Free Republic

Investors continue to snap up residential properties, as real estate has evolved into an investment class of its own. New reports show that between 2020 and 2023, investors were responsible for 18.5% of home purchases. In the first three months of 2025, investors composed 27% of all residential properties, marking the highest share in half a decade, according to BatchData. High mortgage rates, coupled with high property values, have caused many would-be buyers to reconsider their purchases. Investors have fewer constraints, leading to the purchase of 265,000 residential properties during Q1, or a 1.2% YoY rise. However, we are seeing...

Ukraine’s official military casualty figures in the war with Russia may be vastly understated, according to a report published by the French newspaper Le Monde on Monday. Russia’s death toll is much higher, but official figures show the Kremlin’s voluntary recruitment drive is replenishing the ranks faster than its soldiers are being killed. Death tolls in the four-year old war are state secrets on both sides of the conflict and analysts have been reduced to using proxies to estimate the true toll and official estimates from Defence Ministries are almost certainly massaged up or down. However, even these estimates are...

The Boeing X-32, derided for its “ugly,” cartoonish appearance, was a formidable contender in the Joint Strike Fighter competition but ultimately lost to what became the F-35. Despite its superb handling qualities, which one test pilot compared to an F/A-18, the X-32’s downfall was its flawed and complex Short Take-Off and Vertical Landing (STOVL) design.

A brief scuffle broke out at London's Royal Opera House after a performer unfurled a Palestinian flag during a show. The incident took place during a performance of Il Trovatore on Saturday. During the final night of the 11-night run of the show, a performer held up the flag on stage. In video footage, shared online, someone backstage could be seen attempting to take it off the performer. The performer grabs it back following a brief scuffle. A spokesperson for the Royal Ballet and Opera said: "The display of the flag was an unauthorised action by the artist. "It was...

Stephen Colbert declared to Donald Trump that “the gloves are off” in his first broadcast since his Late Show was cancelled amid a political firestorm, as his fellow hosts lined up to defend him with Jon Stewart scathingly denouncing Paramount for trying to “censor and control” its hosts. Colbert, the top-rated late-night talk show host in the US, said last week on his CBS show Late Night – which he took over from David Letterman in 2015 – that Paramount’s decision to pay a $16m settlement to Trump over another flagship CBS show, 60 Minutes, amounted to a “big fat...

The full Hunter Biden interview: HUNTER BIDEN INTERVIEW WITH CHANNEL 5 ANDREW CALLAGHAN (3 hrs, 16 mins)

The horrific July 7 incident unfolded just before 5:30 p.m. as 24-year-old Ventura native Elieah Boyd pushed her 80-pound electric bike across the train tracks near Seaward Avenue. “There was no train horn. It was like three seconds from when I saw the train to when it happened,” she told KTLA’s Sandra Mitchell. “I just happened to have my hand still on the bike as the train goes by. The train barely clipped the bike, just enough to take my arm completely off.” Just two weeks out from the traumatic injury, her arm now in a wrist-to-shoulder sling, the smiling...

NPR's top editor has tendered her resignation days after the radio station lost $500million in federal funding for an alleged bias against conservatives. Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday. Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts. She also said she handed in her notice two weeks ago ahead of the cuts, which Trump repeatedly promised on the campaign trail. NPR has long been blasted by conservatives, former listeners, and even former...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 1,309 confirmed cases of measles in the U.S. as of July 15 — the highest number of cases in three decades. The fearmongering corporate media have rushed to blame decreasing vaccine rates and “unvaccinated” populations. But largely missing from or downplayed in these outlets’ coverage are important data points and questions about what may be exacerbating the outbreaks. Image CreditScreenshot / CDCThe Associated Press reported concerns that the outbreak has been worsened by post-Covid “vaccine hesitancy” and lackluster funding for vaccination programs. CBS acted shocked that HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr....

Japanese researchers observed the transverse Thomson effect for the very first time, and it could groundbreaking. A Thermoelectric Seebeck module (w:en:Thermoelectric generator) manufactured by TECTEG MFR. Gerardtv ====================================================================== Researchers in Japan observed the transverse Thomson effect for the very first time, a thermoelectric phenomenon that allows the control of the direction of heating and cooling flows by changing the direction of the magnetic field. The scientific understanding of how heat and electricity interact stems from the 19th century. At the time, physicists only theorized the existence of a transverse Thomson effect, which refers to the direction in which an electric...

