Free Republic

WASHINGTON — As the government shutdown barrels along, the impact on everyday Americans is growing. It's creating additional stress on social service programs, which are now bracing for an increased need, including from people who don’t normally rely on their support.

President Trump again weighed in on the New York City mayoral race Tuesday, giving a brutal prognosis of Republican Curtis Sliwa’s election chances and declaring he’d rather see a Democrat than a “Communist” in charge at City Hall. “If [Sliwa] dropped out, he’s not going to win — and not looking too good for Cuomo either,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, referring to Republican nominee Sliwa and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat who is running as an independent. “But maybe, I don’t know, if he dropped out, maybe Cuomo would have a little bit of a chance,...

Rep. Katherine Clark (D-CT), the number two ranking House Democrat, is admitting that allowing families to suffer under the shutdown is all about leverage. “Shutdowns are terrible, and of course there will be families that are going to suffer,” she told Fox News Thursday. “We take that responsibility very seriously. But it is one of the few leverage times we have.” She added: “It is an inflection point in this budget process where we have tried to get the Republicans to meet with us and prioritize the American people.” So there you have it. Even though Republicans have made clear...

Spotify says advertisements for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) recruitment do not violate the company’s policies. Leftist musicians and record labels are predictably melting down in response. Several artists have recently been trying to get their music taken down from Spotify in protest of the company allowing ICE recruitment ads to play on the streaming platform, according to a report by Stereogum. Some of the artists reportedly include Massive Attack, Sylvan Esso, and King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, with many of them also citing Spotify founder Daniel Ek having invested in the AI military company Helsing. But artists...

COVID-19 vaccines and boosters — both mRNA and non-mRNA — pose an increased risk of six types of cancer and a 27% higher risk of cancer overall, according to a recent South Korean study of over 8 million people. Four South Korean researchers published the report last week as a letter in Biomarker Research, a Springer Nature journal. According to the study, COVID-19 vaccines and boosters are associated with a higher risk of breast, colorectal, gastric, lung, prostate and thyroid cancer, across all vaccine types and age groups. Mainstream medical commentators were quick to dismiss the findings, with MedPageToday describing...

HAMDEN, Conn. (WTNH) — A Hamden homeowner whose Halloween display has been called offensive by some community members said he will not take it down despite pushback from the mayor and the local NAACP chapter.Eric Andrewsen said he always wanted to be the one to deliver an experience when it comes to decorating for Halloween. For close to a decade, he has been displaying over-the-top decorations in his front lawn, often drawing in hundreds of trick-or-treaters as a result.

3-year survival twice as high with mRNA vaccine in lung cancer patients receiving immunotherapyNon-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients starting immunotherapy were nearly twice as likely to be alive 3 years later if they got a COVID-19 vaccine around the time of treatment, a researcher reported here. Retrospective data in advanced NSCLC found that mRNA COVID vaccination within 100 days of initiating a checkpoint inhibitor was associated with higher 3-year survival rates compared with no vaccination (55.8% vs 30.6%; adjusted HR 0.51, 95% CI 0.37-0.71, P<0.0001), according to Adam Grippin, MD, PhD, of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer...

A stark warning argues the U.S. Navy’s bedrock is “cracking” due to an industrial crisis. The fleet is shrinking and aging, while critical maintenance like the USS Ohio’s overhaul faced long delays. New ship programs are behind schedule and over budget. American shipyards lack the capacity and workforce to keep pace, creating a dangerous gap as rivals like China rapidly expand. -The proposed solution is harsh medicine: retire obsolete ships to free resources, launch a massive shipyard modernization effort, and adopt realistic shipbuilding plans.

Now that Trump has gotten the surviving Israeli hostages released and IDF troops withdrawn from Gaza, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken is complaining that he and former President Biden "are not getting a fair share of the credit for this achievement. We exerted continuous pressure on Israel for more than a year asking them to end the war by withdrawing from Gaza. Now after Trump spent a mere week on the problem Israel has withdrawn, the war is over, and the hostages have been released. Where is our Nobel Peace Prize?" Trump asserted that "the Biden-Blinken strategy was a...

Step right up, insert a coin, and watch as Zoltar “Zohran” Mamdani dispense revolutionary wisdom. Living in his neon-lit political fortune booth on Fifth Avenue, the Marxist fortune teller peers into his subsidized crystal ball and explains the historical inevitability of communism, the coming of the Glorious World of Next Tuesday, and sells easily digestible fortune-cookie slogans.

