Free Republic

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. — A second Georgia lawmaker has been charged with defrauding taxpayers by receiving pandemic unemployment assistance that she was not entitled to. A federal grand jury indicted State Rep. Karen Bennett (D-Stone Mountain) on Monday. Prosecutors say she received $13,940 for her in-home physical therapy company, Metro Therapy Providers, which she says could not operate during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, investigators say the company was only briefly closed, and remained open through the majority of the pandemic. On her application, Bennett only reported receiving income from Metro Therapy and the Georgia General Assembly. But she failed to...

Reports have surfaced that U.S. Capitol Police Captain Michael Byrd and his wife, Kaleska, have been operating an "unaccredited" daycare center from their Maryland home since 2008, sparking a firestorm on social media. Byrd, of course, is the officer who fatally shot unarmed January 6 protester Ashli Babbitt without warning. Investigative journalist Paul Sperry kicked off the controversy by noting details about "Byrd's Family Day Care," a home-based child care facility in Brandywine, Maryland. "Records show US Capitol Police Capt. Michael Byrd, who fatally shot unarmed J6 protester Ashli Babbitt (without) warning, has been running an unaccredited day-care center (with)...

California Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa died suddenly at the age of 65, GOP leadership confirmed Tuesday. LaMalfa (R-Calif.), who had represented the Golden State’s 1st Congressional District since 2013, had chaired the Congressional Western Caucus. His cause of death is not immediately clear. “Jacquie and I are devastated about the sudden loss of our friend, Congressman Doug LaMalfa,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) said in a statement. “Doug was a loving father and husband, and staunch advocate for his constituents and rural America. Our prayers are with Doug’s wife, Jill, and their children. LaMalfa’s passing now brings the GOP’s...

President Trump IS the new world order now.Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, “Colombia is very sick too, run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he is not going to be doing it very long, let me tell you.”He also said, “Mexico has to get their act together because they’re pouring through Mexico and we’re going to have to do something.”He also said, “Cuba looks like it is ready to fall.”But the best thing he said was “You know what Denmark did recently to boost up security on Greenland?...

Breaking: Today, Israeli passengers were blocked from boarding a flight at Milan airport after a group of pro-Palestinian travelers formed a human barrier, shouted antisemitic slurs, and delayed the flight for over an hour. This is outrageous. Airports must take all necessary measures to ensure passenger safety.

In much-needed good news for the environment, scientists have announced that the 2025 Antarctic ozone hole was relatively small and short-lived, confirming the long-term trend towards the recovery of Earth’s protective shield against the sun. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA said that the ozone hole was the fifth smallest since 1992, the year that the Montreal Protocol, a landmark international agreement to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals began to take effect. The Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) concurred that the 2025 Antarctic ozone hole came to an end on 1 December, marking the earliest closure since 2019....

The Justice Department has backed off a dubious claim about President Nicolás Maduro that the Trump administration promoted last year in laying the groundwork to remove him from power in Venezuela: accusing him of leading a drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles. That claim traces back to a 2020 grand jury indictment of Mr. Maduro drafted by the Justice Department. In July 2025, copying language from it, the Treasury Department designated Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization. In November, Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and President Trump’s national security adviser, ordered the State Department to do...

The Strategic Necessity of Taking Out MaduroWhat looked like another endless war was instead a clean Monroe Doctrine strike—neutralizing Maduro, securing U.S. interests, and leaving without a quagmire.I’ll be honest. When I woke up in the early hours of January 3, 2026, and briefly checked my news feed, I was alarmed when I saw that America had its elite military forces on the ground in Venezuela. You see, as a veteran of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, one of the primary reasons I supported Donald Trump in 2024 was that he would end our entanglement in what I call...

Daniel Osorio, Andean Capital Advisors president and founder, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, what's next for the country, impact on the global oil industry and cryptocurrency, and more. Every Venezuelan with the exception of a few thousand people are ecstatic:Andean's Daniel Osorio | 9:27CNBC Television | 3.31M subscribers | 2,019 views | January 6, 2026

A suspected arson attack has caused a widespread power cut in Berlin since Saturday. Authorities said on Sunday that it was a result of a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists". Around 45,000 households were left without electricity in southwest Berlin after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire, which authorities have described as a politically motivated attack by far-left extremists. Though power has been restored in some areas, thousands could be left without power until Thursday after what authorities say was a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists”. The blaze erupted on a cable bridge over the Teltow...

