Free Republic

On Wednesday's CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish played a campaign ad from Rick Jackson, winner of Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial primary, in which Jackson promised voters that criminal illegals who “commit sick, violent crimes, victimize our children, and get away with murder” would, if he becomes governor, “end up deported or departed.” The spot featured the case of José Antonio Ibarra, the illegal immigrant who murdered Laken Riley. Cornish pounced: “I said [saw?] the death threat at the end of that.” She added that what she heard was “culture war.” According to Cornish, the message was simply telling voters, “Hey,...

Social promotion and efforts to ban standardized tests are ways of shielding adults from accountability.If you stare really hard—and maybe squint—at last week’s federal report on long-term K-12 education trends in the U.S., there is some good news. Math and reading scores among 9-year-olds have improved a little since 2022, and most of the gains were driven by struggling students. It’s a signal that those in the youngest cohort of test takers are recovering from the disastrous pandemic school closures. The good news pretty much ends there. Among 13-year-olds in nearly every demographic group, test scores in math and reading...

For the longest time, Seattle has held a terrible grudge against police. It all started back in 2020, when the whole “defund the police” campaign was in full swing following the death of George Floyd. The Seattle City Council acted quickly, slashing the police budget by a whopping 20%. This, in turn, led to less support for our officers, resulting in hundreds of officer resignations. And where has that gotten them? Nowhere…fast. Several businesses have closed down in the area due to the increase in rampant violence. And now a new report suggests that, under the leadership of a Democratic...

Israel is the only state to have legalised torture through a ruling by its own Supreme Court. An expert who has documented these violations since 1983 says, “What the world knows today is less than 5% of what has actually occurred.” In Bodies of Evidence, an Al Jazeera original investigative documentary, we examine the use of sexual violence, torture, and degradation against Palestinian detainees, practices that rights groups and experts say have been systematically employed by Israeli military, intelligence, and prison authorities for decades.

The parent company of Sam Adams said its Boston Taproom ran out of the brand's flagship Boston Lager over the weekend because Scotland soccer fans in Boston for the 2026 World Cup drank four times as much as the bar usually sells. Boston Beer Co. said in a news release that from Thursday to Sunday, the Tartan Army -- Scotland's supporters organization -- drank four times what the company normally stocks during a typical four-day holiday stretch like the Fourth of July, adding that it had to schedule an emergency delivery of beer Saturday morning and are adding extra deliveries...

Ukraine is seeking an additional $20 billion in military funding from its allies, Defence ​Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said on Wednesday at a joint ‌press conference with his Dutch counterpart. A Ukrainian defence source told Reuters last week that Ukraine would make the request on Thursday at a meeting ​of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, an alliance of ​more than 50 countries also known as the Ramstein ⁠group that provides financial and military aid for Kyiv. Fedorov ​said that of the nearly $40 billion funding already announced, Ukraine saw $24 ​billion in the supply schedule. He added that Ukraine has been...

Walter Parazaider, a co-founding member of Chicago who was with the band from its start in 1967 through his retirement in 2017, died Wednesday, family members announced. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for six years.Parazaider played reed instruments in the band for that 50-year run, and may be most easily recognized for his flute solo in “Colour My World,” though he was more often found on the saxophone. In the band’s earliest conception, he was the only horn player, and he is often credited as the one whose idea it was to bring an entire horn section in...

During a break at the G7 summit, cameras captured a series of informal and candid moments between world leaders as they engaged in casual conversations away from the formal agenda. The most talked-about moment came from an interaction between Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and US President Donald Trump, where their body language and expressions quickly became the focus of online discussion. Other leaders were also seen chatting, greeting each other, and exchanging remarks in a more relaxed atmosphere, offering a rare glimpse into the informal side of high-level diplomacy. The clip has since gone viral, with viewers analyzing gestures,...

The History Guy remembers the battle of the Meuse Argonne, the largest and deadliest battle in the history of the United States army. The episode discusses events and shows photographs depicting a period of war, which some viewers may find disturbing. The History Guy uses images that are in the Public Domain. As photographs of actual events are often not available, I will sometimes use photographs of similar events or objects for illustration. The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered (formerly "Five Minutes of History") is the place to find short snippets of forgotten history from five to fifteen...

Two Utah court clerks have been accused of flipping off surveillance cameras as they snuck illegal migrants out of a courthouse to help them evade Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, according to federal officials. Jennifer Joma, 27, and Lauren Kelsey Morrow, 26, were indicted on June 3 after they allegedly carried out the sneaky scheme at Logan City Municipal Justice Court in Salt Lake City on April 9, court documents stated. The clerks were working at the courthouse when they saw an ICE Enforcement and Removal Officer (ICE-ERO) enter 'to arrest an illegal alien for immigration related charges,' the...

