Free Republic

Last week in Frisco, Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. No one in the jury believed his claim of self-defense and instead found that Anthony provoked a confrontation with student Austin Metcalf by going into his school’s tent during a track meet, taunting the students there, refusing to leave despite repeated requests, and finally plunging a knife into Austin’s heart after being nudged. It remains a mystery why exactly Anthony did this, which might explain why so many people even entertained his claim of self-defense. But the facts of the...

Normally, nobody should cheer when a Wisconsin business loses its stock. Jobs, rent, suppliers, and familiar faces that sit behind every taproom door. But Minoqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad has spent years turning beer into a vessel for political contempt, and now the state says the rules caught up with him.Officials seized canned beer from his business, alleging Illinois-brewed beer had been brought into Wisconsin without the required permits or licenses. Bangstad said the state took about $25,000 worth after he failed to pay Wisconsin taxes on beer sold and stored at his Minocqua and Madison, Wisc. locations, as...

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division, New JerseyThe Naval Air Warfare Center Aircraft Division (NAWCAD) conducts research, development, test, evaluation and sustainment for all United States Navy and United States Marine Corps aircraft and aircraft systems. It operates a test wing and ranges, facilities, laboratories and aircraft in support of military operations worldwide.The NAWCAD Lakehurst Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (ALRE) Department executes the timely development, acquisition and sustainment of ALRE systems for the Aircraft Launch and Recovery Equipment (PMA-251) Program Office. The department is responsible for all systems and equipment used for...

A Milwaukee police officer resigned after investigators found he had used automated license plate reader technology to track a woman he was dating nearly 180 times in the span of two months. The Institute for Justice points to a Kansas police chief who allegedly ran an ex-girlfriend's plate more than 200 times. In Kentucky, another officer reportedly tracked an ex hundreds of times over a two-month period. In each instance, the searches were entered into the systems as investigative activity, which means databases built for legitimate criminal work were allegedly repurposed for deeply personal surveillance.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom went public Monday with a dramatic claim: President Trump, he said, had directed the Department of Justice to investigate him and his wife. But the update that followed makes the story much bigger than Newsom’s video. Reporting now points to multiple federal probes around Newsom’s circle, including one related to Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s taxes and another connected to a former Newsom chief of staff that began under Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Eric Daugherty posted the update with the Newsom video as the story started moving: ============================================================= Newsom’s office posted an official transcript of his remarks on...

Irony alert: Baseball players who wore Bible verses on ‘Pride’ caps accused of ‘weaponizing rainbow’The rainbow never belonged to the LGBT movement. It is the LGBT movement which repeatedly weaponizes it.After Christian players for the San Francisco Giants cited verses from Genesis chapter 9 on their team’s specially issued “Pride Night” ball caps, they were accused of hatefully “weaponizing” the rainbow against members of the LGBT community.LGBT sports site Outsports published a commentary lamenting, “Three SF Giants pitchers disgraced themselves at the team’s Pride Night, weaponizing the Pride rainbow and attacking the LGBTQ community.”Outsports’ co-founder Cyd Zigler went further: “As...

🚨JUST IN: Was just on a media briefing call with a senior US officials who confirm the MOU with Iran has been signed and outlines the following from their POV: "In general terms, the deal says if you're willing to behave like a normal country, we're willing to treat you like a normal country. It's performance based." - Strait of Hormuz is open, but it will take a few weeks to get travel back to normal. - A signing ceremony on Friday in Geneva including JD Vance, Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff, and others, and a large Iranian contigent. - The...

The Karmelo Anthony murder trial morphed from a nationally recognized criminal case to a test of whether an American courtroom can protect the integrity of a trial from online mobs. The case centered on Anthony’s fatal stabbing of 17-year-old Austin Metcalf during a Frisco, Texas, high school track meet. On June 9, 2026, a Collin County jury found Anthony guilty of murder. He received a 35-year prison sentence. I joined “Fox Report” with Jon Scott to discuss Judge John Roach’s decision to keep cameras out of the courtroom during Anthony’s trial. Roach defended the integrity of the trial afterward, saying...

The amount of oil in the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve plunged last week to the lowest level since 1983 as the Trump administration continues to deploy emergency oil to minimize the damage from the war with Iran. According to federal data released Monday, US officials released another 8.9 million barrels from the SPR last week alone. That leaves the US emergency oil reserve with 340.3 million barrels of crude, taking out the prior low set in July 2023 under President Joe Biden after Russia invaded Ukraine. The last time the SPR had less oil than today was July 1983, when...

