Free Republic

Hilarious! 😅

Rhode Island has become the first state to take on big ... self-checkout? Legislation passed and signed in the Ocean State limits the number of self-checkout lanes a store is allowed to have, and it's based on the ratio of normal checkout lanes with cashiers. The goal is to protect jobs. Here's WPRI: 'Today, we're protecting jobs and strengthening customer service,' [Rhode Island Governor Dan] McKee said. 'Whether it's helping a customer with an issue, assisting a senior, or ensuring accessibility for people with disabilities, this law is about preserving choice and keeping people at the center of the shopping...

An arrest warrant for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill was issued Thursday, minutes after a 16-count felony indictment was handed down in New Orleans Criminal District Court. The Republican state official’s bond totals $400,000, records show, which include $25,000 for each felony charge. Murrill is accused of eight counts of malfeasance in office and eight counts of intimidation. A New Orleans grand jury reviewed evidence this week about whether Murrill sought to intimidate local New Orleans public officials, including Mayor Helena Moreno and District Attorney Jason Williams, sources said. Murrill told the officials in May that they had imperiled their...

Philadelphia's Salute to Independence Semiquincentennial Parade has been canceled due to extreme heat in the weather forecast, organizers told vendors and participants early Friday morning. The parade was set to take place Friday in Old City. Temperatures are set to exceed 100 degrees and feel even hotter due to humidity as the region enters Day 5 of a heat wave. On Thursday, July 2, the city tied its record high temperature of 103 degrees. Organizers told vendors their first responsibility was the safety of the participants and guests. The production company running the parade was reaching out to participants individually...

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was planning to head to Brussels last month to deliver what would be a bombshell announcement in a meeting with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s top military chiefs. The U.S., he planned to say, was preparing additional cuts to its forces in Europe that would go beyond the canceled deployment of an armored brigade to Poland and the earlier withdrawal of an infantry brigade from Romania, people familiar with the matter said. But Hegseth’s proposal was nixed after it was shared with Marco Rubio—President Trump’s national-security adviser—and other senior officials, the people said. Instead, Hegseth said...

Check out the utter state of policing in the UK. The guys surrounded. The mob circling him are clearly the aggressors. Right. So, he's being closelined to the floor, punched in the face. Guess who the female cop decides to tackle? Oh, you just knew it was coming, didn't you? The people who attacked him get away. Then this happens. I mean, fair enough. That was pretty dumb. Some people in the comments claimed he was just reacting and didn't even know it was a copper. I don't know about that, but if she hadn't charged into the wrong guy,...

Birmingham police arrested an allegedly drunk teen who was amid a fight with three other teenagers. The incident has sparked outrage on the internet with many demanding answers and accountability. According to video footage shared by @Re_mi_gra_tion on X, four teenagers were seen having an argument while bystanders watched the situation unfold. One of the four, wearing a white T-shirt, was described in the post as allegedly drunk. The boy in the white t-shirt was seen backing away as the three other teens began slowly closing in on him. Initially, they appeared to be having a calm conversation until the...

The Democratic establishment is in denial as a socialist insurgency grows inside its own party. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer calls Democrats "a great united party," even as Democratic Socialists of America-backed challengers defeat incumbents and organize as a disciplined voting bloc. Party leaders dismiss them as a fringe, but the DSA is building a "Freedom Caucus of the left" with the power to withhold votes, pressure leadership and force a socialist agenda. Socialism is becoming the Democrats’ answer to MAGA because both movements are responding to the anger of Americans who feel forgotten by providing solutions. The median first-time...

While questions remain about what led investigators to a Vinton County home where 16 children were found living in what authorities described as "deplorable conditions," newly obtained court records show deputies had an arrest warrant for one of the home's occupants the day the children were discovered. Authorities executed a search warrant at the home Tuesday and found the children inside. Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson has described the conditions as "pure evil." Four adult members of the Siders family were arrested and each is charged with 16 felony counts of endangering children. They are being held in the Vinton...

“Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.” That Bible verse, found in Proverbs 14:34, is not a political slogan. It is a moral law of history. Nations rise when justice, truth, humility, courage, and reverence for God shape their public life. They decline when sin becomes normalized, truth is considered subjective, and liberty is severed from biblical virtue. The founders of America understood this better than we realize. After the Revolutionary War, George Washington wrote to the governors of the thirteen states and prayed that God would dispose Americans “to do justice, to love mercy,”...

