Free Republic

Iran’s hardline Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader has effectively taken control of Tehran’s military and negotiation team over the weekend, analysts said. IRGC Commander Maj. Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and members of his inner circle have allegedly taken charge of the Islamic republic, as evident by Iran’s attacks on ships trying to sail through the Strait of Hormuz and Tehran’s refusal to join peace talks with the US this week, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank said. The sudden shift to a hardline stance also shows that more moderate members of Iran’s leadership, including Iranian Foreign...

More than 15 million people compete for space in Turkey's largest city, which straddles Europe and Asia on either side of the Bosphorus, much like a house cat perched half on the sofa, half on the coffee table. That's the appropriate visual, because there are an estimated quarter of a million stray kitties living here, too. Cats are woven into the very fabric and history of the city, as ubiquitous as the rugs for sale on every corner. This is a city shared; a city that purrs incessantly with love and life. "Istanbul cats are, on the whole, neither pets...

GASTON, S.C. — Several agencies assisted in shutting down a large event in Lexington County on Saturday night after several people were trampled by horses, and members of a large crowd reportedly threw beer cans at first responders.Gaston Police Chief Stephen Watkins said police received reports of an emergency call around 8:30 p.m. Saturday to 491 S. Main St., where there were reports of people injured by horses at a rodeo event.Officers arrived at the scene with Lexington County Emergency Services and the Lexington County Fire Service, where they found several people had been trampled by stampeding horses that were...

Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards has cheated death so many times he’s like a cat with nine lives, only in his case, it’s probably ninety-nine. A show in Sacramento in December 1965 proved almost fatal for Richards. While he was singing, Richards, 82, didn’t realize his mic was ungrounded. “The strings of his guitar touching the metal stand shorted out the amp and sent a strong surge of electricity” through his body, writes Bob Spitz in the upcoming book “The Rolling Stones: The Biography.” A photographer who was there remembers that Richards was “unconscious for a long time,” and when...

On his Facebook page, Elkins shared a picture of him with his eldest daughter as she ate a burger Saturday, hours before his rampage. “Lol!!!! Took my oldest on a lil 1 on 1 date had to catch her down bad ugh ugh,” the killer wrote, along with a string of laughing emojis. Two weeks ago, Elkins shared a picture of himself posing with seven children as he described taking them to church for an Easter service. “Happy Easter had a wonderful time at church for the first time with all my kids what a blessed day,” he wrote in...

The Madison is a neo-Western television series created by Taylor Sheridan for Paramount+. The series follows the Clyburn family, originally from New York City, who relocate to the Madison River valley of southwest Montana for emotional recovery following a major life-changing tragedy that both shocks and permanently changes the family.

THE 2026 World Cup is shaping up to be expensive for fans. Depending on what stadium your ticket is for — if you even got one due to exorbitant prices — transit and lodging costs are cripplingly high. This year’s World Cup was marketed as a tournament to get Americans excited about soccer and be a place where all fans could come and watch their countries compete. Instead, it has become a bidding war with both Fifa and local governments setting incredibly high prices. The cheapest tickets for less favorable games start at around $140 for a seat, but can...

Explanation: Have you ever had stars in your eyes? It appears that the eye on the left does, and moreover, it appears to be gazing at even more stars. The featured 27-frame mosaic was taken in 2019 from Ojas de Salar in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The eye is actually a small lagoon captured reflecting the dark night sky as the Milky Way Galaxy arched overhead. The seemingly smooth band of the Milky Way is really composed of billions of stars, but decorated with filaments of light-absorbing dust and red-glowing nebulas. Additionally, both Jupiter (slightly left the galactic arch)...

As herds of elk have overtaken a beach in a small Oregon coastal town, tourists have tried to put their children on them to ride and others attempt to feed them carrots. “We have visitors who don't know elk are wild animals,” said the local chamber. It’s a sight most in Wyoming would consider extremely odd: herds of elk lounging around the beach. That’s what’s happening in the small Oregon coastal town of Cannon Beach, where elk are taking over the beaches, looking completely out of context in the sand and surf. And as in Yellowstone National Park, Estes Park,...

