Free Republic

For much of its history, Albania remained as shadowy and remote as the fictional Syldavia of the Tintin comics. Letters to Albania were sometimes returned from Albany, New York, with the postal direction “Try Europe.” The country came into existence only after 1912, with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Its first ruler, King Zog, was hounded out by Mussolini when he invaded in 1939. Five years later, the Italians and their Nazi German allies were expelled in turn by the Albanian nationalist leader Enver Hoxha. A Muslim-born communist, Hoxha turned his Balkan fiefdom into a self-immolated model of Stalinist...

President Donald Trump has shared a revised version of his ranking of U.S. presidents, expanding a chart he posted days earlier that placed himself alone in a category labeled "The Greatest" above Abraham Lincoln, George Washington and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The updated ranking, posted to Truth Social on Sunday, retains Trump in a standalone top tier but adds a number of former presidents who were absent from the version he previously shared. Among those newly included are Ronald Reagan, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. The president’s original chart...

Is Rome Minimizing Our Lady? The Crisis of Marian Devotion Why are traditional Marian titles being minimized precisely when the Church needs Our Lady more than ever? From Coredemptrix and Mediatrix to Don Bosco’s famous vision of the Two Pillars, this powerful reflection calls Catholics back to the Mother of God, and warns against a Marian minimalism that risks forgetting how profoundly Our Lady belongs to the story of our salvation. On this feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Church recounts the unique role of our Lady in salvation history: the one chosen by God to...

A new study, "Range and diet diversity in the Pleistocene American 'cheetah,' Miracinonyx trumani," was published in the scientific journal Current Biology on Friday. Using the tiniest of bones, including some found in Wyoming's Natural Trap Cave, the diet and DNA of the American cheetah-like cat have been revealed in astonishing detail... "It's actually most closely related to the living mountain lion, and those are both sister species most closely related to the jaguarundi," she said. "The three of them together are distantly related to modern cheetah."... Some of the best Late Pleistocene specimens [various species] ever found have come...

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials appointed Sen. Mitch McConnell’s wife to multiple government positions, many of which partially overlapped with her two U.S. Cabinet posts, according to Chinese government and state media reports unearthed by the Daily Caller News Foundation. Elaine Chao, who married the Kentucky Republican in 1993, has held numerous U.S. government positions since the 1980s, including serving as Department of Labor (DOL) secretary throughout President George W. Bush’s tenure and as Department of Transportation (DOT) secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term. After resigning from the Trump administration in January 2021, Chao then served on the board...

We're counting down to Apple's Sept. 9 unveiling of the foldable iPhone Ultra. It's the first keynote helmed by new Apple CEO John Ternus and expected to be Apple's biggest event in years. Apple’s Sept. 9 event is nearly here, and we’re expecting it to be filled with firsts for the company. The company’s fall event — starting Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET (10 a.m. PT) — will be the first to be hosted by new Apple CEO John Ternus and could be the stage where we see Apple’s long-rumored folding iPhone. That possible foldable, rumored to be called the...

This video, presented by Matt Morse, discusses a new national security executive order signed by President Trump regarding the upcoming 2026 midterm elections. The creator argues that the order is a major sanctions program designed to combat foreign election interference, including hacking, propaganda, and foreign money in US elections (0:54 - 1:39). Key points covered in the video: Executive Order 13848: The video explains that this order allows the US Treasury to block assets of foreign individuals or entities involved in election interference (0:54 - 1:39). Election Integrity Concerns: The creator highlights claims of past foreign data acquisition, voter roll...

Fourteen miles of water separate Long Island from the mainland. Fixing that gap should be simple. So why has it failed for seven decades straight -- and why is a developer betting $50 billion that he's finally cracked it? The answer isn't the engineering. It never was. New York's New $50B Long Island Crossing Just Changed Everything | 15:06 MegaBuilds | 116K subscribers | 59,242 views | August 29, 2026

Four innocent children were deliberately drugged and murdered by their own mother and grandmother in a sickening murder-suicide plot allegedly driven by a bitter custody dispute, according to investigators. The children, Harper Harmon, 13; Hudson Harmon, 11; and 10-year-old twins Gavin and Gracelynn Harmon, were found dead alongside their mother, Sarah Myers, 44, and grandmother, Amy Steadman, 64, inside Steadman’s apartment in Mechanicville, New York, on June 23. Investigators believe the children were murdered on June 10, nearly two weeks before their decomposing bodies were discovered during a welfare check. Now, toxicology results have revealed that diphenhydramine, the active ingredient...

The Southeastern Conference (SEC) filed an amended complaint Tuesday morning in an Alabama federal court, showing it’s prepared to take the extraordinary step of expelling LSU from the conference. The conference presidents have scheduled a vote on whether to expel the Tigers from the league, stemming from the school’s potential to add former NFL players to its football roster. The SEC amended the federal lawsuit it filed against LSU last week, asking a judge to issue a temporary restraining order to prevent the school from interfering with the scheduled meeting of university presidents and chancellors. ESPN shared further: The SEC...

