Free Republic

The BBC has apologised to US President Donald Trump for a Panorama episode that spliced parts of his 6 January 2021 speech together, but rejected his demands for compensation.The corporation said the edit had given "the mistaken impression that President Trump had made a direct call for violent action" and said it would not show the 2024 programme again.Lawyers for Trump have threatened to sue the BBC for $1bn (£759m) in damages unless the corporation issues a retraction, apologises and compensates him.The fallout from the scandal led to the resignations of BBC director general Tim Davie and head of news...

Kristy Gammon used to travel to the US from Canada at least once every other year, taking ski trips at Lake Placid in New York and travelling to Baltimore, Maryland, for her husband's favourite Orioles baseball games. But those trips are now over, she said. This year, the Nova Scotia resident has avoided even passing through the US on her way to Ontario, a shortcut for an otherwise 18-hour drive. Since President Donald Trump took office earlier this year, the 62-year-old said she and most of her Canadian friends have decided to stop visiting the US as a way of...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has picked former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan to serve as co-chair of his transition team…Khan — a 36-year-old Democrat who bought major cases against Meta and Amazon while running the FTC from 2021 to 2025 — surprised some onlookers on Wednesday as she appeared alongside Mamdani at his first post-election press conference. During her time at the FTC, Khan waged an unsuccessful fight to stop Microsoft’s acquisition of video game giant Activision-Blizzard; blocked an attempted merger between grocery giants Kroger and Albertsons and enacted a ban on non-compete agreements when workers switch jobs, which was...

The grandstanding over Tucker Carlson’s interview with Nick Fuentes is exhausting The American right has a problem: it can’t stop talking about itself. Commentators, academics and journalists of what used to be called a “conservative” persuasion all tend to think that their ideas are tremendously interesting. And, in the way a difficult child becomes argumentative when he or she isn’t getting attention, they fight. They fear irrelevance and so they fall out with each other and take sides in order to prove to themselves that they have something worth saying. Things become messy and nasty and everybody gets carried away...

There’s a lot of ill-suppressed glee among Republicans right now, along with recriminations among Democrats, about the resolution of the longest government shutdown ever. Eight Democratic senators were able to undercut a few hundred of their colleagues by ending a filibuster against a bill to reopen government, exhibiting both weakness and disunity. (Though there’s no telling how many holdouts privately agreed with the “cave.”) Worse, Democrats failed to secure an extension of Obamacare premium subsidies they repeatedly demanded. So were Republicans the “winners” and Democrats the “losers” in the shutdown saga? Maybe now, but maybe not later. As the New...

Advocates for student loan borrowers and Democratic lawmakers in Congress are sounding the alarm that recent legislative changes made by Republicans could result in substantial financial penalties for those who are pursuing student loan forgiveness. Last week, Protect Borrowers (a student loan borrower advocacy organization) released a detailed analysis suggesting that, after congressional Republicans declined to extend tax relief for many Americans who are pursuing student loan forgiveness under income-driven repayment plans, borrowers could get slammed with thousands of dollars in unexpected tax liabilities. Senate Democrats followed up the analysis with a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, arguing that...

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Poland’s population could shrink even more than previously thought, according to a provisional new forecast by the state statistics agency that assumes current record-low birth rates will continue. The experimental calculations by Statistics Poland (GUS) show that the population could fall to just 29.4 million by 2060, down from 37.4 million currently. That is 1.5 million lower than projected in GUS’s official forecast for 2060, made in 2023 and which assumed that birth rates would rise. The 2023 forecast outlined three scenarios for demographic change, low, medium and high, with medium selected as the official projection for analytical purposes. Under...

Justice Department leaders later tied to agency special counsel Jack Smith shut down an FBI investigation tied to possible campaign finance violations carried out by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign when it used cutouts to fund the opposition research firm Fusion GPS and British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s anti-Trump dossier, emails released Thursday appear to show. Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassely, said his Judiciary Committee, which made public the messages, describes them as “internal emails” and an “electronic communication” from the FBI “exposing” the “refusal” by DOJ leaders “to open a criminal investigation into potential campaign finance violations committed by Hillary Clinton...

AFTER ROAD DEATHS, TRUMP ADMINISTRATION MOVES TO STOP CALIFORNIA FROM ISSUING COMMERCIAL DRIVER’S LICENSES TO ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. On Aug. 12, the driver of a tractor-trailer truck made an illegal U-turn on the Florida Turnpike near Fort Pierce. It was a crazy, out-of-the-blue move, and the stunned driver of a minivan driving nearby was not able to stop before crashing into the truck, which was blocking all southbound lanes of the turnpike. The driver and two passengers in the minivan were killed.Authorities quickly determined that the truck driver, 28-year-old Harjinder Singh, was an Indian who was in the United States illegally,...

