Free Republic

Germany’s general state debt spiral should be a constant feature in daily headlines. Its prominence should force policymakers into a radical fiscal turnaround. Yet while Germany is working under immense pressure to ban the AfD, forming alliances with left-wing extremists and eroding the political culture, on the other side of the Atlantic, preparations are underway for the approaching storm. We live in record-breaking times. In the first quarter of this year, global debt surged to a record high of $324 trillion. This milestone becomes significant when compared to global GDP, which currently hovers around $110 trillion. Governments worldwide now owe...

TULSA, Okla. — Leaders from various faith groups gathered together for an interfaith prayer vigil on Tuesday night to show their support for Tulsa's immigrant community. "The vigil tonight is an effort to just make a real public statement about how many people, in this city at least, support the immigrant community as our friends and our neighbors, as people we know and love," said Reverend Chris Moore from Fellowship Congregational United Church of Christ. "They make us a better place. The purpose of the vigil is for us to make that message loud and clear." Rev. Moore said Tuesday's...

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The House’s big, beautiful budget bill is bigger than it is beautiful, so it’s worth noting the better parts of the draft. The House Agriculture Committee is moving on a modest welfare reform in food stamps that will resuscitate the program’s connection with work. Americans who manage to sift through the media distortions will approve. By one think-tank estimate, nearly 13 million able-bodied adults were on food stamps in 2022, and the benefit covers some 12% of the U.S. population. People are supposed to work as a condition of benefits, but millions don’t. Live in California? The Biden Administration in...

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) slammed Republicans on Tuesday for proposing major cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which helps an average of over 42 million Americans purchase food each month. “Folks who paid taxes and played by the rules, expecting that their government will help them if they fall on hard times and you guys want to tell them to all go screw themselves?” he said at a House Agriculture Committee markup meeting...... Experts warn that the bill could lead to more children facing food insecurity just as research shows that work requirements don’t actually lead to a...

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The United States and Saudi Arabia reached a $142 billion arms deal, President Donald Trump shared on Tuesday. Trump’s announcement came during his speech at the Saudi-U.S. Investment Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, amid his state visit to the Middle East. “In addition to purchases of $142 billion of American-made military equipment by our great Saudi partners, the largest ever, this week, there are multibillion dollar commercial deals with Amazon, Oracle, AMD…Uber, Qualcomm, Johnson & Johnson, and many, many more,” the president said. The commander-in-chief touted the quality of American military products moments earlier. “Nobody makes military equipment like us;...

@Brick_Suit YMCA plays as President Trump is joined on stage by the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud. Amazing finish to an incredible summit meeting!

Another bunch of third world "refugees" in France waiting to hop on a boat and make their way to the UK because they will "get everything for free". On the backs of British tax payers of course, who will pay for free hotels, free health care etc etc for these grifters. Worth watching. Starmer must pay for this outrage in the next elections.

SUMMARY Donald Trump has met the Syrian interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, in Saudi Arabia this morning The brief meeting came after the US lifted sanctions on Syria - Trump said the move is designed to "give them a chance at greatness" Until December, the US offered a $10m reward for al-Sharaa's arrest, our correspondent Lina Sinjab writes from Damascus Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman attended the US-Syria meeting, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined remotely Trump then addressed a Gulf leaders' summit - saying again he wanted a deal with Iran, but they must stop "sponsoring terror" After...

A bombshell report out of Stanford University shed light on the influence of spies from the Chinese Communist Party that the student newspaper says have likely infiltrated the prestigious institution and other universities nationwide to gather intelligence. The report, published by the Stanford Review, tells the story of a Stanford student working on sensitive research at the school – and given the name "Anna" to protect her identity – receiving unexpected messages from a man with the alias Charles Chen asking about seemingly harmless topics like networking opportunities. Those messages soon took a "strange turn," according to the outlet when...

