Free Republic

KYIV—Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to pull troops out of the eastern region of Donetsk and create a demilitarized free economic zone as part of a potential peace deal, provided Russia took similar steps to withdraw from areas it controls. Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Zelensky said the proposal and other aspects of a 20-point plan would be put to a referendum. The territorial dispute across the Donbas, the eastern flank of Ukraine where some of the heaviest fighting is raging, is one of the chief sticking points in the latest version of a plan to...

American cities did not stumble accidentally into mass surveillance. They chose it. Over the past decade, thousands of municipalities quietly installed automated license plate reader systems that record, store, and analyze the daily movements of ordinary people. They did so deliberately, with minimal public debate, and with striking indifference to the constitutional implications. This architecture was celebrated as modern, data driven, and compassionate. It was defended as the price of safety. Privacy objections were waved aside as abstract or paranoid. The public was assured that responsible officials would use the tools wisely. That confidence collapsed the moment enforcement priorities changed....

Every year there comes this time of year where folks gather together and celebrate. Celebrate what you might ask. Well, Christmas, Holidays, Family, Friends, Life, or whatever else folks these days celebrate. There's always the handful of people who are left out however. The isolated. The excluded. The ostracized. The scrooges. The depressed. The loners. Those down on their luck. Etc. And let's face it, it's not just a handful anymore - there are a lot of people out there who are barely hanging on in life. Whether it be for health reasons, financial reasons, destroyed relationships, addictions of all...

The Supreme Court rejected the Trump administration's request to allow the president to proceed with immediately deploying National Guard troops to Chicago — delivering a blow, if temporary, to President Donald Trump as he seeks to expand his federalization push across the U.S. The justices declined the Trump administration’s emergency request to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Judge April Perry that had blocked the deployment of troops. An appeals court also had refused to step in. The Supreme Court took more than two months to act.

The U.S. is on pace for the largest one-year drop in murders the nation has ever recorded, according to an analysis by crime stats expert Jeff Asher. The big picture: The decline in killings is part of a broader decrease in violent crime following the COVID-era spike. Mass killings in the U.S. also fell in 2025, reaching their lowest level since 2006. The Real-Time Crime Index, which compiles data from 570 law enforcement agencies, shows a nearly a 20% decline in murders this year compared with the same period in 2024. The database, which Asher used in his analysis, does...

A federal judge gave a green light Tuesday to New York's so-called Green Light Law, rejecting the Trump administration's bid to stop the state from giving people driver's licenses without having them prove they are in the country legally. U.S. District Judge Anne M. Nardacci in Albany ruled that the Republican administration — which challenged the law under President Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigration — had failed to support its claims that the state law usurps federal law or that it unlawfully regulates or unlawfully discriminates against the federal government. The Justice Department sued the state over the law...

Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki, the winningest Japanese golf professional in history, passed away Dec. 23 at the age of 78. Nicknamed for his stout physical presence and prodigious length off the tee, Ozaki amassed 94 career victories on the Japan Golf Tour Organization (JGTO) – 43 more than his closest rival, fellow World Golf Hall of Fame member Isao Aoki. Included were six Japan PGA Championships and five Japan Open titles. Ozaki also led the Tour in earnings a record 12 times, highlighted by a five-year run from 1994-1998, and was ranked among the top 10 on the Official World Golf...

MIAMI, DETROIT and PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Florida – The PGA TOUR today welcomed Cadillac as title sponsor of the Cadillac Championship, the new Signature Event at Trump National Doral, in a multi-year agreement. The Cadillac Championship, set for April 27-May 3, 2026, on the famed Blue Monster, will be broadcast on CBS/Paramount+, Golf Channel and three PGA TOUR Studios properties: PGA TOUR LIVE on ESPN+, Sirius XM and the TOUR’s World Feed. “We are pleased to welcome back Cadillac, a world-class brand whose partnership with the PGA TOUR is synonymous with Trump National Doral, a legacy venue on our schedule,”...

Parents have a constitutional right to be informed if their child starts to present as a different gender at school, and schools can’t hide that information from parents, a San Diego federal judge ruled in a class-action lawsuit. In a 52-page decision handed down Monday night, Dec. 22, Judge Roger Benitez ruled that parents have a constitutional right to know if their child may be transgender and that California public schools cannot prevent employees from notifying parents. In a separate order, he barred them from violating that right. The injunction bans public school employees from misleading parents about their child’s...

Explanation: What is big, bright, and beautiful, can wear a cape made of clouds, and is at the closest point in its elliptical orbit around planet Earth? A full moon at perigee of course, captured here near moonset in predawn skies on November 5 from Kayseri, Turkiye. Full moons that happen at (or very near) perigee, and so are slightly larger and brighter than full moons on average, have become popularly known as supermoons. In fact, this full moon at perigee is the closest and brightest of the three supermoons of 2025. Rising as the Sun sets, this full moon...

