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Shell has revealed a surge in quarterly profits on the back of the Middle East conflict but also given an update on costly war damage to its output. The oil and gas firm reported net profits of $6.9bn (£5.1bn) for the first three months of the year. The sum is more than double the result achieved between October and December 2025 and 24% higher on the same period last year. Like rival BP last week, Shell said the main boost to its bottom line came from oil trading, while profits in its chemicals and products business quadrupled. The headline profits...

Families hoping to make memories on a cruise were unknowingly surrounded by alleged child predators working aboard the ships, according to law enforcement officials. U.S. Customs and Border Protection boarded five cruise ships, including a Disney cruise docked in San Diego, between April 23 and 25 as part of ongoing Child Sexual Exploitation Material enforcement operations, a CBP spokesperson told The California Post. “After boarding the vessels and interviewing 26 suspected crew members from the Philippines, one suspected crew member from Portugal, and one from Indonesia, officers confirmed all subjects were involved in either the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or...

The Justice Department has launched an investigation into a radical Northern Virginia prosecutor who allegedly discriminated against US citizens by offering preferential treatment “only to illegal alien” criminal defendants. The DOJ notified Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Steve Descano on Wednesday that it is looking into potential civil rights violations related to his office’s plea bargaining, charging decisions and sentencing policies. “Under my leadership, the Civil Rights Division will not allow local prosecutors to pick and choose winners based on their immigration status,” Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said in a statement. “This investigation will uncover whether this prosecutor is putting...

Enraged PETA activists encased their feet in cement at PepsiCo’s New York headquarters over the alleged abuse of bulls in its sugar supply chain, according to authorities and reports. The animal rights activists clad in bull horns blocked the entrance to the PepsiCo headquarters in Purchase on Wednesday during the multinational food and beverage corporation’s virtual annual shareholder meeting, PETA announced in a statement. Video from the scene captured the chanting protesters spilling fake blood on the roadway, with their shoes stuck in cement blocks as cars honked and cops demanded they scurry. “Pepsi profits, bulls pay the price!” the...

The twelve apostles included "Simon, who is called Peter" (Matt. 10:2). God can use your natural abilities as a basis for your spiritual service. Peter is a good illustration of how God builds a spiritual leader. He begins with a person's natural traits and works from there. Natural traits alone don't make a spiritual leader—the person must also be gifted and called by the Holy Spirit to lead in the church and be a model of spiritual virtue. But often God endows future leaders with natural abilities that constitute the raw materials from which He builds spiritual ministries. That was...

Join with fellow FREEPERS across the world to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, Technology, Religious Freedom and the Media. "I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. "(1 Timothy 2:1-2) Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. "Finally, brothers, rejoice. Set things in order. Be encouraged. Agree with one another. Be at peace. And the God...

Ireland has the highest household electricity prices in the European Union, latest figures from Eurostat show. According to the figures from the EU’s statistical agency — which cover the second half of last year — electricity in Ireland cost 40.42 cent per kilowatt-hour (including VAT and levies), which was nearly 40% above the EU average of 28.96 cent. As a result, the average household in Ireland is paying around €480 a year more for its electricity compared to the EU average. The figures show Irish electricity prices jumped by 32.7% between July and December 2025, when compared with the same...

The idea behind this is as follows: Jews were massacred and their property stolen by Arabs, therefore Arab Palestinians have a right to it in perpetuity. They believe this is true of Jewish property in Jerusalem and Hebron as well, for example. This is a cornerstone of anti-Zionism, that Jews have no right to life or property. Yet there’s another point to be made here besides the fact that the mayor of New York and a legion of progressive-aligned anti-Semites revealed their unique combination of ignorance and bad faith. There are a couple of problems with the whole concept of...

More information has become available about what led to Loay Alnaji's surprise guilty plea on Tuesday morning and a potential sentence, but that information leads to additional questions we're still running down answers for. Alnaji, readers will recall, is the pro-Hamas agitator and community college professor who killed a Jewish man, Paul Kessler, when the two were attending dueling protests on November 5, 2023. Alnaji crossed two eight-lane streets to confront Kessler, who was waving an Israeli flag on the corner of Thousand Oaks Boulevard and Westlake Boulevard in Ventura County, CA. During that confrontation, Alnaji bashed Kessler's head with...

Vandals scrawled swastikas and Hitler graffiti on multiple homes and Jewish religious sites across Queens in an antisemitic spree on Monday – including a synagogue started by refugees fleeing the Holocaust. At least four people spray painted swastikas in red and black on the sides of at least five locations across the world’s borough, according to City Council Speaker’s Office and law enforcement sources. The rabbi for Congregation Machane Chodosh in Forest Hills, which was hit by the hateful graffiti, called it “very upsetting” and noted the synagogue was actually formed by German-Jewish refugees who reached the Big Apple to...

