Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Construction is underway on the South Lawn of the White House as construction crews raise steel arches, lighting rigs and broadcast infrastructure to complete a temporary arena for "UFC Freedom 250." The professional fighting event tied to America's 250th anniversary celebration is scheduled for June 14, which marks Flag Day and President Donald Trump's 80th birthday. The most prominent feature currently taking shape is a star-spangled arch that will stretch over the octagon fight cage, featuring a red, white and blue color scheme and extensive lighting effects. The semicircular structure behind the octagon was manufactured in Pennsylvania and...

Yes, an end to the Iran war remains elusive – but that doesn’t mean investors should wait around for it.What if talks fail? Won’t inflation skyrocket? Shouldn’t I wait for this to pass before buying stocks? Those are key questions I have been getting as this conflict drags on. They’re understandable, but they’re also expensive.Since my March column, America “double blockaded” the Strait of Hormuz. Yet little changed. The US blockade only affects Iranian exports and imports. Iran’s oil went mostly to China which, by the way, had stocked up beforehand.Meanwhile, Strait workarounds proliferate. Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline exports were...

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Ori Solomon, the property manager arrested in connection with an illegal biolab at a Las Vegas short-term rental, is no longer facing federal charges. Channel 13 learned that Solomon's federal charges were dismissed without prejudice; however, he still faces a criminal charge in Clark County for the improper disposal of hazardous waste. This all stems from an investigation after local and federal officials discovered what has been called an illegal biological lab inside a home he managed near Washington Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard. Solomon's federal charges came after authorities found multiple firearms at his residence during...

[Catholic Caucus] Abp. Paglia: Francis wanted to ‘adapt doctrine to the new times’ on homosexuality, moral theologyArchbishop Vincenzo Paglia said Pope Francis ordered sweeping reforms of the John Paul II Institute and Pontifical Academy for Life to break with ‘static’ natural law morality.Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia said Pope Francis deliberately sought to “recreate” the Pontifical Academy for Life and the John Paul II Institute in order to move Catholic theology beyond what he described as a “moralistic” framework based on natural law.On May 21, in an interview published by the Italian outlet Settimana News, Paglia gave an extensive account of the...

Claims of racial abuse made by a man accused of fatally stabbing a first-year university student were a "wicked lie", a court has heard. Henry Nowak, 18, from Chafford Hundred in Essex, was killed on 3 December as he walked back from a night out in Southampton. Vickrum Digwa, 23, claims he acted in self-defence after the teenager used a racist insult, punched him and knocked his turban off, Southampton Crown Court heard. Digwa denies charges of murder, manslaughter and carrying a knife in public, while his mother Kiran Kaur, 53, denies assisting an offender. During the trial's closing speeches,...

Iran's new leader Mojtaba Khamenei follows in his father’s footsteps with a series of anti-Israel posts on social media.

The CIA has been accused of gaining secret access to the DNA information of millions of people as the intelligence agency allegedly searches for alien life on Earth. Jason Reza Jorjani, a philosophy PhD and science fiction writer, recently claimed that he spoke with a retired US Army sergeant who served as a 'psychic spy' and knew of the government's secret program to hunt down individuals with extraterrestrial DNA. Jorjani said on the American Alchemy podcast that the CIA, the nation's premier foreign intelligence agency, has a backdoor program that allows it to search through genetic testing companies such as...

Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, is following in his father’s footsteps when it comes to attacking the Jewish state. Khamenei’s official social media account on Tuesday posted a series of posts against Israel, including one describing it as a “cancerous tumor" and one predicting the end of Israel. “The shaken Zionist regime and the cancerous tumor of Israel are approaching the final stages of their wretched existence," read one post. A subsequent post said, “By God’s grace - and in accordance with the decisive and forward-looking words of our martyred Leader ten years ago - the Zionist...

Driving the highway between Loving and Carlsbad on May 19, Jackie Onsurez noticed something unusual rising above an oilfield site operated by NGL Energy Partners. As he got closer, he realized the 70-foot plume was not smoke but a geyser of toxic oil field wastewater — known as produced water — erupting from a pipe. Onsurez, an engineer and member of New Mexico’s State Emergency Response Commission, immediately began calling NGL, 911, the New Mexico Environment Department and local officials. A roughneck arrived moments later and tried unsuccessfully to stop the spray. “The only people with protective gear were the...

Millions of student loan borrowers will need to switch to new repayment plans starting July 1 – and the plan you choose could make a huge difference in how much they owe each month. Roughly 7 million people enrolled in the now-defunct Biden-era SAVE program will need to enroll in new plans as their payments resume after nearly two years in limbo. President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act has cut down a handful of repayment options to just two, including the existing Income-Based Repayment plan, or IBR, and his new Repayment Assistance Plan, known as RAP. “The benefit of...