California's blustery San Francisco Bay is home to the Golden Gate Bridge, commercial ports, public marinas and ferry boats. But more recently, a new sight is attracting locals' attention: Eastern North Pacific gray whales.The whales have brought wonder, as residents and researchers now get to closely observe how they feed, breed and socially engage. They've also brought growing unease: why are so many of them undernourished and dying?In 2025, a record number of 21 dead gray whales were found in the broader San Francisco Bay. So far this year, seven have died due to a combination of dwindling prey availability,...

A new Roman adventure begins! Join Miss Detectorist UK as coins fall from the earth along an ancient Roman road—now a quiet Wiltshire farm field. What starts as a routine dig turns into an extraordinary metal detecting day: a haul of 25 Roman coins and two incredible artefacts, including a beautiful bronze snake ring that hasn’t seen the light of day for nearly 2,000 years. Step into the past with Miss Detectorist and her detecting buddy as they trace the footsteps of Roman Britain, uncovering stories buried beneath the soil. From the first signal to the last astonishing find, this...

When disbarment becomes a foreseeable consequence of advancing controversial legal theories in politically charged contexts, the effect is to narrow the range of permissible legal thought. The disbarment of John Eastman represents the logical endpoint of a systematic abuse of legal and administrative processes commonly described as lawfare, a pattern that has been escalating for nearly a decade. What began in 2016 with the targeting of Trump campaign associates, who at least operated within the political arena, has evolved into the professional destruction of a law professor who held no office, ran no campaign, and whose only “offense” was...

The median home sale price in the San Francisco metropolitan area jumped 14.4% year over year in March to a record $1.7 million. That’s the largest increase since March 2018 and the biggest gain among the 50 most populous U.S. metro areas. Condo prices in San Francisco rose particularly quickly, posting a 24.4% year-over-year increase last month—the largest since 2013. San Francisco’s housing market has been heating up as a boom in the artificial intelligence industry and a return to the office have coincided with a lack of inventory. “A lot of 22-year-olds are getting $500,000 signing bonuses from AI...

Jeff Bezos just posted on Twitter/X that Blue Origin has successfully landed a booster and posted a video of the landing. The first person to congratulate him was Elon Musk.... https://x.com/JeffBezos/status/2045874068763632017 Kind of amazing that two US private companies have successfully landed boosters, but no other space agency or country has duplicated the feat, not Russia, China, EU, etc.

This is perfect!

President Donald Trump once again threatened to strike core Iranian infrastructure, including power plants and bridges, in a lengthy Truth Social post on Sunday morning. The post comes after the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) reneged on a previous agreement to open the Strait of Hormuz and fired on multiple civilian vessels over the weekend. “Iran decided to fire bullets yesterday in the Strait of Hormuz — A Total Violation of our Ceasefire Agreement! Many of them were aimed at a French Ship, and a Freighter from the United Kingdom. That wasn’t nice, was it?” the president wrote. Trump once...

Militaries around the world spend countless hours training, developing policies, and implementing best operational security practices, so imagine the size of the egg on the face of the Dutch navy when journalists managed to track one of its warships for less than the cost of some hagelslag and a coffee. The security snafu was reported by Dutch regional broadcaster Omroep Gelderland. In a Thursday report, Omroep Gelderland journalist Just Vervaart said the broadcaster was able to track HNLMS Evertsen, a Dutch air-defense frigate deployed to help protect France’s aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle against missile threats, by mailing a Bluetooth...

A witness said she was awoken by the sounds of her neighbors yelling outside her home just after 8 a.m. Video showed a large group of neighbors standing outside watching the scene unfold. The balloon reportedly ran out of fuel and was forced to make an emergency landing right in the backyard of Hunter and Jenna Perrin’s home. The basket, which narrowly avoided fences and trees before landing on a small lawn, was filled with around a dozen people who were unharmed and seen waving at the couple as they incredulously filmed the interaction.

Minor Prophets Scroll from the Cave of Horrors | 13:40Daily Dose of Septuagint | 3.49K subscribers | 862 views | April 18, 2026

On April 19, 1775, the opening shots of the American Revolutionary War at Lexington and Concord—later immortalized as “the shot heard around the world”—gave way, almost immediately, to something more consequential than a single day’s fighting. As British regulars retreated into Boston under constant fire from colonial militia, the countryside did not simply quiet. Instead, it closed in. What began as a running battle hardened into a siege—an improvised but determined effort by New England militias to isolate British forces inside the city and challenge imperial authority in a sustained way.Boston, already a focal point of imperial tension, now became...