Free Republic

Explanation: The camera battery died about 2am local time on August 12, while shooting in the bright moonlit skies from a garden in Chastre, Brabant Wallon, Belgium, planet Earth. But not before it captured the frames used to compose this cool animated gif of a brilliant Perseid meteor and a lingering visible trail known as a persistent train. The Perseid meteor, a fast moving speck of dust from the tail of large periodic Comet Swift-Tuttle, was heated to incandescence by ram pressure and vaporized as it flashed through the upper atmosphere at 60 kilometers per second. Compared to the brief...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Eleganti: The Church needs to preach the Gospel, not ‘synodality’The faithful are crying out for Jesus, not more committees, process documents, and spiritual manipulation dressed as discernment.For the sake of Christ’s love, please stop the overkill of synodal documents, intermediate steps, guidelines for the onward process, announcements of results, final documents that are not final, extensions into further rounds, proliferation of commissions, and ultimately an assembly in canonical no man’s land.The vast majority of the people of God ignore your documents. In my experience, hardly any believers know about them or read them. Stop spinning around in...

The State Department on Saturday abruptly halted issuing visas for foreigners seeking to travel to the United States from Gaza. Officials said they suspended the visas until the issuing process is revamped. "All visitor visas for individuals from Gaza are being stopped while we conduct a full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days," the State Department announced on X.

Oklahoma Watch has reported that CoreCivic is in negotiations to reopen two closed prisons in Oklahoma as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities, with details revealed during a quarterly earnings call last week. Keaton Ross, an investigative reporter for Oklahoma Watch, said the CEO of CoreCivic leaked the news, indicating they are working alongside the federal government. Ross said he broke the story after noticing open positions for CoreCivic's closed facilities in Sayre and Watonga. A check of the company's website showed 20 job openings in Oklahoma, with 12 in Watonga and none in Sayre.

A federal judge on Friday shut down the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) investigation into far-left Media Matters. US District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan, a Biden appointee, issued an injunction against the FTC and blocked its investigation into Media Matters. The judge said the Trump Administration illegally retaliated against Media Matters.

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb will not be fined for his unsportsmanlike penalty in last week's preseason game against the Los Angeles Rams, a league official told ESPN's Adam Schefter. Lamb, who was not in uniform for the game, was run into by side judge Anthony Jeffries on a deep pass from Joe Milton III to Jonathan Mingo. The officials threw a pass interference penalty on the Rams on the play, but Lamb was in the white paint on the sideline reserved for the officials during the action. Lamb was uninjured and was able to laugh it off with...

The Taliban's four-year quest for legitimacy received a major boost last month when Russia became the first country to formally recognize the group's rule in Afghanistan. While the Kremlin's decision is largely symbolic, it could still yield strategic benefits for Moscow. Recognition allows Russia to project itself as a bold global power unafraid to challenge Western norms, especially after setbacks in regions like the Middle East. By taking the initiative, Moscow aims to restore its reputation as an agenda-setter in international affairs, potentially encouraging other nations -- particularly in Central Asia -- to follow suit and normalize ties with the...

Recognition of Palestine as a state has become popular among some members of the United Nations. French president Macron and others like him should be aware that a state is more than a wish your heart makes. An analogy to the Palestinian State scheme is Rumpelstiltskin spinning gold from straw. Yasser Arafat created the name “Palestinian” in 1964 for the newly formed Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). It was renamed Palestine in 1998. There has never been a Palestinian nation, a Palestinian civilization, a Palestinian culture, or a Palestinian language. There has never been a Palestinian state governed by Arabs until...

Democrats are big mad that President Donald Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to move closer toward an end to the war in Ukraine. Before and after the summit, leftists excoriated Trump for the meeting and even seemed to argue that Putin somehow got the upper hand — even though this was only the first in-person meeting between the two leaders about the war. In essence, some of these people seem to be rooting against Trump successfully ending the bloodshed happening in Ukraine. Media pundit Malcolm Nance, a chronic TDS sufferer, wrote a post on X in which he...

An international aid worker submitted a complaint to the USAID Inspector-General alleging that the UN and other programs were refusing any form of IDF help in feeding Gazans. An international aid worker submitted a whistleblower complaint to the USAID Inspector-General alleging that the UN, WFP, and associated international aid programs were effectively obstructing aid by refusing to work with the IDF despite repeated appeals, according to a report today (Friday) by Fox News. The whistleblower provided a "firsthand eyewitnessing of senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officials offering any support necessary, including security protection and coordination, to representatives from the World...

