Free Republic

The European Union’s population is expected to plunge by 53 million by the end of the century after the bloc’s birth rate fell to a record low. In new projections released on Thursday, the number of people living across the continent will fall to 398.9 million by 2100, down from 451.8 million today. The population is expected to grow by an extra 1.5 million over the next three years, before then shrinking consistently over the next six decades. This decline is equivalent to the entire populations of Spain and Ireland disappearing. The forecasts also show that the age of the...

When Led Zeppelin bombed in front of 1.9 billion people

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday designed to limit how long athletes can play college sports and how often they can transfer between schools. The order directs the NCAA to create rules that mandate college athletes can play for "no more than a five-year period" and allows them to transfer schools only once before they graduate without having to sit out a season. The rule changes are scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1. A school that plays an athlete who doesn't meet these new limits could risk losing its federal funding. The order also states that the...

By Dr. John BergsmaHow do we know that Jesus was someone and something different than the numerous religious leaders or founders of religions that have appeared on the stage of world history over the centuries? Last week we examined one way that he is different: unlike Buddha, Mohammed, or Zarathustra, Jesus rose from the grave after his death, appearing and talking to his followers at length. In this week’s liturgy, the Third Sunday of Easter, we examine another remarkable piece of evidence for the uniqueness of Jesus: the fact that his suffering and resurrection were strikingly foreshadowed by the sacred...

Q. For the common chromatic enharmonic letter names inclusive of all common, non-double accidental C-Cb note names, give their solfeggio English equivalents.The first set, to be emulated in solfeggio variants: Array count: 21 C-C#-Db-D-D#-Eb_E-E#-Fb-F-F#-Gb-G-G#-Ab-A-A#-Bb-B-B#-Cb. (Cb → Da) C → Do C# → Di Db → Ra D → Re D# → Ri Eb → Me E → Mi E# → Ma Fb → Me F → Fa F# → Fi Gb → Se G → Sol G# → Si Ab → Le A → La A# → Li Bb → Te B → Ti B# → Ta Cb → Da...

999,130 views Premiered Apr 16, 2026 #ussenate #usnews #timesnowworld U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders delivered a fiery speech in the Senate, calling for an immediate halt to American military aid to Israel and condemning the ongoing war in Gaza as well as its expansion into Lebanon and Iran. Sanders argued that U.S. taxpayer money should not support what he described as illegal and destructive military actions, citing rising civilian casualties and humanitarian concerns. He also accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of pursuing policies that undermine the possibility of a Palestinian state, while warning that the broader Middle East conflict could...

It's an incredibly painful and difficult thing to realize that you really cannot completely trust ecclesial authority -- not Catholic, not Orthodox, not Protestant... I am an Orthodox Christian, and my faith today is not challenged by revelations like that about the Romanian patriarch. Why is that? Because I also know that the corruption of the clergy does not negate the truths proclaimed by the Church (not the core ones)... This research I'm doing for my next book, about re-enchantment, has been a great booster of my faith, in fact. It makes very clear that God is real, Christ is...

THE PARABLE OF THE FENCE Once upon a time there was a little boy who was talented, creative, handsome, and extremely bright...a natural leader. The kind of person everyone would normally have wanted on their team or project. But he was also self-centered and had a very bad temper. When he got angry, he usually said, and often did, some very hurtful things. In fact, he seemed to have little regard for those around him...even friends. So, naturally, he had few. "But," he told himself, "that just shows how stupid most people are!" As he grew, his parents became...

FBI Director Kash Patel has threatened to sue The Atlantic after the magazine reported that his colleagues have grown alarmed by what it described as episodes of excessive drinking and unexplained absences. “See you and your entire entourage of false reporting in court… But do keep at it with the fake news, actual malice standard is now what some would call a legal lay up,” Patel wrote on the social platform X late Friday night.

"Politics War Room" James Carville and Al Hunt speculated on whether Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., may switch parties and throw Democrats’ Senate plans in disarray. As Carville and Hunt took questions from listeners, one asked why Fetterman, who has been known for taking surprisingly bipartisan stances, doesn’t just go all the way and switch parties. "I am not a big Fetterman fan," Carville said, declaring he thinks Fetterman is often motivated by wanting to see his name featured in newspapers. "He may switch, because they are going to correctly say if he wants to run again – I don’t know,...

