Free Republic

The skilled trades workforce, critical to keeping the country's infrastructure and economy running, is rapidly declining. While many companies are working to address the shortage, General Motors has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to build its own pipeline of future workers. Over the past five years alone, the automaker has invested more than $242 million in its skilled trades apprenticeship program, which is geared toward training the next generation of skilled trade professionals with a combination of classroom instruction and thousands of hours of hands-on experience at a GM facility, Michael Trevorrow, GM's senior vice president of global manufacturing,...

The Trump administration is quietly authorizing millions of dollars in refugee resettlement funding, including to organizations operating at the center of the illegal immigration crisis. According to Federal Register notices published on September 22, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee Resettlement intends to award nearly seven million dollars in replacement grants to two nonprofit organizations involved in refugee case management and integration services. One of those awards directs more than two and a half million dollars to a St. Paul based organization operating in Minnesota, the focal point of the Somali fraud investigations. The second...

Hillel is the world’s largest Jewish campus organization, providing a welcoming community, cultural events, and spiritual support for Jewish college students worldwide, aiming to enrich their lives. Last night, the San Francisco chapter was set on fire. During the final Shabbat of the semester—while students and staff were inside preparing for services—an attempted antisemitic mass-casualty attack was carried out at a Jewish building in San Francisco. Police have confirmed it was arson: a suspect arrested, significant damage done, the building shut down, and Shabbat and Chanukah events canceled. This is the inevitable consequence the moment campus quads were allowed to...

A new trailer for MELANIA dropped on Wednesday, a behind-the-scenes movie that follows first lady Melania Trump of her life as she prepares to enter the White House once again in the 20 days before her husband's second inauguration… "For the first time, global audiences are invited into theaters to witness this pivotal chapter unfold—a private, unfiltered look as I navigate family, business, and philanthropy on my remarkable journey to becoming first lady of the United States of America," Trump told Fox News.

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #5 of 33 GABRIEL'S AMAZING NEWS FOR MARY L U K E CHAPTER 1 In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you...

Every year huge crowds gather in Paris at the Champs-Élysées to ring in the new year with fireworks and concerts. Much like the New Year’s Eve parties in Times Square in New York City, the joyous festivities are a key link in the chain of worldwide celebrations of the year to come. No more. New Year’s has been canceled in Paris. The New Year’s Eve concert was pre-recorded with actors pretending to be the audience. The fireworks will appear on TV. And there will be no one to count the countdown because the Champs-Élysées has become France’s latest ‘no-go’zone’. Ten...

During President Trump's first term, the economy was a relative strength of his. During the 2024 presidential campaign, his promises to lower prices in a country grappling with post-COVID inflation propelled him back into office. But toward the end of his first year in office this term, just 36% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, according to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. It's his worst mark in the six years that Marist has been asking the question. The only time in that span that Americans had a similarly negative view of a president's handling of the economy...

A pair of killers who pleaded guilty to running over a retired police chief during a crime spree in Las Vegas are facing decades in prison. Jesus Ayala, 20, and Jzamir Keys, 18, were sentenced on Tuesday in Clark County District Court in Nevada after both pleading guilty to the murder of retired California police chief Andreas Probst, 64. Ayala accepted a plea deal that landed him a sentence of 20 years to life, while Keys received an 18-year-to-life term as part of his plea deal. While the pair were charged as adults after committing the crime as minors, they...

More than 7000 people sign open letter calling on House of Bishops to rethink LLF plan PRESSURE is building on the Church of England’s bishops before a formal vote next week on the next steps in the Living in Love and Faith (LLF) process. In October, the House of Bishops announced that approval for stand-alone services of blessing for same-sex couples, and the reconsideration of rules that bar the clergy from entering into same-sex marriage, would be subject to further synodical processes (News, 17 October). But these decisions are still subject to a formal vote at a meeting on 16...

President Donald Trump’s administration warned on Tuesday that the United States could impose fees or restrictions on European service providers in response to what it called “discriminatory” actions against US firms. The Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR), in a post on X, accused the European Union and some of its member states of “discriminatory and harassing lawsuits, taxes, fines and directives against US service providers”, while arguing that EU companies such as Accenture, DHL, Siemens, Spotify and others “operate freely” in the United States. “If the EU and EU member states insist on continuing to restrict, limit, and...

Attorney General Pam Bondi “whiffed” on understanding how much President Trump’s base of supporters cared about the release of the files linked to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles said in an interview published Tuesday. “I think she completely whiffed on appreciating that that was the very targeted group that cared about this,” Wiles said in an interview with Vanity Fair. “First she gave them binders full of nothingness. And then she said that the witness list, or the client list, was on her desk. There is no client list, and it sure as...

