Free Republic

Republicans view the Minnesota Senate race as a potential pickup opportunity in the 2026 midterm elections, even as they face an increasingly difficult national environment in the final stretch of the campaign. The Minnesota Senate race shifted from Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic in the Cook Political Report as a flurry of recent polls showed a tight race between Democratic Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan and retired broadcaster Michele Tafoya, a Republican. While Republicans are dealing with challenging headwinds nationally, Democrats are having their own difficulties in Minnesota, experts told Newsweek. The race presents Republicans a pickup opportunity in a cycle...

An unhinged North Carolina state Senate candidate live-posted his own armed standoff with cops Monday, posting alarming updates from the woods as he claimed officers were closing in on him. Jonathan D. Miller, the Libertarian candidate for North Carolina’s 16th Senate District in the suburbs of Raleigh, was taken into custody Monday afternoon with no shots fired, WRAL reported. Miller began posting Sunday night that he intended to take his own life — then gave live updates when cops showed up to his apartment in Cary, outside Raleigh, Monday morning. Miller refused an order to keep his hands away from...

Gov. Kathy Hochul was ranked the worst state leader in the US for protecting constituents’ freedoms, a scathing new study found. Hochul ranked No. 50 in the Cato Institute’s 2026 “Freedom in the 50 States” list, scoring an “F” and falling behind the governors from Hawaii, California, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The annual study weighed the freedom of various state economic and personal policies — such as fiscal, housing, occupational, education, firearms, speech and medical — and graded each state a percentage out of 100 for how its local laws promoted freedoms for each. This year’s study was the first...

WASHINGTON — New York City’s elected Democratic district attorneys are bending over backwards to keep illegal immigrants in the US, instructing prosecutors to downgrade charges to those considered “a non-deportable offense,” according to a stunning House Judiciary Committee report shared with The Post. The GOP-led panel found that Bronx DA Darcel Clark trains her subordinates “to conceal facts from the record of conviction” and “pursue alternative charges” that would keep non-citizens free to roam in America. Not even cases involving child sex crimes are off-limits — with Clark’s office asking assistant DAs in a 2019 guide to “immigration-conscious plea bargaining”...

Cardinal Cupich Will Honor Billionaire Planned Parenthood Donor Michael Sacks A prominent Catholic cardinal is under fire again for yet another decision to honor a radical abortion activist.Cardinal Blase Cupich faced massive criticism last year for his decision to honor pro-abortion Senator Dick Durbin and, this year, he’s facing calls to rescind an honor to a leftist billionaire who donates to the Planned Parenthood abortion business.Cupich and the rector of the University of Saint Mary of the Lake plan to present the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Nostra Aetate Award to billionaire businessman and Democrat donor Michael Sacks at an October 29...

26 October 2026Monday of week 30 in Ordinary Time The church of Agios Dimitrios in Thessaloniki Readings at MassThis is a preview of Universalis. The Universalis app gives you every day of every year, not just the single week you’re seeing now, and it doesn’t need the Internet. It gives you the official New American Bible version for the readings at Mass. As well as the Mass, it gives you the Liturgy of the Hours. It costs $9.99-12.99 on your phone, or £19.99 (about $26.50) on your computer. Get it now.Liturgical Colour: Green. Year: A(II).First readingEphesians 4:32-5:8Follow Christ by loving...

Over 28 million Americans have already cast ballots in the 2026 midterms with just over a week until Election day, according to data from The University of Florida Election Lab. The Election Lab tracks voting by mail and in-person, with many thousands of ballots cast in key battleground states like Michigan and Ohio. Early voting for the upcoming election is outpacing 2022 numbers. An Associated Press (AP) analysis found early voting was up 74 percent in Texas compared to at the same point in 2022, while Kansas had more than doubled its total of early ballots. Maine, North Carolina and...

WASHINGTON — President Trump fired back Monday at Barack Obama’s weekend jab comparing Trump’s White House renovations to a branch of The Cheesecake Factory, claiming his predecessor did not take proper care of the historic residence. “For you to say it’s a Cheesecake Factory — that just shows why you were a lousy president,” Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before departing on a campaign trip to Mississippi. “We have to explain that to Obama because he doesn’t understand it because he’s not a smart guy,” the president continued. “He’s not smart at all because of the way he...

The Massachusetts bar, which catered to lesbians, lifted its Covid mask requirement once a week to attract more patrons. The decision brought criticism and national attention, but did not save the business. Some people were upset that the bar had lifted its mask policy one day a week, saying it risked the lives of immunocompromised customers. Others mocked them.

Former FBI Director James Comey has been CHARGED with leaking national defense information to reporters

Birdwatchers flocking to a village in hopes of spotting a rare bird have disrupted bus services. Also known as twitchers, hundreds of enthusiasts descended on Mundesley in Norfolk at the weekend after a northern nutcracker was spotted in a garden on Friday. Bus company Sanders Coaches said the enthusiasm led to some questionable parking which meant some bus services had to be altered. The bird had not been seen in Norfolk since 1968 and had not been widely spotted in the UK since 1991. Chris Stone, 44, from Wymondham in Norfolk, took up birding when he was 13 and was...

