Free Republic

Iran’s severely injured supreme leader remained defiant Thursday as he vowed to protect the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile capabilities — warning that America’s only place in the Gulf was “at the bottom of its waters.” Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, who has yet to be seen since becoming the supreme leader following his father’s death, issued another statement via state media rejecting President Trump’s peace terms and the American naval blockade on Iran’s ports. “Ninety million proud and honorable Iranians inside and outside the country regard all of Iran’s identity-based, spiritual, human, scientific, industrial and technological capacities — from nanotechnology and...

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Thursday that other states should redraw their congressional maps in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling that Louisiana’s addition of a second majority-Black congressional district was an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. “The Supreme Court said that in Louisiana’s case, it was blatantly unconstitutional,” Johnson told CNN’s Manu Raju in the Capitol. “And I think that principle applies, probably, in other states as well. And I assume that those governors and legislatures are looking at that closely. We want constitutional maps.”

President Trump has reportedly told his aides to prepare for a prolonged US blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most critical waterway for global energy flows. On Wednesday, the president told Axios he is maintaining the blockade until Iran agrees to a deal over its nuclear program. The pressure campaign carries mounting costs beyond Iran. While the near-total cessation of flows through the key waterway is cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue for Tehran, it’s also choking key corners of the global market. By extending the blockade, Trump is wagering that Iran’s export-dependent economy will...

McDonnell told the council the LAPD is facing a massive funding problem for the 2028 Olympic Games. He warns that without specific city funding, the department will be stretched past its limits to protect both visitors and locals. “The $1 billion budget is for all agencies involved in the Olympics, not just the LAPD, and will be restricted primarily to police officer overtime,” McDonnell said. “LA28 confirmed that they have zero police or public safety budget. And while they do have a security budget, it doesn’t cover law enforcement.” LA28 told KTLA it’s grateful for the $1 billion from Congress,...

The quartet were missing the warmth of Los Angeles, but turned that into a gold-certified classic.By the spring of 1966, the Mamas and the Papas were big news in the United States. They’d gone Top 5 with “California Dreamin’’’, released the previous December 8, and were climbing fast with the follow-up, ‘Monday, Monday.’ That was on its way to a three-week stint at No.1 in the US when, on the chart for April 28, the vocal quartet appeared on a British chart for the first time. If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears LP If You Can Believe...

May 5th - Indiana, Ohio May 12th - Nebraska, West Virginia May 16th - Louisiana - Postponed to discuss redistricting May 19th - Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, Oregon, Pennsylvania

Democrat congressman claimed Wednesday that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has committed the “exact same” kind of war crimes that led to the Nuremburg trials and executions of Nazi submarine captains following World War II. During an appearance on CNN, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) attempted to revive the Democrats’ “double tap” hoax that fizzled out last December, telling host Erin Burnett that Hegseth is “absolutely” guilty of war crimes. “I mean, he’s clearly behind the operation to shoot all these boats in the Caribbean when it’s very unclear that we actually have any confirmation that these so-called narco terrorists, a...

A federal appeals court Wednesday shot down President Donald Trump's request to rehear his appeal of the $83 million defamation case brought by writer E. Jean Carroll In a split vote, a majority of the 12-member 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s motion for a hearing by the full bench of judges, or an “en banc” hearing. The decision opens the way for Trump to ask the Supreme Court to hear his argument of presidential immunity. A federal jury decided in 2024 that Trump defamed Carroll when he disputed her accusation that he sexually abused her in a...

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer was heckled Thursday during a visit to North London, a day after two Jewish men were wounded in a stabbing attack — the latest in a series of incidents that one of Starmer's cabinet members has called an antisemitism emergency. As he arrived in the Golders Green neighborhood, which has long been a hub of the British Jewish community, to meet members of the emergency services, loud booing could be heard and some residents shouted insults including "traitor" and "coward." A string of recent attacks, including arson targeting synagogues and other Jewish sites, has raised...

A former U.S. military vessel built during World War II is now anchored in Costa Rica’s South Pacific, where it has taken on a very different mission: helping protect marine life from illegal fishing.The MODOC, a 1944 vessel originally built for the United States Navy at Levingston Shipyard in Orange, Texas, is now used as a floating operations center by Earthrace Conservation. The organization purchased the former Navy and U.S. Coast Guard ship in 2019 and converted it into a conservation vessel for patrols, surveillance and support work in protected areas. Today, the ship remains based in the waters of...

