Free Republic

A New Hampshire state representative has rescinded her endorsement of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in the race for the Republican presidential nomination and now supports former President Donald Trump. State Rep. Sandra Panek (R) announced her decision to switch her support on Thursday following DeSantis’s campaign launch on Wednesday. “After being less than impressed with Ron DeSantis’s official announcement last night, I am hereby switching my endorsement to President Donald J. Trump,” Panek said in a press release email from the Trump campaign. “We can’t expect someone to run the country if they can’t properly run their own campaign launch.”...

Black Lives Matter bled cash and suffered blistering investment losses in 2022, according to a copy of its tax return obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation ran an $8.5 million deficit and saw the value of its investment accounts plummet by nearly $10 million in the most recent tax year, financial disclosures show. The group logged a $961,000 loss on a securities sale of $172,000, suggesting the charity weathered a staggering 85 percent loss on the transaction. These troubles didn’t stop BLM from doling out seven-figure contracts to friends and family of its former...

President Joe Biden’s bid for a second term begins with a wide advantage over his declared opponents for the Democratic nomination, but he faces headwinds among the overall public from declining favorability and a widespread view that his reelection would be more negative than positive for the country, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS.

MEMORIAL OF SAINT PHILIP NERI, PRIEST John 21:15–19Friends, today’s Gospel tells of the great engagement between the risen Jesus and Peter. Peter knows his sin—he betrayed Jesus three times. But Jesus brings him through the process of repentance and gives him the key to transformation. Three times Peter denied the Lord, and so three times Jesus asks him to reaffirm his faith:“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Notice that Christianity is not a set of ideas or convictions or principles. It is a relationship with a person. Do you love Jesus? Has he become your friend?When Simon says...

A farmer, 72, fell into a crocodile enclosure in the Cambodian city of Siem Reap Luan Nam was pulled in when one of the reptiles pulled on the stick he was using A 72-year-old farmer was killed by 'about 40 crocodiles' this morning after falling into their enclosure on the family's reptile farm. Luan Nam was trying to move a crocodile out of its cage in Cambodia where it had laid eggs when it grabbed the stick he was using as a goad and pulled him in. A group of reptiles swarmed him, tearing his body to pieces and leaving...

Florida Representative Byron Donalds urged Republicans to unite and rally behind Donald Trump in 2024, citing Democrats' support of Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman ahead of the 2022 midterm elections. "For the Republicans who've had issues with Donald Trump, let me remind you that Democrats rallied behind John Fetterman," tweeted Donalds, an avid Trump supporter. "Democrats are about victory & victory only. Republicans must support our nominee, unite, & bring commonsense & America-First policies back to Washington." Trump announced his 2024 presidential bid in November, even though some Republicans have expressed that they want to back other candidates who seem more...

A new poll found that Americans believe that the average family needs to make a minimum of $85,000 annually to get by, a major increase from just a decade ago. The Gallup poll shows about a 46 percent increase in the perceived average income a family of four needs compared to 2013, when American put the figure at $58,000 annually. “The rise in perceived necessary income to support a family of four highlights the economic pressure facing American households as high inflation stretches into a second year,” the poll results read. About 31 percent of respondents said that the minimum...

I can’t wait to go a week or a month or – who could imagine? – a year without writing a single article on LGBTQ+ activism. I imagine you can’t wait to go a week or month or year without reading another article on the subject either. But here we are in 2023 in the midst of a cultural implosion, and common sense, decency, the fear of God, and a deep love for people cause me to cry out. Again.

(The Center Square) – The suicide rate for Chicago police is higher than in other big cities, with seven CPD officers dying by suicide last year. That’s more than 2020 and 2021 combined. Now, the Fraternal Order of Police, the labor union representing front-line Chicago cops, has an option for its members. The group has developed part of its building at 1412 West Washington into the First Responders Wellness Center, a clinic run by former first responders who are mental health professionals. “It’s prevention,” Dr. Carrie Steiner, a psychologist and former police officer working at the wellness center, told The...

Recently we have studied the unusual optical properties of the Veil of Manoppello, a canvas representing the face of Jesus Christ … with that visible on the Turin Shroud. In particular, the paper focuses on assessing whether the two images can be superimposed, i.e., whether they are different images of the same face. Indeed, some scholars have suggested that the Veil of Manoppello and the Turin Shroud show different images of the same face. We demonstrate that the face of the Turin Shroud, after a logarithmic transformation of the intensity and the correction of the background noise, shows cheeks’ profiles,...

