Free Republic

CIA officer James Erdman told the Senate's Homeland Security Committee that his employer suppressed its own assessments that COVID likely came from a lab. The former head of the Trump administration's investigation into COVID-19's origins told Congress today that the CIA actively frustrated his work by withholding records, retaliating against agency personnel who cooperated with the investigation, and surveilling investigators' computer and phone usage and contact with whistleblowers. "These were Americans being spied upon illegally while executing duties directed by the president and under the director of National Intelligence," James Erdman III, a current CIA officer who led the Office...

Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves called off a planned special session to redraw the state’s Supreme Court districts, even as he said Mississippi could still revisit its congressional map amid a broader GOP redistricting push in the South. Reeves announced Wednesday that he would cancel the special session scheduled to begin next week, which had been called to address Mississippi Supreme Court districts. Several Republican lawmakers and President Donald Trump had pushed Reeves to add congressional redistricting to the agenda as part of a broader effort to create safer Republican seats amid a nationwide redistricting battle. Reeves said the cancellation...

The House will have to take up a major security package for war-torn Ukraine after enough Republicans joined Democrats to give the needed 218 signatures to force a vote. A vote is likely to come in the next few weeks on the package that would marshal $1.3 billion in security aid to Ukraine and allow the war-torn country to get up to $8 billion in additional loan support. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, introduced the bill in the House last year, where it sat for months. It would also slap tighter sanctions...

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R) is accusing the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of storming the office of Department of National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and removing 40 boxes of “MLK and JFK” files headed to her Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets. “The CIA just went in and took 40 boxes out of Tulsi’s office on stuff that we are investigating, MLK and JFK, which by the way, I don’t think Radcliffe knew about this,” Rep. Luna told The Floridian shortly after votes concluded in the House of Representatives.

Barry Blaustein, the former Saturday Night Live writer who helped Eddie Murphy create some of the show’s most memorable characters, has died at the age of 71. Blaustein was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2017, and had recently been diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. Blaustein was hired for the famous sketch comedy show in 1980, during a tumultuous period in SNL history. Producer Jean Doumanian had taken over from show creator Lorne Michaels, resulting in extreme tension behind the scenes. Despite the circumstances, Blaustein clicked with another of the show’s new writers, David Sheffield. Together, the two became formidable...

[Multiple VIDEOS at link........] LOUDON COUNTY, Va. (7News) — A Loudoun County Public Schools student is accused of recording boys without their pants and underwear on while they were using the bathroom at Freedom High School. Multiple sources tell 7News Reporter Nick Minock the student is transgender. Minock’s sources add this student has been using a phone to record naked boys underneath bathroom stalls for three years, more than 40 victims are involved, and school administrators have known about the situation for much longer than the school is letting on. “It's heartbreaking. It's heartbreaking,” said Kristina, a mother of five...

General Motors quietly laid off about 500 to 600 employees this week in a sweeping global shakeup that reportedly blindsided workers with unsettling emails, abrupt virtual meetings and growing fears that artificial intelligence is reshaping the automaker’s workforce. Many of the affected employees — largely IT workers in Michigan, Texas and other locations around the globe — learned their fate during brief meetings that some workers described as cold and scripted. “No appreciation or empathy. No questions. Nothing,” one laid-off employee who spent more than a decade at GM told CNBC. “GM is transforming its Information Technology organization to better...

Elon Musk just defended America better than every politician in Washington combined. Musk: “After World War 2, the US could have basically taken over the world and any country. Like we got nukes, nobody else got nukes. We don’t even have to lose soldiers. Which country do you want?” One nation on earth held a weapon nobody else had. Total dominance. Zero competition. No risk of retaliation. Every empire in history that held that kind of advantage used it. Rome. The Mongols. The British. The Ottomans. They conquered until they collapsed. America had a bigger advantage than all of them...

~ The FReeper Canteen Presents ~ ~ Remembering Our Troops!! ~ Welcome Aboard! Future service members participate in a swearing in ceremony held during the 2023 Wings Over Wayne air show at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, May 21, 2023. The Wings over Wayne Air Show and Science and Technology Expo is a biennial event and has grown to be the largest free air show in North Carolina. (U.S. Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Leighton Lucero) Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring...

The remains of the second missing US soldier who disappeared earlier this month during African Lion, a training exercise in Morocco, have been recovered. The second missing soldier was identified as Spc. Mariyah Symone Collington of Taveras, Florida. She was 19 years old. “Royal Moroccan Armed Forces transported the Soldier’s remains by a Moroccan helicopter to the morgue of Moulay El Hassan Military Hospital in Guelmim, Morocco,” the US Army statement said. Earlier this week, the remains of Lamont Key Jr., the other missing US soldier who disappeared earlier this month during African Lion, a training exercise in Morocco, were...

