Free Republic

A Canadian junior hockey team's pockets are thousands of dollars lighter after one of the team's scouts got into trouble during an interview at the league’s draft. The problem? Telling a reporter she was good-looking.

Actor Mark Hamill made big news this week when he posted an AI generated image of President Trump laying in a shallow grave. The caption began "If only..." The White House was quick to respond, calling him "one sick individual." Hamill, who still does work as a voice actor, seems to have thought better of wishing President Trump was dead and deleted the post. He then posted another one in which he vaguely apologized and claimed people had misunderstood his point. Others didn't even pretend to be sorry. One response read, "Your post made it to the White House and...

10 May 20266th Sunday of EasterBasílica de San Juan de Ávila, Montilla, SpainReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: White. Year: A(II).If the Ascension of the Lord is going to be celebrated next Sunday, the alternative Second Reading and Gospel shown here (which would otherwise have been read on that Sunday) may be used today.First readingActs 8:5-8,14-17They laid hands on them, and they received the Holy SpiritPhilip went to a Samaritan town and proclaimed the Christ to them. The people united in welcoming the message Philip preached, either because they had heard of the miracles he worked or because they saw them...

On January 9, 2026, Mexico enacted a new law requiring all cell phone numbers to be verifiably associated with an individual. Any cell phone number not associated with a person and their government-issued ID by June 30, 2026, will be suspended until/unless the number is registered by a verified user. If you have an active Mexican cell phone number: Whether you are situated in Mexico or abroad (or travel between countries); and Whether that number is active with a physical SIM card or a virtual eSIM; and Whether you are on a contract or a prepay phone plan; and You...

'Start a blood libel, stage the Pallywood, dominate the headlines, and by the time the hoax collapses, the Pulitzer is already on the shelf.' Saul Sadka @Saul_Sadka: Start a blood libel, win a Pulitzer Libs of TikTok @libsoftiktok You literally cannot make this up The photojournalist of this front page NYT piece Saher Alghorra just won a Pulitzer Prize NYT had to issue a retraction because the entire story was fake.So you can win a pulitzer now after fabricating an entire hoax story 🤡 Unreal. May 7, 2026 https://x.com/Saul_Sadka/status/2052539777438670979

I spent last weekend crossing half the globe with Prime Minister Mark Carney, to spend a few hours with European leaders in Yerevan, the stunning Armenian capital, before crossing all the way back to Ottawa. Mr. Carney was the first non-European leader to be invited to a meeting of the European Political Community, a grouping that brings together the 27 European Union member states with allies and neighbors, including Britain and Turkey, as well as aspiring members such as Ukraine and Albania. This meeting happens twice a year, and it’s mostly a chance for the leaders to talk about pressing...

What we know: According to TPD, a large group of teens attempted to take over the area of Curtis Hixon Park on Friday night, causing traffic disruptions, fights and other issues in the park.TPD responded to the disturbance with patrol officers, bike units and Air Service personnel to ensure the safety of the surrounding community. As a result of the operation, 22 people were arrested on charges that include affray (public fight, or noisy brawl), possession of narcotics, resisting without violence and unlawful possession of a weapon. Officers seized two firearms and one vehicle. Only four of those arrested were...

We reported on former President Barack Obama's effort this week to pump up his presidential center, which is finally opening in June.(snip) I can't imagine there would be a lot of ordinary folks beating down the doors to visit. As we've noted, the main building is not exactly a beacon of attractiveness. It's just flat-out ugly. They're even selling a pin that's supposed to look like the building, and the pin is similarly ugly. Plus, you have to shell out $30 for the pin, which is just a gray blob of clay. One of the funniest was this necklace, which...

Failed regimes are faltering while political and military reality is asserting itself with unmistakable force. For more than 20 years, Robert J. Lurtsema (1931–2000) hosted a classical music radio show on the Boston station WGBH. He typically began the show with a bit of birdsong. He followed that soothing introit with a brief recap of the news, which he wrote up himself and delivered in his unmistakable, sonorous baritone (like “warm fudge,” said one admirer). I liked the timbre of his voice, at once calming and authoritative. I also liked Lurtsema’s good humor. Occasionally, when a paucity of noteworthy events...

North Korea has formally amended its constitution to mandate an automatic nuclear strike if leader Kim Jong Un is killed or the regime’s command structure comes under attack. This chilling “dead hand” policy, enacted in the shadow of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assassination by U.S.-Israeli strikes, reveals the regime’s paranoia and the inescapable logic of deterrence in a world of tyrants.

