Free Republic

A Delaware County man was taken into custody Wednesday after making a verbal threat to commit arson at Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro's home, police say. Richard Franklin, 65, is charged with terroristic threats, ethnic intimidation, harassment and disorderly conduct, Pennsylvania State Police said. Police said a new unit formed to address threats of political violence arrested Franklin. The threat was made a year after Cody Balmer — a man who prosecutors said was "harboring hatred" toward the governor — hopped a fence and intentionally set a fire that burned the governor's mansion after the first night of Passover.

A gin brand co-owned by Ryan Reynolds in Portland has closed a bar just four years after it opened. Aviation American Gin's Tasting Room and Visitor Center held its last tasting on June 28. 'Thank you for all the memories, Portland. Stay weird,' a sign hung on the door read, according to Willamette Week. The bar was opened in 2022 to promote Reynolds's gin brand. The actor once called the tasting room a 'Disneyland for adults.' The closure comes amid a sales slump for Diageo, the drinks giant that co-owns the brand with Reynolds. The London-based beverage giant was down...

A Virginia judge informed state officials in a Tuesday letter that a newly passed ban on modern semiautomatic firearms was blocked across the state, citing the potential for a “treacherous patchwork” within Virginia. Shortly after Democratic Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed the ban on so-called “assault weapons,” SB 749, into law on May 14, pro-Second Amendment organizations, including the National Rifle Association (NRA), Gun Owners of America (GOA), Virginia Citizens Defense League (VCDL), Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) and the Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) filed lawsuits seeking to have the ban invalidated on Second Amendment grounds. The letter from Washington County...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — A federal appeals court rejected an effort to revive the Texas Dream Act on Thursday, leaving in place a ruling that ended in-state tuition for undocumented students at Texas public colleges and universities. The ruling continues to block the Texas Dream Act, which for nearly 25 years allowed eligible undocumented students to qualify for resident tuition rates if they: Had resided in Texas for at least three years; Graduated from a Texas high school; and Signed an affidavit stating their intent to become a lawful permanent resident as soon as possible. In a 2-1 decision, the 5th...

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Thursday rejected President Donald Trump's suggestion that Israel could withdraw from southern Lebanon. He said Israel does not need anyone's approval to maintain its military presence there. "We didn't ask for anyone's approval to enter Lebanon, and we don't need approval to stay in Lebanon," Katz said in a statement, according to The Washington Examiner. "It is our right and duty to defend the residents of the Galilee and Israeli citizens from the threats of the jihadist terror group Hezbollah, which aims to destroy the State of Israel." Katz said Israel would continue to...

I opened up duckduckgo which said my available space on my computer was low. My C drive is 459 GB. This A.M. it was 5.41 GB free of 459 GB. Now it's 2.59 GB free of 459 GB. Something's going on. I have and use CCleaner 7 and Malwarebytes. Windows Defender also. This computer never even reaches half full of the 459. I've also used disc cleanup. Ideas? thnx

The Maine Democratic Party’s state committee voted Wednesday to hold a nominating convention to select a replacement for U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner, according to a party statement and an account of the meeting shared with the Bangor Daily News. More than 100 state committee members attended the meeting and voted in favor of the convention process, the party said in a statement. The convention would include 500 delegates elected proportionally by county committees, along with the entire state committee, according to the account of the meeting.

Planned Parenthood is investing a near-record $47 million into the November midterm elections aiming to unseat the Republicans who voted to cut off the organization from federal funding last year. The “We Decide” campaign from Planned Parenthood Votes — an independent Super PAC affiliated with Planned Parenthood — will target ads and voter outreach in battleground House races in Arizona, California, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. The funding will also go toward key Senate races in Michigan, where Democrats are likely running against former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, and potentially Maine, even though Sen. Susan Collins (R)...

An investigation is underway for the eight Apache helicopter pilots who flew during Saturday’s Salute from the Shore event, a tradition that drew thousands to South Carolina’s beaches, ABC affiliate WPDE reported on Thursday. Military aircraft flew along the coast on Saturday, July 4, from Cherry Grove to Beaufort, and for the first time, Apache helicopters dazzled crowds. There weren’t any details — no specific reason why they were being investigated, just that they were under investigation," the source said. The pilots are part of the South Carolina Army National Guard, Alpha Company. Leading up to the event, WPDE interviewed...

Mexico’s President, Claudia Sheinbaum, announced that her government is looking into taking legal action against agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the latest shooting incident in Texas. “We cannot allow the mistreatment of our brothers who are in the United States,” Sheinbaum said during her morning news conference, referring to a case on Tuesday in Houston. As Breitbart Texas reported, U.S. federal agents from ICE were trying to arrest Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a Mexican national illegally present in the United States, when, according to an agency statement, the man resisted arrest, allegedly used his vehicle to ram an...