The big news in 2025 for the climate scare was that all of a sudden this scare wasn’t such big news any more. We’re talking here about something that all of the right people had agreed for decades was an “existential” threat to humanity. It was supposedly the single most important thing that we all needed to focus on and transform our lives to stop. We only had ten years to “save the planet”; or maybe it was only five. If we failed, we would shortly be inundated by sea level rise, or maybe devastated by floods and droughts, or...

End of transcript beginning at 24:48: "Our old systems were based on a masculine value system. Femininity was valued and it was respected, but it mostly played out in the private sphere. Public life was dominated by men and masculine values. Whether or not there is an important contribution that feminine values can make in reshaping our large institutions still remains to be seen. We are still very early in that experiment. But if you want to diagnose why our cultural decline seems to be speeding up and also understand where it began, look at gender. Our culture and our...

ANDERSON —One suspect is in the hospital, and three others are in custody after police say a home invasion led to a shooting in Anderson on Sunday. According to the Anderson Police Department, officers responded to 712 Lonsvale Drive around 12:44 p.m. on January 4 for a reported shooting. According to investigators, four suspects kicked in the rear door of the residence and forced their way inside. During the break-in, one of the occupants inside the home shot and wounded one of the intruders. The suspects fled the scene immediately after the shooting. Anderson Police later located and arrested three...

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas - Jury selection is underway in the trial of former Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District police officer Adrian Gonzales, one of the first officers on the scene of the Robb Elementary mass shooting. What we know: Jury selection is taking place in Corpus Christi. Gonzales faces 29 felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child, and has pleaded not guilty. The charges are classified as state jail felonies, the lowest level of felony under Texas law. If convicted, Gonzales could face between six months and two years in prison. Gonzales is the first police officer in Texas...

January 6th was terrifying for many Americans. After all, they saw it on television. But what did they really see? Did they know what actually unfolded that day? Did they even ask? Trump is the Jan. 6 President, proclaims the New York Times’ Editorial Board. And the text: What I learned, living through these events as a former Democrat, is that the New York Times Editorial Board is lying through its teeth. Or maybe they aren’t lying. Maybe they really do believe it. They exist inside the Doomsday Cult of the Left, after all, along with all of those high-minded...

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s daughter admitted there was “enough truth” to the alleged billion-dollar fraud scandal plaguing the North Star State — as she opened up about her father’s abrupt decision to drop his bid for a third term. Hope Walz appeared on “One Hour Detours” with host John O’Sullivan just hours after her dad announced he was bowing out of the 2026 governor’s race “to kind of get that target off of Minnesota.” “I think there was enough truth to the fraud claim,” the 25-year-old said. However, she then whined that President Trump and his supporters had twisted and...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(1/6/26)[Prayer]A New Study For A New Year: PersonalitiesGenesis 3:8-248 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden. 9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou? 10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. 11 And he said, Who told thee that...

Shares of Versant Media Group, home to channels such as USA Network and CNBC, slumped 13% in its market debut after its spinoff from Comcast, underscoring investor skepticism around traditional TV businesses in the streaming era. The spinoff is Comcast’s response to shifting market dynamics in the media industry, as streaming pressures traditional cable TV viewership, prompting media companies to rethink their ownership of legacy networks. The separation will allow Comcast to focus on its streaming, film and TV assets while shedding its declining cable networks division – once a core part of the company’s business. Comcast first announced plans...

President Trump has made clear he wants to revitalize Venezuela’s oil industry so he can use the cash to make the country great again — but the sector is in shambles after decades of plunder, talent flight and negligence as a result of socialist rule. After capturing Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro over the weekend, Trump vowed that US companies would soon tap into the nation’s rich oil reserves, which Caracas says hold about 303 billion barrels worth of petrol, roughly 17% of the world’s supply. Production has plummeted since hitting a high in 1997 — and the country produced just...

6 January 2026 Tuesday after Epiphany Sunday St. André Bessette - Amesbury, MAReadings at MassThe readings shown here are for places where the Epiphany is celebrated on Sunday 4 January.If you are celebrating the Epiphany on Tuesday 6 January this year then these are not the right readings. To see the right readings, you need to set this web site to use your own local calendar. On this web page, find the list of dates. After the last date there is a heading which says “Calendar Used”. Click on the calendar name below this heading, and choose your local...