Free Republic

The Force was not with “The Acolyte.”The “Star Wars” series — deemed “woke” by many online fans — was recently canceled after only one season, which came as a surprise to some of the cast members.Lee Jung-Jae, who played Master Sol in the Disney+ show, reacted to the cancellation in an interview with Entertainment Weekly on Friday.(Snip) The 8-episode series has faced intense online backlash for its progressive themes, with many fans calling out the alleged overt LGBTQ propaganda that was part of the show. On Rotten Tomatoes, the series has an 18% rating from the audience.

On the main street of this ancient Roman city is the remains of a grand house with black mosaic flooring and black painted walls. It had a series of shops built into its facade, with a uniquely preserved shop sign, and an extraordinary metalworkers shop with metal ingots still on its countertop. Inside the house a rare bundle of tablets was found, giving us the story of the life of the occupant. Join us as we explore The House of the Black Hall in the city of Herculaneum.The House of the Black Hall - Herculaneum | 12:39History Victorum | 16.4K...

WASHINGTON—Meta Platforms META -1.30%decrease; red down pointing triangle Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said it was improper for the Biden administration to have pressured Facebook to censor content in 2021 related to the coronavirus pandemic, vowing that the social-media giant would reject any such future efforts. Zuckerberg also said he didn’t plan to repeat efforts to fund nonprofits to assist in state election efforts, a Covid-era push that had drawn Republican criticism and sparked many Republican-leaning states to ban the practice.

Russia has targeted Ukraine with another wave of strikes, a day after one of its biggest air attacks of the war. US President Joe Biden called the attacks "outrageous", saying Washington would continue to support Ukraine's energy grid. Local official Yevhen Sytnychenko reported the deaths, saying houses, shops and vehicles had been damaged in the incident. Kryvyi Rih is the home city of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. The latest attacks are being seen as an attempt by Moscow to reassert its control over the conflict after Ukraine's recent gains of territory in Russia's Kursk region.

Hundreds of Venezuelan migrants are illegally working as food delivery drivers across America, DailyMail.com can reveal, showing up to your door under names and identities that don't belong to them. The troubling development is a consequence of the one million Venezuelan citizens who have flooded into the US, largely illegally, during President Joe Biden's time in office, with many entering through the US-Mexico border. It raises huge concerns about the safety of the home delivery apps and the consumer's ability to trust who is actually delivering food to their home and family - with customers' personal information potentially placed in...

Parents in a Boston exurb have reacted angrily to revelations that schools are axing buses for local children — but keeping them running for the kids of migrants and asylum seekers. Some 150 students at Stoughton Public Schools are scrambling to find ways to get to school from September 4, after the district cut services due to a lack of funding. Controversially, the hundreds of migrant and asylum seeker families living in the town of Stoughton will still get school-buses, thanks to funding from the state. The scrapping of buses for local kids comes amid fears that Massachusetts is going...

China hoarding silver, price 10% higher than West. Secret weapon or economic warfare? A Hidden War for Economic Dominance While the world has been focused on the geopolitical tensions between China and the West, a more subtle battle has been unfolding in the global financial markets. China, through a series of calculated moves, has been quietly accumulating vast quantities of gold and silver. This move has signaled a potential shift in the global economic landscape and highlights the developing countries’ need for exorbitant amounts of resources. Silver: China's Secret Weapon In addition to its gold hoarding, China has also been...

In my previous Wargaming the Electoral College, the map had barely budged in the 10 days or so since Presidentish Joe Biden was shoved off the top of his ticket by high-ranking members of his own party.That's changed in the last four weeks and not to Donald Trump's advantage. Can Robert F. Kennedy Jr. help change it back?Before I try and answer that — and there might not (yet) be a satisfactory answer — a few quick words about the state of the race and one blue and red map to show you what's changed.According to Polymarket bettors, this really...

You worked hard your whole life. You saved for a down payment and bought your dream home. The neighborhood is great, and you never have to worry about crime. The only thing your local police department has to do is hand out the occasional parking ticket. You did everything right — and you thought you were safe from the scourge of squatters who can only take over in “bad neighborhoods.” You were wrong. The Daily Caller’s new documentary, “American Squatter,” exposes the dirtiest secret in the housing market: squatters are king. And they can take over anywhere — even in...

The US has blocked export of Nvdia chips to China. But where there’s profit, there’s a way.Sanctions Fail Again and AgainThe Wall Street Journal reports China’s AI Engineers Are Secretly Accessing Banned Nvidia ChipsChinese artificial-intelligence developers have found a way to use the most advanced American chips without bringing them to China.One entrepreneur helping Chinese companies overcome the hurdles is Derek Aw, a former bitcoin miner. He persuaded investors in Dubai and the U.S. to fund the purchase of AI servers housing Nvidia’s powerful H100 chips.In June, Aw’s company loaded more than 300 servers with the chips into a data...

