Free Republic

Kosta Diamantis flees United States, skips sentencing for criminal charges

The Albanese government is open to considering associate member status with the European Union despite threats issued by US President Donald Trump.EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola put the idea on the table following an address by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney where he welcomed the possibility of becoming an "associate member" of the Union.Ms Metsola said Australia and New Zealand were among the countries "with which we want to deepen our relationship".

The Archbishop of Canterbury's office has withdrawn an interfaith award given to a Muslim cleric after past comments surfaced in which he praised Usama bin Laden. Maulana Hafiz Muhammad Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi received the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith Cooperation at Lambeth Palace last Friday, during a ceremony that coincided with the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Lambeth Palace announced the reversal Thursday after previous comments by Ashrafi had "come to light," causing it to reconsider the award. "It is a longstanding principle of interfaith dialogue and co-operation that we must engage with one another...

Ukraine has carried out its deepest drone strike of the war against a major gas facility in Russia’s Arctic, demonstrating that its expanding long-range strike capabilities can reach the heart of the country’s strategically important Yamal-Nenets gas-producing region. Ukrainian Special Operations Forces said drones struck the Novy Urengoy condensate treatment plant and the nearby Purovsky gas-condensate processing plant on September 9, traveling more than 3,000 kilometers from Ukraine. Russian regional authorities confirmed a drone attack and a fire at an industrial facility in Novy Urengoy, although they did not initially identify the target. Ukraine subsequently claimed responsibility. The strike was...

Operation Shams II (1 – 5 June 2026), coordinated by INTERPOL, brought together 28 specialized officers and experts from 11 countries. During the five days of coordinated action, held in Tunis, Tunisia, law enforcement officers extracted 108,076 facial images from visual content published by jihadist groups. Programmed AI agents and advanced AI-generated scripts were used to automate parts of the data collection and investigative processes, enabling the system to deduplicate and quality-check the images. This narrowed the dataset to 6,362 unique, high-quality facial images ready for processing through INTERPOL’s Facial Recognition System. AI-generated output was subject to review and verification...

THIS!!! This right here!!! IF we had any idea at all that this was being planned, in the set-up stage, or happening, we should have hit them all right there. Get all the equipment and all the bad actors in one fell swoop. We missed an opportunity right here. Heads up => wait, watch, and then finish it . . .

In case you took the last week off from reading the news, watching TV or combing through social media, you’re aware that a lot of people have suddenly come to the conclusion that artificial intelligence will soon destroy humanity if it isn’t stopped. While I’m sure that most Israelis are also interested in the possibility that our computer/robot overlords will soon render us extinct, headlines in the Jewish state have largely focused on another controversy in which AI plays a subsidiary role. Bolstering the ‘genocide’ lie The 25-minute standing ovation given to a documentary film called “NAZA”—a reference to a...

Crowd erupts in cheers as pro-Israel demonstrators pull massive PLO flag from building overlooking Amsterdam’s Dam Square. ..... Video footage posted online shows demonstrators pulling down the flag from the H&M building near the square, as cheers can be heard from the crowd gathered below. .....

BROWNSBURG, Ind. (Sept. 18, 2026) — Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) announced today that eight-time NHRA Top Fuel world champion and 88-time NHRA national event winner Tony Schumacher has signed a multi-year agreement to drive for the organization beginning with the 2027 NHRA Mission Foods Drag Racing Series season. Schumacher will assume the driving duties of the TSR Top Fuel Dragster following the departure of Leah Pruett, who is stepping away from full-time competition to focus on growing her family with husband and team owner Tony Stewart. “I made the decision to step out of the seat to put some more...

When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned hundreds of generals and admirals from around the world to Quantico, Virginia, last September, he delivered a blunt message: Things were changing fast in the newly renamed Department of War. ... What mattered going forward, Hegseth said, were standards. “I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat [units] with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men,” he said. The same day, Hegseth signed a directive requiring sex-neutral fitness standards for all troops in combat roles. The service began implementing the new...

