Free Republic

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent. “We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference. “In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.” State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested...

The State Department formally determined this month that the Palestinian Authority paid more than $200 million to terrorists and their families in 2025, the same year PA president Mahmoud Abbas claimed he ended the "pay-to-slay" program, according to a nonpublic notice provided to Congress and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon. Rather than ending these payments, the PA shifted to a new system that it hoped to hide from international donors at a time when the Ramallah-based government is jockeying for a role in postwar Gaza, the State Department disclosed for the first time. Israeli intelligence assessed that the...

When the Trump administration sent some 2,000 immigration agents to the Twin Cities area, they were met by activists who trailed their movements and harassed them outside their hotels. The activists are members of radical groups that together have received millions of dollars from the Left's premier foundations and dark money networks, including George Soros's Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a Washington Free Beacon review found. At the center of the unrest is the Sunrise Movement, a left-wing group founded to fight climate change that has since directed its local chapters...

Criminal illegal aliens with ties to foreign terrorist organizations, according to the Department of Homeland Security. (DHS). FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—The Department of Homeland Security in the past year has arrested multiple illegal aliens it says have known ties to terrorist organizations, including ISIS and al-Qaeda. According to the agency, the illegal aliens include members of al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Islamic Republic Guard Corps of Iran, and MS-13, which President Donald Trump designated a foreign terrorist organization when he returned to office. “Just a year ago, under [President] Joe Biden, our border was wide open, and criminals, gang members, and...

Denmark’s foreign minister had the top U.S. diplomat in the country summoned for talks after the main national broadcaster reported Wednesday that at least three people with connections to President Donald Trump have been carrying out covert influence operations in Greenland. Trump has repeatedly said he seeks U.S. jurisdiction over Greenland, a vast, semi-autonomous territory of Denmark. He has not ruled out military force to take control of the mineral-rich, strategically located Arctic island. Denmark, a NATO ally of the U.S., and Greenland have said the island is not for sale and condemned reports of the U.S. gathering intelligence there.

More than half of Americans in a survey released Friday rated President Trump’s first year back in office as a “failure.” The CNN/SSRS survey found that 58 percent of U.S. adults said 2025 was a failure for the president on a number of issues. Another 42 percent said the year was a “success,” and about 1 percent had no opinion. Overall, 61 percent of respondents said they disapprove of the way Trump is handling his job. Of that number, 35 percent cited personal behavior — including putting self-interests above the nation, bullying and being disrespectful, erratic behavior, allegations of racism,...

(Note: I re-edited this and removed all the time stamping from the YouTube rolling transcript so errors may be present.) The Supreme Court just issued a 6-3 emergency ruling that's sending shock waves through Washington and every state capital right now. This decision could fundamentally reshape federal power versus state sovereignty. THE EMERGENCY RULING BREAKDOWN The emergency ruling breakdown. Here's what actually went down late last night. The Supreme Court released a 6-3 emergency decision that directly challenges how federal courts have been operating for the past two decades. The majority opinion makes it clear that lower court judges no...

An eastern Russian volcano has erupted for the first time in more than 500 years, which may have been related to an 8.8 magnitude earthquake last week... The Krasheninnikov Volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula emitted a plume of ash 3.7 miles into the sky overnight. The last recorded eruption of the volcano happened in the 15th century.. ... Last week's massive earthquake was the latest in a series of seismic events in the region, including another temblor that shook a region 11 times zones away from Moscow on the Pacific peninsula ... Krasheninnikov is one of 8 volcanoes nestled among...

A volcano in Ethiopia erupted for the first time in at least 12,000 years on Sunday, sending a cloud of ash and smoke northeast across the Red Sea. Hayli Gubbi, a volcano in the Afar region of northern Ethiopia, erupted at around 8:30 a.m. UTC (3:30 a.m. EST) on Nov. 23. By 8 p.m. UTC (3 p.m. EST), the explosive phase of the eruption had stopped, according to the Toulouse Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) in France. This is the first time Hayli Gubbi is known to have erupted in the Holocene — the present geological epoch that began at...

A popular Mexican musician who sang the praises of drug lords was shot dead in a parking lot in the west of the country, police said late Tuesday. Ernesto Barajas, a singer with the group Enigma Norteno, which has four million monthly listeners on Spotify, was gunned down in the city of Zapopan in Jalisco state. He is among several performers of so-called "narco-corridos" — a controversial sub-genre of regional music that celebrates the exploits of infamous drug cartels — to have been killed in recent months. In May, five members of the group Fugitivo were murdered by suspected drug...

Listening to the usual legacy media suspects, one might think 2025 was an apocalyptic wasteland of sorts -- an authoritarian fever dream brought on by the return of Donald J. Trump to the Oval Office. The reality looked very different. This past year was, in many ways, a pretty great and clarifying one. Let's take stock of what happened when our government remembered whom it serves, as well as what unfinished business remains as we flip the calendar. First, the obvious: Political sanity was restored to the nation's capital. After years of leftist elite-driven chaos -- wide-open borders, hyper-vindictive lawfare,...

