Free Republic

They still wear suffragist-white outfits and cheer on the prospect of “Madam President.” But eight years after Hillary Clinton became the first woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket, Democrats are sending American women a more sober and urgent message even as they try to elect another barrier-breaking candidate. Republican policies, they argue, have had disastrous and once-unthinkable consequences for the health and autonomy of women and their families since the overturning of Roe v. Wade. A second term for former President Donald J. Trump, they warn, would be even more dangerous. “Simply put,” Vice President Kamala Harris said...

Vladimir Zelensky has signed a law that calls for the banning of any religious group suspected of having ties to Russia. It threatens to effectively shut down the Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) - the largest faith-based organization in the country. The Ukrainian parliament introduced the legislation earlier this week; it is expected to take effect in 30 days. After that, all the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and all affiliated religious organizations will be outlawed. The Synod stated that it would appeal Kiev's actions with international human rights organizations and call on them to immediately and objectively respond...

The withdrawal of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the presidential race and his endorsement of former President Donald Trump was yet another extraordinary moment in an election that has been anything but predictable. Only a year ago, it would have been unthinkable that a sitting president would be effectively forced off a ticket and replaced by a candidate who did not secure a single vote for president. Now, the nephew of John F. Kennedy and son of the Robert F. Kennedy has not just withdrawn from the Democratic Party but endorsed the Republican nominee. Amidst all of the claimed “joy”...

Four people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after a man suffered serious injuries in a stabbing in Birmingham. Police were called to the junction of Dudley Road and Bellefield Road in Winson Green at about 01:30 BST on Saturday. The victim, a man in his 40s, had been taken to hospital with a slash injury, but was in a stable condition, West Midlands Police said. Three men, aged 34, 29 and 26 and a 22-year-old woman remain in custody as police inquiries continue.

Republican pollster Frank Luntz signaled that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s backing of former President Trump could help him win battleground states in 2024. Luntz said that while Kennedy’s poll numbers have dropped since Vice President Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic Party presidential ticket, his remaining supporters could provide enough backing to tip some swing-state results in Trump’s favor. “It’s probably worth about 1 percent for Trump and that 1 percent could be everything if it’s in the swing states,” Luntz said during his Friday appearance on NewsNation’s “On Balance” with Leland Vittert.

Telegram founder Pavel Durov detained on arriving in France from Azerbaijan

SOLINGEN, Germany, Aug 24 (Reuters) - The Islamic State group claimed responsibility on Saturday for a knife attack in the German city of Solingen that killed three people and wounded eight others. Some 24 hours after the attack, police said they made a second arrest on Saturday evening as part of a police operation at a home for refugees in Solingen. Police said they could not provide more details on the individual or its connection to the incident. Police earlier on Saturday detained a teenager who they said may be connected with the attack but said the perpetrator was still...

Donald J. Trump’s political endurance this year has been attributed in part to voters’ faded memories about why they denied him a second term four years ago. The former president is doing his best to remind them. Despite a carefully scripted week of campaign events aimed at counterprogramming the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Trump undercut much of his messaging with a series of off-the-cuff remarks, rants and blunders that threatened to stoke the kind of Republican anxiety he has spent much of the past month trying to tamp down. On Monday in Pennsylvania, he struggled to clarify a previous comment...

Ruth Johnson Colvin, who founded Literacy Volunteers of America, was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame and received the nation’s highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, has died. She was 107 years old. Colvin died on Sunday in Syracuse, New York, according to ProLiteracy, the nonprofit organization created by the merger of Literacy Volunteers and Laubach Literacy in 2002. She served on the organization’s board of directors until her death. “We owe not only ProLiteracy’s existence to Ruth and her founding of Literacy Volunteers of America, but we are guided by her innate understanding that literacy...

I believe there are few, if any, nations in the modern world where independence means as much today as it does in Ukraine. Ukraine’s fight for independence took centuries. And when we finally got it after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, its successor, Russia, soon tried to subjugate Ukraine again. I’m Ukrainian but my first words were in Russian. In fact, all of my words were in Russian until I started school. Like many other Ukrainian families, mine used to be Ukrainian-speaking once, but was Russified over recent generations The big bang that changed it all happened in 2014....

