Free Republic

Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said he'd leave the Democratic Party if it becomes the "anti-Israel party," though he signaled he had no plans to imminently depart the caucus. Why it matters: Republicans currently hold a narrow Senate majority, but with midterm elections looming, Fetterman's comments could be a blow to Democrats should they flip four seats in November and regain control. Fetterman acknowledged the Democrats' difficult Senate math when speaking Wednesday at The Hill Nation Summit: "And if we flip those four seats, then I would be 51, and ... watch what I do." He continued, "I'm the guy that...

Unaccountable ‘mission’ directors could bring a Ben & Jerry’s-style meltdown without helping humanity. As OpenAI and Anthropic head toward initial public offerings, investors may be surprised to learn who controls each of these companies. It isn’t their CEOs or investors. Rather, both companies are controlled by “mission” directors, who may own little or no equity, who aren’t accountable to investors and whose missions allow—or require—them to sacrifice stockholder profits for the benefit of humanity. They pose a risk to investors, especially at OpenAI, and it isn’t clear they’ll help benefit humanity. The only other company to use such directors is...

The British government on Thursday urged FIFA to investigate Argentina’s team after players posed with a banner claiming sovereignty over the contested Falkland Islands. Argentina beat England 2-1 in a World Cup semifinal on Wednesday in Atlanta. During post-match celebrations, Argentine players held a banner handed over by fans in the stands, reading “Las Malvinas son Argentinas” — “The Malvinas are Argentine.” Argentina refers to the Falkland Islands as Islas Malvinas. They were invaded in 1982 under orders from Argentina’s then-military dictatorship, triggering a 10-week war won by Britain. U.K. Business Secretary Peter Kyle said the players’ behavior was “entirely...

DOHA — With the U.S. blockade of the important waterway back on amid renewed hostilities in Iran, President Donald Trump announced that he would secure the Strait of Hormuz by posting an old man who asks you three questions before you may pass. The old man, who was reportedly discovered by U.S. military officials as he guarded a rickety bridge over a chasm in rural Britain known as the Gorge of Eternal Peril, will now be stationed on a dinghy in the Strait of Hormuz, where he will bar the passage of any vessel unless its crew can answer...

A Florida beach erupted into chaos Wednesday when an ultra-low-altitude Blue Angels flyover sent tents, chairs and umbrellas flying into the air — leaving spectators on the shoreline stunned as the jet engines roared just feet above their heads, wild video shows. The “Breakfast with the Blues” annual flyover — part of the Pensacola Beach Air Show — sent sunbathers into a frenzy as the specialized US Navy jets flew terrifyingly close to the shore — stirring up clouds of sand and sending beach gear airborne, WEAR News reported. Tents, beach chairs and umbrellas were tossed around by the thrust...

According to preliminary information, the two boats left Myanmar's western state of Rakhine in late June carrying mostly Rohingya passengers, including some who had traveled from refugee camps across the border in Bangladesh, according to a statement from the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. One boat, believed to have been carrying around 250 people, lost contact shortly after departure. A second boat, reportedly carrying 280 people, is believed to have sunk off Myanmar's Ayeyarwady coast on July 8. The Rohingya, who have in recent years fled both Myanmar and Bangladesh's squalid refugee camps...

Sen. Thom Tillis (N.C.), a retiring Republican who has become one of the most vocal critics of the Trump administration in his party, delivered harsh words for President Trump’s top-priority voter ID legislation on the Senate floor Thursday morning, saying he would stall it if the legislation came again to the Senate. “If I see a reconciliation bill come from the House with another failed attempt to confuse this election, I will use every device I have available to slow down the wheels of government until people cop a clue and do the math,” Tillis said, nearly shouting, on the...

The US Geological Survey detected a magnitude 3.3 quake at 9.20am ET Thursday morning right along the Yellowstone River inside the Wyoming park. The minor quake's epicenter was recorded just seven miles from the Yellowstone caldera, the bowl-shaped volcanic depression within the famous national park. Last year, scientists discovered tens of thousands of previously unrecorded earthquakes which could be hinting that Yellowstone's supervolcano is building up to an eruption. An international research team used AI to listen to 15 years of Yellowstone recordings and discovered 86,000 tiny earthquakes that human experts had missed. That was about ten times the number...

The WNBA wasn’t going to suspend Alyssa Thomas after landing her fist on Caitlin Clark’s throat until the NBA got involved. According to the Sports Business Journal, NBA commissioner Adam Silver had to implore WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert to suspend Thomas. A WNBA spokesperson told SBJ the report was “absolutely false.” Thomas was ultimately suspended one game and assessed a Flagrant 2 penalty while getting fined $1,000 for “recklessly making contact with her fist to the throat area.” According to the report, Engelbert originally thought no foul called on the play originally made a suspension after the fact too steep...