If 2025 proved one thing, it's that the pro-life movement is not slowing down. And Live Action continues to lead where culture, truth, and accountability meet. Here are some of the biggest victories the pro-life movement celebrated in 2025. Defunding Big Abortion of an estimated $700 million This summer, the reconciliation bill known as the "Big Beautiful Bill" passed Congress and was subsequently signed by President Trump on July 4. The bill included a provision to temporarily defund Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses of about $700 million in Medicaid funding for one year, unless they stop committing elective induced...

Well, Donald Trump has done it again! He stumped the chumps. The "chumps" in this case were the "blue-chip" academic and financial economists whose consensus forecast this time last year was of high inflation and low economic growth. Wrong on both counts. As you've probably heard, the GDP growth for Q3 came in at a red-hot 4.3%, following 3.5% for the second quarter. Some 90% of professional economists got it wrong -- all underestimating the strength of the Trump economy. QED: These weren't random errors. These were "hate Trump" errors. They also predicted inflation of above 3% for 2025. It's...

Antifa militants are circulating a guide that describes how to destroy domestic infrastructure by creating incendiary devices. Journalist Andy Ngo drew attention to the guide in a post on Twitter. “Antifa accounts are sharing a guide on how to make incendiary devices that will burn cables used in infrastructure, like on train tracks,” Ngo posted. “Antifa and anarchist extremists believe that domestic terrorist attacks must be used to destabilize and destroy the state.” Ngo’s post included a photo of an Antifa account, Anarchist Federation News, that was circulating the guide. Since Trump’s return to the White House, it’s become clear...

President Donald Trump’s administration on Thursday designated four European left-wing groups as terrorist organizations, following through on his vow to crack down on leftists after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. The networks targeted by Trump’s Republican administration all appear to be based in Europe, with no operations in the United States. They are an Italian anarchist front that sent explosive packages to the then-president of the European Commission in 2003, two Greek networks believed to have planted bombs outside riot police and labor department buildings in Athens, and an anti-fascist group whose members were prosecuted by German authorities...

Dearborn Heights Fundraiser And Poetry Night For Palestine, Organized With Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM): This American Empire Must Fall; People Here Are Willing To Fight And Put Their Lives On The Line To Bring Western Empires Down. April 16, 2025 Palestinians | Special Dispatch No. 11929 An attendee at a fundraiser for Middle East Children’s Alliance and poetry night held at the Newora Café in Dearborn Heights stated that while the people of Gaza have achieved victory, the people in the United States have not done enough. He emphasized that change must come, saying, "This American empire has been hurting...

It’s that time of year again, when I assess my past prognostications and offer some fresh ones. In my January 2, 2025, column entitled “How My 2024 Predictions Went – And Some Predictions for 2025,” I made 20 predictions in those heady days post-Trump’s election victory. I had a pretty good accuracy rate. If you are playing baseball, I calculate I was batting .750. Not bad.I thought the Senate would confirm almost all of Trump’s nominees because the Senate Republicans were not stupid; for once, it did. I severely underestimated Mike Johnson, though – the guy pulled it off. He...

The ship will be ceremonially commissioned in August in Juneau, Alaska, which is the vessel’s homeport. Until then, the icebreaker and two others will be berthed in Seattle, Washington, until infrastructure improvements are made at the ships’ homeport. ... The U.S. Coast Guard’s newest polar icebreaker is officially operational, which the agency says will bolster its Arctic operations. The 360-foot-long icebreaker departed from its assembly port in Pascagoula, Mississippi and was headed to Seattle, where it will be based until renovations are completed at its homeport in Juneau, Alaska. ... The USCGC Storis will join the USCGC Polar Star and...

President Donald Trump reportedly rebuffed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's push for sweeping amnesty during a phone call last week, telling the embattled leader and his senior aides to abandon their demands and leave the country as U.S. pressure intensifies. Trump and Maduro discussed a broad amnesty proposal during a phone call last week, people familiar with the exchange told The Wall Street Journal. Maduro reportedly asked for general amnesty for himself, his senior aides, and their families. Many of those individuals face U.S. sanctions or criminal indictments tied to corruption, drug trafficking, and human rights abuses. People familiar with the...

Even by the standards of the past few turbulent years, 2025 was a taxing time for chief executives. The return of Donald Trump to the White House brought trade war and plenty of chaotic policymaking besides. The battle for technological supremacy between China and the West became fiercer. At the same time, the task of turning excitement over artificial intelligence (AI) into profit remained frustratingly elusive. Amid the turmoil, however, some bosses have had a stellar year. For the third time, The Economist has examined which chief executive did best of all. As in past years, we began by ranking...