Free Republic

The first battery-grade lithium hydroxide refining facility in North America is now operational in Texas. In May 2023, Gov. Greg Abbott, Tesla founder Elon Musk and other officials broke ground at what would become Tesla North America’s new lithium refinery in Robstown. By January 2026, it was fully operational. The facility is the first of its kind to ever be built in North America, The Center Square reported. The facility is part of Abbott’s goal for Texas to lead in reducing reliance on China for critical minerals and technology. Under Abbott, Texas is leading in semiconductor manufacturing and development, state-led...

Meet Chanda Petrey-Czaruk, the Vice President of @HomeFirstChoice in Ohio. She posted a video wishing for Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt to experience traumatic injuries during childbirth. This woman is in charge of a home health care company and is a registered nurse in Ohio. Terrifying that activists like this are in the medical field. She needs to have her license revoked.

THIS IS HISTORIC. Edmonton turnout is unreal — thousands and thousands of people waiting to sign the Independence petition to choose a new path and protect the next generation from Canada’s downward spiral.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday canceled his planned appearance at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and stayed in Kyiv as Russian strikes crippled the country’s energy grid — leaving tens of thousands without heat in the dead of winter. “Undoubtedly, I choose Ukraine in this case, rather than the economic forum,” Zelensky said, explaining his decision to remain in the war-scarred capital. The choice came amid “large-scale brownouts” in Kyiv and other cities, the Ukrainian president said, following a fresh Russian attack on critical infrastructure. “In the capital alone, more than 5,600 apartment buildings are without heat...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Actor Melissa Gilbert could speak Tuesday at a New Mexico detention hearing for her husband, Emmy Award-winning actor Timothy Busfield, who faces child sex abuse charges stemming from allegations that he inappropriately touched a minor on a TV series set. Busfield, who is known for appearances in “The West Wing,” “Field of Dreams” and “Thirtysomething,” was ordered held without bond last week at his first court appearance. Busfield called the allegations lies in a video shared before he turned himself in. Gilbert, who played Laura Ingalls in the 1970s to ’80s TV series “Little House on...

@GBNEWS 'This is the worst deal I’ve ever seen!' Nigel Farage blasts Labour's Chagos Islands handover, calling it a betrayal of national security, a £50 billion taxpayer disaster, and a slap in the face to the Chagossians. 'I hope Trump’s has sunk this Chagos deal below the waterline.'

Christina Pushaw is a top DeSantis administration official who rose to prominence in political influencer circles in the 2024 GOP presidential primary race when she commanded a legion of “influencers” on DeSantis’s behalf in the race that saw him get blown out by Trump on his path back to the White House. Now, Pushaw works for the governor’s office and apparently has been moonlighting as an informal adviser to a man named James Fishback who is running for the GOP nomination for governor. Fishback has come under serious scrutiny over reports he lived with an underage girl for some time...

The United States plans to reduce the number of personnel it has stationed within several key NATO command centers, a move that could intensify concerns in Europe about Washington's commitment to the alliance, three sources familiar with the matter said this week. As ​part of the move, which the Trump administration has communicated to some European capitals, the U.S. will eliminate roughly 200 positions from the NATO entities that oversee and ‌plan the alliance's military and intelligence operations, said the sources, who requested anonymity to discuss private diplomatic conversations. Among the bodies that will be affected, said the sources, are...

"There's more to life than being really, really, really ridiculously good looking." ---Derek ZoolanderSo how far has the quality of writing at Atlantic magazine declined due to their TDS having become so overwhelming that they will stoop to any low in a pathetic attempt to smear those who support President Donald Trump? Well, the standards at that periodical have plunged so far that they are now even trying to link a fringe wacko group with MAGA. Very few people have ever heard of something called "Looksmaxxing" yet it is now being presented as a major movement of our era according...

The U.S. federal government is about to begin construction of a new border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Mount Cristo Rey area of ​​Sunland Park, New Mexico. According to the El Paso Sector Border Patrol and the Ciudad Juárez Civil Protection Department, controlled detonations are expected to begin today (20 Jan) to prepare the ground and lay the foundation for this new border wall... ...last summer that approximately 1.3 kilometers of new border barrier were approved for the Sunland Park area, south of the mountain. The goal of this new wall in that area is to deter illegal...