Be Careful What You Write Online: ‘Dark Triad’ Traits Are Detectable, Facebook Study ShowsIn a Nutshell *A new study found machine learning can estimate where people fall on the Dark Triad traits (narcissism, *Machiavellianism, and psychopathy) from Facebook posts. *No single model proved reliably better or worse than the others on systematic prediction errors (bias); the gaps between models on that measure were small and statistically negligible. *Words people use in social media posts, especially language tied to perception, action, and emotional tone, were consistently among the strongest signals linking text to Dark Triad traits. Every time someone fires off...

People living with HIV are about twice as likely as their HIV-negative peers to develop herpes zoster—better known as shingles—but vaccination can close the gap, according to a Canadian study published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has opened up a commanding lead over Republican Steve Hilton just weeks after the pair advanced from California’s primary, according to a new poll. The survey from the Public Policy Institute of California found Becerra leading Hilton by 25 percentage points, with 61% of likely voters backing the former health secretary compared to 36% for the ex-Fox News host turned Republican candidate. The results mark a dramatic shift from California’s June 2 blanket primary, when Becerra finished first with about 28.1% of the vote and Hilton followed closely behind with roughly 24.7% Support remained overwhelmingly...

Third Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated medical professor’s case after judge threw out defamation claims A federal appeals court reinstated a medical professor’s defamation and civil rights retaliation case against the University of Pittsburgh last week over an article he wrote criticizing affirmative action. “I have devoted my career to caring for patients, training the next generation of physicians, and contributing to scholarship within my field. When I published this article, I was doing the same thing,” Dr. Norman Wang said in a statement after the ruling. In its July 7 opinion, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided that...

Why many traditional Catholics believe the SSPX is answering Our Lady’s callOur Lady in Fatima, Akita, La Salette, and Good Success foretold the confusion, division, and moral collapse now visible in the Vatican's standoff with the SSPX.In moments of confusion and division within the Church, many faithful Catholics turn to the messages Our Lady has given over the centuries.These private revelations – approved ones like Fatima, Akita, La Salette, and Good Success – are not articles of faith, but they have offered comfort and warning to generations facing crisis. Today, as tensions between the Vatican and the Society of Saint...

Leo XIV is continuing Pope Francis’ war against traditional CatholicsPope Francis’s 2021 motu proprio ‘Traditionis Custodes’ marked the opening shot in a campaign against Catholic tradition that has only intensified under Pope Leo XIV.Catholics of goodwill see it. The machinations have been well-documented. Popes Francis and Leo have each steered the holy Barque of Peter into a war footing; a war in which the Vatican is the aggressor.It is not a war “against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places” (Ephesians 6). Nor is it a...

Savanah Hernandez, a reporter for TPUSA Frontlines, says the final restraining order sought against her by members of the Ostroushko family has been voluntarily dismissed, marking another legal setback for the Minnesota family charged with assaulting her during an anti-ICE protest earlier this year. The attack was caught on camera. Hernandez announced on social media that Paige Ostroushko voluntarily dismissed her petition for a restraining order after Chris and DeYanna Ostroushko previously failed to obtain permanent orders against the journalist in Hennepin County court. "Paige Ostroushko, who violently assaulted me in Minneapolis, has voluntarily dismissed her restraining order against me...

Hong Kong 's top security official said Thursday that booksellers should ensure the titles they sell do not harm national security, a day after five people linked to two bookstores were arrested. The police operation on Wednesday was the third round of arrests targeting independent bookstores within four months. Critics have raised concerns over the city's freedom of expression under what they called a unclear red line. But Secretary for Security Chris Tang told reporters at the legislative building that the law is clear. The exteriors of the Greenfield Book Store is seen in Mong Kok district, Hong Kong, on...

A 43-year-old Trump-hating American woman named Jamey Carney decided to move to Ireland to escape the Bad Orange Man’s reign of terror, shack up with her Palestinian asylum seeker boyfriend, and… well, that misadventure ended about as well as a sentence that begins “I thought the pitbull looked cute, so I petted it…” or “But I thought I could fly…” Spoiler Alert: Her Muslim dreamboat got mad at the uppity infidel and bludgeoned her to death. Who could’ve seen that coming except anybody with eyes? It’s kind of amazing how Darwinism results in a self-cleaning gene pool. No, I would...

A groundbreaking mission that explored Pluto and distant solar system objects in unprecedented detail has awakened from its longest sleep ever — and it’s 5.9 billion miles (9.5 billion kilometers) from Earth. NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft went into a planned hibernation mode on August 7, 2025, and woke up on June 23 using commands stored on its main computer. The mission’s flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, confirmed that New Horizons is in great shape and ready to transmit a stream of science data gathered during hibernation from its location in the region...

The Iranian regime unveiled a shocking giant mural in central Tehran on Wednesday depicting President Donald Trump lying in a coffin and captioned with the brazen threat, “We kill Trump.” The mural, erected in Tehran’s Islamic Revolution Square, shows Trump with his hands folded across his chest and his face protruding from the coffin. It was unveiled just weeks after the funeral of Iran’s late Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, killed at the outset of the U.S. and Israel’s conflict with Iran, where crowds were filmed chanting slogans calling for death to America. It remains unclear who commissioned the mural,...