Free Republic

A key takeaway from the summit in Alaska is that Russian President Vladimir Putin reportedly wants to freeze the war in Ukraine along its current front line in return for the surrender of the rest of Donetsk region. Russia holds about 70% of the region (oblast), including the regional capital of the same name, after more than a decade of fighting in which Donetsk and neighbouring Luhansk have been the bleeding heart of the conflict. For Russia to gain all of Donetsk would cement its internationally unrecognised claim to the oblast as well as avoiding further heavy military losses. For...

Explanation: What are those curved arcs in the sky? Meteors -- specifically, meteors from this year's Perseid meteor shower. Over the past few weeks, after the sky darkened, many images of Perseid meteors were captured separately and merged into a single frame, taken earlier. Although the meteors all traveled on straight paths, these paths appear slightly curved by the wide-angle lens of the capturing camera. The meteor streaks can all be traced back to a single point on the sky called the radiant, here just off the top of the frame in the constellation of Perseus. The same camera took...

After eleven years as Target's CEO, Brian Cornell is stepping down, though he will stay onboard as an executive chairman. This move was "widely expected." Target went woke, felt the pushback from half of the country, hit the brakes on the woke stuff, then felt the pushback from the other half of the country, and now this dude is done. Target's "tuck-friendly" women's swimwear and LGBT kids' clothes have now cost the company over $12 billion Target executives are probably getting together every 48 hours to get updates on the company's market cap, and every time there's probably some sad,...

A disheveled poet crafted verse of exquisite order.

Far-left Democratic Mayor Michelle Wu of Boston said yesterday that her city would not cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in deporting illegals, and that the Blue City would remain a sanctuary for illegals. Wu falsely claimed at a news conference that the Trump administration is “attacking our cities.” In response to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s warning that sanctuary cities must drop their policies or face federal legal action, Wu said the city would do no such thing. Wu now risks prosecution under several federal statutes, including those dealing with harboring illegals and interfering with the enforcement of...

The state of Texas is generating considerable buzz ahead of the 2026 midterm elections regarding its efforts to redraw the state’s congressional districts. Meanwhile, the U.S. Senate race is starting to turn heads on the Republican side, as incumbent Republican senator John Cornyn faces a tightly contested primary challenge from Attorney General Ken Paxton, which could turn a non-competitive race into a Democrat pickup.Indeed, primary voting is less than a year away, and Paxton has led Cornyn in more polls than not, which conventional wisdom suggests will make this race come down to the wire. Paxton's strength comes from his...

The far-left Washington Post obviously wants Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth dead. Nothing else explains why the Post published a story 1) revealing the Secretary’s security protocols, and 2) complaining he has too much security. (snip) What follows is nearly 2,500(!) words that can be boiled down this way: Hey, we in the regime media have spent the better part of a year turning Pete Hegseth into a polarizing figure and national villain, and now you’re getting in the way of somebody assassinating him! No fair. We worked so hard.

The American Academy of Pediatrics released its updated recommendations for vaccines on Tuesday, including Covid-19 shots for infants and young children – a break from the current US for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations. “It differs from recent recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices of the CDC, which was overhauled this year and replaced with individuals who have a history of spreading vaccine misinformation,” the AAP said in a news release. Current CDC recommendations for the Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months to 17 years should be “based on shared clinical decision-making,” the agency says....

Nooo! That’s not how you do it! While trying to take a photo with a lemon shark during a birthday fishing trip Saturday in Cayo Costa, Florida, things ended up going horribly wrong for Shawn Meuse, per Gulf Coast News. Making a recovery at Gulf Coast Medical Center, Meuse said he had a hold of the shark as he prepared to let it go back into the water when the bite took place. (RELATED: Australian Surfer Sees Board Get Smashed In Half By Great White Shark) “You don’t know what a wild animal is going to do, you know? So...

The loophole China exploited is Trump’s next tariff target.President Donald Trump’s executive order of July 31st, effective August 7th, has upended global trade dynamics in a single stroke. Slapping a 40% tariff on all “transshipped goods”—products rerouted through third countries to dodge US duties—this is merely the natural development of his evolving protectionist agenda.Just a week after the order, the move is a clear shot at China’s sprawling manufacturing empire, which has long exploited methods like transshipment and “nearshoring” to skirt American tariffs in general, and Trump’s tariff policies in particular.While applied globally, China stands to take the biggest hit...

The Washington Post continued its war on the Trump Administration on Wednesday. It sparked an uproar as the paper doxxed sensitive information that has potentially put the lives of Defense Secretary Hegseth and others at risk. The far-left paper published a piece alleging that Hegseth relies on a security force so large for personal protection that the Army’s protective unit had had to pause ‘critical investigative work.’ As is customary for corporate media outlets, the reporters for this Post piece relied on several anonymous sources to back up their ‘reporting.’ The Post claims this protection is included for Hegseth, his...

