Free Republic

Broken pieces of limestone from a 4,400-year-old tomb in Egypt carry one of the earliest known Egyptian autobiographies. In it, an official named Khuwy presents himself as an honest man who was close to the royal couple. An Egyptian official who lived some 4,400 years ago wanted to be remembered as a man who never took anything from anyone. His words survive only in fragments, but those fragments may help show where a long Egyptian habit began: carving your own life story on the walls of your tomb. The man was called Khuwy. His tomb was uncovered in 2019 at...

Americans have handed the new Congress its marching orders: Tackle the affordability crisis that’s keeping so many young people locked out of the housing market. Housing affordability was one of several key themes that resonated with voters from South Carolina and Ohio to Texas, Montana, and beyond, helping more than 40 Democrats to flip seats in both the Senate and House of Representatives during last week’s midterm elections... Earlier this year, the National Association of Realtors reported that the typical first-time homebuyer is now 40 years old, a record high and a sharp increase from even five years ago, when...

Migrant caravans are pushing north toward the United States just days after Democrats scored sweeping midterm victories, with some migrants openly admitting they believe the election results could make it easier to enter the country.Check Voting Info The movement comes as President Donald Trump’s administration continues enforcing its immigration crackdown, despite Democrats winning control of Congress and flipping the Texas governor’s mansion. Groups traveling from Honduras and El Salvador have begun making their way through Central America, hoping to reach the U.S. southern border. Some migrants told CNN they were encouraged by the Democratic victories and believe the political shift...

A stigma report from Austin reveals high levels of internalized stigma and a lack of social support for people aging with HIV. ___________________ In an effort to understand how stigma affects Central Texans living with HIV, public health advocates in Austin interviewed people with HIV in five counties over two years. Their results have been released in a report titled People Living with HIV Stigma Index 2.0. They summarize four main findings: 1. Internalized stigma is still common. 2. Stigma creates barriers to care and treatment. 3. Disclosure can bring support, but confidentiality concerns remain. 4. Stigma affects social and...

War Secretary Pete Hegseth called for at least $350 billion in additional military funding and defended the Iran war as necessary while answering questions Tuesday during a Pentagon press briefing on the push to impeach him. "$350 billion, at a minimum, for reconciliation is what we believe is needed to make a generational and historic investment in this department, something our warfighters need," he said.

The Supreme Court ruled that the Trump administration can resume building a border wall through the Big Bend region of West Texas. The justices voted 8-1 on Monday to lift a federal judge’s order that had stopped construction across the sector for more than a month. The unsigned five-page decision said a 1996 immigration law gives the Homeland Security secretary wide room to waive environmental rules and that Congress wrote it to favor fast construction over the harm the challengers described. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only one who said she would have turned the administration down. She did...

Long before Beat Generation novelist Jack Kerouac immortalized the road trip or Americans got their kicks on Route 66, cross-country drivers had to navigate a confusing network of colloquially named thoroughfares to reach their destinations. Like pioneers of yore, motorists in the early 1910s could follow the National Old Trails Road—a transcontinental route between Baltimore, Maryland, and Los Angeles, California, stitched together from existing roads and historic wagon-train paths such as the Santa Fe Trail—or the Lincoln Highway, which connected New York City and San Francisco. As cars proliferated, so did demand for better roads. Countless automobile clubs, auto trail...

The United States will spurn a UN meeting on Tuesday where its human rights record under President Donald Trump was due to be examined, drawing criticism from rights groups who say violations have surged to levels not seen in decades. Washington disengaged from the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council last year, citing an anti-Israel bias, and this is the second year in a row that it has skipped its own review a process that even authoritarian regime take part in. The US no-show will likely mean the event is postponed until January, according to a draft UN document and diplomats....

Excavations within the medieval Great Church of Jesus in northern Sudan's Old Dongola uncovered a section of the original cathedral floor for the first time, according to an IFL Science report. Old Dongola was the capital of Makuria, a flourishing Nubian kingdom that converted to Christianity in the sixth century A.D. The cathedral once dominated the ancient metropolis, measuring 154 feet wide and 187 long, and standing over six stories high. It was one of the most monumental and important Christian buildings in Nubia, likely serving as the seat of the Bishop of Dongola, one of the most senior Christian...

