Free Republic

As the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown has swept across the U.S., countless people have been documenting federal agents’ actions, warning neighbors of their whereabouts with whistles and car horns, and uploading videos of encounters to social media. Two people who have been on the front lines are Ben and Sam Luhmann, a pair of homeschooled teenage brothers from the Chicago area. They kicked off their work as so-called ICE watchers when “Operation Midway Blitz” began in the Chicago region back in September, and most recently were on the ground in Minnesota documenting immigration enforcement actions in the Twin Cities....

An illegal alien semi-truck driver killed four Americans in a head-on crash in Jay County, Indiana, this week. The driver, 30-year-old Bekzhan Beishekeev, is an illegal alien from Kyrgyzstan who entered the US on Joe Biden’s open border invitation in December 2023. The Amish victims were identified as 50-year-old Henry Eicher, 25-year-old Menno Eicher, 19-year-old Paul Eicher and 23-year-old Simon Girod. Per ICE: On February 3rd, criminal illegal alien Bekzhan Beishekeev of Kyrgyzstan allegedly swerved and drove his eighteen-wheeler head-on into a van killing four innocent Americans: 50-year-old Henry Eicher, 25-year-old Menno Eicher, 19-year-old Paul Eicher and 23-year-old Simon Girod....

You’re not alone. Each year, more than 100 million people experience jet lag — a temporary sleep disorder that occurs when rapid long-distance travel disrupts the body’s internal clock, known as the circadian rhythm. That mismatch can trigger a wide range of symptoms as the body works to adjust to its new local time, including sleep disruption, brain fog, headaches, extreme fatigue, mood changes and general misery. Japanese scientists say they’ve created a drug that can “reset” the internal clock forward, dramatically shortening jet lag recovery time in mice — and perhaps, eventually, in humans.

Just days before the opening ceremony of the XXV Winter Olympic Games, Ukrainian ice dancer Vadyn Kolesnik opened up about taking the citizenship test to compete for Team USA. During a recent interview with the Detroit Free Press, Kolesnik recalled he and his ice dancing partner, Emilea Zingas, went to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services office in Troy, Michigan, to take the test in August. “He was really nervous,” Zingas stated. “We were in the car on the way. He was driving, and I was quizzing him, and he’s getting some of the answers wrong, and he had been...

A 13-year-old Australian boy is speaking out after swimming alone for four hours without a life jacket in order to get help for his mom and siblings, who were stranded at sea. "I just said, 'Not today, not today, not today. I have to keep on going,'" Austin Appelbee told Australia's ABC News. Austin and his family, including his mom Joanne Appelbee and his two younger siblings, said they were on a beach trip on Jan. 30 and had taken a kayak and two inflatable stand-up paddleboards out into the ocean. They said they had planned to stay out in...

Explanation: Active galaxy NGC 1275 is the central, dominant member of the large and relatively nearby Perseus Cluster of Galaxies. Wild-looking at visible wavelengths, the active galaxy is also a prodigious source of x-rays and radio emission. NGC 1275 accretes matter as entire galaxies fall into it, ultimately feeding a supermassive black hole at the galaxy's core. Narrowband image data used in this sharp telescopic image highlights the resulting galactic debris and filaments of glowing gas, some up to 20,000 light-years long. The filaments persist in NGC 1275, even though the turmoil of galactic collisions should destroy them. What keeps...

This is the moment a bundle of party balloons explode in a fireball engulfing a lift full of people. The gas-filled balloons suddenly caught fire and blew up just seconds after a man carrying them entered a lift inside a building at Amol Tower, in Goregaon, a suburb of Mumbai, India, on Monday night. Himani Tapriya, a 21-year-old student, suffered burns on her arms, neck and stomach following the explosion. Raju Kumar Mahato, 32, a delivery man who was couriering the balloons to the residential building for a birthday party, also suffered burns. But the pair and a third person...

New York City's Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) is facing backlash for reserving a bus seat to honor Rosa Parks during Black History Month. More than 4,000 people chimed in on an Instagram post from the MTA about the tribute to civil rights icon Parks. Parks famously refused to give up her bus seat to a white woman in segregated Montgomery, Alabama, in December 1955. Her arrest for the act of protest sparked a 381-day bus strike - a significant turning point in the Civil Rights Movement. The MTA celebrated her legacy by marking a seat on one of the city's...

AI lives comfortably in a pleasant Twilight Zone suburb where the lawns are tidy and nothing quite works.

The lead singer and guitarist of Mark of Cain, a legendary Australian alternative rock band, has come out as a trans woman. After a lifetime of “inner conflict,” soul searching, and channeling her life as an “outsider” into her music, Josie Scott decided to cut through the noise and go “straight to the point with little or no bulls—”… all in a single social media post. “As I’ve aged, and mortality is ever closer, I’ve decided to embrace, rather than endure, who I am,” Scott explained in the Monday post. Scott says she has struggled with “gender dysphoria” since she...