The Brief: -Video shows four masked thieves stealing over $2 million in jewelry from a West Seattle store in a 90-second smash-and-grab. -The suspects used hammers to break in and threatened staff with bear spray and a taser. -Police are investigating, but the suspects escaped in a getaway car and remain at large. Smash-and-grab thieves in Seattle made off with an estimated $2 million in diamonds, luxury watches, gold and other items in a daring midday jewelry store robbery that took just about 90 seconds, police said Friday. Video from the West Seattle store's surveillance cameras shows four masked suspects...

US President Donald Trump's actions have brought the end of the war in Ukraine "closer than ever before", Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has said.His statement comes despite the fact that Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach a deal on a ceasefire at a summit in Alaska on Friday.He also said the "path to peace in Ukraine" cannot be decided without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and that the UK's "unwavering support" will continue as long as it takes.The highly-anticipated meeting between Trump and Putin had been pitched as an important step towards peace in Ukraine, but no...

The BRICS economic partnership was formed during the Obama administration. Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) watched U.S. President Obama subcontract U.S. trade policy to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Wall Street.In the aftermath of the 2007 economic crisis, created by Congress and banking interests, the BRICS group identified two central points of ‘western’ financial influence that concerned them.Following the financial crisis, the relationships around the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (IMF), EU central banks and various multinational institutions and multinational corporations, merged even closer with the government.The priorities of the Davos and World Economic Forum...

The Trump administration has launched their own 'Manhattan Project' as reports have suggested one of America's largest chipmakers could be partly nationalized. Intel, the largest chip fabricator in the US, has been in talks with Donald Trump over a potential government stake in the company. While the percentage stake the government is asking for has not been made public, nationalizing a company is typically reserved for national emergencies. The government nationalized a number of banks after the 2008 financial crisis and key logistics companies during World War II. It comes amid concerns that America relies too heavily on TSCM, a...

EXCLUSIVE: First Lady Melania Trump wrote a "peace letter" to Russian President Vladimir Putin telling him "it is time" to protect children and future generations around the globe, Fox News Digital has learned. Fox News Digital exclusively obtained the "peace letter" the first lady penned to Putin, which President Trump hand-delivered to the Russian leader before their summit in Alaska, Fox News Digital has learned. Immediately upon receiving the letter, Putin read it as the American and Russian delegations looked on. "Dear President Putin," the first lady’s letter begins. "Every child shares the same quiet dreams in their heart, whether...

President Trump has proven once again why he’s the most effective advocate for American workers in modern American politics. He fully understands the threat China poses, and his administration is doing exactly what needs to be done to ensure American competitiveness.While strengthening our manufacturing, he’s also tackling trade diplomacy with China. Because President Trump knows we need both: to grow our ability to compete with China by manufacturing right here in the U.S. and also to pursue trade diplomacy that actually helps American businesses and consumers.The early signals of this effort are positive.For example, Ford’s $5-billion investment in car manufacturing,...

The United States Pirate Party has endorsed independent candidate Timothy Grady in his 2026 bid for governor of Ohio, following a unanimous vote at its most recent national committee meeting. In a statement published Tuesday, August 12, the Pirate National Committee said members voted to back Grady’s campaign during their regular monthly meeting held over the past weekend. Grady attended the session in person to outline his platform and take questions from party members. The party also pitched the recorded meeting as a chance for Ohio voters to hear directly from an independent candidate in the race. While noting that...

Don’t be disappointed if you’re anxious to attend the Biden Presidential Library’s opening. It almost certainly will never exist. D.C. swampsters are trying to bury the record, hoping the public forgets how bad things were. Its subject will soon be either in the ground or too incapacitated to solicit funding. Biden staffers retaining criminal defense counsel have no interest in a library containing evidence for prosecutors to mine. No reporters from press outlets complicit in enabling chaos are hounding Biden. DOGE revelations testify to his administration's wholesale graft. FBI servers were purged of controversial data, unburdening what had been.There theoretically...

Taxes will be going up, but whose?Rachel Reeves, Britain’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, stands at the precipice of a fiscal catastrophe, with a £50 billion shortfall in public finances threatening to upend her economic strategy.The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), a think tank co-founded by John Maynard Keynes, has issued a damning indictment of the Government’s economic strategy: a toxic brew of sluggish economic growth, a faltering jobs market, and spiraling welfare costs has plunged the government’s coffers deeper into the red. At a time when debt interest payments exceed £111 billion ($147 billion), the situation is...

The writing has been on the wall for a long time: South Korea’s birth rate has dropped throughout much of the past decade, spelling trouble for the military as regional threats and global conflicts simmer. Now, a new report has found that the number of South Korean troops declined by 20% in the past six years, in large part because of the dwindling pool of young men – reflecting the shrinking workforce and swelling elderly population in one of the world’s most rapidly aging countries. The Defense Ministry report attributed the drop to “complex factors” including population decline and fewer...