<p>Senior Vatican Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández has said Pope Leo XIV is continuing the legacy of Pope Francis.</p><p>On April 13, Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, stated in an interview given to Italian newspaper Il Giornale that it is inaccurate to claim Pope Leo XIV intends to overturn his predecessor’s pontificate, emphasizing instead continuity through specific initiatives and teachings promoted within the Church. The interview marked the approaching first anniversary of Pope Francis’s death, on April 21.</p>

…Publicly reported numbers point to a wide range. Media interviews with a crowd-rental CEO describe individual participant compensation in the low hundreds of dollars per person—often $100–$300 for simple roles, with higher pay for longer hours, bad weather, or early morning calls. Request volume, especially in Washington, D.C., has spiked during high-stakes political moments, which can drive prices higher during peak periods.Broader coverage has captured tactical cases where participants were paid modest flat fees. Poynter summarized reporting in which people received $60 to attend local meetings, with $200 for a speaking role, showing how “appearance of support” payments can be...

Two men were found dead this week after a minivan carrying nearly 500 pounds of liquid meth — which authorities said had a street value of up to $3 million — crashed in a Texas neighborhood, prompting a federal drug probe and a hazmat response. Cops and firefighters responded to the crash on Delga Street in Fort Wayne around 11:30 am Thursday and found the vehicle had slammed into a parked car before rolling into a nearby fence, CBS News reported. The vehicle allegedly contained 10 buckets of the addictive drug, authorities said. The man in the passenger seat was...

WASHINGTON — Former Rep. Eric Swalwell is not the only member of Congress drawing attention for his activities off the House floor — with sources telling The Post that Rep. Jimmy Gomez, a married member of Swalwell’s “Cool Kids Clique,” was spotted surreptitiously kissing a much younger congressional aide in the summer of 2023. Swalwell (D-Calif.) fell in with Gomez, a fellow Golden State Democrat, and Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) while all three were still in the House, sources said. The trio became known for their socializing and drinking. While Gallego, Swalwell’s closest friend in Congress, faced questions about what...

The UNC Sheps Center, which tracks rural hospital infrastructure in the United States, has documented 195 rural hospitals that have closed or converted to outpatient facilities since January 2005. Six are in Pennsylvania. Closures have far outpaced the opening of new rural hospitals during this period. As a physician who has trained in rural communities and a researcher who studies community well-being and public health, we see that every rural hospital closure exerts a domino effect on surrounding communities and residents. This can be difficult to quantify but manifests as lost jobs and economic decline, poorer health and a pervasive...

An anti-white maniac who sucker-punched a TikTok influencer, assaulted two other women and berated a Jewish couple in a crazed spree of hate and violence will spend at least three years behind bars, a Manhattan judge ruled Tuesday. Skiboky Stora, 42, went on a bizarre, 15-minute rant in Manhattan Supreme Court — accusing prosecutors of using AI videos to frame him — before Justice Josh Hanshaft sentenced him to 3-to-9 years in prison for the string of assaults in 2023 and 2024. “I just want to start off by saying I’m not an ignorant person, judge,” Stora, wearing a brown...

Journalists Nick Shirley and Jon Fetherston join 'Saturday in America' to discuss Democratic efforts to criminalize investigative journalism and allegations of fraud across the country.

An international fugitive was arrested in Dubai this week following a years-long manhunt. Daniel Kinahan, the alleged leader of one of Ireland’s biggest criminal gangs, the Kinahan cartel, was arrested on organized crime charges on Wednesday in a covert operation involving Irish and United Arab Emirates authorities. The 48-year-old alleged crime boss is expected to face charges in Ireland related to a gangland feud between the Kinahan cartel and the Hutch gang that has left 18 people dead since 2015. Dubai police didn’t name Kinahan, saying they had “arrested an Irish fugitive for his alleged role in an organized criminal...

T.V. Mini-Series "Odyssey" queued at the link-click to 1 minute 41 seconds. The climactic Throne Room scene of Odysseus stringing the bow which only he could, shooting an arrow through numerous axe-rings, and slaughtering Penelope's unwanted suitors, is the central dramatic motif of all of Western Civilization. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0_A9XWxV0Q&t=101sStudents of ancient Greek culture, not necessarily at English universities, but more commonly centered on Greek Orthodox Church parishes, study the Homeric epic poems as the foundation of Western Civilization. It was set up in the 8th century before Christ.

Photos circulating on social media Saturday reveal that Hunter Biden, the son of former Democratic President Joe Biden, was at Coachella, the iconic music festival in the California desert. Biden appears in six photographs posing next to the United Kingdom rapper and artist Fakemink at what looks like the corner of a backyard. Social media posts captioned the pictures “fakemink x Hunter Biden at Coachella 2026.” Biden has his arm around the shoulder of the rapper and in some of the photos, he is looking at Fakemink with a large smile. Fakemink poses with a hand sign and what looks...