Free Republic

There have been 27 attacks on commercial ships so far in October, according to the International Maritime Organization. There were 22 in March, as well as attacks on an offshore rig and two tugs, according to a list of attacks compiled by USNI News.Despite the number of attacks, ships are continuing to sail through the strait. There were 104 non-Iranian-linked vessels that sailed through between Oct. 5-11, during which there were 12 attacks, according to data from London-based maritime intelligence firm Lloyd’s List. Of those, six occurred on Oct. 11, according to the IMO.While Iran is at fault for the...

Former FBI officials Nikki Cole Floris and Bradley Benavides, according to the DOJ, falsely denied involvement in the investigations into former President Joe Biden’s son when speaking to Congress. Both surrendered Friday on arrest warrants, according to the DOJ. "Lying to Congress by anyone strikes at the heart of our democratic system, but when senior FBI agents lie to Congress believing they are above the law, it’s time to bring the hammer of justice down on them," U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said of the charges. The Justice Department claims to possess evidence that shows Benavides discussed the laptop story with...

Trump blasted the players during a Thursday campaign rally in Iowa, warning that the women’s basketball league could destroy its growing popularity by disrespecting the American flag.“What’s going on with the women’s NBA? What’s that all about?” Trump asked, according to Yahoo Sports.“They’ll destroy themselves before they get started because they just started to do good,” the president said The controversy erupted after players from the Atlanta Dream and Golden State Valkyries left the court before the national anthem during the WNBA Finals.“It’s a big deal going on. They leave the court when the national anthem’s playing. What’s that all...

La Brújula Verde reports that an iron window grille has been unearthed near a Roman house at Augusta Raurica, the site of an ancient settlement on the banks of the Rhine River in northwestern Switzerland. Five bars, two crosspieces, and rings that were likely used to attach the grille to a wooden window frame were recovered. Archaeologists also found two nails. The grill had been set in a wall made of stone and mortar that has since collapsed. The building has not yet been dated. To read about previous finds from Augusta Raurica, go to "Oops! Down the Drain."

Dracula is a Democrat. He wants. The Democrats want. He is not willing to work to satisfy his wants. The Democrats are not willing to work to satisfy their wants. Dracula feeds off of others to satisfy his wants and to exist. The Democrats feed off of others to satisfy their wants and to exist. Dracula is stealthy so he can be in society and yet take from you without getting a stake through the heart. The Democrats are stealthy so they can be in society and take from you without getting a stake through their hearts. Dracula turns those...

The reported DSA-linked planning treats the Insurrection Act as a trap that works only if Trump walks into it on their timetable and terms. Over on X, DataRepublican’s reporting on documents and recordings from the Democratic Socialists of America and allied networks lays out a calculated strategy for the run-up to the 2028 elections. The goal is sustained mass violence and street clashes designed to push President Donald Trump into invoking the Insurrection Act. Once invoked, Democratic governors and progressive organizations would treat the order itself as evidence of “fascism” and a reason to undermine federal authority. Groups including the...

Six people have died and 28 have been injured after gunmen opened fire on a funeral at a church in Jordan. It took place at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate, about 110 miles south of the capital Amman. A witness told TV channel Al Mamlaka that two men - one carrying a rifle and another a ‌pistol - opened fire for several minutes. The station said the men had got out of a vehicle before attacking the funeral at Hamoud church. Local reports initially said seven people had been killed, but Jordan's public security directorate later said there...

The Battle of Iwo Jima monument in Quantico, Virginia, has suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages after a man beheaded one of the statues Wednesday evening, police said. Officers responding to a report of destruction of property at the Marine Corps Base Quantico around 10:31 p.m. saw a man “actively damaging the statue with a sledgehammer” and detained him without incident, Prince William County police said. The suspect, 27-year-old Miguel Alonso Maldonado Soriano of Stafford, Virginia, has been charged with felony destruction of property, trespass with intent to damage, and felony injury to a monument, court records show....

Prisons are expensive. States lock up only as many people as it takes to keep voters from getting up in arms about crime, and not one more. A small used container ship can be bought for $5 million. 40-foot shipping containers cost around $1,250. Fitted with plumbing, wiring, insulation, drywall, ductwork, windows and doors, each container becomes a spartan housing unit for roughly $8,500. Bunks stacked three-high in two rows along each side, one container would sleep about 30 inmates, and still have room for a shower, toilet, and sink. A small ship holds about 250 such units, enough for...

ORLANDO, Fla. – A man was found guilty of robbery and grand theft after taking more than $760,000 in jewelry from an Orlando store and using force against an employee while trying to escape, prosecutors said. Jaythan Gilder was convicted after a trial involving the February 2025 robbery at the Tiffany & Co. store at the Mall at Millenia, State Attorney Monique Worrell’s office said. Prosecutors said Gilder posed as a representative negotiating a jewelry purchase on behalf of a professional basketball player before grabbing the merchandise. After his arrest, he swallowed the stolen earrings in an attempt to hide...

