Free Republic

A chorus of prosecutors, gun legislation advocates, law enforcement officials, and corporate shareholders are calling on global credit card giants Visa and Mastercard to stop facilitating payments for “ghost guns,” or untraceable, easy-to-assemble firearm kits that are often sold over the internet. Visa and Mastercard, which process 75% of all credit card transactions in the United States, have so far refused to do so. Mastercard’s board unanimously recommended that shareholders vote against a new proposal that calls on the company to take action. “Payment processors like MasterCard absolutely have the ability to restrict transactions related to ghost guns on their...

No one is safe. That’s the disturbing lesson of 2021, a year when every corner of the US was pounded by deadly weather disasters.

KYIV — At the heart of the impeachment saga that ended on Wednesday in Donald Trump’s acquittal was $391 million in US military assistance for Ukraine that the president ordered be withheld. But that aid package, which was eventually released last September, wasn’t the only US arms transfer meant for the war-torn country that was held up. Several direct commercial sales of arms and ammunition to Ukraine faced significant delays at the same time — and they remain mysteriously frozen months later, BuzzFeed News has learned. Now, after a lengthy wait and down payments in the tens of millions of...

Boris Johnson Raised The Issue Of NI Export Forms With Jean-Claude Juncker. And Then Agreed To Them. He was fully aware that the issue of export forms would be problematic back home, but signed it off anyway in order to secure the agreement with the EU. Boris personally raised the controversial issue of businesses having to fill in export forms on goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in a phone call with European Commission Juncker on the morning the Brexit deal was agreed. Juncker insisted that the matter could not be renegotiated. Shortly afterwards, in a follow-up call,...

If Donald Trump has to be acquitted, much better for it to come at the hands of a group of people as corrupted and partisan as the Senate Republicans. Robert Mueller remained tight-lipped and cautious during his much-hyped testimony Wednesday morning. But the hearing highlighted two things: First, there is a real opportunity for a televised trial of President Donald Trump's behavior; and second, such a trial, if it harnessed all the theatrics and color that Democrats can muster, could seize control of the news cycle from the man who has dominated it for years. It has been a tough...

BuzzFeed is cutting costs and getting leaner, but it still wants to get bigger — by exploring a deal with Group Nine. BuzzFeed began laying off 15 percent of its staff — about 200 employees — on Friday. Its next move could be a merger with Group Nine, another big digital publisher. Speculation about a tie-up between the two companies has been bubbling in the media industry for months, and sources familiar with both companies say the two have indeed been discussing a merger. The two companies aren’t close to a finalized deal and may ultimately find different partners. If...