Free Republic

Roseville, Calif.- It’s no secret that sedan sales are sliding in the wrong direction. So, why did Toyota get rid of the Avalon sedan and quickly replace it with another sedan? For the record, the Japanese automaker says the 2023 Toyota Crown is not a replacement for the Avalon, which debuted nearly 30 years ago. Discontinued after its 2022 version, the Avalon was a roomy, premium sedan that never quite found a niche. It’s easy to figure out why Toyota shelved the Avalon – lack of sales. It hit rock bottom last year with all-time low of 12,215. And the...

The agreement includes a royal clause that dates back to 1692 in Britain and would extend its term limit for decades. This “Declaration shall continue in effect until 21 years after the death of the last survivor of the descendants of King Charles III, King of England, living as of the date of this declaration,” the document said. This kind of clause is most often used in the U.K., typically when it comes to trusts, and provides a buffer against perpetuities.

Jamie Hammonds said city policies have pushed homeless into areas where the public can’t see them An Austin, Texas, resident is raising awareness of the city’s homeless problem and its unseen impact on greenbelt areas. Jamie Hammonds, an investigative filmmaker who runs the organization Documenting Austin’s Streets and Homeless, or DASH, shared videos Wednesday on Twitter, showing a homeless encampment in the Violet Crown Trail after roughly a year of neglect. “It’s destroyed. It will never be the same,” Hammonds tweeted. A real-estate agent concurred, saying the “environmental damage from these camps is immense.”

Miss Russia 2022 Anna Linnikova has become one of 16 contestants who will vie for the title of Miss Universe. The semifinals of the pageant were broadcast on the YouTube channel of the Miss Universe Organization. Linnikova, 22, wore the national "The Crown of the Russian Empire" dress during the preliminary competition on Wednesday where 84 contenders were taking part. The red and white gown decorated with pearls and precious stones was designed by a St. Petersburg couturier in cooperation with the State Hermitage museum. The finals of the beauty pageant in which the top beauties will be picked from...

(NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.) ====================================================================================== A ghostly "hand" reaching through the cosmos has just given us new insight into the violent deaths of massive stars. The spectacular structure is the ejecta from a core-collapse supernova, and, by taking images of it over a 14-year span, astronomers have been able to observe as it blasts into space at around 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) per second. At the very tips of the "fingers", the supernova remnant and blast wave - named MSH 15-52 - is punching into a cloud of gas called RCW 89, generating shocks and knots in the material, and...

For the last 74 years, one of the most recognizable royal crowns in the world is the one worn by Our Lady of Fatima at her shrine in Portugal. Pilgrims in Fatima can see this crown on the original image of Our Lady of Fatima during the anniversaries of the apparitions and other great celebrations. Her canonical coronation took place in Fatima on May 13, 1946, when Venerable Pope Pius XII sent Cardinal Benedetto Masella, his pontifical legate, to personally preside over this coronation of Our Lady of Fatima, Queen of Peace and of the World, as Pius XII named...

Queen Elizabeth II, 91, is the longest reigning monarch and allegedly held a meeting as recently as two weeks ago to begin the process. Her Majesty is said to have decided that if she is still on the throne at the age of 95 then she will request the Regency Act to come into force. The Regency Act would make Charles a Prince Regent and a King in all but name. Under the Act, the Queen would remain head of state but would have reduced duties without abdicating the throne. [snip]

American Pharoah became the first horse in over three decades Saturday to earn the Triple Crown, placing 1st in the Belmont Stakes after winning the Preakness and the Kentucky Derby earlier in the season. In one of the sporting world's rarest feats, the bay colt with the unusually short tail defeated seven rivals in the grueling 1 1/2-mile race, covering the distance in 2:26.65 to end the longest stretch without a Triple Crown champion in history. American Pharoah is the 12th horse and first since Affirmed in 1978 to win three races on different tracks at varying distances over a...

She was Miss Florida for just six days. After organizers realized there had been a vote count error with last Saturday’s pageant, Elizabeth Fechtel, a 20-year-old student at the University of Florida, was dethroned on Friday. The ballot counter at the event, which was held in front of 2,000 spectators in St. Petersburg, didn't see that one of the five judges had changed his mind, writing a new line up on the left-hand side of his ballot.

