Free Republic

The Haywood campus of the growing First Baptist Simpsonville Upstate Church in South Carolina escaped tragedy over the weekend when leaders managed to relocate services hours before the sanctuary's roof collapsed on Sunday morning. Wayne Bray, lead pastor of First Baptist Simpsonville Upstate Church, which has 7,700 members who worship at nine locations across South Carolina, explained in a video statement on Facebook that the collapse didn't surprise them. He said one of his staff members discovered cracks in the sanctuary the night before the roof collapsed. Once they realized what the problem was, they immediately began making plans overnight...

A new report from MIT’s NADA initiative reveals a sobering reality for corporate generative AI adoption: 95% of pilot programs are failing to deliver meaningful financial impact. Titled The GenAI Divide: State of AI in Business 2025, the study is based on 150 interviews with business leaders, a survey of 350 employees, and an analysis of 300 public AI deployments. It highlights a stark divide between successful AI integrations and stalled initiatives that offer little to no return on investment [1]. According to the research, only 5% of AI pilots result in rapid revenue acceleration. The majority of projects remain...

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned that the billions of dollars being plowed into the artificial intelligence arms race risks causing a bubble comparable to the dot-com crash of the early 2000s. “When bubbles happen, smart people get overexcited about a kernel of truth,” Altman said during a dinner with a group of journalists, The Verge reported on Friday. “Are we in a phase where investors as a whole are overexcited about AI? My opinion is yes. Is AI the most important thing to happen in a very long time? My opinion is also yes.” Altman likened the AI funding rush...

Aleksandar Vucic emphasized that the state will act decisivelyBELGRADE, August 19. /TASS/. Large-scale protests in Serbia are part "of an attempt to stage a color revolution, organized and paid for from the outside," the Balkan nation’s President Aleksandar Vucic said. In an address delivered in front of a vandalized office of the Serbian Progressive Party in Belgrade, the president stressed that protesters were extremely aggressive. Vucic noted that they had nothing to offer to the country’s people but violence. The president stated that "all this is part of an attempt to stage a color revolution, organized and paid for from...

Many years ago, I was a football fan — a diehard, even. I stuck with the Panthers through seasons so bad they should’ve been classified as disaster zones, and I relished the rare payoff of seeing them claw their way to a Super Bowl. Those days are long gone. The NFL has morphed into a walking parody of itself—a late-night comedy sketch scripted straight from a corporate DEI handbook, spliced with what used to be satire about effeminacy. From the heavy-handed political sermons to the nonstop social engineering, it’s become an endurance test I have no interest in taking. And...

Hershel Carmen House was born July 4, 1941

An SBC church who once had nine ‘women pastors’ on staff has given the ladies a new title to avoid the prohibitions against female pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention. Fielder Road Baptist Church, aka Fielder Church, is a Texas-based multi-site, multi-ethnic, and multi-lingual church that the Baptist Press has previously highlighted for having 30 percent Hispanic and African-American congregants. Led by Lead Pastor Jason Paredes, they not only have diversity of ethnicity, but they also have a diversity of gender among the pastoral staff. As of April 29th, 2025 they had nine women on staff bearing the title “pastor.”...

Once a symbol of rural grit, the presence of the best-selling pickup truck in a song may now mean something else.Country singer-songwriter Jenna Paulette drives a white Ford F-150 pickup truck, a gift from her cattle-rancher grandfather when he retired from driving. “He called me and said, ‘Hey, sug, I got a 2010 F-150 with sixty thousand miles on it, and I was wondering if you’d drive it for me,’ ” the native Texan, who grew up in Lewisville, recalls. “I still drive that truck to this day; I’ll never get rid of it. It keeps me connected to him...

A Harvard researcher was brutally attacked by a gang of teenagers at a Boston movie theater after he told them to be quiet during a screening. Thiago Rentz, 35, was seeing a late-night showing of the new horror film Weapons at the AMC Boston Common 19 last week when things got frightening off-screen. A group of five teens in the theater loudly clapped and screamed throughout the screening, ruining the experience for everyone, Rentz said.

Video footage of a man pummeling a woman at a Rüfüs Du Sol concert at the Rose Bowl Saturday evening has shocked concertgoers, with some attendees voicing concerns about crowd control and safety measures at the sold-out show. The video, shared by festival news platform Festive Owl, shows a man knocking a woman to the ground and repeatedly throwing punches at her while other attendees try to pull him back. “This man punched me in the face, knocking me out and causing significant bleeding, while he continued attacking our group,” the woman wrote in a message shared by Festive Owl....

