Free Republic

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is getting to take to the skies again as it launches the ViaSat-3 F3 mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. UPDATE: The launch attempt was scrubbed due to weather on April 27, 2026. Next launch attempt will be April 28. Scrub! SpaceX Falcon Heavy's first launch since 2024 delayed due to weather | 13:27 VideoFromSpace | 2.12M subscribers | 19,216 views | April 27, 2026

ouching down in the nation's capital under a cloud of security and fierce political tension, King Charles III and Queen Camilla officially kicked off their four–day state visit on Monday. Donald Trump and Melania Trump were on hand to welcome the royal couple at the White House in the afternoon. Amid West Wing construction and fresh security concerns following the terrifying shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner over the weekend, the royals were greeted by the President and First Lady...

“Multiple young men” were allegedly drugged and raped at Jeffrey Epstein’s Zorro Ranch, according to an explosive new report which detailed harrowing accusations from murder to babies snatched from mothers at the pedophile’s New Mexico house of horrors.

RT 14 m 57 s .... ...Susan Kokinda links a third assassination attempt on Donald Trump at the Washington Hilton—where a 31-year-old Californian, Cole Tomas Allen, charged a Secret Service checkpoint with firearms and knives—to a broader political struggle she frames as the British imperial system versus Trump’s “American System.” She argues Trump’s own remarks about assassinations point to a pattern of targeting “impactful” leaders, comparing today’s climate to anarchist-era killings around 1900 and the 1901 assassination of William McKinley. Kokinda ties the attack’s timing to King Charles’ Washington visit, a new book, The Queen and Her Presidents, and a...

A federal appeals court on Monday allowed the Pentagon to reinstate its ban on journalists being able to enter the building without an escort, marking the latest in a back-and-forth battle between Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the press. After the Pentagon moved to restrict access for news outlets that refused to abide by new government reporting rules, a judge struck it down. The Pentagon then announced a broader ban on all journalists entering the main building without an escort, citing safety reasons. The lower court judge said that the new ban violated his initial order — but the U.S....

The number of immigrants residing in the European Union climbed to ​a record high of 64.2 million in ‌2025, up about 2.1 million from a year earlier, according to a report published on Wednesday by the ​Centre for Research and Analysis on Migration ​at RFBerlin. The figure compares with 40 million ⁠in 2010, the report said, citing Eurostat and ​U.N. Refugee Agency data. Germany remained the bloc's biggest ​host of foreign-born people at nearly 18 million, 72% of them of working age, while Spain posted the ​fastest recent growth, adding about 700,000 to bring ​its foreign-born population to 9.5 million....

A 2023 Texas law that lets state police arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally can go into effect after a federal appeals court on Friday lifted a lower court ruling that had stopped it for years. The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the temporary injunction without weighing in on the underlying legal questions because the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, according to the court’s order. The Legislature passed the law, known as Senate Bill 4, in response to record illegal border crossings that the state said amounted to an invasion, and that have since subsided. Immigration...

When Sir Christian Turner, a career diplomat, was made Britain’s new US ambassador after Lord Mandelson’s sacking, his priorities were clear. First, he was to act as a safe pair of hands, preserving what was left of the special relationship. Second, he was to dispel the notion that Britain had become a woke hellhole, where knife gangs and Islamists run amok, and where critics are locked up. “I won’t shy from debate,” Turner vowed in his opening speech in February. “I will tell you why London is the safest city in the G7 – fact – why we’re not curtailing...

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Senator Flavio Bolsonaro are statistically tied in a simulated runoff for this year's presidential election, a BTG Pactual/Nexus poll showed on Monday. • Leftist Lula would receive 46% of the vote in a second-round matchup, compared with 45% for right-wing Bolsonaro. • In a March survey, they were tied at 46% each. • In three first-round simulations, Lula was seen capturing 41% of the vote, while Flavio would take between 36% and 38%, depending on other candidates. • In Brazil, if no candidate gets more than 50% of valid votes, the two...

Hollywood actress Mariclare Costello has died at the age of 90. She passed away on the morning of April 17, in Brooklyn, New York, according to the Peoria Journal Star. The star was best known for starring on the family TV show The Waltons. She played Rosemary Hunter Fordwick from 1972 to 1977. And she went on to make several other shows like The Fitzpatricks in 1977 with Helen Hunt and Jimmy McNichol where she played matriarch Maggie Fitzpatrick. The actress then starred in movies such as After The Fall in 1974 with Faye Dunaway and Christopher Plummer as well...