A federal judge in St. Louis on Tuesday ordered Missouri to use the gerrymandered congressional map drawn during a 2025 special session, giving a direction to Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and other election officials in conflict with a Missouri Supreme Court order.

New Yorkers are debating whether or not it is appropriate for Mayor Zohran Mamdani to attend the ceremonies commemorating the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on America on Sept. 11, 2001. But, like the one about his boycott of the city’s annual “Israel Day” parade, most of the arguments miss the point. The presence of a politician who has cheered on other Islamist terrorists in his career may be unwelcome to many of the families of the victims, and to other New Yorkers and Americans. But just as there was no way to force him to honor Israel by...

🚨According to filings from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), since January 2025, the Trump Administration has successfully fired 137 far-left immigration judges who had been stalling the ongoing deportation efforts, replacing them with 349 brand new “America First” immigration judges. The Trump Administration’s deportation machine continues to grow stronger. Follow: @MorseReport 🚨 According to filings from the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR), since January 2025, the Trump Administration has successfully fired 137 far-left immigration judges who had been stalling the ongoing deportation efforts, replacing them with 349 brand new “America First” immigration judges. The Trump Administration’s deportation...

U.S. President Donald Trump attributed the ​win of Germany's far-right Alternative for ‌Germany (AfD) party in a state election to existing immigration ​rules and regulations ​that he cast as "horrible." "Wow! The ⁠Populist Party in Germany ​just had a really big ​night. They finally got tired of the absolutely horrible Immigration ​rules and regulations which ​have hurt Germany so badly," Trump ‌wrote ⁠on Truth Social on Tuesday. The AfD surged into first place in state ​elections in ​Saxony-Anhalt ⁠on Sunday, putting a far-right party within ​reach of power ​at ⁠the state level for the first time since ⁠World ​War Two.

Germany will send Patriot air defence missiles to Ukraine from its national ​stocks, Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday, warning that ‌Russia was likely to intensify its air campaign against Ukrainian infrastructure as winter approaches. Speaking at a videoconference of nations supporting Ukraine, Pistorius said he had decided to "deliver urgently" additional PAC-2 ​interceptor missiles. Patriot missiles are currently the only effective defence against Russian ​ballistic missile attacks on Ukraine, officials say. "Since Russia is only ⁠advancing very slowly at the front line, it is trying to destroy ​Ukraine's economic base and critical infrastructure by way of air raids...

Taxpayers did not volunteer to underwrite Assemblyman Jackson’s nonprofitCalifornia Assemblyman Dr. Corey Jackson (D-Moreno Valley), who received his Masters in Social Work, founded and directs the nonprofit Center Against Racism and Trauma (CART), which has only been tax-exempt since February 2022. Earlier this year, he named CART his legislative district’s “Nonprofit of the Year” and then steered $6 million of California taxpayer funding to it, the Globe just reported recently.Here is the proof of this $6 million going to Jackson’s charity, courtesy of the FLOOR REPORT OF THE 2026-27 BUDGET: Rather than acknowledge the obvious nefarious funding with taxpayer money,...

Michelle Obama remains in love with the Balearic Islands, where she travels every year in style. Her love affair leads her to enjoy the emerald waters, the interior corners, and the sophisticated (and expensive) Mediterranean lifestyle she discovered in the gardens of Marivent, when in a distant August of 2010 she had lunch at the Mallorcan palace with the (then) princess Letizia and they hit it off. The chemistry of high politics and the globalist slogan progressivism has been gradually replaced over the years by leisure and royal-like disconnection, which Obama practices in the archipelago surrounded by all comforts, relying...

🇺🇸I COULD DO NO LESS ON OR NEAR THIS DATE🇺🇸 ~Freeper Canteen ~Canteen Mission StatementShowing support and boosting the morale ofour military and our allies' militaryand family members of the above.Honoring those who have served before. Today I Want You To Answer..... Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning on 9-11To share your results, write your memories of that day in a post. There are no right or wrong answers. It will help us to remember what we felt that moment, that day. Please remember that The Canteen is here to support and entertain our troops and veterans and...

Next season of ABC’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” will be the last, Page Six is told. “His contract is not getting extended,” a source familiar with the situation explained. The season begins Tuesday and would wrap up, after 24 years on the air, in May 2027. A spokesperson for ABC Entertainment told us, “[This] information is inaccurate — any reports about the future of the show at this point are purely speculative.” Kimmel takes pride in signing year-to-year deals, which are rare in the TV biz and allow him unusual flexibility. The news comes on the heels of Rosie...

PORT ORANGE, Florida (WESH) -- Video released by the Port Orange Police Department shows officers firing more than a dozen times at a 71-year-old woman who showed up armed with a gun. Surveillance video shows the woman, Linda Jean Croteau, walking into the lobby of the station holding the gun and firing it one time. She then exited the front lobby and was confronted by officers who were responding to the scene. She is told to drop the weapon but does not comply. An officer fires three times, and Croteau falls to the ground. She sits up, appears to reach...