Setting both to 20 has no effect on today’s glitch, Jim.
I don’t know why it works for some but not others. Someone else suggested to use http rather than https when coming to FR. Apparently that makes a difference on some browsers, had no effect on mine.
Also “Brevity” can be set to “Headers” on the main articles index page, then you should be able to get the sidebars.
When all else fails, here’s a direct link to the breaking news sidebar:
http://freerepublic.com/tag/breaking-news/
And frontpage:
http://freerepublic.com/tag/frontpage-news/