Free Republic

Each year, millions more graduates are thrust into China’s already saturated jobs market. The situation for this year’s cohort, flooding into an increasingly crowded pool of applicants fighting for an insufficient number of positions, is arguably the bleakest yet. The competition is intense, especially for jobs that offer weekends off and proper social insurance With more than 10 million Chinese students graduating each year since 2022, a figure that is only growing, it is the scale of the situation that is an exacerbating factor, with authorities tasked with finding meaningful work for the equivalent of a medium-sized European nation each...

Restaurant chain Cracker Barrel announced Monday that its current chief executive officer, Julie Masino, will step down as CEO and board member, effective Aug. 10. Cracker Barrel shared the news in a press release announcing David Deno as the company's new CEO and board member, effective the same date. According to the release, Masino will remain with the company until Oct. 9 "in an advisory capacity." Deno previously served as the CEO of Bloomin' Brands, the company behind Outback Steakhouse, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Bonefish Grill and more. "Cracker Barrel is a truly iconic American brand, defined by its unique combination...

ringleader in Minnesota’s massive Feeding Our Future scandal has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for attempting to purchase a not-guilty verdict with a staggering $120,000 cash bribe. Abdiaziz Shafii Farah, 37, was sentenced Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Eric Tostrud for his role in the brazen plot to bribe a federal juror during his 2024 fraud trial, the Justice Department announced Friday. Farah had already been sentenced to 28 years in prison for helping steal tens of millions of dollars from a taxpayer-funded program intended to feed needy children during the COVID pandemic. But stealing from hungry...

Amid Cuba’s months-long fuel and electricity crisis, one of the island’s most iconic exports is feeling the pinch: cigars. Retailers say the industry is facing one of the worst supply squeeze in history as blackouts, fuel shortages and shipping disruptions make it nearly impossible to produce luxury cigars and get them off the island in the temperature controlled conditions they require. “I’ve been telling clients, ‘Listen, it’s been months since I can get them,’” said Manu Harit, a London-based cigar specialist whose business is almost entirely built on Cuban cigars. Over the last year, he said, orders have been filled...

I went into Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey expecting a cinematic event. Instead, I saw one of the worst movies ever made. I made it to the 90-minute mark before walking out, but I really should have bailed a half-hour in. We have been utterly bamboozled. As someone who appreciates a script that actually works, I can tell you this screenplay is nonsensical. Combine that with unwatchable lighting and completely incomprehensible audio, and the whole production just falls apart on screen. Matt Damon is completely miscast and entirely too soft to play Odysseus. Honestly, the campy old Steve Reeves movies or Sinbad...

[Catholic Caucus] Lawyer for Rupnik’s alleged abuse victims decries ‘total secrecy’ of trialA lawyer representing five accusers of disgraced Fr. Marko Rupnik said that the women have ‘not been summoned’ and don’t even know the names of the judges in the trial.A lawyer representing five of the women who have accused Father Marko Ivan Rupnik of physical and psychological abuse has decried the proceedings of his trial for neglecting the “minimum” needed for “justice.”Reports emerged earlier this month from MessainLatino and AdVaticanum that Rupnik was acquitted in his Vatican canonical criminal trial of all charges of “violence” related to his...

Democrats blocked Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman from speaking during the Bronx Dominican Day parade on Sunday — with one state pol admitting she snubbed him over ties to President Trump. Blakeman wasn’t given the chance to address the crowd during part of the celebration on the Grand Concourse that involved comments from Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams. The Republican, who is currently serving as the elected Nassau County executive, was told by lefty Assemblywoman Amanda Septimo he couldn’t speak even though some in the crowd called out to “let him speak.” “This is exactly what life...

No primary—especially a Senate primary—should go on this long. But Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, having dragged on for months, has turned into an interminably vicious grudge fest—one that’s not likely to subside until voters finally go to the polls on August 4 and choose between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed.But the Michigan primary is also so bitter for the same reason that it has been so interesting. Of all of the 2026 races, this is the one that best captures the current fissures in the Democratic Party—and which seems to best predict where the fault lines of the 2028 presidential...

Join with fellow FREEPERS to pray for AMERICA: For those in Authority in Government, Family, Military, Business, Healthcare, Education, Churches, and the Media.This is the confidence we have in approaching God: That if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1 John 5:14)Religion Forum threads labeled *Prayer* are closed to debate of any kind.1 John 5:20 "And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true...

~The FReeper Canteen Presents~ Road Trip: Creech Air Force Base, NevadaCreech Air Force Base is a United States Air Force (USAF) command and control facility in Clark County, Nevada used "to engage in daily Overseas Contingency Operations of remotely piloted aircraft systems which fly missions across the globe." In addition to an airport, the military installation has the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Battlelab, associated aerial warfare ground equipment, and unmanned aerial vehicles of the type used in Afghanistan and Iraq. Creech is the aerial training site for the USAF Thunderbirds and "is one of two emergency divert airfields" for the...

