Free Republic

He predicted the 2008 crash, now Professor Steve Keen warns the Iran war is coming for your food prices. Professor Steve Keen is the world's first rebel economist to predict the 2008 financial crisis years before it happened, based on his proprietary data software, Ravel©. He has spent over 30 years as an academic, and is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Amsterdam. He explains: ◼ Why your food prices could double and the one resource nobody is talking about ◼ The 5 ways this war could end and which scenario keeps you safest ◼ How one 20km...

Traumatic brain injuries are quickly emerging as the signature wound of the U.S. war with Iran so far, echoing a pattern of post-9/11 wars... More than 200 U.S. troops have so far been wounded in the war, and at least 140 of those were TBI-related injuries... It’s a surge being driven by Iran’s reliance on one-way attack drones and the concussive blasts they deliver in strikes against American troops in countries across the Middle East, including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Symptoms of TBI can be subtle at first but often linger for years, or even a lifetime, ranging...

Artemis II began its historic flyby of the moon Monday in what is the mission’s showstopper event — giving its crew and Earthlings back home their first glimpses ever of parts of the lunar dark side. The capsule began the flyby around 2:45 p.m. ET, and will spend just over six hours arcing around the moon with its windows pointed toward the far side of the lunar surface. All four crew members will become the first people in history to see certain swaths of the far side — since most it remained in shadow when the Apollo missions orbited the...

Following a controversial Supreme Court decision striking down Colorado’s conversion therapy ban, advocates gathered in solidarity at the site of America’s most famous LGBTQ+ protest. Many of New York’s most prominent activists, from conversion therapy survivors to celebrated drag queens, came together for an emergency rally at Stonewall National Monument. “I am a trans, queer woman, and I am a nurse,” said Qween Amor, an activist and a registered nurse. “I am standing at Stonewall because something dangerous just happened, and we cannot pretend that it didn't.”

Ebrahim Zolfaqari said ​Iran targeted satellite equipment and ⁠munitions ⁠on the ⁠island with ​drones, adding that U.S. forces ​had relocated ⁠there from Arifjan camp after that base was repeatedly struck ⁠by Iran.Bubiyan island is the largest of ⁠Kuwait's coastal islands chain, located in the northwest of the [Persian]Gulf.

It’s keeping scientists up at night. Scientists around the world are sounding the alarm over an ambitious plan to install thousands of mirrors and myriad satellites in space, claiming that it will impact sleep and various ecosystems on a global level. “The proposed scale of orbital deployment would represent a significant alteration of the natural night-time light environment at a planetary scale,” leaders of the European Biological Rhythms Society (EBRS), the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, the Japanese Society for Chronobiology and the Canadian Society for Chronobiology declared in letters to the US Federal Communications Commission The Guardian reported....

Situation in eastern Iran, and spreading up the Helmand River into Afghanistan, are the ruins of dozens of archaeological sites. This is the lost Helmand Civilization. The Historian's Craft explores the Helmand civilization, a lost Bronze Age culture spanning modern Iran and Afghanistan. Tracing sites like Shahri Sukhteh and Mundigok, this overview examines evidence of advanced trade, massive urban planning, and mysterious, widespread fires that led to the civilization's eventual decline. Helmand: Iran's Lost Civilization You've (possibly) Never Heard Of | 10:58 The Historian's Craft | 132K subscribers | 13,784 views | March 11, 2026

An exclusive Channel 2 Action News Investigation finds hundreds of Georgians arrested for DUI in 2025 later were proven to be sober by GBI blood tests. In suspected DUI cases, the GBI tests samples for drugs only if they are found to be under the legal limit for alcohol. Through an open records request, Channel 2 Action News Consumer Investigator Justin Gray obtained records showing that 701 people tested by the GBI in 2025 had no illegal or prescription drugs found in their system during toxicology screenings. [snip] Smyrna resident Lenny Daniel is one of those. “It’s a shame to...

Two local families — one whose patriarch is a firefighter in Orange County and the other whose matriarch is a former KTLA employee — are reeling after an off-road vehicle fire severely left two young girls injured. IAFF Local 3631, the union representing firefighters across Orange County, said Monday that Fire Captain Mike Mallett and his family were on a trip to St. George, located in southern Utah, last week when they were traveling in a caravan of vehicles back to a campsite. “On April 2, while traveling back to camp in a caravan of vehicles, an unthinkable accident occurred....

A federal judge has rejected a desperate attempt by a former Wisconsin state judge to overturn her federal felony conviction after she helped an illegal migrant escape through her courtroom back door. U.S. District Judge Lynn Adelman on April 6 denied a motion from Hannah C. Dugan seeking an acquittal or a new trial after a federal jury found her guilty in December of obstructing a federal proceeding In his ruling, Judge Adelman said the federal government presented sufficient evidence that Dugan took deliberate steps to hinder federal officials from attempting to carry out an administrative arrest tied to immigration...