The world is upside down. Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who was unarmed, peaceful, and never entered the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, was just sentenced to 18 years in prison for “seditious conspiracy.” Meanwhile, soft-on-crime Democrats continue to reduce prison sentences and penalties for violent criminals — and a man who shot a pro-lifer received nothing but community service. Fox 28 reported on May 23 that 75-year-old Richard Harvey, who “pleaded no contest to shooting an 84-year-old woman” campaigning for the pro-life cause, received a very light sentence indeed. Harvey has to complete 100 hours of community service, “a...

(Daily readings from the USCCB)“Amen, amen, I say to you, when you were younger, you used to dress yourself and go where you wanted; but when you grow old, you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.” He said this signifying by what kind of death he would glorify God. And when he had said this, he said to him, “Follow me.” John 21:18–19On this, the third time that Jesus appeared to His disciples, Jesus enters into a threefold discourse with Peter. Each time that Jesus...

A Chinese salvage ship has been caught looting British World War II shipwrecks near the Malaysian coast. The vessel, a dredger named Chuan Hong 68, was seen lurking near the shipwrecks of the Royal Navy battleship HMS Prince of Wales and cruiser HMS Repulse, according to the U.K.’s Daily Mail. Imperial Japanese forces destroyed both ships in December 1941, resulting in the loss of 842 British sailors — a significant setback for the Royal Navy in the Far East. The sites of the shipwrecks are officially designated war graves, according to a statement from the Royal Navy National Museum. Chuan...

Workers from Fox News swooped in and dismantled Tucker Carlson's Maine recording studio just as he was preparing to take his show to Twitter, DailyMail.com has learned exclusively.And the studio – in a converted barn – will now have to be completely rebuilt after being left in shambles by the network's crew.'Fox came in last week and got all their sh*t out of there,' Patrick Feeney, who is managing the work, told DailyMail.com.'They took the set and everything, all the equipment, the chairs, the desk, the fake walls, everything.'

At national tournaments, judges are making their stances clear: students who argue ‘capitalism can reduce poverty’ or ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ will lose—no questions asked. My four years on a high school debate team in Broward County, Florida, taught me to challenge ideas, question assumptions, and think outside the box. It also helped me overcome a terrible childhood stutter. And I wasn’t half-bad: I placed ninth my first time at the National Speech & Debate Association (NSDA) nationals, sixth at the Harvard national, and was runner-up at the Emory national. After college, between 2017 and 2019, I...

In 2023, we are just now entering the deadliest phase of the opioid crisis. Driven by a powerful synthetic opioid known as fentanyl, this is not just another chapter in the pharmaceutical and over-prescription scandal. During the last three years, prescription opioids were dispensed at the lowest levels in nearly 15 years, while overdose deaths have skyrocketed to record levels. In 2021, the United States hit a grim new milestone of 107,000 drug overdose deaths, with fentanyl accounting for nearly 70% of those deaths. Like so many other states, Minnesota, where I served as sheriff of its largest county, was...

An attacker pummeled a 52-year-old woman on a Queens train after ordering her to “look somewhere else,” cops said Friday. The victim was riding a southbound E train approaching Queens Plaza around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday when the man approached her and made the demand, police said. He then punched her multiple times in the head, police said. When the train stopped at the station, the assailant ran off, cops said. A 52-year-old woman was pummeled on a Queens train by a suspect who told her to “look somewhere else,” cops said. NYPD The victim stayed on the train until it...

Italy is leading the revolt against European Union plans to tighten emission limits and push drivers into electric vehicles (EVs) with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni vowing to defend automotive industry jobs. Meloni’s coalition gained power last October and immediately tried to thwart E.U. efforts to ban the sale of new cars running on fossil fuels by 2035, which her predecessor Mario Draghi had supported. Italy argued that the E.U. should not mandate a total switch to electric cars but should also allow the sale of vehicles running on biofuels as well as other traditional sources. The pushback failed and the...

An Albany mother claims she was left “angry” and “betrayed” when the apple pie she thought she was buying from a local ShopRite turned out to be a cherry pie, leading her daughter to get sick when she ate a piece of it, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in Albany County Supreme Court. The supermarket allegedly “misbranded and mislabeled” the pastry as an apple pie that she bought during a trip to the store on April 20, according to legal papers. For that alleged switcheroo, plaintiff Tiffany Brady wants $35,000 in damages. Brady, a mother of five, and her...

FRENCH POLICE HAVE thrown a security cordon around a shareholders’ meeting in Paris of oil major TotalEnergies, spraying tear gas and pushing back climate protesters. Shareholders, some escorted into the meeting by police, ran a gauntlet of the peaceful, earnest and mostly young demonstrators, who waved signs attacking the climate record of the French energy giant that has reaped colossal profits from price surges that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Demonstrators’ signs declared: “The last pipeline before the end of the world”, and: “Listen to the scientists: No more fossil projects”. Protesters sat down in the surrounding streets and linked...