Free Republic

Ground was broken this month on an anxiously awaited highway project outside of Washington, D.C., one of the latest examples of the public and private sector acting as partners to advance critical state and local infrastructure projects. The June 6 launch of the Fredericksburg Extension Project – a 10-mile extension of express toll lanes on the Interstate 95 corridor in Northern Virginia nicknamed the “FredEx” – featured the leadership of a public-private partnership (P3) that will get the $565 million job done by the end of 2022. The state’s governor and its transportation secretary launched the project as the public...

On Tuesday, Socialist New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced the appointment of Ramzi Kassem as the city’s top attorney. Kassem gained notoriety for defending al-Qaeda terrorist Ahmed al-Darbi when he served as lead counsel. In 2014, al-Darbi pled guilty in connection with an al-Qaeda terrorist plot to bomb a French oil tanker near Yemen in 2002, leaving a civilian dead and several others injured. He was convicted in 2017 and ultimately transferred to Saudi Arabia in 2018. Al-Darbi’s brother-in-law was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the five hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon during the September...

Years before Chad Williams, 24, showed up at the new Twin Falls fast food joint, he expressed horror at the randomness of an armed carjacking in his hometown of Waddell, Arizona. “He would have killed you or me for walking out of our front door at the wrong time over a truck he would sell for just $8,000.” Williams, whose X bio said that he was a “former foster care youth” and that he participated in Boys State — a leadership program for top students — in 2019, stopped posting in July 2025. He mostly commented on news of the...

Judges who obtained their positions by fraud, according to an indictment, have denied the Trump campaign's ballot-watchers access, providing crucial unsupervised time to Democrat vote counters. PHILADELPHIA, Penn. — Most Americans might not know the name Ozzie Myers, although a part of his tale was told in the hit 2013 movie “American Hustle” about the FBI sting that sent four congressmen to prison in the 1970s. If you’re from Philadelphia, though, you know his name, and knew it well before 2013. He’s important to the country now because he’s currently under indictment for bribing a state elections judge to stuff...

Hunter Biden acknowledged in a new interview that his lucrative board appointments, including one at Ukrainian energy company Burisma, helped finance his crack cocaine addiction. “I never went broke,” Biden boasted on the “Dopey” podcast, after describing a two-month-long bender at the Chateau Marmont in Hollywood, Calif., where the former first son said he tried to “go out with a bang.” “Dopey” host Dave Manheim asked Biden how he was able to “scrape the money together” for the cocaine and prostitutes and private bungalows at the luxurious Chateau Marmont. “Well, I still had the residual. Like for instance, I still...

Documents show concerns about Ebola shipment from National Microbiology Lab, no relation to COVID-19 (according to the CBC) Newly-released access to information documents reveal details about a shipment of deadly pathogens last year from Canada's National Microbiology Lab to China — confirming for the first time who sent them, what exactly was shipped, and where it went. CBC News had already reported about the shipment of Ebola and Henipah viruses but there's now confirmation one of the scientists escorted from the lab in Winnipeg amid an RCMP investigation last July was responsible for exporting the pathogens to the Wuhan Institute...

Peter Ben Emerek of the World Health Organization (WHO) proclaims it “extremely unlikely” that the coronavirus causing COVID-19 leaked from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV). According to the WHO, the issue warrants no further study. But evidence is emerging that the Wuhan lab deliberately engineered the virus. The story begins in Canada. This month Canada removed Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, a virologist from Tianjin, China, and her husband, Keding Cheng, from the nation’s Public Health Agency because, as Karen Pauls of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reported on February 6, the pair had previously been removed from Canada’s National Microbiology...

Two Canadian government scientists escorted from the National Microbiology Laboratory amidst an RCMP investigation and internal review have been let go from the Public Health Agency of Canada, CBC News has learned. "The two scientists are no longer employed by the Public Health Agency of Canada as of Jan. 20, 2021," Eric Morrissette, chief of media relations for Health Canada and PHAC, confirmed in an email late Friday. "We cannot disclose additional information, nor comment further, for reasons of confidentiality." Sources say members of the lab's special pathogens unit were called to a meeting on Thursday and told that Dr....

... Over hours of debate in the House of Commons, Conservative, NDP and Bloc Québécois members repeatedly called on the Liberal government to provide details as to why two scientists were fired from Winnipeg’s high-security National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) earlier this year, amid an RCMP investigation into the matter... “How could scientists with deep connections to the Chinese military be able to gain access to a high-level Canadian security-cleared laboratory with the world’s most dangerous viruses?” Conservative MP John Williamson asked during debate... Dr. Xiangguo Qiu and her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of the NML in July...

Hamas terrorists were quietly building a sprawling European terror network for years — stockpiling guns, scouting targets, and even filming a martyrdom-style video — as they plotted a massacre on the continent to mirror the horrific October 7 attack on Israel, according to a bombshell investigation released last week. The chilling scheme, uncovered through a joint probe by European intelligence agencies and reported by Swiss outlet Neue Zürcher Zeitung, spanned at least seven countries: Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Poland, and Britain. The terror group eyed the second anniversary of its 2023 rampage, October 7, 2025, as a possible attack...