Are you getting prepared? Right now, millions of Americans are stockpiling food and supplies in anticipation of what they believe is coming. People are on edge due to the approaching election, the rapidly escalating war in the Middle East, the alarming natural disasters that we have been witnessing all around the world, and the potential for another great global pandemic. In all my years, I have never seen more concern about the next 12 months as I am seeing at this moment. There is a growing consensus that major history changing events are about to happen, and there are lots...

US computing giant International Business Machines intends to disband its research and development division in China, affecting more than 1,000 employees. The move will impact the IBM China Development Lab and IBM China System Lab, the local arm of the New York-based company told Yicai today, adding that the firm will compensate all of the staff who lose their jobs. China was once IBM's most well-established regional market outside of the United States, and the R&D division’s shuttering marks a significant turning point in the firm’s 40 years in China. IBM shut its China Research Lab in January 2021, whose...

Hamas' military wing, the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, recently announced its intention to resume carrying out suicide attacks within Israel, and also posted a graphic on its Telegram channel depicting a blown-up bus in Tel Aviv and captioned "We Are Coming" in Arabic, Hebrew and English. The Hamas announcement was posted on August 19, 2024, one day after Ja'far Muna, a terrorist from Nablus, perpetrated a failed suicide attack outside a synagogue in Tel Aviv.[1] The attack failed because Muna's powerful explosive charge blew up prematurely. Hamas' military wing and the Al-Quds Brigade, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic...

Shortly after the July assassination attempt on Donald Trump by Thomas Crooks, many questions were immediately raised, and for good reasons. To be fair, there are still ongoing questions about the Secret Service's handling of Trump's security during his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania and whether this was all just a matter of incompetence, insufficient staffing, or something potentially darker. But as for Crooks himself, after a week or so I slowly became convinced that Crooks was something of an aberration. He eventually struck me as an isolated, lonely, likely psychotic incel who decided to make a name for himself and...

Hezbollah’s response to the killing of senior official Fuad Shukr, when it finally came, was a more minor event than anticipated. For weeks, both the Lebanese Shia Islamist group and its Iranian patron have been threatening a terrible revenge for the recent assassinations in Beirut and Tehran. It is now clear, however, that neither Hezbollah or Iran wishes to risk a descent to all put war at the present time. Iran appears to have relegated its response to the killing of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran to some point in the future. Hezbollah, meanwhile, sought to target two sites...

Just when you thought California under the impeccably coiffed Gavin Newsom and the lunatic asylum that is the Democrats in the California state legislature couldn't get any more ridiculous, someone sets the bar even lower. Now we see that the legislature's Democratic supermajority is likely to pass a bill providing a home-buying subsidy for first-time real estate buyers of up to $150,000. That sounds like a stupid enough idea all on its own, doesn't it? Not only is this wildly inflationary, not only will it make homes even less affordable for your average Californian, not only is it an egregious...

A member of Venezuela's electoral council admitted in an interview published today that he has seen no evidence that Nicolas Maduro won the country's election as he claims. Since the July 28 vote, governments around the world have expressed skepticism, and even outright disbelief, over President Nicolás Maduro’s claim to victory. But the statement by Juan Carlos Delpino — an opposition-member of the government body that announced Mr. Maduro’s win — represents the first major criticism from inside the electoral system. Speaking on the record to a reporter for the first time since the vote, Mr. Delpino said he “had...

A federal judge in Texas has temporarily blocked a Biden-Harris administration plan to grant legal status to non-citizens who are married to U.S. citizens, pausing the program for at least the next two weeks while the legal challenge moved through the courts.U.S. District Judge J. Campbell Barker issued the administrative stay after the policy was enacted by the Biden administration earlier this year. 16 states challenged the policy proposal, with Texas (one of the 16) claiming "the state has had to pay tens of millions of dollars annually from health care to law enforcement because of immigrants living in the...

Two Ukraine wide air raid alerts late tonight... Israel's military conducting an attack in Tulkarm in the "West Bank" with five terrorists killed... Biden Administration special prosecutor Jack Smith seeking to revive the "classified documents" case... The Palestinian health ministry says Jewish settlers attacked a village near Bethlehem with one killed... French law enforcement acknowledging the questioning of an 'unnamed person' who is in reality Telegram owner Pavel Durov...arrest has been extended... In the midst of constant Israeli evacuation orders the United Nations suspending humanitarian aid in Gaza... A sea drone and small boats reported near a merchant vessel off...

I’m sure there will be a poll or two over the next week talking about a Harris bump but so far Trumps strategy of an RFK endorsement rally and a sit down with Elon has negated any major bump from her convention. Even the Morning Consult poll out today which had Trump ahead for like two weeks this year has it 48-44 for Harris unchanged from last week. In other words she had a chance to put Donald behind the 8 ball with debate negotiations now that is no longer the case as to be honest she needs the debate...