Free Republic

[...] On March 10, an EF-1 tornado (a relatively low-intensity storm) struck Wheatfield, Indiana. It directly hit the “Dunns Bridge I & II” solar projects, destroying a significant portion of the facility. According to Report 24, approximately 2.4 million solar modules were damaged or destroyed. Aerial footage showed rows of panels ripped from the ground and twisted metal frame. The facility is valued at approximately $1 billion. According to sources, manufacturer warranties often exclude tornado damage, potentially leaving the operator (NIPSCO) or customers with a massive bill for reconstruction, unless the government steps in with a bailout plan.

Who is winning the war between the US, Israel and Iran? The coverage in many Western media outlets clearly indicates that Iran is the major winner. The reality is that sections of the Western media have framed the conflict with two separate definitions of victory. For the US to be victorious, it must successfully install a new regime with a stable political system. For the Iranian regime to be the winner, it simply has to remain in power, no matter how much it is weakened. What the media does not know is what the ultimate objectives of the US’ Operation...

The weather might have been extreme this winter in Manhattan, but the snow didn’t stop deep-pocketed home buyers, according to a host of market reports released this week. In the first quarter, demand for homes across the New York City borough priced between $10 million and $20 million jumped, with transactions surging 47.4% compared to the same time last year, according to data from Compass. “Despite broader market slowdowns, the luxury market continued to outperform expectations,” the report, released Tuesday, said. Townhouses in particular had a strong start to the year, according to Jonathan Miller, president and CEO of Miller...

Iranian state television has escalated its messaging by warning citizens not to reveal the locations of officials hiding among civilians, while increasingly portraying dissent as hostile action and labeling protesters “enemy combatants.” As the regional conflict involving Iran, Israel, and the United States escalates, Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), has undergone a marked transformation in tone and language. Once associated with rigid but largely diplomatic messaging, IRIB now frequently adopts rhetoric that is overtly confrontational, reflecting both wartime pressures and an effort by authorities to project defiance amid mounting military strain. In a segment of a...

The Greek city of Rhodes emerged victorious from a yearlong siege by the Macedonian noble Demetrius Poliorcetes in 304 b.c. To commemorate their city's resilience, the Rhodians built a towering bronze statue of the sun god Helios, their patron deity, who also appeared on their coinage. It took the local sculptor Chares 12 years to construct the Colossus of Rhodes, the tallest sculpture in the ancient world at some 120 feet. Chares created the statue using a revolutionary process known as casting in courses, which no other ancient sculptor is known to have employed. In order to cast each course,...

(Subtitle: Pete Hegseth has dismissed two other generals, David Hodne and William Green, triggering questions about the abrupt changes amid war tensions.) The Pentagon announced on Thursday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had dismissed two other generals and the Army's top uniformed commander, but it did not provide an explanation for the departures during the US battle against Iran. The abrupt firing of senior U.S. Army officers, David Hodne and William Green Jr., has sparked widespread questions. This decision is made at a point of tension. The Middle East conflict is currently in its fifth week, and there are no...

The real Lord of the Flies: What happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s top aide Ricky Buria told colleagues last year that he and his boss donned disguises and went out drinking together — a juicy bit of gossip that’s widely believed to be a lie and recklessly planted to sniff out leakers, The Post has learned. Two sources said that Buria, 44, told them separately in early 2025 that he and Hegseth, 45, slipped past the secretary’s security detail while he was staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Pentagon City. There’s no proof that the great escape actually happened, but the tale has reverberated within...

By embracing diversity, equity, and inclusion, Democrats have started a game that, in the long run, they cannot win. After all, decent people will not long tolerate an ideology that requires them to accept two toxic and contradictory assertions. For instance, Wednesday on the social media platform X, Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a black woman who regularly obsesses over skin color, tried defending Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson by insisting that Jackson, a black woman appointed to SCOTUS on account of her sex and skin color, “had to be 10 times better than most” on account of...

For a millennium, Gortyn was the most important city on Crete. Its ruins - largely unexcavated - are scattered across a picturesque landscape of stony hills and olive groves. Scenic Routes to the Past | 58.2K subscribers | 4,704 views | March 27, 2026 0:00 Introduction 0:34 Agios Titos 1:09 Law code of Gortyn 2:30 Acropolis 4:33 Unexcavated area 5:35 Two temples 6:48 Praetorium 7:18 Metropolitan basilica 8:11 Baths

A new report on the goings-on within President Donald Trump's close circle of advisors revealed that White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles has allegedly urged the group to be "more forthright with the boss" about the realities of his war with Israel against Iran. Wiles was concerned that the president's aides were offering him a rose-colored outlook on how the war was being perceived among Americans, too often telling Trump what he wanted to hear, according to TIME Magazine, which cited several White House sources and a senior administration official. According to the official, Trump has begun many recent...

