but only permitted to use their weapons for...

Which states have the loosest, most irresponsible gun laws? Southern states. Which are most dominated by the Republicans? Ditto. Which are most resistant to “broader public opinion” favoring greater restrictions on firearms. Same. Which states send the greatest number of lawmakers to the US Congress to block any chance of national gun-law reforms. You got it. Southern states with loose, irresponsible gun laws do not feel the effects of tight, responsible gun-control laws. But states with tight, responsible gun-control laws do feel the effects of loose, irresponsible gun laws in southern states. This is how they bend these United States...

Scientists have documented an abnormal and dramatic surge in sea levels along the U.S. gulf and southeastern coastlines since about 2010, raising new questions about whether New Orleans, Miami, Houston and other coastal communities might be even more at risk from rising seas than once predicted. The acceleration, while relatively short-lived so far, could have far-reaching consequences in an area of the United States that has seen massive development as the wetlands, mangroves and shorelines that once protected it are shrinking. An already vulnerable landscape that is home to millions of people is growing more vulnerable, more quickly, potentially putting...

Norfolk Southern - the railway company whose train derailed last month in East Palestine, Ohio, contaminating the surrounding area with toxic chemicals - announced Thursday night that it had determined that some of its railcars, of a specific make and model, had loose wheels. During its cleanup of the derailment site, Norfolk Southern investigators discovered that a "specific model and series of railcars had loose wheels," the company said in a news release Thursday night, calling the discovery "an urgent safety issue." The wheels came from "a series of recently acquired cars from a specific manufacturer," Norfolk Southern said. Norfolk...

A dangerous, multiday severe weather outbreak began its trek across the South on Monday, bringing a few damaging tornadoes to the region, including to a high school in Arkansas while classes were still in session. Severe storms have now moved east Tuesday, prompting NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center to issue a Tornado Watch until 5 p.m. CST for portions of western Alabama, southeastern Louisiana, central and southern Mississippi and Middle Tennessee. You can see in the three-hour radar loop below that a line of strong to severe storms is pushing east across the region on Tuesday morning, prompting a few Severe...

Multiple tornadoes have touched down amid a “particularly dangerous” weather situation that is underway in the South, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Dozens of tornado watches have been issued in portions of southeastern Arkansas, northern and central Louisiana and central Mississippi until 2 a.m. as dangerous supercells bring potentially devastating tornadoes, hail the size of baseballs, damaging winds and flash floods, according to Fox Weather. By 11 p.m. Tuesday night, the NOAA reported at least 17 tornadoes, mainly in Mississippi and Louisiana. The A storm chaser reported observing a tornado near Highway 42 east of Bassfield, Mississippi,...

The WHOLE Truth

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is vowing that his country’s forces will take back the south after a visit to front-line troops in the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv. In a virtual address late Saturday, Zelensky, who does not normally leave Kyiv due to security concerns, said he talked to troops and officials during his visit to Mykolaiv and Odesa.

NASHVILLE (RNS)—Anecdotally, clergy have talked about the disruption in worship attendance in this pandemic age. Now, Southern Baptists have statistics to prove it. The average in-person weekly attendance at Southern Baptist Convention churches declined 18.75 percent, from 4,439,797 in 2020 to 3,607,530 in 2021. Christian education saw an even larger decrease of 22.15 percent, with Sunday school, Bible study and small groups reduced from 2,879,130 to 2,241,514. The Annual Church Profile, a compilation from the denomination’s state conventions, was released May 12 by Lifeway Christian Resources, the convention’s data gathering division. Researchers also blamed COVID-19 for the slowdown in baptisms...

President Biden has spent 114 days at his home in Delaware and zero days inspecting the invasion at the southern border, according to the Republican National Committee. When Biden does not spend his weekend on vacation in Delaware, he has enjoyed the presidential retreat at Camp David. This week, however, Biden traveled to inspect the Polish border with Ukraine due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Yet Biden as president has never inspected our southern border, where illegal migrants are flooding into the nation.

The word that the Joe Biden administration has opened up the southern border has reached eastern Europe where Ukrainians trying to flee from the Russian invasion have shown up and are being allowed to seek asylum in the United States.

Officials from Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina and Kosovo have refuted claims by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that mercenaries are being sent from the three countries to Ukraine, amid speculation about an imminent Russian invasion. Lavrov said in an interview with RT television, which was published on the ministry’s website on February 18, that Moscow is double checking reports that mercenaries are being sent from the three Western Balkan countries to Donbas. “There’s information that mercenaries are being recruited in Kosovo, Albania and Bosnia & Herzegovina to knock Russia out of balance and send them to places including Donbas,” he...

President Joe Biden said on Thursday night that he hasn't had time to visit the southern border to address the surge in illegal immigrants and admitted that he "should go down." "I've been there before, I know it well, I guess I should go down," Biden told CNN's Anderson Cooper during a town hall event. "The whole point of it is, I haven't had a whole hell of a lot of time to get down."