President Trump is pulling the US out of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), citing its anti-America and anti-Israel leanings as well as its woke agenda, The Post has learned. Trump ordered a 90-day review of America’s presence in UNESCO back in February, with special emphasis on probing any “anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment within the organization.” Upon conducting the review, administration officials took issue with UNESCO’s diversity, equity and inclusion policies as well as its pro-Palestinian and pro-China bias, a White House official told The Post. “President Trump has decided to withdraw the United States from UNESCO...

‘Do you have any idea how many resources will be opened up for Americans when the illegals are gone? No more waiting in line at an emergency room, no more massive traffic in Los Angeles,’ Stephen Miller said.Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is helping alleviate pressure on America’s emergency rooms because illegal aliens believe they might be arrested and deported if they use the emergency services. Illegal aliens are well-known to abuse such emergency services for non-emergencies, not pay, and leave the American people to pay for it. But the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services (LACDHS) confirmed to...

Though she has claimed the DIGNITY Act is not amnesty legislation, her own words undercut that defense.Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., admitted in a recent interview that her DIGNITY Act could serve as a launchpad for eventually granting citizenship to hundreds of thousands of foreign nationals currently in the United States.The DIGNITY Act, according to a press release from Salazar’s office, “allows certain long-term undocumented immigrants to earn legal status, without amnesty or a path to citizenship” so that illegal aliens who broke the law can have an “opportunity.” The bill would create a “7-year earned legal status program allowing”...

On Saturday, anti-immigration marches under the slogan 'Stop Immigration' took place in more than 80 Polish cities. Some of them were accompanied by counter-manifestations by left-wing circles. A total of 100 public gatherings were reported across the country. Anti-immigration protests organised by the far-right Confederation Libery and Independence party took place in more than 80 cities across Poland, including in Warsaw, Krakow, Poznan, Wroclaw, and Bialystok. Demonstrators demanded the closure of the borders with Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus and Slovakia. "Enough of the years-long policy of 'let everyone in, and who they are will be determined later'," Krzysztof Bosak, one of...

He’s not laughing now. A Miami doofus shouted “Psych!” at a cop and laughed in his face while starting to flee a traffic stop — only to almost immediately crash his sports car into a tractor-trailer, police said. Eduardo Barbaro Gonzalez, 42, was spotted by a Miami officer engaging in what appeared to be a drug deal in a shopping center parking lot around 11 p.m. Wednesday when he saw the cop’s marked car and tried to pull away in his Dodge Charger. The officer pulled his cruiser in front of Gonzalez’s car and lowered his window to try and...

The UK closed a tax loophole. Guess what. NYC can expect the same.Extreme Wealthy Flee the UKThe Wall Street Journal reports The U.K. Closed a Tax Loophole for the Global Rich. Now They’re Fleeing.The U.K. is trying to tax the superrich. It’s off to a bumpy start.“I’m on my way out,” said Bassim Haidar, a Nigerian-born Lebanese businessman who moved here in 2010. “There comes a time when you don’t feel welcome anymore, and it’s time to just start packing and leaving.”Haidar is one of the estimated 74,000 who used a centuries-old tax loophole, abolished in April, that catered to...

Daily Readings from the USCCBMary stayed outside the tomb weeping. And as she wept, she bent over into the tomb and saw two angels in white sitting there, one at the head and one at the feet where the Body of Jesus had been.John 20:11–12Early in His ministry, Jesus cast seven demons out of Mary of Magdala. As a result, she became an exceptionally faithful follower of Jesus. She was most likely one of His followers who provided for Jesus and the disciples out of her own resources as they traveled. She listened to His teachings, witnessed His miracles, was...

Australia's largest company has been taken to court for allegedly breaching a contract by outsourcing hundreds of local jobs to India. The Finance Sector Union said it has commenced action in the Fair Work Commission against Commonwealth Bank of Australia for allegedly breaching the CBA Enterprise Agreement. CBA has been accused of defying Clause 36 of the agreement which defines redundancy. Redundancy can occur, according to the clause, if the work is no longer required, the work is required to be done at a different location that is not within reasonable commuting distance or if the work is restructured so...

VIDEO AT LINK.................... House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) stated that Congress may issue a subpoena to former President Barack Obama over allegations of coordination with intelligence agencies to tie President Donald Trump to Russia during the 2016 presidential election. In an interview with reporter David Brody, Johnson confirmed he is considering such a move, citing concerns about the integrity of the nation’s intelligence processes and the alleged misuse of federal power during the final months of the Obama administration. “I think we have a responsibility to follow the truth, where it leads,” Johnson said. “To do effectively the opposite of...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: House Oversight Committee approves Rep. Tim Burchett’s motion to subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell. 9:30 AM · Jul 22, 2025