State Rep. James Talarico, the Democratic U.S. Senate nominee, raised a staggering $30 million from April through June, his campaign announced Wednesday — more than triple the amount brought in by his Republican opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton. The haul is a record total for a U.S. Senate candidate in the second quarter of an election year, Talarico’s campaign said, noting he has now raised more than $70 million from over 1.5 million donations, including 780,000 individual contributors, since launching his bid in September. “I’m honored to stand alongside more than 780,000 neighbors who are tired of being divided into...

For over a century, post-modern critics have insisted that literature must be liberated from the stifling realm of moralism in order to become truly authentic in its artistic approach. The various platitudes in this vein have been prolific: “Morality ruins creativity,” “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or the proposition of “art for art’s sake,” which all seem less as genuine insights into the faculty of human creativity and more as rhetorical shields against difficult questions relating to the nature of truth. In our own contemporary age, the argument has at least partially mutated, but it has never...

2026 Inside Elections House Ratings 🔴 Republicans: 215 🔵 Democrats: 206 🟡 Tossup: 14 2026 Inside Elections Senate Ratings 🔴 Republicans: 52 🔵 Democrats: 45 🟡 Tossup: 3 Swing States: Maine: 🔴 Tilt R Ohio: 🔴 Tilt R Michigan: 🟡 Tossup North Carolina: 🟡 Tossup Georgia: 🟡 Tossup New Hampshire: 🔵 Tilt D

Questions are mounting over whether some Benton County voters’ primary election ballots were affected after postal workers alleged some Corvallis mail routes were told to prioritize package deliveries over collecting outgoing mail on Election Day.The information was first reported by the Corvallis Gazette-Times, which spoke with two postal workers who said letter carriers were directed by management on May 19 — the day of Oregon’s primary election — to focus on package deliveries. Benton County officials say they were unaware of the allegations until they read the newspaper’s report.

NASA's chief administrator confirmed that the space agency has taken images of objects which can only be described as UFOs. Jared Isaacman, who took the helm in December, said real imagery captured from space could not be explained away as a comet or other natural phenomenon. While he stopped short of calling it proof of alien life, he was confident that the ultimate conclusion would be that the universe is full of extraterrestrial life, which humans have not yet discovered. The NASA administrator told podcast host Jack Gordon: 'We have captured imagery, and this is what President Trump is very...

The Phoenix location is now the second-largest Catholic diocese in the country, trailing only the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, according to the 2025 Official Catholic Directory. 'Something holy is taking place, something historical, something that goes way back, and they're intrigued by that,' said Joyce Coronel, the Diocese of Phoenix manager told the outlet. She called the current wave of interest in the church 'enormous.' Data obtained by the outlet showed the Diocese had 512 adult baptisms in 2025, up 46.7 percent from 2022, 84.8 percent from 2023, and 24 percent from 2024. 'Adult baptisms have increased significantly over the...

Senator John Kennedy somehow managed to squeeze two BRUTAL but hilarious one-liners into a short answer about the Graham Platner controversy. The line that stole the show involved having “an IQ above a toaster”…before taking a direct shot at Senator Schumer. KENNEDY: “With respect to Mr. Platner, he was nominated by the Hamas wing of the Democratic Party, which is in control.” “With respect to the new allegations or revelations about him, I, of course, was completely shocked.” “Who could possibly have seen this coming? It’s not like there were signs or something.” “I’ll tell you who saw it coming....

ANDY Burnham is all but nailed on to become Prime Minister in 11 days time after Labour MPs overwhelmingly backed him. Some 322 colleagues nominated him to replace Sir Keir Starmer on the opening day of nominations today. The Makerfield MP is the sole candidate running to be Labour leader after all his rival bids melted away. It is now virtually impossible for anyone else to get the 81 MPs required to launch a challenge and prolong the contest. Tonight Mr Burnham sought to firm up his party by apologising for Sir Keir’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war – as...

(The Center Square) - More than $225 million in fraud was reported by state education departments and school districts from 2019 to 2026, according to a new report. Open the Books, a federal spending watchdog, and the State Financial Officers Foundation, analyzed six years’ worth of reports from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of the Inspector General. The report found multi-million dollar fraud schemes in school districts across the country and in American territories. OJ Oleka, CEO of the SFOF, said the fraud schemes happened due to a lack of oversight in education departments and the ability of bad...

Downstate Illinois Democratic state representative Carol Ammons is facing allegations she steered state grants to a family member and lied to the FBI, among other misdeeds. Paris Schutz reports.