@RepThomasMassie Last night, @SchmittNYC & I discussed the President’s proposal to purchase more beef from Argentina. The America First solution to rising beef prices is my bill, the PRIME Act. It would empower farmers to sell directly to consumers without corporate middlemen.

That's enough of that.In decades past, as the effects of climate change slowly became undeniable, some looked to the super-rich — the billionaires with enough cash to really make a splash — for solutions. They backed green energy campaigns and carbon capture programs, pushed plastics recycling and climate change messaging. New products hit the market as ethical consumption became the rule of the day: electric vehicles, solar panels, reusable bags, carbon-neutral dryer balls. By the early 2020s, billionaires had positioned themselves as the masters of climate change policy, taking advantage of their great fortunes to become indispensable to environmentalism. Now,...

In a culture saturated with contraceptive messaging, one Baptist ethicist is encouraging Christians to reflect more deeply on the morality of birth control. “It’s things like hormonal contraception,” Evan Lenow, associate professor at Mississippi College and director of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in Clinton, Mississippi, recently told Baptist Press. “The students say, ‘I didn’t even think there was even an issue to be considered here.’” While students recognize abortion as morally wrong, they rarely consider the ethical implications of preventing pregnancy within marriage. Lenow argues that believers should reexamine assumptions about family planning. “What I want to prevent from...

Bryant Gumbel is currently hospitalized in NYC after some sort of "medical emergency" ... TMZ has learned. Sources with direct knowledge tell us, the former "Today" cohost was transported Monday, just after 9 PM, from his Manhattan apartment building. We're told first responders had Bryant on a gurney, as they left the building and took him to a nearby hospital where he remains as of Tuesday afternoon. It's unclear what happened to the 77-year-old broadcasting legend, but we know he is still getting treatment. We've reached out to his reps for comment ... so far, no word back. We spoke...

<p>President Donald Trump scolded America’s cattle ranchers in a Wednesday Truth Social rant that saw him declare that they’d be in dire straits without him.</p><p>Trump has faced criticism over his suggestion that the United States might buy more beef from Argentina.</p>

* The director of the Survey Center on American Life, Daniel Cox, notes that US birth rates have dropped alongside a sharp decline in religious participation—weekly church attendance has fallen to 30% from 42% two decades ago. * He studied the correlation, finding that Christians ages 40–59 average 2.2 children, compared with 1.8 for the unaffiliated. The fertility decline has been steeper among less religious Americans. * Young religious adults are nearly twice as likely as nonreligious peers to want children (62% vs. 32%). Cox said that upbringing that emphasized family and marriage is more likely to result in a...

The executive director of a Missouri nonprofit stole $10 million from a program intended to provide meals for low-income children and blew it on mansions and luxury cars, her trial heard. Connie Bobo, 46, ran the New Heights Community Resource Center in the St. Louis suburb of Bridgeton for a decade. She enrolled the charity in two US Department of Agriculture-funded programs that reimburse nonprofits for distributing food to needy children, prosecutors said.

MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) -- The 30-year-old mother of a baby girl found abandoned at Penn Station in Midtown earlier this week has been arrested. Assa Diawara was located in Queens just before 3 a.m. on Wednesday and arrested by police. She is facing charges of abandonment of a child and endangering the welfare of a child. She expected to appear in court sometime Wednesday. Police released a photo of her carrying the baby who was found at Penn Station on Monday. An anonymous tip led police to the child at the station on W. 34th Street and 7th Avenue just...

People often mistake us for an official church ministry, so we get a lot of e-mails asking about sin. We usually ignore them, but not today! Join us as we exercise deep spiritual discernment to answer the following important questions: Bob from Toledo, OH: Q: I load the dishwasher from front to back. Is this a sin? A: Yes. Travis from Rancho Cucamonga, CA: Q: I like the Dodgers. Is this sinful? A: Yes. Donald from D.C.: Q: I cheated on my wife with an adult film star. Is that a sin? A: No. That's fine. Steve from Cedar...

Furloughed federal workers in Maryland stood in a food bank line Tuesday as the government shutdown continues and families try to figure out how to put food on the table. The Capital Area Food Bank began free food distributions for federal workers and contractors this week in Hyattsville. With an hour to go before food was handed out, a long line of people waited for help.