Free Republic

France, Canada, Australia, the UK and other Western countries that recently pledged to recognize a Palestinian state have said that their decision is "predicated" on commitments from the Palestinian Authority (PA) to undergo critical governance reforms, as well as excluding the Iran-backed Hamas terrorist group from a future Palestinian government. None of these countries, however, has demanded that the PA halt its human rights violations against its own people. Ending financial and administrative corruption and excluding Hamas from governance is pointless as long as the PA continues to crack down on its political rivals and impose severe restrictions on freedom...

After months of targeting universities over antisemitism allegations, the Trump administration is turning to a new focus: whether schools are using proxies for race in admissions to diversify student bodies. This emphasis is emerging in recent edicts from federal agencies and in the White House’s scrutiny of specific universities. In late July, Attorney General Pam Bondi warned in a memo against using “unlawful proxies” for race—such as geography or applicant essays on overcoming hardships—in admissions. Soon after, the U.S. Education Department announced it would require universities to report new data on applicants, broken down by race, to “ensure race-based preferences...

Hundreds of men in black suits and black hats of the Edah Haredit sect grew agitated as a top rabbi, shouting in Yiddish from a balcony, denounced the Israeli government for drafting the ultra-Orthodox. They had been exempt from military service to focus on religious study since the founding of Israel, but now they were needed for the war in Gaza. ...Outside the nearby Mir Yeshiva, one of the largest and most prestigious religious schools in the country, Haim Bamberger, 23, said he was studying the Torah, as, he said, God wanted. It was Mr. Bamberger’s way of defending Israel,...

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) presents itself as a bloc dedicated to advancing Islamic interests globally, often pushing an agenda that prioritizes the expansion of Islamic influence at the expense of Western values and principles. As the second-largest intergovernmental organization after the United Nations, the OIC holds considerable sway in shaping global policies, frequently promoting narratives that are more concerned with Islamic solidarity than with universal freedoms or democratic values. In its efforts to assert Islamic interests, the OIC often seeks to control critical global discussions on human rights, religious freedom, and security. This influence is frequently exercised in...

Sir Keir Starmer is facing calls from Labour grandees and ministers to take a more radical approach to the small boats crisis amid mounting public concern about the government’s handling of the issue. A YouGov poll for The Times found that 71 per cent of voters believe that the prime minister is handling the asylum hotel issue badly, including 56 per cent of Labour voters. Nearly four in ten voters (37 per cent) said that immigration and asylum was the most important issue facing the country, compared with 25 per cent who said it was the economy and 7 per...

24 August 2025 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time St. Bartholomew Catholic Church- Wilmore, PennsylvaniaReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: C(I).First readingIsaiah 66:18-21They will bring all your brothers from all the nationsThe Lord says this: I am coming to gather the nations of every language. They shall come to witness my glory. I will give them a sign and send some of their survivors to the nations: to Tarshish, Put, Lud, Moshech, Rosh, Tubal, and Javan, to the distant islands that have never heard of me or seen my glory. They will proclaim my glory to the nations. As an...

ATLANTA -- After only three weeks on the job, new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp is promising "significant change" to the tour's current model. Rolapp, speaking to reporters Wednesday at the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Club, announced he has formed a nine-person future competition committee that will be led by 15-time major champion Tiger Woods. "The goal is not incremental change," Rolapp said. "The goal is significant change." Woods added Wednesday in a social media post that the committee "is about shaping the next era of the PGA Tour." Rolapp's charge to the committee is "to design the...

Video shows some on the left are starting to wake up and leave the democrat party. They are realizing the lies and that maybe Trump was correct all along. In this video even a lesbian couple speaks out against the gay book section for kids at Barns and Noble. "Gay B C's for babyies" book. Transgender New Yorker bold Don Lemon to go pound sand. One woman tells of her journey away from the democrat plantation and how it made her life a nightmare.

The House Committee on Education and Workforce has opened an investigation into whether the National Education Association is "contributing to antisemitism among its members and in classrooms across the United States," according to a letter obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. Committee chairman Tim Walberg (R., Mich.) wrote he is "gravely concerned about antisemitic content in the NEA's 2025 handbook and the NEA Representative Assembly's vote in July 2025 to ban materials by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL)," in a Thursday letter sent to NEA president Rebecca Pringle. The investigation comes after a wave of allegations of anti-Semitism against the nation's...

The Wagner group mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin looked “doomed” in the days before his death after an aborted rebellion against Russia’s military leadership, his mother has said. In the first interview with a close family member since the warlord’s death in August 2023, Violetta Prigozhina, 85, said that she had tried to dissuade her son from marching on Moscow and revealed that the authorities have still not told her what caused his death. Prigozhina told the Russian outlet Fontanka that she had warned her son: “Zhenya, only people on the internet will support you. No one will go with you....

