Free Republic

Archbishop George Leo Thomas is urging Catholics to vote no on Nevada Question 6, warning that the measure would allow abortion into the ninth month and take parents out of a minor’s decision. From the pulpit Sunday, the Archdiocese of Las Vegas asked Catholics across five counties to reject the ballot question, which would write abortion into the state constitution. Abortion is already legal in Nevada but this would expand it in the extreme. Thomas’ pastoral letter was read at Mass in the archdiocese’s 34 parishes. “This question is not whether abortion is legal in Nevada; it already is under...

Retired NFL icon Jason Kelce found himself in an embarrassing situation in the broadcast booth during Sunday's matchup between the Washington Commanders and the Indianapolis Colts, prompting an on-air apology to viewers at home. Kelce joined Dave Pasch and Kurt Warner in the booth for the international fixture, with the Commanders and Colts squaring off in London. It proved to be a rough day for Washington, who lost wide receiver Jaylin Lane and quarterback Marcus Mariota to injury. Matters deteriorated further when Kelce inadvertently referred to the team as the Redskins, a moniker the organization has been actively distancing itself...

Sometimes, it takes five years for the U.S. federal government to even begin to correct a miscarriage of justice. On October 4, 2021, then-U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland issued an infamous memo vowing to commit federal resources to investigate, as domestic terrorists, concerned parents over constitutionally protected speech against local school board policies. On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) Weaponization Working Group finally published a scathing report on the “Garland Memo,” along with proposed steps to provide justice for the parents whose constitutional rights were so egregiously ignored. Over the past five years, independent and congressional investigations revealed...

An Arizona man's 10-year manslaughter sentence has been tossed in a case where a video generated by artificial intelligence portrayed the deceased victim addressing a judge before the punishment was imposed. In a decision released Wednesday, the Arizona Court of Appeals concluded Gabriel Paul Horcasitas must be resentenced in the 2021 shooting death of Christopher Pelkey because the AI video wasn't reliable. The court found the video crossed the line, saying it didn't reflect actual events and presented statements made in the footage as coming directly from the victim. "Indeed, rather than document an event or recording a particular moment,...

I was -1. I wonder what it was like to see live. It likely cost him the Election and led to President Reagan.

"Americans could pay far more to heat their homes with oil this winter than last, a new analysis reviewed by Axios shows, as volatile energy markets and the Iran War deepen the affordability crisis. Why it matters: Heating bills are eating into household budgets before winter sets in, with stark divides between fuel types. By the numbers: Families that heat with oil could pay about 50% more this winter than last, according to estimates from the National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA), up from its 31.3% projection in mid-September. The average cost of heating a home with oil is expected...

France is on the precipice of a dangerous financial spiral. The global surge in interest rates has exposed the country, once considered an oasis of relative stability in Europe’s financial markets, as one of the continent’s weakest links. France now pays more to borrow than former crisis hot spots like Greece and Italy. Its government is running a budget deficit surpassed only by the United States among its peers. Last week, a slow-burning selloff in France’s government bond market took an alarming turn as it spread across the continent, reviving memories of the eurozone debt crisis last decade. France’s 10-year...

The US debt load crossed $40 trillion in August 2026. The Treasury publishes the number and updates it every business day. $32.4 trillion of it is borrowed from investors, pension funds, and foreign governments. Another $7.7 trillion is owed to the government's trust funds, including the funds that pay Social Security and Medicare. I spent two terms chairing the House Financial Institutions Committee, reading numbers like these, page after page. The pace worried me more than the total ever did. Everyone quotes the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline when they talk about where the debt is headed. CBO is the nonpartisan...

Video posted by government forces in Yemen showed them driving armoured cars over Houthi ⁠fighters ⁠as they recaptured areas around the vital Bab el-Mandeb Strait from ⁠the Iran-backed group on Monday in a deadly new phase of the fragmented country's war. The videos gave a glimpse into the brutal closing stages ​of a pitched battle for control of territory near the strait that the Houthis had captured last month. The Houthi advance sent shockwaves through the oil market and pushed up petrol and diesel prices worldwide. Fighting continued near Bab el-Mandeb ‌on Tuesday as Saudi-backed government forces battled to consolidate...

While inflation has been running stubbornly high, American paychecks are growing even faster than prices are rising. Inflation-adjusted weekly wages have risen in 16 out of the 18 months for which the government reported data since President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January 2025. There was no data for October because of the government shutdown last year. To put it differently, real weekly wages have been positive 89 percent of the time since Trump took office. By contrast, real weekly wages rose less than half of the time—46 percent—during Biden’s presidency. During Trump’s first term, real weekly wages were positive...

