Free Republic

Cohen’s testimony under blistering cross-examination from Trump’s defense team exposed the weaknesses in Manhattan District Attorney Bragg's case. At the conclusion of key prosecution witness Michael Cohen’s testimony Monday in Donald Trump’s so-called “hush money” trial, jurors were left to ponder a litany of damaging statements that have further cut into Cohen’s credibility and likely made the prosecution’s case harder to prove. Both the defense and the prosecution wrapped up their cases on Monday, signaling the shift into the later stages of the trial. Widely seen as central to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president, legal...

Elvis Presley’s granddaughter, actress Riley Keough, is attempting to halt the proposed sale of Graceland, the late singer’s home in Memphis, Tennessee. Keough inherited the mansion and much of Presley's estate after her mother, Lisa Marie Presley, died last year. However, Graceland is now at the centre of a dispute with a company that says the compound was used as collateral in a $3.8m (£3m) loan that was taken out by Lisa Marie but never paid back.

The IDF strives always to warn civilians away from places about to be targeted, even when those warnings remove the element of surprise, which often is the critical element in a military attack. We have seen this yet again in the beginning of the Rafah operation. West Point Professor John Spencer says that Israel has “created a new standard for urban warfare”: “Israel Has Created a New Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It? | Opinion,” by John Spencer, Newsweek, March 25, 2024:These measures were effective. Israel was able to evacuate upwards of 85 percent of the...

The Russian government has instructed Gazprom, once Russia's biggest company by revenue, not to pay out dividends, following record losses and a plummeting share price. Earlier this month, Gazprom Group, which also includes oil and power businesses, announced a net loss of 629 billion rubles [$6.9 billion] for last year—the first since 1999. A decree on the government website, dated May 18, ordered Gazprom not "to provide for the payment of dividends on ordinary registered shares," for 2023.

Well, we’ve pinpointed the big, ugly disconnect in the Biden economy, and it’s a massive YIKES. While Team Biden clumsily tries to sell us on the idea that the economy is fantastic and we’re better off than ever, the grim reality just got blasted out for all to see in one of the most alarming graphs ever. It shows that since Biden took office, household net worth has plummeted, sharply contrasting the financial stability many enjoyed under President Trump. This graph once again proves that what we see firsthand everyday. The truth always “trumps” the Biden smokescreens and spin. Inflation...

It’s a hallmark of totalitarian regimes. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote about it in his monumental exploration of the nightmare of totalitarianism, “The Gulag Archipelago”: “The sharp nighttime ring or the rude knock at the door. The insolent entrance of the unwiped jackboots of the unsleeping State Security operatives.” The left has now adopted this tactic in the United States, not for arrests (yet), but to frighten its foes into submission.The Jerusalem Post recently reported that “anti-Israel masked men arrived at the homes of University of Michigan Board of Regents members before dawn on Wednesday to protest and demand the adoption of...

One person has died and 30 more people are injured as a Boeing 777-300ER flying from London to Singapore plunged some 7,000 feet in six minutes while encountering severe turbulence.

Radical Marxist groups, including some with ties to China, are planning on protests at the Chicago Democratic Convention this year. What is so surprising is that there are many Democrats so surprised. They question why groups they have supported with resources and fiery speeches would turn against them. Those Democrats have coddled and loved on the Marxists with glowing praise while condemning their opponents with the harshest of rhetoric and most disparaging of words. These naïve souls are still in need of history lessons that the federal Department of Education does not mandate nor provide.Many have at least noted that...

Microplastics found in every human testicle in study. Scientists say discovery may be linked to decades-long decline in sperm counts in men around the world.Microplastics have been found in human testicles, with researchers saying the discovery might be linked to declining sperm counts in men. The scientists tested 23 human testes, as well as 47 testes from pet dogs. They found microplastic pollution in every sample. The human testicles had been preserved and so their sperm count could not be measured. However, the sperm count in the dogs’ testes could be assessed and was lower in samples with higher contamination...

ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. - A Florida fugitive on the run from the law for nearly two months was taken into custody on Friday after he was found hiding inside the drum of a home's clothes dryer. The Escambia County Sheriff’s Office said 31-year-old David Jerome Jackson was wanted on charges of firing a gun into a dwelling, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, damage to property and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, for an incident on March 15, 2024. On Friday, deputies received a tip that Jackson was inside a house on Edgewater Drive in Pensacola and...

