Free Republic

By 2030, the European Union expects 80% of its citizens to opt for a digital passport.. For the first time, a nation is allowing travelers to cross its border with a digital passport on their smartphone instead of a physical passport. While the trial is happening in Finland, the European Union wants at least 80% of citizens in the 27-country bloc to be using a digital ID by 2030. The pilot program, which started at the end of August, is available only to Finnish citizens. It is running at Helsinki Airport as a partnership between Finnair, airport operator Finavia and...

Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, walloping businesses and their workers. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, which provided their survey results exclusively to The Wall Street Journal. Willis Towers Watson, which goes by the initials WTW, projects the increase will be the biggest in more than a decade. Such a boost could add significantly to the price tag for employer plans that already average more than $14,600 a year per employee, driving up health-insurance costs that are among...

Remember 'Best of Times"? Who would've thought back then that this melody would hold so much meaning for today?

Western Heights Public School District in Oklahoma has reportedly hired a drag queen known as Carmen Deveraux, who works at Oklahoma City night club The Boom, as a kindergarten classroom assistant. The school previously defended its August decision to hire Dr. Shane Brent Murnan as an elementary school principal at John Glenn Elementary. Murnan is a drag queen who performs under the name Shantel Mandalay and has an arrest record for child pornography, the Substack newsletter V1sut first reported. In 2001, while working as a fifth-grade teacher at Will Rogers Elementary School in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Murnan was arrested two weeks...

Much of the military will fall short of recruitment goals by as much as 25% this year — caused by a combination of obesity and falling patriotism in Gen Z and by restrictions on recruits having had therapy. The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard are all expected to fall short of their recruitment goals this year, they told The Post. “My generation is a real challenge,” 25-year-old Marine 2nd Lt. Matthew Weiss told the Post. “Something has to change.”

Author and pastor John Piper believes Christians will work in Heaven — but the work will be so “profoundly satisfying and sweet and enjoyable” that nobody in the world to come will say, “I need a weekend.”“I think we will work in the final age to come,” Piper, founder of Desiring God and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary in Minneapolis, Minnesota, wrote. “Whether we will do what we were gifted for here, or whether we will have wholly new giftings, a thousand times greater, or what kind of work John Piper will be doing, I leave in the hands...

The Anti-Defamation League may be in deep trouble as social media platform owner Elon Musk has threatened to take legal action against the group’s latest anti-free speech activism. Musk, the owner of X (formerly known as Twitter), announced on Monday his intent to slap ADL with a whopping “$22 billion” defamation lawsuit following the group’s dubious claims that X allows anti-Semitic content. Musk’s threats follow ADL Director Jonathan Greenblatt's dual tirade against podcast host Tucker Carlson and ad revenues on X. According to Musk, ADL “has been trying to kill this platform by falsely accusing it & me of being...

“We reckon that no evil can be done to us unless we be convicted as evildoers or be proved to be wicked men; and you, you can kill, but not hurt us” — Justin Martyr (First Apology).Disturbing news emerged from New Delhi, the capital of India, a few weeks ago, where Hindutva vigilante groups barged into a prayer gathering at the Siyyon Prarthna Bhawan with shouts of “Jai Shree Ram,” beating up the believers, which included several women. The attackers alleged that the Christians were attempting religious conversion. Such incidents have been on a steady rise for the last few...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) on Thursday joined a group of millionaires in their call for Group of 20 (G20) nations to tax the ultrarich. In an open letter to G20 heads of state, Sanders, along with more than 300 millionaires, economists and politicians, called on the world’s largest economies to enact new tax regimes — at both national and international levels — that will prevent the “ultra-rich” from being able to “avoid paying their dues.”

Popular gun safe manufacturer Liberty Safe has been struggling to respond to conservative backlash after it gave the FBI access to a customer’s safe as part of a probe into the customer’s participation in the Capitol riot. Late Wednesday, the company announced that customers will have the option to erase data of their safe combinations and “take control of how their information is stored and protected.” Earlier in the day, Liberty Safe had explained that the FBI had produced a search warrant to the safe owned by Nathan Hughes, a 34-year-old Arkansas man charged with felony civil disorder in connection...

Sales have gone through the roof at a Massachusetts pizza shop after the Barstool Sports founder and famed slice reviewer Dave Portnoy branded the pizza joint as the "worst" in the United States following a now viral feud with the owner of the eatery. Somerville's Dragon Pizza said in a post on its Instagram account on Tuesday that it was "completely sold out" and needed to close its doors for the day. "We are completely sold out and need a day to prepare for the rest of the week. Thank you to our amazing staff and supporters. Couldn't do it...

