Free Republic

Helen Comperatore, the widow of Corey Comperatore, who was shot and killed at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, by a bullet intended for President Trump last July, has no love lost for the Secret Service. “I think the Secret Service is garbage,” she told The Post. “All I’ve wanted this entire time was to sit down with the men who screwed up that day and find out why. Why? Why at that rally? Why at that one in Butler?” she asked incredulously. “...Why were you such a mess in Butler? Were you told to be a mess?"... The agency’s...

Europe is the fastest-warming continent on Earth, the European State of the Climate Report for 2025 has found. From the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle, its climate is shifting in ways that are no longer subtle, no longer gradual, and no longer distant. The consequences are cascading across Europe’s environment, economy, and ecosystems. With hotter air, warmer seas, shrinking ice, drying soils, and stressed ecosystems, the warning signals are screaming from every part of the climate system. Europe has been warming at a rate of 0.56°C per decade throughout the past 30 years. This is more than twice as fast...

An Indian billionaire's son has offered to help Colombia get rid of a problem it has grappled with for years - a herd of hippos linked to notorious drug lord Pablo Escobar. Escobar, who was shot dead by police in 1993, illegally imported exotic animals, including a male and a female hippopotamus - dubbed the "cocaine hippos". ... Efforts failed to contain the herd's growth, with a lack of predators and the fertile and swampy Antioquia region providing perfect conditions for the native African animal to thrive. Colombian environmentalists say the hippos, believed to be the biggest herd outside Africa,...

In briefMozilla says Anthropic’s Claude Mythos identified 271 vulnerabilities in Firefox during testing.Anthropic is restricting the model to vetted partners through Project Glasswing because of cybersecurity risks.Researchers warn that the same capability could accelerate automated cyberattacks. For decades, attackers have had the advantage in cybersecurity. Artificial intelligence may be about to change that.In a blog post published on Tuesday, Firefox browser developer Mozilla said an early version of Anthropic’s Claude Mythos AI—which has drawn attention in recent weeks for its purported cybersecurity prowess—model helped identify 271 vulnerabilities in the browser during internal testing. Those bugs were patched this week.The results...

A pastor who runs a ministry in a rumored swingers community for Florida seniors — and ironically wrote a book on how to love your spouse — was arrested Wednesday following allegations that he married multiple women. Leslie Williams, 62, was taken into custody at the sprawling retirement center, The Villages, on an outstanding warrant out of Georgia tied to a bigamy charge, according to the Sumter County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. He is currently being held without bond due to his status as an out-of-state fugitive, with legal holds stemming from Rockdale County, Georgia. "Florida marriage records were obtained...

Conrad Murray served two years in prison for his role in Michael Jackson's 2009 deathIn 2011, Dr. Conrad Murray was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for his role in the death of pop icon Michael Jackson. SNIP A decade later, he opened up a medical institute in his native country, Trinidad and Tobago, the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reported. SNIP "I have lost a great deal," Murray said at the time. "I've lost everything. Everything I've amassed has been taken from me as a result of an unjust verdict. I am and I remain an innocent man." In May 2023,...

Authorities in Sri Lanka have detained 22 Buddhist monks after customs officers discovered about 240 pounds (110 kilograms) of high-grade cannabis hidden in their luggage at Bandaranaike International Airport. Officials said the haul is the largest cannabis seizure ever recorded at the country’s main international gateway. Drugs hidden in modified luggage Customs officers stopped the group during routine checks after they arrived from Bangkok. Investigators said the monks, many of them junior trainees from temples across Sri Lanka, each carried roughly 11 pounds (5 kilograms) of cannabis concealed in suitcases fitted with false compartments. A spokesperson for Sri Lanka Customs...

FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau spent nearly a year investigating a social media post that led to Tuesday’s indictment of one of his predecessors, James Comey. Comey was charged over an Instagram post he made in May 2025, which he later deleted after conservative uproar. The post showed an image of seashells on a beach arranged in a way that read “86 47.” The former FBI director wrote, “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.” President Donald Trump is the 47th president, while “86” is slang in the service industry and typically means to refuse service to someone...

'Silent assassin Residents in Ontario, Canada, are warned to watch out for the toxic hammerhead worm, a non-native species .. According to the Hamilton Conservation Authority, hammerhead worms are a toxic, non-native species that first appeared in Ontario in 2017. They are believed to have arrived in North America via the introduction of plants from Southeast Asia.The term hammerhead worm encompasses various species of flatworms, also known as shovel-headed garden worms, which is a fitting description of their shape. They can grow between 5 and 10 centimeters in length and may exhibit multiple colors.They are also toxic, releasing a neurotoxin...

A California Democrat is facing backlash after hosting a Hamas-associated group at his office on Capitol Hill last week. Rep. Derek Tran welcomed a group of leaders from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as part of the "National Muslim Advocacy Day," an annual lobbying event organized by Muslim advocacy groups. CAIR, the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights organization, was recently designated as a terrorist organization by the state of Texas and Florida following accusations that the group supported funding for Hamas. The group has since filed defamatory lawsuits against Governors Greg Abbott and Ron DeSantis. Among those in attendance...

