Free Republic

The American Forces Network is ending its eight-channel satellite television service for U.S. military personnel living off base across Europe and Asia. The long-running service known as “direct-to-home” is screening its final programming before going dark March 22, said Kimberly Antos, director of AFN’s Broadcast Center. The network is replacing the satellite broadcast with its AFN Now application, which has drawn 57,000 registered users since it launched in 2022, she told Stars and Stripes in a Jan. 30 email. “This transition is absolutely a cost-saving measure,” Antos said, adding she doesn’t have information about how much money the broadcaster will...

American advocates for youth gender medicine have insisted for years that overwhelming evidence favors providing gender dysphoric youth with puberty blockers, hormones and, in the case of biological females, surgery to remove their breasts. It didn’t matter that the number of kids showing up at gender clinics had soared and that they were more likely to have complex mental health conditions than those who had come to clinics in years earlier, complicating diagnosis. ... The reason these advocates were able to make such strong statements is that for years, the most important professional medical and mental health organizations in the...

Many Americans were skeptical of Elon Musk’s grandiose claims that DOGE would take a “chainsaw” to federal spending. One “tax nerd” was so skeptical he decided to “bet his life savings” on Musk’s promises being a flop — and it paid off big time, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. Musk has seen his approval rating descend as he has taken a more publicly active role politically, plus ongoing criticism and litigation over his management of his social media platform X and support for far-right politics in Europe. He jumped into his work with the Department of...

Cuba’s coastguard shot dead four people and injured six others travelling in a U.S.-registered speedboat in an exchange of fire off the Cuban coast on Wednesday, the interior ministry in Havana said. The “illegal” Florida-registered boat was detected one nautical mile from Falcones Cay in Villa Clara province, the ministry said in a brief statement. As a coastguard vessel approached to identify the boat “shots were fired from the boat,” injuring the commander of the Cuban vessel, the ministry added. “As a result of the clash, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed...

The Last Time the CME Halted Trading, Silver Surged 127% Over the Next 60 Days Silver Was Trading at $53.26/oz When the CME Halted Trading for 10 Hours overnight November 28th for “COOLING ISSUES”. Silver then immediately spiked to an all time record high $56.78 immediately upon resumption of trading on November 28th. Silver then proceeded to more than DOUBLE to $121 over the next 2 months as a historic physical short squeeze played out. The CME “Cooling Issues” Trading Halt just HAPPENED to occur on First Notice Day for the December Silver Contract- Reportedly After a CHINESE INDUSTRIALIST notified...

Next month the most important political book of the year, or perhaps the decade, will be published. It is called The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control. The author is Jacob Siegel, a journalist for the Tablet. To summarize: shocked by the arrival of Donald Trump in 2016, American government officials, the media, and the technology giants created a system of censoring the public, spying on other opponents, and planting false stories. The media was complicit and will never fully recover. Trump’s rise, Siegel writes, “meant that politics had become war, as it is in many...

Chinese researchers have developed a lithium-organic battery prototype that withstands rigorous mechanical and thermal stress while delivering high energy density. Organic cathode materials are emerging as a credible alternative to the cobalt- and nickel-based compounds that dominate today’s lithium-ion batteries. Built from abundant molecular precursors, these polymer systems offer intrinsic structural flexibility alongside tunable electrochemical properties..... The researchers found that the cells retained mechanical integrity under bending, stretching, and compression. They also passed stringent safety evaluations, including needle puncture tests, without structural failure or uncontrolled energy release. The material’s elasticity further positions it for potential use in flexible electronics and...

Joe Scarborough has reacted to President Trump’s State of the Union with profanity — and by questioning his sanity. After a sweeping denunciation of Trump’s remarks on immigration, inflation, and elections, Joe Scarborough declared the speech “extraordinary… for many reasons,” adding: “He did sh-- that no sane president would ever do.It was really, really crazy to be watching that in a State of the Union address.” Get the rest of the story and view the video here.

One of CNN’s most notorious TV egoists surprises viewers every once in awhile by displaying a modicum of common sense in the face of leftist politicians running economies into the mud. His recent repudiation of blue city spending is no exception. CNN host Fareed Zakaria actually ripped how Democrat strongholds like New York City were “out of control, promising more, spending more, delivering less and pushing off fiscal problems to some future day,” in an X post promoting a February 23 segment of Fareed Zakaria GPS. In a stunning display of red-pilling, Zakaria directly called out the newly minted communist...

Despite being far away from civilization, a melting Antarctic’s “disastrous” consequences will ripple across the world, researchers warn. Scientists have highlighted just how high the stakes are as human-made climate change continues to rapidly warm Antarctica. A new study published in the journal Frontiers in Environmental Science, models the best- and worst-case scenarios for global warming on the Antarctic Peninsula, the northernmost part of the mainland. Researchers warn that the continent’s future “depends on the choices we make today”, arguing that cutting emissions could avoid the most “important and detrimental” impacts of the climate crisis. […] Under the highest emissions...

