Free Republic

A nonbinary furry starred in Nike's latest advertising campaign amid a slump in sales at the legendary sportswear brand. Nike has been beset with poor sales over the past year while competitors like Adidas and Hoka have enjoyed surging profits. The company's latest campaign, Gaming Division, a collaboration with British designer Martine Rose, is tailored to the video gaming community. The products launched on October 30 and were modeled by five new gaming-style 'characters' who Nike has described as 'heroes of a modern arena', defined by 'creative energy'. (.....) The self-proclaimed furry, who uses he/they pronouns and identifies as gay...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Monday he wants to order 25 Patriot air defense systems from the United States, as Ukraine desperately tries to fend off relentless Russian aerial attacks that have brought rolling blackouts across Ukraine on the brink of winter.Zelenskyy acknowledged that the Patriot systems are expensive and that such a large batch could take years to manufacture. But he said European countries could give their Patriots to Ukraine and await replacements, stressing that “we would not like to wait.”Combined missile and drone strikes on the power grid have coincided with Ukraine’s frantic efforts to...

Some spectators booed as President Trump appeared on the videoboard at a Washington Commanders gain against the Detroit Lions. The jeering continued while Trump read an oath for members of the military to recite as part of an on-field enlistment ceremony during a break in the game.

One of the better posters/commenters on X is the aptly-named @DataRepublican, who does some great work digging into data, crunching numbers, taking big nests of snakes and laying them all out straight, and uncovering things that just generally make the left uncomfortable. DataRepublican has outdone herself on this thread. Let's look at a few highlights. First, the opening post: [X post at link] DataRepublican writes in full: Ex-USAID employees describe how, before January 20, they moved internal groups off government systems and into encrypted Signal chats, then quickly linked with foreign partners and NGOs after the inauguration. This attempt at...

JTN Network, the parent company of Just the News™, announced Monday that it has acquired the news brands Human Events™ and The Post Millennial™ as it launches a major expansion into a news, entertainment and technology network. Human Events, one of the country’s oldest conservative publications dating to the 1940s and once a favorite of Ronald Reagan, will be ending daily publication this month and will be re-imagined into a large virtual and live events platform with ticket, music and movie sales and daily event programming for politics, news, sports and entertainment. JTN Network will be led by CEO Mark...

Daiji World reports that workers restoring a Shiva temple near the Javvadu Hills in India’s southern state of Tamil Nadu discovered 103 gold coins dated to the Chola period, which spanned the ninth through the thirteenth centuries A.D. The coins had been neatly stacked in a pot and buried beneath the temple floor. The temple is thought to have been built during the reign of King Rajaraja Cholan III, between 1216 and 1246. Temple wealth flourished during the late Chola period, when gold-based trade networks were active across South India, according to researchers from the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments...

Several Trump Administration officials including top adviser Stephen Miller, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, have felt the need to live in military housing in order to be safe from politically motivated violence. An article the Atlantic by Michael Scherer, Missy Ryan, and Ashley Parker pointed out that "this is far more frequent than what has been the case than in the Obama and Biden administrations. Maybe it's MAGA's own fault. They ought to look inward for answers as to why this might be occurring. Perhaps...

DALLAS — Improper maintenance led to a brake system "anomaly" that caused an American Airlines plane to overrun a runway at DFW Airport in February 2024, a new report from the National Transportation Safety Board detailed. The agency's final report on the incident was released Monday, Nov. 10. The incident happened Feb. 10, 2024, after American Airlines flight 1632 from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport landed at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and lost "braking effectiveness," causing it to come to a stop on the paved overrun area on the south end of runway 17L. No one was injured in the...

Despite detailed photographic evidence to the contrary, many liberals continue to assert that the Venezuelan boats recently destroyed by the U.S. Navy are merely fishing, not drug, boats. The Associated Press has jumped into the fray and in a roundabout "nuanced" way admitted that the destroyed boats are indeed drug boats. The "nuance" comes in via the AP asserting that among the crews of the drug boats, some worked mostly as fishermen or other low paying jobs with drug smuggling only as a side gig to boost their income. The AP reluctantly made the 'nuanced' admission that the destroyed boats...

President Donald Trump has pardoned his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows and others, according to a Justice Department official. Ed Martin, the government's pardon attorney, posted on X a signed proclamation of the "full, complete, and unconditional" pardon, which also names conservative attorneys Sidney Powell and John Eastman. The document "includes, but is not limited to" 77 people. It says the pardon does not apply to Trump. Trump, in the proclamation dated Friday, said the move would end "a grave national injustice" and "continue the process of national reconciliation." Presidential pardons only apply...

Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has tapped a 74-year-old former high-ranking de Blasio administration official and longtime budget guru as his top City Hall advisor. The appointment of Dean Fuleihan as first deputy mayor marks the first major staffing decision for the incoming Mamdani administration that wants to spend more than $10 billion on a lofty socialist agenda while facing down a nearly $5 billion budget gap. Fuleihan, who is more than twice the age of the 34-year-old socialist lawmaker, also served as then-Mayor Bill de Blasio’s first deputy mayor and had been advising Mamdani on his campaign. “I think that Dean...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will enact a new policy that will prohibit transgender female athletes from competing against biological women, according to multiple reports. The policy is reportedly set to cover those with differences of sex development (DSD). The IOC’s current policy leaves it up to each individual sport’s governing body to make policies governing transgender athletes. But as the IOC changed its leadership, The Times of London reported on Monday that its policies are set to change as well. IOC President Kirsty Coventry called for "protecting" the women’s category in June and there was "overwhelming support" from IOC...

Daily Readings from the USCCBMemorial of Saint Leo the Great, Pope and Doctor of the ChurchJesus said to his disciples, “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur, but woe to the one through whom they occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.” Luke 17:1–2Having a millstone placed around your neck and thrown into the sea is very descriptive. Jesus is using very evocative language. A millstone was a large round stone with a...

What had been hailed as one of the wisest decisions of all time was declared null and void today, as a federal judge overturned King Solomon's verdict and ordered a baby from a recent maternity dispute to be cut in two. People throughout Israel had praised the king for his shrewd judgment in the case, in which two women each claimed to be the baby boy's rightful mother. Solomon had wisely suggested that the woman who was more willing to give up her rights to the child than see him come to harm was the baby's true mother, but a...

Not getting off “Scott” free. An Alabama police force playfully exacted revenge against a group of high schoolers who had covered their department headquarters — along with the rest of the town — with toilet paper as part of an elaborate senior prank. Heflin Police Chief Ross McGlaughn vowed to get back on the Class of 2026 when the students launched their overnight TP attack across the small Alabama city. The police department’s main building was dressed with rolls of toilet paper that covered the entrance, squad cars and the roof. “It’s just fun,” the student leaders told CBS News...

When a Columbine Valley police officer showed up at Chrisanna Elser’s home in Denver, he was certain he had caught a thief. Sgt. Jamie Milliman knocked on the door, summons in hand, and accused Elser of stealing a package from the doorstep in the neighboring town of Bow Mar, only 50 feet south. The proof, according to Milliman: Footage from Flock surveillance cameras showing Elser’s forest green Rivian driving through the town from 11:52 a.m. to 12:09 p.m. on the day of the theft. “You know we have cameras in that town. You can’t get a breath of fresh air...

Some Democrats have spoken out against their colleagues after they advanced a deal to end the record-breaking 40-day government shutdown. Seven Democrats and one independent voted with Republicans in the Senate late Sunday to end the shutdown, which has left federal workers without pay for more than a month. Those who support the deal include John Fetterman, a Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, who apologized to those government workers who have gone weeks without being paid, calling the shutdown a “failure.” But several big names in the party, including California Governor Gavin Newsom, New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont Senator...

The traditional Italian observation -- Se non è vero, è ben trovato (even if it isn't true, it makes a good story) -- reflects a good deal of human history.One such colorful event was the 14th-century War of the Bucket between the Italian cities of Bologna and Modena. The story is that after years of tension, a group of Modenese entered Bologna and stole the bucket from the town well.The Bolognese demanded its return, but the ruler of Modena refused, and war ensued, culminating in the Modenese victory at the Battle of Zappolino in 1325...After the collapse of the Western...

The court agreed to hear the matter after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law in 2024. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to hear a case addressing whether states may count ballots that arrive after Election Day. The Republican National Committee and Mississippi Libertarian Party challenged the state's law permitting the counting of ballots postmarked by Election Day should they arrive within five days, Politico reported. The court agreed to hear the matter after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the law in 2024. President Donald Trump, for his part, has long been a...

Centuries of storytelling, scholarship, and reinterpretation have shaped how we imagine the Vikings and their gods, but much of that image may rest on myth rather than history. Scholars are now uncovering how Christian writers, political movements, and even modern pop culture redefined the “pagan North” to reflect their own ideals. Credit: Shutterstock ============================================================================= Scholars reveal that much of what we think we know about Vikings and Norse mythology is based on later reinterpretations rather than original sources. Scholars in the field of Scandinavian studies caution that much of what people believe about Vikings and Norse paganism cannot be confirmed...