Free Republic

Key TakeawaysAmericans age 60 and older lost $7.7 billion to scams in 2025.Reverse mortgages can provide valuable retirement income, but they are increasingly being targeted by fraudsters.Experts warn retirees to watch for foreclosure rescue scams, fake government programs, contractor fraud, and equity theft schemes.HUD-certified counseling remains one of the strongest protections against reverse mortgage fraud.Why Reverse Mortgage Scams Are IncreasingMillions of retirees are sitting on significant home equity while struggling with rising living costs, healthcare expenses, and inflation.That combination has made reverse mortgages increasingly popular.A reverse mortgage allows eligible homeowners to convert a portion of their home equity into cash...

3:20 VIDEOS OF PEOPLE EXPERIENCING THE USA!..................

I was interviewing the third person who told me they had died, when I noticed they were all saying the same thing. Their accounts of the other side differed in nearly every detail. One had been guided through an unearthly realm by a young woman on a butterfly’s wing. Another had communicated with a man who had died years before. The third was met by angels in an operating room. What they had in common was more discreet: while recounting their experiences, there was a shared gentleness in their eyes and a poised confidence about the nature of death and...

As we've been reporting, Freddy the German and his crew are here to go to the World Cup has certainly been having the road trip of a lifetime. He's fallen in love with America, showing us all the beautiful and fun places he's been visiting on his trip, and it's enjoyable watching him discover it all. When last we left you, he was in Louisiana, making his way to Houston for Sunday's game, Germany vs. Curacao. VIDEOS AT LINK........................... Freddy the German Tourist Has Some Surprising Experiences As His Journey Across America Continues After seven days of driving, they finally...

Late last week, the San Francisco Giants hosted their "Pride Night," with the team wearing hats with a rainbow-colored Giants logo. Several Giants pitchers, in a statement of their faith, wrote Bible verse designations on their hats. One, starting pitcher Landen Roupp, addressed his reasoning after the game, saying that the verse is about representing "God's covenant." "It's just about God's covenant and a promise that he makes to us that, you know, his faithfulness and his mercy," Roupp said to reporters. "That's just kind of something I believe in, and I stand firm in that, and I'm thankful we...

On June 27, the asteroid will approach at a distance of around 0.01715 astronomical units. It hasn't been this close since at least 1600 CE. Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) seen by the Virtual Telescope Project, when it was around 10.5 million kilometers (6.5 million miles) from Earth. Image credit: Gianluca Masi/The Virtual Telescope Project Potentially hazardous asteroid 152637 (1997 NC1) is about to make its closest approach in over 400 years, in an event only seen once every decade. At these distances, and given the size of the asteroid, it should be possible to view using a small...

The concept is designed to fit within existing airport gates and airline operations. The configuration also supports a twin-aisle cabin layout. Electra A hybrid-electric aviation company has unveiled a new conceptual aircraft design for next-generation airliners. Electra’s conceptual aircraft uses a wide “double-bubble” fuselage that allows the body of the aircraft to contribute more lift, while two underwing turbofan engines produce thrust as well as electricity to power electric tail fans that ingest and re-energize slower-moving air over the fuselage. Latest configuration could deliver up to a 17 percent efficiency The technique is known as boundary layer ingestion. Electra’s analysis...

In 1972, Singapore's Health Minister called having a fourth child irresponsible. Newspapers ran it on their front pages. Then came the poster. Two girls under one umbrella, sharing one apple. "Girl or Boy, Two is Enough." It was on buses, in hospitals, in primary schools, on television. They stripped income tax relief from any fourth child. Hospital delivery fees went up on a sliding scale punishing each additional birth. If you refused to stop having kids, your family dropped in the public housing queue. Nurses at Kandang Kerbau Hospital chided women carrying a third child as if they'd committed a...

President Trump lashed out at Rhode Island U.S. Sen. Jack Reed on social media Sunday, hours after Reed criticized the president’s handling of Iran during a national TV interview. Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, reiterated his longstanding criticism of Trump’s Iran policy on “Fox News Sunday,” arguing that the U.S. was now “in a much worse position” than under President Obama’s Iran nuclear deal, which Trump pulled out of during his first term. “I think the precipitating issue today is the president wants to give himself a birthday present,” Reed said. “And we have paid for...

Last week in Frisco, Texas, 19-year-old Karmelo Anthony was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 35 years in prison. No one in the jury believed his claim of self-defense and instead found that Anthony provoked a confrontation with student Austin Metcalf by going into his school’s tent during a track meet, taunting the students there, refusing to leave despite repeated requests, and finally plunging a knife into Austin’s heart after being nudged. It remains a mystery why exactly Anthony did this, which might explain why so many people even entertained his claim of self-defense. But the facts of the...

