Free Republic

When Lama Ali Ahmad became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2021, she was eager to become a voter, too.In Lebanon, where she’s from, elections were often derailed by crises. But here, she had faith in the process. She registered and voted in a municipal election the same day. That night, she gathered her family at her Dearborn home for a special dinner of steak, chicken, and tabbouleh, and told them how good it felt to finally be heard.“That was the moment where I really felt that I am an American citizen,” she said.Last year, she celebrated another civic triumph: Voting...

Same language, so same money, bro, right?So here’s another cringe-filled episode of the never-ending series of “Please Google before you travel”. A viral clip from the Stiff Socks podcast has set social media ablaze (and no, not because it dropped wisdom). One of the hosts casually shared a story about trying to pay for a taxi in Spain using Mexican pesos, because, you know, “they both speak Spanish.” Yeah, really. “I figured it would work with pesos!” “When I was in Mexico, I used pesos. They speak Spanish in Spain too, so I figured it would work,” he said. His...

Former Vice President Kamala Harris has written a new book about her brief presidential campaign called 107 Days, and The Babylon Bee has obtained an advance copy. The book won't be released until next month, but here are some of the most fascinating quotes: 1 "A prologue is like an introduction. So, here's my introduction. And this is my book. A book written by me. I am me. The writer of the book." 2 "My publisher said this book should be 100,000 words, which is very, very, very, very [...] very, very, very many words." 3 "This is a chapter....

University of Washington researchers recruited self-identifying Democrats and Republicans to make political decisions with help from three versions of ChatGPT: a base model, one with liberal bias and one with conservative bias. Democrats and Republicans were both likelier to lean in the direction of the biased chatbot they were talking with than those who interacted with the base model. Here, a Democrat interacts with the conservative model. Credit: Proceedings of the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) (2025). DOI: 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.328 If you've interacted with an artificial intelligence chatbot, you've likely realized that all...

A Special education teacher at Haynesville Elementary was arrested on a misdemeanor charge Tuesday, according to Minden police. Kylie Frith is charged with simple theft, according to Minden Police Deputy Chief Tokia-Whiting Harrison. Orleans on Main framed art Framed art piece stolen from Orleans on Main in Minden. Frith is accused of stealing a framed art piece from the bathroom of Orleans on Main Bistreaux in Minden on July 18, by allegedly concealing it under her clothing and leaving the establishment. Harrison said after detectives contacted Frith, she admitted to taking the artwork. According to Harrison, she later turned herself...

Key Points and Summary – The Pentagon’s decision to defund the Navy’s F/A-XX sixth-generation fighter program is a catastrophic mistake that threatens to render the new $13 billion Ford-class aircraft carriers strategically irrelevant.

Associations lodged a complaint against the Flemish government in June after military equipment bound for Israel was discovered in the port of Antwerp. A court in Belgium has ordered the Flemish government to stop the transit of military equipment to Israel, following the discovery of hardware in the port of Antwerp earlier this year. The Court of First Instance in Brussels ordered the regional government to block the Antwerp shipment and prohibit any future transit of military equipment to Israel, which faces growing criticism in the West for its handling of the war in Gaza. The judge also imposed a...

WASHINGTON — Rep. Jasmine Crockett has positioned herself as an unfiltered critic of President Trump, earning regular TV appearances and an enthusiastic online following, but congressional aides tell The Post that the Dallas Democrat is just as “rude” and mean to her own staff. The liberal loudmouth, 44, has rocketed to fame since taking office in January 2023 as a fiery antagonist of the Republican president and his allies. But three sources who have worked with or for Crockett say she’s rarely present when TV cameras aren’t rolling — and terrorizes staff when she does appear. Crockett is not often...

It is becoming harder and harder for the media to ignore the Russiagate scandal. And that difficulty in journalism avoidance just became much more difficult with the announcement that Attorney General Pam Bondi has ordered a grand jury probe. Unfortunately for them, the distraction excuse for not covering the Russia Hoax is becoming a worn routine and pretending that the damning material in the Durham annex, such as the email of Leonard Bernardo implicating Hillary Clinton as a perpetrator of the Russia Hoax along with high level intelligence officials, is really nothing more than Russian disinformation has already been thoroughly...

You know how when you're hot and need something refreshing and cold to drink, so you guzzle the nearest ketchup bottle? But that hasn't stopped Heinz from teaming up with Smoothie King to create a cold, refreshing ketchup smoothie. That's right! For a limited time, Smoothie King will be offering ketchup smoothies on their menu.

