Free Republic

By William Koenig, White House Correspondent June 24, 2025 The 12-day war between Israel and Iran was nothing short of supernatural. It was a precision-crafted military effort, executed with strategic brilliance and without precedent in modern warfare. Israel, facing its greatest existential threat since 1948, carried out a breathtaking series of operations without the loss of a single plane. Every target was hit with pinpoint accuracy—command centers, nuclear infrastructure, senior members of the Quds Force, Republican Guard generals, political figures, and top nuclear scientists. A decapitation strike in every sense. This was a remarkable military achievement—one for the record books....

With the 90-day pause on tariffs delaying impacts until next month, small business confidence rebounded in June...

MIAMI, Fla. - Florida officials say the controversial new immigration detention center known as "Alligator Alcatraz" is on track to open Tuesday, despite protests and a pending federal lawsuit aimed at stopping it. What we know: The facility is located at the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a remote airfield in the heart of the Everglades. It’s designed to house, process, and deport undocumented immigrants. Gov. Ron DeSantis says the state is preparing to begin intake operations on July 1. President Donald Trump is expected to appear at the opening. The administration is touting the site as one of the...

Memo offers a snapshot of how personal statements can be used to skirt affirmative action ban... At the end of finals period each May, the Duke Law Journal hosts a two-week-long competition to select its next crop of editors. Applicants write a 12-page memo, or casenote, analyzing an appellate court decision, as well as a 500-word essay about what they would "contribute" to the journal. Students are chosen based on their grades, casenotes, and personal statements. Less than 20 percent of the class makes it onto the law review, which is overseen by Duke Law School and has no legal...

A group of Environmental Protection Agency employees on Monday published a declaration of dissent from the agency’s policies under the Trump administration, saying they “undermine the EPA mission of protecting human health and the environment.” More than 170 EPA employees put their names to the document, with about 100 more signing anonymously out of fear of retaliation, according to Jeremy Berg, a former editor-in-chief of Science magazine who was among non-EPA scientists or academics to also sign. The latter figure includes 20 Nobel laureates. The letter represents rare public criticism from agency employees who could face blowback for speaking out...

A UN conference to boost support for global development aid begins on Monday as US funding cuts jeopardise the fight against poverty. But key player the United States is snubbing the biggest such talks in a decade, underlining the erosion of international cooperation on combating hunger, disease and climate change. UN sustainable development goals set for 2030 are slipping from reach just as the world's wealthiest countries are withdrawing funding for development programmes. President Donald Trump's gutting of the US development agency USAID is the standout example, with Germany, Britain and France among other rich economies making cuts when faced...

Zohran Mamdani, the Marxist-Muslim tapped as the leading candidate to become New York City’s next mayor, does not believe in the police. Instead, he believes in social workers. The police, in turn, do not believe in being handcuffed in their duties and exposed to a high risk of death in a city that no longer allows them to do their jobs. If Mamdani wins, they’re saying, they walk. In the lead-up to the New York City Democrat mayoral primary, Mamdani was very clear about his desire to rid New York City of the troublesome plague of active policing. Instead, he...

A fatwa is an interpretation of Islamic law issued by a Marja--a title given to the highest level of twelver Shia religious cleric. ================================================================== Tehran: Iran's top Shiite cleric has issued a 'fatwa' or religious decree against US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling them "enemies of God". The decree from Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi called on Muslims across the world to unite and bring down the American and Israeli leaders for threatening the Islamic republic leadership. "Any person or regime that threatens the Leader or Marja (May God forbid) is considered a 'warlord' or...

Self-driving vehicles will take to the streets of Downtown Jacksonville on Monday as the city launches what it calls the first autonomous public transit system in the country. Eight electric Ford vans will begin carrying passengers on a 3.5-mile loop between LaVilla and EverBank Stadium, driving themselves through traffic. A Jacksonville Transportation Authority staffer will sit at the steering wheel, ready to take over if necessary. The system is known as NAVI, short for Neighborhood Autonomous Vehicle Innovation. JTA has been testing the vehicles on the route since March, but the agency announced Friday that the system will begin serving...

