Free Republic

Western nations face a breaking point as elites push policies their people reject, leaving the future of Western civilization hanging in the balance. Decades in the making, Western civilization faces a profound crisis in its political leadership. The problem the West confronts is clear: for too long, Western leaders in Canada, Europe, and the U.S. willfully abandoned the core principles of Western Civilization. They adopted policies that were both foreign and antithetical to the historical civilization of their countries and the societies that their fathers and mothers knew, which had, in fact, nurtured the very leaders who then labored to...

A federal judge ruled against one of the Trump administration’s efforts to defund NPR.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) had slashed a $36 million contract with NPR after President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at cutting funding to the news outlet. After a judge’s ruling, the CPB is renewing the contract after a judge ruled in NPR’s favor, according to the network.The Corporation for Public Broadcasting agreed Monday to fulfill a $36 million, multi-year contract with NPR that it had yanked after pressure from the Trump White House.The arrangement resolves litigation filed by NPR accusing the corporation of...

The USDA used the shutdown crisis to shine a light on flagrant food-stamp fraud.It’s amazing, and somewhat depressing, that this year marks two full decades since Hurricane Katrina blew through the central Gulf Coast and inundated the city of New Orleans once its defective levees broke from the strain of the storm surge. Just acknowledging that time span has a way of making one feel quite old. But a memory from just before Katrina’s arrival — a couple of weeks earlier — remains relatively fresh. It’s of a newspaper article from the New Orleans Times-Picayune about efforts by the...

President Trump is redefining the bargain between America and its allies by radically altering post-World War II Western security arrangements and the conditions that fostered market-driven globalization. He has successfully secured commitments from Europe and Japan to contribute their necessary shares to the common defense against Russia, China and their axis allies and imposed asymmetrical deals that raise U.S. tariffs. Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the legality of those tariffs, the president’s new arrangements are inherently unstable. Among the accomplishments in creating the 1995 World Trade Organization was the extension of rules governing trade in services, similar...

A person was in custody Tuesday after a woman was set on fire while riding a CTA Blue Line in Chicago's Loop the night before. The woman remained in the hospital late Tuesday afternoon. According to Chicago police, the 26-year-old woman got into a quarrel with a 45-year-old man while on a train at the Clark/Lake subway station around 9:25 p.m. Police said the fight escalated when the man poured a liquid on the woman and set her on fire. Sources said the liquid the man poured was gasoline. Police said the woman ran off the train and collapsed on...

We took Trump’s big speech, cut the calm and the peace, 0:21 Played “fight like hell” loud—let the violence increase! 0:26 Panorama’s slick trick, made him sound like a beast, 0:30 Now he’s suing for billions—we'll find ourselves fleeced! 0:34 Heave-ho for the fee, lads, the license we seize! 0:39 How else fund our far-left fairy-tales on the seas? 0:43 Subscription? Ha! Racist Brits won’t pay for our glow, 0:47 Shake the coins from their pockets or the whole ship’ll go! .....

A handful of Democrats in Congress who served in the U.S. military and intelligence community are raising eyebrows with a new video encouraging current service members to refuse to follow "illegal orders" issued by the administration of President Donald Trump. "We want to speak directly to members of the military and the intelligence community who take risks each day to keep Americans safe," the lawmakers say, taking turns in brief clips. "We know you are under enormous stress and pressure right now." "This administration is pitting our uniformed military and intelligence-community professionals against American citizens. Like us, you all swore...

Of the many controversies currently raging in higher education, few arouse as much passion as the place of politics in universities. For years, the Right denounced the Left’s dominance over campus culture. After Donald Trump’s reelection, it was the Left’s turn to cry political interference. The North Carolina General Assembly has attempted to address this issue by mandating a policy of institutional neutrality in the University of North Carolina System, though even this policy is sometimes viewed with suspicion. Yet, amid this controversy, there has usually been agreement on one point: Overt campaigning on behalf of a candidate or party,...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Adam Gray was one of only six House Democrats — and the only one from California — who voted with Republicans in favor of a deal to end the government shutdown, and there was a calculated reason behind that decision.Gray, a first-term Democrat from the Central Valley, is running for reelection in a majority Latino district that national Republicans are expected to heavily target as they defend their narrow House majority in next fall’s midterm elections. Last year, Gray won his seat by 187 votes, and although redistricting has since made the 13th District more favorable to...

Currently, there is no formal diagnosis for autism or ADHD in dogs, and vets group this behaviour under the broad umbrella of 'Canine Dysfunctional Behaviour' (CDB). Research has now shown that many different animals, including dogs, rats, mice, and primates, can have behavioural and genetic signs that would be diagnosed as neurodivergence in humans. However, diagnosing neurodivergence in dogs is extremely difficult. Signs your dog may be neurodivergent: Hypervigilance, Hyperfocus, Poor impulse control, Sensitivity to certain sounds, Lack of interest in people, Difficulty socialising. Dogs with autistic traits show lower levels of 'neural coupling', meaning that their brain activity doesn't...

