Free Republic

No primary—especially a Senate primary—should go on this long. But Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary, having dragged on for months, has turned into an interminably vicious grudge fest—one that’s not likely to subside until voters finally go to the polls on August 4 and choose between Haley Stevens and Abdul El-Sayed.But the Michigan primary is also so bitter for the same reason that it has been so interesting. Of all of the 2026 races, this is the one that best captures the current fissures in the Democratic Party—and which seems to best predict where the fault lines of the 2028 presidential...

Eating eggs could increase the risk of developing a dangerous heart rhythm problem that can trigger deadly stroke, a study has suggested. Researchers have found a link between a compound found in the bloodstream that's released after eating a number of everyday foods - including egg yolks and beef steak - and atrial fibrillation. The condition, which causes the heart to beat irregularly, can lead to heart failure and stroke. Now experts at the Cleveland Clinic in the US have found that those with the life-threatening problem have high levels of trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) - which is produced in the...

Jonathan Cain, a keyboardist and guitarist for the rock band Journey, slammed left-wing rocker Bruce Springsteen as an “annoying, bitter old man” who should “shut up” about politics. “You were ‘Born in the USA,’ weren’t you?” Cain said of Springsteen, adding, “So act like it.” “We’re blessed to live where we live,” Cain said during a recent appearance on the Tom Barnard Podcast. “And I’m obviously a conservative. I used to be a Democrat back in the old days, but I just couldn’t go there anymore.” “I thought Obama, maybe, but then I saw where he was going and I’m,...

Marty O'Donnell, the Trump-backed Republican nominee in a competitive congressional race, has described LGBTQ+ people as part of an alliance pushing Western civilization toward an "abyss." O'Donnell, a video game composer best known for his work on the Halo and Destiny franchises, made the remarks during a June 29 interview, weeks after winning the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Rep. Susie Lee in Nevada's 3rd Congressional District. "Talk about an existential, existential threat," O'Donnell said. "We are on the cliff looking down into the abyss. And the abyss is Marxism, its anti-Western philosophy."

Second lady Usha Vance gave birth Sunday to her fourth child, Vance’s office announced on X. “We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning,” the Vance family said in a statement. “Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother.” Vance, 40, is the first woman since the 1870s to give birth while her husband is vice president. She and her husband, Vice President JD Vance, have three other young children, two boys and one girl, who are ages 4 to 9. While...

Firefighting efforts can help protect communities but can't tackle Canada's vast fire landscapeIt's another smoky summer in southern Ontario, and people breathing poor air in and around Toronto are once again asking what governments can do about wildfire smoke. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has defended the province's wildfire budget and has asked Ottawa for extra help. Some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. have also demanded Canada do more to stop smoke from drifting across the border. But experts say the politics can obscure a harder reality: fire is a natural part of Canada's forests, and a warming climate is making...

The Presbyterian Church (USA), the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States, has passed a measure expressing support for body-deforming sex-change surgeries for youth exhibiting gender dysphoria. At a plenary session for the PCUSA's 227th General Assembly held last week, delegates voted 441-30 in favor of an overture called GEN-02, also known as “On Access to Healthcare.” The rationale for the overture describes so-called “gender-affirming care” as “medically necessary and evidence based for the well-being of many transgender, non-binary, and gender- expansive people who experience symptoms of gender dysphoria or distress that result from having one’s gender identity not match...

1 in 5 survey respondents said they used it to research a potential partner For years, LinkedIn, the oft-derided networking site, has been used to boast about professional achievements, apply to jobs that may or may not be real, and observe inane ramblings from out-of-touch tech CEOs. Now, according to a recent report, some are also using it to suss out potential dating partners, making it an “unexpected space for romance.”After gathering responses from more than 1,000 U.S. workers in April of this year, researchers at Zety, a resume-building site, found that 1 in 8 respondents said they formed romantic...

as climate change drives increasingly intense and frequent heatwaves to the UK, experts are calling for better awareness of the risks to women and more targeted efforts to protect them

Critics say the administration is weakening public safety. Proponents say regulations would be where they were before President Joseph R. Biden took office. The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions. The drastic retrenchment at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation’s gun laws, was not entirely unexpected: President Trump campaigned as a champion of gun rights. In the view of critics and even some A.T.F....

