Free Republic

At least 85 people, almost all of them young girls, have been killed in an air strike on a primary school in southern Iran, the Iranian judiciary said. The attack on Saturday morning hit Shajareh Tayyebeh schoolin the city of Minab, in Hormozgan province, as the United States and Israel began launching strikes on targets across Iran.The victims were between seven and 12 years old, according to Iran's Tasnim and Fars news agencies. A staff member at the Minab school, who asked not to be named, told Middle East Eye she remains in shock at the intensity of the attack....

ZDNET's key takeaways Agentic AI technology is marked by a lack of disclosure about risks. Some systems are worse than others. AI developers need to step up and take responsibility. Agentic technology is moving fully into the mainstream of artificial intelligence with the announcement this week that OpenAI has hired Peter Steinberg, the creator of the open-source software framework OpenClaw. The OpenClaw software attracted heavy attention last month not only for its enabling of wild capabilities -- agents that can, for example, send and receive email on your behalf -- but also for its dramatic security flaws, including the ability...

According to the latest public opinion poll released by the Associated Press, about 70 percent of Americans oppose the United States taking control of Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark. Among Republicans who support U.S. President Donald Trump, about 50 percent are opposed to the United States acquiring Greenland. The Associated Press noted that, so far, very few people in the United States have publicly expressed support for the plan to take control of Greenland. Only about 24% of American adults approve of Trump’s approach to Greenland. Among Republicans, opinions are notably more divided; roughly half disapprove of the attempt...

Think back to February 2020. If you were paying close attention, you might have noticed a few people talking about a virus spreading overseas. But most of us weren't paying close attention. The stock market was doing great, your kids were in school, you were going to restaurants and shaking hands and planning trips. If someone told you they were stockpiling toilet paper you would have thought they'd been spending too much time on a weird corner of the internet. Then, over the course of about three weeks, the entire world changed. Your office closed, your kids came home, and...

https://x.com/mark_slapinski/status/2021354035497079056

Republican officials and candidates in Texas have shifted their rhetorical attack lines from the border fears that dominated recent elections to the state’s growing Muslim population, with language that echoes the aftermath of the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric has unnerved many in the state’s Islamic community while sending signals to Republicans outside Texas who might be searching for rhetorical targets now that the nation’s southwestern border has grown quiet. Ads for Senator John Cornyn of Texas have touted his fight against “radical Islam.” Texas Republican lawmakers created a “Sharia-Free America Caucus” in Congress....

Jeannine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, on Monday threatened jail time for anyone who enters the capital with a gun. In remarks on Fox News that could deepen a growing rift between gun owners and the Trump administration, Ms. Pirro declared that if anyone brings “a gun into the District, you mark my words, you’re going to jail. I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” Her remarks prompted swift pushback from the Republican Party’s pro-Second Amendment wing, which was thrown...

“You bring a gun into this district, count on going to jail, and hope you get the gun back.” Pirro said on Fox News Monday in part, adding, “I don’t care if you have a license in another district and I don’t care if you’re a law-abiding gun owner somewhere else.” D.C. law requires firearm owners to register their weapons with local police and bars residents from registering certain semiautomatic rifles, effectively preventing civilian ownership of those models in the district, Axios reports.

Hundreds of Danish protesters, many of whom are military veterans who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan, staged a demonstration in Copenhagen on Saturday outside the U.S. Embassy. The group was protesting President Donald Trump’s push that the U.S. acquire Greenland from Denmark and his remarks at Davos that NATO forces "stayed a little back" when they fought alongside the U.S. in Iraq and Afghanistan. "They have a feeling that they’ve been betrayed," Carsten Rasmussen, president of the Danish Veterans Association, told The Associated Press. "And of course, they are angered by this. They deployed. They fought with the Americans. They...

Alex Pretti’s last words were, “Are you okay?” Renee Good’s were, “I’m not mad at you.” Both were fatally shot by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers this month. Neither was holding weapons. They were observers, present to record, witness and alert their communities. We all saw what happened to them. ICE brutality is not new. The agency has instituted inhumane conditions and separated families for decades. Thirty-two people died in ICE custody in 2025, but that was also true in 2004. What has changed is not the violence. The change is that we can no longer pretend we do...

As recent American military deployments to the Middle East and President Donald Trump’s escalatory rhetoric have heightened speculation of an imminent attack on Iran, there are increasing signs that such action would trigger a regional and even global “Shiite jihad,” particularly should the U.S. take out Iran’s clerical leadership. This would present a new phenomenon which is likely to pose daunting security challenges, not least for the United States itself. In a recent speech, the secretary-general of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, Sheikh Naim Qassem, warned that a new war on the Islamic Republic would engulf the entire region. The assassination...