Daveigh Chase, the former child actor who voiced the character of heroic Lilo in 2002’s acclaimed Lilo & Stitch and that same year was named Best Villain by MTV Movies Awards for her effectively creepy portrayal of the evil Samara Morgan in The Ring, died Tuesday of complications from meningitis. She was 35. Her death was announced to TMZ by her boyfriend Roy Hernandez, who had just this week set up a GoFundMe page for the ailing Chase. Hernandez wrote that recently “Daveigh was diagnosed with meningitis and several serious blood infections. Her condition has become critical, and the doctors...

An Obama-appointed judge in Atlanta, Georgia, who is accused of having sex with a high-ranking police officer in her chambers and lying about it, said “there is no excuse” for her behavior. Judge Eleanor Ross of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia recently revised apology letters to her former clerks who allegedly heard the judge and the officer having sex, Bloomberg Law reported Thursday. The three-line documents were revised after reports said Ross failed to address her conduct as the judiciary required her to do. The Thursday letter read: I am profoundly sorry for exposing you...

WASHINGTON -- Dana White stood at the dais with the winning fighters flanking him at 3 a.m. Monday, hours after the UFC president and CEO completed one of the more audacious events of his career, a fight card on the South Lawn of the White House. He made one thing clear. He's never doing this again. "I can't afford it," White said. "I'll never do the Sphere again, and we'll never do this again." White kept to what he insisted for months, that the White House card would be a "one-of-one" event and not the beginning of a trend, similar...

In a stunning departure from decades of established US foreign policy, President Donald Trump revealed that a forthcoming peace agreement with Iran will likely allow the regime to retain its conventional ballistic missiles. Standing before reporters at the G7 meeting in France, the President argued that a complete ban is unrealistic because 'they got to have some.' 'What am I going to do? Am I going to let Saudi Arabia have missiles, but they can't have them?' Trump said during the briefing. 'Missiles aren't the problem. They hurt a little location, but they don't blow up the planet.' A reporter...

Most visitors hit the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Vatican, then leave Rome thinking they have seen it all. This guide goes deeper. You will discover 10 hidden gems in Rome that most tourists miss, including secret viewpoints, underrated museums, underground Rome history, and quiet local corners you can actually enjoy without the crowds.From the haunting Non-Catholic Cemetery and the Pyramid of Cestius to the Aventine Hill Orange Garden and the Knights of Malta keyhole view, this is off the beaten path Rome at its best. We step into Baroque Rome at Chiesa del Gesù, explore the Baths of...

(WIFR) - Meta believes the “Future is for Everyone.” The tech industry giant announced legally blind veterans in America can get a free pair of its Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses. While most people probably know the spectacles as being used to record hands-free first-person point-of-view content with its camera, its built-in multimodal AI assistant can understand auditory requests and process visual cues. Meta says the initiative to get the wearable tech in the hands and on the heads of blind veterans is designed to help them live more independently. The Meta AI, which is built on Meta’s large language model...

The Pentagon artificial intelligence chief on Monday said Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot is tantamount to national security in a sworn statement that noted xAI’s technology has been used throughout the Iran war. Cameron Stanley, the chief digital and artificial intelligence officer for the Department of Defense, wrote that the chatbot “enabled U.S. forces to deploy over 2,000 munitions to 2,000 distinct targets within 96 hours during Operation Epic Fury, a testament to the greatly increased operational efficiency made possible by the Grok Gov Model.”Stanley’s statements were used as evidence in efforts by the Trump administration to preserve the xAi data...

Over 7,700 suspected "ghost students" have now been flagged in the Minnesota public education system. This comes as the federal government is working to crack down on fraudsters and scammers across the nation. Scammers known as "ghost students" enroll in colleges, claim financial aid, then disappear with taxpayer funds, and the Minnesota State system, which has 33 colleges and universities, has now identified over 7,700 in the 2024-2025 school year in the public university system. The Minnesota education system was recently given $3 million to verify students as well as identify scammers. Department of Education Secretary Linda McMahon has previously...

The United States on Wednesday released the official text of the memorandum of understanding reached over the weekend with Iran. A senior US administration official read out the 14-point document, which spells out provisions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, easing certain financial restrictions on Iran and sets out expectations for addressing Iran’s nuclear program during future technical talks. Titled the “Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the document was released after outcry that its text hadn’t been released publicly. “This is fundamentally an agreement that allows us to open...

Bonnie Tyler, a Welsh singer and songwriter, woke up from her medically induced coma on June 15, but she “remains very unwell” according to her official website, and she is in intensive care in Faro, Portugal. “Although her condition is improving it is a slow process,” her website said. “Her doctors remain confident that she will make a good recovery but it is going to take time.” The 75-year-old singer was rushed to the hospital on April 30, The U.S. Sun reported. Tyler was then put into a medically induced coma last month after complications from emergency intestinal surgery for...