The number of Britons emigrating has hit a new high, it was revealed on Tuesday - as the exodus under Labour gathers pace. Last year the number of UK citizens going to live abroad was 257,000 – far more than the 77,000 previously estimated by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Before Labour came to power, the highest such figure was 283,000 in 2021 – when international travel reopened following the pandemic. Net emigration has also peaked since last year's general election. In the 12 months to September 2024, a net 116,000 Britons left the country. This is far higher...

The disappearance of Amelia Earhart is one of America’s biggest mysteries. The iconic aviator who became the first woman to cross the Atlantic tragically went missing while attempting to fly around the globe in 1937. Many of the documents relating to her disappearance have been classified. Until now! Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Monday announced the Trump admin have released a new batch of documents relating to Earhart’s disappearance including her last message. CBS News provided further details of the declassified records and revealed what was Earhart’s last known communications on this earth: The U.S. National Archives has...

Republican U.S. Congressman Thomas Massie of Kentucky said he is a "little bit suspicious" of President Donald Trump after his reversal in stance on releasing files connected to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. ... "Well, he got tired of us winning," Massie responded. "He decided to join us. Look, they could have done this four months ago, and instead they fought us every bit of the way. Now they want to be on our side, we'll accept their support, but we're, you know, a little bit suspicious of this sudden turn of events." Massie continued, "So, we'll keep an eye on...

The United States government has taken one of the most forceful steps in recent decades against Nicolás Maduro’s regime. The State Department announced the designation of the Cartel of the Suns, a criminal structure directly linked to the Chavista apparatus, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), a measure that will take effect on November 24. With this declaration, Washington formally places the Venezuelan regime in the category of a state enemy. Until now, the Cartel of the Suns was listed only as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT), a classification primarily focused on enforcing financial sanctions. But the FTO designation...

Ten Democratic officials who oversee elections in their states sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem demanding answers on how private voter data was being used.A coalition of 10 top state election officials sent a letter on Tuesday pressing Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem over whether their agencies had been forthcoming about their use of private voter data.“We write to express our immense concern with recent reporting that the Department of Justice (D.O.J.) has shared voter data with the Department of Homeland Security (D.H.S.), and to seek clarity...

Explanation: What does the Milky Way look like in radio waves? To better find out, GLEAM surveyed the central band of our galaxy in high resolution radio light as imaged by the Murchison Widefield Array in Australia. As the featured video slowly scrolls, radio light (71 - 231 MHz) is seen on the left and visible light -- from the same field -- on the right. Differences are so great because most objects glow differently in radio and visible light, and because visible light is stopped by nearby interstellar dust. These differences are particularly apparent in the direction toward the...

Lentil plant grown at Fuerteventura. Credit: Fayna Brenes =============================================================== Ancient lentils preserved in volcanic silos link modern Canarian crops to 2,000-year-old North African origins. Lentils cultivated in the Canary Islands today have roots that extend nearly 2,000 years into the past. This finding comes from the first-ever genetic study of archaeological lentils, conducted by researchers at Linköping University and the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in Spain. Because these lentils have been adapted for centuries to thrive in hot and arid environments, they may offer valuable genetic traits for future crop breeding in response to ongoing climate change....

In the school of Tuckerism, I was a prospective PhD. I never missed Tucker’s Fox News monologues. Every night, I imbibed his lively lectures, treating his conservative social critique as a nightly devotional. His cuts into liberalism were scalpel-sharp. I once commented to my wife, after another of Tucker’s surgical vivisections of some liberal propagandist, “I’d hate to be one of his liberal guests.” Though sometimes, looking back, the red flags were there—baseless conspiracy theories punctuated with an emphatic “This is just true, period!”—he still put on a nightly clinic on how to deconstruct the left. But now the scalpel-like...

A historic ocean liner will become the world’s largest artificial reef after it’s sunk off Florida’s Gulf Coast early next year.Okaloosa County officials announced Tuesday that they expect to sink the SS United States in early 2026 about 22 nautical miles (41 kilometers) southwest of Destin and 32 nautical miles (59 kilometers) southeast of Pensacola.The nearly 1,000-foot (305-meter) vessel, which shattered the trans-Atlantic speed record on its maiden voyage in 1952, has spent most of this year at the Port of Mobile in Alabama, being scoured to remove chemicals, wiring, plastic and glass.Regional PartnershipThe ship’s final location was selected as...

Explanation: This deep field mosaicked image presents a stunning view of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 recorded by the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam. Also dubbed Pandora's Cluster, Abell 2744 itself appears to be a ponderous merger of three different massive galaxy clusters. It lies some 3.5 billion light-years away, toward the constellation Sculptor. Dominated by dark matter, the mega-cluster warps and distorts the fabric of spacetime, gravitationally lensing even more distant objects. Redder than the Pandora cluster galaxies, many of the lensed sources are very distant galaxies in the early Universe, their lensed images stretched and distorted into arcs. Of...