Free Republic

LESBOS, Greece (AP) — Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies.Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp. She learned Greek. She struggled with illness and depression as her marriage collapsed. She tried to make a fresh start in Germany but eventually returned to Lesbos, the island that first embraced her. Today, she works at a restaurant, preparing Iranian dishes...

The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) sent Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa a response to an August 2023 request for a report on the effects of telework on the federal government, showing it increased by more than 500% during the Biden administration, the Daily Caller News Foundation exclusively learned.Ernst sent a letter to 24 government agencies requesting a review of the issues involved with telecommuting in August 2023, with some agencies refusing to send data during the Biden administration. Ernst told the DCNF that when President Donald Trump took office, things changed.“While the Biden administration slow walked releasing the...

An Iranian politician sits on a sofa giving an interview about Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Why should Iran not have a nuclear weapon when France, the UK and the US all have nuclear weapons? What is the difference between our nations?” The politician goes on to lay out Iran’s regional intellectual and cultural superiority, citing an illustrious history going back centuries, explicitly linking Iranian exceptionalism with the issue of nuclear power. You’d be forgiven for thinking that this Iranian politician was an official of the Islamic Republic. It was the Shah and the year was 1973. The desire for a nuclear...

Hosts: Andru Edwards & Jon Rettinger | Guest: Mark Gurman Inside WWDC 2025 & Apple's Year-Long Siri Delay w/ Mark Gurman - Geared Up 208 | 1:02:40 Geared Up | 2.89K subscribers | 8,393 views | June 17, 2025

A federal judge has ordered the city of McKinney to pay almost $60,000 plus interest to 81-year-old Vicki Baker. Why the big payday? Baker’s home was torn apart by a SWAT team during a 2020 police standoff. Baker took the city to court after her house became the battleground for a high-stakes manhunt, reported WFAA. McKinney police unleashed tear gas, explosives, and tactical vehicles on the property while chasing a fugitive who had barricaded himself inside. Insurance plans do not cover “acts of the government” and the city refused to pay for the damage, so Vicki joined forces with the...

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on Friday that he hopes Israel's threats about killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remain "rhetoric." Putin also stressed that Russia has "always supported" ensuring the safety and security of any country but without damaging that of another country. Earlier, Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called Israel's comments on potentially targeting Khamenei "completely unacceptable."

Multiple people are feared dead after a horrific rockslide at Canada's Banff National Park was triggered while up to 20 hikers were nearby One person has been confirmed dead so far as rescuers continue to search for survivors at the site of the rockfall near Bow Glacier Falls, north of Lake Louise. The deadly landslide took place at around 1:30pm on Thursday and 'multiple hikers' were caught in it, said the Lake Louise Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). An initial joint statement by RCMP and Parks Canada confirmed one person died at the scene, and three others were evacuated to...

Iran said on Friday that it has rejected “several” calls for negotiations from the United States after President Donald Trump gave a two-week deadline for his decision on possibly striking the Islamic Republic, leaving the door open for talks with Tehran.Iran Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said in an address on state television, “Americans want to negotiate and have sent messages several times, but we clearly said that as long as this aggression doesn’t stop, there’s no place for talk of dialogue,” the New York Post reported. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, rejected Trump’s call for the country to surrender...

President Trump is weighing powerful arguments from both sides.President Donald Trump is facing a serious dilemma regarding Israel and Iran. He stands for three things that may soon come into direct conflict with each other. He is, above all, America-First, but he is also a self-proclaimed crusader for peace and a transactional, pragmatic chief executive. That first identifying trait suggests Trump will protect American interests at all costs, eschewing the nation-building of previous presidents. The second translates to avoiding another foreign war, this time in Iran. The third calls for a pragmatic, realistic assessment of Iran’s ongoing threat to US...

Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Tricia McLaughlin is pushing back on some of Hollywood's biggest and most influential stars using their social media accounts to disseminate false and misleading information about the recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Los Angeles. Among them is actress Eva Longoria, who in an Instagram post last week said the ICE raids are taking place in elementary schools and at graduation ceremonies. "These round-ups are happening in birthday parties, in elementary school graduations, Home Depot," said Longoria, who has 10.6 million followers. "Those are not criminals and I hope that everybody has more compassion for...

He was down bad for a bot. A man with a real-life girlfriend and a 2-year-old daughter says he fell in love with ChatGPT and proposed marriage to the chatbot, which accepted the proposal. Chris Smith told “CBS Sunday Morning” that he began using the AI program for other things before eventually programming it to flirt with him and calling it “Sol.” “My experience with that was so positive, I started to just engage with her all the time,” he told the program.

