Free Republic

US rapper Kanye West has announced the postponement of a forthcoming concert in Marseille, France, "until further notice". The announcement comes a week after this summer's Wireless Festival in London - which West had been scheduled to headline - was cancelled following the UK government's decision to block him from entering the country. French media reported that Interior Minister Laurent Nunez was looking to ban the 11 June gig. An unnamed source, said to be close to Nunez, was cited as telling the AFP news agency that the minister was "highly determined" to ban the event.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a highly unusual public apology to a colleague Wednesday, saying her criticism of Justice Brett Kavanaugh for his writing in an earlier immigration case was unfair. “At a recent appearance at the University of Kansas School of Law, I referred to a disagreement with one of my colleagues in a prior case, but I made remarks that were inappropriate,” Sotomayor said in a statement. “I regret my hurtful comments. I have apologized to my colleague.” Sotomayor’s statement followed remarks she made last week in Kansas in which she criticized Kavanaugh for his concurring opinion in a...

Still trying to get rid of the gophers in my yard. I read there are scents they don't like, makes 'em leave so I'm making a natural pest repellent spray infused with peppermint to ward off the gophers. I thought I'd put it up here for anyone else with this problem to try. Not expensive, doesn't hurt pets. Hope it works. Surprisingly this recipe says to mix with distilled water and VODKA!? They will either leave or hang out at the patio trying to hook up with loose gopher chicks 🦫 If I hear them singing Muskrat Love tonight I'll...

According to a U.S. Central Command social media post, six merchant vessels turned around in compliance with the U.S. blockade once it went into effect Monday morning. CENTCOM spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins declined to provide USNI News with the names of the six ships.The Strait of Hormuz continues to be a point of contention in the ongoing war between Iran and the U.S. Iran wants control of the waterway as part of the agreement between the two countries. International maritime law treats the Strait of Hormuz as an international passage open to all, while Iran argues it is made up...

From fake news websites to staged political protests and bogus medical conditions, asylum seekers and the advisers helping them are using an array of fabricated evidence to bolster their fake claims. It all amounts to a sham industry, which includes charging migrants for advice on how to pose as gay to claim asylum, as exposed by the first part of our undercover investigation into the immigration system. Other techniques include paying to write articles in atheist magazines and hiring someone to pretend to be a same-sex partner. At an office off the busy Mile End Road, in east London, on...

But now the Democrat from New York is feeling buoyed by his party’s unity in the latest government funding fight, as well as by President Donald Trump’s worsening political standing, and he’s brimming with confidence about Democrats’ odds of retaking the Senate, seeing as many as eight seats in play in November.

A controversial American YouTuber was sentenced to half a year in a South Korean labor prison for his nuisance behavior, including posting a video of himself crudely dancing on a statue honoring World War II sex slaves. Ramsey Khalid Ismael, a self-proclaimed internet “troll” known as Johnny Somali online, was tossed into the specialized prison on Wednesday, the Korea Herald reported. Ismael, 25, had provoked citizens in South Korea by singing the North Korean national anthem, spilled noodles inside a convenience store, got into several heated arguments with strangers, and degraded the solemn “Statue of Peace,” all stunts he shared...

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The president and I spoke an hour after Buckingham Palace announced details of King Charles and Queen Camilla's state visit to the United States. His tone and his language revealed to me how distinctly he differentiates Britain's royals from its politicians. He also revealed that he did not know that the King's visit is taking place at the request of the government.

Remember "Malcolm In The Middle," that show from the early 2000s starring Frankie Muniz and Bryan Cranston that was a hilarious look at growing up in a lower-middle class family at the turn of the century? Well, Disney, being the absolute Dr. Frankenstein that it is, just couldn't let the series die with the times, and decided to resurrect the once-popular sitcom, releasing it to an unsuspecting populous. Behold, "Malcolm In The Middle: Life's Still Unfair." Well, that looks like some harmless fun, right? They hit all the bullet points from the original series: the brothers are still nuts, Hal...