Undoubtedly, by this time in your life you have read a hundred times, or maybe a thousand, that beef production is a “major contributor” to climate change. It’s one of those narratives that has become a continuous drumbeat in the progressive press. Probably, you have had no reason to question it. Without thinking about it, you likely assume that this narrative is probably true. But there is good reason to think critically about this one. Among the various scare stories used to take further control of your life, this is one of the more important. With the war against...

ANCHORAGE, Alaska – A 70-year-old Alaska man who was attempting to take photos of two newborn moose calves was attacked and killed by their mother, authorities said Monday. The man killed Sunday was identified as Dale Chorman of Homer, said Austin McDaniel, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Public Safety. The female moose had recently given birth to the calves in Homer. “As they were walking through the brush looking for the moose, that’s when the cow moose attacked Dale,” McDaniel said. The attack happened as the two were running away, he said. The second man, who has not...

Russian central bank assets. Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said the move will hand Ukraine up to €3 billion (about $3.3 billion) this year. "We have approved in the EU using revenues from Russia's central bank's frozen assets to help Ukraine," wrote Lipavsky on X, formerly Twitter. "Up to €3B only this year, 90% goes for Ukraine's military. Russia must pay for its war damages." The financial assets were frozen shortly after Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Reuters reported this month that the EU has estimated that by 2027, windfall profits from Russia's central bank...

Given the bias of this judge for the prosecution and his overt antipathy for the defendant, Donald Trump, what explains his willing destruction of his own reputation as a justice? Given what we know about what has been going on in Justice Juan Merchan’s Manhattan courtroom, including the preposterous, over-the-top bias of this judge for the prosecution and his overt antipathy for the defendant, Donald Trump, what explains his willing destruction of his own reputation as a judge? Each and every legal scholar who has weighed in on the course of the trial, from Alan Dershowitz to Jonathan Turley and...

~This month marks The Mark Steyn Club's seventh birthday, and I thank profoundly all those First Fortnight Founding Members who've opted to sign on for an eighth year. We hope, as the days proceed, that our First Month Founding Members will want to do the same. ~I don't have anything to say about the death of the President of Iran, except that I was struck by the curious detail that he and his Azerbaijani counterpart had been opening two new dams. American presidents don't do that: Instead, the US demolishes dams at the rate of over fifty a year. If...

Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney, was among the experts who advised the International Criminal Court (ICC) in seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar over alleged war crimes. The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, asked Clooney, 46, to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and the Gaza Strip, where Israeli military forces have been operating since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

One of the jokes on the death of former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi that garnered success stated "The pilot is a Mossad agent named Eli Kopter.” Following the reports that emerged on Sunday regarding the helicopter crash of President Ebrahim Raisi, social media users in Israel celebrated the death of the Iranian leader. One of the jokes that garnered success stated, "The pilot is a Mossad agent named Eli Kopter.” The joke spread quickly and reached social networks around the world. Many users, unaware that it was a joke, took it seriously, and many even shared it as a sign...

Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem (5/21/24)[Prayer]The Names and Titles of God (Christ of God) Luke 9:2020 He said unto them, But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God.King James Version________________________God Bless America.ML/LTOS

Government apparatchiks tell bald-faced lies to create enough plausible deniability to establish legal immunity for their crimes. What are the wages of rigged elections? Invasion, inflation, taxation, and war. But for a 2020 jiggering of state election procedures that allowed Democrats to flood battleground states with fraudulent mail-in ballots and other illegally cast votes, Americans would not today be suffering from unprecedented foreign invasion, out-of-control inflation, higher taxes, crippling regulations, or the specter of global war. The Deep State that permanently controls the day-to-day maneuverings of the U.S. government wanted open borders, unconstrained money-printing, income confiscation at home, and empire-building...

REDMOND, Wash. (AP) — Microsoft wants laptop users to get so comfortable with its artificial intelligence chatbot that it will remember everything you’re doing on your computer and help figure out what you want to do next.The software giant on Monday revealed a new class of AI-imbued personal computers as it confronts heightened competition from Big Tech rivals in pitching generative AI technology that can compose documents, make images and serve as a lifelike personal assistant at work or home.