Free Republic

DES MOINES, IA — Federal authorities have begun a massive manhunt for an arsonist who on Friday completely torched three presidential campaigns. "He left nothing but ashes," said Chief of Police Ron Miller. "All three campaigns were burned to the ground in a matter of hours. We're dealing with a professional." According to police, the suspect lured unsuspecting presidential campaigns to Iowa, where they were each set ablaze in rapid succession. "The campaigns never saw it coming," said local firefighter Wes Bailey. "Witnesses say the arsonist had brown, slightly disheveled hair, and looked somewhat confused as he lit the match....

<p>As experienced professionals involved in direct care for the rapidly growing numbers of gender-diverse youth, the evaluation of medical evidence or both, we were surprised by the Endocrine Society’s claims about the state of evidence for gender-affirming care for youth (Letters, July 5). Stephen Hammes, president of the Endocrine Society, writes, “More than 2,000 studies published since 1975 form a clear picture: Gender-affirming care improves the well-being of transgender and gender-diverse people and reduces the risk of suicide.” This claim is not supported by the best available evidence.</p>

Russia sacked two generals in the past week, as Moscow’s Ministry of Defense reportedly continues to purge its top officers, pointing to a growing disarray in the military leadership following the aborted rebellion by the Wagner mercenary group. Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoigu canned Maj. Gen. Vladimir Seliverstov, commander of the Tula Airborne Division, this week, according to Belarusian news outlet Charter97. The governor of the Tula region, which borders Moscow, Alexei Dyumin, tried to stand up for Seliverstov, who was involved in the battles in Bakhmut, but to no avail, according to the Russian publication VChK-OGPU. Seliverstov’s reported...

After ten days of intensive inquiries and scrutiny of 1,000s of hours of video evidence, the Secret Service decided to close the investigation into how a bag of cocaine ended up inside the White House. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle explained that "as improbable as it might seem, in all the videos of the area where the baggie was found the potential suspects all had their backs toward the cameras. Then as it turned out, the FBI was unable to find any fingerprints or DNA on the baggie. Finally, when we questioned the 500 persons shown to have been in...

Cardinal Burke to offer Traditional Latin Mass for faithful, persecuted Chinese CatholicsCardinal Burke's Mass on Tuesday, July 25 in Stamford, Connecticut, will honor Our Lady of Sheshan in support of the persecuted clergy and faithful of the underground Catholic Church in Communist China.STAMFORD, Connecticut (LifeSiteNews) — Later this month, Raymond Cardinal Burke will celebrate a solemn traditional Latin Mass in honor of Our Lady of Sheshan, praying for the persecuted clergy and faithful of the underground Catholic Church in Communist China.The solemn Pontifical Mass will be celebrated on Tuesday, July 25, at 6 p.m. ET at the Basilica of St....

In the first two weeks of Ukraine’s grueling counteroffensive, as much as 20 percent of the weaponry it sent to the battlefield was damaged or destroyed, according to American and European officials. The toll includes some of the formidable Western fighting machines — tanks and armored personnel carriers — the Ukrainians were counting on to beat back the Russians. The startling rate of losses dropped to about 10 percent in the ensuing weeks, the officials said, preserving more of the troops and machines needed for the major offensive push that the Ukrainians say is still to come.

The developers of Mountain Valley Pipeline have asked the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for an emergency intervention to allow the project’s construction to progress. The pipeline developers made their application late Friday to vacate the stays of the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. Such applications represent a request for emergency action addressed to a specific justice, in this case Chief Justice John Roberts. Each justice is assigned to circuits to handle such applications, and Roberts has the Fourth Circuit, which includes the region where the pipeline is being developed. The 35-page filing is in...

The department store will probably disappear in the next ten to twenty years, according to everyone who still cares about department stores. Writing in the early months of the pandemic, the New York Times predicted that lockdowns would deal the killing blow. If they didn't disappear outright, "there is expected to be an enormous reduction in the number of stores in each chain, which once sprawled across the American continent like a pack of many-headed hydras." That sort of bleak language – "many-headed hydras" sprawling across a continent – paints a bitter picture of an institution that was once a...

Matthew 10:24-33 Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples not to fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Through the power of his being, he has linked us to the creative source of all existence. And in that “place,” loved in the Spirit by the Father and the Son, we are safe—even from those who would kill the body.But this means that our perspective can and must change. Most of us spend most of our lives defending ourselves against assaults on the “body”—keen, almost every waking moment, to protect our psyches, When we do that,...

