Free Republic

The crisis in Cuba has seen its government approach the United Nations for aid to address its food shortage, as residents take to the streets in a rare sign of social unrest Cuba is "on the verge of total collapse" as the country has been hit by blackouts with residents taking to the streets calling for "food and power". The crisis has seen the Cuban government approach the United Nations for aid to address its food shortage. As the Caribbean island goes through its harshest economic crisis in three decades, the communist regime is resorting to hitherto unseen cries for...

As the tax season kicks off next week, Americans have several free filing options — and some taxpayers will soon qualify for a new offering from the IRS. Known as Direct File, the agency’s free filing software pilot will begin as an invitation-only service for a group of government workers before rolling out to certain taxpayers in 12 states by mid-March. The software is “simple, secure and free,” Laurel Blatchford, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s chief implementation officer for the Inflation Reduction Act, said in a statement Thursday. Direct File comes after a feasibility report authorized by the Inflation...

Detroit, Michigan, cut its murder rate down to a 60-year-low by simply ignoring liberal crime policies, holding criminals accountable and hiring more police, a report from the city showed. The city recorded 228 homicides this year as of Nov. 30, marking an 18% drop compared to the same time last year, according to the report. Detroit hit its lowest homicide rate in 60 years back in 2018 when it recorded 261 homicides, meaning 2023 could soon make a new record, Detroit Free Press noted. In order to make the historic moment happen, leaders simply did the obvious: Locked criminals up....

The Biden administration has chosen a location for a new FBI headquarters in Maryland, the General Services Administration confirmed Wednesday, as the suburban Washington location was selected over nearby Virginia following a sharp competition between the two states. The site is planned for Greenbelt, about 13 miles (20 kilometers) northeast of Washington. "GSA looks forward to building the FBI a state-of-the-art headquarters campus in Greenbelt to advance their critical mission for years to come," Robin Carnahan, the GSA administrator, said. "Thank you to everyone at GSA, DOJ, FBI, Congress, and others who helped reach this important milestone after a comprehensive,...

Masters of the Air, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg’s much-anticipated follow-up series to Band of Brothers and The Pacific, finally has a launch date. Check out a series of first look photos below. The first two episodes of the nine-episode limited series will premiere on Apple TV+ on Friday, January 26th. A new episode will then air every Friday through March 15th. Masters of the Air pulls from Donald L. Miller’s biography Masters of the Air: America’s Bomber Boys Who Fought the Air War Against Nazi Germany, telling the story of the enlisted men of the US Eighth Air Force...

Tucker Carlson’s six years on Fox News seem to have artificially extended the life, and relevance, of cable news itself. While he was there, the top-rated host in the medium brought in an entirely new audience: young people, especially young men. He not only drew the largest number of viewers in the coveted 25-54 demographic, he took in the top rank for Democrats in that age group too. But even Carlson knew cable news was a dying model, one that had lasted longer than anyone expected, as he told me when I spoke to him for my upcoming book, Tucker....

First a lot of bad news, but read on for a positive game-changer. If there’s one thing Republicans across Illinois should all be able to agree on at this point, it’s this: the Illinois Republican Party is dead. And I don’t mean dead like people said it was after the innumerable other disappointing elections for the GOP in Illinois over the past couple of decades. Let’s not kid ourselves, 2022 is far from the only year the Illinois Republican Party embarrassingly underperformed the GOP in states where the state party takes a serious approach. I mean dead, dead like the...

General Dynamics Land Systems has officially unveiled its AbramsX future main battle tank concept in the flesh — or should we say 'in the steel.' Earlier this week we wrote up the latest on this feature-packed M1 Abrams evolution, but now we get to see the actual hardware ahead of the Association of the U.S. Army's big conference in Washington, D.C., this week. You can get up to speed on what we know about the tank in that piece linked here. https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/next-generation-abramsx-tank-will-have-hybrid-powerplant Suffice it to say, the AbramsX very much looks the part of a future tank, with its highly...

The Google “Goliath” has finally outdone itself in its campaign to completely destroy the WND “David,” the small Christian journalism operation that somehow refuses to die, despite continual attacks from all sides. For the past week, Google has been warning everyone on the internet who tries to access WND.com via Google that the 25-year-old pioneering news website is outright dangerous to their computer! This is no exaggeration: Reports from readers from all over confirm what WND’s staffers and independent tech team have been experiencing continually for the last week: When they try to reach WND by way of Google, clicking...

Membership in ERIC will strengthen NJ voter file accuracy TRENTON, NJ New Jersey Secretary of State Tahesha Way announced that she and the New Jersey Division of Elections have taken steps to ensure the integrity of the state voter files by joining the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). ERIC is a nonpartisan non-profit organization with the sole mission of assisting states in increasing access to voter registration for all eligible citizens and improving the accuracy of America’s voting rolls. ERIC is governed and managed by its member states. Participation in ERIC as a member state will help New Jersey election...

