Free Republic

but they couldn't even figure out how to accept it. Today, I met with @elonmusk and the DOGE team, and we got this done in the same day. Other states should follow Florida in supporting DOGE's efforts!

[Catholic Caucus] Catholic laity grow in number as priests and seminarians continue declineThe trends of recent years have been repeated, with growth especially found in Africa while Europe stagnates.Seminarians at Oscott Catholic College in Birmingham, England, November 9, 2013.The number of Catholics globally has increased but priests and seminarians continue to decline, according to the latest figures released by the Vatican.Catholics now number 1.406 billion globally, according to the Vatican. The figures form part of the annual statistics on the state of the Church, and cover the time period from 2022 to the end of 2023.The trends of recent years...

Boston’s Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu is taking heat from local leaders for doubling down on liberal sanctuary city laws, and insisting “we stand with immigrants.” Wu has previously stated that Boston will not cooperate with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations — which she reiterated during her State of the City address Wednesday night. “No one tells Boston how to take care of our own, not kings, and not presidents who think they are kings. Boston was born facing down bullies,” she said in her speech. “You belong here,” she told immigrants. Wu’s speech outraged conservative local leaders who oppose...

A fire broke out at Disney's Epcot theme park in Orlando, Florida on Saturday afternoon sending crowds fleeing in panic. Thick black smoke could be seen billowing into the sky backstage at the park's French Pavilion. Authorities say the incident happened when a walk-in cooler suddenly caught fire and led to the evacuation of the 'Remy's Ratatouille Adventure' ride. The fire took place during Spring Break, one of the busiest few weeks of the year. Disney say the fire was extinguished shortly afterwards but social media has several videos showing smoke rising into the sky. Authorities said no one was...

In a recent Christian Post column, Dr. Richard Land wrote about an upcoming Supreme Court case concerning the fate of a Catholic charter school in Oklahoma known as St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School. Alliance Defending Freedom, the organization I work for, represents the Oklahoma agency that approved the school’s participation in the state’s charter school program. Dr. Land “pray[s] the court rules against St. Isidore.” But his take on the case is deeply misguided.The Supreme Court has been clear in three cases over the last eight years that when a state creates a generally available public program and...

Over a dozen Christian leaders prayed with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office this week, with one saying that the assassination attempt last summer has caused the president to embrace faith groups even more than he did in his first term. Led by White House Faith Office Senior Advisor Paula White-Cain, Trump's longtime spiritual advisor, the faith leaders met with Trump on Wednesday. Pictures from the event show several faith leaders placing their hands on Trump in prayer around the president. Attendees included, among others, the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, Pastor Robert Jeffress...

GOD WILL NOT LET YOU FALL My family and I went camping this past summer. We took several hikes down the little river bed as it flowed through the Cuyamaca State Park near our home in San Diego. We stopped for a picnic lunch, and ate with our feet in the cool running water. As I ate my sandwich, I started tracing a trail through the rocks that shot up into the air in front of us. It was an old habit from days gone by of rock scrambling: no ropes, no hardware, no helmet, no brains! As teenagers,...

The man accused of causing the 2016 DUI crash that killed Sarah Root was extradited to the United States on Friday. In a Friday evening press call, Sen. Joni Ernst announced she had just left Eppley Airfield in Omaha, where Eswin Mejia was taken into U.S. custody. He is being held in the Douglas County Jail as he awaits trial in Root’s death. Mejia was arrested in late February in Honduras after fleeing the country and evading capture for nearly a decade. Mejia is accused in the Omaha crash that killed 21-year-old Root, of Council Bluffs, on the night of...

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday vowed to work to limit the abuses of activist federal judges. Radical leftist judges are waging an all out war against President Trump, Trump voters, and the Executive Branch. We are in a constitutional crisis. President Trump, in less than two months, has faced 129 legal challenges by activist judges. Only two cases are closed. Trump faced 64 injunctions halting his policies during in his first term – and 15 injunctions so far in his second term – more than all US presidents combined! Top Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer even boasted about putting 235...

