Free Republic

In its diplomacy about the war, Kyiv has striven to maintain an axiom that great powers should not discuss the country’s fate over its head. “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,” had been the approach. Now, as the Trump administration has negotiated a 28-point settlement plan in just this way — with input from Russia but not from Ukraine or from its allies in Europe — Ukrainian and European officials and commentators are responding with dismay. “For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said on Thursday ahead of a...

A hateful mob of anti-Israel protesters descended on a prominent New York City synagogue Wednesday night, chanting “Globalize the intifada” and sinisterly urging the “resistance” to “take another settler out.” Some 200 demonstrators gathered outside the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan and heckled Jews attending an event by Nefesh B’nefesh, a Zionist organization that helps Jews immigrate to Israel, according to the Times of Israel. “It is our duty to make them think twice before holding these events,” one protest leader told the crowd. “We need to make them scared. We need to make them scared. We need to make...

U.S. employers added a surprisingly solid 119,000 jobs in September, the government said, issuing a key economic report that had been delayed for seven weeks by the federal government shutdown. The unemployment rate rose to 4.4% in September, highest since October 2021 and up from 4.3% in August, the Labor Department said Thursday. The unemployment rate rose partly because 470,000 people entered the labor market — either working or looking for work — in September and not all of them found jobs right away. The increase in payrolls was more than double the 50,000 economists had forecast. But Labor Department...

It was the most momentous event in UK history since World War Two. As a new virus took hold, millions of us were told to stay at home and billions of pounds were spent propping up the country's economy. The Covid inquiry will publish its second set of findings on Thursday, looking in detail at the huge political choices made at the time - including how lockdowns were introduced, the closure of businesses and schools, and bringing in previously unthinkable social restrictions. Five years on from those dramatic 12 months, the inquiry's findings are long-awaited, particularly by the 235,000 families...

A former congressional staffer has been charged for allegedly staging her own violent assault, for which she paid someone $500 to slice dozens of cuts into her body, according to prosecutors.

Criminals will be stopped from “gaming the system” by choosing trial by jury in order to increase the chances of proceedings collapsing, the courts minister has said, promising to enact radical changes to limit jury trials by the next election. Drug dealers and career criminals were “laughing in the dock” knowing cases can take years to come to trial, Sarah Sackman said, while warning that inaction would be a road to “chaos and ruin”. Ministers will legislate to remove the right to trial by jury for thousands of cases in one of the biggest and most controversial overhauls of the...

In her long career, Nancy Pelosi has been known as representative, House Speaker and Speaker Emerita. But over the past few years, Pelosi’s been handed a much less official title: “The queen of stock trading.” And there’s more than $531 million backing up that sentiment. ---SNIP--- Here’s how the “Pelosi Tracker” is set up. The Ethics in Government Act requires that members of the House of Representatives disclose their own and their spouse’s sales and purchases of stock. Pelosi’s husband Paul is an active investor, so she turns in filings reporting those trades often. Autopilot then rearranges the “Tracker” portfolio...

Canada is preparing to launch a groundbreaking accelerated immigration pathway designed specifically for H1-B visa holders in the United States. This new stream is set to offer a faster, more predictable route into the Canadian economy for thousands of highly skilled workers who have spent years facing uncertainty under the American immigration system. The upcoming pathway, expected to be introduced in the coming months, signals a major strategic shift in Canada’s global talent agenda. It aims to attract professionals who are ready to move their careers, families, and long-term future north of the border. At a time when the United...

Two months after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk's assassination at Utah Valley University, his security director said the tragedy exposed preventable flaws in how the event was coordinated and secured. Brian Harpole, a veteran law enforcement officer and founder of Integrity Security Solutions, told "The Shawn Ryan Show" his team repeatedly raised concerns about rooftop exposure, drone restrictions and staffing gaps in the days before the Sept. 10 event. "We were told the roof was covered," Harpole said. "The chief said, ‘I got you covered.’ I took him at his word. "We can’t break the law to do what...

U.S. job growth defied expectations in September, according to a Labor Department report issued nearly seven weeks late due to the government shutdown. Payrolls rose by a seasonally adjusted 119,000 on the month, the strongest gain since April, the Labor Department said Thursday.

VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. — A Volusia County woman is facing battery charges and possible deportation after deputies say she threw cold coffee on a woman, her 11-month-old son and their dog during a confrontation over a leash. The incident happened Friday morning on Quail Nest Lane, according to the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office. Kelly Brisell told WESH 2 News she was walking with her son, Owen, and her 5-year-old Dalmatian, Ponce, when she encountered Nina Jaaskelainen outside a home. Brisell said Jaaskelainen became upset that her dog was not on a leash. “She started screaming at us,” Brisell said. “I...

