Free Republic

A biologically male “transgender woman” was arrested last week in Laguna Beach, Calif., suspected of killing his mother after neighbors say the pair got into a heated exchange.Police found Angela Caprioli, 61, dead at her residence on Monday, and arrested her son Safford Wolfson, 36, on Thursday on suspicion of murder. Police did not disclose details of the slaying.A neighbor told CBS Los Angeles Wolfson moved in about six months ago, and that he’d seen caretakers frequenting the home. The same neighbor also told The California Post that he’d seen the pair in a heated argument just prior to the...

I was only a year old when the UK's deadliest terror attack shocked the world. In December 1988, Pan Am flight 103 exploded over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing all 259 people on board as well as 11 on the ground. I was a teenager by the time Libyan intelligence officer Abdelbaset al-Megrahi was convicted of the bombing in 2001 and, when he later died, I thought that was largely the end of the story. It wasn't. The case still rumbles on and, later this year, a man suspected of making the bomb which blew up the plane, Abu...

How do you spelling "winning"? US dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster brutally roasted the redcoats in a patriotic post taking aim at the United Kingdom to celebrate America's 250th birthday. "Why is it 'cancelled' in the U.K. but 'canceled' in the U.S.?" the nation's oldest dictionary publisher wrote on X. "Because we gave them that L in 1776." The post had garnered more than 12 million views and over 2,400 replies as of Saturday morning — with many cheering the Independence Day smackdown. "Solid burn from the dictionary!!!" one wrote. "Imagine getting roasted by a book of words. The disrespect is off...

Bill Peterson used to go to Whole Foods or Kroger for fruits, vegetables and milk. Now, he swears by private-label chain Aldi, which sells those items at a fraction of the price. The Chicago home remodeler is gainfully employed, but says the economy feels fragile. “There’s no job security … everything has gotten stupid expensive,” the 61-year-old said. Inflation remained high for several years, and U.S. consumers became more focused on value. The shift transcends income class, and experts increasingly see it as the start of a deeper retrenchment in how Americans shop, eliminating a long-held stigma among some for...

LOS ANGELES -- Graphic testimony continued Friday on day four in the preliminary hearing for singer D4vd, as a judge weighs whether there is sufficient evidence for him to stand trial in the killing of 14-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Prosecutors are seeking to prove D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, began sexually abusing Rivas Hernandez when she was 13 and he was 18, then stabbed her to death when she threatened to reveal their long sexual history and crater his career. A Los Angeles Police Department detective testified about explicit photographs found on Burke's phone that allegedly depicted sexual...

Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke (D) was indicted on bribery charges on Friday following a monthslong state investigation into a campaign finance scandal. Luke was accused of accepting campaign finance contributions in 2022 while she was a state lawmaker in exchange for securing funding for COVID-19 testing sites. A Hawaii grand jury returned a 12-count indictment charging Luke with criminal conspiracy to commit bribery and falsifying candidate committee reports among other charges, according to the state’s Department of the Attorney General. The Hill has reached out to Luke’s office for comment. The charges stem from allegations that Luke accepted at...

A Georgia teenager who was “like a nephew” to Grammy-winning rapper 21 Savage reportedly shot his little sister by accident before taking his own life, according to local news station 11Alive. Seven Shirley, 14, died by suicide after allegedly shooting his 12-year-old sister, Lyric, in the neck Wednesday afternoon in a heartbreaking accident at a home in Stockbridge, southeast of Atlanta, grieving relatives told the outlet.“Just that fast that boy had made the decision to kill himself,” Seven’s grandmother, Sharon Smith, told the news outlet through tears. Seven Shirley and sister Lyric’s family are devastated at the horrific tragedy. 11...

Hundreds of lefty demonstrators marched through downtown Madison, Wisconsin, spewing anti-cop venom, stopping traffic and harassing diners as they protested the killing of Corey Ruiz, a career criminal who allegedly stabbed a police officer with a knife before being shot. Nearly 500 people marched from the intersection of Williamson Street and South Baldwin Street — where the 38-year-old was shot three times on Wednesday during a struggle with several police officers — to the Madison Police Department headquarters on Friday. Video showed some demonstrators stopping traffic and confronting at a female motorist who insisted she was an “ally” during a...

Air Force Master Sergeant Logan Ireland told Military.com that a federal court's dismissal of a Justice Department motion is a "meaningful victory" for him and 17 other airmen embroiled in a lawsuit against the U.S. government.Ireland is at the center of the lawsuit, Ireland v. US, along with 17 other transgender service members from the U.S. Air Force and Space Force amid claims that they all received retirement orders prior to having those orders revoked without explanation. The personnel, who each have dedicated more than 15 years of their lives to service to the United States' benefit, filed litigation to...

LANSING, Mich. (News 10) — The Michigan Supreme Court has ruled that police can no longer use the smell of marijuana as the sole justification for a warrantless vehicle search. In a 5-2 decision in No. 165764, People of Michigan v Devante Kyran Jennings,, the court found that odor alone does not establish probable cause that a criminal amount of cannabis is present in a vehicle. Read more about the case and find the court’s opinion here. What changed after legalization Since Michigan voters approved a change to state law in 2018, possessing less than five ounces of marijuana is...