Paul Tudor Jones on Tuesday said artificial intelligence (AI) posed an "imminent" security threat and that there was a 10% chance in the next two decades that AI would kill half of humanity. Jones, the founder and chief investment officer of Tudor Investment, was speaking in a CNBC interview. Jones told of an event he had attended which had a technology panel consisting of four of the leading modelers of popular AI models used today. One of his takeaways from the panel was that "AI clearly poses an imminent threat, security threat - imminent - in our lifetimes, to humanity."

SHANGHAI/BEIJING, May 13 (Reuters) - In a sprawling warehouse in a Shanghai suburb, dozens of humanoid robots are manoeuvred by their operators to carry out tasks like folding a T-shirt, making a sandwich and opening doors, over and over again. Operating 17 hours a day, the site's goal is to generate reams of data that its owner, Chinese humanoid startup AgiBot, uses to train robots it hopes will become ubiquitous and change the way humans live, work and play.

The U.S. State Department has determined and certified Cuba as a "not fully cooperating country" (NFCC) for not helping with counterterrorism efforts after the island nation failed to turn over at least 11 fugitives in 2024 to U.S. custody. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce made the announcement on Tuesday that the certification, which falls under Section 40A of the Arms Export Control Act, will result in the prohibition on the sale or license for export of defense services to Cuba. "In 2024, the Cuban regime did not fully cooperate with the United States on counterterrorism," Bruce said in a statement....

During the fighting in the Gaza Strip, Israel managed to capture a local Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) agent, who admitted during his interrogation that he had been operating as a double agent. The agent revealed that his role was to lull Israel’s defense establishment into a false sense of security on the eve of Hamas’s deadly terrorist attack on October 7, 2023. According to a report published on Channel 12 News on Tuesday evening, the agent lied to Shin Bet officials in a conversation held just hours before the attack. In that conversation, he stated, “There is no preparation...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Agri-Business; End to Sex Slavery; Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind.

Elon Musk said Saudi Arabia has approved Starlink for aviation and maritime use in the region, speaking at an investment forum during a White House-led trip to the kingdom on Tuesday. Starlink is the satellite internet service owned and operated by Musk's aerospace and defense contractor, SpaceX. Musk also briefly discussed his other business ambitions in the region, promising to bring Tesla robotaxis to Saudi Arabia at an unspecified date. "I think it would be very exciting to have autonomous vehicles here in the kingdom, indeed, if you're amenable," Musk said. Musk also said he showed several of Tesla's Optimus...

An investigation is underway after a Los Angeles police officer’s personal rifle accidentally fired a round in a parking garage earlier this week, officials announced. The May 9 incident occurred in the lower-level parking structure of the Compton Courthouse, located at 200 West Compton Boulevard, according to an LAPD news release. The officer, who has not been identified, was reportedly standing outside his patrol vehicle and was “manipulating his personally owned patrol rifle, when a Non-Tactical Unintentional Discharge occurred,” police said. Surrounded by concrete, the bullet ricocheted off the ceiling and struck the roof of the officer’s unoccupied patrol vehicle.

A 79-year-old Army veteran was brutally murdered on Monday during a carjacking in Southern California. James Norman was at a gas station in Norco, California, cleaning his Chevy Trailblazer with the engine running when 29-year-old Ryan Hewitt jumped in the driver’s seat and drove off. Norman was hanging out the back door and was dragged and then thrown from the vehicle. His family said he was just too frail to get out in time. Hewitt was charged with felony carjacking and second-degree murder. He is being held on $1 million bail. ... James Norman is survived by his beloved wife,...

Last night, Fox's Family Guy made a crude joke about rape and abortion in an episode that was otherwise focused on corruption in China. In the episode "China Doll," Stewie and Brian (Seth MacFarlane) travel to China after Stewie sees a "Made in China" tag on his stuffed animal, Rupert. Due to a misunderstanding, Brian and Stewie end up in a Chinese forced labor camp that is creating solar panels. While there, Stewie criticizes liberals for supporting the use of solar panels manufactured in China. In response, Brian insults conservatives for overturning Roe v. Wade. Stewie: Twenty years in a...