Free Republic

MALDEN — Asian American seniors play ping pong five times a week at the First Parish Unitarian Universalist church. Another group gathers Monday nights to dance at the Wah Lum Kung Fu & Tai Chi Academy. After years spent fitting in where they can across this city of 65,000, the growing Asian American community has no place to call their own. That’s about to change with $1 million in funding from Congress to jumpstart the process of creating Malden’s first community center for people of Asian descent, who account for 27.5 percent of the city’s population. Malden has the third-highest...

At this point it looks like most of our protein will be sourced from animals for some time to come, whether we like it or not, as it has for the past 100,000 years. Luckily, we can do this in ways that meet our climate goals and boost nutrition and animal welfare, Eurof Uppington writes. 2021 saw a strange and short-lived celebrity phenomenon. Out of nowhere, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr, Katy Perry, Serena Williams and other A-listers announced personal investments in plant-based foodtech startups alongside venture capital funds and philanthropists. They were on a mission to save the planet,...

There was some amusement as well as surprise when somebody walked into Helsinki’s Oodi Central Library on Monday 27 with a book that was overdue. 84 years overdue It’s not unusual to be a little delayed in returning a library book but this one was unusual in as much as it was due back on December 26, 1939 making it just over 84 years late! The person who returned it isn’t the person who first took out the book The Refugees (Pakolaiset in Finnish) by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and it is not known whether there was a fine and...

The sale of tobacco products from self-service cigarette and vape vending machines is to be banned next year under measures being introduced by Minister for Health Stephen Donnelly. The machines are often found in bars and nightclubs. […] … Donnelly said the ban was a continuation of Government policy to “de-normalize” the sale of tobacco products. “On ‘World No Tobacco Day’, I am bringing into operation further elements of our overall tobacco control strategy,” he said. […] The Department of Health said the ban was a recommendation of Tobacco Free Ireland and is in line with the Program for Government...

NEW YORK — In May 2019, a senior official at the USDA was told by his then-chief-of-staff that Sen. Bob Menendez would call his personal cell phone in around an hour. The agriculture official, Ted McKinney, had been trying to get Egyptian officials to reverse their decision to grant a new company a monopoly certifying halal meat exported to that country. That decision, he recalled from the witness stand of Menendez’s corruption trial Friday, was “very unusual” and could hurt American beef interests. McKinney said that he would “never forget the words” Menendez told him during the brief call: “Stop...

President Joe Biden brushed off claims by Donald Trump that the New York hush-money trial was politically-motivated and orchestrated by the White House. 'I didn't know I was that powerful,' Biden quipped when asked about it. The president also said he wasn't worried he may end up in court one day like Trump. 'Not at all. I didn't do anything wrong. The system still works,' he said. Republicans have been trying to tie Biden to his son's Hunter business dealings, claiming they were working together to enrich the family. Biden has said repeatedly he wasn't involved in his son's work....

Marian Robinson, the mother of former first lady Michelle Obama, has died, according to a statement from the Obama and Robinson families. She was 86. […] Robinson lived with the Obamas during their time at the White House and was often spotted at events with the first family, including handing out goodie bags to trick-or-treaters on Halloween. […] A native of Chicago — where she returned after the Obamas left the White House — Robinson was married to Fraser Robinson, and the pair had two children, Michelle and Craig. Fraser Robinson died in 1991 after a long struggle with multiple...

Trump lost. So has America. Not that you would know it from most of yesterday's news coverage, so-called reporters and journalists practically levitating over 34 guilty verdicts in a trial that was nothing but a political hit job. You can dislike Donald Trump, as I and so many others do, and still find yourself outraged. This case — which the feds declined to prosecute — was falsely, flimsily predicated on 'election interference'. Want to talk election interference? How about keeping the GOP nominee for president off the campaign trail for nearly two months? Or scheduling his sentencing just four days...

Organizers of a Guinness World Record attempt in Philadelphia are seeking audience members to participate in the world's largest drag story time reading. The event, organized by The Philadelphia Gay News and sponsored by Visit Philly, is scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Saturday at the National Constitution Center. Drag performer Brittany Lynn is scheduled to emcee the record attempt and several drag performers from around the Philadelphia region are slated to read aloud from children's books in an attempt to set a world record. A Guinness World Records adjudicator is being brought to the city to supervise the event....

Authorities discovered the remains of a missing woman in the jaws of an alligator this week in Houston, prompting an investigation into her cause of death by the city's Homicide Division Sergeants. “Patrol officers located the remains of a woman in the jaws of an alligator in the Horsepen Bayou, just west of El Dorado Boulevard, while searching the area for a woman reported missing” on Tuesday, Houston police said in a Wednesday release. Police did not name the woman, who they believe to be in her 60s, but they told KHOU-TV that she went for a walk around 7:30...

