Free Republic

Unsealed 2017 DOJ emails reveal that Jeffrey Epstein used UAE and Saudi contacts to acquire and ship three fragments of the Kiswa (the Kaaba’s sacred cloth) to his private residence in the US Virgin Islands. Labeled as "artwork" to clear customs, the transfer of these highly spiritual items—traditionally reserved for diplomatic gifts—has sparked intense backlash due to their religious sanctity and unauthorized possession by Epstein. Unsealed DOJ documents reveal that in 2017, Jeffrey Epstein acquired three pieces of the Kiswa (the sacred cloth of the Kaaba), coordinated by an Emirati businesswoman and a Saudi contact, and shipped to his residence...

President Donald Trump has announced he is seeking $1 billion in damages from Harvard University, accusing the institution of attempting to avoid a settlement through a job training proposal he described as “wholly inadequate” and alleging that its actions rise to the level of criminal misconduct. […] Trump’s administration has maintained that Harvard acted with “deliberate indifference” toward Jewish and Israeli students and has cited a series of incidents—including physical altercations during anti-Israel protests and the hiring of individuals previously involved in such events—as grounds for punitive action. The Department of Justice’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism, led by Leo...

Meanwhile, some bus crew escalated the matter to higher authorities, and Sasiraj was temporarily suspended.In a shocking instance of caste discrimination, a bus driver attached to the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) Mettupalayam branch-1 in Coimbatore district, allegedly cleaned and smeared the branch manager’s office floor with cow dung on January 23 after the latter, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste (SC), received a transfer order. Following the incident, a senior TNSTC official from Coimbatore region suspended the driver, S Sasiraj, who also serves as secretary of the LPF union affiliated with the DMK, on charges of caste discrimination...

Five months after her boyfriend’s headless body was discovered inside her home, a California woman who had been working as an exotic dancer has been extradited from Mexico to face murder charges. Alyssa Marie Lira, 23, of Anaheim, faces one count of murder with a felony enhancement for personally using a weapon, prosecutors announced Thursday. On Aug. 25, 2025, the decapitated body of 55-year-old Enrique Gonzalez-Carbajal was found inside Lira’s Anaheim home. Homicide detectives quickly identified Lira as the suspect, prosecutors said, and learned she had fled to Mexico. The couple had been dating for about two months and met...

A massive chain-reaction crash involving dozens of vehicles shut down both directions of California's Highway 99 on Saturday morning after dense fog reduced visibility and triggered one of the region's worst pileups in years. The crash happened just after 8.15am near the small farming community of Earlimart in Tulare County, where drivers encountered sudden, near-zero visibility conditions that caused multiple vehicles to collide into one another across both the northbound and southbound lanes. Within seconds, the roadway became a tangled mass of crushed sedans, jackknifed semi-trucks and debris scattered across multiple lanes. California Highway Patrol (CHP) confirmed that 59 vehicles...

The sicko Washington high school teacher who preyed on an underage student exchanged nauseating texts with the teen — before they spent three-and-a-half hours having sex in her marital home, according to a disturbing new report. The depraved sex marathon kicked off when McKenna Kindred, now 27, invited her 17-year-old student from Spokane’s Central Valley High School to the house she shared with her lawyer husband, Kyle Kindred, in November 2022, the Daily Mail reported. Her devoted hubby was away on a hunting trip.

Former President Joe Biden, who oversaw what is widely considered the “worst border crisis in U.S. history,” took to social media on Tuesday to condemn the immigration crackdown happening in Minneapolis. Biden, 83, issued a statement following the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti on Saturday by Border Patrol officers in the city, which occurred the same month as the fatal shooting of Renee Good during an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operation. The former president, who is still plagued with the scandal of the autopen and the apparent coverup of his mental deterioration, said the events that have unfolded in...

WASHINGTON — Composer Philip Glass announced Tuesday that he is withdrawing his symphony from the Kennedy Center, pointing to the arts center's values and leadership. "After thoughtful consideration, I have decided to withdraw my Symphony No. 15 'Lincoln' from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts," Glass announced in a statement posted to X. "Symphony No. 15 is a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, and the values of the Kennedy Center today are in direct conflict with the message of the Symphony," he continued. "Therefore, I feel an obligation to withdraw this Symphony premiere from the Kennedy Center under...

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF MODERN LEFTISM Almost everyone will agree that we live in a deeply troubled society. One of the most widespread manifestations of the craziness of our world is leftism, so a discussion of the psychology of leftism can serve as an introduction to the discussion of the problems of modern society in general. But what is leftism? During the first half of the 20th century leftism could have been practically identified with socialism. Today the movement is fragmented and it is not clear who can properly be called a leftist. When we speak of leftists in this article...

A Columbia PhD candidate sparked widespread backlash after revealing she chose not to report her rape because of her stark prison abolitionist views. Anna Krauthamer published an essay titled 'Why I Didn’t Report My Rape,' explaining why she did not alert authorities to her 2021 sexual assault after she was gang raped in Las Vegas. Krauthamer, a self-proclaimed 'staunch prison abolition activist', said she did not report the assault because she wished it had never happened and believed imprisoning the abusers would do nothing for her. 'The prospect of being a participant in other peoples’ incarceration is as alien to...

