Free Republic

The trading giant’s 500x increase in SLV shares has raised serious questions, especially given its history of market manipulation accusations across three different asset classes

After 33 years of marriage, Barack and Michelle Obama are navigating unfamiliar changes, and the former First Lady is revealing it.(snip) The “Becoming” author recently spoke candidly about where she and her husband stand today, describing their marriage as entering a period of rediscovery and focusing on themselves. Our kids are grown. They’re out,” Michelle said on Wednesday’s episode of the “IMO with Michelle Obama & Craig Robinson” podcast. “They’re out. We’re looking at each other like, ‘Hey, I remember you.’ Now I’m not mad about anything. I don’t need you to do anything for me.” The 62-year-old admitted that...

President Donald Trump said his preference is to “take the oil” from Iran — despite whatever gripes his critics would have about it — during an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday. “To be honest with you, my favorite thing is to take the oil in Iran but some stupid people back in the U.S. say: ‘why are you doing that?’ But they’re stupid people,” Trump told the outlet. The outlet noted “such a move would involve seizing Kharg Island through which most of Iran’s oil is exported.” Trump has been calling for the U.S. to take the island...

The price of coffee is increasing faster than any other household grocery, and it’s not just tariffs driving the surge — bad weather, war and a frenzy of market traders are also to blame for the rise. Coffee prices have spiked by a stunning 18.4% in the last year, according to federal data from February. Most other household spending items — from groceries to cars to haircuts — don’t close to that increase rate, figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show. Those increases have affected both producers and consumers, and reflect a trend that has been running wild since...

WASHINGTON — A security scare at Palm Beach International Airport Sunday prompted the Air Force to scramble F-16 fighter jets and deploy flares — hours before Air Force One was slated to fly President Trump back to DC. Authorities imposed a ground stop at the airport as they rushed to confront the civilian aircraft. The White House said that the security scare took place after authorities lost communication with a general aviation plane. “The civilian aircraft violated the Temporary Flight Restriction (TFR) at approximately 1:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time. The aircraft was safely escorted out of the area by NORAD...

No. 2 seed UConn completed a historic comeback in the Elite Eight on Sunday, roaring back from 19 down to beat No. 1 overall seed Duke 73-72 on a 3-point bomb from freshman wing Braylon Mullins with 0.4 seconds remaining. His shot, which came following a Duke turnover, gave UConn its first lead since the game's opening minute. The Huskies trailed 44-25 late in the first half before overcoming a horrendous 3-point shooting performance to reach the Final Four for a third time in the past four seasons. UConn started just 1 of 18 from beyond the arc but bullied...

Saturday's edition of MS NOW’s The Weekend: Primetime turned its “No Kings” protest coverage into a cringe reel. [snip] Soboroff began by literally grabbing a woman by the arm and pulling her into the camera frame—only to learn she was a federal employee who didn’t want to be identified. SOBOROFF: Come here. Come here. Come on! Come here! Come here! . . . What’s your name? PROTESTER: I work for the federal government. SOBOROFF: Oh… well… stand this way… Sorry to pull you in there like that. Yes—he actually had to apologize for physically dragging a protester into the shot....

Uganda’s military chief has warned the African country’s armed forces could enter the Iran war on Israel’s side after issuing a series of statements on social media that went viral this week. Gen. Muhoozi Kainerugaba — son of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni — who is considered to be his likely successor, has spent this week making a barrage of posts on X in support of Israel. "We stand with Israel because we are Christians," he wrote, adding in another post, "Uganda is the David that was forgotten and neglected by the world. We will defeat the giant, Goliath." Kainerugaba began...

Republican politician and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has published an op-ed reiterating his stance that the state of Ohio has too many universities and they should be consolidated. Ramaswamy cited challenges facing some Ohio schools like enrollment declines and budget cuts, rather than celebrating the recent NCAA tournament appearances of programs like Miami University and Akron University. Why it matters Ramaswamy's comments come as a surprise, given the recent success of Ohio universities in the NCAA tournament. His proposal to consolidate schools could have major implications for thousands of jobs and students across the state, especially at smaller regional universities that...

They break into your house and steal the stuff you worked so hard to buy. They rob you on the street in broad daylight. They pull you out of your car at a traffic light and take it. They convince your grandma that they are you and need bail money. They walk into acstore and grab things. They break the jewelry cases and steal the jewelry. They overrun a convenience store and take what they like. They steal your credit card numbers and buy themselves stuff. They steal your bank account numbers and empty your accounts. They convince you to...