ALERT: In a bombshell revelation, top White House officials disclosed that the United States is finalizing a staggering $700 billion cash offer to buy Greenland outright from Denmark, plus $100,000 lump-sum payments to each of its ~57,000 residents—totaling nearly $706 billion.

Vice President J.D. Vance and Second Lady Usha Vance announced Tuesday that they are expecting their fourth child, a boy, with the baby due in late July. The announcement came via an official statement shared on social media by the Second Lady’s account. “We’re very happy to share some exciting news. Our family is growing!” the post read, followed by the full statement: “Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy. Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July.” The statement continued: “During this exciting and hectic time,...

Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha shared they are expecting their fourth child in a joyous announcement on social media Tuesday. “We’re very excited to share the news that Usha is pregnant with our fourth child, a boy. Usha and the baby are doing well, and we are all looking forward to welcoming him in late July,” the couple said in a statement in a joint Instagram post. “During this exciting and hectic time, we are particularly grateful for the military doctors who take excellent care of our family and for the staff members who do so much...

Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, has decried Europeans for their “complicity” in failing to stand up to Donald Trump’s demands that he be allowed to buy or annex Greenland. Newsom, a frontrunner among Democratic candidates for president in 2028, told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Tuesday that Europeans were being “played” by Trump and that their efforts to negotiate with him were “not diplomacy, it’s stupidity”. “It’s time to buck up, it’s time to get serious and stop being complicit,” he told reporters. “I can’t take this complicity. People rolling over. I should have brought...

Live protests are underway in Minneapolis following the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent during a federal immigration enforcement operation. Tens of thousands of demonstrators have rallied, with large crowds gathering and marching to the site where Good was killed, demanding accountability and shouting anti-ICE slogans. Tense confrontations are also occurring near the Federal Building, where law enforcement has deployed pepper balls and chemical irritants against some protesters. The demonstrations reflect widespread anger over the shooting and the broader federal immigration crackdown, with activists and local leaders calling for ICE...

The Department of Justice will “pursue charges” against the anti-ICE agitators who invaded a Sunday church service in St. Paul, including disgraced former CNN reporter Don Lemon, who feebly attempted to cloak his participation in the chaos as an “act of journalism.” Assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet Dhillon told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson that the department “will pursue charges” related to the incident in which families and children were terrorized by a screaming mob of protesters at Cities Church. Lemon “went into the facility, and then he began, quote, unquote ‘committing journalism,’ as if that’s a sort of...

On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “The Source,” Rep. Adelita Grijalva (D-AZ) said that when people find out “someone that’s supposed to be speaking for the community in church” is “a federal agent that is running ICE in their communities, they have the right to go in there.” “Churches have always been an open door,” and the people who barged into a church in St. Paul over the weekend weren’t violent. Host Jim Sciutto asked, “Do you believe it was a step too far for protesters to go into a church?” Grijalva answered, “I don’t. I don’t. I think that when...

@SenRandPaul Just read the minibus Congress plans to pass this year. An unbelievable over $5 billion is going toward refugee welfare programs. I am going to fight like hell to get this removed. In the meantime, call your Senators and tell them to vote NO, and to put an end to the refugee rip-off.

Explanation: The strangest moon in the Solar System is bright yellow. The featured picture, an attempt to show how Io would appear in the "true colors" perceptible to the average human eye, was taken in 1999 July by the Galileo spacecraft that orbited Jupiter from 1995 to 2003. Io's colors derive from sulfur and molten silicate rock. The unusual surface of Io is kept very young by its system of active volcanoes. The intense tidal gravity of Jupiter stretches Io and damps wobbles caused by Jupiter's other Galilean moons. The resulting friction greatly heats Io's interior, causing molten rock to...

The Justice Department on Tuesday served subpoenas to multiple Democratic officials in Minnesota, including Gov. Tim Walz, Attorney General Keith Ellison and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, in connection with a probe into an alleged conspiracy to impede federal immigration officers, three sources familiar with the matter told CBS News. A copy of a subpoena seen by CBS does not specify which criminal violations the department is probing. However, multiple sources previously told CBS the primary statute being used as the basis for the probe is 18 USC 372 — the same one that was used against some of the rioters...