Free Republic

When Target announced that it was opening a store in Mondawmin, a predominantly Black neighborhood in Baltimore, a city struggling with crime and poverty, it seemed like a ticket to a turnaround. And from the start, it was a practical success and a point of community pride. The store, which opened in 2008, carried groceries, operated a pharmacy and had a Starbucks cafe — the only one in this part of Baltimore’s west side. People came from across the city to shop there, helping to soften the Mondawmin area’s reputation for crime and the looting that followed protests over the...

PG&E has been directed to begin shutting off power as California ISO has declared a statewide Stage 3 Emergency due to excessive heat driving up electricity use. 200,000 to 250,000 customers will be affected at a time in rotating power outages...

Mayor Eric Garcetti has asked Gov. Gavin Newsom to mobilize the National Guard to help Los Angeles deal with worsening looting, vandalism and violence on the streets. The move comes less than an hour after the mayor expanded expanded a curfew, first set for downtown, to the entire city from 8 p.m. Saturday to 5:30 a.m. Sunday. Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he is also seeking help from the National Guard. The decision came as the situation in the Fairfax District deteriorated, with shops, including Nordstrom and the Apple store, vandalized and looted. A small police kiosk in the mall was...

NEW YORK -- Ticket sales plunged to their lowest levels in at least 20 years at North American movie theaters as the coronavirus pandemic led to one of Hollywood's worst weekends at the box office. Receipts totaled about $55.3 million in U.S. and Canada theaters, according to studio estimates Sunday. Not since 2000 has weekend box office revenue been so low, according to data firm Comscore, when $54.5 million in tickets were sold on a quiet September weekend. More people went to the movies the weekend after Sept. 11, 2001. Disney's latest release from Pixar, “Onward,” remained the top film,...

I’m a big fan of accountability – if you break the rules there has to be consequences, or else there are no rules. But I’m also for sanity and proportional punishment, which is why I think it’s time (well past, to be honest) to lift the lifetime ban on Pete Rose and allow him into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Pete Rose bet on baseball, he also lied about it when caught. All of this is well known and not irrelevant, but the price for that has been paid. Rose is baseball’s hit king, slapping out 67 more hits and Ty...

Twitter has suspended an account that helped a widely publicized encounter between Catholic high school school students and a Native American man go viral. CNN Business reported on Monday that Twitter took the step after receiving questions from the news network about the account. The account, @2020fight, posted a minute-long video of the interaction on Friday night with the caption, "this MAGA loser gleefully bothering a Native American protester at the Indigenous Peoples March." According to a cached version of the video seen by CNN, the post garnered at least 2.5 million views and at least 14,400 retweets. The network...

Reddit has banned its subreddit devoted to QAnon conspiracy theories, stating that it violated rules against “inciting violence, harassment, and the dissemination of personal information.” NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny tweeted about the ban of r/GreatAwakening earlier today. It’s the second high-profile purge of a QAnon subreddit — a board called r/CBTS_stream was banned in March for repeatedly violating Reddit guidelines. Some of the subreddit’s users have regrouped on Reddit clone Voat, which takes a more hands-off approach to moderation. The QAnon conspiracy theory, which is based around cryptic internet comments from an anonymous poster known as “Q,” began on...

... Word of the Trump administration’s new “zero tolerance” policy, which calls for prosecuting everyone who crosses the border illegally, has been traveling along the migrant trail that winds through Mexico and Central America. People learn of it by television, by social media and, mostly, by word of mouth. While the policy has stirred controversy in the United States, with lawmakers from both parties calling for its end in the face of defiance from the Trump administration, it has sowed confusion for the migrants bound for the United States, who are struggling to make sense of what it means for...

Caleb Torres lost seven pounds his freshman year of college — and not because he didn’t like the food in the dining hall. A first-generation college student, barely covering tuition, Torres ran out of grocery money halfway through the year and began skipping meals as a result. He’d stretch a can of SpaghettiOs over an entire day. Or he’d scout George Washington University campus for events that promised free lunch or snacks. Torres told no one what he was going through, least of all his single mom. "She had enough things to worry about," he said... Now a senior and...