Explanation: Have you ever thought about surfing on an alien world? We can now expand the search for the perfect wave from Earth to the rest of the Solar System, and beyond. Scientists have developed a new model for simulating waves on other planets. Titan is one of the 274 confirmed moons of Saturn to date, and the only object in the solar system (besides Earth) known to have liquid lakes and seas on its surface. The featured video shows a simulation of waves on Earth (right) and on Titan (left), under the same conditions (the scale marker is in...

A café recently opened in a residential neighborhood of Stockholm that, with its avocado toast and frothy lattes, looks like a conventional spot, except for one distinctive feature: it is managed by artificial intelligence. At Andon Café, some tables are decorated with small plants, the walls are gray, and the décor is minimalist. There is a counter, and behind it works Kajetan Grzelczak, who was hired by “Mona,” an AI agent powered by Google Gemini. “Supply orders are not her strong point,” the young man says, pointing to the shelves behind him. The “wall of shame,” as he calls it,...

U.S. Central Command has requested deployment of the Army’s Long Range Hypersonic Weapon, known as Dark Eagle, to the Middle East, according to a Bloomberg report citing a person with direct knowledge of the matter. A defense official told Fox News Digital the system has reached initial operational capability, marking the first time the U.S. has a land-based hypersonic weapon available for potential use.

Harassment — be it sexual or mental — at the workplace is a serious problem. And this week, a shocking sexual harassment complaint has emerged in which a JPMorgan executive is being sued for her abuse of power to sexually harass and abuse a junior male employee. The complaint was filed on Monday (April 27) in New York County Supreme Court by the plaintiff, who has chosen to hide his identity after receiving threats.

RealRobert🇺🇸@Real_RobNHere it is:King Solomon Reporting:Holy God 🔥🔥🔥 AGAIN@jsolomonReports; U.S. intercepted intelligence confirms beyond a shadow of a doubt that Ukrainian officials were plotting to divert U.S. taxpayer money to Joe Biden’s campaign in the 2024 presidential election as a means to overthrow the United States government.President Trump has had it for months now, waiting for the right time to drop the bomb.2016: The General Prosecutor of Ukraine stated:“There’s enough evidence for me to open a criminal investigation into the illicit effort by Ukrainian officials to try to influence the United States election in favor of Hillary Clinton.”April 30, 2026

Within the last two years, Washington and Canberra have locked onto Damen’s LST-100 designs to meet their demand for littoral maneuvers assets to ferry specialized ground formations to the various archipelagic areas of the Indo-Pacific during a conflict with China, according to separate announcements from the defense contractor. While smaller than the traditional large deck amphibious vessels deployed by both nations, these landing ship transports will allow American and Australian forces to disperse their new littoral formations equipped to counter China’s naval forces with mobile infantry and area denial assets.Known as the McClung-class Landing Ship Mediums in American service, the...

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Jim VandeHei urged Americans to “sober up” from hyperpartisan excess and exercise “self-restraint” in their political language. Mika Brzezinski agreed: “really good point.” We asked whether Joe Scarborough would follow that advice. It took one day to get the answer. On Thursday’s show, Scarborough skipped the sobering up and went straight for the 151-proof stuff. Reacting to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, he lamented that “a child is allowed to hold that position,” calling him an “immature child” who “doesn’t even understand,” before escalating to “a punk—a little punk.”Turning to President Trump, Scarborough defended calling him “a...

LAS VEGAS — Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is trying to run a reelection campaign befitting the neon-drenched, sagebrush-pocked desert he has for five decades called home. President Donald Trump is making that hard. The Republican governor started the year with a sevenfold fundraising advantage, double-digit net favorability ratings and the tailwinds of a swing state the GOP presidential candidate carried for the first time in two decades. Five months later, he finds himself in a neck-and-neck race with Democrat Aaron Ford, the state’s attorney general, yoked to a highly unpopular president, a wobbling economy and a Middle Eastern war that...

Indian magnate Anant Ambani, son of billionaire Mukesh Ambani, has offered to take in at his wildlife sanctuary in India, 80 “cocaine hippos” currently living in Colombia, where the government is planning to cull them. The hippos are descended from animals introduced to the country in the 1980s by Pablo Escobar, one of Colombia’s top drug lords, who sought to have one of the largest private zoos in Latin America with a wide variety of animals. Since then, their population has exploded to around 160 individuals, and their presence is now endangering native species. A few weeks ago, Colombia said...

Lib: "Trump acts like a king ." Interviewer: "Name 1 thing that makes you think that he acts like a king." Lib: "There are a million of them." Interviewer: "Just name 1 or 2" Lib: "Uhh.. I can't think of none right now."