This video explores **China’s recent development of a domestic Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machine** (0:00), a crucial piece of technology for advanced semiconductor manufacturing. Despite being long dominated by the Dutch company *ASML*, China has managed to build a working prototype by taking a different engineering approach to bypass technical hurdles. **Key takeaways:** * **Light Source Innovation:** Instead of just mirroring *ASML*'s method of hitting moving tin droplets with lasers, China is actively developing **Laser-Induced Discharge Plasma (LDP)** (2:40). While *ASML* moved away from this method years ago due to scalability issues, China is betting on modern advancements to make...

The following offering on the “birthright citizenship” decision in Trump v. Barbara picks up where your humble servant’s initial offering left off. Specifically, it will address in greater detail the remote – yet now thanks to the Barbara decision – actual potential for the neutering of the Constitution’s “natural born Citizen” (“nbC”) presidential eligibility restriction, at least as understood by the Founders. By analogy, reading the Barbara majority opinion is like finding randomly arranged seashells on the beach cryptically messaging “86 – nbC.” Misguided, absurd …, and dangerous. There is as yet no confirmation of the rumor that James Comey...

Harvard Medical School (HMS) has just released the Report of the HMS Open Inquiry Working Group, which contains detailed recommendations for restoring liberty to the school. These recommendations, if put into practice, would institute significant reform at HMS. But that is very important—and even if successful, they would leave vital work undone. The Working Group was a serious effort. Dean George Daley called on HMS’ emeritus dean Jeffrey S. Flier to chair it—and Flier has an impressive track record of pronouncements in favor of intellectual pluralism. His selection as chair indicated a real commitment to reform. The Report includes eleven...

Sen. Ed Markey’s campaign released an ad this week meant to tout his progressive support. Instead, the ad — which featured quick cuts of his top endorsers, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts), along with Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Massachusetts) — only highlighted the progressive left’s gerontocracy problem that has dogged the Markey campaign for months. Markey is 80 and, after 53 years in elected office, is running for reelection to another six-year term, while Sanders, 84, and Warren, 77, are currently serving terms through 2030. The Democratic gerontocracy issue is well documented. There was Joe Biden’s forced departure...

The Burmese people continue to suffer as the brutal civil war in Myanmar heads toward its sixth year. The conflict was recently brought home to America with China’s arrest of Min Zin, an American citizen who heads the Institute for Strategy and Policy (ISP)–Myanmar, located in Thailand. Beijing accused him of spying. China has increasingly close relations with the government in Naypyidaw, highlighted by the June visit to Beijing of Min Aung Hlaing, the commanding general who recently anointed himself Myanmar’s president. China helps Hlaing’s regime survive despite widespread popular opposition. For decades the borderlands of Myanmar have been aflame,...

hat is an “illiberal democracy”? Ever since Viktor Orbán coined the term, it has sparked endless debate. In reality, though, the answer is simple: It is the opposite of a liberal autocracy. And what is a liberal autocracy? Even simpler: It is what his successor, Péter Magyar, has been putting in place since taking power on May 13, 2026, under the complicit silence of Brussels and other European capitals that, until recently, were crying “totalitarian wolf” every other day. Sorry to disappoint you, but Hungary’s autocratic drift is happening now, not before. In the span of two highly productive weeks,...

From roughly the 8:20 mark onward in the Glenn Beck clip (“Fauci’s Newly Released Diary EXPOSES His Lies? Here Is What He Wrote…”): Glenn notes that Fauci is scheduled to testify before Congress (with Rand Paul present) and points out that the Biden pardon covers past actions from the prior ~10 years. As a result, Fauci cannot be federally prosecuted for those covered past offenses, so he could theoretically admit to them without new legal jeopardy for the underlying conduct. Glenn’s prediction, however, is that Fauci will still plead the Fifth. He explains why this creates a problem: because the...

A trove of secretive audio tapes showcasing former President Joe Biden's 'poor memory' and 'diminished faculties' have been released The recordings were made by the ghostwriter who assisted in the publication Biden's 2017 book Promise Me, Dad. They were shared by Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee, who began publishing the audio files for the first time Monday evening In one of the sit-downs, Biden struggled to speak at all for several minutes, and only after he was prompted by the ghostwriter, Marc Zwonitzer

Jimmy Carter authored the single greatest foreign policy betrayal in modern human history. His cowardly abandonment of the Shah of Iran directly birthed the world’s most dangerous state sponsor of terrorism. President Ronald Reagan famously exposed this catastrophic blunder with unyielding fury. Reagan identified the betrayal of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a permanent stain of shame upon the American record. The Shah had stood as a formidable, reliable pillar of regional stability in the Middle East for three solid decades. He built modern infrastructure, distributed agricultural land to millions of impoverished farmers, and funded affordable housing across his nation. His...

For decades, the federal government has funneled big-ticket grants to local communities to help them take on ambitious construction projects to expand public transit. The grants, sometimes in the billions of dollars, have funded new railroad tracks, train stations and roads rebuilt for modern bus service. Today, they’re funding extensions of the Second Avenue Subway in New York and the Red Line in Chicago, as well as the Gateway Tunnel under the Hudson River and bus infrastructure in Indianapolis and San Antonio.But since President Trump returned to office, the Federal Transit Administration has not signed a single new agreement under...