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico said he would seek to keep his country out of any military conflict arising under NATO’s collective-defense clause, publicly questioning whether Slovakia should send thousands of troops to defend an ally. Speaking to students and hospital employees in the eastern city of Prešov, Fico criticized what he described as increasingly belligerent rhetoric among European leaders and asked whom Europe intended to fight. “For God’s sake, who do we want to fight? With whom?” Fico said during the event, as his Facebook page reposted. Fico did not identify Russia as a potential aggressor or source of...

While Americans struggle to comprehend how the jury's deliberations in the Lindsay Clancy case could result in a mistrial, shameless jurors have taken to the media to publicly air their reasoning. The results, thus far, have been horrifying. One astonishingly chatty juror has been thrust into the public limelight to explain to Americans how the murder of three kids can be excused by postpartum psychosis. Paula Devlin. She has been highly willing to give the public a disturbing view of the jury's decision to turn the case into a "feminist" cause. And, it turns out, they are making the case...

Senators elected this November are slated to be in office in the fourth quarter of 2032 — the projected depletion date for the trust fund Social Security relies on to help pay retirement benefits. Without action by Congress, that depletion may prompt a 22% cut to benefits for eligible retired workers, their spouses and children and survivors of deceased workers. A new survey from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation finds that 81% of respondents in states with competitive Senate races say they are more likely to vote for candidates with plans to avoid automatic Social Security benefit cuts than for...

At least 16 people, including five police officers, have been killed after a vehicle loaded with explosives rammed into a mosque in north-western Pakistan, according to a senior police official in Peshawar. A gun battle is still ongoing between attackers and security forces at the mosque, near police headquarters, in the Kohat district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. One of the assailants has reportedly been killed, an officer says, and a rescue operation is under way. In a statement, Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari expressed "his best wishes for the swift recovery of those injured in the explosion." Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief...

The land Down Under is known for hosting any number of creatures great and small that can kill you. Rowers competing at the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games will face that challenge after their event was approved Thursday for the waters of the Fitzroy River which hosts more than 600 saltwater crocodiles. That’s not all. Lethal Australian box jellyfish have also been found found near the mouth and tidal saltwater sections of the central Queensland river’s waters in the past. Add bull sharks and deadly snakes amongst its potential lethal predators in the water and along the banks. Not that any...

America’s unrivaled prosperity and freedom make it hard for us to understand why everyone doesn’t want to live and think as we do. Even leftists in the United States who routinely assail our history and institutions share this mindset. Their true ideology might be said to be cognitive dissonance. While they spout Marxist dogma, their very viability hinges on keeping the blessings and fruits of our current system. The difference is their belief that they should be the ones to command and distribute them. The problem, of course, is that they may likely kill the golden egg-laying goose in the...

Starship now NET Sept. 28, plus Starliner may have a future after all | 21:53 Ellie in Space | 230K subscribers | 47,666 views | September 17, 2026

The Trump administration will allow an Iranian delegation to attend the United Nations General Assembly next week, albeit with some restrictions, a State Department spokesperson said Thursday. The decision to grant Iranian top officials visas to travel to New York City for the annual meeting of global leaders comes seven months into the U.S. war with Iran. “Consistent with our host country obligations, the core delegation from the Iranian regime will be able to attend U.N. General Assembly High Level Week,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “The delegation will be under travel restrictions and will face prohibitions on the...

It took 49 days for a pathologist to finalize the autopsy report for Gary “Bubba” Blair, an inmate inside the Chesterfield County Detention Center. Jailers found his lifeless body on the floor of his feces-filled jail cell on July 24. Queen City News launched our own investigation into the death after sources began revealing the condition of Blair’s jail cell: the floor and walls covered in inches-deep feces, the water to his sink was shut off, and Blair had lost more than 100 pounds. Inmates we spoke with who were locked in the pod with Bubba Blair described his treatment...

Footage verified by the BBC shows the wreckage of a Saudi F-15 fighter jet which the Iran-backed Houthi group says it shot down over Yemen. BBC Verify was able to pinpoint the crash site to an isolated location in the hills west of the Yemeni city of Marib. The long-running conflict between a Saudi-led military coalition and the Houthis has escalated in the last week after the armed group launched an offensive against pro-government forces. This led to the Houthis seizing key territory near the south-west coast, close to vital international shipping channels in the Bab al-Mandab strait. In one...