Free Republic

The MTA’s top lawyer is abruptly stepping down at the end of July with no successor immediately named — just months after The Post revealed the agency’s legal costs ballooned under her tenure. “After fourteen remarkable years with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, I have decided that the time has come for me to begin a new chapter,” the email begins, noting that her last day with the agency will be July 31.MTA General Counsel Paige Graves quietly announced her resignation, according to a June 30 email obtained by The Post. MTAGraves’ departure caps a turbulent season for the transit authority’s...

The internet is making sure the U.S. won’t exit the World Cup quietly, and Ryanair was the latest player to join the banter. The American dream of winning the 2026 FIFA World Cup was crushed in a 1-4 loss to Belgium, marking the team’s heaviest defeat since 1990. As the pomp and fanfare quickly fizzled out, memes mocking the U.S. team came pouring in, with Ryanair unabashedly joining the fun. The internet is making sure the U.S. won’t exit the World Cup quietly, and Ryanair was the latest player to join the banter The Irish airline has seemingly made a...

The star's latest album did not chart, though she says she is already hard at work on new music and focused on the future Lizzo is opening up about falling short of expectations for her new album Bitch — and why she's keeping her chin up. The Grammy winner, 38, put out Bitch, her first record in four years, on June 5. The record did not chart on the Billboard 200 albums chart, marking a surprising result for an album that followed a No. 2 record in 2022 for the star. In a conversation with Zachary Hourihane (also known as...

Explanation: The Mare Orientale, Latin for Eastern Sea, is one of the most striking large scale lunar features. The youngest of the large lunar impact basins it's very difficult to see from an earthbound perspective. Still, captured on July 7 during a period of favorable tilt, or libration of the lunar nearside, the Eastern Sea can be found at the upper right in this sharp telescopic view. In the image, the large lunar mare is extremely foreshortened and stretches along the Moon's western edge. Formed by the impact of an asteroid over 3 billion years ago and nearly 1000 kilometers...

The Department of Homeland Security said on Friday that it had deported an immigrant just weeks after he received a pardon from Minnesota state officials for a 2005 conviction for sexually abusing a child.The pardon last month from Minnesota’s pardon board, which includes the Democratic governor Tim Walz, effectively erased the criminal record of the man, Tou Lue Vang. Mr. Vang, 42, had come to the United States legally as a child, but because of his conviction, he lost permanent residency status and was issued a final removal order. Before his pardon, Mr. Vang had been facing imminent deportation to...

StormWall, which involves school-bus-size satellites and a whole lot of salt, could provide an ionic ‘air bag’ for the EarthIt’s the year 2040, and the Big One—a civilization-smashing solar storm of a scale not seen since the 19th century—is on a collision course with Earth.Far out in space, where geostationary satellites orbit, a half-dozen school-bus-size satellites crack open and start dumping barium, lithium or sodium. Within minutes, sunlight transforms this material into an ionized gas shield that slows the oncoming massive blob of plasma.Down on our planet’s surface, a would-be global catastrophe—potentially knocking out entire electrical grids—is reduced to a...

The simplest, dumbest, most replaceable part on any vehicle since 1912, now gated behind a manufacturer login, a subscription, and a per-flash token. If you own a modern pickup truck, you do not own a battery. You own the authorization to use a battery. And when that battery dies, the dealer will tell you the part costs $250, the programming fee costs another $150, and the labor is booked at $200 an hour. In this investigation, we are going to expose the battery management scam, the gateway module lockout, and the AGM monopoly that turned the cheapest part on your...

In a recent discovery, scientists have uncovered the first kiss in recorded history. Evidence suggests that our ancestors may have engaged in kissing as early as 4,500 years ago. The evidence comes in the form of clay tablets found in regions that now make up Iraq and Syria. These tablets, originating from the earliest Mesopotamian societies, indicate that kissing was a common practice. Moreover, it is even suggested that such acts may have played a role in transmitting cold sores. Researchers from the esteemed University of Copenhagen have proposed that kissing was not limited to a particular region but rather...

Experts weighed in on what the World Cup star eats on a daily basisNorway's World Cup star Erling Braut Haaland reportedly consumes 6,000 calories per day, via foods like organ meat and raw milk -- a diet that has garnered attention given the striker's recent success on the field. But is a dietary routine like Haaland's actually feasible -- or healthy? It depends on a number of factors, and it's certainly not for everyone, experts told MedPage Today. Consuming 6,000 calories in a single day, "it's definitely high," Lauren Link, MS, RD, CSSD, assistant athletics director for sports nutrition at...

Viral footage raises questions about police conduct in Birmingham incidentBirmingham police handcuff young man after he is allegedly assaulted by a group of men. (Representative image) Pexels/Tima Miroshnichenko West Midlands Police are facing scrutiny after viral bodycam footage appeared to show officers handcuffing an allegedly intoxicated man while those accused of assaulting him were allowed to leave the scene. The incident took place on Broad Street in Birmingham at around 1:30am on Sunday, 21 June. In the video, the man, identified as 20-year-old Cody Harper, is seen arguing with a group of Black men and one white man. One...