SEATTLE - A 24-year-old woman has been arrested in a slew of bank robberies in the Seattle area, now charged with eight counts of first-degree robbery. Leena Chang, who was living in the University District, is accused of handing notes to bank employees, demanding cash from their drawers while saying that she was armed. The alleged robberies and attempted robberies happened at eight locations across various Seattle neighborhoods, occurring between June 2024 and July 2025. One of the notes Chang is accused of using reads, "I have a gun. Give me all your money. No silent alarm." An FBI bulletin...

As External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar prepares for crucial talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Moscow, India finds itself at the centre of a diplomatic storm. President Trump has unleashed his most aggressive economic assault on India in recent memory, wielding tariffs and sanctions as weapons to force New Delhi away from its Russian partnerships. The pressure campaign began in August 2025 with sweeping 25% tariffs on Indian exports, later doubled to 50% specifically targeting Russian oil imports. For a nation whose economic planners depend heavily on US markets, this represents a devastating blow. Nearly 70% of India's...

MACON-BIBB COUNTY, Ga. (WGXA) — Three women were arrested for fighting students on a school bus in West Macon last week. According to an incident report from the Bibb County School District Campus Police, on August 7, Brenda Robinson, the driver of bus number 2311, reported that a fight broke out between three women and students. Robinson mentioned that the day before, on August 6, there had been some "friction" between students that ended once the students were dropped off. However, Robinson told the responding officers that around 6:34 a.m. the next day, she was making her daily route on...

Russia expects to continue supplying oil to India despite warnings from the United States, Russian embassy officials in New Delhi said on Wednesday, adding that Moscow hopes trilateral talks will soon take place with India and China. US President Donald Trump has announced an additional tariff of 25 percent on Indian goods exported to the US from August 27, as a punishment for buying Russian oil, which constitutes 35 percent of India’s total imports compared with a negligible 0.2 percent before the Ukraine war. “I want to highlight that despite the political situation, we can predict that the same level...

Orest Schur will serve over half a century in jail. Schur was a 27-year-old sergeant in the U.S. Space Force when the incident happened in July 2023. He and his wife lived in Aurora, Colorado, where he worked as a signals intelligence analyst at Buckley Space Force Base. Before transferring to the Space Force, Schur served two tours in Afghanistan with the U.S. Army, earning 14 service medals in the process. On July 5, 2023 around 11 p.m., he woke up to the sound of the alarm on his wife's Hyundai Elantra. He grabbed his pistol and went outside, where...

On Saturday, August 16, British citizens protested the construction of an Islamic mosque in Dalton. One of the protesters shouted "We love bacon" and was promptly removed by police. VIDEO AT LINK.................. An officer wearing a red hat can be heard telling the young man that he has violated Section 5, a 1986 law that bans people from saying "threatening or abusive" words that disturb the "public order." Parodies of the incident are already circulating on social media.

In the wake of President Donald Trump's executive order outlawing debanking, major bank executives told Fox News Digital that they were under pressure by the Obama and Biden administrations to deny services to individuals and businesses for political reasons. "Those pressures were very, very real. When your regulator gives you a suggestion, it’s not a suggestion, it’s an order. The political stuff is very real, those pressures are real," a senior banking executive told Fox News Digital. Debanking refers to the practice of banks closing accounts or denying services to individuals or businesses, often with no explanation. The practice originated...

If you need a laugh, try to imagine Joe Biden or any recent president holding court in the way Donald Trump is doing it. To double the laugh, try to imagine any of the current presidential wannabes sitting in the big chair in the Oval Office. It’s an impossible exercise because of how dramatically Trump is redefining what it means to be president of the United States. His talents are vast and uniquely suited to the role he has created. For the most recent and dramatic example, take Monday’s historic meeting of European leaders about Russia’s unrelenting invasion of Ukraine....

[Catholic Caucus] Valence: Faithful Occupy Notre-Dame Church After FSSP ExpulsionSince early summer, around 300 Catholics of the Mass in the Roman Rite have occupied the church of Notre-Dame in Valence, reports Paix-Liturgique.org (August 13).The community was previously served by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), but was abruptly deprived of its priests by Bishop François Durand. He announced that sacraments, catechism, and weekday Masses would cease this autumn.Outside the church, banners read: "We are not puppets, but Christians," and "Removing the traditional Mass is a grave mistake."The faithful keep watch day and night, pray the rosary each evening, and...