A North Texas physician and a former postal union official face federal charges alleging they helped submit roughly $19 million in fraudulent medical claims to a benefits program for injured federal workers. A federal grand jury charged Dr. Javaria Jabeen and Allendor Kenyon Brown with conspiracy to commit health care fraud in an October 7 superseding indictment, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas announced October 23. Authorities arrested both defendants on October 14, when they also made their initial court appearances. Millions paid from worker benefits The alleged scheme ran from 2017 to 2023 and targeted...

[Catholic Caucus] The TLM Pilgrimage in Rome & the Call for “Liturgical Peace” Above: the traditionalist pilgrimage in Rome. Photo by the author.Throughout the highs and lows experienced by the traditional movement in the last fifteen years, one event has remained key in the calendar, and this year was no exception. The 2026 edition of the annual Ad Petri Sedem pilgrimage once more served as the siren call for Latin Mass devotees across the globe to descend upon Rome on this last weekend of October. Once in the city though, it is fair to say, that the pilgrimage faced more...

Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro said on Monday that ​the country's federal police had requested that he ‌turn in his passports following a visit to his imprisoned father, former President Jair Bolsonaro. The senator, who was defeated on ​Sunday by President Luiz Inacio Lula da ​Silva in a runoff vote, said he intended ⁠to comply with the request, denying he planned to ​flee the country after the election. The younger Bolsonaro claimed, ​without providing evidence, that the police request was based on a ruling from Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes. Brazil's ​top court and federal police did not immediately reply...

[Catholic Caucus] Bishop Mutsaerts: Why is ‘liturgical diversity’ good except for Latin Mass? A Catholic can attend the Divine Liturgy according to several traditions. But as soon as a Catholic wishes to attend a Latin Mass, suddenly liturgical diversity becomes a problem.The Catholic Church prides itself on its universality, cherishes an impressive diversity of liturgical traditions, and regards that diversity as an expression of its richness. A Catholic can attend the Divine Liturgy according to the Byzantine tradition, the Maronite tradition, the Armenian tradition, or the Chaldean tradition. No one considers this a threat to ecclesial unity in and of...

Without Obama, Trump would never have become president, and that’s true both literally and figuratively.Over the weekend, Barack Obama appeared at a campaign rally for Democrats in Ohio and managed to make some headlines by ridiculing President Trump’s design skills. “He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” the former president quipped. The crowd, of course, loved it. The media did too. Republicans responded with some mockery of their own, pointing out that Obama has little room to talk about design preferences, given the architectural monstrosity that is his presidential library in Chicago. All things...

This is absolutely glorious. A new study from South Korea found that paper straws are somehow worse for the environment than single-use plastic straws. None of the "eco-friendly" solutions actually worked, and switching away from plastic straws didn't really help the environment. https://t.co/aJYnZEWRuT— Pubity (@pubity) October 25, 2026Don't forget to mention this to the blue-haired waitress at your local social club! A South Korean government-commissioned study has determined that paper straws are actually worse for the environment than plastic straws. Researchers measured the full life cycle impact of four types of straws: plastic straws, paper, biodegradable, and bio-based polyethylene. From...

Anthropic has confirmed that its Claude AI model improperly accessed voter data in Georgia by bypassing a paywall meant to restrict the information to paying users. Axios reports that Anthropic says Claude reached publicly available data that’s normally accessible only after a fee is paid, pulling aggregate vote counts for an internal Anthropic statistics project. The AI found a loophole in an old version of the state agency’s website, which issued a digital “access token” to visitors. Claude simply requested a token and got in. According to Anthropic, “Claude did not access the state’s voter registration system, change any voting...

An Ohio pastor stunned her church congregation as she announced that her self-proclaimed 'prophet' husband had married a second wife. Lydia Ford, 45, the pastor of LifeWorks Church in Cleveland, Ohio, revealed to her flock that she and her husband Israel Ford, 47, had begun a polygynous marriage with another minister at their church, Shakayla Talley, 28. 'And I want to share that, know, Prophet and I, you know, we are living even right now in what we would call a polygynous marriage,' Lydia told her church. 'My husband, our prophet, he has a second wife. Y’all know her. Y’all...

Explanation: The Great Nebula in Orion, an immense, nearby starbirth region, is one of the most famous of all astronomical nebulas. Here, glowing gas surrounds hot young stars at the edge of an immense interstellar molecular cloud only 1500 light-years away. In the featured deep image in assigned colors highlighted by emission in hydrogen, wisps and sheets of dust and gas are particularly evident. The Great Nebula in Orion can be found with the unaided eye near the easily identifiable belt of three stars in the popular constellation Orion. In addition to housing a bright open cluster of stars known...