One of the country's largest automakers announced this week that it was shifting its focus away from battery-powered electric vehicles (E.V.s) in favor of hybrids that still use some amount of gasoline. The decision to prioritize a transitional technology makes sense, even though federal regulators might not be happy. Ford Motor Co. CFO John Lawler told journalists Wednesday that the company would be shifting its focus away from all-electric vehicles. This included scrapping an electric three-row SUV previously planned for release in 2025. The decision marks a major shift in the company's priorities. Two years ago, the automaker restructured, cleaving...

Kemtal Glasgow, Gateway Church’s executive pastor who provided leadership and oversight to all of the megachurch’s campuses and gathering locations, has been fired due to a “moral issue,” the Southlake, Texas-based church announced Wednesday. Tra Willbanks, a longtime Gateway Church elder, made the announcement in a video posted on YouTube. “As of Monday this week, Kemtal Glasgow is no longer employed at Gateway. We were informed last week of a moral issue which we believe, as elders, disqualifies him from serving in the role that he had at Gateway,” Willbanks said. “We love his family. We love his wife and...

I'm a dad, was a single dad for 15 years to a son. Any dad, any single dad, has a sense about certain males in their son's orbit. Coaches, teachers, Scout Leaders, neighbors, his friend's dads. Anyone else get this vibe I'm picking up?

Sir Keir Starmer has told Ukrainians the UK will back them “today and always”, as Kyiv marks 33 years since it declared independence from the Soviet Union. The Prime Minister described his message to frontline fighters and people who have sought refuge in the UK as “crystal clear”, and the Government confirmed community groups, councils and parishes have planned events to mark the anniversary. Ukraine’s supreme soviet agreed the state should leave the Moscow-based Soviet Union on August 24 1991, a decision which Ukrainian voters backed at a referendum in December the same year. “My message to all Ukrainians, whether...

No, she really said it.

Explanation: The full Moon and Earth's shadow set together in this island skyscape. The alluring scene was captured Tuesday morning, August 20, from Fiji, South Pacific Ocean, planet Earth. For early morning risers shadowset in the western sky is a daily apparition. Still, the grey-blue shadow is often overlooked in favor of a brighter eastern horizon. Extending through the dense atmosphere, Earth's setting shadow is bounded above by a pinkish glow or anti-twilight arch. Known as the Belt of Venus, the arch's lovely color is due to backscattering of reddened light from the opposite horizon's rising Sun. Of course, the...

Costco shoppers haven't been shy about expressing their anger over the warehouse's new membership card policy. The new rule, which was implemented in some stores in January and is now rolling out nationwide, calls for mandatory membership card scans to enter the store. As frustrating as the new policy has been for some shoppers, it turns out that Costco workers hate the mandatory card scanning, too. Or at least, they hate they way it's making some shoppers behave. A Costco worker recently vented on Reddit about the membership card-scanning policy. They also offered disturbing details on the "abuse and mistreatment"...

It seems impossible to deny that powerful forces are conspiring to suppress basic freedoms and impose top-down control over American society. Intelligence agencies team up with Big Tech to censor information, governments are marking political dissidents as “terror threats,” and presidential candidates are hand-picked by party elites.Looking around, I can’t help but feel that the American way of life is under attack. Yet at the same time, I know that research shows that successful people don’t believe that their lives are subject to control by distant powers.Instead, they believe that effort is rewarded; they have an internal locus of control...

Senator JD Vance faced ridicule over a viral video showing him stopping inside a Georgia donut shop on Thursday. On Thursday, Vance visited Holt's Sweet Shop in Valdosta, Georgia, a crucial battleground state Republicans are hoping will flip back to Trump after it narrowly voted for President Joe Biden in 2020. He faced a wave of ridicule over the video, with critics describing the stop as "awkward." The campaign stop comes as Vance's popularity among voters remains a sticking point for the Trump campaign.

Like a pack of attack dogs, Hollywood celebrities turned their attention to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., on Friday after he endorsed former President Donald Trump and blasted the Democratic party for having rigged its own primaries and undemocratically installed Kamala Harris as its nominee. Stars including George Takei, Jeffrey Wright, Chris Meloni, Sandra Bernhard, and The West Wing‘s Bradley Whitford unleashed a torrent of vicious verbal attacks on Kennedy for having dared to cross the aisle to form an alliance with Trump.