Free Republic

LOS ANGELES - A disease that can cause neurological illness and meningitis in people, rat lungworm, has been found in wild opposums, rats and a zoo animal in San Diego County, indicating its establishment in California for the first time. Researchers reported their findings in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

@WesleyHuntTX This is an extraordinarily admirable offer to help solve a serious problem in Texas, and it reflects the kind of service and sacrifice our great state needs. General Paxton wants what we all want, secure elections and a republic that endures. If a deal can be reached that delivers for the American people, then our country wins. General Paxton’s offer has the potential to secure the one thing that can save our country. May God bless Texas.

Daily Readings from the USCCB“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. Luke 15:11–13Why did the father in this parable give his wayward son his inheritance? Very few parents would do such a thing. Essentially, the son treated his father as if he were dead. He...

On Saturday, a fleet of boats filled the waterways of Clearwater, Florida, in an effort to rally for President Donald Trump and break a Guinness World Record. The crowds were attempting to break the world record for the largest boat parade, which is currently held by a 2014 boat parade in Malaysia. Officials are still reviewing the footage from the event to determine if it breaks the current record. The boat parades have quickly become a popular way to rally. Nicknamed 'Trumptillas,' supporters have gathered boats, jet skis, kayaks, and canoes in cities like Delaware, Alabama, and New Jersey.

Obamacare had problems even before it launched in 2014. Marketplace websites were glitchy during the open enrollment period, frustrating many would-be customers.Sweeping changes ushered in by the Affordable Care Act, the law creating Obamacare, all but guaranteed that premiums would increase—which they did by 23 percent in the program’s first year.Even so, public opinion swung in favor of Obamacare starting in 2017 and remains positive, according to KFF Health Tracking polls.More than 24 million people were insured through the program by 2025.And insurers learned to thrive under the new rules, more than doubling annual revenue to $1.1 trillion and consistently...

Iran's fragile regime suffered another blow today as reports emerged that Mojtaba Khamenei, son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the man briefly installed as supreme leader, has been killed... Mojtaba, long viewed as the hardline favorite to inherit power despite no formal public role, was reportedly named successor earlier this week amid chaos and Israeli warnings that any new leader would become a target,.. Circulating accounts, including from sources inside Iran, claim Mojtaba was eliminated today—his tenure lasting mere hours—after strikes hit his location. Social media erupted with claims of confirmation, including posts noting his "career" from appointment...

Israel got their butt kicked by Hezbollah in the Bekka Valley today.

Everyone is focused on Iran right now and appropriately so, but we're still watching event in Cuba closely. President Trump suggested this week that Cuba's government was going to collapse and that Sec. of State Rubio had been talking to people there about a future deal. However, the president said he wanted to remain focused on Iran for a couple more weeks.“We want to finish this one first,” Trump said Thursday, referring to the current attack on Iran. It “will be just a question of time” before Cuba’s government falls, and “you and a lot of unbelievable people are going...

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that federal appeals courts must follow a deferential standard of review to the Board of Immigration Appeals’ determination that asylum seekers did not experience the level of persecution necessary to qualify for asylum protections. Writing for a unanimous court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said that appeals courts can only diverge from the judgment of the Board of Immigration Appeals when the evidence presented was “so compelling that no reasonable factfinder could fail to find the requisite fear of persecution.” In doing so, she upheld a decision by the First Circuit Court of Appeals and...

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson's funeral was held on Friday, and numerous familiar faces were in attendance, including former President Bill Clinton and his wife, Hillary, former President Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, and former President Barack Obama and... (checks notes)... no partner.Hmm.Not surprisingly, since the reverend was a figure revered by the Left, there were moments where it felt more like a DNC convention than the proper celebration of the man’s life and contributions to the world. Whether you’re a fan of Jackson or not, there’s no denying his consequential impact on society.Obama can always be counted on...

In Ecuador the US military attacking a drug trafficking... In Toronto three of the 12 charges dropped...sexual assault trial...billionaire businessman Frank Stronach... Fox News reporting...third US aircraft carrier...Middle East... Hezbollah forces in Lebanon...fighting Israeli troops landed by helicopter... President Trump...'private interest' in sending US ground troops to Iran... Extensive Israeli air attacks inside Iran... Some Iranian missiles fired at Israel... Three Liquefied Natural Gas tankers diverting from Europe to Asia... To deal with skyrocketing oil prices the US easing some oil sanctions on Russia... In Chicago...funeral service for the Reverend Jesse Jackson... Islamic militant kidnapping more than 300 people in...