Karina is six months pregnant, but the foetus inside her womb is not her own. The 22-year-old from eastern Ukraine is a surrogate, pregnant with an embryo from a Chinese couple's egg and sperm. At the age of 17 Karina's home was destroyed when her city, Bakhmut, became one of the most fiercely contested battlegrounds in the early phase of Russia's full-scale invasion. With most of the city turned to rubble and ash, she and her partner moved to Kyiv but they struggled to find steady work. It was when Karina was in a shop one day, with barely enough...

Daily Readings from the USCCBJesus said to his disciples: “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.” John 15:9–10Imagine being loved by someone with a perfect love. Perfect love has no bounds, and experiencing it would be the source of indescribable joy. Now imagine further that the one who loves you is all-powerful and all-knowing. When combined with being all-loving, there is no limit to what such a relationship can...

In clips circulating on social media, women are seen running through crowded streets while groups of men pursue them. Moments later, the women are surrounded, their clothing torn off as they are groped and assaulted, while bystanders film and shout, with some appearing to cheer. In a statement, they described the Alue-Do festival as a fertility ritual, saying symbolic acts such as dragging and pouring sand on individuals are traditionally meant to invoke blessings for couples struggling to conceive

While criticizing a recent speech, Ocasio-Cortez took issue with what she claimed was Rubio’s statement that America’s cowboys came from Spain. “My favorite part was when he said that American cowboys came from Spain,” she said in her criticism of Rubio’s speech. “And I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have a word on that.” The History Channel reports that America’s cowboy culture stretches back further than America itself, to the era of Spanish colonialism. “Hundreds of years before there was the American cowboy, there was the vaquero,” it says, referring to expert horsemen...

Tribulation Update 1Things are happening rapidly so I’m not sure they’ll be a Tribulation Update 2EnochBook 1: Watchers Chapter 11 The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be 2 living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed…It goes on a bit…Daniel 12:8 And I heard, but I understood not: then said I, Adoni, what shall be the end of these things? 9 And he said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.10...

Sometimes what seems like a good idea at the time doesn't quite work out the way you pictured it. For example, when a firefighter in Spencerport, New York, was called in by a frantic owner to rescue a cat from a tree and all the usual methods like ladders drove the cat higher in the tree, he thought, "Wow, that's really high. There's got to be a better way." So, he got some people to stand under the tree with a blanket, and then cranked up the water cannon on top of the fire truck to spray the feline out....

Federal agents flooded MacArthur Park on Wednesday as authorities announced a sweeping operation targeting what officials described as a notorious open-air drug market tied to fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking. The enforcement action, dubbed “Operation Free MacArthur Park,” involved federal and local law enforcement agencies serving arrest and search warrants throughout the area surrounding the park. In a statement posted Wednesday afternoon, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the operation targeted street-level drug dealers and suppliers accused of distributing “massive amounts” of fentanyl and methamphetamine. “Federal agents have taken control of MacArthur Park to execute federal arrest and search warrants...

It frames recent events as major political and momentum victories for Trump, the MAGA movement, and Republican priorities. Here's a concise breakdown of the main points: 1. FBI Corruption Probe of Prominent Democrat (Biggest Highlight) The FBI raided the office of Virginia State Senate President Pro Tem L. Louise Lucas (a powerful Democrat) and a cannabis dispensary she co-owns in Portsmouth. It's described as part of a major corruption investigation with court-approved warrants. Lucas denied wrongdoing and appeared stunned. Democrats called it politically motivated (especially given her role in recent redistricting that favored Democrats), while the video portrays it as...

Dive into the riveting story of the North American X-15, the legendary rocket plane that bridged the gap between conventional airplanes and the Space Shuttle. Uncover the triumphs and tragedies of the pilots who rode this hypersonic beast to the threshold of space, facing deadly G-forces, blistering heat, and the unforgiving vacuum of the upper atmosphere. Learn about the radical aerospace innovations that made Mach 6.7 possible. Mach 6.7: America's Most Dangerous Ride to Space. Piloting a Bomb: Inside the Cockpit of the X-15 | 1:44:54 DroneScapes | 496K subscribers | 47,838 views | May 2, 2026

Researchers have proposed a theoretical approach that could allow messages to be sent into the past using principles from quantum mechanics. Indeed, it could be happening right now already!The concept does not enable physical travel through time but focuses on information transfer through causal loops at the quantum scale.The work, accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters, builds on ideas from general relativity and quantum entanglement. A technique inspired by the film Interstellar suggests a new way of communicating backwards in time, but it could help improve conventional communication systems as well https://t.co/FXQTvhE6uE — New Scientist (@newscientist) May 2, 2026It...