Free Republic

Cubs come close to blowing it in 9th inning but hang on to win 3-1. Next hurdle is Milwaukee.

Edward Wright spent 41 years in prison for a 1984 murder in Springfield that he did not commit. Under Massachusetts law, the most he or anyone else wrongfully convicted could hope to receive from the state is $1 million. "It means that each day that he spent in a prison cell away from his loved ones is worth $66 to this Commonwealth," said Radha Natarajan, executive director of the New England Innocence Project. "And we should be appalled by that." Natarajan was at Wrongful Conviction Day at the State House, where she and others spoke in support of reforms that...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media. I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone: for kings and all those in authority that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. ~ 1 Timothy 2:1-2 Religion Forum threads labeled [Prayer] are closed to debate of any kind. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Gandalf - Why the halfling ? Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are...

Be careful what you wish for. I’m not just referring to the enthusiastic Zohran Mamdani voters who believe that the failed rapper and nepo-baby is the person best suited to run this city. Nor am I referring to the fashionistas at Vanity Fair who this week swooned over Mamdani’s apparently “Kennedy-like charisma.” I am referring to some Republicans who are starting to see a silver lining in the socialist’s Mayoral run.Since Mamdami won the Democratic primary for Mayor in July it has been whispered in Republican circles that there may be a positive in Mamdani’s projected arrival in Gracie Mansion.This...

Gov. Gavin Newsom on Thursday threatened to cut “billions” in state funding, including to USC, from any California campus that signs a Trump administration compact and agrees to sweeping and largely conservative campus policies in exchange for priority access to federal funding. “If any California University signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly,” Newsom said. “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.” The bold statement came less than a day after the the White House asked the University of Southern California and...

Sources say university officials had hoped the despicable incident would just ‘go away quietly.’ They were wrong. The University of Delaware is finally responding after its communications department failed to stop a student-produced “comedy” skit show from thanking “Charlie Kirk’s Killer” in the closing credits to air. A recent episode of The Bi-Weekly Show, a program aired on the university’s Student Television Network (STN49), included that crass line celebrating the cold-blooded murder last month of the conservative icon and founder of Turning Point USA, according to a screenshot posted Wednesday by the Delaware Republican Party.The university was slow to respond...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has identified real problems, veteran officers say, but by looking back 35 years for policy cues, he risks hurting, not helping, military readiness.A ban on beards. A focus on physical fitness, and more protections for unapologetically aggressive leaders. In an unusual speech in front of hundreds of generals and admirals, and in a flurry of memorandums afterward, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined his vision of a tougher and more disciplined military, without what he called “woke garbage” getting in the way. But former military officers took issue with Mr. Hegseth’s list of policy changes, saying that...

Legacy media have spent years perpetuating some of the biggest hoaxes in modern history — and it appears the American public is continuing to notice.On Thursday, Gallup released the results of its annual survey of Americans’ confidence in media. The poll’s baseline finding is that trust in the country’s “Democracy dies in darkness!” crowd is at the lowest point ever recorded.According to the survey, just 28 percent of Americans expressed having a “‘great deal’ or ‘fair amount’ of trust in newspapers, television and radio to report the news fully, accurately and fairly.” That figure, Gallup noted, “is down from 31%...

NEW YORK (AP) — Army veteran Samuel Port couldn’t believe what he was reading in his latest weekly newsletter emailed from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.It blamed Senate Democrats for the federal shutdown, saying they were blocking a stopgap bill to fund the government “due to unrelated policy demands.” It then listed various disruptions to veterans’ resources.In Port’s view, the finger-pointing was inappropriate from a federal agency and lacked the context that Republicans, too, could have taken steps to keep the government funded. He said it wore away any trust he had left in the VA to offer services...

Four top prosecutors have been forced out of the Eastern District of Virginia amid Trump’s push to charge political opponents.Lawyers inside the high-profile U.S. attorney’s office prosecuting former FBI director James B. Comey are unnerved by what they see as an unprecedented push by President Donald Trump to inject politics into their staffing and charging decisions, according to three people familiar with the matter, a strategy they say could jeopardize national security investigations. The Justice Department in recent days fired two longtime prosecutors who had risen to leadership positions within the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia,...