Normally, nobody should cheer when a Wisconsin business loses its stock. Jobs, rent, suppliers, and familiar faces that sit behind every taproom door. But Minoqua Brewing Company owner Kirk Bangstad has spent years turning beer into a vessel for political contempt, and now the state says the rules caught up with him.Officials seized canned beer from his business, alleging Illinois-brewed beer had been brought into Wisconsin without the required permits or licenses. Bangstad said the state took about $25,000 worth after he failed to pay Wisconsin taxes on beer sold and stored at his Minocqua and Madison, Wisc. locations, as...

A Milwaukee police officer resigned after investigators found he had used automated license plate reader technology to track a woman he was dating nearly 180 times in the span of two months. The Institute for Justice points to a Kansas police chief who allegedly ran an ex-girlfriend's plate more than 200 times. In Kentucky, another officer reportedly tracked an ex hundreds of times over a two-month period. In each instance, the searches were entered into the systems as investigative activity, which means databases built for legitimate criminal work were allegedly repurposed for deeply personal surveillance.

Taiwan’s newly acquired American attack drones struck maritime targets for the first time last week along the island’s west coast during live-fire drills designed to validate long-range strike systems that would play a crucial role in a potential invasion of the self-governing island.According to Taiwanese military media, the drones successfully struck their offshore targets following a simulated engagement loop where troops rehearsed detecting and identifying the threat. At least three towed flatbed launchers equipped with four Altius drones each were deployed for the exercise.The Republic of China Army received around 2,000 Altius-600 loitering munitions from American defense firm Anduril Industries...

Taipei showcased its new American missile launchers through numerous live-fire salvos in a drill this week that Taiwanese troops claimed demonstrated the system’s mobility and long-range strike capabilities.The Republic of China Army fired its recently procured M142 High Mobility Rocket Artillery Systems (HIMARS) on Wednesday as the main highlight of a series of drills designed to validate the island’s precision strike capabilities, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said in a news release. The Lockheed Martin-made missile systems rehearsed firing missions and rapid redeployment, with the HIMARS relocating to new firing positions within three minutes of launching, according to the ministry.State...

Eight crew members are dead in a B-52 bomber crash shortly after takeoff from Edwards Air Force Base, northeast of Los Angeles, on Monday morning, the base said. The B-52 Stratofortress was on a routine test mission that took off at 11:20 a.m. local time at the remote air base, officials said. It is now considered a recovery operation. “It was tragic and unsurvivable,” Colonel James Hayes said at a news conference. Emergency crews responded immediately to the crash involving the bomber, which left a towering black plume in its wake, the base said. Teams are working to notify families...

When President Trump gave thanks to those who had helped him reach an initial cease-fire agreement with Iran, he praised two world leaders he has called his friends — Xi Jinping of China and Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. The leaders, he said, had aided the Americans in sealing the deal with the Iranians, or at least had helped set the conditions by not sending oil and gas tankers or other commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz to compromise a U.S blockade aimed at pressuring Iran. “He was a total gentleman,” the American president said of Mr. Xi in...

WASHINGTON — The House Oversight Committee formally requested Friday that Harvard Law School professor emeritus Alan Dershowitz testify about his ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey E. Epstein, marking the latest step in the panel’s widening investigation into Epstein and his associates. In a letter to Dershowitz, Rep. James R. Comer (R-Ky.), who chairs the committee, asked him to appear on July 9 for an in-person, videotaped transcribed interview in Washington, D.C. The committee wrote that it believes Dershowitz has information that would assist its investigation because of his role as Epstein’s attorney, public reporting, documents released by the Department...

SpaceX (SPCX) extended its post-IPO climb on Monday, trading near $178 and lifting its two-day gain to roughly 32% above the $135 price set last week. SPCX began trading on June 12 raising about $75 billion in the largest initial public offering on record. The deal, led by Goldman Sachs, drew roughly $250 billion in orders and closed about three and a half times oversubscribed before pricing. It overshot the prior record, Saudi Aramco's $29.4 billion listing in 2019, by about two and a half times. The stock jumped roughly 19% on Friday to close at $160.95, then climbed to...

A baby born at just 23 weeks gestation is in the hospital indefinitely after the infant’s grandfather allegedly slipped his teenage daughter an abortion pill that sickened her and resulted in an emergency caesarean section. The alleged perpetrator, 39 year-old Jamelle Kelly, faces two felony charges, attempted first-degree feticide and domestic abuse/battery of a pregnant victim, after the Carencro Police Department determined he poisoned his 17 year-old with abortion pills that sent her to the hospital. Louisiana prohibits both surgical and chemical abortions and classifies mifepristone, the most popular abortion pill on the market, as a controlled dangerous substance. The...

U.S. - Leading scholars believe that the angel who saved Daniel in the lion's den used a red laser pointer to distract the vicious cats. The hungry lions could not help but chase the uncatchable red dot, distracting them throughout the night until Daniel was freed. "Though the angel could have used a flaming sword to terrify them, the laser pointer was much more entertaining," explained Bible scholar Jonas Marks. "No kitty can resist the allure of the red laser dot, not even a vicious lion. It was both humane and delightful." The angel reportedly also brought an oversized ball...