We remain short of our $200,000 goal. Yes, we are more than halfway there. But there is a big gap. Help fill it.

Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was knocked out of Sunday’s game during his fourth pass, when Vikings linebacker Anthony Barr hit him shortly after he threw. Rodgers, who completed 2 of 4 passes for 18 yards before exiting, was evaluated in Green Bay’s medical tent and carted off the field. He suffered an injury to his throwing shoulder. The Packers announced Rodgers suffered a broken collarbone shortly after halftime. The Vikings defense rolled without Rodgers. Backup quarterback Brett Hundley threw an interception on his first pass, a tipped ball to cornerback Xavier Rhodes. Hundley was sacked twice and completed 4 of...

Comedian Kathy Griffin tearfully apologized in a Friday press conference for posing with a fake bloodied and severed head depicting U.S. President Donald Trump, saying that she felt her career was now over and that Trump "broke" her. Griffin has lost sponsorships and jobs, including her role as co-host of CNN's New Year's Eve coverage with journalist Anderson Cooper, since a photograph and video from the shoot appeared on social media on Tuesday. President Trump said the image of Griffin with the gory mask resembling him was "sick" and that it had traumatized his family, especially his youngest son, 11-year-old...

Muslims working in the State Department, Defense Department, and intelligence agencies like the CIA wonder if, with the election of Donald Trump, they should quit their jobs. The employees are on edge about everything from retaining their security clearances to the possibility of discriminatory treatment under Trump, whose top aides include known peddlers of conspiracy theories about Islamists infiltrating the U.S. government. "I feel apprehensive," a Muslim intelligence official told POLITICO. "I fear that – whatever white power movement or equivalent all of a sudden feels empowered by the president-elect, whatever tidbits of that community make their way into...

Am I losing my mind? Donald Trump gives me the creeps at times. He offends my Christianity. His persona turns me off. He can be all other the map in terms of consistent principles. But there is something inside of me that wants him to kick the stuffing out of the powers that be. Even though I am a Cruz man I could see myself voting for the guy. Am I losing my mind?

A staggering 80% of Latino illegal immigrant families in California are living in poverty and need government assistance. The Obama administration wants to open to door to millions more. http://www.ocregister.com/articles/percent-676592-california-state.html

The head of the Islamic State is reportedly injured so badly he can barely move, Kareem Shaheen at The Guardian reports. "Sources tell us Baghdadi is still alive, but still unable to move due to spinal injury sustained in the March air strike," Shaheen tweeted. Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who last year declared himself caliph of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), was reportedly wounded in a US-led airstrike in March. Martin Chulov at The Guardian, who last week broke the news of the airstrike, also says his sources tell him Baghdadi is still alive and being...

J.C.X. Simon—one of the so-called "Zebra Killers" convicted of multiple murders of white San Franciscans in the 1970s—has died...The random killings of whites [14 people were killed and at least seven wounded] occurred between 1973 and 1976. The suspects were named for the police channel used to try to identify and capture them.

A conservative incumbent surged to a commanding lead in Wisconsin's hotly contested Supreme Court election Thursday, after a predominantly GOP county's clerk announced she had incorrectly entered vote totals in the race seen as a referendum on Republican Gov. Scott Walker's divisive union rights law. Waukesha County Clerk Kathy Nickolaus said more than 14,000 votes weren't reported to The Associated Press on Tuesday due to "human error." Nickolaus previously worked for a GOP caucus that was under the control of Justice David Prosser, who was speaker of the Assembly at the time and who now stands to benefit

Another jihadi dead; the leader of the 1920 Brigades.

A woman left infertile after cancer treatment cannot use her frozen embryos to have a baby, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled. Natallie Evans started IVF treatment with her then partner Howard Johnston in 2001 but he withdrew consent for the embryos to be used after they split up. Ms Evans went to the Strasbourg court after exhausting the UK legal process. She now hopes to appeal to the Grand Jury of the European Court, but still wants her ex-fiancé to change his mind. Ms Evans said: "I'm still as determined to do whatever it takes to have...