The Trump administration is preparing to block visas for Palestinian terrorists slated to appear later this month at the People's Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan, which will feature a number of radical Palestinian activists, a senior State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon. "Given the public invite lists seem to include a number of terrorist sympathizers, we are going through and ensuring all international speakers slated to attend the conference are being placed on a 'look out' status for visa applications, so we are alerted if a request is submitted and can ensure they are appropriately processed," the...

Daily Mirror publishes photo of three-year-old allegedly starved by Israel; IDF publishes documents proving child suffers from rare genetic illness which cause his condition.

Wilmington, Ohio – Spotty morning showers will give way to a dramatic shift in Ohio’s weather pattern, with fall-like conditions expected to settle across the state beginning Sunday. A strong push of cooler and drier air will bring a noticeable drop in temperatures through the final week of August. According to the National Weather Service in Wilmington, outlooks from the Climate Prediction Center show a high probability for below-normal temperatures across Ohio from August 25 through early September. The shift will be most pronounced Sunday as a reinforcing cold front ushers in the cooler air mass.

US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officers, expanding how an applicant’s “good moral character” is evaluated in the naturalization process. The policy, outlined in an August 15 memo, instructs officers to consider applicants’ positive contributions to society in a more “holistic” approach, rather than focusing solely on disqualifying factors. "Becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen means being an active and responsible member of society instead of just having a right to live and work in the United States," the memo stated. "Among other eligibility factors, aliens applying for naturalization must demonstrate that he or she has been and continues to be...

[Catholic Caucus] Synod-Preacher Radcliffe pays tribute to homosexual relationsThe Dominican priest and spiritual assistant to the Synod of the World, Timothy Radcliffe, has acknowledged homosexual Catholics in permanent relationships. In a contribution to the Vatican newspaper "L'Osservatore Romano", the 79-year-old religious wrote last week that he is on a "synodal path with homosexual Catholics". He stressed that the challenge for homosexuals, as for everyone else, is to learn to express love appropriately, while respecting the dignity of others. "I am convinced of the fundamental wisdom of ecclesiastical doctrine, but I do not yet fully understand how it can be lived...

Summary Republicans hold advantage with control of 23 state legislatures Democrats threaten retaliation with their own redistricting efforts Population shifts favor Republican states, impacting future congressional seats WASHINGTON, Aug 24 (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's push for Republican-led states to redraw their U.S. House of Representatives districts to protect their majority in next year's midterm elections could set the stage for Republicans to dominate the chamber in decades to come, political analysts and experts said.Republicans hold a 219-212 House majority and Trump is looking to break the streak of midterm House losses for the sitting president's party -- as happened...

“If they are interacting with a customer and the customer says, this is my preferred name and these are my preferred pronouns, this is the way I want to be addressed, there is a legal obligation to do that. They're compelled to use those pronouns and those surnames under Colorado's law. That's compelled speech, and the real kicker is there criminal penalties for it. You can have prison time, jail time for up to 4 months if you don't abide that.” - Kristen Waggoner, President, CEO & General Counsel at Alliance Defending Freedom

Democrats seem to think they can talk their way out of the political wilderness. Listen closely and you can hear it through the din of their all-caps Trumpian X feeds, their hourslong “manosphere” podcast interviews and their more frequent swearing. Nearly 10 months after the 2024 elections, and the party is still embroiled in self-recriminations over where they’re talking, what they’re talking about and, now, the actual words they’re using. Or, more precisely: which words they shouldn’t utter. In a new memo, shared exclusively with POLITICO, the center-left think tank Third Way is circulating a list of 45 words and...

On Aug 11, Russian soldiers breached Ukraine’s front-line defences and penetrated at least six miles behind enemy lines. Battlefield maps, kept studiously up to date by open-source intelligence groups, showed a red tendril reaching north into Ukraine’s territory through several villages in the contested eastern Donetsk region coveted by Vladimir Putin, the Russian president. The advance set off alarm bells among Kyiv’s supporters, who feared it marked the start of an offensive aimed at the stronghold city of Kostiantynivka or the logistical hub of Pokrovsk, both of which could provide Russia with a foothold in Ukraine’s fortress belt. What Russian...

Vice President JD Vance said Russian strongman Vladimir Putin has made several concessions in his discussions with President Trump over the war in Ukraine — including vowing to respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine after the fighting ends. “They’ve recognized that they’re not going to be able to install a puppet regime in Kyiv, and importantly, they’ve acknowledged that there is going to be some security guarantee to the territorial integrity of Ukraine,” Vance told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. On the possibility of Ukraine having to give land to a country that forcibly seized it, Vance didn’t appear...