The prospect of a full-blown trade war between the EU and the US was averted for the second time in less than 12 months following President Donald Trump's dramatic U-turn on Greenland. For Ireland, several uncomfortable truths are emerging after this week’s geopolitical chaos. The trading relationship with the US is part of the bedrock of the Irish economic success story. It is based on Ireland providing an environment of stability for multinationals. One of the certainties important for US corporations is the level of tariffs applied to exports shipped across the Atlantic. […] Fortunately for Ireland, pharmaceuticals and computer...

A 'Karen' from Maine let it slip to the Daily Mail that she was the one who tried to allegedly stop police from investigating a serious threat to a school because she thought they were Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Mary Conmee, 63, gladly answered the phone on Thursday morning, but instead of greeting the reporter, she appeared to be having a conversation with someone else about what she did. During that discussion, Conmee, a retired New York State Police Sgt. who resides in Orrington, confessed she was the woman who tried to impede the Brewer Police Department's investigation...

The overwhelming majority of households headed by Afghan immigrants with children in the home are on one or more forms of taxpayer-funded welfare in the United States, newly released analysis reveals. The analysis, published by Jason Richwine at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), reviews Census Bureau data on Afghan immigrants in the U.S. — an immigrant group that has exploded from just 22,000 in 1990 to almost a quarter of a million as of 2024.Most significantly, the Census data shows that almost all Afghan households with children are on publicly funded welfare — similar to that of Somali immigrant...

China has deployed life-sized AI-powered 'robocops' to police roads and direct traffic around the clock. Wearing reflective vests and white caps, the humanoid officers have been spotted patrolling Wuhu City, in eastern China's Anhui Province, barking orders at civilians. 'For your safety, please ride bicycles in the non-motorized lane,' one robot was heard calling out to a cyclist who veered into traffic. The robots' futuristic appearance has made them local celebrities, with pedestrians frequently pausing to snap photos. Traffic police officer Jiang Zihao described the machines as 'new colleagues' capable of assisting officers on the streets. According to Jiang, the...

Democrat Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro has alleged that staffers for former Vice President Kamala Harris questioned whether he was a double agent of Israel when vetting him as a potential 2024 running mate. Writing in his new memoir, Where We Keep the Light, the prominent Democrat governor alleged that the former vice president’s vetting team scrutinized his views on Israel, mostly due to his being Jewish. “Had I been a double agent for Israel?” Shapiro wrote in describing his offended response to a last-minute question from the vetting team. When he called out the question for its obvious antisemitic overtones,...

In Seattle, the new socialist mayor Katie Wilson urged people to sign up for 'Washington for All ICE Mobilization Alerts', a group which is training to 'mobilize a unified response' to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities. 'This will take all of us,' the Seattle Mayor said in a rallying call to residents via a video message posted on her X account, while she also joined protests in the city. 'We already have laws in place that forbid our local police from aiding ICE in most instances. The police will adhere to these laws. That's an important step,' added Wilson,...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) revealed that Democrats would “restore most of the cuts” that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had made. While taking part in a discussion at the Center for American Progress, Schumer received a question about what he “can do about bringing” the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) back, after DOGE came in and made cuts. “If you look at the budget actually, we’re working on right now — and we’ll have the T-HUD budget, you know, transportation and HUD budget, we restore most of the cuts and even go higher than previous...

…The US has accused the Marinera of breaking its sanctions by carrying oil for Venezuela, Russia and Iran. The ship, previously known as Bella 1, was boarded while south of Iceland last week and is now in the Moray Firth while a US Coast Guard ship involved in the operation is berthed in Aberdeen. US administration sources said the tanker would be subject to a judicial forfeiture process when it arrives in the US and any individuals involved in its attempts to flee face federal prosecution.… …But Moscow denounced the seizure, demanding that the US treat Russians aboard properly and...

You stub your toe on the bedpost. Before your brain even registers the pain, a word explodes from your mouth — sharp, loud and oddly satisfying. Far from being a simple slip in manners, swearing is a reflex rooted deep in the structure of the human body, drawing on networks in the brain and autonomic nervous system that evolved to help us survive pain and shock. Research shows that a well-placed expletive can dull pain, regulate the heart and help the body recover from stress. The occasional outburst, it seems, isn’t a moral failure — it’s a protective reflex wired...

A former Fox TV anchor accused of murdering her elderly mother is too insane to be tried for the killing, a judge has ruled. Angelynn Mock, 47, was taken into custody last October in Wichita, Kansas, for allegedly stabbing her 81-year-old mom Anita Avers to death. The former Fox 2 presenter was charged in November with first-degree murder after Avers was found with multiple stab wounds inside her home. Sedgwick County District Judge Jeff Goering ruled this week that Mock was incompetent to stand trial after a psychologist's report was given to the court. The report determined that Mock suffers...