Free Republic

An annual gathering of top international security figures that last year set the tone for a growing rift between the United States and Europe opens Friday, bringing together many top European officials with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and others. The Munich Security Conference opens with a speech by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, one of 15 heads of state or government from European Union countries whom organizers expect to attend. The many other expected guests at the conference that runs until Sunday include Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. In keeping with the conference's tradition,...

The transgender teenager responsible for Canada’s worst school shooting in nearly 40 years struggled with his physical appearance and was fixated with guns and drugs. Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old from the remote town of Tumbler Ridge who was born a male, wrote online about his 6ft frame and his desire to be a “petite” woman. He shot dead his mother, Jennifer Strang, and his 11-year-old stepbrother on Tuesday afternoon before walking to his former school 10 minutes away and opening fire on pupils and staff, killing eight before taking his own life. Police initially described the shooter as a...

Candice Owens, she has to be the worst conservative I have seen in my 73 years on earth. To belittle Charlie Kirk wife. What does the Bible say about how to treat a widow. Charlie is in Heaven, and the Lord is not going to let him know how his so called friend is treating his wife. The Lord has wiped away every tear from his eyes. Candice you are a low life, how you have treated Charlie's legacy and his wife, and his kids. I forgive you Candice. You should repeat of your sins and sin no more. Does...

A woman was seen trying to set fire to a South Kansas City warehouse on Thursday, the same site that had been proposed as a possible immigration detention center. Video from our crew shows the woman igniting window areas at the building and flames briefly flaring up. KMBC reporter Andy Alcock said he witnessed the woman throw what appeared to be a liquid onto the windows before the fire started. Grandview firefighters responded and put out the flames. No injuries were reported. The warehouse has been the focus of protests and public concern after reports surfaced that it could be...

A US Marine who fell overboard from an attack ship in the Caribbean has become the first known American casualty in the Trump administration's operation targeting drug-trafficking boats. Lance Cpl Chukwuemeka E. Oforah, 21, fell from the USS Iwo Jima on 7 February and was lost at sea. He was pronounced dead after a lengthy search, which ended 10 February. The Florida native was assisting Operation Southern Spear, which has carried out 38 lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean since September. It played a key role in the capture of Venezuelan president Nicholas...

Yep, the entire second movement. Don't thank me. I'm a giver.

We might want to rethink DEI and a left-wing political stance as the sole qualifications for high-level law enforcement positions. Via Fox News: A North Carolina House Oversight Committee hearing spurred on by the recent killing of a young Ukrainian woman, Iryna Zarutska, in Charlotte, took an unexpected turn when [Republican State Representative Allen] Chesser asked Mecklenburg County Sheriff Garry McFadden, “What branch of government do you operate under?” McFadden, who is the top law enforcement officer in the county where Zarutska was killed, simply answered, “Mecklenburg County,” prompting Chesser to repeat, “What branch of government do you operate under,...

Slade drummer Don Powell has shared insight on his life-changing car accident. It was the early morning of July 4, 1973 when the rocker was severely injured in a crash near his home in Wolverhampton, England. At the time, Slade was the biggest band in Britain, having scored five No. 1 singles on the U.K. chart. Powell and his fiance were both ejected from the vehicle in the accident. She died instantly, but the drummer miraculously survived. “I've still got no idea what happened,” Powell confessed during a recent appearance on the Rockonteurs podcast. “We were both, myself and my...

A Kentucky mother and her husband are accused of killing their baby after the woman allegedly claimed to suffer a miscarriage shortly before authorities discovered the infant's body outside the couple's home. Deeann Bennett and Charles Bennett were taken into custody this week — more than a year after the child's body was discovered — and charged with one count each of reckless homicide and concealing the birth of an infant, authorities announced. Deeann Bennett is also facing additional counts of tampering with physical evidence and abuse of a corpse. According to a news release from the Kentucky State Police,...

The vessel's captain was ordered to stop for an inspection, but failed to comply and fled, Japan's fisheries agency said.Japan seized a Chinese fishing boat and arrested its skipper, authorities said on Friday (Feb 13), an incident that could deepen a spat between the Asian giants. The episode on Thursday off southern Japan came three months after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi suggested that Japan would intervene militarily if Beijing sought to take Taiwan by force. "The vessel's captain was ordered to stop for an inspection by a fisheries inspector, but the vessel failed to comply and fled," Japan's fisheries agency...

Italian authorities successfully foiled a dramatic armed assault on an armoured cash transit vehicle along a major highway in the Puglia region on Monday February 9. The attack involved explosions, firearms and blocked vehicles, creating a tense and dangerous situation for motorists travelling along the motorway. Police and emergency services responded quickly, ensuring no one was injured despite the severity of the incident. The assault occurred on the Lecce–Brindisi motorway, a key route in southern Italy, and left drivers shocked as they witnessed masked attackers using vehicles and explosives to halt traffic. Eyewitnesses described seeing thick smoke rising from the...

