Free Republic

The first day of high school can be nerve-racking. At Bishop Kelley High School, there’s a tradition designed to break the ice. Freshmen arriving for the first day of school are greeted by members of the senior class, who cheer them on as they give their moms or dads one last kiss goodbye. The tradition, known as “Kiss Your Mom Goodbye,” has been part of the Bishop Kelley community for more than two decades.

Dr. Anthony Fauci has declined another Senate appearance, this one a voluntary, transcribed interview before Sen. Ron Johnson’s investigative subcommittee.Johnson (R-WI) chairs the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which is conducting a separate investigation into the federal COVID-19 response. The inquiry includes the safety and effectiveness of the vaccines.The refusal came from Fauci’s attorney, David Schertler. He argued that forcing Fauci to appear again after the July 29 hearing would “impermissibly harass or degrade Dr. Fauci for political purposes.”

The skeleton of a young 6ft 5in-tall (1.9m) Viking-era man who had undergone trepanation has been found in a mass grave.A hole had been bored in his skull while he was alive. It had signs of healing before his remains were flung into a burial pit with nine other men, some dismembered...The grisly discoveries were found during a University of Cambridge training dig just outside the city last year...If the young man had had a tumour on his pituitary gland, this could have caused an excess of growth which might explain his height, explained Biers, curator of the Duckworth Collections...

Ben Bergquam just did a useful thing: He walked around the actual structures that have been built in Fresno for California’s high-speed rail project, and he showed how useless and incomplete the actual construction is. Screenshot from that linked video: I laughed out loud, because I stood in that spot, and I did it in mid-August of 2025. Gavin's Keynesian HoleChris Bray · August 18, 2025 A test of “let’s just go look at the thing itself.” Read full story Click on that story and go look at the pictures and video. Sample: The difference between the way this critically...

The Supreme Court once again declined to take up President Trump's attempt to toss a jury's $5 million finding that he sexually abused E. Jean Carroll.The big picture: Carroll's payday had been long delayed as the president fought the verdict. The Supreme Court already declined to throw it out earlier this year.Trump's lawyers are also still fighting a separate $83.3 million defamation judgment he was ordered to pay her, arguing he's entitled to presidential immunity.Driving the news: The justices did not explain their reasoning for declining to take up the challenge, as is typical.Editor's note: This is a breaking news...

Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, Inc. is voluntarily recalling a limited number of select flavors of Outshine Fruit Bars due to possible foreign material contamination with glass. Products affected include Outshine Strawberry, Watermelon, Grape, Tangerine and Black Cherry 6-Count 2.5 ounce Fruit Bars. These lots were distributed to retailers nationwide. No other Outshine products or varieties are impacted. ONLY the five flavors of 6ct 2.5-ounce paddle bars. Batch codes can be identified on the product packaging. No illnesses or injuries have been reported to date. Anyone concerned about an injury should contact a healthcare provider immediately. Consumers who have purchased the...

Prepare to VOTE!

The newly declassified investigation files also show that the FBI had initially tried to recruit the infamous Fang Fang as a source that could share information on Chinese influence operations targeting public officials in the United States. ========================================================================= The FBI developed evidence that a Chinese woman with direct ties to that country’s intelligence service had potentially compromised a Democratic congressman from California with sex, foreign interns and illicit donations while she was being recruited to become a bureau informant a decade ago, according to bombshell memos that expose another threat to America’s political system from Beijing. The files chronicling the...

A mob of teenage thugs, made up mostly of minorities, caused mayhem at the Wisconsin State Fair over the weekend terrorizing families. The mob also brutally attacked police officers. Watch video of the violence below and click here to get my daily breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox. “Absolute insanity at the Wisconsin State Fair. MULTIPLE police officers were badly beaten, as families with kids were seen RUNNING FOR THEIR LIVES as teens began brawling,” one eyewitness wrote on Facebook. “Pretty sure these weren’t the 4H kids from Portage County.” Video shows at least one police officer being punched...

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has struggled to pander to the mob to secure power in the midterm elections, including brandishing a baseball bat on social media to show his radical bona fides. With Democratic Socialists chanting “you’re next” when seeing Jeffries, he continues to struggle to stay in front of the mob. This week, he doubled down on his pledge to throw the Supreme Court to the mob if they make him the next Speaker of the House of Representatives. After the recent gains by far-left candidates in states like Minnesota and the near victory of Democratic Socialist...

