Free Republic

For the first time, Linux has officially broken the 5% desktop market share barrier in the United States of America! It's a huge milestone for open-source and our fantastic Linux community. While many might think of Linux as a niche choice, this new data shows a significant shift is happening. The Numbers Are In: Linux at 5.03% in the USA!According to the latest StatCounter Global Stats for June 2025, Linux now holds 5.03% of the desktop operating system market share in the United United States of America. This is fantastic news!Figure 1: StatCounter - Desktop Operating System Market Share in...

“Worried About Zohran?” reads a Times Square electronic billboard: “Ohio Is Waiting For You.” Wait a few seconds, and the faces of New York City's mayoral election lineup appear along with another pointed question: "Ready to flee NYC?" “Move to Ohio! Protecting freedom —Vivek Ramaswamy." The $50,000 signage is paid for by Ramaswamy's Super PAC — Victors not Victims (VPAC) — established to support his effort to become Ohio's next Republican governor in 2026. VPAC's Andy Surabian told Fox News that New Yorkers concerned about Mamdani's "radical socialist policies" should move to a state like Ohio "that is about to...

President Donald Trump on Wednesday embraced the FBI’s decision to open a conspiracy probe into a decade of alleged intelligence abuses and weaponized law enforcement, suggesting it could be led by a special prosecutor and even delve into “credible evidence” in the Jeffrey Epstein case in order to give Americans a greater dose of transparency and accountability. He also vowed to declassify two highly sensitive pieces of intelligence to help further the prosecutor's efforts. “Well, I'm happy that they did that,” Trump said during a wide-ranging interview with the Just the News, No Noise television show when asked about the...

Ukraine is waiting for further details of the “billions of dollars” worth of US military equipment promised by Donald Trump on Monday, amid confusion as to how many Patriot air defence systems will be sent to Kyiv. At a meeting at the White House with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Monday, Trump said an unnamed country was ready to immediately provide “17 Patriots” as he said a “very big deal” had been agreed for European allies to buy weapons from the United States and then ship them to Ukraine. Ukraine is currently believed to have only six functioning...

McKinney, Texas, has emerged as the top city for renters in 2025, according to an annual report by RentCafe.com, which analyzed 150 U.S. cities based on 20 key metrics.The study highlights affordability, job opportunities, and quality of life, with Southern cities, including several in Texas, dominating the rankings.McKinney leads the list, praised for its affordability (ranked 4th) and quality of life (9th). The city offers a lower-than-average cost of living, a robust supply of high-end apartments, and steady job growth, blending small-town charm with urban perks. Residents enjoy over 40 parks, scenic trails, and natural spots like Towne Lake, making...

In 1883, when the Pendleton Act was passed, creating the US civil service, it must have seemed like no big deal. The forgotten Chester A. Arthur was the president. The fear of being assassinated like his predecessor James Garfield convinced him to back the legislation. The case for passage: government needs professionals with institutional knowledge. Technicians were changing the world, so why not government too? Science and engineering were the rage – electricity, steel bridges, telegraphic communications, internal combustion, photography – so surely public affairs needed the same level of expertise. Who could deny that civil service could do a...

I wondered if any FRiends were interested in prime numbers. You'll know that prime numbers are integers, and those which have only two factors, 1 and themselves. Except for 2, all other primes are odd numbers. By convention, the number 1 is not considered prime (but this is strictly a matter of definition because 1 does not entirely contradict the premise of being a multiple of 1 and itself). I cannot post this entire thread in one post so if you come across it in an early stage, be aware that a number of posts will follow rapidly until I...

Alpha News was on location as a search warrant was being served at several locations related to a “massive scheme to defraud” Medicaid and Minnesota’s Housing Stabilization Services (HSS) program. According to the search warrant, the fraud investigation involves HSS providers who billed for various services intended to provide stable housing for Minnesotans. The search warrant states, “The Program has proved to be extremely vulnerable to fraud.” The vulnerability stems from limited requirements for service providers and the vast services they can provide for Medicaid reimbursement. “Since Minnesota became the first state to offer Medicaid coverage for Housing Stabilization Services,...

VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. - A California State University, Channel Islands professor who was arrested last week during an immigration raid on a cannabis farm in Camarillo appeared in court Monday and was released on bond. What we know: Jonathan Anthony Caravello, was detained by federal agents during a protest at Glass House Farms on Thursday, July 10. According to the CSUCI's staff directory, Caravello is a lecturer in the math department. In a statement, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said Caravello was arrested for allegedly throwing a tear gas canister at law enforcement during the raid. "He is charged with a...

President Donald Trump seems unfamiliar with the Streisand effect, the phenomenon of inadvertently drawing more attention to an issue by trying to make it go away. The president on Wednesday unleashed another rant on Truth Social, claiming, without evidence, that Democrats are behind the uproar over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation. Referring to Democrats, Trump wrote on social media that their “new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax.” He then appeared to turn on his own supporters: “My PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker. They haven’t learned...