President Trump late Sunday cautioned Republican lawmakers against going “too crazy” with cost-cutting efforts as fiscal hawks push for spending cuts in the massive reconciliation package making its way through Congress. “For all cost cutting Republicans, of which I am one, REMEMBER, you still have to get reelected. Don’t go too crazy!” Trump posted on Truth Social. Trump argued the bill would make up for the lack of deficit reduction efforts with significant economic growth. The Senate is plowing ahead with efforts to pass the massive tax and spending bill, which contains key pieces of President Trump’s agenda, including an...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(6/30/25)[Prayer]Water, Rivers, and Streams in the BibleIsaiah 43:1919 See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.________________________

These numbers are not natural.. The New York Times has a shallow cheerleading article about where Zohram Mamdani’s votes came from. As I already pointed out, Mamdani benefited from low turnout below 30% and won the vote of some 5% of New Yorkers. But the Times has some interesting figures in this chart. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign had focused on registering voters, and he also appears to have drawn thousands of voters to the primary who did not vote four years ago. ... Those are pretty incredible numbers. 40,000 voters would make up nearly 10% of Mamdani’s totals. Who are these...

Caffeine sparks an ancient enzyme that helps cells survive stress and repair damage, revealing a new link between your coffee and long-term health. Credit: Shutterstock Scientists have discovered that caffeine doesn’t just perk up your brain—it energizes your cells in a way that could slow aging. By flipping on an ancient fuel-sensing enzyme called AMPK, caffeine indirectly taps into a powerful longevity pathway that helps cells manage stress, repair damage, and live longer. Caffeine’s Cellular Anti-Aging Mystery Uncovered A new study from the Cellular Ageing and Senescence laboratory at Queen Mary University of London’s Center for Molecular Cell Biology reveals...

ROCHESTER, Minn. — Mayo Clinic researchers have developed a new artificial intelligence (AI) tool that helps clinicians identify brain activity patterns linked to nine types of dementia, including Alzheimer's disease, using a single, widely available scan — a transformative advance in early, accurate diagnosis. The tool, StateViewer, helped researchers identify the dementia type in 88% of cases, according to research published online on June 27, 2025, in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It also enabled clinicians to interpret brain scans nearly twice as fast and with up to three times greater accuracy than standard workflows....

It’s lights out and away we go at the box office as “F1,” a big-budget racing drama starring Brad Pitt, impressively revs to $55.6 million in its domestic opening weekend. With great reviews and a promising “A” grade on CinemaScore exit polls, “F1” landed in the middle of expectations of $50 million to $60 million. At the international box office, the film collected a strong $88.4 million from 78 markets. Those initial ticket sales are significant given “F1” is an adult-skewing tentpole that’s not part of an existing film franchise — a rarity in today’s I.P.-dominated movie theater landscape. Directed...

Three Iranian men were executed this week on alleged charges of collaborating with Israel, according to the Islamic Republic judiciary, bringing the total number of people put to death on similar charges during the 12-day war between Iran and Israel to six. The hangings were part of the “season of traitor-killing,” according to Iran’s ISNA News Agency, as Iranian authorities pushed the executions through less than 48 hours after the ceasefire between Iran and Israel was announced on Monday. Iran’s judiciary said the men were convicted of espionage on behalf of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency. However, human rights activists claim...

“‘Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it’” (Matthew 7:13–14). “Many” and “few” describe two groups of people. Those who enter through the wide gate and travel the broad way, toward the destination of destruction, are many. They include pagans and nominal Christians, atheists and religionists, theists and humanists, Jews and Gentiles—every person from every age, background, persuasion, and circumstance...

30 June 2025 Monday of week 13 in Ordinary Time Interior of Nonnberg Abbey, Salzburg, AustriaReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: C(I).First readingGenesis 18:16-33Abraham negotiates with the LordFrom Mamre the men set out and arrived within sight of Sodom, with Abraham accompanying them to show them the way. Now the Lord had wondered, ‘Shall I conceal from Abraham what I am going to do, seeing that Abraham will become a great nation with all the nations of the earth blessing themselves by him? For I have singled him out to command his sons and his household after him to maintain...

If anything, it’s worse than his leftism is. Zohran Mamdani, the Democrat party’s candidate for mayor of New York, has attracted attention for the fact that he’s a hardcore communist. However, his religious beliefs deserve some attention, too. First, there’s the fact that he’s a Shia Muslim who is affiliated with the Twelver Branch that drives the Iranian mullahs. Back in 2006, the late Bernard Lewis wrote about this ideology when he explained why the mullahs are not necessarily amenable to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction: In Islam, as in Judaism and Christianity, there are certain beliefs concerning the...

I have paid a modicum of attention to British and European media regulation ever since I was removed from UK broadcasting, now and forever. Probably would have been wiser to pay attention before my removal, but, be that as it may, Ofcom decided that my conversation with Naomi Wolf about the Covid vaccines risked causing "harm" to people. And we wouldn't want that, would we? So I was interested to learn from the weekend's Glastonbury Festival just who you can target for "harm". Back in my youth, Glasto was a big peace'n'lovefest with a somewhat tedious hippie aesthetic. But now...