Free Republic

Manhattan’s wealthiest residents just found a new way to dodge Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax: Don’t buy at all. The city’s luxury rental market is shattering records as wealthy New Yorkers who could easily afford $20 million or $50 million trophy homes are choosing to rent instead, brokers say, a trend accelerating since the new tax on high-value second homes took effect. Manhattan median rents hit $5,295 a month in July, a record high, up 6% compared with last July and unchanged from June’s plateau, according to a Corcoran Group report obtained by The Post, with the average rent citywide...

The program, codenamed C430L, began in 2023 and was arranged by Russia's state arms exporter, Rosoboronexport, in coordination with the US-sanctioned NPO Mashinostroyenia.

A 56-year-old woman was allegedly caught photographing jurors in the Lindsay Clancy triple-murder trial Tuesday afternoon, according to reports. Dawn Light of Sutton, Massachusetts, was placed in handcuffs outside the Plymouth Superior Court around 3:40 p.m., according to the Massachusetts State Police. Although state police did not confirm whether the arrest was specifically related to the sensational trial, sources told CBS Boston reporter Kristin Rex that “Someone (who is not a media member) was arrested outside” the courthouse and is “accused of filming jurors in Lindsay Clancy’s trial,” she wrote on X. “Jurors allegedly saw the filming happening,” she added....

"I could end the deficit in five minutes," he said. "You just pass a law that says that any time there's a deficit of more than three percent of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for reelection. Yeah, yeah, now you've got the incentives in the right place, right?"

NATO member Turkey would consider taking its relations with the China and Russia-led security bloc, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, to a higher level, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday. "Turkey's prospect of (full) membership to the organization does not imply a breakaway from any other bloc or from the West," Erdogan said, according to a transcript of remarks he made to journalists on his return flight from Kyrgyzstan. Erdogan attended a summit of the SCO, of which Turkey is a "dialog partner," in Bishkek on Tuesday. Erdogan also said on Wednesday that a mechanism is needed to permanently ensure...

Raúl Castro turned 95 years old in June, so this isn't exactly a big news flash, but if rumors are true, he's not doing too well. Various Miami-based Cuban exile media outlets have reported that a source inside his inner circle says he has had a stroke and is in the hospital in critical condition. Some are even reporting that he's intubated and that machines are keeping him alive. Dr. Andy S. Gomez of Local 10 in Florida has also confirmed that Cuban sources tell him Castro is hospitalized, but he refused to say more or speculate about his condition....

With midterms rapidly approaching, Republicans had appeared to catch a break on the economy. After a year in which the war with Iran sent gas prices soaring and pushed inflation to multi-year highs, both June and July’s Consumer Price Index came in tame. Even grocery prices slipped for the first time in months. But then President Trump returned to his longtime obsession: tariffs. Indeed, last weekend, talks between the White House and Canada collapsed, and Trump immediately slapped 50 percent tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of Canadian goods, reviving what the Wall Street Journal called “The Dumbest Trade War...

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Water will soon return to the Rio Grande in Albuquerque, but it will only be a temporary fix for the river’s dry and cracked bed. The Albuquerque Bernalillo Water Authority, in partnership with a number of other agencies and organizations, has released more than 650 million gallons from Abiquiu Reservoir for a temporary re-wetting of the Rio Grande’s Albuquerque stretch. The water is expected to reach town by Thursday.

Tiger Woods was suspended from driving for five years and handed a fine as the golfing icon struck a plea deal at a Florida court Wednesday morning in connection with a rollover crash in March. The four-time PGA Championship winner, 50, pleaded guilty to reckless driving and refusal to submit to a lawful test at Martin County circuit court, just north of Palm Beach County. Wearing a dark blue suit and patterned blue tie, Woods looked grim-faced but said nothing as he entered the court alongside his girlfriend Vanessa Trump amid a throng of reporters. In court, he spoke only...

Visiting this monument on a boggy marsh at the very edge of England, I found myself wondering if it's even possible to go anywhere in this mad country where nothing happened. We're at Burgh by Sands, a tiny village in remote coastal country, but it has a big past. Once home to a Roman fort on Hadrian's Wall, centuries after that had slid out of view, the countrymen here found themselves at the centre of events, when the King of England went and croaked his last here. England is Nuts: Bonkers Monument in Middle of Nowhere | 13:41 WC21 (UK)...

