Free Republic

Friedrich Merz is spending his first day as leader of Germany visiting France and Poland, promising a “fresh start” to EU relationships and signalling defiance to President Trump in saying they will never accept an “imposed” peace on the Ukraine War. The French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed newly appointed Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Paris on Wednesday, the leaders of the two largest and richest countries in Europe publishing a joint statement vowing greater cooperation on defence, economics, and the Ukraine War. Merz will later today travel to Poland for more meetings, which in both cases he said were to launch...

The Federal Reserve is set to extend its pause on interest rate cuts on Wednesday amid concerns that President Trump’s tariffs will unleash fresh inflationary pressures while also hurting growth, a tricky combination that could lead to painful trade-offs for the central bank. A decision to stand pat would keep interest rates at 4.25 percent to 4.5 percent, a level reached in December after a series of cuts in the second half of 2024. Fed officials are in wait-and-see mode for now. They are closely tracking the incoming data for signs that consumer prices are rising again after a multiyear...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) - Verdicts could be made Wednesday in the state murder trial against three former Memphis police officers accused in the January 2023 traffic stop beating death of Memphis civilian Tyre Nichols. On the night of January 7, 2023, investigators say that officers with the Memphis Police Department‘s now-defunct SCORPION Unit pulled Nichols over in Hickory Hill for alleged reckless driving. Investigators say he ran from the initial traffic stop at Ross and East Raines Road until officers caught him at Ross and Castlegate Lane near his parents’ house. Five now-former MPD officers are accused of fatally beating...

The Left has decided that women and girls are truly second-class citizens these days, forcing them to take a back seat to delusional men who think they're women and allowing those men into female-only spaces and sports. It's an offensive and unpopular position. But the Left clings to it like the last life raft off the Titanic, and they're harming a lot of girls and women in the process. Someone finally created a database of all the males competing in girls' sports and it's worse than we imagined: https://x.com/ifihadastick/status/1919743952514629743 @ifihadastick No one was tracking how often males are competing in...

Trial coverage brought to you by OneTaste This project is about exposing the damage left behind by a DOJ that was politicized and weaponized during the Obama-Biden years. OneTaste isn’t alone. Americans across the country have been unfairly targeted for political and cultural reasons, victims of a system that was turned against the people it was meant to protect. Nicole Daedone’s fight for freedom is bigger than her own case. It is about defending every citizen’s right to fair treatment and real justice in this country. This is Nicole’s passion and OneTaste’s mission to stand up, speak out, and fight...

Pennsylvania man Calvin Crew has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2022 murder of Uber driver and mother-of-four, Christina Spicuzza. The victim’s family told the court they chose to spare his life, asking prosecutors not to pursue the death penalty. Who Is Calvin Crew? Calvin Crew was found guilty of fatally shooting Christina Spicuzza during a robbery while she was working as an Uber driver in February 2022. In addition to the life sentence without parole, he was handed 13 to 26 years for kidnapping and robbery. His defense claims that Crew was...

The United States has reportedly encouraged intelligence agencies to ramp up spying efforts in Greenland amid President Donald Trump repeatedly floating the idea of taking over the Arctic island.... The Wall Street Journal reported, citing two sources, that high-ranking officials working under Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Habbard sent a "collection of emphasis message" to the heads of various intelligence agencies last week. Intelligence agencies have been directed to learn more about the independence movement on the island and the general attitude of the Greenlanders towards American resource extraction, the Journal added. The agencies have been asked to use tools...

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted operations in Nashville this week, resulting in the arrests of a convicted child sex predator and an alleged gang member, but the mayor of the city said the arrests were not focused on making the city safer. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shared Democratic Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s letter to the city about the ICE arrests. “Our top priority is keeping people safe, and we’re deeply concerned that what appear to be federal actions are making that harder,” O’Connell wrote. “Overnight, we understand that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents detained people...

Vice President JD Vance lambasted Russia Wednesday, saying the Kremlin was “asking for too much” in exchange for ending its 38-month-old invasion of Ukraine. “I wouldn’t say that the Russians are uninterested in bringing this thing to a resolution,” the VP said at an event put on by the organizers of the annual Munich Security Conference. “What I would say is, right now, the Russians are asking for a certain set of requirements, a certain set of concessions in order to end the conflict. We think they’re asking for too much.”

Daily Readings from the USCCB“For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him may have eternal life, and I shall raise him on the last day.” John 6:40Do you believe in Jesus? Unquestionably the answer is “Yes.” However, to believe in our Lord is something that must deepen with every passing day. Therefore, if you do have faith in Jesus, you can also admit that you do not have faith enough. In this Gospel passage in which the “Bread of Life Discourse” is continued, Jesus calls us to do two things....