Joe Biden enraged environmentalists in March when he gave the go-ahead to allow the $8 billion Willow Project to drill on Arctic land. The greenies felt that Biden had betrayed a campaign promise of “no new drilling, period” on federal lands. They needn’t have worried. Biden has never wavered from his goal of destroying the fossil fuel industry, nor has he ever deviated from his position that the U.S. will be weaned off of fossil fuels even if it costs tens of thousands of jobs and an untold amount of pain to consumers. The Biden administration announced that it would...

A high-level federal health official told me recently that a mainstay of the response to the increasing rates and hospitalizations due to COVID was going to be increased availability of rapid testing along with the promotion of Paxlovid. I agree with this approach. Paxlovid is an amazing antiviral drug that has worked incredibly well to decrease symptoms and severity of all variants and subvariants since it was first authorized for emergency use in December 2021 and then received full approval for adults in May 2023. Little clinical resistance has developed.

It’s only with the help of outside, nationally-funded groups like HRC that this radical amendment has a shot at passing.Radical LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign endorsed an amendment on the Ohio ballot this fall, even linking it to “LGBTQ+ rights,” after leftists and their allies in the corporate media spent months insisting the amendment had nothing to do with gender experiments. The constitutional amendment in question, which voters will decide on in November, would enshrine abortion up until birth in the Ohio Constitution and also override parental consent laws for gender-dysphoric minors seeking irreversible surgeries and disfiguring hormone injections.HRC,...

Back in 1984, President Reagan got the age question and turned it around masterfully by bringing up Walter Mondale's youth and inexperience. I was watching and he got reelected that night. Just for the record, Mr. Reagan turned 78 two weeks after completing two terms. Mr. Biden will be 81 this year!President Reagan had another huge advantage, i.e. a successful presidency based on a good economy and a sense that he commanded respect around the world. It didn’t hurt that the VP was a man named Bush rather than a woman named Harris. Over at the New York Times, Bret...

Archbishop defends giving Holy Communion to Muslim leader, citing Pope Francis and Vatican IIThe event, despite Archbishop Steinmetz’s defense, is in violation of Catholic teaching on a fundamental level.Abp. Steinmetz giving Holy Communion to Sheik MahairiCiting Pope Francis’ writings restricting the traditional liturgy, a Brazilian archbishop gave Holy Communion to a Muslim cleric at a funeral for a recently deceased cardinal.The news of a Muslim cleric receiving Holy Communion at the hands of a Catholic archbishop has sparked outrage. On August 28, Archbishop Geremias Steinmetz of the Archdiocese of Londrina in Brazil gave Holy Communion to Sheik Ahmad Saleh Mahairi....

That's how The Science™ works, boys and girls. Respect it, or be made to answer to the Department of Homeland Security, bigot.If you live on the East Coast of the U.S., chances are you've seen and/or heard tell of the increasing-in-frequency local news reports on the dead-whale-washing-up-on-shore phenomenon.Via Michael Shellenberger:"A new documentary, 'Thrown To The Wind,' by Director and Producer Jonah Markowitz, proves that the US government officials have been lying. The full film, which is at the bottom of this article, documents surprisingly loud, high-decibel sonar emitted by wind industry vessels when measured with state-of-the-art hydrophones. And it shows...

The influx of asylum-seeking students caused one Queens high school to overflow on the first day of class Thursday — even though, historically, city schools are reportedly only two-thirds full because of chronic absenteeism. Newcomers High School in Long Island City felt the strain from the migrant crisis on day one of the academic year, with a line to get in that stretched around the block and some students forced to go to another building to make room.

Messiah Lutheran Church in Joliet, Illinois, received the shock of their lives after government officials ordered them to repay nearly $800,000 in tithes given to them over the last ten years, and the clock is ticking. A FAQ created by the church explains: An unexpected, devastating crisis threatens the permanent closing of Messiah in Joliet, Illinois, a large congregation that has served the community for over 120 years. And this despite no wrongdoing or accusation of wrongdoing by the church. In January of 2021, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Receiver filed a federal lawsuit against Messiah demanding payment to...

The shooting plunged the town into lockdown and started a daylong police search for Bowles, who was clad in camouflage. Bowles was located by police early this afternoon where he was barricaded inside a rural property. According to the West Australian, he was waving a Nazi flag and wearing a Swastika. Terry Czernowski was shot by his co-worker at a grain silo business in Kelleberrin, near Perth.