President Donald Trump late Tuesday night railed against the 2022 raid on his Mar-a-Lago estate, calling the FBI's action an "unreasonable search and seizure" and agreeing with a follower's social media post calling for the arrests of former FBI Director Christopher Wray and former Attorney General Merrick Garland. "Unreasonable Search and Seizure!!! That was the FBI's CRIMINAL RAID on Mar-a-Lago. This can never be allowed to happen again!!!," Trump posted on Truth Social. And when a follower under the name of @Jay_Anthony45 said that "Someone should be arrested. Wray & Garland," Trump responded, "and many others!!!" Earlier on Tuesday, Senate...

Daily Readings from the USCCBThe book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham… Thus the total number of generations from Abraham to David is fourteen generations; from David to the Babylonian exile, fourteen generations; from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah, fourteen generations.” Matthew 1:1; 17This lengthy list of Abraham’s and David’s descendents, leading to Jesus, is much more than a listing of names. It’s an illustration of God’s fidelity to His promises. To Abraham, God promised “All the families of the earth will find blessing in you” (Genesis 12:3). To David, God...

nternal FBI emails declassified and released this week show that agents in the bureau’s Washington Field Office (WFO) repeatedly expressed doubts about establishing probable cause for a search warrant at President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in the months leading up to the August 8, 2022, raid. Despite these concerns, Justice Department officials under the Biden administration still pushed forward with the operation... One key email states that the “WFO does not believe (and has articulated to DOJ CES [Counterintelligence and Export Control Section]), that we have established probable cause for the search warrant for classified records at Mar-a-Lago.” The email...

Wikipedia debating if attack targeting Jews at Sydney Chanukah event was ‘terror’. Deborah Lipstadt, scholar and former U.S. envoy on Jew-hatred, said that if the online encyclopedia was downplaying the attack that was unsurprising and it was “being true to itself.” (Dec. 16, 2025 / JNS) The attack, in which gunmen thought to be a father and son shot and killed 15 people at a Chanukah celebration on Bondi Beach in Sydney on Sunday, is widely described as a terror attack. But editors on Wikipedia are debating whether that phrase is appropriate or it should just be called a “shooting.”...

A new report claims that two of five people arrested in connection with what the FBI said was a plot to unleash a wave of terrorist bombings in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve are transgender. The FBI said that the people arrested were a splinter group of the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which federal officials said has a pro-Palestinian, anti-law-enforcement, and anti-government ideology, according to USA Today. The suspects were part of a Signal group chat calling itself “Order of the Black Lotus.”

U.S. prosecutors charged top executives of bankrupt subprime auto lender Tricolor Holdings with what they described as a years-long, “systematic fraud” scheme that sent shockwaves through the banking sector earlier this year. In an indictment unsealed in Manhattan, prosecutors allege that from at least 2018 through September 2025, founder and CEO Daniel Chu and chief operating officer David Goodgame orchestrated a series of fraudulent schemes that let Tricolor obtain billions of dollars from lenders and investors by misrepresenting the value of its loan collateral. Tricolor sold used cars to customers with limited or poor credit in the south and southwest,...

This Muslim Christmas market terrorist plot should not be confused with the previous French Christmas market terror alert that led to the shutdown of the New Year’s Eve celebration or the 5 Muslims busted in the German Christmas market terror plot. This one took place in Poland. But they’re all reading from the same Koran though. Polish authorities said on Tuesday that they had arrested a 19-year-old university student on suspicion of plotting an attack on a Christmas market and seeking contact with the self-styled “Islamic State” terrorist group. A spokesman for Polish special services, Jacek Dobrzynski, said that the...

It was publicly stated that there would be no NATO expansion to the east and the West "couldn't care less" about these promises, the Russian leader notedMOSCOW, December 17. /TASS/. Russia does not deny anyone the right to security, but insists that promises made to it be fulfilled, including on NATO not expanding eastward, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry’s board. "I'm not even talking about NATO expansion, although that's obvious. Today, we are told that we have no right to force anyone to resolve their security issues the way we want, nor...

The Biden DOJ went ahead and conducted its banana republic raid of Mar-a-Lago in 2022 in order to keep Biden as the nominee. (A plan that ultimately failed.) The raid went ahead even though the FBI warned about a lack of probable cause. The FBI did not believe agents had probable cause to raid President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in August 2022 — but former President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice approved the search anyway, according to newly released records. An FBI official even noted that agents had spent six “counterproductive” weeks trying to establish they had grounds for a search...