A chemical tank ruptured at a facility in Washington state, resulting in multiple critical injuries and an unknown number of fatalities, authorities said. The "hazardous materials incident" was reported Tuesday morning at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging, a pulp and paper mill in Longview, fire authorities said. A tank containing white liquor ruptured at approximately 7:15 a.m., according to a joint statement from local authorities and Nippon Dynawave Packaging. Authorities initially referred to the incident as a chemical explosion and then an implosion, before referring to it as a rupture.

In an incident that belongs in Ripley's Believe It or Not!, a dog managed to fire a gun and hit a woman while it was inside a vehicle last week in Nebraska. As KNOP reported, Scottsbluff police officers were called to Short Stop at 2002 Avenue I in the city after receiving a report that a person had been shot by a BB gun at 12:07 p.m. They were later informed while driving to the gas station and convenience store that the incident involved a shotgun. When the police arrived, they were confronted with a shocking truth: the culprit responsible...

Leftists are planning an Oregon “strip club” event to raise money for a group supporting convicted members of an Antifa terrorist cell in Texas. The Williamette Valley Abolition Project will host a May 31 “Sluts 4 Prairieland Defendants” event in Eugene for the sixteen people convicted over a July 2025 shooting at the federal government’s Prairieland Detention Facility for migrants, according to a Friday Instagram announcement. Seven defendants pleaded guilty to terrorism offenses for aiding the Antifa-aligned group that carried out the attack, while jurors convicted nine others of terrorism, attempted murder and other offenses in March. “Come to the...

An unreleased poll appears to undermine the White House’s stated rationale for pivoting away from policies that inflame pharmaceutical companies. The Daily Caller News Foundation obtained a secret poll conducted in October 2025 by President Donald Trump’s longtime pollster Tony Fabrizio finding that 73% of voters expressed concern about childhood vaccine mandates, while a whopping 90% of voters expressed concern about the pharmaceutical industry’s corrupting influence. The October poll was never released. White House officials in media reports have instead cited a more limited poll Fabrizio conducted a month later concluding the issue is a political loser to justify Health...

A Democratic congressman is publicly refusing to back his party’s leading U.S. Senate candidate in Maine, warning voters to reject Graham Platner over a tattoo critics say resembles a Nazi-era symbol. Rep. Jake Auchincloss, D-Mass., told CNN on Monday he considers Platner’s tattoo and his explanations about it disqualifying. “I’ve been clear about Graham Platner. I find that tattoo and his commentary about it to be personally disqualifying,” Auchincloss, who is Jewish, told CNN’s Boris Sanchez. “I hope Maine voters agree with me,” he added. “I think it would be a mistake for the Democratic Party to think that Graham...

Some Republican lawmakers expressed resistance to enacting a new map for this year’s elections with early voting for the state’s June primary beginning Tuesday. The Republican-led South Carolina Senate on Tuesday voted against advancing a new congressional map, ending the redistricting effort in the state for now. The failed vote was a surprise rejection of President Donald Trump, who had urged lawmakers to pass the redrawn map that eliminated the state’s single majority-Black district, represented by longtime Democratic Rep. James Clyburn. The South Carolina House approved the map last week in hopes of putting it into place for this year’s...

Napa Valley stands as a crown jewel of American agriculture, its sun-drenched hills and meticulously tended vines producing some of the world’s most celebrated wines. Yet beneath this prestige lies a growing crisis: the region is pumping groundwater at unsustainable levels, even as regulators pile on costs that make viability increasingly difficult. Experts warn that without meaningful change, Napa’s wine industry risks a slow wither, not from some abstract climate apocalypse, but from a toxic mix of poor resource management and self-defeating government intervention. This overpumping is no temporary hiccup. For years, Napa County has missed its own groundwater sustainability...

California is spending millions of dollars on a program that provides free solar panels, refrigerators, and windows to “low-income” farmworkers, including illegal immigrants. The initiative, called the Farmworker Housing Component of the Low-Income Weatherization Program, is part of California’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar “cap-and-trade” system, which taxes carbon producers and redistributes approximately $3 billion per year to energy programs........." The initiative, called the Farmworker Housing Component of the Low-Income Weatherization Program, is part of California’s sprawling, multibillion-dollar “cap-and-trade” system, which taxes carbon producers and redistributes approximately $3 billion per year to energy programs and left-wing social causes—all under the banner of fighting...

One woman was arrested for suspected property damage on Sunday in Moniteau County. The California Police Department received a report of a woman damaging multiple flags and flag poles over Memorial Day weekend. Witnesses claimed that the suspect, Cystal L. Badolato, was walking down Oak Street and destroying flags put out on display for the holiday. A warrant issued for Badolato's arrest noted that the cost of damages is believed to exceed $750. She was charged with First-Degree Property Damage and booked into the Moniteau County Jail on a $1,000 bond.

A London, Ont., doctor who assessed a patient with inflammatory bowel disease and a history of mental health issues for MAID outside a Tim Hortons location and later personally drove the man to the place his life was ended has agreed to a minimum six months’ supervision.