Free Republic

Several longtime sponsors, including the company that makes Bud Light, have pulled their funding from the annual San Francisco Gay Pride Weekend. For some reason, San Francisco Pride requires $3.2 million to cover its June weekend of events. Corporate sponsors were expected to pay $2.3 million of that. But after four declined, the organization will have to scramble to make up the $300,000 shortfall elsewhere. San Francisco Pride’s executive director, Suzanne Ford, told SFGATE that they expect to lose a few sponsors every year, but it was “very abnormal” for four sponsors who have been with them for years to...

Since al-Qaeda-affiliated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) conquered Damascus with the help of Turkey in December 2024, HTS fighters and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militants have committed massacres against religious minorities in the country. Social media posts show Alawite or Christian men, women, and children barbarically shot at close range. And the death toll is increasing. The Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and all the East, John X, said during a sermon on March 9th: 'The bloody events taking place on the Syrian coast left many dead and wounded. … In many cities, towns, and villages, their...

Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Newsmax on Tuesday night that the planned cuts to about 50% of her agency's workforce began earlier the day with email notices sent to affected employees.Before President Donald Trump's inauguration, the department said it had 4,133 employees and it will have 2,138 after the cuts. Included in the workforce reduction are nearly 600 employees who accepted voluntary resignation opportunities and retirement over the past seven weeks."We wanted to make sure that everybody got [their notice] before they left [for the day]," McMahon told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "But [we met with] their department...

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded President Donald Trump's plans to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education, saying Wednesday that doing so will put "American excellence at the forefront of education policy" while eliminating a bureaucracy that stifles success."Abolishing the department and reinvigorating state control of education would enable states like Florida to serve better the needs of students, parents, and teachers," DeSantis, a Republican, wrote in The Wall Street Journal, touting the successes in his state coming from allowing more local control in education.The governor noted that in Florida, his administration has pushed for student-focused and parent-friendly policies in education,...

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Thursday that aims to shut down the Department of Education, fulfilling a key campaign pledge, the White House said in a fact sheet on the measure.The order directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to "take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure (of) the Department of Education and return education authority to the States, while continuing to ensure the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely."It also mandates that any programs or activities receiving remaining Department of Education funds should not "advance DEI or gender ideology."

Ben & Jerry’s has said parent firm Unilever has sacked its chief executive amid rows over the ice cream brand’s political activism. The US brand said in a court filing that David Stever, who led the firm for almost two years, was removed from his post early this month. Ben & Jerry’s alleged in a filing to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York that Unilever, the UK-based consumer giant, wanted to stop the boss making political statements.

Ukraine reports strikes just hours after Russian leader agreed to suspend attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure in a call with US president. Vladimir Putin rejected Donald Trump’s proposal for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine after a “frank” phone call on Tuesday between the two presidents. Instead, the Russian leader agreed to a 30-day pause in attacks on energy plants and infrastructure and to hold further talks on stopping hostilities in the Black Sea.

Directed by Otto Preminger. A broke drifter (Andrews) ends up in a small town and falls in love with Stella (Darnell). To get enough money to impress her, he marries a wealthy spinster (Faye), planning to then get a quick divorce. But everything gets shaken up when someone gets murdered, and he’s the prime suspect. Fallen Angel (1945 film noir - Alice Faye, Dana Andrews, Linda Darnell - HD video)

Indianapolis Police are asking for the community’s help to identify suspects after a church in the Haughville neighborhood was struck by vandals on Tuesday night. The building of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, as well as the church’s bus, were spray-painted with obscene messages. The words “**** the lord” were spray-painted onto a brick wall of the church’s building, and “die, die, die” was painted on the concrete. On another wall are painted the words “the devil rules.” On the church’s bus, “666” is scrawled several times, along with the same messages that appear on the building. Ronald Covington, pastor of...

Samaritan’s Purse has confirmed that $19 million in frozen USAID funds has been released to the ministry. Payments to the North Carolina-based evangelical aid organization had been stalled since January, when President Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all federal foreign aid. News of the release follows the Supreme Court’s March 5 ruling that the Trump administration must unfreeze nearly $2 billion for foreign humanitarian work already completed at the government’s behest. “The funding grants that Samaritan’s Purse has with USAID are reimbursement agreements,” said Samaritan’s Purse President and CEO Franklin Graham in a statement to MinistryWatch. “We pay for...

Probably the least bad panel you could get in D.C. Circuit.