Former President Donald J. Trump laid out 42 policy proposals at the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) summit Tuesday, where he gave his first speech in Washington, DC, since leaving office. Prepared remarks circulated by the Trump team show the 45th president’s proposals on an array of topics, including the Second Amendment, border security, education, energy, and election integrity, but a central focus of his policy proposal addresses law and order. The prepared remarks first emphasized the importance of supporting police departments throughout the country and fostering a culture that respects law enforcement. “We have to give our police back...

For the first time since the Cold War, the U.S. Army is set to acquire and field a new light tank. The service announced today that General Dynamics Land Systems has won its Mobile Protected Firepower program competition and has been awarded a contract worth up to $1.14 billion. The initial Mobile Protected Firepower (MPF) contract award will cover an initial low-rate production order of 96 vehicles. The Army expects to take delivery of the first examples, from an initial lot of 26 MPFs, in December 2023 and have its first unit fully equipped with them by 2025. The service...

Last month, anti-automobile activists led by the Congress for the New Urbanism announced the formation of a national Freeway Fighters Network. The network opposes new freeways and freeway expansions and wants to shift freeway money to other forms of transportation. Among other things, they object to new freeway capacity because it induces more highway travel. Also, in late 2021 the Colorado Transportation Commission adopted a rule change intended to divert billions of future transportation dollars away from building and maintaining roads, essentially turning the Colorado Department of Transportation into a statewide urban planning agency focused on public transit, bicycle and...

It’s been a rough couple of weeks for students at Yale Law School, who are responding to news that the Supreme Court may overturn Roe v. Wade with calls to accost their conservative classmates through "unrelenting daily confrontation" and toss the Constitution by the wayside. Members of the law school’s conservative Federalist Society, first year law student Shyamala Ramakrishna said in an Instagram post, are "conspirators in the Christo-fascist political takeover we all seem to be posting frantically about." Why, she asked, are they still "coming to our parties" and "laughing in the library" without "unrelenting daily confrontation?" Some of...

President Joe Biden on Tuesday pardoned Abraham Bolden, the Chicago man who was the first Black Secret Service agent to serve on a White House detail, who maintained charges against him that led to prison time were trumped up. Bolden “has steadfastly maintained his innocence, arguing that he was targeted for prosecution in retaliation for exposing unprofessional and racist behavior within the U.S. Secret Service,” the White House said in announcing Biden’s clemency actions. Biden pardoned three people, including Bolden and commuted the sentences of 75 other people serving long sentences for nonviolent drug offenses, who under current guidelines would...

The Air Force’s next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile has a new moniker. Known by the clunky name of Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, or GBSD, the weapon system under development has officially been designated as Sentinel. Land-based ICBMs have made up one part of the nation’s nuclear triad for decades. “The name Sentinel recognizes the mindset that thousands of airmen, past and present, have brought to the deterrence mission, and will serve as a reminder for those who operate, secure and maintain this system in the future about the discipline and responsibility their duty entails,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said. The...

The State of Texas is scheduled to complete a two-mile section of local border wall this week, according to a project contractor. Additional jobs are in the works and some are nearing completion in other sectors. Video shot by Breitbart Texas shows the expanse of the new Texas-funded border wall that a contractor on the project says will complete this week. The tw0-mile-long border wall span is being built along a state-owned right of way in an area notorious for narcotics and human smuggling, Border Patrol officials previously told Breitbart. The close proximity to residential neighborhoods enables smugglers and migrants...

Regular folks and history buffs who believe Maryland leaned strongly toward the Confederacy during the Civil War era have never lacked evidence for the claim. It was a Marylander, after all, on the U.S. Supreme Court who wrote the opinion in the infamous 1857 Dred Scott case, which found that Black people were not citizens — a ruling that helped spark the fighting. And Marylanders voted for a Southern sympathizer, not Abraham Lincoln, for president in the election of 1860. Then, some 20,000 Marylanders took up arms for the Confederacy. But such facts can be deceiving if looked at in...

A lawmaker who sponsored the original bill said violent novels the shooter penned could have been enough for a judge to grant an extreme risk protection order. A man who was feared by his colleagues, was on the radar of law enforcement, and who had written novels laying out in detail how the main character would kill people — naming some of the people he would eventually kill on Monday — wreaked havoc across Denver and Lakewood. So how was Lyndon James McLeod able to get a gun? Authorities have not released details about the weapon he used, but they...

The U.S. Supreme Court will consider a petition from some Illinois teaches seeking to end "escape period" schemes that kept them from cutting off union dues. The Supreme Court ruled in its 2018 Janus decision that employees of state and local governments cannot be forced to pay union dues or fees, and that government workers must affirmatively consent before union dues are taken from their paychecks. Chicago Public Schools educators Joanne Troesch and Ifeoma Nkemdi sued the Chicago Teachers Union and the Chicago Board of Education over a union boss-created "escape period" that blocks workers from exercising their right to...