Free Republic

The Schumer shutdown is over, and we’ve won. Democrats got a concession about federal worker layoffs, but not one penny for illegal alien health care benefits or NPR funding, totaling $1.5 trillion. The farm wasn’t sold. Trump and the GOP didn’t budge on the core issue at the heart of the longest, stupidest shutdown in American history. The Democrats took a deal, and that should be in quotes since it’s what Republicans have been offering since mid-October: government funding through January 30, SNAP benefits funded through September 2026, and a vote on Obamacare subsidies. Democrats got nothing, and they shut...

After two years of barraging social media with lies about a famine in Gaza, Hamas propaganda channels are now trying to cover up their obesity by claiming that Israel is making them fat. One recent Hamas media story clamored that “they’re forcing us to gain weight”, and objected that supermarkets have “shelves overflowing with chocolate, soft drinks, and cigarettes”, along with unhealthy “flour and various types of cheese used in sweets and pizza, in addition to sugar and flour derivatives used in confectionery production.” An Arab Muslim settler in Gaza who had previously justified the Hamas massacres complained, “I am...

Hungary’s closed borders have proven to be the right course.On Nov. 7, 2025, as Europe once again hid behind euphemisms about migration, Donald Trump sat opposite Viktor Orbán and delivered a truth now too indecent for Brussels: “Hungary keeps crime down because it keeps its borders closed.” A simple line, painfully obvious, and therefore unutterable in polite European society. Yet it captured Europe’s new reality: the only EU state still behaving like a state is Hungary. (RELATED: Europe’s Urban Decline Exposed)Hungary’s resistance is not a policy dispute. It is a renaissance — not artistic, but civilizational. A reawakening of...

Says Pentagon ready to act in Nigeria, elsewhere if ordered by president to end persecutionDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday that the United States must defend persecuted Christians in Nigeria and other parts of the world facing harsh treatment for their beliefs. “President Trump has made clear that the United States will always defend the right of Christians to freely worship here at home and around the world,” Mr. Hegseth told The Washington Times. “As a Christian, this is also very important to me and my family.” Mr. Hegseth, a conservative Christian, said in a statement that the Defense Department,...

The federal case against Newsom’s former chief of staff Dana Williamson and other well-connected aides reaches deep into one of the most powerful political circles in California, and the country. An attorney for Williamson said she was approached by federal authorities for help in an undisclosed probe involving Newsom, but told them she had no information to share. Newsom has not been accused of any wrongdoing, and his office said it is unaware of any investigation of the governor. As Gov. Gavin Newsom flew around the country last year campaigning for President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, his chief...

Trump Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem sparked a wave of anger on the MAGA right this week when she boasted on Fox News that the administration had “sped up” the legal immigration process. Noem...was asked by host Lawrence Jones to weigh in on the administration’s additional fees for H-1B visas for high-skilled foreign workers. President Donald Trump defended the visas.... saying America does not have enough “talented” workers to meet its needs. .... “Now, we’re going to keep using our visa programs. We’re just going to make sure that they have integrity, that we’re actually doing the vetting of the...

The Fujian and its strike group represent a strategic game changer that will bring Beijing closer to its goal of eroding U.S. maritime primacy in its backyard. China’s efforts to blunt American maritime power in the Pacific, a region the United States has long considered its domain, received a major boost this month with the official launch of its third — and most advanced by far — aircraft carrier, the Fujian. The 80,000-ton supercarrier, which can accommodate about 60 aircraft and will be accompanied by as many as 10 warships, will dramatically narrow the naval capability gap between the U.S....

Palantir is a software company, and its national security work has driven its stock price to remarkable heights.You won’t find the most valuable national security contractor of them all on the standard lists of defense industry stocks.That would be Palantir, a rapidly growing company inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings.”The S&P 500 defense and aerospace sector contains big publicly traded companies like GE Aerospace, Boeing, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and RTX (formerly Raytheon Technologies). They make the weapons, ammunition and equipment that a nation needs to fight a war: missiles, bombs, tanks, rockets, aircraft, ammunition,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A team of researchers has uncovered what they say is the first reported use of artificial intelligence to direct a hacking campaign in a largely automated fashion. The AI company Anthropic said this week that it disrupted a cyber operation that its researchers linked to the Chinese government. The operation involved the use of an artificial intelligence system to direct the hacking campaigns, which researchers called a disturbing development that could greatly expand the reach of AI-equipped hackers.While concerns about the use of AI to drive cyber operations are not new, what is concerning about the new...

SNAP payments delayed by the shutdown will resume, with USDA aiming to get all November benefits to recipients by Monday. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said all SNAP recipients should receive their November payments by Monday “at the latest” after a weekslong delay caused by the recent government shutdown. The suspension of SNAP benefits stressed millions of recipients and placed a larger burden on food banks trying to fill the gaps. It also sparked confusion among states as courts weighed whether the federal government was obligated to cover states’ SNAP payments during the shutdown. As a result, some states paid full...