Minnesota is now the latest test site for one of the most radical election experiments in America: voting by phone. A bill introduced in the Minnesota House this spring, HF4962, would write “mobile voting technology” into state election law, defining it as an application on a mobile device used to “complete and submit a ballot” in a secure and encrypted manner. It would also allow voters in jurisdictions that authorize the technology to receive ballots, instructions, and certificates of voter eligibility electronically, then return the ballot electronically through the same system. Translated out of legislative jargon, Minnesota lawmakers are being...

CNN’s Paula Reid pumped the brakes on Monday after California Governor Gavin Newsom (D) took to social media to call himself a victim of President Donald Trump’s revenge tour. In a statement on Monday, Newsom announced the following: In recent days, federal agents have knocked on the doors of family friends and former employees. Not because they found a crime. Because they are simply trying to find one. They are demanding records. They are abusing the grand jury process. Digging through years and years of random documents. Donald Trump isn’t just coming after me because of my mean tweets. He’s...

Taiwan’s newly acquired American attack drones struck maritime targets for the first time last week along the island’s west coast during live-fire drills designed to validate long-range strike systems that would play a crucial role in a potential invasion of the self-governing island.According to Taiwanese military media, the drones successfully struck their offshore targets following a simulated engagement loop where troops rehearsed detecting and identifying the threat. At least three towed flatbed launchers equipped with four Altius drones each were deployed for the exercise.The Republic of China Army received around 2,000 Altius-600 loitering munitions from American defense firm Anduril Industries...

Local businessman Mike Shehadi has purchased a 37-acre property on Ann Arbor Trail and Telegraph in Dearborn Heights to establish a non-profit Islamic cemetery, aiming to provide relief to families during times of grief.

Jean, an Indiana mother, was allegedly m*rdered by John Ford during an attempted robbery at a Facebook Marketplace meetup. Jean was trying to protect her son when she was fatally shot in the head.

Taipei showcased its new American missile launchers through numerous live-fire salvos in a drill this week that Taiwanese troops claimed demonstrated the system’s mobility and long-range strike capabilities.The Republic of China Army fired its recently procured M142 High Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS) on Wednesday as the main highlight of a series of drills designed to validate the island’s precision strike capabilities, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a news release. The Lockheed Martin-made missile systems rehearsed firing missions and rapid redeployment, with the HIMARS relocating to new firing positions within three minutes of launching, according to the ministry.State...

Eight crew members are dead in a B-52 bomber crash shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base, northeast of Los Angeles, on Monday morning, the base said. The B-52 Stratofortress was on a routine test mission that took off at 11:20 a.m. local time at the remote air base, officials said. It is now considered a recovery operation. “It was tragic and unsurvivable,” Colonel James Hayes said at a news conference. Emergency crews responded immediately to the crash involving the bomber, which left a towering black plume in its wake, the base said. Teams are working to notify families...

More than 80 years after Ukraine’s Dormition Cathedral was razed to its foundation during World War II, the reconstructed holy site was again engulfed in flames on Monday. The cathedral, a popular Christian pilgrimage destination, was struck when a wave of Russian attacks across multiple cities killed 11 people and injured dozens more, the Ukrainian government said. Two drones also struck the historic monastic complex in Kyiv that is home to the cathedral, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said in a post on social media. Videos verified by The New York Times show fire crew members on tall cranes, spraying...

When President Trump gave thanks to those who had helped him reach an initial cease-fire agreement with Iran, he praised two world leaders he has called his friends — Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The leaders, he said, had aided the Americans in sealing the deal with the Iranians, or at least had helped set the conditions by not sending oil and gas tankers or other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz to compromise a U.S blockade aimed at pressuring Iran. “He was a total gentleman,” the American president said of Mr. Xi in...

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee formally requested Friday that Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz testify about his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, marking the latest step in the panel’s widening investigation into Epstein and his associates. In a letter to Dershowitz, Rep. James R. Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the committee, asked him to appear on July 9 for an in-person, videotaped transcribed interview in Washington, D.C. The committee wrote that it believes Dershowitz has information that would assist its investigation because of his role as Epstein’s attorney, public reporting, documents released by the Department...

The New York primary is a week from Tuesday. Early voting has already started in the city and continues through Sunday, and while Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not on the ballot, he could be a deciding factor in several key congressional races. There are some years when barely 10% of New York's registered voters cast their ballots in the city's primaries. For the candidates, raising awareness is half the battle. "We need people to vote! Right now, with early voting, we're seeing extremely low turnout," said District 7 Congressional candidate Julie Won. The City Council member is one of several...