The number of Americans dining out just hit a new low. In the early days of the pandemic, restaurants went into survival mode to stay afloat. It may be safe to grab a bite to eat out of the house these days, but with fewer Americans able to afford the luxury of eating out, business is drying up again. The percentage of Americans who say they dine out at least once a week slid almost 10% between 2022 and 2026, according to a new Gallup poll. In 2019, just prior to the pandemic, more than half of people surveyed reported...

In 2012, Dr. Daniel Coupland, professor of Education at Hillsdale College, published a Martin Center (then the Pope Center) article entitled “A College Reinvents Teacher Education.” That piece described how Hillsdale’s Education Department resisted the state of Michigan’s mandate that all teacher certification programs in the state be nationally accredited. Coupland wrote that following the decision to move away from state certification, Hillsdale’s faculty “began to think about what teacher education could be without the ideological straitjacket (i.e., ‘standards’) from the state.” A glance at the standards listed on the website of CAEP (the largest national accreditation agency for education...

Here’s One October Surprise, Anyway “The Left has always preferred the ashes of its own making to the inheritance of better men.” —Celina101 on X By now, everybody and his uncle interested in public matters has probably read that a claque of current-and-former agency officials, ex-USAID busybodies, military officers, activist academics, Democratic Party paladins, and freelance communist jihadis has been exposed plotting the overthrow of the US government. The plot was reported by the diligent “X” blogger Jennica Pounds under her nom-de-plume “Data Republican,” who lately received an enormous document-and-recording dump courtesy of careless color revolutionaries who recorded themselves and...

For decades, a fundamental question about the difficulty of computing in high-dimensional spaces has resisted proof. New research resolves this question, removing a major theoretical obstacle to understanding the efficiency of randomized algorithms used across science and computing. The Kannan–Lovász–Simonovits (KLS) conjecture was proposed in 1995. It asks whether, for a broad class of high-dimensional probability distributions, the best flat or hyperplane cut is always nearly as effective as the best cut of any shape. More precisely, KLS predicts that the two differ by no more than a universal constant, regardless of the number of dimensions. This would establish a...

With Representative Ilhan Omar seemingly unsure about whether she accidentally married her brother, millions of women have been left asking themselves a difficult question: Am I married to my brother? Don't worry. We'll help you sort this out. Here are nine signs to look for you might be married to your brother: You have the same parents: This probably should have tipped you off. You grew up in the same house together and he always calls you sister: At least you had a healthy relationship — at the time. He gave you a noogie after "kissing the bride": Evidence of...

Wednesday on MS NOW’s “All In,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) said President Donald Trump is directing a “fictitious” investigation against her. Omar said, “You could at least have the appearance of not having this be fictitious, not having this be directed by the president and everybody in his administration who hates me. But they’ve chosen to blatantly have every character that has been involved be someone who has expressed explicitly that they don’t want me to be in the United States, and they don’t want me to be in Congress. I mean, from Mullin to JD Vance to the president...

Bound by shared opposition to Western institutions, Judeo-Christian values, and constitutional conservatism, leftists and Islamists have formed a tactical bloc, even as their underlying worldviews remain fundamentally incompatible. This journey of life is a complicated path filled with choices and unexpected variables that often confront us without warning. Our formative years are spent in structured learning environments tailored to meet community expectations or, at the very least, geared toward imparting foundational skills. Boundaries are generally established because even the most extreme elements of our culture recognize that total anarchy is unsustainable. However, as cultural norms have shifted dramatically over the...

An Alabama woman has been indicted on federal charges after allegedly threatening President Donald Trump in a Facebook post ahead of his planned visit to the Alabama-Georgia football game. Megan Lorraine Utz, 36, of Courtland, faces charges of threatening the president and transmitting a threatening communication across state lines, according to the Justice Department. Utz allegedly responded to a Facebook post about the Oct. 10 game on Oct. 5, writing under the name “Kase Utz”: “He’s not allowed in my stadium! I’ll put a bullet through him if he dares,” according to an indictment obtained by WAFF. Trump ultimately canceled...

Elon Musk has reportedly invested $1 billion in Skydance, weeks after Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount Skydance’s merger closed. Paramount closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, valued at about $110 billion including debt, on Oct. 6, and named the combined company Skydance. The company starts with about $80 billion in debt. Skydance is targeting more than $6 billion in annual savings within three years.

WASHINGTON – Businesses that rely on the Grand Canyon and 10 of the other most popular national parks say a new $100 fee imposed this year on foreign visitors has driven down tourism. “We’re not seeing the international travelers anymore in the amount that we used to see,” said Chris Kelly, who co-owns Grand Canyon Journeys with his wife. They typically book about 10 tours per year for German-speaking visitors, he said. But through October, they had only one such group, with none scheduled for the rest of 2026. Kelly sees a correlation between the sharp decline and the spike...