Michelle .. halted private-jet traffic at Aspen airport as she landed for a weekend of skiing while President Obama headed to California. ... Mrs. Obama’s arrival amid tight security was expected to delay the arrival of other wealthy vacationers on private jets at the Colorado ski resort. One source said, “Some of those heading into Aspen were whining that they’re shutting the airport for an hour so nobody can get in on their private jets on a high travel day.” The weather in New York and in Aspen caused further delays ... Aspen airport’s director of aviation, Jim Elwood, declined...

"Gilbert plans to use her title as Miss Greater Springfield 2013 to promote a platform of educating women with disordered eating habits. According to Gilbert, nearly 75 percent of young women have a negative perception of food, a trend she hopes to change."

Trayvon wore his hoodie like a crown I adopt this child Trayvon `Cause he looked just like me And he lit up in the finest schools in town Trayvon, Trayvon liked his Skittles A rainbow of fruit tastes Spent his nights shopping Past the food deserts and through the guarded gates He was born a victim and a pawn on a Winter's day When he turned around and told George he's dead And the war began Barack Obama has a son today And he shall be Trayvon And he shall be my good man And he shall be Trayvon In...

A U.S. supercomputer has won back the crown in the never-ending battle for the world's most powerful supercomputer. Its victory is the latest milestone marking the steady climb of computing power all across the globe. The Top500 industry list gave its No. 1 ranking to the Sequoia supercomputer housed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California — a spot earned by Sequoia's ability to crunch 16.32 quadrillion calculations per second (16.32 petaflops/s). Such supercomputing power is used by the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration to simulate nuclear weapons tests for older weapons that have been sitting in the U.S. arsenal....

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and fights government corruption, announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit on May 31, 2012 against the United States Air Force and the United States Secret Service to obtain records detailing Michelle Obama's February 2012 President's Day weekend ski vacation to Aspen, Colorado with her two daughters... Judicial Watch seeks access to any and all records concerning the mission taskings, transportation costs and passenger manifests for Mrs. Obama's February 2012 trip to Aspen, Colorado. ... the Aspen trip was the 16th vacation in three years taken by...

(CNN) -- Saudi Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud has died, a State Department official told CNN on Friday. There were no more immediate details about his death.

The awful launch week for the over-hyped, expected bestseller The Rogue: Searching for the Real Sarah Palin, by controversial author Joe McGinniss, just got worse. Much worse. After a week of universally scathing pans from the reflexively anti-Palin establishment media, McGinniss now faces the fight of his literary life: the accusation that he seems to have knowingly submitted a book to his publisher, Crown/Random House, that was filled with unproved “tawdry gossip” and rumors that lacked “factual evidence.”

Twenty years after the Crown Heights riots, the city has grown, and I believe I have grown. I'd like to share a few of my reflections about the choices I made, including the mistakes, with an eye toward advancing racial understanding and harmony. On the day of Aug. 20, 1991, I received a call from Carmel Cato -- who told me that he would like my assistance in dealing with the fact that his 7-year-old son had been killed in a car accident the night before in Crown Heights. His son's death had sparked violence throughout that night, with people...

Twenty years ago this Friday a tragic car accident in Crown Heights Brooklyn escalated into a pogrom against the Jewish people. The media gives it a politically correct description, violence between the area’s Blacks and Jews. However the violence was not two-sided. The Crown Heights riot was an attack on the Jews by the neighborhood’s Caribbean community, fueled in part by Al Sharpton, now an MSNBC host and adviser to President Obama. Black Antisemitism in the Summer of 1991 Jews were a key part of the civil rights movement in the 1960s, when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. made...

Church Blocks Reforms Over Royal Marriages The Church of England has blocked a Government move to scrap a centuries-old law which prevents members of the Royal family from marrying Roman Catholics, The Daily Telegraph has learnt. If the Supreme Governor of the Church of England was a Roman Catholic, they would ultimately be answerable to a separate sovereign leader, the Pope, and the Vatican. 24 Apr 2011 Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, began work towards repealing the 1701 Act of Settlement, under which heirs to the throne must renounce their claim on marrying a Roman Catholic, in order to...

We tend to focus on creeping sharia in the U.S. but Canada is not exempt from the grand jihad as this article from earlier this year indicates. With porous borders and chatter of a North American Union we should hope Canada is taking the threat seriously. David Harris. The enemy within If terrorism suspect Momin Khawaja, now on trial in Ottawa, is as guilty as Crown prosecutors say, it’ll be time to settle an important question: Was Mr. Khawaja a “Naji man”? Amid trial allegations, court details and defence objections, significant questions arise about Mr. Khawaja’s status as a consultant...