WASHINGTON, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Large defense companies have "conned" the U.S. military into buying expensive equipment when cheaper commercial options would have been available, U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll said.Government accountability advocates and some lawmakers have long argued that defense contractors have overcharged the military. But Driscoll's comments were unusually blunt for a sitting government official speaking out against companies that supply the largest military in the world."(The) defense industrial base broadly, and the primes in particular, conned the American people and the Pentagon and the Army," Driscoll told reporters, referring to prime contractors that work directly with the...

Administration allies say they are fed up with the Defense Department’s third-most senior leader and his foreign policy surprises. More than a half dozen diplomats interviewed in Washington and Europe also complain that the Pentagon’s once steady consultations have slowed as Colby’s office crafts that strategy, along with a review of troop locations worldwide.That uncertainty deepened after the Pentagon quietly decided not to replace a rotational Army brigade in Romania, Hungary and Slovakia — a move the Romanian government learned of only two days before it was announced, according to a U.S. defense official and a Romanian official.One NATO diplomat...

Recently, President Donald Trump left many people concerned about the state of his eternal destination after stating that he was unsure if there was anything he could do to make it to heaven. In an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham, Trump clarified what he meant by his statements. “When I made that statement, I was being funny, sarcastic, you know it’s bad for a politician to be sarcastic,” Trump said. “I was kidding, I was having fun. I don’t know if I will or not, I don’t know.” He also discussed the New York Times’ piece on his statements,...

Police and federal agents clashed with far-left protestors outside of the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago, Illinois, on Friday. Several protestors were arrested after chaos erupted outside the Broadview facility. The protestors arrived at the Broadview facility on Friday after a radical Biden judge ordered the release of 13 detainees. 21 protestors were arrested. According to Fox 32, two police officers were injured during the violent protest. A CBS reporter claimed protestors were holding offensive signs with curse words. “But there are some signs here that we cannot show on TV because they have curse words,” a CBS reporter said....

Hailed as a revolution in air travel, the much-hyped A321XLR has had a bumpier first year than expected... On this day last year, the Airbus A321XLR took flight for the first time.The aircraft was described as a “game-changer” by Iberia’s CEO, Marco Sansavini, ahead of its maiden flight from Madrid to Boston. The Telegraph predicted it would ignite “a fresh new era for air travel”.There was good reason for all this fanfare. The XLR is a narrow-body, long-haul jet for the modern era, burning less fuel per passenger than any other jet on the market and offering a longer...

On Thursday’s broadcast of Newsmax TV’s “Rob Schmitt Tonight,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins discussed data on food stamps and said that data from blue states is “going to give us a platform and a trajectory to fundamentally rebuild this program, have everyone reapply for their benefit, make sure that everyone that’s taking a taxpayer-funded benefit through SNAP or food stamps, that they literally are vulnerable and they can’t survive without it.” Rollins stated, “29 states, mostly the red states, responded with their data sets, February, March, April. … But here’s the most unbelievable news I have really, just over the...

Explanation: Northern lights have come to Florida skies. In fact, the brilliant streak of a Northern Taurid meteor flashes through the starry night sky above the beach in this sea and skyscape, captured from Shired Island, Florida on November 11. Meteors from the annual Northern Taurid meteor shower are expected this time of year. But the digital camera exposure also records the shimmering glow of aurora, a phenomenon more often seen from our fair planet's higher geographical latitudes. Also known as aurora borealis, these northern lights are part of recent, wide spread auroral activity caused by strong geomagnetic storms. In...

Tucker Carlson has revealed that the young man who attempted to assassinate Donald Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania last year had a long record of espousing political violence.Comments posted by Thomas Crooks to YouTube from 2019 to 2020 show a detailed digital trail of violent threats that included calls for assassination and political violence, despite the Federal Bureau of Investigation's repeated claims otherwise, according to a mini-documentary Carlson released Friday morning. The posts were made by Crooks when was between 15 and 17 years old, Carlson's expose claims. The deep-dive from the former Fox News stemmed from a tip he received...

How ironic it will be if a brown American like Vivek actually helps to fix education and raise the prospects of white kids, while all the professional whiteys on X continue their idle boasting about how they too could get us to the moon, “just like some white dudes did in 1969.”

You can share an article by clicking on the share icons at the top right of it. The total or partial reproduction of an article, without the prior written authorization of Le Monde, is strictly forbidden. For more information, see our Terms and Conditions. For all authorization requests, contact syndication@lemonde.fr. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/14/swiss-gruyere-crowned-the-2025-world-cheese-champion_6747449_4.html The World Cheese Awards first prize winner, a gruyère AOP special over 18 months cheese presented by Swiss cheese maker Hitz Pius, from the Vorderfultigen cheese company, during the 37th edition of the World Cheese Awards, in Bern, Switzerland, November 13, 2025. GABRIEL MONNET / AFP A Swiss gruyère...