Free Republic

Britain's King Charles heads to the United States next week for the most high-profile trip of his reign so far, on a mission to shore up the future of the two allies' "special relationship" which the Iran war has plunged to its lowest point in ‌70 years. The state visit marks the 250th anniversary of the U.S. declaration of independence from British rule, when the then 13 American colonies decided to split from King ‌George III, Charles's five-times-great-grandfather. For Charles, it will be a moment to reflect on how Britain and the United States have come together since then to...

Tod Cutler investigates a medieval hack for increasing arrow distance during archery. Using a calibrated crossbow to ensure repeatable test conditions, the experiment examines how removing bindings and altering fletchings impacts the flight performance of arrows compared to standard configurations. Archers Hack Could Have Revealed Archery's BIGGEST LIE!!! | 13:35 Tod's Workshop | 571K subscribers | 504,113 views | April 17, 2026

I asked my friend in Ireland what was going on as the media is downplaying stuff as usual. Here's her response: People are raging and worse it is getting. It’s been a slowly building … Our cost of living has gone unbearable for many. Gas is around 13 or 14 dollars a gallon if you were to put it in dollars 65 % of that is government tax then there is home heating oil - that has doubled. Then there is a housing crisis for Irish but immigrants get immediately given government housing while our homeless and violent crime skyrocket...

Ibiza became part of the Islamic world in the year 902, when it was conquered by the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba. Settlement followed rapidly, taking place within little more than a generation, and by the twelfth century the island had developed into a modest but active urban centre within al-Andalus.Positioned along key maritime routes, Ibiza was not an isolated outpost but part of a dynamic network linking Iberia, North Africa, and the wider Mediterranean. This broader context helps explain the striking diversity uncovered in the new study, published in Nature Communications.The research team analysed 13 individuals buried between the tenth...

New examination of artifacts recovered from a tomb discovered in 1927 near the Etruscan site of Bisenzio suggests that luxury materials from the western Mediterranean were traded in the interior of the Italian peninsula, according to a report in La Brújula Verde. Located in central Italy's necropolis of Olmo Bello, the rectangular stone cist contained cremated remains, weapons, and ceramics dated to between 750 and 725 B.C. Andrea Babbi of Italy's Institute of Heritage Science said that one of these artifacts, a bronze brooch, had been wrapped with a thin, ornamental silver wire shaped by a series of grooved rollers....

Volodymyr Zelensky is poised to make a surprise appearance at a European Union summit to demand progress on Ukraine’s membership application. The Ukrainian president is seeking to capitalise on the electoral defeat of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, the bloc’s leading Kremlin ally. Mr Zelensky will arrive in Cyprus seeking concessions from his EU counterparts after capitulating to demands from Brussels to restore the flow of Russian oil to central Europe in order to unblock a €90bn (£78bn) loan. He had been scheduled to join an informal leaders’ dinner in Nicosia via video link, but officials now believe he is planning to...

Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith has declared that Anzac Day is so “sacred” that his prosecution for war crime-related murder won’t stop him attending the public commemorations on Saturday. In a move that threatens to overshadow the 111th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings, a day of solemn remembrance for Australians, Mr Roberts-Smith will front an Anzac Day event in Queensland and defy reported calls by some of his supporters to boycott the annual services and marches. This follows intervention by the doyen of Australia’s four living VC holders, Vietnam War hero Keith Payne, to back the former SAS operator’s right...

Video Transcript and SummarySummary of the video/transcript:This is an on-the-ground investigative-style video by a conservative-leaning content creator (likely Angela Rose or similar) visiting 326 Cedar Avenue in Minneapolis' Cedar-Riverside neighborhood (a heavily Somali/East African area). The creator accuses Rep. Ilhan Omar of attempting to direct $1.46 million (later reduced to $1.03 million) in federal taxpayer funds via a DOJ earmark to Generation Hope MN, a nonprofit described as a substance abuse/addiction recovery clinic for the East African community.Main allegations:The listed address (326 Cedar Ave) is primarily a Sagal Restaurant (Somali food: rice, meat, goat kidneys/liver, etc.), not a medical or...

After he applied to his 599th job, John Burg stopped counting. Burg was laid off as a contractor for the U.S. Agency for International Development in January 2025, after a decades-long career that took him to Thailand, Kosovo and El Salvador. He was one of more than 300,000 federal workers and contractors whose jobs were eliminated by the Department of Government Efficiency. One year, one massive spreadsheet of job leads and only a handful of interviews later, Burg has returned to the job he had in college, doing carpentry jobs for his Takoma Park neighborhood, just outside of Washington. “A...

FR CANTEEN MISSION STATEMENT Showing support and boosting the morale of our military and our allied military and the family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe Come on in, we're open Need a place just to hang out? This is it. We serve coffee, tea,or maybe a tall brew? Topped off with great conversation and music. No worries in the FReeper Canteen Just Hangin' Cafe. Grab a glass and start a conversation. You never know who you might meet in the Cafe. Glad you could join us. Enjoy your stay. Our...