I’ve got some fantastic news. We don’t need to worry about that Fort Knox gold audit anymore. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent assured us all the gold is there. His comments came during an interview on Fox News. Host Jesse Watters asked the Treasury Secretary point-blank, “Have you visited Fort Knox?” "I haven't. People on my staff have. The treasurer has been to Fort Knox, and I'm happy to say all gold is present and accounted for." There you have it. The fox guarding the henhouse says the hens are all accounted for. Case closed! Or maybe not. Consider this: would...

Barry Levinson's 1982 film Diner is set in Baltimore at the end of 1959, in the final days of what had been a momentous year, and just before what would be a pivotal decade. The year had begun with the success of the Cuban revolution and its recognition by both the US and Soviet governments, and Barry Gordy's founding of Motown. Pope John XXIII announced the Second Vatican Council and Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper died in a plane crash in Iowa. Later in the year China abolished the Tibetan government and replaced the Dalai Lama, NASA...

A new deal that would see the United States invest in Saudi Arabia‘s civilian nuclear capabilities has sparked concerns within Israel that the Kingdom could ultimately weaponize its program amid deepening unrest in the Middle East. Israel has never publicly confirmed nor denied the existence of its own nuclear arsenal, though it has long been attested to by former top figures in both Israel and the U.S. Last year, as U.S.-Saudi discussions of potential nuclear collaboration picked up steam shortly before the 12-Day War between Israel and Iran, current and former Israeli officials told Newsweek such a move could spark...

ISTANBUL—The conflict between the U.S. and Iran is escalating just as the two warring parties are running up against the limits of what they can achieve through military force.The conflict widened this week after Iranian-allied militants in Yemen began striking ships transiting a key Red Sea chokepoint, helping drive oil prices above $100 a barrel for the first time in two months on Thursday.The U.S., meanwhile, has escalated its bombing campaign in Iran in recent days, striking throughout the country during the most intense period of fighting since President Trump and Israel began bombing Iran in late February.Trump and other...

The Army has warned that a House-approved defense measure aimed at restricting certain foreign-made components in commercial data centers built on War Department land could jeopardize more than $1.3 billion in planned private investment as the Pentagon expands its data center footprint. The provision, sponsored by Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., was added to the House Armed Services Committee's version of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act before the bill passed the House this week. If enacted, the measure would bar companies leasing War Department land from installing or operating data center equipment containing certain printed circuit boards, advanced semiconductors,...

Explanation: The Seas of Tranquility and Serenity are calm today. They're calm most every day though, since they are actually lunar maria, ancient lava flows filling in large impact basins on the Moon. Also known by Latin names Mare Tranquillitatis (right) and Mare Serenitatis, the smooth dark lunar "seas" are in stark contrast to the bright cratered lunar highlands surrounding them in this telescopic view. Of course their names are based on the historical, pre-telescopic designations of lunar maria. Easily visible to the unaided eye, the broad features on the Moon's near side were imagined to be like the expansive...

US intelligence briefings cited by The New York Times on Friday indicate that Iran’s new Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, displays a far greater willingness to build nuclear weaponry than his father who preceded him. His father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died in joint US-Israeli airstrikes during the opening phase of the war, had maintained a long-standing fatwa (religious decree) against weaponization. While American analysts previously maintained that Tehran sought the threshold capacity to assemble a device, many considered the former leader's religious reluctance genuine. The younger Khamenei has avoided explicit public calls for a nuclear arsenal, noted The New...

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday rebuffed mounting pressure from Jewish community leaders urging him to apologize for past anti-Israel statements. The refusal followed Thursday’s attack on the Upper West Side where a man wearing a kippah was stabbed on the fast day of Tisha B’Av by an attacker who yelled “Allahu Akbar" during the stabbing. On Friday, the suspected stabber, 51-year-old Raul Morales, was charged with attempted murder as a hate crime, attempted murder, assault as a hate crime, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to the NYPD. Mamdani has long come under fire for...

Nearly 2,000 years after it was first built, we're discovering just how ingenious Roman central heating really was. For eight days, a team of volunteers heated our reconstructed Roman hypocaust continuously. This was an experiment to find out what temperatures can be achieved, how long does the system take to get up to temperature and how long does the system retain the temperature once the fire has been extinguished. Our hypocaust is based on archaeological evidence from the remarkable Sparsholt Roman Villa, located around 6 km NW of Winchester, England. The excavation was one of the earliest Roman villas in...

A teenager has pleaded guilty in a school shooting that killed two students and two teachers in the US state of Georgia. Colt Gray, 16, was charged as an adult with malice murder, weapons violations and cruelty to children for the September 2024 shooting at Apalachee High School. Gray, who was 14 at the time of the shooting, entered a non-negotiated plea agreement meaning there will be no trial. His father was convicted of murder in March for giving his son the gun used in the shooting as a Christmas present. Gray told Judge Nicholas Primm that he understood the...