Free Republic

Approximately 50 Planned Parenthood clinics closed in 2025 as the group lost its ability to bill Medicaid, according to a report by the nation's largest abortion provider. On Dec. 12, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled that Planned Parenthood is unlikely to succeed in its claims that being stripped of its Medicaid funds is unconstitutional, overturning a lower court's order that had temporarily blocked a provision of President Donald Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, legislation that enacted key items of his legislative agenda on issues including taxes and immigration. That law...

Banks and traders are expanding their precious metals desks and logistics capabilities as they race to capitalise on gold's historic rally this year, which has suddenly made the sleepy world of bullion trading and vaulting one of the most profitable areas in finance. The blistering rally in gold and silver prices in 2025 has had another burst of energy in recent days, powered by simmering geopolitical tension between the U.S. and Venezuela, as well as bets of US interest rate cuts. Both precious metals hit record-high prices Wednesday. The price of gold hit $4,500 a troy ounce for the first...

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the release of "Good Will to Men", directed by none other than William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who went on to create The Flintstones, Scooby Doo, and a lot of other classic cartoons."Good Will to Men" is basically a remake of the much darker (and hard to find) 1939 short "Peace on Earth".Thankfully, we are no longer under such dire threat of nuclear annihilation as audiences were in the Fifties. But I thought this was worth sharing all the same. Its themes are more timely than ever before."Love thy neighbor." Click here to...

The CEO for a Battle Creek nonprofit has been charged with welfare fraud of over $500, according to court documents.

(Screenshot via @mayorlawrenceema on Instagram) ================================================================== Lawrence, Massachusetts, Mayor Brian De Peña — a Dominican Republic native — requested a Spanish interpreter during a Friday hearing tied to a state police-oversight case, according to The Daily Wire. The episode lit up social media and renewed questions about how a big-city mayor functions in government and legal settings when he says he needs translation help, the Wire reported. The interpreter flap also landed as De Peña is already feuding with Massachusetts’ top elections office after the state flooded Lawrence polling sites with monitors and police, according to NBC Boston. “Today, I...

Authorities in Florida are accusing a 51-year-old woman of shooting and killing two ex-husbands on the same day this week. Susan Erica Avalon was arrested on Thursday on charges of second degree homicide in Manatee County, where her first ex-husband lived, according to Sheriff Rick Wells.(snip) It all started on Wednesday afternoon when the Manatee County Sheriff's Office received a call to respond to a shooting in the Heritage Harbor neighborhood, according to Wells. When deputies arrived, they saw a 54-year-old man with two gunshot wounds. He was shot in the abdomen, Wells said in a press conference Thursday. "The...

The State Department announced Tuesday it was barring five Europeans it accused of leading efforts to pressure US tech firms to censor or suppress American viewpoints. The Europeans, described by Secretary of State Marco Rubio as “radical” activists and “weaponized” nongovernmental organizations, fell afoul of a new visa policy announced in May that restricts the entry of foreigners deemed responsible for the censorship of protected speech in the United States. “For far too long, ideologues in Europe have led organized efforts to coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose,” Rubio posted on X. “The Trump administration will no...

Hundreds of Christians in China will likely spend Christmas in jail this year, according to a recent report. Starting on Dec. 13, the Chinese Communist Party mobilized “more than a thousand police officers, SWAT units, anti-riot forces, and firefighters” in the Zhejiang Province’s Yayang Town in Wenzhou City, raiding churches and conducting mass arrests of Christians, ChinaAid reported Friday. “Belongings of relevant individuals were illegally confiscated, roads leading to the church were completely blocked by police, and Christians in Yayang Town were unable to enter the Yayang church. The operation lasted nearly five days, yet no public statement was issued...

California’s richest residents could be slapped with a one-time 5% tax on their net worth if a new law makes it onto the ballot next year. The measure – called the “2026 Billionaire Tax Act” – seeks to counter $30 billion in potential federal funding cuts to California’s Medicaid program. Cash from the new tax could also pay for the Golden State’s struggling public education system, according to supporters of the act, which include the Service Employees International Union (SEIU). If passed and signed off by Gov. Gavin Newsom, California’s tech bosses like Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO...

CHRISTMAS BIBLE-ART EPISODE #12 of 33 JOSEPH AND MARY TRAVEL TO BETHLEHEM L U K E CHAPTER 2 In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world. (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.) And everyone went to his own town to register. So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was...

