Free Republic

A bronze statue of First Lady Melania Trump has apparently disappeared from her hometown of Sevnica, Slovenia. Local media said the statue was sawed off at the ankles and carried away from the area, the Associated Press (AP) reported on Friday, noting police are investigating and trying to find those responsible. “The original wooden statue was torched in July 2020. The rustic figure was cut from the trunk of a linden tree, showing her in a pale blue dress like the one she wore at Trump’s presidential inauguration in 2017. The replica bronze statue has no obvious resemblance with the...

Nearly half a century after a young California woman was strangled, officials say a thumbprint on a carton of cigarettes has led to an arrest. Willie Eugene Sims was arrested in Jefferson, Ohio, in connection with the death of Jeanette Ralston, according to a Friday statement from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office. Sims, 69, has been charged with murder and was arraigned on Friday in Ashtabula County Court before being sent to California. (snip) A thumbprint found on Ralston’s cigarette carton in her car was found to match Sims’s last fall after law enforcement had asked to run...

Much like its creator, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was preoccupied with South African racial politics on social media this week, posting unsolicited claims about the persecution and “genocide” of white people. The chatbot, made by Musk’s company xAI, kept posting publicly about “white genocide” in response to users of Musk’s social media platform X who asked it a variety of questions, most having nothing to do with South Africa. One exchange was about streaming service Max reviving the HBO name. Others were about video games or baseball but quickly veered into unrelated commentary on alleged calls to violence...

A 19-year-old man was arrested after spending months planning an attack on a U.S. Army site in suburban Detroit, authorities said Wednesday. The man was planning a mass shooting at the Army’s Tank-Automotive & Armaments Command in Warren, commonly known as the Detroit Arsenal, on behalf of the Islamic State group, the U.S. Attorney's Office said. But he didn’t know that he had been scheming with two undercover FBI employees, who recorded audio and video images of their meetings with him, including handwritten diagrams of the site, referred by the Army as TACOM, authorities said.

Space junk in Earth's orbit may increase because of the effects of the same heat-trapping gases that are polluting the air and warming the planet, according to a recent study. What's happening? A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers determined that, with Earth's warming, space debris could accumulate enough to reduce the low Earth orbit area available for satellites by between a third and 82% by the year 2100, as the Associated Press detailed. The reason for this, per the study published in Nature Sustainability in March, is that climatic changes high above ground could reduce the effectiveness...

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved. Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred. As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers...

"There are very, very few people in the West who seriously believe that".. The Associated Press complains that President Trump is calling their political allies “Communists”. For years, President Donald Trump blamed “communists” for his legal and political troubles. Now, the second Trump administration is deploying that same historically loaded label to cast his opponents — from judges to educators — as threats to American identity, culture and values. In 2025, communism wields big influence in countries such as China, Vietnam, North Korea and Cuba. But not the United States. “The core of communism is the belief that governments can...

LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Portugal’s caretaker government plans to expel some 18,000 foreigners living in the country without authorization, a minister said Saturday in the buildup to a national election.Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro said the center-right government will issue approximately 18,000 notifications to people in the country illegally to leave. The minister said officials will begin next week by asking some 4,500 foreigners to leave voluntarily within 20 days.Portugal will hold an early general election on May 18. Prime Minister Luis Montenegro called the snap ballot in March after his minority government led by his conservative Social...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump, the real estate developer turned commander in chief, is laying bare his style of diplomacy in the early weeks of his new term: It’s a whole lot like a high-stakes business deal, and his No. 1 goal is to come out of the transaction on top.The tactics are clear in his brewing trade war with Canada and Mexico, in his approach to Russia’s war on Ukraine and in his selection of the first country he will visit in his second term.“President Trump approaches diplomacy and engages in a very transactional manner, with economics as the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Trump signs executive order aimed at cutting federal subsidies for PBS and NPR, alleging 'bias.' May 2 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to halt federal funding to PBS and NPR, calling the public news organizations "biased." Trump, who has long criticized the two news organizations for alleged bias, signed the executive order Thursday, directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease direct funding to NPR and PBS to the maximum extent allowed by law.

This is the first time I’ve heard the theory that the Holocaust wasn’t conducted with gas chambers but with free speech zones.

