Free Republic

A new survey has revealed a rather gloomy attitude to Labour, with policies like the smoking ban driving further support for Nigel Farage and his Reform party. The upcoming ban on disposable vapes and smoking for those born after 2008 is pinned as a key driver of this resentment, with Sir Keir’s government being accused of interfering too much in the lives of Britons. The poll, commissioned by the Adam Smith Institute think tank, suggests Labour’s nanny-state attitude is also fuelling defections to Reform. One in five 2024 Labour voters say they have become more likely to vote for Reform...

Since scientists first began playing around with dangerous pathogens in laboratories, the world has experienced four or five pandemics, depending on how you count. One of them, the 1977 Russian flu, was almost certainly sparked by a research mishap. Some Western scientists quickly suspected the odd virus had resided in a lab freezer for a couple of decades, but they kept mostly quiet for fear of ruffling feathers. Yet in 2020, when people started speculating that a laboratory accident might have been the spark that started the Covid-19 pandemic, they were treated like kooks and cranks. Many public health officials...

Some might call it a “smashing” good time. A rage room in Halifax is providing Canadians with a clever way to blow off some steam amid an intense political climate between Canada and the U.S. — framed photos of U.S. President Donald Trump for smashing, among other items related to the tariff war. “Fed up with the chaos? News cycle getting you down? We hear you—and we’ve got the perfect way to let it all out,” Rage Room Halifax wrote in an Instagram post. Rage Room Halifax is calling it a “smash the tariffs” event where each session includes a...

The electric buses in question were made by a company called Proterra, which went bankrupt two years ago.. A city in Washington is selling nearly half of its electric bus fleet following reliability issues and difficulty getting replacement parts. The Everett City Council voted earlier this week to sell nine of the electric buses, of which only four are in service right now, because of reliability issues, including critical sensors and components that have been failing since they went into service. The city is now looking to purchase retrofitted diesel buses so there are no gaps in service. According to...

On March 17, US President Donald Trump’s senior advisor Elon Musk claimed that there are “Magic Money Computers” operational at several government departments that can “make money out of thin air.” Musk made the remark while speaking to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the "Verdict" podcast.Well-known for his dynamic ventures such as Tesla, SpaceX, and X (formerly Twitter), Musk was appointed by Trump as the de-facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The department has been focused on slashing government expenditure for several programs.In the conversation with Cruz, Musk claimed that the DOGE team has discovered 14 “Magic...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is razing the in-house Pentagon think tank that Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) accused last month of "egregious waste, fraud and abuse." Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement Thursday, "As part of the Department's ongoing commitment to strengthening our national defense, the Secretary of Defense has directed the disestablishment of the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) and the development of a plan to rebuild it in alignment with the Department's strategic priorities." "This decision ensures that our resources are focused on the most pressing national security challenges while maintaining accountability...

With St. Patrick's Day taking place on Monday, Ireland had a rather curious day of celebrating the saint who spent years of captivity there. As video footage shows over X, the Ha’Penny Bridge bridge in Dublin has not only featured Irish flags, but Palestinian flags over the weekend as well. Despite how anti-Israel the Irish government has been, other social media posts, especially when it comes to pro-Palestinian accounts over Instagram, claim that the flags were flown by protesters because their government isn't Palestinian enough. Irish celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Ireland by waving PALESTINIAN flags next to Irish flags....

HERO Battle of Britain pilot Group Captain John “Paddy” Hemingway — the Last of the Few — died yesterday aged 105. He was the only surviving fighter airman out of the thousands who defended Britain from Germany’s Luftwaffe onslaught in 1940 — who were hailed as “The Few” by grateful Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Mr Hemingway died in the Dublin care home where he had lived for eight years, his family confirmed last night. He served with 85 Squadron during the Battle of Britain, was shot down four times and survived two crash landings during World War Two. At the...

The 62-year-old woman who died while visiting her husband at Mule Creek State Prison was strangled, the Amador County Sheriff’s Office said. Stephanie Diane Brinson’s manner of death was a homicide, the sheriff said. Family members tell KCRA she was known as Stephanie Dowells.

WASHINGTON — President Trump revoked Hunter and Ashley Biden’s Secret Service security detail on Monday after the former first son, surrounded by more than a dozen agents, was spotted on an “ultra-luxurious” getaway in South Africa when he was due for a deposition in court. “Hunter Biden has had Secret Service protection for an extended period of time, all paid for by the United States Taxpayer,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “There are as many as 18 people on this Detail, which is ridiculous!” “He is currently vacationing in, of all places, South Africa, where the Human Rights of people...