Explanation: Ever wonder what it would look like to crack open the Sun? The Egg Nebula, a dying Sun-like star, can unscramble this question. Pictured is a combination of several visible and infrared images of the nebula (also known as RAFGL 2688 or CRL 2688) taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. The star has shed its outer layers, and a bright, hot core (or "yolk") now illuminates the milky "egg white" shells of gas and dust surrounding the center. The central lobes and rings are structures of gas and dust recently ejected into space, with the dust being dense enough...

Jeffrey Epstein associate Larry Summers will resign from his Harvard University professorship over his associations with the late pedophile, a university spokesperson has said. Summers, 71, who visited Epstein’s notorious private island, and took trips on his personal jet, “The Lolita Express,” will resign from his academic and faculty appointments at Harvard at the end of the academic year, the Harvard Crimson reported Wednesday. The former Harvard President also resigned Wednesday as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School following 15 years in the role, the spokesperson confirmed.

Retired Navy Capt. E. Royce Williams has been keeping a secret for more than 50 years. To his friends, family, and others he served with, Williams was known as a decorated fighter pilot, who led a successful career in the Navy, where he served for more than 30 years and flew more than 220 missions in Korea and Vietnam. However, even his wife wasn’t aware of what he’d done on Nov. 18, 1952. That morning, Williams was continuing what had become a daily routine for him as a young Navy pilot stationed onboard the USS Oriskany off the coast of...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a night where lawmakers raised eyebrows by remaining glued to their seats throughout the president's State of the Union address, analysts later said the most shocking incident of the night was when Democrats refused to stand as Trump introduced Jesus. President Trump took a moment during his speech to introduce the literal Son of God sitting in the gallery and recognize Him for being the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but Democrats sat stubbornly in their chairs and would not offer applause. "The Son of God is here, folks, let's hear it for Him,"...

Catalina Island conservationists are moving forward with an extensive plan to preserve the island’s native habitat after the state recently approved the lethal shooting of the invasive mule deer on the island. The California Department of Fish and Wildlife approved the Catalina Island Conservancy’s restoration management permit in late January. […] Mule deer were introduced to the island in the early 1920s as a game species for hunting by the state. Island conservationists say the deer, which fluctuate in numbers between 500 and 1,800, have no natural predators and are destroying native vegetation found only on the island. They also...

[Catholic Caucus] The Mother of God and salvation - an article on the Vatican Document on the Blessed VirginThe Mother of God and salvationby John Lamont Faithful Catholics have rightly been outraged by the doctrinal note Mater Populi Fidelis published on November 4, 2025 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document was signed by Cardinal Victor Fernández, the Prefect of the Dicastery, and its publication was ordered by Pope Leo XIV. In his address to the Dicastery on January 29th 2026, Pope Leo praised and endorsed the document, describing it as 'the doctrinal Note Mater Populi...

CBS News fact checked President Trump's 2026 State of the Union address Tuesday night, in which he highlighted his record on the economy, immigration and tariffs, and also assessed a claim made by Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger during her Democratic response. Here are some of the claims and CBS News' ratings and context for those statements: True: Trump claims murder rate saw its largest decline in recorded history last year "Last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history. This is the biggest decline, think of it, in recorded history — the lowest number in over...

Aliens exist — they just haven’t visited Earth, a NASA veteran has claimed. Dr. Gentry Lee has worked at the US space agency since 1968, when he first got involved with the Viking mission to Mars. He has since spent more than half a century designing probes to land on distant planets — but argues Earth has not yet been visited by otherworldly beings. “There exists nothing today that says any alien or any alien machine has ever landed on the planet Earth,” he told the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Phoenix. “If you believe...

A hyperwoke former Vogue editor proudly announced that she self-downgraded from first class on a flight to Milan to avoid a cabin filled with white men. Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, 34, made the declaration on her Threads profile Tuesday evening. The Brooklyn-based journalist wrote: 'I just downgraded myself from first class to business class on my flight to Milan. 'In a cabin of six, five of the passengers were white middle-aged men... then there was me, a 30-something black woman who travels in that cabin often, and a male flight attendant who thought I'd be okay with substandard service and persistent micro-aggression...

At Tuesday’s State of the Union, Democrats set themselves up as angry foils to basic civics and feel-good American patriotism. In the most made-for-TV of many made-for-TV moments in Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, President Donald Trump urged every member of Congress to “stand up and show your support” for the statement: “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.” Cameras panned to show nearly the entire left-hand side of the chamber awkwardly remaining in their seats. After two minutes of Republican cheering and Democrat scowling, Trump suggested that Democrats should...