A 19-year-old Virginia woman has been charged with involuntary manslaughter after her “friends with benefits” lover was fatally shot during consensual gun-toting foreplay that investigators described as a game of “Russian roulette.” Ember McSpadden allegedly pulled the trigger of a partially loaded handgun three times while counting the clicks before the weapon discharged and struck 26-year-old Shane Brooks in the neck, WAVY-TV reported over the weekend. ... McSpadden, who was out on bond, appeared at a preliminary hearing Friday, where a judge found sufficient evidence for the involuntary manslaughter charge to move forward to a grand jury. Her attorney, Artisha...

On August 7, 2026, a 14-year-old Thai student murdered his grandparents, took his grandfather’s legally registered handgun, and carried it to Debsirin Nonthaburi School outside Bangkok. He killed six people at the school and wounded 23 before shooting himself. Eight victims were killed in all. The Thai government has now suspended firearm-purchase permits, ordered a review of existing licenses, and called for harsher restrictions. In July of 2025, a mass murderer killed five people and then committed suicide at a Bangkok market.Thailand had imposed even more restrictions on its already restrictive gun control measures in 2023. In 2023, a 14-year-old...

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced today that the state of New South Wales will launch a program to purchase weapons from citizens. The program is part of the national response to the Bondi Beach shooting attack last year in which 15 people were murdered...

The lavish lifestyle of one of California’s highest-paid nonprofit CEOs has been exposed as whistleblowers claim staff were pressured to funnel vulnerable addicts into taxpayer-funded rehabs to boost his own profits. Albert Senella, president and CEO of Tarzana Treatment Centers, pulls in a whopping $2.36 million a year running the city-supported addiction treatment nonprofit, tax records viewed by the California Post reveal. The organization offers medical detox, residential treatment, mental healthcare and recovery programs, with the work subsidized by California and Los Angeles taxpayers. The Post spotted Senella last week at his sprawling six-bedroom, eight-bathroom Simi Valley home, which is...

President Trump threatened to ‘bomb the s***’ out of Oman if it continues negotiations with Iran without American approval as the ceasefire with Tehran nears its expiration. Oman, major US defense ally in Middle East, is negotiating with Iran over a plan to reopen the Strait of Hormuz by placing the narrow waterway, through which one-fifth of the world’s oil passes, under joint control. Trump has previously stated that Iran will not be allowed to control the waterway by charging US-backed oil tankers levies or taxes. President issued dire warning Monday morning during Fox News interview if Oman moves forward...

Americans love their killers. Still, Luigi Mangione, who shot UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson dead in December 2024, may be the most beloved of them all. It took a special sort of fetishist to see something in maniacs like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, who killed for no reason other than their sadistic compulsions. Mangione, though? Nearly every American has been ground down by our country’s healthcare system. Police had prepared for a mob last Friday, as Mangione appeared in a Manhattan courthouse to plead guilty to federal stalking charges. But by midmorning, the officers outnumbered everyone they’d been sent to...

The Democratic Socialists of America is quietly building a network of activists to influence unions that are central to the Democratic Party. The organization’s plan encourages young socialists to select jobs where they can either unionize or join existing unions and move them further to the Left. While most Americans are aware of DSA-backed officeholders Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Zohran Mamdani, the strategy of placing members in unions may actually yield more important dividends to the organization’s long-term goals. The Rank-and-File StrategyFrom 2018 to 2021, the Young Democratic Socialists of America adopted a “rank-and-file” strategy as a national priority, emphasizing that...

After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents tried to track down a New York man at his home, an airport and a hotel to confront him over a critical email he sent to the former head of ICE five months prior, federal officials are defending such investigations in court filings. The same court filings say the investigation into the man, David Streever, was closed at the end of June. David Streever takes a selfie while on vacation with his daughter and a character at Moomin World in Finland. He was contacted by Homeland Security Investigations officers five months after sending...

President Donald Trump on Monday reportedly told Fox News the U.S. would attack Oman if it interferes with the U.S. naval blockade against Iran, marking a new threat against a Gulf State widely viewed as neutral and peaceful.

OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, reported a 25-year-old South Palm Beach man to the FBI after he shared detailed plans to rape and murder his ex-girlfriend. "I'm gonna kill her by the end of this month," Darren Zhou told the chatbot, his messages preserved in court records. "If I can't have her then nobody can." Investigators say Zhou, a since-fired Goldman Sachs analyst, turned to ChatGPT in March to discuss his recent breakup with a girlfriend of six months. He recounted her hobbies, the places she frequented, his jealousy of the men around her and his desire to get back...