More than a hundred Labour Party politicians have called on Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer to set out plans to resign from his post following this week’s disastrous defeat in the local elections to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party. The knives are out for Prime Minister Starmer, who is now embroiled in a desperate fight to extend his political life after a historically poor performance in the rough British equivalent of a midterm election this week. Starmer’s Labour suffered heavy losses in councils across England, losing control of traditional “red wall” seats to Farage’s Reform party, while losing power in...

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney posted on X on Friday, greeting former President Barack Obama, which drew a lot of attention. "Welcome back to Canada, President @BarackObama. Thank you for joining us in Toronto for important conversations on how we can build a better and more just future — and empower more people to build with us." It even had a music track. That prompted many on social media to wonder what Obama was doing meeting with Carney, since Obama is no longer in government. Carney seemed to be implying they were somehow working on something to "build a better...

An X user posted the photo of the 49-year-old politician posing on a bed wearing a skimpy slip, blasting Italy’s first woman prime minister as “shameful.” Meloni shared a screenshot of the post on Tuesday with an assurance that the photo is indeed fake — albeit fabulous. “Several fake photos of me are circulating, generated with artificial intelligence … I must admit that whoever created them, at least in the attached case, has also improved me quite a bit,” wrote the politician, who was elected in 2022. She went on to warn against ne’er-do-wells who use artificial intelligence to dupe...

MADRID, May 10 (Reuters) - British paratroopers have dropped onto Britain's most remote overseas territory, Tristan da Cunha, along with medics and medical supplies, after a case of suspected hantavirus was ​confirmed there. A team of six paratroopers and two military clinicians from 16 ‌Air Assault Brigade jumped from an RAF A400M transport aircraft that flew 6,788 km (4,218 miles) from RAF Brize Norton air base in Oxfordshire to Ascension Island then another 3,000 km due south to Tristan ​da Cunha.

I do not like Chief Justice John Roberts. I think his loyalties lie more with defending the entrenched powers of the political Establishment than with defending the Constitution of the United States. I find his jurisprudence squishy. Although his decisions could be described as advancing, more often than not, conservative viewpoints, Roberts does not seem to have a consistent philosophy guiding his opinions. Roberts is a pragmatist. He surveys the mood of the country and considers how the rest of the members of the Court will vote on any case, and he chooses a position that he feels will best...

Medicaid is the joint federal/state program that provides free medical care to the poor and near-poor in the U.S. Who could be against that? A website called Statista collects data on various subjects of interest and presents them in useful charts. One subject is the total federal plus state spending on the Medicaid program by year since inception of the program back in the 1960s through the latest year of 2024. Here is that chart: Looking at the chart, a few things leap out. One is rapid and unbroken growth year after year from the beginning up to the most...

HMS Dragon, a Type-45 destroyer, is sailing from the eastern Mediterranean, where it was originally sent to safeguard British military bases from Iranian drone strikes. The ship, which has been undergoing weapons testing off Crete, will join a future 'defensive and independent' mission jointly led by the UK and France – once the Iran war ends. A defence source said: 'Dragon is a highly capable warship, so naturally she is likely to be part of our UK contribution to restoring confidence for global trade through the Strait.' The destroyer, which has a 285-strong crew and is equipped with the Sea...

A man who killed one person and injured a dozen more in a firebombing attack on demonstrators showing support for Israeli hostages in Gaza was sentenced Thursday to life in prison plus over 2,000 more years immediately after pleading guilty to first-degree murder and dozens of other state charges. Mohamed Sabry Soliman said he wished he could get the death penalty under Colorado law and asked federal authorities to seek capital punishment against him in the related hate crime case pending against him in federal court. “The court finds your choices were acts of terror and they victimized an entire...

There are moments in American foreign policy when the warning signs are flashing so brightly that failing to act becomes its own form of negligence. This is one of those moments. Senator Ted Cruz and his fellow sponsors of S. 4063 are not engaging in political theater. They are responding to a gathering national security threat that too many in Washington have either underestimated or deliberately ignored for years: the growing cooperation between the Polisario Front and Iranian-backed terrorist networks operating across North Africa and beyond. The Senate should move quickly to advance this legislation. Not because it is politically...

British Army medics have parachuted onto the remote Atlantic island of Tristan da Cunha to help a British national with suspected hantavirus.The man left MV Hondius, the cruise ship hit by a deadly outbreak of the virus, in mid-April at Britain's most remote inhabited overseas territory, where he lives...Oxygen was also dropped from an RAF A400M on Saturday, with supplies at a "critical level" on the island, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said. A team of six paratroopers and two medical clinicians from 16 Air Assault Brigade parachuted on to Tristan da Cunha - an archipelago in the South Atlantic...