It’s been heartwarming to see, once these contentious midterm elections were past us, how the Democrats rolled up their sleeves and got right to work on delivering the things they’d promised: affordability, equal opportunity and world peace. Haha, just kidding. Instead they immediately started seeking revenge. “We’re not afraid to impeach Donald Trump . . . who continues to act like a king or an emperor,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) declared after the Democrats’ big wins. “We have an absolute psychopath running the country,” agreed Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.). For all their “Love Trumps Hate” sloganeering, what we’ve seen from...

RFU News — Strategic Geopolitics Today, the biggest news comes from the Russian Federation. In central Moscow, security forces carried out a massive coordinated crackdown and detained up to two hundred people. Security forces were detaining anyone they came across on the street, reportedly including minors. According to eyewitnesses, those detained were beaten and taken to police stations. Detainees reported being held for hours without water or access to toilets, while their phones were smashed. Minors were later released to parents, though parents initially faced barriers to entry at the stations, leading to confrontations. Officially, Moscow’s Interior Ministry described the...

The fallout falls fully on the voters. They are wrong, and they foolishly voted against their own interests out of short-term outrage.I don’t blame President Trump for the terrible fallout of Election 2026. President Trump has done everything that he can to make America great again. This is going to offend some people, but I don’t blame the vast majority of candidates across the country, either.The fallout falls fully on the voters. They are wrong, and they foolishly voted against their own interests out of short-term outrage. Across the country, Americans chose to punish the Republicans by punishing themselves even...

A Texas county at the center of a 2020 election controversy and previously run by a serially accused potential fraudster overseeing machines for 90 Texas counties is lacking the necessary legal compliance. ... debate surrounding how one of the most solid Republican bastions suddenly switched blue in one election cycle. Some people pointed out the 20 million votes that materialized for Democrats across the country as fraud, and others argued that Democrats changed or exploited voting rules to register many U.S.-hating migrants. ... Texas, while requiring ID to register for voting, does not verify all registrants’ citizenship .. And there...

**Socialists Should Embrace Elon Musk, AI, and Robotics** For more than a century, the core promise of socialism has been simple: free people from the necessity of toil while still providing them with a high standard of living. The slogan has varied—“from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” “the end of wage slavery,” “leisure for all”—but the destination has stayed the same. Work becomes optional. Material security does not. History has been unkind to the political versions of that promise. Everywhere socialism has been tried as a governing system—Soviet Union, Maoist China, Cuba, Venezuela, and...

The Mainichi reports that another thirteenth-century shipwreck has been discovered off Takashima Island, after two others had previously been identified in 2011 and 2015. It is believed that all three vessels went down during the 1281 Battle of Koan, when the Mongol-led Chinese Yuan Dynasty attempted to invade Japan. The recently investigated ship originally measured around 100 feet long and was equipped with living quarters, likely serving as the mother ship of the fleet. Among the items recovered by archaeologists were five dice and 29 small cards used to play koppai, a game that originated in China. "The koppai cards,...

1-5 yrs: R+25 6-10 yrs: R+9 11-20 yrs: D+5 20+ yrs: D+5 (NBC Exit polls)

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American writer who was born in Gaza and worked in international development, on Monday became the first candidate for U.S. Sen. John Fetterman’s seat in 2028 — launching an early and progressive campaign set to reflect the polar opposite of Fetterman’s view of Israel and the war in Gaza.⁠

French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron filed a personal federal defamation lawsuit against podcaster Candace Owens in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.The fresh filing comes on the heels of an October 27 ruling by a Delaware superior court judge, who dismissed personal claims against Owens in an earlier July 2025 lawsuit due to a lack of personal jurisdiction, ruling that the court only had authority over her registered business entities.The sprawling 409-page complaint accuses Owens of repeatedly publishing defamatory claims regarding Brigitte Macron's identity and the couple's marital history, noting that she...

Saudi Arabia has sentenced a domestic worker from Kenya to 100 lashes after she gave birth outside of marriage. The sentence is a crushing blow to the mother, who has attempted for more than a year to return to Kenya with her child but has been blocked at every turn. The ruling, issued last month, shows the limits of a decade of social and legal reforms in the kingdom, where women can be jailed for 'illegal pregnancy'. The mother of five, Esther Wanja Muthoni, is among thousands of East African domestic workers who were recruited as housekeepers and nannies in...

Some countries have compelled Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly to include warnings or information about NAION, a rare vision-loss condition, on their GLP-1 drug labels. There is no NAION warning on the drugs’ labels in the U.S., though the Food and Drug Administration is investigating a potential link. Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly face lawsuits from patients claiming the medications caused the condition, but both companies are fighting the litigation.