Iran's 'moderate' mask falls completely off as the IRGC takes the wheel. Risk trades are diving on a report from N12 about Ghalibaf leaving the negotiating team. N12 is the digital news brand of Keshet 12, an Israeli free-to-air television channelIf anyone in the market was still holding out hope for a diplomatic off-ramp in the Middle East, it might be time to worry.We just got a pair of headlines out of Iran that paint a very stark picture of where things are heading, and it’s not toward de-escalation.First, Iranian President Pezeshkian took to X to completely torpedo the idea...

The Salt Lake City Tribune is reporting that an openly lesbian city council member running for Congress has been accused by four women of making "unwanted sexual advances."Lopez Chavez says that "nothing inappropriate" happened between her and three other women, while the alleged contact with the fourth woman never occurred."Victoria Petro, who is Lopez Chavez’s fellow City Council member; Maggie Regier, who worked on Stan Penfold’s mayoral campaign in 2019; Hoang Nguyen, who is now a state representative; and Jen Plumb, now a state senator, described their allegations in interviews with The Salt Lake Tribune," reports the newspaper. The incidents...

Food for thought. Iran Is Not Winning. It Is Unraveling. The prevailing narrative on Iran has it almost perfectly reversed. We are told that Tehran is winning a war of wills in the Gulf and that Donald Trump is gambling recklessly with the world’s most sensitive chokepoint. In reality, Iran is not consolidating strength; it is managing decline. And Trump’s play on the Strait of Hormuz has quietly forced energy markets to reprice security—tilting the balance decisively toward the Americas, and away from Europe, Asia and China. The Islamic Republic no longer resembles a confident revolutionary project. With the old...

President Donald Trump has pushed to bring the war with Iran to a speedy end: He stepped up bombing raids. He threatened to wipe out infrastructure. He has attempted diplomacy and ordered a naval blockade. But Tehran is in no rush to cut a deal. Despite the assassinations of its leaders and the damage to an array of military sites, Iran’s regime seems to have benefitted politically from the attacks started by the U.S. and Israel, according to a Western diplomat with knowledge of the conflict and five Western officials, all with knowledge of intelligence assessments on Iran. The regime...

California has licensed at least 17,000 Commercial Drivers' Licenses to illegal aliens, and was forced to revoke them at the risk of losing their federal funding for transportation. The current candidates for governor in California think that's racist, as is requiring truck drivers to speak English and be able to read and understand road signs. Welcome to California, where people live in tents on the sidewalk, poop in the street, rot from drug abuse, and are used as an excuse to fund a multi-billion-dollar NGO complex that can't tell the government where all that money went. MODERATOR: “Should language proficiency...

A job listing, first unearthed by Yellowhammer News on Thursday, reveals the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was hit with an 11-count indictment amid an ongoing search for a new CEO. According to the listing, the nonprofit is willing to pay up to $525,000 per year for a new top executive to lead the SPLC into its “Next Chapter.” Though only posted to the third-party job listing website, Daybook, on Wednesday, the listing has been available on a job board maintained by the headhunting firm, Korn Ferry, since December 19, 2025. According to the listing, the next CEO of the...

Guests visiting the Disneyland Resort in recent months may have noticed new facial recognition technology at the entrances to Disneyland and Disney California Adventure, though guests don’t have to use the system if they choose not to, according to company guidelines. Disney says the technology is designed to streamline guest entry. The system captures an image of a guest’s face at the gate and compares it to the image taken when the ticket or pass was first used. Both images are converted into numerical values to verify a match. ... Traditional entrance lanes remain available. Guests who opt out of...

Virginia’s redistricting referendum, which could net Democrats a 10-1 House seat advantage, is spurring Republican legislation that would expand the borders of Washington, D.C., and cost the state Democratic voters. Georgia Republican Rep. Rich McCormick said Thursday he introduced the Make DC Square Again Act, a bill that would undo the 19th century return of the southwestern part of the district to the state of Virginia, known as retrocession. “The Make DC Square Again Act restores the original ten-mile-square District and ends the artificial advantage Virginia Democrats have recently gained from all the federal bureaucrats moving into Virginia,” McCormick said...

While the idea sounds like a technothriller plot, it’s actually a mix of public business strategy and some very real intelligence-community roots. It wasn't so much a "sneak" way to map the world as it was an open—if often overlooked—part of Niantic’s business model. Here’s the breakdown of how the game connects to global mapping: ### 1. The CIA Connection (The Roots) The theory that Pokémon GO is a front for the CIA stems from the background of Niantic’s CEO, **John Hanke**. * **Keyhole Inc.:** Before Niantic, Hanke founded Keyhole Inc., a geospatial data company. * **In-Q-Tel:** Keyhole was funded...