Thursday night, New Orleans. I have flown in from Los Angeles for work and am walking off the jet bridge, thinking about dinner, when 15 men in vests coalesce around me. I have never been arrested before. Even they find it strange, because I am British, and I am in Balenciaga, and I am ever so nice about it all. They take my belt, wallet, every piece of identification, my rosary and Missal, cash. They put me in chains. Real chains. Every man they arrest, whatever he has done, ends up garlanded in steel like this: wincing, hopping, clattering. It...

The oil agreement is a foundation, not a finish line but it is a hopeful moment of progress

A couple of weeks ago, law professor Jonathan Turley devoted one of his columns to this seeming anomaly — that the Left somehow gains from its own failures. The headline of his column was “The worse it gets, the better it is: American leftism is thriving on its own failures.” The theme of the piece is that the failure of a policy of the Left is never admitted to be a failure, but rather is only seen as a reason that the taxpayers haven’t yet devoted sufficient resources to the issue, and therefore the answer is to double down and...

🇺🇸Pray For The Peace of Jerusalem🇮🇱 (9/2/26)[Prayer]PersonalitiesPsalm 11 For the director of music. Of David. 1 In the Lord I take refuge. How then can you say to me: “Flee like a bird to your mountain. 2 For look, the wicked bend their bows; they set their arrows against the strings to shoot from the shadows at the upright in heart. 3 When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” 4 The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them. 5 The Lord...

2 September 2026 Wednesday of week 22 in Ordinary Time Saint-Just in Lyon, France Readings at MassLiturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First reading1 Corinthians 3:1-9Neither the planter nor the waterer matters, only God, who makes things growBrothers, I myself was unable to speak to you as people of the Spirit: I treated you as sensual men, still infants in Christ. What I fed you with was milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it; and indeed, you are still not ready for it since you are still unspiritual. Isn’t that obvious from all the jealousy and wrangling...

A Maryland daughter has claimed that the nurse who provided home care to her father battling Parkinson’s transferred the deed to his South Carolina property for just $5 before he died. Nora Rowland not only learned that the property rights to her 75-year-old father Robert Rowland’s home had been transferred, but also that he had died when she paid what she thought would’ve just been a routine visit on Father’s Day in June 2024, WMBF reported last Thursday. Robert Rowland, who lived in Conway, received visits from his nurse Sarah Smalls in March 2024 before he was moved into a...

Rising interest rates, record insolvencies, and permanent recession -- the looming economic crisis in the EU is taking shape. Brussels is responding by preparing the ground for capital controls. The regulators' latest target: European citizens' foreign bank accounts. Starting January 11, 2027, trouble looms for EU citizens with foreign accounts. From that date, banks from third countries -- Switzerland, the UK, the US, or Singapore -- will be prohibited from offering so-called core banking services to European citizens. In essence, this covers three core functions: classic deposit-taking (checking, savings, or fixed-term accounts), lending, and the guarantee business. Banks wishing to...

When the US Treasury Department sanctioned the transnational organization Masar Badil last week, Washington took a much-needed step toward thwarting terrorist activity and recruitment here in the homeland. **SNIP** SUPER-UW’s rapid development from rhetoric to violence began with Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack, which killed UW alumnus Hayim Katsman along with 45 other American citizens. SUPER-UW immediately cheered the killing of civilians and venerated those responsible, later inviting UW students to a an event celebrating the slaughter “as not only a victory for the resistance, but a scientific necessity.” In September 2024, SUPER-UW encouraged followers to learn about “defending the...

WASHINGTON (CN) — A D.C. Circuit panel on Tuesday ruled a federal judge had overstepped their authority by voiding the court-martial of U.S. Army soldier Robert “Bowe” Bergdahl, who was dishonorably discharged for deserting his unit in Afghanistan in 2009. Bergdahl, who left his post without permission to report poor conditions and leadership deficiencies within his unit to headquarters, was captured by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network and held hostage for five years. President Barack Obama approved a prisoner swap in 2014 for five Taliban members detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The three-judge panel determined that Senior U.S. District Judge Reggie...