Skip to Main Content Pay & ApplyFind & ReportCommunity InfoDepartments HomeDepartmentsCity AdministrationCommunicationsAnaheim ContigoClick the bottom right to translate to another language • Haga clic abajo a la derecha de la página para traducir a otro idiomaImmigration enforcement: timely updatesANAHEIM, Calif. (Aug. 19, 2025) — We are watching for any federal immigration enforcement in Anaheim Tuesday and continue to advise caution.We looked into a report in the area of Gilbert Street and Lincoln Avenue around midday Tuesday with no indication of federal enforcement activity, based on a canvassing of the area, talks with area businesses and consultation with our police.We are...

Paul Sperry @paulsperry_ DEVELOPING: Trump HUD is proposing a two-year cap on fraud-infested Section 8 housing subsidies, which currently have no time limits or work requirements. Studies show at least 1.4 million have been freeloading off tax-supported Sec. 8, which brings more crime to neighborhoods... 12:11 PM · Aug 19, 2025

President Donald Trump’s crusade against crime in the nation’s capital has resulted in more than 450 arrests since Aug. 7, the White House announced Tuesday morning. Those arrests, fueled by an increase in federal agents on city streets, run the gamut of charges, from murder and assault to driving under the influence. But a full picture about who has been arrested, where, for what and by whom is not yet clear. Every day, the White House issues a summary of the previous night’s operation, including the number of arrests and some examples of arresting causes. Numbers of illegal firearms seized...

In an interview with NBC News' Andrea Mitchell, Finnish President Alexander Stubb weighed in on the attempted peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia. He likened the possibility of Ukraine ceding land to Russia to the U.S. giving up multiple states.

Republican state lawmakers argue that Democratic lawmakers violated 30-day disclosure rules in the California Constitution.Republican lawmakers in California have filed a lawsuit asking the State Supreme Court to stop Democrats from moving ahead this week with a plan to redraw congressional districts.It was the latest move in an escalating national battle over redistricting that began this summer when President Trump asked Texas leaders to help Republicans maintain control of the House of Representatives by reshaping congressional districts and delivering five additional seats for their party.California Democrats responded on Monday by introducing a package of bills to create new district boundaries...

A developing homicide investigation is underway after a missing woman’s husband was seen on video dragging a large wrapped-up object away from their home just a day before the woman’s body was found dumped in similar state. On Aug. 12, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department responded to an apartment complex on the 500 block of Lancaster Boulevard in Lancaster to take a missing person report following the disappearance of 33-year-old Sheylla Cabrera. But that investigation took a turn the following day after detectives viewed surveillance footage from a neighbor’s Ring camera that appeared to show Cabrera’s husband dragging a...

Nationalism Under Attack: Globalists Declare War on Freedom The world is embroiled in a profound struggle that extends beyond battlefields to encompass narratives, sanctions, legal warfare, and political ostracism. At its heart lies a clash between two competing ideologies: globalism, which seeks a borderless world unified under a centralized ideological framework, and nationalism, which champions the sovereignty, cultural identity, and self-determination of individual nation-states. With over three decades of experience in the military, I’ve witnessed conflicts across many domains, but none as critical as the globalist campaign targeting populist nationalist leaders. From Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to Republika Srpska’s Milorad Dodik,...

A wildlife biologist at Yosemite National Park was fired after draping a transgender pride flag from El Capitan. Dr Shannon Joslin, who holds a PhD in genomics and studies bats, was fired from the park earlier this month following the stunt on May 20 of this year. The 35-year-old, who is nonbinary, and six other climbers, unfurled the 55-by-35 foot pink and blue flag one third of the way up the iconic granite monolith

Seven things you didn’t know about Gothenburg – Sweden’s maritime, cultural and sustainable powerhouse… From the Nordics’ largest port to Liseberg’s rollercoasters, discover Gothenburg’s history, innovation and coastal charm. Stockholm might steal the limelight, but Sweden’s west-coast powerhouse, Gothenburg, is quietly running the table. It’s bigger than many capitals, home to the Nordics’ largest port, and boasts Sweden’s top tourist attraction. Add in its Dutch-built canals, sustainability leadership, and archipelago escapes, and you’ve got a city that refuses to play second fiddle. 1. The biggest non-capital in the Nordics With nearly 600,000 people in the city and over 1.1 million...

Ukraine’s most heavily fortified region has become the center-point for peace talks to end the war with Russian leader Vladimir Putin reportedly demanding that Kyiv cede the entire territory to Moscow. But the Donestk oblast — which is smaller than Massachusetts and home to about 4 million people — has been at the center of some of the most brutal fighting of the war, and the Kremlin has not been able to take the entire region after more than three and a half years. A source familiar with Friday’s meeting between Putin and President Trump described negotiations over the fate...