Free Republic

The two leading candidates in the race to replace Rishi Sunak as Conservative Party leader have put immigration at the centre of their campaigns, with a focus on visa restrictions for Indians. This issue sparked intense debate at the start of the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham on Sunday. Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick has called for tough visa restrictions on India unless the country takes back its nationals who are in the UK illegally. He claimed that, despite an agreement between the two countries, the number of deportations remains low, while India has benefited from 250,000 visas last year....

'I love an organisation that starts with H' also heard at gathering in Swiss Cottage. Screenshot: Twitter/X) A 27-year-old man has been arrested following a protest in North London, where chants allegedly in support of Hamas were heard. The arrest occurred after a video circulated online showing a man using a megaphone at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Swiss Cottage. The chants reportedly included: ‘I love the 7th of October’ and ‘I love an organisation that starts with H.’ In an initial statement on Twitter/X, the Metropolitan Police said: ‘Detectives investigating an incident at a protest in Swiss Cottage yesterday have...

Singer, songwriter & actor Kris Kristofferson dead at 88

Lawmakers have proposed a ban on “propaganda of conscious refusal to bear children,” Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of the lower house of parliament and an ally of President Vladimir Putin, said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday. The bill would tackle what Volodin said was the promotion of the “ideology of childlessness” and the “childfree movement” on the internet, in the media, in movies and even in advertisements, citing what he said where frequent online displays of “disrespect for motherhood and fatherhood, aggression toward pregnant women and children, and members of large families.” It will come with heavy fines,...

The superintendent of Staten Island public schools was abruptly removed from her post amid ongoing accusations of lashing out against staff and vowing “No more white principals,” The Post has learned. Marion Wilson, who led District 31 schools for three and a half years, was swept out of her office on Sept. 20, and told to report to the Department of Education’s Tweed headquarters in Manhattan. Wilson “will be transitioning to a central team,” Danika Rux, deputy chancellor for school leadership, said Monday in an internal announcement, without any explanation for the swift and stunning ouster. Sources said she will...

Taylor Swift has been at the top of the pop music charts for over 15 years. That's an eternity in show business. It's no accident. Swift's rise to superstardom was as carefully planned as a military campaign. Her studio recordings, her songwriting, her tours, her public appearances, and her advocacy have all been carefully structured to give her maximum exposure with minimum risk. Until she endorsed Kamala Harris for president. Swift transcended pop music to become an American icon. Her Harris endorsement has now squandered that precious admiration and goodwill and, for the first time in her hugely successful career,...

ROCKDALE COUNTY, Ga. — A fire at Biolab, a chemical plant in Rockdale County, is causing the evacuation of people who live nearby as well as a number of road closures, including I-20. The sheriff’s office says they evacuated the area near Biolab on Old Covington Highway on Sunday morning, and are telling others to shelter in place for the time being. At 1 p.m., the Rockdale County Sheriff’s Office updated the zone where they are asking people to evacuate their homes. Officials say they are also blocking off I-20 in both directions between Salem Road and Turner Hill Road....

Warner Wolf Interviews New York's great center fielders of the 1950's: Mickey Mantle (NY Yankees), Duke Snider (Brooklyn Dodgers) and Willie Mays (NY Giants) - the only time all three ever appeared on a show together. If you were a kid who grew up in the NYC Metro area during the 1950s, one of these 3 players was likely one of your baseball heroes.

Las Vegas is home to a lot that might raise a pair of eyebrows, but a new art installation depicting Donald Trump as a naked, 43-foot-tall marionette might raise them right off your face. Made of foam over rebar and weighing approximately 6,000 pounds, the gigantic naked Trump will travel the United States as part of the “Crooked and Obscene Tour” but first, you can see it in person and in the wild at 13460 Apex Harbor Ln in Las Vegas right now. Per the tour’s organizers, portraying Trump in the nude “is intentional, serving as a bold statement on...

The Associated Press (AP) found itself embroiled in controversy this weekend over its portrayal of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The news agency's biographical article, seemingly prepared in anticipation of Nasrallah's potential demise, initially bore the headline: "Charismatic and shrewd: A look at longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah." The characterization drew immediate criticism on social media platforms. By Saturday morning, AP had amended the headline to a more neutral "Who is longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah?" The rapid edit appeared to be a direct response to the flood of criticism on X (formerly Twitter). Notable figures across the political spectrum weighed...