The wife of Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) did something "bizarre" three days after he was hospitalized for a possible heart attack, according to a new report. Elaine Chao, Transportation secretary during Trump's first administration and McConnell's wife since 1993, left the country, the Daily Beast reported Saturday. Chao flew to Beijing to discuss China-U.S. relations with Chinese Vice President Han Zheng on June 17, according to the Daily Beast and Chinese media. This was three days after McConnell, 84, was reportedly found "unconscious" and rushed from his home in Washington to the hospital, reports show. Want more breaking political news?...

A pair of kissing-daredevils clad in dark clothes and a cat mask scaled the Empire State Building’s 1,454-foot antenna to unveil a cringe message over New York City. The duo – which appears to be a man and a woman – were carrying a banner reading “when the power of love beats the love of power the world knows peace.” The banner’s message is a slightly modified version of a quote frequently misattributed to guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, which was actually spoken by 19th-century British politician William Gladstone. The woman in the reckless duo appeared to be wearing a black...

My 16-year-old daughter, Becky Pepper-Jackson, wants what most kids want: to be herself and play the sport she loves with her friends. As a transgender girl, that simple wish took her all the way to the Supreme Court, where the justices ruled that our home state of West Virginia can bar her from playing school sports with her friends and peers. I always knew that no matter what the court decided, Becky would be a winner because she has shown all of us how to love, accept and be ourselves no matter the outcome.

The heatwave wreaking chaos across Europe is a “dramatic warning” to reject climate naysayers, a European Commission vice-president says. Teresa Ribera, executive vice-president for a clean, just and competitive transition, lambasted those who listened to the “vested interests” of the fossil fuel industry rather than scientists and their own citizens. “This is a dramatic warning being sent once again by nature on what it means to have a different climate system,” she told the Guardian. “What we are experiencing today [in the form of record heat] is what we knew could happen, but we have not been smart enough to...

The world’s largest encyclopedia was overrun by bias and censorship—and pushed me out when I tried to fix it. Twenty-five years ago, I co-founded Wikipedia, arguably the most important encyclopedia in human history. On Monday, I was indefinitely banned from the site. The story of what happened to me is, in many ways, the story of our censorious times, in which independent thinking is seen as a threat rather than a virtue, and punished as such. Let me back up. In early 2000, the internet was a very different place than it is today. It was much freer—tools of censorship...

Seattle’s “Pride Match” for the Iran-Egypt game is unofficial and unlicensed. That’s entirely the point. SEATTLE — FIFA has not endorsed the Seattle host-city committee’s “Pride Match” designation, which will not be part of the official branding when Iran and Egypt meet tonight at Lumen Field. “I think they’ve always been aware of what we’re doing,” said Louise Chernin, who as chair of the organizing committee’s Pride Match Impact Council began planning for the day nearly a year and a half ago. Chernin began her match day at Rough & Tumble, a women’s sports bar in Ballard, a historically Scandinavian...

Taxing the rich sounds good, until they move away.It has never been a better time in America to be a socialist. We aging Gen Xers who thought that socialism had been decisively refuted by the fall of the Berlin Wall have been refuted ourselves: Democratic socialists now run Seattle and New York City, and come January, probably D.C. too, where Janeese Lewis George won the Democratic primary that generally decides the district’s mayoral elections. It is a heady moment for the left, because socialism’s tainted brand has recovered from the vivid failures of the Soviet Union. Fully 66 percent of...

YORK, Pa. — The York Revolution announced it has canceled its scheduled Thursday game against the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs after several players refused to wear the team's planned Pride Night jerseys. In a statement issued late Wednesday, the club said the decision was made with “great disappointment” and that tickets for the June 18 game will be treated as a rainout and may be redeemed for any future 2026 regular-season home game, subject to availability. "Unfortunately, several of our players have refused to wear the scheduled Pride Night jersey and the club decided that hosting the event is more...

Last night, the York Revolution forfeited their minor league "Pride Night" game after their players refused to wear jerseys that had rainbow logos stitched on the sleeves. The organization placed the entire blame on its players in a statement posted on its website. It is with great disappointment that the York Revolution have issued important changes to our 11th Annual Pride Night on Thursday, June 18th. Most significantly, the scheduled game between York and Southern Maryland will not be played and Pride will still be hosted as a free admission event. Everyone’s tickets for the game on Thursday will be...

Prosecutors say the boxer wrote a bad check from a Wells Fargo account for an Audemars Piguet watch.