ALBANY, N.Y. — Governor Kathy Hochul is calling on President Donald Trump to release $400 million in federal funds for the Home Energy Assistance Program. Governor Hochul said 1.5 million New Yorkers will rely on HEAP to help them heat their homes this winter. Hochul noted that, despite the government shutdown ending after 43 days, the longest hiatus in history, the Trump Administration has yet to release the funds. New York State will begin accepting HEAP applications on Nov. 24, but Hochul said that this will only be possible if the funding is provided. CNY Central spoke to one local...

MIAMI — U.S. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick of Florida has been indicted on charges accusing her of stealing $5 million in federal disaster funds and using some of the money to aid her 2021 campaign, the Justice Department said Wednesday. The Democrat is accused of stealing Federal Emergency Management Agency overpayments that her family health care company had received through a federally funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract, federal prosecutors said. A portion of the money was then funneled to support her campaign through candidate contributions, prosecutors allege. "Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime," Attorney General...

If heat-trapping pollution from burning coal, oil and gas continues unchecked, thousands of hazardous sites across the United States risk being flooded from sea level rise by the turn of the century, posing serious health risks to nearby communities, according to a new study. Researchers identified 5,500 sites that store, emit or handle sewage, trash, oil, gas and other hazards that could face coastal flooding by 2100, with much of the risk already locked in due to past emissions. But more than half the sites are projected to face flood risk much sooner — as soon as 2050. Low-income, communities...

Within 24 hours of arriving in San Miguel de Allende, Karen decided to permanently leave the United States and become one of the many recent US immigrants to Mexico. Four months before visiting the city, the 55-year-old had been terminated as part of the Trump administration’s January 20 executive order suspending the US Refugee Admissions Program. Karen, who asked me not to use her full name because of her current immigration status, says through a haze of tears, “It’s hard to explain the compound grief involved in seeing a sector that did nothing but good just destroyed,” adding that much...

Rigid ideologies like DEI, climate dogma, and anti-Trump obsession keep collapsing under their own contradictions, leaving their loudest champions looking increasingly absurd. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is a euphemism for a rigid racialist theology. It deductively postulates that a large percentage of the population is oppressed by racism and sexism, mostly by white males. DEI makes no allowance for the class or wealth of the alleged victims or their supposed victimizers. So once that rigid party line is set, it cannot account for tens of millions of affluent and privileged non-white Americans or like numbers of poor and non-privileged...

More Americans report seeing the impacts of President Donald Trump’s cuts to federal programs and the government workforce, according to new survey data released Monday by the Partnership for Public Service. Despite the additional respondents noticing the effects of these reductions, however, the share of individuals supporting or opposing the administration’s overhauls has hardly changed over the past six months. The nonpartisan good government nonprofit found in a fall survey that 46% of respondents said they know someone who has been affected by the federal cuts while 48% did not. In comparison, when the Partnership polled this question in March,...

Systems built up over the past 120 years, from Progressive Era regulatory agencies through New Deal and Great Society social programs, and on to the expansions of healthcare and food stamp programs of the past 15 years, are being eliminated or eroded at warp speed, as is the notion of a professionalized civil service largely insulated from the diktats, the cronyism, and the vengeful impulses of a single leader. And while many lower courts have, when presented with lawsuits by government employees’ unions and other affected groups, attempted to slow this process, the Trumpified Supreme Court has largely rubber-stamped it,...

The charges in the indictment against Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., carry a maximum of 53 years in prison, the Justice Department said. Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick, D-Fla., was indicted Wednesday on charges she stole and laundered $5 million in federal relief funds and used the money for her congressional campaign, the Justice Department said. In a news release citing the indictment, the Justice Department said that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and Edwin Cherfilus, 51, her brother, worked on a staffing contract funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency for Covid vaccinations tied to their family health care company in 2021 and that the...

Approximately 21,000 Charlotte students missed school on Monday as fears mount over Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity rippling through the community, according to city officials. The widespread crackdown called Operation Charlotte’s Web has sparked concern and pushback from educators and city leaders about its impact on the local community. Charlotte Mayor Pro Tem Danté Anderson, a member of the City Council, told Newsweek the absences were a troubling sign for students and families. “I was sick when I saw the numbers,” Anderson told Newsweek on November 18. “Our students had a hard time with COVID and...