The Nazi occupying forces massacred civilians in Crete. Credit: Bundesarchiv, CC BY-SA 3.0 de/Wikipedia Greek scientists have recently identified 18 people who were executed by the Nazis in Crete through DNA analysis. In the Battle of Crete during the World War II occupation of Greece, the German forces faced substantial civilian resistance. The inhabitants of Adele, a prosperous lowland village in the northeastern part of the Rethymnon regional unit, resisted fiercely and had formed an armed resistance group. As a consequence, the German forces surrounded the village on June 2, 1941, and arrested 18 male civilians (including two fathers with...

Israel has degraded Hamas’ military capabilities significantly since October, and the militant group no longer poses a major threat to Israel, President Joe Biden said Friday. Biden offered that analysis while outlining a new three-phase cease-fire proposal Israel has offered Hamas, which would lead to the release of all hostages and a permanent end to fighting. “The people of Israel should know they can make this offer without any further risk to their own security, because they’ve devastated Hamas forces over the past eight months,” Biden said. “At this point, Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another Oct....

A jury has found New Jersey father Christopher Gregor guilty of aggravated manslaughter in the death of his 6-year-old son, who he forced to do abusive treadmill workouts. Gregor, 31, was charged with first-degree murder and endangerment of the welfare of a child stemming from surveillance video from the gym in his apartment complex that showed Gregor forcing his son to run at high speeds on a treadmill. The video shows Gregor continually increasing the speed on the treadmill, which forced his son to fall off the exercise equipment six times. Prosecutors also noted the boy had contusions all over...

Boston's woke Democratic mayor Michelle Wu has been labeled 'tone-deaf' and 'unserious' for her plan to give young children and undocumented citizens the power to vote on the city's budget. During a City Council committee hearing on Tuesday that reviewed her 2025 fiscal budget, Wu announced that the new budgeting voting process is open to the undocumented and children as young as 11 years old. After the meeting, enraged Boston City Councilor Ed Flynn wrote a letter to Renato Castelo, the director of the Office of Participatory Budgeting, and expressed his concern with Wu's decision. 'Allowing children to decide the...

These days it seems like a conspiracy theorist is just someone who was right, but at an inconveniently early time. Shortly before the 2020 presidential election, a laptop formerly belonging to Joe Biden’s son Hunter came to light. **SNIP** The computer, as reported by The Post, contained reams of incriminating evidence of bribery, drug use, payoffs from shady foreigners and worse. This was a tremendous news story, with earthshaking ramifications for the election. Naturally, therefore, it was important to ensure that nobody heard about it — or, if they did hear of it, that no one believed it. Dozens of...

A Kentucky high school allegedly withheld a graduate’s diploma when the student went off script during his graduation speech to preach his belief in Jesus. Micah Price received the green light to praise Jesus Christ in his commencement speech at Campbell County High School in Alexandria, Ky., on May 24, but followed his address with “urging other Christians to stand up.” “Class, before another word leaves my mouth, I must give the honor, the praise and the glory to my lord and savior Jesus Christ,” Price said to a packed Truist Arena at Northern Kentucky University. His oration received resounding...

resident Joe Biden tore into Donald Trump over his record on race on Wednesday, targeting the former president for his past comments before a crowd of Black voters in Philadelphia. “What would’ve happened if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol? I don’t think he’d be talking about pardons,” Biden said. “This is the same guy who wanted to tear gas you as you peacefully protested George Floyd’s murder. It’s the same guy who still calls the ‘Central Park Five’ guilty, even though they were exonerated. He’s that landlord who denies housing applications because of the color of your skin. He’s...

Hunter Biden’s last-ditch effort to throw out the federal gun charges against him failed ahead of his criminal trial set to begin next week. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals rejected on Tuesday Hunter Biden’s appeal of Judge Maryellen Noreika’s decision to deny his motion to dismiss the gun charges on Second Amendment grounds. The court dismissed Biden’s appeal because it lacks jurisdiction. “Criminal defendants ordinarily cannot appeal until after final judgment,” the appellate panel wrote in a two-page order. “The defendant’s Second Amendment defense does not implicate a right not to be tried that can be collaterally appealed.” The...

A former federal firearms instructor who worked at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia is warning the strange arrest of two Jordanian nationals in a box truck at the base may have been a "dry run" to test security outside the facility ahead of a terror attack. The same truck, had it been loaded with explosives, could have been a devastating weapon if it made it close enough to an occupied building, he warned. "Driving the box truck was a dry run for driving a box truck that was not going to be empty the second time," said Dave Katz,...

A University of Florida research employee and students have been implicated in an illegal, multi-million dollar scheme that saw samples of dangerous drugs and toxins illicitly shipped to China over a period of seven years. The scheme, investigated by the Justice Department, saw thousands of biochemical samples bought illegally which were then delivered to a campus laboratory before being shipped overseas, according to federal court records. Among the students tied to the scheme was the president of UF's Chinese Students and Scholars Association, Nongnong 'Leticia' Zheng. The group openly protested a Florida law signed by Gov. Ron De Santis last...