Free Republic

President Trump convened an extraordinary Saturday morning meeting in the White House situation room to discuss next steps as the situation in Iran teeters between a peace deal and a resumption of war. The specific subjects under discussion were the status of the Strait of Hormuz and Iranian responses to some U.S. proposals. Quite honestly, I imagine one key subject of discussion was "who the hell is calling the shots in Iran?" Because from an outsider's point of view, it looks like the 95 IQ types in the government think they are in charge, but actions on the ground indicate...

Watch - Parachutist crashes into the scoreboard during the Virginia Tech game Awesome part at 48 second mark

The United States is on track for what economists call the “great wealth transfer,” with an estimated $72.6 trillion expected to pass from older generations to younger heirs over the coming decades. On paper, that should create one of the largest generational financial shifts in history. But there’s a growing threat quietly eating away at that future wealth: long-term care costs.For most families, the reality is blunt. The cost of caring for aging parents or spouses is so high that it is erasing decades of savings, destroying home equity, and in many cases, forcing middle-class households into financial decline.And according...

Being told you have high cholesterol can feel like a verdict: start taking a statin or risk a heart attack or stroke. Recent studies, however, suggest that high cholesterol is not as uniformly harmful as once thought. However, the message has swung hard in the other direction on social media, where claims range from “high cholesterol might save your life” to “high cholesterol is the secret to living to 100-plus.” So, is high cholesterol really “good” or “bad”? The reality is more nuanced than either extreme suggests. The more useful question may not be whether high cholesterol is harmful, but...

At least 250 small boat migrants launched from Belgian beaches on Saturday, as almost 600 illegal immigrants from Belgium and France crossed into UK waters. This latest significant surge in Channel migrants has taken the number who have arrived in the UK so far this year to more than 6,000. It was the biggest single day of small boat activity along the Belgian coast, since people smugglers began a major shift in tactics this year. As well as a 70-mile stretch of French coastline, criminal gangs are now targeting multiple beaches in Belgium to launch migrant dinghies, in efforts to...

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...