The figure skating world is screaming sacré bleu over the scoring by French judge Jézabel Dabois that cost American pair Madison Chock and Evan Bates gold in the ice dance competition and handed the controversial French duo Laurence Fournier Beaudry and Guillaume Cizeron the top prize. Dabois’ scoring has come under intense scrutiny in the 24 hours since Beaudry and Cizeron edged out Chock and Bates with a total score of 225.82, a mere 1.43 points better than the U.S. duo to win the gold. The French judge’s scores drastically differed from those of her fellow judges and herself when...

The number of unborn children with a disability who were aborted in England and Wales has increased, according to the latest abortion statistics released by the Department of Health and Social Care. Abortion statistics released by the Department of Health and Social Care in January revealed that 3,205 disability-selective abortions took place in 2023, an increase of 2.59% from the previous year. In England and Wales, 685 babies with Down’s syndrome were aborted in 2023, while 40 babies with a cleft lip or palate were aborted. Sadly, the figures for cleft lip and palate are likely to be higher; for...

A Yeshiva University student was attacked by several “masked thugs” in a Washington Heights subway station on Thursday night, according to school officials and authorities. Just after 7 p.m., police responded to a 911 call about an assault at the West 181st Street and St. Nicholas Avenue 1 train stop, according to the NYPD. The 20-year-old student of the private Jewish university was punched and kicked by four unidentified individuals, according to police and Rabbi Dovid Bashevkin, a clinical assistant professor of Jewish values at Yeshiva’s Sy Syms School of Business.

n her 2022 memoir, abortionist Christine Henneberg told the story of a pregnant Black woman who came to the hospital where Henneberg was a resident. The 26-year-old woman was with her two-year-old son. She was pregnant and bleeding. The doctor, whom Henneberg calls Dr. A., asked the woman, “Is this a planned pregnancy? Do you think you’re going to keep it?” The woman said her pregnancy wasn’t planned, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted an abortion. The baby’s father, she said, wanted the child. Because of the bleeding, Dr. A. did an ultrasound. When the young mother saw her...

The Trump administration said it's ending a credit for automakers that install a so-called "start/stop feature" in the vehicles, part of a broader rollback of environmental regulations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The start/stop feature, which is today widely used in newer vehicles, shuts off gas engines when cars idle, such as when they're stopped at a red light or stuck in traffic. The Environmental Protection Agency described the technology as "almost universally hated" in its Thursday announcement about the broader overhaul. About two-thirds of cars are now manufactured with the start/stop feature, which is aimed at making internal combustion...

MP Rupert Lowe, who launched an independent inquiry into the mass child rape that occurred throughout England at the hands of clans of mostly Pakistani Muslim men, has called on the government to launch an investigation into cases of missing girls in grooming areas to determine whether they may have been trafficked to Pakistan as sex slaves. “I believe there are currently countless British women being used as sex slaves overseas. This may sound insane. It is not. Look at these gangs. Nobody would have believed the extent of the evil before it was uncovered. This is very real,” the...

Retired British Army Col. Richard Kemp, who commanded U.K. forces in Afghanistan in the early 2000s, is warning about the current sad state of his country’s military. In a Wednesday piece for The Telegraph, he wrote that the British military has an alarmingly low level of ammunition on hand. “Knowledgeable observers have suggested that our munitions stocks — from rifle bullets and artillery shells to long range missiles and drones — would see out only about a week of intensive fighting,” Kemp recounted. “That’s even taking account of the fact that our Armed Forces are now very small, having been...

The opposition leader, who is leading the polls ahead of April's elections, says Viktor Orbán's party is orchestrating a smear campaign with secretly recorded intimate videos. Hungary's opposition leader Péter Magyar has accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's ruling Fidesz party of preparing a blackmail campaign against him involving a secretly recorded sex tape, escalating tensions ahead of April's parliamentary elections. Magyar, whose Tisza party leads Fidesz in opinion polls, said he suspects the governing party plans to release intimate recordings made with surveillance equipment. "I suspect they are planning to release a recording, recorded with secret service equipment and possibly...

***U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ruled the government must pay to fly back or accept at a port of entry any of the men who are now in countries other than Venezuela. Upon arrival in the U.S., they will be detained as they fight accusations they are Tren de Aragua gang members. The judge previously ruled the government violated the due process rights of the 137 Venezuelan men, and they were entitled to a hearing. But Boasberg had left the door open for a legal process that didn’t entail their physical return. “Apparently not interested in participating in this process,...