It claims that The Yardbird’s version of the song did not give credit to singer-songwriter Jake HolmesJimmy Page has been hit with another lawsuit regarding the songwriting credits to ‘Dazed And Confused’. The suit against the guitarist and songwriter has once again been put forward by musician Jake Holmes, who is said to have written the original track that inspired the famous Led Zeppelin release. Holmes wrote and recorded ‘Dazed And Confused’ back in 1967, and alleges that the guitarist heard the song in August of that year when he opened for Page’s other band, The Yardbirds. The Yardbirds...

Sugar – sweet, satisfying, and everywhere. From fresh fruit and honey to processed table sugar and drinks, it sneaks into nearly everything we eat. While delicious, sugar delivers what nutritionists call "empty calories" – energy without any essential nutrients. And with overconsumption linked to obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and dental problems, it's no wonder health authorities are urging us to cut back. The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends limiting added sugar to less than 10% of daily calorie intake, while the BMJ suggests even lower: no more than six teaspoons (25g) per day for women and nine teaspoons...

ESPN analyst and broadcaster Stephen A. Smith got honest about his feelings over the fact that Donald Trump won the last presidential election. According to Smith, this is proof that the Democratic Party‘s time guilt-tripping the Black community is over. Wolfe: Dolphins held stadium event with F1 drivers ahead of rookie minicamp this Friday 'The Insiders' In his latest appearance on News Nation, Stephen A. Smith gave his honest take on the significance of Donald Trump winning the last election, especially to the Democratic party and the Black community. “It didn’t work this time,” Smith said, talking about the guilt-tripping...

Jason Riley makes his living by his pen — and wastes no ink or time in mincing words. “There’s a lot of intellectual cowardice going on in the country right now, and it’s a product, I think, of the ascendance of progressivism,” he tells The Post in an interview about his new book, “The Affirmative Action Myth: Why Blacks Don’t Need Racial Preferences to Succeed.” The book’s title alone is sure to spur debate. Its author, a Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow, is somewhat bemused by his position as a provocateur. “I find it annoying that...

Former President Joe Biden told the far-left BBC waiting to drop out of the 2024 presidential race until just a few months before Election Day made no difference to the outcome. “I don’t think it would’ve mattered,” Biden answered when asked if he’d waited too long to withdraw. “We left at a time when [trails off] we had a good candidate. She was fully funded. And what happened was, I had become—what we had set out to do, no one told me to do, we’d become so successful, our agenda was hard to say ‘I wanna stop now.’” He rambled...

According to an internal memo reviewed by The Lever, the Trump administration is reportedly preparing to welcome the first wave of white South African refugees to American soil within days. On February 7, 2025, President Trump signed an executive order halting all U.S. aid to South Africa, citing “government-sponsored race-based discrimination,” including racially discriminatory property confiscation. It can be recalled that South Africa’s EFF leader Julius Malena was again calling for genocide against white South Africans at a rally last year. Julius Malena told supporters, “We must be able to explain to our people what black consciousness is and why...

The new theory, developed by physicists at Aalto University, describes gravity in a way that’s compatible with the Standard Model of particle physics, opening the door to an improved understanding of how the Universe began. The Standard Model of particle physics describes electromagnetic, weak, and strong interactions, which are three of the four known fundamental forces of nature. The unification of the fourth interaction, gravity, with the Standard Model has been challenging due to incompatibilities of the underlying theories — general relativity and quantum field theory. While quantum field theory utilizes compact, finite-dimensional symmetries associated with the internal degrees of...

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum warned on Fox Business Tuesday about America’s deepening energy shortfall and said that misguided climate policies could give China the upper hand in both the global energy race and artificial intelligence development. House lawmakers voted 246-164, with support from 35 Democrats, to overturn a Biden-era EPA rule that lets California enforce a de facto national ban on gas-powered cars by 2035. During an appearance on “Kudlow,” Burgum said that U.S. energy shortfalls could allow China to outpace America in artificial intelligence and other power-hungry technologies. “The real energy emergency that we have right now is that...

The White House is very concerned with young people’s babymaking. President Donald Trump is considering ideas like a $5,000 “baby bonus” for new moms to encourage a baby boom, a step down from an even more ambitious $5,000 child tax credit idea from Vice President JD Vance, a longtime evangelist for encouraging more kids. “I want more babies in the United States of America,” he declared in his very first public speech as vice president. “Pronatalism,” the belief that the government should directly address America’s falling birth rates, is not inherently conservative, but it’s rapidly gaining momentum in the MAGA...

From Our Special Correspondent. RALEIGH, N.C., Monday, May 1, 1865. Lieut. Col. PARKER, of the Fourth New-Hampshire, captured by WHERLER's cavalry, near Magnolia, about three weeks since has just returned, having been paroled at Greensboro on the 16th ult. by BEAUREGARD. Quartermaster TILTON, of the same regiment, captured about the same time, also returned this morning. He was in Charlotte April 25. JEFF. DAVIS left there on that day, bound for Texas, escorted by a detachment of cavalry under Gen. ECHOLS and BASIL DUKE. They numbered about three thousand, and had with them a train of about twenty wagons. Gen....