"If a Politician's Mouth is Moving, it is lying" Except for One in My Lifetime. And one key topic defined this for me long ago.Starting in 1972, I started noticing both Parties were promising to deal with our porous U.S. borders. Every year they would promise and ask for my vote. Since nothing got done on this issue, and it only got worse, them kicking the can down the road, you can guess how much I gave to either one.However, One did catch my attention recently when the border hoppers went briefly to Zero. Along with getting rid of the...

https://babylonbee.com/news/tucker-carlson-builds-time-machine-to-kill-baby-churchillWOODSTOCK, ME — On a mission to set right the great wrongs perpetrated upon the world during World War II, controversial media personality Tucker Carlson announced that he had built a time machine to go back to the past and kill baby Winston Churchill. Seeking a means by which he could eliminate the greatest villain of the first half of the 20th century — Churchill — and thereby prevent the astronomical bloodshed and destruction caused by the war, Carlson reportedly sank tens of millions of dollars into the research, development, and construction of the time machine. "It's time to snip...

France and England in North America is a multivolume history of the European colonization of North America, written by Francis Parkman. The series highlights the military struggles between France and Great Britain. It was well regarded at the time of publication and continues to enjoy a reputation as a literary masterpiece.

🚨 BREAKING: Disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell has been referred to the DOJ for potential CRIMINAL CHARGES after evidence of mortgage fraud was found by FHFA Chair Bill @Pulte , per NBC Swalwell not only committed mortgage fraud — he deemed himself INELIGIBLE to be a member of Congress, as he declared his DC residence his primary residence. No public record searches show a home owned or leased by Swalwell in California. Members of Congress are required under Article I, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution to be “inhabitants” of the state they represent at the time of their election Swalwell...

In a bizarre and baseless outburst, New Mexico Democrat Rep. Melanie Stansbury is accusing the White House of “covering up” President Donald Trump’s supposed ties to Jeffrey Epstein — even though no credible evidence has ever linked Trump to Epstein’s criminal acts, and years of investigations under Democrat-led agencies have produced nothing to the contrary. Appearing on TMZ Live on Wednesday, Stansbury claimed a newly released batch of Epstein-related emails proved “the White House is trying to cover up Donald Trump’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein.” She pointed to one message, allegedly sent to Ghislaine Maxwell, ... From that vague and...

[Catholic Caucus] Pope Leo XIV meets with ‘married’ homosexuals at VaticanThe two homosexual men, one of whom is the founder an AI company, were granted an audience with Leo as part of a delegation of Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez.Pope Leo XIV recently met with two “married” homosexuals during a private audience.“When Brian mentioned to the pope that we are married [sic], we both felt received with warmth and kindness,” wrote Alex Capecelatro, CEO of Josh.ai, on Facebook. He posted pictures of their audience with Leo, which they were granted as a delegation of Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles.Capecelatro...

Representative Thomas Massie is one of the primary Alligator Emoji antagonists. His intended mission is always to undermine efforts by any MAGA policy or objective, and to sow division in order to maintain his purpose on behalf of people who do not have America’s interests in mind.Thomas Massie has been bad news for a long time and is ABSOLUTELY, UNDENIABLY a walking visible representation of the attitude, disposition and intents of the narrow-minded tribe that travels under the DeSantis banner.Yesterday, in his latest operation to divide the MAGA base, which is his primary mission – and has been for a...

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a 2023 lawsuit aimed at dramatically curtailing oil and natural gas production in the state. The state’s Court of Appeals in June dismissed the lawsuit, which was filed by a coalition of Native American activists and environmental groups. But the plaintiffs subsequently appealed that ruling, and New Mexico’s highest court issued an order this week accepting the case. “We have a strong Constitution in New Mexico, and I’m confident the Supreme Court will uphold New Mexicans’ right to protection of our health and our environment,”...

Colorectal cancer is striking younger adults at alarming rates, driven by lifestyle and genetic factors. Colorectal cancer (CRC) develops when abnormal cells grow uncontrollably in the colon or rectum, forming tumors that can eventually invade nearby tissues or spread to other parts of the body. It typically begins as small, benign growths called polyps, which can take years to become cancerous. Globally, CRC ranks among the top three most common cancers, affecting millions of people each year. Traditionally viewed as a condition that primarily affects older adults, it is now emerging in far younger populations, raising growing concern among doctors...

Explanation: Few cosmic vistas can excite the imagination like The Great Nebula in Orion. Visible as a faint, bland celestial smudge to the naked-eye, the nearest large star-forming region sprawls across this sharp colorful telescopic image. Designated M42 in the Messier Catalog, the Orion Nebula's glowing gas and dust surrounds hot, young stars. About 40 light-years across, M42 is at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1,500 light-years away that lies within the same spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy as the Sun. Including dusty bluish reflection nebula NGC 1977, also known as the Running Man...