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth fired two more Army Generals on Thursday after he ousted Army Chief of Staff General Randy George. General George served in the role under Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. “General Randy A. George will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said. “The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Parnell said. Two other Army generals were removed along with George, said two defense officials, who like some...

STORRS, Conn. (WTNH) — The University of Connecticut has taken down its lampposts on the Storrs campus ahead of the Final Four matchups for the men’s and women’s basketball teams this weekend. “The removal of the lamp posts is a pro-active way of preventing possible vandalism that could result from the celebration of this weekend’s games,” UConn officials said. “This is the third time we have removed the lamp posts, and it has proven effective, along with an increased security presence and student messaging.”

Scenes from the Somali takeover of a mostly white Minnesota town. The AU Special Representative for Somalia and Head of AMISOM Ambassador Maman Sidikou in Minnesota, AMISOM Public Information, Creative Commons Zero, Public Domain Dedication Faribault, Minnesota, is a small city about an hour’s drive from Minneapolis. On paper it should have the smaller crime rate of the alphabetically similar Farmington which is nearly the same size and only a half hour away. Instead, Faribault has more than twice as much violent crime, aggravated assaults, burglaries and car thefts, 30% more rapes, and 8 times as many robberies. Farmington has...

A container ship belonging to French shipping group CMA CGM has passed through the Strait of Hormuz, MarineTraffic vessel tracking data shows, in a sign that Iran may not consider France a hostile nation. The Malta-flagged Kribi, owned by CMA CGM, crossed the Strait on April 2. It is the first French-owned vessel to make it through the channel since US-Israeli attacks began on Iran at the end of February. Until the war led to the effective closure of the Strait, it was the route for about a fifth of global oil and liquefied natural gas supplies. It was not...

--SNIP-- Europeans are far more vulnerable to Iranian-inspired Islamic terrorism. They are more reliant on oil from the Middle East, some of it passing through the Strait of Hormuz. All the US had initially requested was basing support in disarming a common Western enemy that, for nearly half a century, has slaughtered American diplomats and soldiers and tried to kill an American president and secretary of state. But most NATO members could not even offer tacit help. Some ****** the US effort as either illegal or unnecessary. The American public watched the British waffle for days over permitting the US...

The U.S. labor market bounced back in March, with job creation much stronger than expected though the broader picture of a slow-growth labor market held intact. Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. February’s number was revised down by 41,000 while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000. With job creation higher, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%. As has been the case, health...

The assassinations of Iran’s senior leaders by Israel and the United States have triggered unprecedented churn within Tehran’s political and military establishment, eliminating the supreme leader and some of the most powerful men in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but have left in place a hard-line government and little hope of a diplomatic breakthrough, according to regional and Western officials. Rather than usher in what President Donald Trump has called “more reasonable” leadership, the surviving Iranian regime is newly emboldened to inflict economic pain, pushing Tehran and Washington further apart in negotiations, according to the officials who spoke on the...

On the one hand, America enshrines religious freedom and equal treatment for all religions. On the other, supremacist indoctrination is central to Islam. What to do? A federal district judge has ruled that at least four Islamic schools in Texas are eligible to receive tax payer funding with dozens of others waiting to join, according to media reports. These include the Maryland-based virtual school Bayaan Academy, K–12 college prep school Brighter Horizons Academy in Garland, the Excellence Academy north of Dallas, and the K–12 Houston Quran Academy. With public alarm growing over the Islamization of Texas due to mass immigration,...

3 April 2026 Good Friday Chichester Cathedral, Chichester, UK Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Red. Year: A(II).There is no Mass today. The readings given here are used in the afternoon celebration of the Lord's Passion.First readingIsaiah 52:13-53:12The servant of the Lord, an expiatory SacrificeSee, my servant will prosper,he shall be lifted up, exalted, rise to great heights.As the crowds were appalled on seeing him– so disfigured did he lookthat he seemed no longer human –so will the crowds be astonished at him,and kings stand speechless before him;for they shall see something never toldand witness something never heard before:‘Who could believe...