WASHINGTON — When President Donald Trump watched a live feed of the U.S. military operation that captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, was not in the room. Just two days earlier, she had posted photos of herself on a beach in Hawaii at sunset practicing yoga, sending out a new year’s greeting for “peace.”That she appeared to be on vacation in the run-up to such a high-stakes, ultra-sensitive military operation seemed to underscore the extent to which she has been sidelined by the administration.But there she was on Wednesday, at an election center in...

Alex Pretti brought gun and extra ammunition before allegedly intervening in immigration arrest The highly organized groups of agitators in Minneapolis, coordinated online to harass federal immigration agents (or anyone in an SUV it seems), have begun to employ tactics that any Israeli would recognize from decades of terrorism in their country.The basic idea employed by both the Minnesota leftists and Hamas is to be as menacing as possible to authorities, including through acts of violence, and then, when the authorities strike back, to claim victimhood and martyrdom.The tragic and needless death of Alex Pretti on Saturday morning was a...

Top business leaders this week delivered an expletive-laden plea in defense of climate action, describing the backlash to Europe’s green transition as an “aberration.” In an interview with CNBC at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Allianz CEO Oliver Bäte said he disagreed with the suggestion that it may just be a matter of time before net zero is dismissed in Europe, saying short-term thinking on this issue is “bulls---.” Asked about political leaders backtracking on their much-vaunted European Green New Deal and Norway’s oil fund reportedly defending a push from companies to water down their climate goals, Bäte...

For four decades, the Pacific coast of Panama has counted on a reliable seasonal pulse of cold, nutrient-rich water that powers local fisheries and cools coral reefs. In early 2025 that pulse all but vanished. Scientists report that the Gulf of Panama’s usual upwelling failed for the first time in the instrumental record, a breakdown they see as a warning about how quickly climate disruption can unsettle tropical seas. During most years from roughly December to April, strong northerly trade winds sweep across Central America and into the Gulf of Panama. Those winds push aside warm surface waters so that...

A Minnesota resident offers a very down to earth response to the protesters: Go the Feep home and mind your business. He's local, he's irritated, and he doesn't care if some "goofy ass broad" got shot trying to interfere with ICE. Normal Minnesotans not of the White Liberal ilk have just about had enough of their streets being blocked by agitators eager to protect Latino gangsters and Somali thieves. He uses very salty language, so don't play it with your grandchildren nearby unless you want to expand their vocabulary. But it's great.

I can't afford to buy a home! I hear this lament often, especially from young folks. Boomers often respond, saying, "Quit buying $6 lattes and ordering Uber Eats, and maybe you could save for a house." It might just be me, but it seems like that may oversimplify things a tad. I mean, there's no doubt a lot of young people would benefit from budgeting lessons. However, that doesn't change the fact that there is a significant home affordability problem here in the U.S. Last year, the average age of a first-time homebuyer in the U.S. climbed to 40 for...

On Christmas Eve, Hindu hardline groups affiliated with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) announced a shutdown in the central Indian city of Raipur. The protest was called over allegations of “forced” religious conversions by Christians, a claim frequently levelled against the Christian community despite scant evidence. That same day, groups of men armed with wooden sticks stormed a shopping mall in Raipur, vandalising Christmas decorations and disrupting celebrations. Police filed a case against 30 to 40 unidentified attackers, but arrested only six. They were released on bail within days and, upon their release, were greeted with...

Left-wing activists in Minneapolis are targeting ICE with a highly organized on-the-ground harassment and tracking operation, complete with hotel and license plate lists, “noise demonstrations,” and training on how to “stop ICE.” The extremist groups at the forefront of this operation have received millions of dollars from the left’s most powerful money machines, including George Soros’s Open Society Foundations, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Tides Foundation, and the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a Washington Free Beacon review found. At the center is the Sunrise Movement, which has shifted from climate activism into anti-ICE agitation in Minneapolis-St. Paul. Sunrise operatives...

A Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, government agency is promoting an upcoming class by local leftist groups on “civil disobedience” from its social media accounts. The city’s Commission on Human Relations (CHR) reposted a joint announcement on Saturday advertising the event by the Pittsburgh chapters of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and the 50501 Movement on Instagram and X. The three-hour Tuesday evening talk will feature an unnamed “practitioner and trainer with extensive experience” and civil rights lawyer Mike Healey, according to the posts. Tactical Training in the Art of Civil Disobedience Tuesday, January 13, 6-9pm Community Forge in Wilkinsburg pic.twitter.com/JlYvB7ux5Y — Pittsburgh...