Bruce Springsteen offered a "prayer of thanks" for Donald Trump at the beginning of his show in Austin on Sunday night. The legendary rocker – who has been embroiled in a war of words with the President for years – offered a moment of civility by acknowledging the shooting at the White House Correspondent's Dinner, which took place the night before. In his message, the Boss gave a “prayer of thanks that our President, nor anyone in the administration, nor anyone attending, was injured” (via Consequence). “We can disagree,” Springsteen continued. “We can be critical of those in power, and...

Former FBI profiler Jim Clemente tells "Elizabeth Vargas Reports" that Nancy Guthrie likely coughed up blood on her front entrance as she was being abducted late Jan. 31 or early Feb. 1. "This is probably where she made her last stand," he said. Nancy Guthrie blood spatter: Ex-FBI profiler lays out chilling theory Elizabeth Vargas Reports | 6:15 NewsNation | 2.66M subscribers | Subscribe | 256,958 views | April 25, 2026

A hot air balloon slammed into a Sacramento-area casino building Monday afternoon and stayed in the air after the chaotic tumble. Sister station KCRA's LiveCopter 3 captured the moment the balloon slammed into a building as Sky River Casino was celebrating a groundbreaking for a new hotel. The video showed the basket of the balloon hit the side of the building, at one point reaching a 90-degree angle, while there was someone still inside the basket. The balloon kept going, attempting to descend for a landing, then aborting the effort and climbing back into the sky. LiveCopter 3 observed the...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump welcomed King Charles III and Queen Camilla to the White House on Monday for a brief joint press conference in which he presented the British monarch with an autographed copy of the Declaration of Independence. Trump fielded a question from a reporter about the longstanding relationship between the U.S. and England before bringing out what he called a "special limited edition" copy of the Declaration of Independence. "We have here a copy of the Declaration of Independence," Trump said with a boyish grin. "And this one is really special because it's signed by me,...

British control of the Falkland Islands, which the United States helped the Brits reconquer in the 1982 Falklands War, now seems to be at risk. There are news reports that the Trump administration’s list of ways to punish recalcitrant NATO allies includes siding with Argentina over control of the Falklands. London’s Express reported that Donald Trump’s Pentagon officials are exploring ways the United States can punish NATO countries for failing to support the Iran war, including by reportedly reviewing Britain’s claim to the Falkland Islands. . . . An option included in the message is to consider reassessing US diplomatic...

Days before the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting, Kimmel said during a late-night monologue that the first lady had "a glow like an expectant widow."President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump are taking aim at late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel over a joke he made about the first lady looking like an "expectant widow," days before the shooting incident at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Saturday. In a fiery statement Monday on social media, President Trump criticized Kimmel's joke and called on Disney — which owns ABC and airs the "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" show — to fire...

From a "Day On The Green" concert promoted by Bill Graham, 2 July 1977. A brilliant live performance, they also played "Sweet Home Alabama". I was able to replace the audio as this performance was used in "Freebird - The Movie" of which a soundtrack album was issued. Unfortunately there is no track for "Sweet Home Alabama". MtnClimber: I saw the band on October 18, 1977 at the Lakeland (FL) civic center on the next to the last performance before the plane crash. It was the 5th time I had seen them. The devastating Lynyrd Skynyrd plane crash near Gillsburg,...

A real policy push emerged in 2024 to extend certain legal protections to Americans who serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). In 2024, members of Congress introduced H.R. 8445, a bill that would have amended federal law “to provide for the eligibility of United States citizens who serve in the Israeli Defense Forces for certain protections relating to such service.” Under current law, US veterans’ benefits are tied to service in the US armed forces. The statutory definition of “veteran” appears at 38 USC § 101(2) and limits eligibility to those who served in US military forces or narrow...

Rev. Jim Rigby also called the confederacy the 'heart of the MAGA movement' and labeled it a 'fascistic movement' Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, called on Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico to "condemn" his pastor's Sunday sermon, claiming that Talarico's pastor "made light" of the assassination attempt on President Donald Trump at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner this past Saturday. Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, has centered his campaign and progressive policies — which include anti-ICE and open borders messaging — on his faith background. At the same time, he has railed against Christian nationalism and called for the separation of...

Peter Thompson is co-founder and CEO of LucidLink, the cloud-native file streaming platform that enables instant, secure access to large files by streaming data on demand, allowing teams to access and edit complex filesets without downloading or syncing. I was 48 years old when I left my job and enrolled in the Entrepreneurial Studies program at Stanford. Most people at that stage of their careers are trying to reduce risk, not introduce it. They have steady income. They have dependents. In tech, the unspoken assumption is that if you were going to take a big swing, you should have done...