According to aides that spoke to CNN, Tim Walz is having a hard time keeping his nerves under control for Tuesday's debate with JD Vance. Aides say Walz has expressed a lack of confidence in his ability to go up against a "trained lawyer-type" like Vance. Walz is also feeling pressure that a bad performance will disappoint Kamala Harris who has already privately expressed frustrations with Walz's awkwardness and blunders on the campaign trail, such as referring to her as a "prostitutor." Gwen Walz is angry that her husband is being put through the humiliation of debating Vance. The joy...

Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that former President Donald Trump did not want to solve the immigration issue. Instead, according to the Arizona Democrat, he “just wants to talk about problems.” Kelly said, “I was with the vice president a couple of days ago at the border, and it was great to have her there, and it was a good trip. She got to meet with elected leaders and talked about these issues specifically and how it affects Arizona, the state of Arizona. Hey, she’s a prosecutor, she’s a border senator, a border attorney...

MOUNT VERNON — It is indeed a special event the county celebrates this week: the 250th birthday anniversary of John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. His birth, on Sept. 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts, marks the beginning of a story that continues to be enjoyed by young and old alike. He spent most of his long adult life sharing his religious faith with others, planting apple orchards so that pioneer families would have apples awaiting their arrival in the newly formed State of Ohio and beyond, and caring for animals, wildlife and friends who needed his assistance. His life...

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has belatedly admitted that he is “not sure” if the draconian lockdown measures imposed on the nation by his government during the Chinese coronavirus were effective in stemming the tide of the illness. In an excerpt of his upcoming memoirs published in the Daily Mail, Mr Johnson appears to have admitted to being swept up in the panic of the Wuhan virus, sensationally revealing that he considered a literal invasion of The Netherlands to obtain covid vaccines being blocked by the EU, as well as admitting that he had growing doubts about the effectiveness...

Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he is running for the U.S. Senate because people are fed up with former President Donald Trump’s “divisive rhetoric.” Host Robert Costa said, “Former President Donald Trump, who in recent days on the campaign trail has attacked vice president harris and he’s said she has mental issues. he has said thing after thing, questioning her intelligence, her ability. Do you believe former President Donald Trump is fit for office or not?”

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) was seen flipping off Michiganders who were yelling “Trump 2024, baby” at him on Saturday. In a video posted to X, Walz, the vice-presidential running mate of Vice President Kamala Harris, was seen flipping off fans at the football game between the University of Michigan and the University of Minnesota after someone yelled, “Trump 2024, baby!” as he was walking by. Many people on social media responded to Walz flipping off Michiganders by criticizing his behavior so close to a “pivotal election.” “Oh cool, VP candidate flipping off fans at a game 40 days out...

Explanation: Is this really the famous Pleiades star cluster? Known for its iconic blue stars, the Pleiades is shown here in infrared light where the surrounding dust outshines the stars. Here, three infrared colors have been mapped into visual colors (R=24, G=12, B=4.6 microns). The base images were taken by NASA's orbiting Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. Cataloged as M45 and nicknamed the Seven Sisters, the Pleiades star cluster is by chance situated in a passing dust cloud. The light and winds from the massive Pleiades stars preferentially repel smaller dust particles, causing the dust to become stratified...

Is there no one in the mainstream media without a conflict of interest that somehow always favors Kamala Harris? That's what we saw in the last badly moderated debate from two ABC News hosts, one of whom was a Kamala Harris college sorority sister, and both of whom declined to fact-check Harris, while doing a horrible job of that unasked-for task by targeting President Trump. There's also a whistleblower allegation that they kept certain questions about Harris's record from being brought up and gave the Harris camp a gander at what they would cover. Now we have this -- ZeroHedge's...

More than 1,000 people have been reported unaccounted for in a devastated North Carolina county where 10 people have already been confirmed dead after Hurricane Helene, officials said Sunday. Authorities in Buncombe County reported the horrifying toll in an emergency meeting announcing emergency medical shelters and ongoing rescue efforts in areas almost overwhelmed by stormwater. They also announced a special website to appeal for help finding those unaccounted for — with “more than 1,000 reports so far,” one local official told the live-streamed meeting. “We’re doing the best we can,” Buncombe County Sheriff Quentin Miller said of conditions making it...

National Public Radio knows who is driving climate change as an existential threat: men who eat meat. And they found the origins of the current crisis in a 2006 television ad for Burger KIng that heralded the fast food chain and its appetite-satisfying whopper as a source of masculine culinary delight totally unlike the small portions of vegetarian food offered by places where women like to frequent. That ad began running when Malcolm Regisford, whom NPR interviewed for the story, was 10 years old, Regisford saw this commercial often in between his cartoons. “Beef is marketed to men — steaks...