Bellingcat's analysis of the strike in Minab on Feb 28th doesn't make sense. At https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/03/08/video-shows-us-tomahawk-missile-strike-next-to-girls-school-in-iran/ they show a video of a Tomahawk hitting an IRGC facility. Aerial photos show the blast field for that hit and bellingcat draw a red frame around that blast field. That shows the school outside the blast zone and they also say that the Tomahawk only hit a "clinic" and an earth-covered "magazine or bunker". The first paragraph says the video shows a Tomahawk hitting an IRGC facility. People on Bluesky used this to claim that the Tomahawk hit the school, but this shows the...

The new element, Governmentium (symbol=Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called pillocks. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A tiny amount of Governmentium can cause a reaction that would normally take less than a second, to take from 4 days to 4 years to complete. Governmentium has...

Yenny/El Ateneo, Argentina’s oldest and largest bookstore chain, publishes weekly charts of the top 10 bestselling books in their retail stores across the country. The Spanish edition of Letters for Life, a new book on the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Torah-based advice for emotional wellbeing, surprised the country’s publishing wizards and emerged as #5 on the list. As a result, the book is now being sold in airports and malls across Argentina. The book’s popularity follows the increased interest in the Lubavitcher Rebbe caused by Argentina’s philo-Semite president Javier Milei. Milei has visited the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s Ohel several times on his trips...

A series of fireballs — very bright meteors — were spotted across North America from March 17-23, 2026. People in Ohio reported one on March 17. The next sightings were in California on March 19, Michigan and Georgia on March 20, and Texas on March 21, where a fragment crashed through a house roof. It's happening beyond the U.S. Vancouver saw a fireball on March 3. France and Germany reported sightings on March 8 and 11. Many fireballs lasted a long time and were seen across wide areas. Some caused pressure waves and sonic booms. ... The emerging picture is...

Children in Finland start school at the age of seven. They are only in classrooms half the time as most other countries. Its students outperform most others across the world. Why is that?

Explanation: What are these Earthlings trying to tell us? The featured message was broadcast from Earth towards the globular star cluster M13 in 1974. During the dedication of an upgrade to the Arecibo Observatory - then the largest single radio telescope in the world - a string of 1's and 0's representing the diagram was sent. This attempt at extraterrestrial communication was mostly ceremonial - humanity regularly broadcasts radio and television signals out into space accidentally. Even were this message received, M13 is so far away we would have to wait almost 50,000 years to hear an answer. The featured...

Nurses from the country's largest nurses union, National Nurses United (NNU), will join rallies across the United States as part of the March 28 No Kings protests. Nurses continue to condemn the Trump administration's authoritarian politics and call for the abolition of ICE, an end to Trump's war in Iran, and demand what's collectively needed for a healthy future for our society. "Nurses will continue to take to the streets to protect our neighbors and protest the fascist politics Washington is trying to force on everyday people at home and abroad," said Mary Turner, RN and NNU president. "We will...

Alarming footage on social media has captured the moment No Kings protesters were seen coughing and choking after tear gas was deployed in Los Angeles, California. The intense standoff between a small group of protesters and authorities was filmed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown L.A. The Los Angeles Police Department's incident commander declared a "tactical alert" for the City of Los Angeles after the event. "Federal Authorities have deployed more tear gas due to demonstrators throwing large concrete blocks, bottles and other objects over the fence," LAPD wrote in a statement on X. A dispersal order was issued...

In Preston Sturges' posthumous memoir Sturges by Sturges, finished by his widow Sandy and published in 1990, the director recounts an outlandish story from his childhood that would end up inspiring one of the most chaotic sequences in his 1942 screwball masterpiece The Palm Beach Story. His mother, a socially and culturally ambitious woman who was friends with dancer Isadora Duncan and had an affair with satanist Aleister Crowley, had brought him to Dresden while she worked on an operetta and the two of them (plus maid) were heading back to Paris in a train compartment stuffed with masses of...

The Public Theater celebrated the opening night of the world premiere play Public Charge on Wednesday evening, welcoming a range of political leaders and theater artists to mark the occasion. See photos of the event. The play is co-written by former U.S. Ambassador Julissa Reynoso and Michael J. Chepiga and draws from Reynoso’s experiences working for Hillary Rodham Clinton. The Public Theater celebrated the opening night of the world premiere play Public Charge on Wednesday evening, welcoming a range of political leaders and theater artists to mark the occasion. See photos of the event. Clinton attended the opening and offered...