Free Republic

Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson spent last fall rallying with barista union organizers and urging the public to stop buying Starbucks. Now, with the company building a 2,000-person corporate office in Nashville, Wilson wants everyone to know she's changed her mind. Wilson, a 43-year-old self-described democratic socialist, told The New York Times this week that her earlier anti-Starbucks remarks "were not productive in the sense that they caused more harm than good." The reversal came just months after she stood at a barista union rally as mayor-elect and, in November, declared to KUOW: "I am not buying Starbucks, and you should...

USA has paused a $14bn arms sale to Taiwan, amid significant pressure from China. The shipment was expected to include equipment vital to the island’s defence, but just a week after Trump visited Beijing for meetings with Xi, the deal has been put on hold. US said it was pausing the deal because it needed to preserve its stockpile for the war in Iran – but in the same message, it insisted it still had enough weapons. Hung Cao, the acting US navy secretary, said: “Right now we’re doing a pause in order to make sure we have the munitions...

A European friend approached me today, asking about guns in the US, saying, “There are so many guns in your country. It will take a long time to collect them all and get rid of them.” She was shocked when I responded, “We don’t want to get rid of them.” Young adults ages 18 and 19, along with gang-related shootings and suicide, not school shootings, account for most of the gun deaths attributed to people under the age of 20. Photo courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. ==================================================================== After she got over her immediate horror and confusion, she asked,...

The recent fatal bear attack where 33-Year-Old Anthony Pollio was killed by a bear, about May 3, 2026, on the Mount Brown trail in Glacier National Park, is not the first bear attack on the trail. Some online sources are saying an empty can of bear spray was found at the attack site. If so, the attack is another case where bear spray was used in defense against a bear, and people died.There have been at least nine deaths associated with the use of bear spray in defense against a bear. There have not been any recorded deaths when a...

CONCORD, N.C. (AP) — Kyle Busch, a two-time Cup Series champion who won more races than anyone across NASCAR’s three national series, has died at 41. The Busch Family, Richard Childress Racing and NASCAR issued a joint statement Thursday saying that Busch died after being hospitalized. No cause of death was given. Busch’s family said earlier Thursday that he was hospitalized with a “severe illness,” three days before he was to compete at the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway. “Our entire NASCAR family is heartbroken by the loss of Kyle Busch,” the statement said. “A future Hall of Famer,...

Los Angeles hosts the nation’s largest unsheltered homeless population. In recent years, despite billions in city and county spending, L.A.’s once-pristine streets have become littered with tents, drugs, and feces. City leaders have made elaborate promises about managing the homeless problem, but few seem to have asked a simple question: Where, exactly, are these people coming from? There is a reason for that. In 2020, the city-county Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) found that one-third of “unsheltered Angelenos” became homeless outside of Los Angeles County. In 2024, the nonprofit RAND Corporation reported that 41 percent of the street homeless...

In Los Angeles, it is a crime and internet sleuths are actively doing their thing... Yesterday, someone was captured in broad daylight in the Sherman Oaks / Valley Village / Studio City areas stealing campaign signs of Spencer Pratt, the surging candidate for mayor of Los Angeles. One security camera video shows the perp pulling-up a Pratt sign from privately owned property and walking away with it, which is a violation of California Penal Code 490.2, and elsewhere California Penal Code Section 594 for defacing, damaging, or vandalizing the signs. It is unclear whether another person walking by at that...

Police are investigating Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor over potential sex crimes, it is understood. Detectives are keen to speak to a woman who claims she was taken to the former prince's home in Windsor "for sexual purposes". And they are appealing for other potential Epstein survivors to come forward in a complex and potentially expanding inquiry that's expected to last for many months. Andrew remains under investigation and strongly denies any wrongdoing. Police have already spoken to a range of witnesses since the suspect was arrested, on his 66th birthday, in a pre-dawn raid on his new Norfolk home three months ago....

“Trump has done so much damage to libtardery that the Democrats will need a decade of uninterrupted power to undo it, which they're not going to get.” —Matt Forney on X. If you learned anything from this week’s extravaganza in Beijing, it is that Donald Trump is aggressively re-aligning world relations so that the USA does not end up one of the losers in the global resource scramble that lurks darkly behind all current events. China does not intend to be an eventual loser, either, though it has lost a lot of traction lately. The Eurolands are certainly the main...