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” New York Times columnist Ezra Klein said that “Energy would be cheaper if we just built a bunch of coal plants,” but “decarbonization is a trade-off.” After Klein said that Texas builds tons of green energy, in part due to its regulatory structure, writer Andrew Sullivan said, “But why aren’t you producing energy from fossils and green energy?” Klein answered, “Because I think climate change is a problem.” And “if you build a lot of coal plants, it’s going to get a lot worse.

HOUSTON — A local landscaper was arrested and charged with assault after an incident involving a postal worker that was captured on video, according to officials from the Harris County Precinct 4 Constable's Office. The landscaper's family says she is the victim. Part of the incident was caught on video. Margarita Avila, who was working as a landscaper near a community mailbox, allegedly injured a postal worker with a weed eater during a confrontation, leading to her arrest. The incident has reportedly resulted in Avila being detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "It's just very devastating. I mean, we just...

Critics are once again questioning the efficacy of BMI as a tool for diagnosing obesity, suggesting that a more holistic approach to assessing health might be needed. Instead of relying on this outdated metric, experts recommend using body fat percentage, a method inspired by Archimedes’ ancient principles, which offers a more precise measure of health risks associated with obesity. Rethinking BMI: A New Year’s Resolution Once again, the body mass index (BMI) is under scrutiny. This time, a group of experts commissioned by The Lancet is challenging its validity as a diagnostic tool for obesity. They argue that doctors should...

The hate and intolerance inspired by Donald Trump’s second presidency found their way into Sacramento’s gay community last week and the result was a sad reflection of the divisions plaguing our country. Emotions were triggered by a red MAGA hat that is a symbol of Trump’s rise to power on the promise to “Make America Great Again.” For many gay people, the hat is a reminder of the intolerance members of the LGBTQ+ community have felt since Trump’s far-right movement took off nine years

The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a website. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year,...

THOUSANDS of people erupt the moment they all see Donald Trump walk into the Arena Everybody loves Trump

A 62-year-old grandmother was killed while having an overnight "conjugal visit" with her convicted murderer husband at a California prison, according to reports. David Brinson, 54, was found guilty of killing four men in 1993 and was sentenced to life in prison without parole, court records show. In November, Brinson had an unsupervised visit with wife Stephanie Dowells, 62, at Mule Creek State Prison in Northern California, FOX 40 reported. Brinson claimed to prison officials she had passed out, but the Amador County Coroner said this week her death was a homicide and determined she had been strangled. No one...

A Biden-era US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, was found dead in her Alexandria, Virginia, home on Saturday morning. The cause and manner of death is unknown. Jessica Aber, 43, was found unresponsive on Saturday morning. Her death is under investigation. “This morning, at approximately 9:18 a.m., Alexandria Police responded to the 900 block of Beverley Drive for the report of an unresponsive woman. Officers located a deceased woman. Following notification of family members, the Alexandria Police Department can confirm the identity of the woman as Ms. Jessica Aber, age 43, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District...

March 22 (UPI) -- The Pentagon is investigating leaks of national security information, including using polygraph tests, one day after media reports about an upcoming briefing with White House senior adviser Elon Musk. Joe Kasper, the Defense Department's chief of staff, on Friday issued a memo about the "recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information involving sensitive communications with principals within the Office of the Secretary of Defense demand immediate and thorough investigation." He said the "use of polygraphs in the execution of this investigation will be in accordance with applicable law and policy." Polygraph tests are typically not admissible...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (7News) — Former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia Jessica Aber was found dead by Alexandria Police Saturday morning, and local leaders are reminiscing on her efforts as a public servant. Investigators are working to find out what led to her death after she was found unresponsive in the 900 block of Beverly Drive in Alexandria around 9 a.m. Saturday, police said. A medical examiner will determine the cause of her death. U.S. Attorney Erik S. Siebert shared his condolences for his former colleague: "We are heartbroken beyond words to learn of the passing of our...

What the shell. A Pennsylvania man missed his flight after being caught with a live turtle in his pants while passing through security at a New Jersey airport, according to the Transportation Security Administration. The traveler set off alarms when he walked through the body scanner at Newark International Airport Friday, prompting TSA agents to conduct a pat-down