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A self-driving car struck and killed a beloved duck near a park in Texas, furious residents say. One witness wrote in a local Facebook group that they watched an Avride vehicle drive over the aquatic bird as it rested near Mueller Lake Park in Austin earlier this week, KXAN reported. 'I saw an Avride self-driving car, with a person in the driver's seat not touching the wheel, run over and kill a duck near the park,' the witness wrote. 'It didn't slow down or hesitate at all, just steamrolled right through, and the person inside did not stop to see...

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) nearing the end of his term, numerous candidates have stepped up to replace him in the upcoming gubernatorial primary race on June 2. Sixty-one individuals appear on the official certified list of candidates competing for California's top office. While there is currently no clear front-runner, several notable candidates have emerged. These include former Rep. Katie Porter (D), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D), climate advocate and businessman Tom Steyer (D), Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco (R), and Fox News host and small-business owner Steve Hilton (R). President Donald Trump released a post on social media on...

Artemis II astronauts got a special wake-up message from legendary astronaut Jim Lovell, the late commander for the Apollo 13 mission, which he recorded before he died at age 97 last year. "Hello Artemis II! this is Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell," he says in the message. "Welcome to my old neighborhood. When Frank Borman and Bill Andrews and I orbited the moon on Apollo 8, we got humanity's first up close look at the moon and got a view of the home planet that inspired and united people around the world. I'm proud to pass that torch on to you...

Fox News reported on April 6th, citing CENTCOM sources, that US B-2 Spirit stealth bombers struck and obliterated an underground IRGC headquarters near Tehran using Massive Ordnance Penetrators during the same operational window in which SEAL Team 6 was extracting the downed F-15E weapons systems officer from the Zagros Mountains. The 30,000-pound bunker busters, the largest conventional weapons in the American arsenal, were dropped on a buried command node while hundreds of special operations troops were simultaneously fighting their way out of Iran with a wounded colonel. The rescue and the decapitation strike ran concurrently. The operators saving one American...

Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger’s approval rating stands at 47 percent two months into the Democrat’s term, with 46 percent of voters disapproving and 7 percent expressing no opinion in a Washington Post-Schar School poll. Spanberger won in a 15-point landslide last year after touting her reputation for bipartisanship built on three terms representing a conservative-leaning district in Congress. But her current ratings reflect sharp polarization among Virginia voters in their views of the state’s first female governor.

Catholicism — is suddenly everywhere: with social media influencers, a documented rise in converts and even a Hollywood swell. The new podcast “Catholics and Cappuccinos,” hosted by actress and former “Saturday Night Live” cast member Siobhan Fallon Hogan, offers insight with revelatory conversations with celebs and influential priests... “This is why the podcast works — because it’s not preachy,” ... “It’s just talking to people about their faith journey... I recently discovered the pod when a clip hit my Instagram. In it, Fallon Hogan was talking to James about how she used to attend Mass with her “very faithful” SNL...

California's delayed, over-budget high-speed train from Los Angeles to San Francisco is running fast in only one direction: Rising costs to even get rolling, which are now estimated to be $126 billion. "Today, we estimate with the right optimization just over $125 billion," California High Speed Rail Authority board member Anthony Williams told CBS's "60 Minutes" on Sunday. "I think $126 billion is the current estimate for that." Snip "We’re now in 2026: There are no trains; there’s no track laid; it was a complete bait and switch," Rep. Vince Fong, R-Calif., told "60 Minutes," saying the project "needs to...

Government auditors in Democrat-dominated Washington State say that more than $1.3 billion in spending through the state’s childcare subsidy system cannot be verified. The audit, covering 2021 through 2024, revealed that the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) failed to maintain the necessary records to track federal childcare funds at the provider level, leaving a slew of expenditures and other payments unaccounted for. Concerningly, the financial review found in 2024 that $416 million was unauditable, with $356 million in 2023, $268.5 million in 2022, and $293 million in 2021. The State Auditor’s Office (SAO) described the situation as “serious...

This is one of those local stories that doesn’t get a ton of traction in the national headlines, but highlights quite possibly one of the most alarming trends in modern America: the failure to get the basics right. And by basics, in this case, I mean the ability for a town or city to put out fires. Fire departments around the Denver, Colorado, metro area have been struggling to afford new fire engines, which have ballooned in costs over the years, thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic/economic catastrophe of 2020 and Wall Street’s private equity companies. They also have to navigate...