The Trump Administration has been doing its part, but the lower courts remain rabid in their attack on the rule of law.. Federal judge James Boasberg advised Chief Justice John Roberts and some two dozen other judges that his D.C. colleagues were “concern[ed] that the Administration would disregard rulings of federal courts leading to a constitutional crisis,” according to a memorandum obtained exclusively by The Federalist. That Judge Boasberg and his fellow D.C. District Court judges would discuss how a named Defendant in numerous pending lawsuits might respond to an adverse ruling is shocking. Equally outrageous is those judges’ clear...

A gynecologist, her husband and a businessman have been arrested in connection to the murder of the physician's lover, whom she was caught on camera kissing outside her home in Sorriso, Brazil. Bonotto suffered multiple stab wounds and remained under observation at Sorriso Regional Hospital, where he died after going into cardiac arrest on April 13. Dr. Sabrina de Mello, a mother-of-two, is being investigated for procedural fraud, the Mato Gross Civil Police said. Her husband, Gabriel Tacca, is said to have plotted the murder while his friend and businessman, Danilo Guimarães, reportedly killed Bonnatto. Authorities said that Bonotto was...

GREENVILLE, DE — In a rare public appearance after leaving office in January, former President Joe Biden stated that he absolutely would have approved all of his presidential pardons if he had known about them. In brief comments to reporters outside his Delaware home, Biden addressed persistent rumors that he knew nothing about the pardons he issued in the closing days and hours of his presidency, reiterating that he would have approved them if anyone had asked him. "Let me be clear, I was on board with all of these pardons I issued, even the ones I found out about...

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal about the sad state of free speech in Britain brought this long-developing story to the attention of Americans. The article focused on the case of Lucy Connolly, a woman who received a 31-month prison sentence for posting a message on X. In May, the 42-year-old had her appeal rejected by the UK’s Court of Appeal. By the time she is released in August, Connolly will have spent over a year in prison. The matter has already been a longstanding concern for the White House, and free expression has been at the center...

Explanation: Would the Rosette Nebula by any other name look as sweet? The bland New General Catalog designation of NGC 2237 doesn't appear to diminish the appearance of this flowery emission nebula, as captured by the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the NSF's Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. Inside the nebula lies an open cluster of bright young stars designated NGC 2244. These stars formed about four million years ago from the nebular material and their stellar winds are clearing a hole in the nebula's center, insulated by a layer of dust and hot...

Former first son Hunter Biden faulted Democrats’ disloyalty to his father for the electoral drubbing they suffered last year and President Trump’s return to power. The younger Biden argued that Democrats squandered their advantages of incumbency and “an incredibly successful administration” — despite its record-low approval numbers — when they turned against his father in dramatic fashion last summer. “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party,” Hunter Biden said on former Democratic National Committee boss Jaime Harrison’s new podcast, according to excerpts. “That’s my position. We had the advantage of...

The Republican party is heralding its new tax legislation as a win for middle income Americans. But the most substantial tax savings in the bill is reserved for wealthy individuals across the country—and particularly in high-tax states like California and New York. That’s because the legislation increases the deduction level for state and local taxes, also known as SALT. This allows federal taxpayers who itemize their deductions to fully deduct state and local income taxes as well as property taxes, and is most beneficial to wealthy taxpayers in states with a high cost of living and high tax rates—the ones...

-The government's immunisation target still "possible", a public health official says. -'Declines' sometimes just need more time. -Trust in government is lower, so supporting local health providers is key to boosting coverage. The high-profile public health doctor stepping down as head of the country's immunisation programmes believes the government's target is achievable - but only if health providers can gain the trust of vaccine-sceptical parents. A decade ago, New Zealand's childhood immunisation rates were the envy of the world, with 93 percent of all children fully-vaccinated by the age of two. Rates among Pacific children were 97 percent, and Māori...

Inflation picked up in June to 2.7 percent, according to the Consumer Price Index report released Tuesday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This is an increase over May’s annualized inflation rate of 2.4 percent, but still below the inflation rate of 3 percent in January of this year when Donald Trump took office as president. Core inflation, excluding food and energy, increased to 2.9 percent. Fears that tariffs would significantly raise inflation rates have not yet materialized, although some of June’s increase may be attributable to them. Higher inflation also makes it less likely that the Federal Reserve will...

The New York Times leadership actually attempted to sell readers on the dimwitted notion that stripping tax dollars from leftist public media is just as nutty as defunding police departments. This is the same newspaper that largely rationalized nixing police funding across a number of stories over the past few years. The Times editorial board went to bat for lefty outlets NPR and PBS, which are on the verge of possibly getting $1.1 billion cut from their mothership Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The newspaper had the utter audacity to argue in a June 16 editorial that continuing literal government-funded...