Bernie Sanders has made a name for himself as Congress' resident cranky commie. He likes to pretend he's a man of the people and champion of the working class, but the reality is he owns three houses and likes capitalism when he's selling his latest book. He's also a raging hypocrite who lectures us about the dangers of climate change and the "oligarchy" while he jets around the country on a private aircraft. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who crisscrossed the country last year on a Fighting Oligarchy tour with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., spent over $550,000 in 2025 on private...

A North Carolina veterinary technician has been charged and fired from her job after she rescued a dog that was abandoned in the cold winter weather — but failed to hand the pooch over to animal control. Dason Garner has been left “completely broken” as she faces charges for keeping a stray animal, failure to surrender and interfering with law enforcement over her deed, according to WRAL. Garner says she was punished for her act of compassion in rescuing the pooch from the brutal conditions after a harsh snowstorm barreled across Wilson, NC, over the weekend.

Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada announced on Thursday a sweeping plan to offer billions of dollars in incentives and tax breaks for auto industry investment designed to help turn Canada into a global leader in electric vehicles.The new policies, Mr. Carney said, were meant to transform Canada’s economy and make it less reliant on a single trade partner after President Trump’s economic assaults and threats on Canada’s sovereignty have frayed relations between the two nations.“We must take care of ourselves,’’ Mr. Carney told reporters at an auto parts factory in Ontario. “We cannot control what others do.’’Mr. Trump has...

Downtown Los Angeles’ infamous graffiti-covered skyscrapers may finally be closer to being cleaned up after a federal judge approved a bankruptcy exit agreement tied to the stalled Oceanwide Plaza development. The three unfinished towers have dominated the skyline since construction halted in 2019. KTLA’s Omar Lewis, reporting live from downtown Thursday morning, said residents have long pushed for action at the site. “It’s made the city a laughingstock,” one nearby resident told KTLA. “These buildings have sat empty for years. Something has to be done.” According to reporting by the Los Angeles Times, a federal bankruptcy judge signed off Tuesday...

Tom Brady has appeared in the Epstein Files. Following the release of a new batch of Justice Department documents, we have now seen Tom Brady’s name appear in the Epstein files. Convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein connected Giants co-owner Steve Tisch with multiple women. Tisch said he knew Jeffrey Epstein but denied going to his island after his name was mentioned more than 400 times. “We had a brief association where we exchanged emails about adult women, and in addition, we discussed movies, philanthropy, and investments,” Tisch said in a statement. “I did not take him up on any of...

President Trump was right about tariffs, and his policy of trade reciprocity has contributed to the Trumpian economic boom. Friday afternoon president trump posted an op-ed piece on "the wall street journal" web site entitled my tariffs have brought America back. And then it appeared in the Saturday morning print edition. I don't think people focus on it because everybody was talking about Mr. Trump's superb nomination of Kevin Warsh as federal reserve chairman. But it is worth revisiting this piece which is kind of the rebuttal for all the criticisms by "the wall street journal" editorial board regarding Mr....

An Olive Garden cook has died after he dunked his own head into a searing hot deep fryer — as his co-workers frantically tried to thwart his gruesome suicide, authorities said. The employee, who hasn’t been identified, stripped his clothes off and thrust his face into the fryer at the chain’s restaurant in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, last Friday afternoon, the Smoking Gun reported. “A male victim went head first into the fryers,” dispatchers could be heard saying in grim 911 audio. “I don’t have a lot of details, lot of people screaming, some kind of a burn victim,” another operator could...

Compassion and Tolerance Without Faith and Virtue Can Be DeadlyIt’s often said that “tenderness leads to the gas chambers.”Derived from a passage in Flannery O’Connor’s work, “Mystery and Manners,” the full quote in context gives a solid lesson on how compassion untethered to virtue can lead to disaster and ruin:If other ages felt less, they saw more, even though they saw with the blind, prophetical, unsentimental eye of acceptance, which is to say, of faith. In the absence of this faith now, we govern by tenderness. It is a tenderness which, long cut off from the person of Christ,...

PENSACOLA, Fla. --The United States Attorney's Office announced Thursday that five previously deported illegal immigrants in Northwest Florida have been indicted for illegal reentry into the United States. Meanwhile, 11 illegal immigrants in Northwest Florida were convicted of federal crimes in the month of January. According to court records, five illegal aliens indicted in the month of January include: Pedro Vasquez-Guerra, 26, of El Salvador, allegedly reentered the United States illegally and was located in Okaloosa County in December 2025, after previously being deported in 2017. Jose Perez-Perez, 42, of Mexico, allegedly reentered the United States illegally and was located...

Our current society can have trouble showing acceptance — especially to conservatives. If you're a young conservative who has kept your political views a secret from your family, knowing how to tell your parents can be difficult. The Babylon Bee is here to help you closeted folks with the following list of ways to come out as a conservative to your liberal parents: Go on a date with someone of the opposite sex: Seeing blatant displays of heterosexuality will make it obvious to them. Get a job: Another child lost to capitalism. Put up a "Fat JD Vance" poster...