We are building Grokipedia @xAI. Will be a massive improvement over Wikipedia. Frankly, it is a necessary step towards the xAI goal of understanding the Universe.

Fake News CNN cut off House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday as he attacked the Democrats for shutting down the government over healthcare funding for illegal aliens. Earlier this week, Vice President JD Vance made it clear that Democrats are refusing to keep the government open because they are prioritizing illegal aliens. “Democrats want a $1.5 trillion spending package that funded free health care for illegals. We told them that was absurd, and now they’re willing to shut down the government over it. It’s unacceptable,” Vance said earlier this week after a meeting with top Democrats Schumer and Jeffries.

The federal electric vehicle (EV) tax credit expires at midnight, ending a 17-year policy pillar that helped close the price gap with gasoline vehicles and turbocharged adoption; the immediate fallout is likely softer demand, leaner EV production, and a strategic pivot by legacy automakers toward hybrids and profitable ICE (internal combustion engine) nameplates, while stopgap leasing workarounds cushion some of the blow. The end of the subsidy is a structural shock already rippling upstream: Battery makers face a growing U.S. surplus and shelved factory plans, undermining stated reshoring ambitions and setting up a whipsaw risk of future shortages if capacity...

Islamists RIOT Across UK After Manchester Synagogue Attack

The school district superintendent arrested by ICE this week lied about attending MIT and was the subject of two sex discrimination lawsuits, The Post has learned. Snappy-dresser Ian Andre Roberts, 51, was fired by Des Moines Public Schools after it emerged he was working illegally and had been avoiding a deportation order. Roberts spent over twenty years bouncing around the nation’s education system, holding top posts from coast-to-coast, but also proved controversial. “He ruined our district for three years,” a former colleague in the state told The Post. “He was very smooth, affable, but the overarching feeling you got from...

Pope Leo chides climate skeptics, embraces Francis’s environmental legacyPope Leo XIV took aim Wednesday at climate skeptics who “ridicule those who speak of global warming,” as he strongly embraced Pope Francis’ environmental legacy and made it his own in some of his strongest and most extensive comments to date.Leo presided over a 10th anniversary celebration of Francis’ landmark ecological encyclical, Laudato si’, at a global gathering held at Castel Gandolfo, the pope’s traditional summer residence south of Rome. That encyclical cast care for the planet as an urgent and existential moral concern, and launched a global grassroots movement to advocate...

“Indians are just waking up after Trump nuked the H1B program. Want to keep them in India? Clog the flight reservation system!” “Operation Clog the toilet needs your help. 4chan hatched a diabolical plan to clog up flight schedules to keep the Poopjeets in India or pay a $100,000 fee to come back.” “Ben up all night participating in Operation Clog the Toilet. Preventing jeets from getting back in 24 hours so they are forced to pay $100k to renew H1B” These are some comments posted on 4chan — an anonymous imageboard known for controversial content because some boards lack...

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic front-runner for mayor of New York City, plans to end the gifted and talented program for kindergarten students at public schools if he is elected, calling for a major overhaul of a program that has deeply divided parents. Mr. Mamdani’s campaign said in a statement that he would embrace former Mayor Bill de Blasio’s plan, announced in 2021, to phase out the gifted program for elementary schools, which has been widely criticized for exacerbating segregation.

Anti-Semitic hatred is “rising” in Britain again, Keir Starmer warned. The Prime Minister, speaking after a terrorist murdered two people and left three more fighting for their lives in Manchester, said Jews face a “daily threat”. Anger erupted in the Jewish community about a rise in anti-Semitism and Labour’s stance on Israel. The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, accused Britain of failing to “take the necessary action to curb this toxic wave of antisemitism and have effectively allowed it to persist”. Security chiefs are assessing whether the terror threat level needs to be increased following the attack in Manchester. Investigators...

It's a matter of logic. If you're not pro-life if you oppose abortion but support the death penalty, then you're not pro-life if you oppose the death penalty but support abortion. But it's not clear that Pope Leo embraces that logic. And no one on the panel on today's CNN This Morning did Substitute host Erica Hill kicked off the conversation by playing a clip of Pope Leo expressing support for Dem Sen. Dick Durbin. He was scheduled to receive a "Lifetime Achievement" award for his pro-immigrant stance. Some bishops opposed the award given Durbin's staunch support of abortion. In...