@MarioNawfal BREAKING: MTG and Ro Khanna are forming a political coalition... Let that sink in. They disagree on almost everything. But they've found enough common ground to start: the Epstein files, the Iran war, foreign aid, and a $40 trillion debt run up by the same bipartisan center that's been in charge for decades. Khanna put it bluntly: The Vice President shouldn't be reporting to Netanyahu before reporting to Congress. This isn't a friendship. It's a signal that the old left-right coalition holding Washington together is starting to crack from both ends simultaneously.

Supporting an independent Kurdish state — carved from Kurdish majority regions in northwestern collapsing Iran and neighboring areas in northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, and southeastern Turkey — would be the ultimate strategic masterstroke.(These regions could first exist as autonomous entities within their countries, as is already the case in Iraq, with a concrete plan for eventual unification.)

USS Frank E. Petersen (DDG-121) and USS Michael Murphy (DDG-112) operated in the Persian Gulf after transiting the strait as part of the U.S. plan to “ensure the strait is fully clear of sea mines,” according to a Saturday U.S. Central Command news release. Frank E. Petersen is part of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, while Michael Murphy is an independently-deployed destroyer, according to USNI News’ Fleet and Marine Tracker. The pair of ships transited back through the strait to the Gulf of Oman, according to ship spotters.How the U.S. will clear the strait remains an open question. Over...

Here is a transcript of the intriguing and insightful Mo Gawdat video... Your life and mine will witness times where there will be 20, 30, 50 percent unemployment in certain sectors, maybe even more. Most of us are going to witness something we've never seen before. The interesting thing is that this is not unlike humanity's origin. Jobs are an invention that serve a capitalist system that has served humanity for a while and pained humanity for a while. And the question is, is the capitalist system going to survive artificial intelligence? Funny enough, the capitalists that are celebrating the...

VATICAN CITY — In an escalation of the public feud between the U.S. president and the supreme pontiff of the Catholic Church, Pope Leo XIV shared an AI-generated photo of himself dressed as Donald Trump. After President Trump shared a controversial AI-generated image of himself with overt religious imagery on the heels of bashing the pope, the pontiff retaliated by releasing his own image depicting himself with a distinctly Trump-like appearance and sitting in the Oval Office. Critics immediately bashed the image as being blasphemous. "This image is highly offensive," one social media user said. "For the pope to...

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They don’t call it censorship anymore. They call it protection. Protection for communities. Protection for organizations. Protection from “threats.” The language is softer now, more strategic, designed to pass scrutiny without triggering it. But behind California’s AB 2624, the intent is harder to ignore: if you document the wrong thing, in the wrong place, involving the wrong people, the state may decide you shouldn’t be allowed to show it at all. And this time, they’re not going after institutions. They’re going after the individuals who don’t need one. In Sacramento, that effort now has a bill number. AB 2624. According...

Wife and I will be in Seattle in June for an Alaskan cruise. We've got an AirBnB reserved in the 400 block of Vine Street. Any concerns with the location as we'll be flying in around 7:00 a.m. and will need to kill some time before we can get in around 3:00. Plan is to take an Uber from the airport to a Bounce luggage storage area a couple minutes from the AirBnB. What's good to eat around there for all three meals? Is the area we're staying in "safe," or would you avoid? An touristy things in walking distance?...

@elonmusk South Africa won’t allow Starlink to be licensed, even though I was BORN THERE, simply because I am not Black! We were offered many times the opportunity to bribe our way to a license by pretending that a Black guy runs Starlink SA, but I have refused to do so on principle. Racism should not be rewarded no matter to which race it is applied. Shame on the racist politicians in South Africa. They should be shown no respect whatsoever anywhere in the world and shunned for being unashamedly RACISTS!

... Vance's popularity has dropped by 21% since the start of the term in 2025. Compared to other Vice Presidents in recent history, he holds the worst rating at this stage of a term, with a score of -18.