Ireland’s taoiseach has denounced anti-immigration comments made by Conor McGregor as the MMA fighter visited the White House before a St Patrick’s Day meeting with Donald Trump. McGregor said “Ireland is on the cusp of losing its Irishness” and that an “illegal immigration racket” was “running ravage on the country”. Last week, Donald Trump singled out “Conor” – who last year was found liable for sexual assault after a civil trial – as one of his favourite Irish people. Dressed in a green business suit to mark Ireland’s national day, McGregor was at the White House at Trump’s invitation and...

After years of being held captive by Environmental Extremists, Lunatics, Radicals, and Thugs, allowing other Countries, in particular China, to gain tremendous Economic advantage over us by opening up hundreds of all Coal Fire Power Plants, I am authorizing my Administration to immediately begin producing Energy with BEAUTIFUL, CLEAN COAL.

White House tweet on illegal aliens.... for those that don't want to play clip, it's a video of an illegal alien being deported to "closing time, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here"

Over the weekend, the Trump administration transferred more than 200 immigrants to El Salvador even as a federal judge issued an order to bar the deportations temporarily. On Saturday night, District Judge James E. Boasberg ordered the administration not to deport anyone in its custody over the newly invoked Alien Enemies Act, an 18th-century declaration that has only been used three times in U.S. history, all during periods of war. Trump issued a proclamation that the 1798 law was newly in effect due to what he claimed was an “invasion” by the Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua. Flights were in...

"Well, now the other shoe drops" — Auron MacIntyre James Howard Kunstler It’s as simple as this: the orgy of judicial lawfare put on by blob-adjacent Democratic Party seditionists trying to make the USA ungovernable is looking to get swatted. Hubris is a harsh mistress, but Nemesis is more like the gods’ re-po man, and he comes to the door with attitude, meaning bidness. Blob judges will get flushed out of their humid conclaves naked and find themselves, astoundingly, in the FO zone of FAFO-land. Do you think AG Bondi is playing tiddlywinks in Main Justice or that Kash Patel...

LAFAYETTE, Ind. (WISH) — Video from bodycams and surveillance cameras during a fatal shooting in December at a laundromat was released Thursday on the Lafayette Police Department’s YouTube page. The shooting was reported shortly before 7:40 p.m. Dec. 5 at Lafayette Laundry, 3100 South St. That’s in a strip mall a couple of blocks west of Sagamore Parkway. One of the three people shot, Keith Ford, 35, of Lafayette, died from multiple gunshot wounds in what the Tippecanoe County coroner called a homicide. The shooter, Louis McGlothlin, 73, of Lincoln, Nebraska, died at an Indianapolis hospital from a self-inflicted gunshot...

A Brown University assistant professor and doctor was deported over the weekend from Boston to Lebanon after federal agents found photos of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and Iran’s supreme leader on her cell phone, a source familiar with the case told CNN. Following Dr. Rasha Alawieh’s return Thursday from a visit to Lebanon, federal agents at Boston Logan International Airport found the photos, the source familiar said. It was not immediately clear why officers were examining her phone. The existence of the photos was outlined in a court filing Monday obtained by CNN affiliate WCVB. “In explaining why these multiple...

Since the launch of DeepSeek's R1 model in January, the expectations for new foundation models have substantially increased. Baidu, a prominent Chinese technology firm, has announced the introduction of two new foundation models: ERNIE 4.5 and ERNIE X1. ERNIE 4.5 is a multimodal foundation model designed to understand text, images, audio, and video. It includes enhancements in language skills, understanding, generation, reasoning, and memory. According to Baidu, ERNIE 4.5 surpasses OpenAI’s GPT-4.5 in various standard benchmarks. A notable aspect of ERNIE 4.5 is its cost, which is just 1% of GPT-4.5's cost. Baidu achieved ERNIE 4.5's performance and cost-efficiency using...

Average CNN anchor IQ has to be around 90

The United States intensified its military involvement in Yemen by launching over the weekend a series of airstrikes targeting the Iran-aligned Houthis. While the escalation is intended to curtail the Houthis’ ability to disrupt critical international shipping routes in the Red Sea, it has resulted in substantial civilian casualties and raised regional tensions, prompting varied reactions from both global and local analysts. According to the Houthi-run Health Ministry, at least 53 people — including women and children — have so far been killed, and nearly 100 others injured in the U.S. strikes. U.S. officials report that the attacks hit multiple...