In what might have been shocking a decade ago, a Lutheran Church has produced a Christmas play featuring the two main characters as profane, cat-fighting lesbians on their way to Bethlehem. As reported by Not the Bee, "Lutheran Church of the Cross is a 'queer-affirming' Canadian church that celebrates Pride Week and every other sexual behavior under the sun."

Walid Saadaoui and Amar Hussein had big plans — so big that children in the United Kingdom would have read about them in their history books and memorized their names, whether they would have been lionized as heroes or excoriated as villains. To their everlasting disappointment, however, their rendezvous with destiny never happened. Their big plans ended up being disrupted before they had a chance to carry out what has been called “the deadliest terrorist attack in UK history.” Sky News reported Tuesday that Saadaoui, 38, and Hussein, 52, have just been found guilty of plotting a jihad massacre with...

Imagine facing arrest simply for posting sharp or critical comments online. Picture police at your door for expressing opposition to mass immigration. Envision a country where you could be imprisoned for years without a jury ever deciding your guilt. This isn't dystopian fiction - it's the reality unfolding in Britain today, my former home and once part of the free world. Earlier this year, parents Maxie Allen and Rosalind Levine from Hertfordshire were arrested in front of their children over disparaging remarks made in a private parents' messaging group. They were among the estimated 10,000 people arrested in Britain this...

WASHINGTON - A Kenyan man who federal prosecutors say researched Delta flights and Atlanta’s tallest skyscraper as part of a 9/11-style terror plot has been sentenced to two consecutive life terms in prison. What we know: Cholo Abdi Abdullah, 34, was sentenced after a jury convicted him in November 2024 of conspiring to support the terrorist group al-Shabaab and plotting to hijack a commercial aircraft and crash it into a building in the United States. Court records show Abdullah specifically researched flights linked to Atlanta and focused on the Bank of America Plaza, a 55-story downtown tower, during his attack...

Given Nikole Hannah-Jones’s status as a celebrity big-foot at the New York Times—winner of the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for her "1619 Project," winner of a $625,000 MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant, occupant of the Knight Chair in Race and Journalism at Howard University backed by "nearly $20 million" from the Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the Ford Foundation—you might think that if she discovered a woman wrongfully convicted of murder, she’d marshal the investigative resources necessary to make a thorough case for a presidential pardon, or for legal action to dismiss or overturn the conviction....

Hollywood actor union Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is plotting to go on strike next year over the possible acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery by streaming giant Netflix, a report says. Sources are telling reporters that SAG-AFTRA is currently “building a war room” in opposition to the merger — fearing that allowing the streamer to take over a film studio will be a disaster for actors and filmmakers, according to the New York Post. “They believe that it’s bad for their members and it’s bad for consumers. A strike is not off the table if...

Andrew had his gun license stripped by Met police. The hunter becomes the hunted. For his long association with the late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is facing a long list of repercussions that seem to have no end. Now, the avid hunter has surrendered his firearms license to the Met Police – the same police force who dropped the investigation into his alleged crimes. The Telegraph reported: “The former Duke of York, 65, agreed to give up his firearms and shotgun certificates last month after he was visited by the Metropolitan Police at Royal Lodge in...

Donald Trump's government has banned two Brits - including a campaign group leader with links to senior Labour figures - and a former EU commissioner from the United States for allegedly seeking to curb free speech among Americans online. The US State Department says it has sanctioned Imran Ahmed, leader of the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), and Clare Melford, of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), for seeking to 'coerce American platforms to punish American viewpoints they oppose'. Mr Ahmed, a Cambridge graduate who is based in Washington DC according to an online CV, faces deportation; Ms Melford will...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(12/24/25)[Prayer]Countdown To ChristmasLuke 1:39-45Mary Visits Elizabeth 39 At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, 40 where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. 42 In a loud voice she exclaimed: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! 43 But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 As soon as...

A former Bank of America employee in southwest Miami-Dade was arrested after being accused of stealing $500,000 from a disabled victim, authorities said. Mario Martinez, 40, is facing several charges, including exploitation of the elderly, organized fraud and first-degree grand theft. According to the Miami-Dade Sheriff's Office, deputies began investigating the case on Jan. 16 after they received a call from the Bank of America branch in southwest Miami-Dade, where a supervisor reported a scheme involving one of his employees. An arrest affidavit said the employee was taking money from a client at the bank, and that he had a...