Google has accused Britain of threatening to stifle free speech in an escalation of US opposition to online safety rules. The regulator Ofcom is planning to prevent posts going viral that include “potentially illegal” material, such as hate speech or calls to violence. However, Google warned that proposals to require tech giants to detect and suppress such “potentially illegal” posts risk “undermining users’ rights to freedom of expression”. Google said the measures would “necessarily result in legal content being made less likely to be encountered by users, impacting users’ freedom of expression, beyond what the [Online Safety] Act intended”. Ofcom...

Pope Leo stated Dec. 23 that he had joined Chicago Archbishop Cardinal Cupich in pleading with Illinois Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker not to sign a controversial assisted suicide bill into law and was “very disappointed” when Pritzker ignored their intervention and signed the bill. “I spoke very explicitly with Governor Pritzker about that,” the Holy Father said outside Castel Gandolfo in response to EWTN Vatican correspondent Rudolf Gehrig’s question about the bill. Pritzker visited the Vatican and had an audience with the Pope in November. “At that time, the bill was already on his desk,” the Holy Father said Tuesday....

A man has been charged after a terrifying incident aboard an Alaska Airlines flight that left passengers and crew fearing for their safety. The incident happened last week on Alaska Airlines Flight 87, which was traveling from Deadhorse, Alaska, to Anchorage. According to a report from the New York Post, a passenger named Kassian William Fredericks allegedly rushed to the back of the plane and tried to open a cabin door while the aircraft was in the air. Court documents said another passenger had just returned from the restroom and saw Fredericks aggressively pulling on the rear cabin door. That...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After the latest batch of Epstein files was released by the Department of Justice, it has become evident to everyone that Jeffrey Epstein, along with being a vile sex trafficker, had some sick fetish for girls with giant black square heads. "It's disgusting," Attorney General Pam Bondi said. "But you wanted us to release the files, so here you go. Now you get to see how obsessed he was with black square heads, too. Be careful what you wish for." In nearly every released photo, girls with black square heads are seen posing with Epstein and...

Most drivers don’t expect to hear from the federal government—unless something has gone very wrong. But this month, more than 168,000 Americans opened their mailboxes to find checks from the Federal Trade Commission, all tied to a case that exposed widespread deception in the vehicle service contract industry. *snip* Many drivers believed they were signing up for protection that covered major repairs, sometimes paying as much as $120 a month. Yet when they needed help, they discovered that the “coverage” often vanished behind exclusions, denials, and carefully crafted contract language.

A federal judge granted on Tuesday a preliminary injunction order that would prevent the enforcement of parts of West Virginia’s H.B. 2354, which takes aim at artificial food dyes. U.S. District Judge Irene Berger of the Southern District of West Virginia entered the preliminary injunction order Tuesday, according to WV Metro News. According to the order, the International Association of Color Manufacturers (IACM) sought to prevent the enforcement of West Virginia’s H.B. 2354, as it amended Section 16-7-2(b)(7) to include seven color additives that are “poisonous and injurious” as ingredients or substances. The seven color additives named are butylated hydroxyanisole,...

Open in the app Skip to content Dec. 24, 2025 9:39 am GatewayHispanic logo Gateway Hispanic app-store Play Store Main Menu Light/dark button ADVERTISEMENT Featured on GPBreaking News A faith-based animated film dominates the box office and brings family, authority, and traditional values ​​back to the center of cinema Rafa Gómez-Santos Martin Rafa Gómez-Santos Martín Dec. 23, 2025 9:00 am 2 min read 10.052 An animated film based on faith is a box office smash and puts family, authority, and traditional values ​​back at the heart of cinema. Truth Tweet Share Gettr Gab Telegram LinkedIn Comments SMS E-mail Print WhatsApp...

The U.S. appears headed for the largest one-year drop in murders in history, according to a well-known crime analyst. That's the conclusion of crime statistics expert Jeff Asher, who says new national data show killings plunging at a pace not seen in modern recordkeeping. According to Asher's Real-Time Crime Index (RTCI), the United States is on track for the biggest single-year decline in murders ever recorded — a striking reversal after the COVID-era crime surge. Last month, FBI Director Kash Patel said the 2025 homicide rate will be the lowest in "modern history," crediting a bureau-wide shift toward fighting violent...

A group of immigrant truckers sued California's Department of Motor Vehicles on Tuesday, alleging the state violated thousands of workers' rights when officials took action to revoke their commercial driver's licenses. California officials said last month that the state notified about 17,000 truckers that their commercial driver's licenses would be revoked because the expiration dates went past when the drivers were legally allowed to be in the U.S. That number has since grown to 21,000. The move came after the Trump administration started cracking down on states' issuance of the licenses to immigrants. The federal government has threatened to withhold...

Daily Readings from the USCCB“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; for he has come to his people and set them free. He has raised up for us a mighty Savior, born of the house of his servant David…” Luke 1:68–69These words are the beginning of Zechariah’s song of praise, traditionally called the Benedictus, which he prayed as soon as his mouth was opened at the circumcision of his newborn son, John the Baptist. Priests and religious pray this beautiful song in the Liturgy of the Hours every morning. It recounts the whole plan of salvation that God began...