An Ebola treatment center in the epicenter of the deadly outbreak in eastern Congo was set on fire Thursday after angry residents clashed with authorities over the body of a suspected victim. Rwampara Hospital was attacked by local youths attempting to retrieve the body of a friend who had reportedly died of Ebola, a witness told The Associated Press. "The police intervened to try to calm the situation, but unfortunately they were unsuccessful," Alexis Burata, a local student who said he was in the area, told the outlet. "The young people ended up setting fire to the center. That’s the...

A patient recently came to see me, saying she was furious with a friend. What began as an ordinary disappointment—a canceled dinner and a text returned too late—had become something far larger and far more charged. The friend was now “toxic.” The exchange had become a “violation of boundaries.” The hurt itself had been elevated into “trauma.” She had screenshots and a polished story about what the episode revealed about her friend’s pathology. What she didn’t have was introspection. She was no longer asking the most psychologically useful questions: Could this have been carelessness rather than ill intent? Was the...

Thomas Massie built his entire political brand around saying no. ... This is how Thomas Massie destroyed himself while trying to destroy Trump — and how Ed Gallrein ended his career in Congress.

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem 🇮🇱(5/22/26)[Prayer]PersonalitiesDeuteronomy 28:12-23 15 But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee: 16 Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field. 17 Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store. 18 Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine,...

The NYU Executive Committee of the Student Government Assembly expressed “profound disappointment” that their graduation speaker was to be internationally renowned social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. In a Statement on All-University Commencement, the committee asked the administration to “reconsider.” “The pivot from figures of universal inspiration,” NYU students complained, “to an individual who has been accused of making homophobic remarks in a class and public misconceptions about transgender identity, and has promoted disturbing rhetoric around antiracism, social justice, and diversity, equity and inclusion, claiming that the abolition of DEI may be the only way out of the Leftist ideological capture of...

The Right won the 2024 election by successfully assembling a coalition capable of competing nationally. Whether it can consolidate that power into a lasting majority is far less certain. The coalition that returned Trump to the White House is beginning to fracture. While support for the agenda the president ran on remains strong, confidence that it will be secured is fading. And that perception, whether justified or not, is lethal. Voters in this coalition did not turn out for incremental change, executive orders, temporary regulatory reform, or procedural wins. They voted for a decisive shift in national direction—mass deportations, accountability...

After his company Bolt lost 97% of its value, Ryan Breslow gutted it, saying HR was “creating problems that didn’t exist.” When Ryan Breslow’s fintech company Bolt lost $10.7 billion in value, he had a radical diagnosis: HR needed to go. “They were creating problems that didn’t exist,” Breslow, 31, said at Fortune’s Workforce Innovation Summit. “Those problems disappeared when I let them go.”

I am really proud of our family and how they fought back against communism, especially on the day that this criminal was indicted. As my late parents used to say, every Cuban “tiene su cuento,” which was their way of saying that everyone has a story. Raul Castro’s indictment reminded me of my father’s cousin, Ignacio Segurola. My father and two brothers, plus Ignacio, grew up together in a small town in central Cuba. They went to Jesuit schools, played baseball, rode bicycles, and did some girl-watching. My father became a banker, Ignacio became a doctor, another one an architect,...

...Now with extra deep thoughts!

Since 14 April, Morocco has been conducting large-scale deportation operations targeting sub-Saharan Africans migrating to Europe, reportedly arresting over 100 per day, local sources told Middle East Eye. According to Moroccan human rights groups, around 800 people were detained during coordinated raids in the forests between Fnideq and Belyounech, in the northern tip of the North African state, where many were sheltering before attempting to reach Europe. The operation is still ongoing, with authorities then moving their focus to operations in and around Tangier. Witnesses have described mass arrests, beatings, racist abuse and forced transfers toward the Algerian border. Sudanese...

Millions watched in awe earlier this year as NASA's Artemis II crew completed a daring trip around the moon – but it seems not everyone was convinced. A viral video has captured the painfully awkward moment a conspiracy theorist accosted the astronauts on Capitol Hill. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen were confronted by an aggressive man who accused them of faking the moon mission. 'Stop lying! Stop acting! You all never went to space,' the man shouted as he filmed himself approaching the crew. The befuddled crew simply stood in uncomfortable silence as the man berated...