A furious Washington state mayor hit out at a LGBTQ activist who compared the Pride flag to a Prisoner of War-Missing in Action flag, seemingly suggesting the ultimate sacrifice made by American soldiers of foreign battlefields was somehow comparable to living in the US with miscellaneous sexual preferences. The takedown unfolded on Tuesday night as the local council for the city of Newcastle, about 12 miles east of Seattle, voted to approve DEI policies and climate change goals into planning. During the public hearing the activist attacked Mayor Robert Clark over his move last year to try and stop the...

Tensions boiled over during a pro-Palestinian rally in the state Capitol Rotunda Tuesday after Reps. Stefani Lord, R-Sandia Park, and John Block, R-Alamogordo, were accused by attendees of antagonizing demonstrators. The rally, which featured New Mexico residents from Gaza who still had family there, was largely made up of poetry readings, song and comments bringing awareness to Israeli military strikes that have killed civilians, including journalists and other noncombatants. Hundreds of Palestinians were killed Monday in a wave of strikes that were launched as part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to break a ceasefire deal reached in January....

The family of an 11-year-old Chicago boy murdered last year by his mother’s ex-boyfriend the day after he was released from prison is suing the state — including the embattled Prisoner Review Board and Illinois Department of Corrections— for negligence. Jayden Perkins, an accomplished young dancer, was stabbed to death last March while his mother, Laterria Smith, sustained “multiple life-threatening stab wounds to her neck, back, and chest while desperately trying to protect her children,” according to one of the lawsuits she filed last week. Smith was pregnant at the time, while her then-5-year-old son witnessed the stabbing. Ahead of...

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy had a “very good telephone call” on Wednesday, according to Trump, in the first conversation between the US president and his Ukrainian counterpart since their disastrous showdown in the White House three weeks ago. Zelenskyy described the call as “positive, very substantive and frank”, and said he had signed up to a partial ceasefire that Trump agreed with Vladimir Putin a day earlier. The White House said Trump had promised to help with a Ukrainian request to source more air defence batteries for Kyiv. -snip- Previously, Ukrainian and US negotiating teams had agreed on a...

SNIP“I would say that John Roberts, who I knew before he was a judge, when we both worked in the Reagan administration, it’s time to grow a pair, judge,” began Levin, adding:Think about Justice Rehnquist. What would Justice Rehnquist, the Chief Justice, have done when those four originalists two weeks ago when this case involving another rogue Democrat judge ordered the President of the United States to spend money on foreign activities. What would Rehnquist have done? Would he have joined the four or would he have joined the radical three?This is an issue of separation of powers and if...

Representative Dusty Johnson has re-introduced the Traveler’s Gun Rights Act, a bill attending to a Second Amendment issue constraining firearms rights of those who do not use a permanent physical address, such as many active-duty military personnel and those who live and travel via RV. Companion legislation currently in the Senate is being led by Senator Mike Rounds, and both of these gentlemen are representatives of South Dakota, the state I like to call home and one that still represents strong American values and traditions. Johnson’s Traveler’s Gun-Rights Act seeks to correct the firearms purchasing process and strengthen Second Amendment...

While Greenpeace denied it played more than a peripheral role in the 2016 protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline, the pipeline owner claimed the group organized a campaign of misinformation and direct training to the protesters... ANorth Dakota jury on Wednesday found Greenpeace liable for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages over its role in months-long protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline in 2016 and 2017. After two days of deliberation, the New York Times reported, the jury returned the verdict. Energy Transfer, the owner and operator of the pipeline, filed the lawsuit in North Dakota state court against...

Question for everyone. Why can't the Trump administration basically inform these courts - by a nationwide press conference/speech, by a letter, and/or in person DOJ attorneys - that because of the 1948 Supreme Court decision, the only court that the President will pay attention to is the USSC. That this administration will continue to do what it is doing and lower courts have no lawful basis in attempting to dictate Executive policy? I'm going out to dinner now and will read your responses upon my return.

Ekrem Imamoglu, the Mayor of Istanbul, was arrested by Turkish authorities days before he was set to be selected as a presidential candidate. Imamoglu is speculated to be one of the strongest political rivals of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Prosecutors have accused Imamoglu of corruption and links to terrorist groups, labeling him a "criminal organization leader suspect." In a crackdown, 100 people, including politicians, journalists, and businessmen, were arrested, according to a report by the BBC. Imamoglu responded in a post online by saying “The will of the people cannot be silenced.” He uploaded a video of police outside...