THE ORIGIN “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” publication — which was used repeatedly by public health officials and the media to discredit the lab leak theory — was prompted by Dr. Fauci to push the preferred narrative that COVID-19 originated naturally. 1. The virus possesses a biological characteristic that is not found in nature. 2. Data shows that all COVID-19 cases stem from a single introduction into humans. This runs contrary to previous pandemics where there were multiple spillover events. 3. Wuhan is home to China’s foremost SARS research lab, which has a history of conducting gain-of-function research (gene altering...

MANILA (Reuters) - Chaos erupted at a huge party to celebrate the 90th birthday of former Philippine first lady Imelda Marcos on Wednesday, with 261 friends and supporters rushed to Manila hospitals with suspected food poisoning. Emergency rooms in the city’s Pasig area were inundated with patients vomiting and suffering from diarrhea and dizziness, according to staff who spoke to Reuters.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Nevada's governor on Friday unveiled a proposal that would allow technology companies to establish jurisdictions with powers similar to those of county governments, arguing the state needed to be bold to diversify its economy and pushing back against those who have likened the idea to company towns. “This proposal is an exciting, unprecedented concept that has a potential to position Nevada as a global center of advanced technology and innovation, while helping to create immediate positive economic impact and shape the economy of the future,” Gov. Steve Sisolak said of his Innovation Zones idea. “As...

The FBI has captured a fugitive accused of stealing more than half a billion dollars from Medicare and leading authorities on an international manhunt, marking the third arrest from the bureau’s “Most Wanted Fraudsters” list. Khalid Ahmed Satary, who was indicted in 2019 in the Southern District of Florida, was arrested overseas after spending nearly three years on the run, according to the FBI. Authorities said Satary violated the conditions of his pretrial release in 2022, prompting a federal arrest warrant. “The arrest of Khalid Ahmed Satary and return to the U.S. is the third Most Wanted Fraudster capture from...

A suspected arson attack has caused a widespread power cut in Berlin since Saturday. Authorities said on Sunday that it was a result of a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists". Around 45,000 households were left without electricity in southwest Berlin after high-voltage power lines were damaged by a fire, which authorities have described as a politically motivated attack by far-left extremists. Though power has been restored in some areas, thousands could be left without power until Thursday after what authorities say was a politically motivated attack by “left-wing extremists”. The blaze erupted on a cable bridge over the Teltow...

"Krasnaya Zvezda, the official newspaper of the Russian Ministry of Defense, has included a heretofore unseen drawing of the Project 09852 Belgorod, a heavily modified Oscar II-class submarine outfitted for various "special projects" missions, in its latest report about a fire that killed 14 sailors onboard a still-unnamed Russian submarine on Monday. Russia officially launched the still-under-construction Belgorod, which is presently the world's longest submarine, in April 2019. At the same time, new details regarding the July 1st accident have begun to trickle out, although they are limited in number and some are unconfirmed in nature." ... "We have no...

Russia is now "so deeply invested in the Maduro regime that the only realistic option is to double down." Financial Times' Alexander Gabuev says that Rosneft owns two offshore gas fields in Venezuela and holds stakes in assets boasting more than 20 million tonnes of crude. Caracas owes Rosneft USD 3 billion. Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido last month declared himself interim president, winning the backing of the United States. Russia, meanwhile, supported Venezuela’s socialist leader Nicolás Maduro, who has led the oil-rich nation since 2013. The Kremlin is extending help to Maduro while the United States is imposing sanctions...

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told 7News Reporter Nick Minock that ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Washington, D.C. officers arrested Jose Jairo Rivas-Santiago in June 2026. ICE says 32-year-old Rivas-Santiago is a suspected MS-13 gang associate convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery. In April 2019, ICE said Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Richmond agents found and arrested Rivas-Santiago on charges of armed robbery and conspiracy related to an MS-13 gang murder. ICE says HSI turned him over to the Richmond City Police Department for prosecution. In April 2021, ICE says a judge convicted him of murder and armed...

A far-left New York congressional hopeful who just snagged Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsement spewed radical and hateful views online — trashing cops, establishment Democrats and calling the US “a f–ing disgrace.” Darializa Avila Chevalier’s disturbing social media history came to light as Mamdani on Thursday night shockingly endorsed her bid to unseat five-term incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-NY). “I’ve voted in every election since I turned 18 but you out of your mind if you think I’m voting for a war criminal,” she wrote in 2020, using a since-deleted X account. “This country is a f—ing disgrace,” she added. A...

More troubles for former Twitter employees continue to surface as now one has been convicted of a serious crime and sentenced on Wednesday in San Francisco, California to 3.5 years in prison, U.S. prosecutors said.All it took for ex-Twitter manager Ahmad Abouammo to abuse his position at the top social media company was a $42,000 watch and a pair of $100,000 wire transfers, to put innocent American at major risk. Now that Elon Musk is in charge and has cleaned house, the company and the country are in a far better position than before, as is becoming evident with each...