Russian scientists say they’ve built a new kind of engine that could cut the trip to Mars down to just one month. A working prototype already exists, and it’s unlike anything currently used in space. ============================================================= Russia’s New Plasma Engine. Credit: IZVESTIA/Sergey Lantyukhov | The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel ============================================================= A new propulsion system developed by Russian scientists is generating buzz in the spaceflight community. According to researchers from Rosatom’s Troitsk Institute, a laboratory-tested magnetoplasma engine could make it possible to travel from Earth to Mars in as little as one to two months—a significant leap from today’s six-...

The Air Force is looking to buy two Cybertrucks for "live missile fire testing." It said the Tesla pickups were "likely" to start appearing on the battlefield. It added that they don't "receive the normal extent of damage expected upon major impact." The US Air Force wants to blow up some Cybertrucks. It's looking to buy two of them to use for munitions testing as they will "likely" soon start appearing on the battlefield, per documents posted on a US Government contracting website on Wednesday. Advertisement The pickups are part of a larger order of 33 vehicles for "live missile...

Elon Musk is reviving one of the internet’s most beloved platforms—but this time, it’s powered by AI. A forgotten archive has been uncovered, a premium feature launched, and the future of short-form video may never be the same. =============================================================== In a series of posts on X (formerly Twitter), Elon Musk announced the return of Vine, the iconic six-second video platform that helped launch the careers of digital stars like Shawn Mendes and King Bach. But the revival comes with a major twist: it’s no longer about shooting videos—it’s about generating them with artificial intelligence. Vine’s Video Archive Is Being Restored...

President Trump will only meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin if the dictator also meets with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, The Post can exclusively reveal. “Putin must meet with Zelensky for the meeting to occur,” a White House official told The Post. “No location has been set.” Moscow on Thursday claimed that Moscow and Washington agreed “in principle” to hold a one-of-one meeting of Putin and Trump — hours after the latter said he still wasn’t sure whether the Kremlin was “tapping [him] along.” “An agreement was agreed in principle to hold a bilateral summit meeting in the coming days,...

A potential 2028 Democratic presidential nominee has joined a lawsuit that would block President Trump from placing a ban on sex change surgeries for minors. He then took it even farther and criticized his state's Senate bill that would ban biological men from competing in women's sports. The Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, in a statement to Fox News Digital, said: I am suing the Trump administration alongside 16 other states for threatening baseless civil investigations and criminal prosecutions against healthcare providers in Pennsylvania and trying to take medical decisions away from parents and local communities. The freedom to make...

Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn launched her long-awaited campaign for governor Wednesday, becoming the second Republican from the state’s congressional delegation to enter the race to succeed term-limited GOP Gov. Bill Lee. Blackburn, who hopes to become the Volunteer State’s first female governor, starts out as the front-runner after more than 20 years on Capitol Hill in both the House and Senate. She has tied herself closely to President Donald Trump, who won the deep-red state by 30 points last year. “In his first six months, President Trump has made historic strides in Making America Great Again, but as he sends...

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston has announced a province-wide ban on forest-based activities in an attempt to prevent wildfires. He admitted that "this situation sucks," but maintained that it was necessary to mitigate risk. "We can take steps while we're in the middle of trying to fight fires, or we can be proactive and try to prevent them," Houston said during a press conference on Tuesday. "We've chosen to be proactive." He went on to declare that in accordance with recommendations from the Department of Natural Resources, Nova Scotians would be prohibited from taking part in numerous summer activities. "Effective...

https://babylonbee.com/news/study-finds-possible-connection-between-current-heatwave-and-giant-flaming-orb-in-the-sky SILVER SPRING, MD — A new study commissioned by the National Weather Service may have found a possible connection between the current heatwave and a giant flaming orb in the sky. The mystery of what causes heatwaves has perplexed climate scientists around the world for decades. Researchers working with NASA and top American universities have recently decided to stop using complex climate models, step away from their desks, and look outside at the giant flaming orb in the sky as a possible explanation as to why things get hot in the summertime. "That big flaming orb in the sky...

Ushakov: “They made an offer that is quite acceptable to us” A meeting could be coming up next week.

A case of bullying involving a minor sparked massive protests in Jiangyou City, Sichuan Province, due to unjust handling by the police. Thousands of citizens stood up for the victimized girl, only to be violently suppressed by the police on two occasions. During the demonstrations, protesters chanted slogans demanding the return of democracy. (Special thanks to all contributors for their submissions.) — Huge protests in Jiangyou China. A teen girl was brutally bullied by other female teens, children of the communist party officials, and the video of it got sent around before it was banned. The communist daughter who beat...