A wave of party switching in West Virginia is reshaping the state’s political landscape, with tens of thousands of voters — including more than 16,000 Democrats — registering as Republicans since early 2024, according to new data released by the secretary of state. West Virginia Secretary of State Kris Warner reported that 68,235 voters have changed party affiliation since Jan. 31, 2024, signaling a significant shift ahead of the state’s May 12 primary election. Among the biggest changes, 16,910 voters switched from Democrat to Republican, while another 20,003 unaffiliated voters also moved to the GOP, according to the data. At...

We have recently relocated from another state to Kentucky. We're in Owensboro and would like some insights about differing candidates. Thanks!

The shock announcement Tuesday comes after the UAE was the target of missile and drone attacks for weeks by fellow OPEC member Iran. Tehran’s attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz has also severely constrained the UAE’s ability to export oil, threatening the foundation of its economy. The UAE has played an influential role in OPEC’s decisions over nearly six decades. It was the group’s third-largest oil producer in February behind Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The UAE’s OPEC membership originated with the Emirate of Abu Dhabi in 1967, seven years after the organization was founded. The UAE came to...

CalGuard is working with federal, state, and local agencies to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the state, and break up drug-trafficking networks as part of Newsom’s border security and public-safety plan. March...the task force seized 633 pounds of fentanyl and 268,679 fentanyl pills worth more than $5 million. During a recent narcotics task force operation in San Bernardino County, officials seized 188 pounds of fentanyl, 16.8 pounds of heroin and 4.4 lbs of cocaine, worth an estimated $1.5 million. The bust helped to “significantly disrupt” a major drug-trafficking network operating in Southern California, according to California Military Department...

[From Grok, after my prompts] Here is a simple, ready-to-use formula for your "Work Life Hours" metric, expressed directly in average taxpayer lifetimes: Taxpayer Lifetimes = (D × 1.104) / 2,960,000 Where: D = dollars funded to the project 1.104 = overall multiplier for government overhead/efficiency (IRS collection cost ≈ 0.36% + typical agency/program administrative overhead ≈ 8–10%) 2,960,000 = dollars of tax revenue that one average U.S. taxpayer generates over a full 40-year working lifetime (based on current data) Why this formula works. It first calculates the total taxes that must be collected to deliver D after overhead: D...

Philanthropy among the world's wealthiest is under renewed scrutiny as donors debate what meaningful generosity looks like…difficulty comes from trying to ensure donations create real impact rather than good publicity, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said. "The biggest challenge I find with my foundation is trying to give money away in a way that is truly beneficial to people," Musk said on the "WTF is" podcast, hosted by Nikhil Kamath. He added that it is easy to give money away "to get the appearance of goodness" and much harder to reach "the reality of goodness." The Musk Foundation's philanthropy — roughly...

When I look at the faces of those eight young Iranian women about to be hanged for the “crime” of wanting freedom I think of their grandmothers. Their very own grandmothers -- who enjoyed wide-ranging individual freedom and wore bikinis, miniskirts, and smoked cigarettes -- are sadly the root cause of their grandchildren’s demise. Decades ago, they welcomed the revolution with open arms. At its core, they are the reason it succeeded. And now, 47 years later their grandchildren are being slaughtered for wanting the same freedoms their grandmothers had, yet foolishly gave away. They are the reason women are...

A superyacht linked to one of Russian President Vladimir Putin's key allies has sailed through the Strait of Hormuz, despite the ongoing blockade of the critical shipping channel. The 142m-long (465 ft) multi-deck luxury boat, named Nord, is linked to sanctioned Russian billionaire Alexei Mordashov. It travelled from Dubai to Muscat, Oman, over the weekend - one of few private vessels to transit through the strait in recent months. Iran held high-level talks with Russia this week as its standoff with the US over the strait's re-opening continues. Approximately one-fifth of global oil and LNG supplies normally pass through the...

Dr. David M. Morens, a former top adviser to Dr. Anthony Fauci, was arrested and charged Tuesday with conspiracy and destruction of federal records in one of the first cases to allege a cover-up in the COVID-19 pandemic. The charges – brought by the FBI, Justice Department and the U.S. Health and Human Services inspector general – allege the former senior scientific adviser at the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which Fauci led for 38 years, committed conspiracy against the United States; destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in federal investigations; concealment, removal or mutilation of records; and...

Explanation: They're like mountain peaks, but they are forming stars. Bright-rimmed, flowing shapes gather near the center of this rich starfield toward the borders of the nautical southern constellations Puppis and Vela. Composed of interstellar gas and dust, the grouping of light-year sized cometary globules is about 1300 light-years distant. Energetic ultraviolet light from nearby hot stars has molded the globules and ionized their bright rims. The globules also stream away from the Vela supernova remnant which may have influenced their swept-back shapes. Within them, cores of cold gas and dust are likely collapsing to form low mass stars whose...