Georgia GOP Gov. Brian Kemp signaled his state is joining the nationwide redistricting battle Wednesday by calling for a special legislative session to redraw the congressional maps. Kemp signed a proclamation that calls a special session of the Georgia General Assembly for June 17 to address the Supreme Court's historic ruling that is expected to require changes to the state's electoral maps before the 2028 elections. The Supreme Court ruled last month that Louisiana's second majority-Black congressional district relied too heavily on race and was therefore an unconstitutional gerrymander. The special session will only be allowed to cover two topics....

President Trump arrived in China alongside a delegation of billionaire U.S. executives, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, underscoring the high stakes for American companies as Washington and Beijing negotiate over trade, artificial intelligence and the Iran war. The executives — whose combined net worth approaches $1 trillion — lead companies with major business interests in China, despite years of trade disputes between the world's two largest economies… Filmmaker Brett Ratner, who directed the documentary "Melania," was also on the flight. Additional U.S. business leaders who are traveling to Beijing include Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, with...

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Wednesday cast the deciding vote against the latest effort to limit President Donald Trump’s ability to attack Iran — the seventh such time he’s broken with his party since the war began but the first time that Republican deflections made his vote decisive. The war powers resolution failed 49 to 50 as the Pennsylvanian was the only Democrat to vote with Republicans who control the Senate. Three Republicans — U.S. Sens. Rand Paul, of Kentucky; Susan Collins, of Maine; and Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska — voted with Democrats. The vote comes less than a...

Kouri Richins, a Utah woman convicted of fatally poisoning her husband with fentanyl, was sentenced to life without parole for murder on Wednesday. The 35-year-old mother of three, who self-published a children's book on grieving following her husband's death in 2022, was found guilty on all counts in March following a weekslong trial. The Summit County jury reached a verdict after about three hours of deliberations. Eric Richins, 39, was found dead in bed on March 4, 2022. An autopsy determined that he died from fentanyl intoxication, and the level of fentanyl in his blood was approximately five times the...

The Alameda County board of supervisors will pay $36 million to surviving family members of a murdered couple in Dublin, the county counsel announced Tuesday night, after a suit alleged the deaths were preventable because the former sheriff's deputy who killed them failed a psychological test but was hired anyway.

Slap-re bleu! French President Emmanuel Macron was slapped by his wife during a foreign trip last year after she found a steamy message from a younger actress on his phone, according to sensational claims in a new book. Brigitte Macron’s viral attack on her husband — which was caught on cameras — was a result of the steamy messages allegedly sent between her former student, 48, and Iranian-born Golshifteh Farahani, 42, journalist Florian Tardif claimed in an interview with RTL France. “I find you very pretty,” President Macron told Farahani, in one of the messages, according to Tardif, whose book,...

An Alberta judge has quashed a separatist petition, saying the provincial government had a duty to consult with First Nations. Justice Shaina Leonard says the petition should never have been issued. Lawyers for several Alberta First Nations had argued the province’s referendum process and its use by separatists are unconstitutional, as there’s no requirement for Indigenous consultation. They also said separation would violate treaty rights. Lawyers for the province defended the process and pushed for the separatist petition to play out. The separatist group Stay Free Alberta handed in its petition last week and boasted that it had nearly 302,000...

The twelve apostles included "James the son of Zebedee" (Matt. 10:2). God can use overzealous and ambitious people for His glory. Like Peter and Andrew, James and John were fishermen. One day as Jesus walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee, He saw them in a boat with their father Zebedee and some hired servants. When Jesus called them to follow Him, they immediately left the boat and went with Him (Mark 1:19- 20). James and John were zealous and ambitious men—so much so that Jesus nicknamed them "Boanerges," which means, "Sons of Thunder" (Mark 3:17). At times their...

China’s belated confirmation of the visit reflects Beijing’s broader approach to Washington under Trump’s second administration: do not initiate, do not refuse, and do not compromise.U.S. President Donald Trump greets Chinese President Xi Jinping before a bilateral meeting at the Gimhae International Airport terminal in Busan, South Korea, Oct. 30, 2025. On May 11, Beijing announced that U.S. President Donald Trump would visit China from May 13 to 15 – just two days before his summit with President Xi Jinping was due to begin. Trump had publicly confirmed his visit dates back in March. For months, Beijing’s public response...

The NFL ended a mandate that all 32 teams hire a minority coach as an offensive assistant ahead of the 2025 season and not because of recent pressure from Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier, who on Wednesday issued an investigative subpoena to the league over its hiring practices. Uthmeier, who in March threatened potential civil action against the NFL over the league's Rooney Rule, said Wednesday that the NFL had changed diversity language on its website and that it had "capitulated on some of their discriminatory hiring quotas," while arguing that the revisions raise new questions about the policy. He...