Conservative commentator George Will criticized 2024 GOP primary favorites former President Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, in a column Friday, saying that both candidates will come out of the GOP primary weaker. “The 2024 Republican nomination question was supposed to be: Could anyone harpoon the Great Orange Whale? Who knew that he would harpoon himself, repeatedly? Or that DeSantis, playing Captain Ahab, would pay Trump the sincerest form of flattery by imitating his persona as an unhappy warrior?” Will wrote in a Washington Post column.

[Update July 14 6:35 pm]: After initially telling The Daily Beast that the Snow White set photos were fake, a spokesperson now says that the photos are in fact from the production, but are not official photos. We regret the error (and, in our mind, they still look pretty fake). The following story has been updated to reflect this fact. People who love to be mad and loud on the internet really do just jump at any possible opportunity to get really mad and really loud—even opportunities that are very clearly produced with that exact purpose in mind.

Failing the New York State teachers’ exam really paid off — especially for a Queens man who learned this month he’s getting a $2 million windfall over it. Roughly 5,200 black and Hispanic ex-Big Apple teachers and once-aspiring educators are expected to collect more than $1.8 billion in judgments after the city stopped fighting a nearly three-decade federal discrimination lawsuit that found a certification exam was biased. It’s the largest legal payout in city history. Court rulings found the exam violated civil-rights laws, allowing far more white candidates to pass.The case is expected to generate hundreds of other future million-dollar...

Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that incidence of a common stomach illness is on the rise on cruise ships. In an update posted several days ago, the federal agency is now listing 13 outbreaks of norovirus on cruise ships this year, which is the highest number of outbreaks recorded on cruises since 2012. The most recent reported norovirus outbreak was on June 20 on a Viking Cruises ship in which about 120 passengers and crew members reported being ill out of about 1,200 people who were on board. Viking Cruises recently told The...

Planet Earth is plagued with terrible governments, most notably those of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. It is not difficult to argue that one of these is the world’s worst. My vote, however, goes to the current US government for this reason: When the most powerful and influential country in the world has a dysfunctional government like the one run by Joe Biden, the equilibrium of the entire world is threatened.

Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida appeared to take a page out of former President Trump’s campaign playbook on Friday with a visit to a Dairy Queen in Des Moines, Iowa. However, unlike Trump’s rallies, which drew large crowds, DeSantis’ stop at the ice cream chain drew a muted response. n an attempt to connect with Iowa voters, DeSantis visited the Dairy Queen at Des Moines, ordered a Blizzard ice cream treat, and answered questions from the few present journalists. His visit seemed a clear nod to a Trump tradition – the former president was known for his fondness for fast-food...

"Salt is good: but if the salt have lost his saltness, wherewith will ye season it? Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." "I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father." "I rejoiced greatly that I found of thy children walking in truth, as we have received a commandment from the Father." Mark, Chapter 9 1 And he said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have...

Magic mushrooms may have been to blame for Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s mortifying bow before a Chinese official last week. Yellen, 76, gobbled four portions of jian shou qing, a type of wild mushroom, when she dropped in at a casual Beijing restaurant soon after she arrived there on July 6, Chinese state media reported in an effusive story that took care to praise the secretary’s chopstick skills. But the funky fungi are known in their native province of Yunnan for their unpredictable psychedelic effects, CNN reported.

Faith Leaders Warn Lawmakers of Worsening Religious Persecution for Catholics and Other Christians in China, Criticize Vatican AgreementSurvivors of religious persecution and leaders from Muslim, Christian and Buddhist faith backgrounds warned lawmakers on Capitol Hill Wednesday that the persecution of people of faith by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has only grown worse in the past year, as churches are destroyed, people of faith imprisoned, and government efforts to take over church leadership continue. The Protestant pastor was the target of scrutiny by the CCP for receiving instruction and ordination from the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the U.S. that, he...

Former Vice President Mike Pence was on the hot seat Friday and had difficulty answering a question about the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol incident when asked by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Pence was attending a 2024 GOP presidential candidate forum hosted by Carlson called the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, when he was put on the spot with a blunt question about that fateful day that he initially declined to address directly. Pence has run a campaign in which he has largely distanced himself from his former boss, though it hasn’t resonated with GOP voters...

Explanation: This stunning infrared image was released one year ago as the James Webb Space Telescope began its exploration of the cosmos. The view of the early Universe toward the southern constellation Volans was achieved in 12.5 hours of exposure with Webb's NIRCam instrument. Of course the stars with six spikes are well within our own Milky Way. Their diffraction pattern is characteristic of Webb's 18 hexagonal mirror segments operating together as a single 6.5 meter diameter primary mirror. The thousands of galaxies flooding the field of view are members of the distant galaxy cluster SMACS0723-73, some 4.6 billion light-years...