LOS ANGELES — Jurors convicted a Southern California judge of second-degree murder on Tuesday for fatally shooting his wife while the couple argued and watched television at home. Orange County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ferguson, 74, was on trial for the 2023 death of his wife Sheryl, 65, in their Anaheim Hills home. Ferguson took the stand in his own defense, admitting to shooting his wife but saying it was an accident. Jurors reached their decision Tuesday afternoon, a day after deliberations began. After the verdict was read in court, Ferguson was given a moment to hug his son before...

ATLANTA (AP) — The pastor of a Georgia megachurch who led a nationwide 40-day “fast” boycott of Target stores over the retail chain's commitment to diversity initiatives is now calling for that effort to continue as a “full Target boycott.” The Rev. Jamal Bryant said this week that the Minneapolis-based retailer has not met all of the boycott effort's demands. Among them: Restoring its commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion principles and pledging money to Black-owned banks and businesses. Target announced in January that it would phase out a handful of DEI initiatives, including a program designed to help Black...

Giorgia Meloni’s interpreter has apologized for faltering during a high-stakes meeting with Donald Trump earlier this week, prompting the Italian prime minister to jump in and translate her own comments about NATO and defense spending. Valentina Maiolini-Rothbacher, who was interrupted by Meloni when providing a translation at the White House meeting on Thursday, said in an interview with Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera that the mishap was the “worst thing that can happen to an interpreter, a terrible setback.” Footage of the meeting shows President Trump asking Maiolini-Rothbacher for a translation of Meloni’s response to a question from an Italian...

Dubai -- US airstrikes targeting an oil port held by Yemen’s Houthi rebels killed 74 people and wounded 171 others, the group said Friday, marking the single-deadliest known attack under President Donald Trump’s new campaign targeting the rebels. Assessing the toll of Trump’s campaign, which began March 15, has been incredibly difficult as the US military’s Central Command so far has not released any information on the campaign, its specific targets and how many people have been killed. Meanwhile, Yemen’s Houthi rebels strictly control access to areas attacked and don’t publish information on the strikes, many of which likely have...

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration will no longer give wire services a permanent spot in the White House press pool following The Associated Press’ victory last week in a lawsuit over its exclusion, The Post has learned. Instead, the White House is giving a second spot to “print” journalists — a term henceforth including wire reporters — who will get access to President Trump in small event spaces. ... DC US District Judge Trevor McFadden last week ordered the AP’s restoration to the press pool — after weeks of exclusion over editors’ refusal to update the AP Stylebook to refer...

U.S. egg prices increased again last month to reach a new record-high of $6.23 per dozen despite President Donald Trump’s predictions, a drop in wholesale prices and no egg farms having bird flu outbreaks.... ....The farms that had fall outbreaks have been working to resume egg production after sanitizing their barns and raising new flocks, but chickens must be about six months old before they start laying eggs. Thompson said those farms did not come back online as quickly as anticipated. The increase reported Thursday in the Consumer Price Index means consumers and businesses that rely on eggs might not...

EVERETT, Mass. (AP) — For years, the mayor of a Boston suburb dreaded Wednesdays. That was the day when a local weekly would publish shocking allegations that he was on the take, sexually harassing women or under investigation by the FBI. Friends trashed Everett Mayor Carlo DeMaria on Facebook over what the Everett Leader Herald printed. His father threatened to disown him — over stories the mayor knew were lies. “They labeled me as a ‘Kickback Carlo.’ Accusations that I was settling all kinds of sexual harassment lawsuits, that I put a knife to a girl’s throat and asked for...

Nikola founder Trevor Milton announced Thursday on social media that he had been fully pardoned by President Donald Trump. "Today I was issued a full and unconditional pardon by @realdonaldtrump himself. He called me personally to tell me," Milton noted. The Associated Press reported that the White House confirmed on Friday that the president had pardoned Milton. Fox News Digital reached out to the White House on Friday but did not receive a response by publication time. "This pardon is not just about me—it’s about every American who has been railroaded by the government, and unfortunately, that’s a lot of...

A Turkish national and doctoral student at Tufts University has been detained by U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents without explanation, her lawyer said Wednesday. Rumeysa Ozturk, 30, had just left her home in Somerville on Tuesday night when she was stopped, lawyer Mahsa Khanbabai said in a petition filed in Boston federal court. Video obtained by The Associated Press appears to show six people, their faces covered, taking away Ozturk’s phone as she yells and is handcuffed. “We’re the police,” members of the group are heard saying in the video. A man is heard asking, “Why are you hiding...