The world’s most powerful man is now calling for accountability for the election that many believe was stolen from him. President Trump posted on Truth Social a short time ago that he wants a special prosecutor to investigate fraud in the 2020 Presidential election, which was allegedly ‘won’ by Joe Biden. “Zero Border crossings for the month for TRUMP, verses 60,000 for Sleepy, Crooked Joe Biden, a man who lost the 2020 Presidential Election by a “LANDSLIDE!,” Trump wrote. “Biden was grossly incompetent, and the 2020 election was a total FRAUD! The evidence is MASSIVE and OVERWHELMING.” “A Special Prosecutor...

Neocons like Mark Levin always start screeching ‘appeasement’ to try to shame opponents of forever wars.Bad World War II analogies appear to have become a dime a dozen in today’s political discourse. In just the past few months, I’ve excoriated Russell Moore for his ridiculous reference to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in response to President Donald Trump’s push toward a peaceful resolution of the war in Ukraine and pilloried Max Boot’s baffling comparison of Ukraine’s recent attack on Russia’s bomber fleet to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.Now, Mark Levin, in his zealous crusade to push the United States into directly...

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) advised prosecutors from former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) on “disturbing trends … within the anti-LGBTQ movement” at a 2023 “hate crimes symposium,” the Daily Signal reported Monday.Drawing on documents obtained by America First Legal (AFL) via a Freedom of Information Act request, senior editor Tyler O’Neil informed readers of just one instance among many in which the Biden DOJ collaborated with the SPLC.The SPLC, which actually performed some valuable services early in its existence before becoming consumed with fighting “hate,” famously publishes a “hate map.” While genuine haters such as the...

An alleged intruder was taken to the hospital for treatment after being shot by a Portland, Oregon, homeowner Thursday morning around 1:30 p.m. NBC16 reported the homeowner claiming the alleged intruder banged on the front door for about ten minutes. The homeowner warned the alleged intruder that he was armed but the suspect came through the front door anyway. The homeowner shot him and arriving officers “applied a tourniquet to control bleeding,” according to Sgt. Kevin Allen. KGW8 noted the alleged intruder incurred non-life-threatening injuries, which were treated at the hospital. After being treated, the alleged intruder was then “booked...

In attacking numerous military targets in Iran on June 13, 2025 as part of its Operation Rising Lion, Israel made good on a 1981 policy announced by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin:‘We shall defend our people with all the means at our disposal. We will not allow any enemy to obtain weapons of mass destruction that can be turned against us.’While we hear international criticism of Israel for the attack, long forgotten is that Tehran’s mullahs actually recognized this same need a year before the Israelis announced their doctrine.By 1976, Saddam Hussein had become the de facto leader of Iraq,...

On June 19, patriots waving flags and ringing a cowbell staged a noisy confrontation with Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) as he attended a meeting of the Orange County Democratic Party in Mission Viejo, Calif. Among other things, they shouted "Fang Fang," a reference to Swalwell's mistress, who is a suspected Communist Chinese spy.

Fifty years of the summer blockbuster.“Amity Island had everything. Clear skies. Gentle surf. Warm water. People flocked there every summer. It was the perfect feeding ground.”On June 20, 1975, moviegoers lined up to see a new picture, a pulpy horror movie about a shark. And it delivered, offering popcorn-spilling jump-scares as the shark leapt up on the screen. The pulsing score, by John Williams, tapped into the viewer’s fear centers, implying menace better than any movie theme since Psycho.The premise of Jaws fits easily into a genre of vacation-spot-ruined-by-sudden-threat, whether it be birds descending on Bodega Bay or Jason Voorhees...

Attorney General James Uthmeier said the facility could be built at the Miami-Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, which he described as "virtually abandoned." VIDEO AT LINK..................... Florida's attorney general is proposing a new site in the Everglades to hold immigrants who entered the United States illegally that he's calling "Alligator Alcatraz." Attorney General James Uthmeier posted video on X Thursday with his pitch for the new holding facility. Uthmeier said the facility could be built at the Miami-Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport off Tamiami Trail, which he described as "virtually abandoned." The facility could be operational within 30 to 60...

SummaryLegislation passed by vote of 314-291Bill now heads to the House of LordsMargin narrowed from initial vote last yearSupporters say law change will prevent unnecessary sufferingOpponents worry about people being coerced into choosing deathLONDON, June 20 (Reuters) - Britain's parliament voted on Friday in favour of a bill to legalise assisted dying, paving the way for the country's biggest social change in a generation.The legislation passed by a vote of 314-291, clearing its biggest parliamentary hurdle.The Reuters Daily Briefing newsletter provides all the news you need to start your day. Sign up here.The "Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life)" law...