NASHVILLE, TN — Prison officials admitted they were unsure how to go about executing a woman who was currently being kept alive by a ventilator that is plugged into a power outlet in the wall. After surviving two botched lethal injections, convicted murderer Christa Pike is now in critical condition and is solely being kept alive by a machine that breathes for her, which is powered by a standard 120-volt power outlet in the wall. Prison officials, who ordered the medical interventions that are keeping her alive, are baffled as to how they could execute the vulnerable death row inmate...

With just 28 days remaining until he faces off against Republican candidate Ken Paxton, Democrat James Talarico is nowhere to be found. Talarico has not been seen publicly in Texas in over a week, with his last appearance occurring on Saturday, September 26, before he took a fundraising trip to New York City.

When a federal appeals court known for its rock-bottom track record in Supreme Court reviews reinstated California's so-called gender secrecy policies in schools, parents and teachers ran to SCOTUS for an emergency injunction. The gambit worked, prompting a broadside by six justices against lower courts for ignoring a century of precedents. Now a mother and daughter in Washington state are seeking the same shortcut around the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which rejected their plea to force a school district and state athletic association to warn them before the girl unwittingly competes against another male in girls' wrestling, as...

SEATTLE (AP) — Federal authorities arrested and charged a 30-year-old from Washington state on Tuesday in connection with a February school shooting in British Columbia. The U.S. attorney’s office in Seattle says James Cody Bryant of Bellingham, Washington, communicated with the 18-year-old shooter for six months ahead of time. Bryant, who identifies as female, did not report the shooter’s plans to authorities and conspired with her to broadcast the attacks, authorities allege. “Without Bryant’s misplaced loyalty and willingness to operate the livestream, we don’t ultimately know if the shooter would have gone through with the crime,” said W. Mike Herrington,...

Zion Teasley, the man who stabbed Phoenix hiker Lauren Heike 15 times on a trail in 2023, has pleaded guilty to her murder in a deal that takes the death penalty off the table and sends him to prison for life. Teasley, 25, killed Heike, a 29-year-old beauty technician, after stalking her on a hiking trail near her home. Neighbors found her body at the foot of a barbed wire fence. Police said he chased her, killed her with a pocketknife, and jumped the fence to get away.

Video of the violence with communist and palestinian flags flying from the Red-Green alliance. French police unable to control the mobs.

Scientists are as prone as anyone else to groupthink, and stifling dissent often produces disaster. Three of the costliest policy failures in recent decades—the 2008 financial crisis, the Covid lockdowns and the campaign for rapid decarbonization—share a pathology we call the Consensus Trap. Problems began with the output of complex, unvalidated models presented as facts. Institutions and public figures under pressure to appear authoritative ignored uncertainties. Along with the press, these institutions and people became arbiters of truth, amplifying the declared consensus rather than critically assessing the evidence. Once “the science” was declared, dissent was treated as misconduct. In all...

Imagine your mom and dad intentionally sent you to a bad school. How would you respond? Some 11 years ago, parents Faraji and Nikole Hannah-Jones dropped their daughter off at school for the first time. Because of New York City’s novel Pre-K for All program, they could apply for any of the 1,800 options across the city. Instead of choosing the school that was best for their daughter, they deliberately sent young Najya to a school they knew was subpar. Now they’re left wondering if that decision was a mistake. On Sept. 20, Nikole Hannah-Jones released an essay examining all...

The European Commission proposed measures on Tuesday to prepare the EU to take in countries such ​as Montenegro, Albania, Ukraine and Moldova in coming years while trying ‌to reassure existing members about potential political and economic costs. The proposals by the European Union’s executive body reflect a renewed interest among EU members in expanding the 27-nation bloc, driven ​largely by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and Kyiv’s desire to ​join the bloc as part of a peace settlement. The proposed ⁠reforms include a measure to allow other EU countries to suspend a ​new member's voting rights during the first 15...

The situation in France appeared to be escalating Monday as viral video showed a burning school with staff, students, and journalists barricaded inside. The scene, ripped right from the medieval crusades or the Jacobins’ 18th-century Reign of Terror, occurred at Nicolas Louis Vauquelin vocational high school, located in the 13th Arrondissement in southeast Paris. The spot is roughly three miles from tourist-heavy spots like the Notre Dame Cathedral, which itself was reopened in December 2024 after six years of restoration following a devastating fire, reportedly caused by an electrical short-circuit or discarded cigarette. It was not immediately apparent whether the...