Donald Trump Jr. appeared on FOX News fter attending the preliminary hearing for accused Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson. Trump Jr. spoke about the hearing and his efforts to preserve Kirk's legacy. "The impact that Charlie had on so many Americans on so many youth is, you know, frankly generational," Trump Jr. said. "It could have been so much more, but it was important to be there and to see the actual facts laid out, Bill, because there was so much stuff that, you know, amidst the noise and the internet chatter that was laid out that, you know, I...

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has found an unusual way to keep this week’s NATO summit in Ankara in the headlines—by presenting fellow alliance leaders with personalized revolvers, leaving several governments to figure out how to legally transport, store, or dispose of the unusual diplomatic gifts. The presentation, intended to showcase Turkey’s growing defense manufacturing sector, quickly evolved into a logistical puzzle as visiting delegations confronted strict firearms regulations in their home countries. Each guest reportedly received a Turkish-made .357 Magnum revolver, engraved with the recipient’s name and displayed in a wooden presentation case alongside a cleaning kit, certificate, and...

Michael Davies: A “First Responder” of Catholic TraditionAs a 25-year-old who had just entered the seminary, I lacked the proper vocabulary to articulate my dissatisfaction with Catholic liturgical life as I experienced it. I was born in 1965, the last year of the Second Vatican Council, and so had lived my Catholic faith and discerned a priestly vocation entirely under the new rite of the Mass established by Pope Paul VI after Vatican II. Yet I had come to see, in how the liturgy was typically celebrated, serious problems that (as I later learned) derived from its departures, in ways...

Sailors whose medical conditions prevent daily shaving now have up to 12 months of treatment options before the Navy evaluates them for continued service and, in some cases, administrative separation.A safety argument has ensued around facial hair, with the service saying it can break the seal on the masks that keep a crew breathing through fire or gas. Behind this argument sits a study the Navy has kept close to the vest.NAVADMIN 162/26, released July 7 under the signature of Vice Adm. Jeffrey J. Czerewko, The order reverses the Navy’s 2022 policy, which prohibited separation solely because PFB treatment had...

A chaotic fan fight broke out during the Giants-Rockies game at Oracle Park on July 9, turning a lower-level seating section into a messy scene that quickly spread across multiple rows. The fan video shows several fans already tangled up, with punches thrown and people shoving near the stairs. The situation escalated when a man wearing a black Raiders No. 52 jersey jumped into the scrum and appeared to strike multiple women, including people who were already knocked down or being pulled away. Other fans tried to separate the group, including a man in a white Giants jersey, but the...

After this week, anyone who still believes the online conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination of Charlie Kirk possesses either a dangerously low IQ or an irreparably broken moral compass. That’s because the pre-trial hearing now in progress for Tyler Robinson, the man accused of assassinating Kirk in front of hundreds of students at Utah Valley University, is collapsing the madness in real time. During his short life, the founder of Turning Point USA engaged in good-faith debates with young people on a wide variety of topics, and he did so in a cheery and civil manner. Agree with him or...

Trump administration exposes institution's progressive biasThe nation’s largest group of scholars says a taxpayer-funded family museum must include an exhibit that features a sadomasochistic crotch harness, pages from a 6-year-old girl’s diary that depict her yearning to grow a penis, video clips of drag queens and a magazine promoting female masturbation.The Organization of American Historians also supports exhibits that describe “Mickey Mouse as a vestige of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy,” the ukulele as “a product of U.S. imperialism” and Wild West shows as turning the “subjugation of Indigenous people into theater.”Those are just a few of the displays...

YouTube's recommendation recipe might be getting a rather unexpected new ingredient.TL;DR -The UK is considering rules that would make trusted broadcasters, such as the BBC, easier to find on YouTube and TikTok during major news events and emergencies. -YouTube warns the proposal could force it to recommend certain news channels over creators’ videos, potentially reducing creators’ reach and making recommendations feel less personalized. -The proposal is still under consultation, with creators and the public able to submit feedback until August 31 before any final decision is made. YouTube’s recommendations are a big reason why many creators grow in the first...

"Only God can do that" Cain says of origin of hit songThere’s a deeper meaning to “Don’t Stop Believin’” — one that might not be widely evident to the some of the fans who hear the Journey anthem played at sporting events and on classic rock radio. The song, which was released on Journey’s seventh studio album “Escape” in 1981, is actually a song based on Christian faith and dealing directly with the Holy Spirit, says the song’s co-author Jonathan Cain. Cain says that, if one really thinks about it, the song is actually about the Holy Spirit. “We don’t...

As many of its candidates notch electoral wins nationwide, the pre-eminent socialist political group in the U.S., the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), plans to roll out an updated platform that includes eliminating the Senate and replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive and judiciary chosen by Congress. According to a source familiar with the DSA’s planning, the organization plans to roll out an update next week to its long-term vision for a U.S. policy platform. The update includes eliminating the U.S. Senate and replacing the president and the Supreme Court with an executive branch and judiciary...