Free Republic

(18 Dec 2025) The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Customs and Border Protection announce the award of five new contracts totaling $3.3 billion for the construction of Smart Wall along the U.S. – Mexico border in Texas and Arizona. With these latest awards, the total contracts awarded for Smart Wall Construction now reach $8 billion. These contracts, which were awarded using funds from President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act... ...In total these five new contracts will add 97 miles of primary border wall system, 19 miles of secondary border wall and 66 miles of waterborne barrier system. This...

California’s immigrant truckers are under direct threat, and the consequences are already landing in Sacramento’s neighborhoods, warehouses and family households. Drivers with spotless records are walking into the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) locations expecting a routine renewal of their commercial driver's license and walking out unemployed — not because they failed a test or violated a law, but because a federal agency quietly rewrote immigration categories and ordered states to enforce the fallout. This is a bureaucratic ambush. A new rule from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration is sowing confusion across California’s supply chain and logistics network at...

A Cozy Mark IV suffered a total engine failure and crash in the UK - yet the pilot survived. The cause? A 3D-printed engine induction part that failed mid-flight. In this video, we break down the official accident report, recreate the flight using ADS-B data, and explain exactly how and why this failure happened. This isn’t just a canard story. It’s a critical lesson for all experimental and homebuilt aircraft owners, especially anyone using or considering 3D-printed parts in the engine compartment. We’ll cover the pilot’s decisions, glide profile, energy management, material science failures, and—most importantly - what you can...

BREAKING: Elon Musk’s 2018 CEO pay package from Tesla, worth some $56 billion when it vested, must be restored, the Delaware Supreme Court has just ruled. TESLA AND ELON MUSK WON! 🥳

Behind the Pantheon lies a hidden world long closed to the public. In this episode, I explore the newly opened grottoni—the vaulted service spaces that were part of a structural solution to a fault in the southern end of the rotunda construction. We trace how these hidden rooms functioned in antiquity, how they evolved alongside the Pantheon’s transformation into a Christian church, and how they were directly adjacent to the Basilica of Neptune. Today, these forgotten spaces have been reimagined as a museum, revealing the Pantheon not as a frozen monument, but as a living building shaped by two thousand...

Brown University and MIT gunman's autopsy reveals how long he had been dead during massive manhunt Brown University and MIT gunman Claudio Neves Valente had been dead for two days before he was found by law enforcement, his autopsy reveals. The body of Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was discovered Thursday evening after a six-day manhunt. Investigators believe he is responsible for fatally shooting two students and wounding nine others at Brown, and then two days later killing Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) professor Nuno F G Loureiro.

Yesterday’s CPI report, showing inflation of 2.7 percent — well below the expected 3.1 percent — was bad political news for Democrats. Since “Liberation Day” in April, when President Trump rolled out tariffs aimed at resetting global trade in favor of U.S. companies, the left and their media allies have warned voters that the White House’s actions would clobber our economy and set inflation soaring.

Randon Sprinkle, the former finance chairman of the Virginia Democratic Party, has been hit with federal charges of distribution of child pornography, National Review has exclusively learned. According to a criminal complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the affiant “completed the extraction” of Sprinkle’s computer “and found two archived files constituting child pornography,” and one of the files referenced “consists of a 16-second video which shows an adult male’s erect penis penetrating the mouth of an infant.” FBI Richmond executed a federal search warrant on October 16, 2025. Internet archives show that Sprinkle...

Authorities: Sen. Faith Winter ‘at fault’ in I-25 crash that killed her by: Parker Gordon Posted: Dec 19, 2025 / 05:30 PM MST Report: Winter's blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit at crash DENVER (KDVR) — An investigation into the deadly crash on Interstate 25 that resulted in the death of Colorado Sen. Faith Winter reportedly found Winter “was at fault,” according to law enforcement. On Friday, the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office said that an investigation into the crash on Nov. 26 on northbound I-25 that claimed the life of Winter has determined that she was the at-fault...

War Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed Friday that the United States has launched airstrikes against ISIS fighters in Syria, which he said was in response to American soldiers who were killed in the country last week. The attacks were on ISIS fighters, infrastructure, and weapons sites in Syria. "This is not the beginning of a war — it is a declaration of vengeance," Hegseth said on X. "The United States of America, under President Trump’s leadership, will never hesitate and never relent to defend our people. As we said directly following the savage attack, if you target Americans — anywhere in...

Trump saves Christmas when Santa Claus catches a cold.

Chaos erupted in a King County courtroom on Thursday during the high-profile Mays v. City of Seattle wrongful death trial, as city attorney Alexandra Nica launched into a furious tirade, accusing opposing counsel Evan Oshan of "gender discrimination and harassment." The outburst came on the heels of devastating expert testimony that painted Seattle's handling of the infamous 2020 CHAZ/CHOP zone as liable for the June 2020 "agonizing" death of Antonio Mays Jr., a black teenager from California shot several times in the protest zone. As the testimony piled up against Seattle, Nica appeared increasingly unhinged. In an emotional rant without...

A U.S. House Republican leader pressed Chicago Public Schools for answers about its anti-discrimination policies this week after a Christian college recently accused the employer of religious discrimination against its student teachers. In the letter, an advanced copy of which was provided exclusively to The College Fix, U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg raised concerns about the public school system compelling Moody Bible Institute “to abandon its Biblically-based doctrinal positions” on human sexuality. “Specifically, the governing board of CPS – the Board of Education of the City of Chicago – appears to be excluding Moody and its...

This is Part 2 of his Christmas messages. It's 57:52 minutes long

Marian Morgan, for example, was sentenced in 2013 to nearly 34 years in prison for running a Ponzi scheme and was ordered to pay $17.5 million to dozens of investors, most of which remains unpaid. In 2021, she filed a statement in court saying, “I want to pay restitution to my victims so they know I am truly sorry for the damage I caused.” But in May, Trump commuted her sentence “to time served with no further fines, restitution, probation or other conditions.”

Join us as we begin our Christmas series. This is the message from the first service at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills. This is part 1. The message is 1:07:40 long

One passion is playing the piano. Another is piloting big jets for United Airlines. He does both at DIA Captain Beau Brant plays a concourse concert before his flight Posted 9:04 PM, Dec 18, 2025 and last updated 10:25 AM, Dec 19, 2025 By: Mike Castellucci Captain Beau Brant is a pilot for United Airlines. He's also an incredible piano player. So they wheeled a grand piano into Concourse B at Denver International Airport for a few special concerts...before his flights. Meet the United Airlines pilot wowing travelers on the piano at DIA beau brant united pilot pianoInspecting his United...

Lawmakers in California at both the state and federal levels are warning that refinery closures could push prices higher while leaving the state more dependent on foreign oil. At the center of the warning is the planned shutdown of two major refineries: Valero’s Benicia facility and Phillips 66’s Los Angeles plant. Together, the closures would eliminate nearly 20% of California’s in-state refining capacity, according to Reps. Vince Fong and Stan Ellis, both Republicans from Bakersfield. Valero, which has operated its 170,000-barrel-per-day Benicia refinery for roughly 25 years, announced it will close the site in 2026 because of high operating costs...

Millions of voters in more than 60 district and county councils across England may not get to elect local councillors until 2027, ministers announced on Thursday. The government has told local leaders in those areas that they could delay May 2026 ballots while dealing with a wider reorganisation of local government that will see authorities consolidate into more efficient units Alison McGovern, local government minister, insisted on Thursday that the decision to delay elections by a year would be entirely up to local leaders in the relevant 63 councils. Any postponement of local elections next May could limit the massive...

Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik announced Friday she was ending her short-lived bid for governor of New York and would not run for another term in Congress. “While spending precious time with my family this Christmas season, I have made the decision to suspend my campaign for Governor and will not seek re-election to Congress,” Stefanik wrote in a post on social media. “I did not come to this decision lightly for our family.” The announcement came less than two months after Stefanik launched a campaign seeking to challenge Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul in 2026, making what would have been a...