U.S. officials believed that Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran’s top negotiators while Washington was engaged with Tehran in delicate talks this spring to reach an interim peace deal, according to current and former American officials. Killing senior Iranian leaders had been part of Israel’s strategy from the start of the war. But American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament — spiked during delicate cease-fire negotiations that began in April. Fearful that an Israeli assassination effort would doom the negotiations,...

A year after a University of California, Berkeley professor was killed during a custody dispute in Greece, his family says they're fighting to try to get alleged squatters out of his East Bay home. The family of Przemyslaw Jeziorski said the alleged squatters have been living in the Berkeley home for months, but California's eviction process has made removing them far more complicated. Jeziorski was shot and killed in Greece last July in the middle of a custody battle. The boyfriend of Jeziorski's ex-wife later confessed to the shooting. Jeziorski's ex-wife, Nadia Michelidaki, died by suicide in a Greek prison...

deepening rift within the Democratic Party is coming into sharper focus as the establishment grows frustrated with the rising influence of the party’s socialist wing. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called out her Democratic colleagues for their "disrespectful" welcome of socialists into the "big tent" party. "I think that there are a lot of very disrespectful comments that are coming from some parts of the Democratic Party that are dismissing the voters who elected these individuals," Jayapal told CNN. Her comments come as socialism gains ground within the Democratic Party, with socialist candidates securing major primary victories and unseating established Democrats.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought told Congress the Iran conflict has cost "about $30 billion," six days after his own agency asked lawmakers for $67.1 billion to cover the same conflict's costs.Neither Vought nor lawmakers reconciled the two figures during the June 30 hearing, even as Congress weighs a request that works out to about $412 for each of the nation's estimated 162.8 million individual income tax filers, according to IRS data. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., asked Vought during the hearing how much the conflict, formally called Operation Epic Fury, has cost. "We've spent about $30 billion,"...

Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has appealed to nearly 40 partner countries to urgently transfer Patriot missiles from their stockpiles in July in exchange for future deliveries already contracted for Ukraine, the Defense Ministry said on July 2. The appeal comes after Russia launched one of its largest-ever aerial assaults against Kyiv overnight on July 2, killing at least 22 people and overwhelming Ukraine's air defenses with dozens of ballistic and cruise missiles alongside hundreds of drones. According to the Defense Ministry, Ukraine has already signed contracts for hundreds of PAC-2 Patriot missiles with German support, but deliveries are not expected...

That leads us to Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez. The circumstances of her birth are an example as to how this ruling is going to turn out when looking to the next generation of public officials. In an article on Ramirez from January 2023, CNN noted her mother crossed the Rio Grande River when she was pregnant. Ramirez would be born into a family of Guatemalan immigrants on June 2, 1983, in Chicago, Illinois. In other words, her mother was an illegal alien and had a baby here that became a citizen anyway. Now serving in Congress, you would imagine...

Iran’s shadowy Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps chief emerged from hiding for the first time in months as he mourned alongside the casket of the assassinated former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi – who has been sanctioned by the US and has alleged ties to terrorism abroad – was seen Thursday with his hands on Khamenei’s coffin as Tehran prepared to hold the days-long funeral for the late tyrant, according to photos published online by Iranian state media. Vahidi broke cover when he attended the meeting for Khamenei’s funeral as well as a small service before Iran begins...

As New York baked under another summer heat wave, parts of the Riverdale neighborhood in the Bronx, home to a large Jewish community, lost power after Con Edison shut off electricity to protect its equipment.Con Edison announced the outages Thursday, saying it temporarily cut power to some customers in Riverdale to reduce strain on the electrical grid and speed up service restoration. The utility directed affected residents to report outages and seek relief at city cooling centers.

PITT COUNTY, N.C. (WNCT) – The Mt. Olive Pickle Company says it decided to withdraw from the Great American State Fair in Washington, D.C., after a Confederate flag was included in an exhibit. The company told Nexstar’s WNCT that they were invited to participate in the North Carolina exhibit. “We are proud of our North Carolina roots, and we agreed to be a part of an exhibit, as presented to us, that would represent the best of our great state,” the company, based in Mount Olive, North Carolina, said in a statement... The Confederate flag appeared in a video that...

WATCH: James Talarico Says Bill Banning ‘Gender-Affirming Health Care to Trans Children’ Is ‘Christofascism’ download june 24, 2026, reused 7/2/26AP Photo/Eric Gay Mariane Angela2 Jul 2026574 2:17 Texas Democrat Senate candidate James Talarico was caught on video describing a “Christofascism movement” as he criticized legislation restricting gender-affirming care for transgender minors and the state’s abortion law.