Morgan Stanley is laying off about 2,500 employees, despite reporting record revenue last year. The banking giant is planning to cut about 3 per cent of its global workforce across its investment banking and trading, wealth management and investment management divisions. The lay-offs were first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Many of the job cuts were said to have taken place on Wednesday, and were tied to both shifting business and location priorities and individual performance. The lay-offs come after Morgan Stanley reported record annual revenue last year of $70.65 billion, up 14 per cent on the previous year,...

WASHINGTON -- After a plea for help from the highest levels of college athletics, President Donald Trump on Friday said he will write an executive order within a week that will "solve all of the problems" brought forth in an unprecedented meeting at the White House to address the future of college sports. Trump, who was joined in the East Room by about 50 people from varied backgrounds, hosted the first "Saving College Sports" roundtable with vice chairs Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. The group included other politicians, sports...

Amid everything else going on right now, there is also a big economic data release happening later this week — the jobs report. This week, there have been some privately-analyzed reports released. While not as thorough as the federal data, they can give some clues as to how the labor market is doing. The payroll processor ADP, for example, reported that private sector hiring jumped in February, adding 63,000 jobs. Pay was also up 4.5%, year over year.Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at the consulting firm RSM, said that jobs data is really important.“The unemployment rate, average hours worked, average hourly...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has been accused of gaslighting residents while “protecting” violent gangbangers — after the feds took down several members of the city’s largest gang in a daring, heavily-armed raid near MacArthur Park on Thursday. The embattled leader previously blasted a federal operation in July, which saw immigration agents descend on the troubled park to root out MS-13 gangbangers and open-air drug markets, calling it “outrageous” and “un-American.” She also insisted at the time that MacArthur Park, which has long been plagued by gang activity, homelessness and drug addicts overdosing on fentanyl, was a beloved children’s sanctuary....

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has offered a striking explanation for why the United States attacked Iran: Washington, he said, “knew that there was going to be an Israeli action,” anticipated that Iran would retaliate against U.S. forces, and therefore hit first to reduce American casualties. The formulation is not only politically convenient; it is conceptually confused. It implies that the United States acted because Israel was going to act—yet also insists that the operation “needed to happen,” as Rubio put it, regardless. That is, the argument simultaneously portrays America as reluctantly reacting to an ally and decisively pursuing...

The cranky Vermont senator who believes billionaires should be abolished wants to legislate them out of existence. It’s too bad that he doesn’t understand that one billionaire is more valuable than a thousand Bernie Sanders. “Billionaires should not exist,” Sanders, who identifies as a socialist, raged in 2019 during his previous attempt to hit the wealthy with an additional tax that punished them for their success. That effort, the New York Times reported, was “particularly aggressive in how it would erode the fortunes of billionaires” and “would cut in half the wealth of the typical billionaire after 15 years, according...

The American-Israeli attacks on Iran were publicly called Epic Fury, but behind the scenes it is Britain’s handling of the war which provoked that reaction – not just from Donald Trump but from the UK’s allies in the Gulf. A Labour peer was in Washington when the first missiles slammed into Tehran on Friday evening and Keir Starmer refused to voice support. A member of the Trump administration told the peer: “Britain used to not contribute that much, but you were a good ally. Now you’re contributing nothing and you’re not even a good ally.” A version of events has...

Former First Lady Michelle Obama kept it real during a segment of her “IMO Podcast” with her co-host brother, Craig Robinson, taking a dig at the Trump Administration, saying there is “no way” President Donald Trump’s behavior would be accepted if it were her family in the White House acting that way. Obama spoke with comedian and host of the 98th Academy Awards, Conan O’Brien, who brought up a time when he traveled to a military base in the Middle East with “the first Black family” of the White House. The former late-night talk show host compared the Obamas’ need...

MICHELLE Obama is under fire for missing Jesse Jackson’s funeral – even though it’s in her hometown of Chicago. The former first lady has been noticeably absent from many political events in the past few years. Her husband, former president Barack Obama, was present, as well as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe and Jill Biden, and Kamala Harris. “Michelle Obama is FROM Chicago — but she’s not there. Seems very odd,” a social media user said. “Michelle was busy again?” another said. The former first lady was similarly criticized for skipping the funeral of Jimmy Carter in January 2025. Her...