Free Republic

Chinese dictator Xi Jinping told his Politburo on Monday that tougher law enforcement in religious affairs was needed to complete the project of “Sinicizing” all faiths, which means making them all subordinate to the authority of the Chinese Communist Party. “Governing religious affairs in accordance with the law is the fundamental way to properly handle various contradictions and problems in the religious field,” Xi told a Politburo study group, as reported by Chinese state media. Xi told the Politburo to “enhance relevant laws and policies, carry out in-depth legal publicity and education, and implement strict law enforcement” to achieve full...

Sales of electrified rigs are booming in China, with the United States lagging far behind, says David Fickling for Bloomberg Opinion.To hear Bill Gates tell it, the electric drivetrains that have transformed the passenger vehicle industry over the past decade have no chance of repeating the trick in heavy trucks. According to Elon Musk, such a transition is inevitable – and Tesla will be leading it. Both of them are wrong. EV trucks really are on the brink of taking over – but Tesla is barely in the game. Only around 50,000 units of its monstrous cubist pickup, the...

Hertz's partnership with Amazon is another step in the e-commerce giant's slow march into auto sales. The deal could be a boon for the rental car giant, which is trying to sell more of its cars directly to consumers. Some experts say the shift toward direct online sales, especially involving e-commerce giants like Amazon, could spell trouble for dealerships, possibly even large publicly traded companies such as AutoNation, Group1, Sonic Automotive, Penske, and Asbury. Wholesale auction companies such as Manheim and AVC are also liable to be watching the shift, as direct to consumer sales could threaten their inventories. Why...

The world’s highest bridge opened in China on Sunday, taking the crown from another bridge in the same province. The Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge soars about 2,050 feet above a river and gorge in the southern Chinese province of Guizhou. It is more than twice as high as the Royal Gorge Bridge, which is suspended 956 feet above the Arkansas River in Colorado and is the highest in the United States. According to Chinese state media, the new Guizhou bridge also sets a record as the world’s longest bridge in a mountainous region, spanning 4,600 feet across. Hailed as China’s...

YT: Victor Davis Hanson rips away the illusion. China claims ancient superiority, but its military is nothing more than a knockoff of the West — from tanks and planes to tactics and strategy. Worse, Beijing exports its authoritarian model into our universities, silencing pro-Taiwan or pro-Israel voices while radicalizing students against America itself.

The US intelligence says the large ocean-going vessels have been modified to carry tanks and partake in amphibious operations. The ABC has seen the report on the condition that it isn't quoted directly, in order to protect the source of the information. In 2022 alone, some 30 Chinese commercial ferries were monitored by Five Eyes intelligence in military exercises involving People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops.

A badly crushed cranium unearthed decades ago from a riverbank in central China that once defied classification is now shaking up the human family tree, according to a new analysis. Scientists digitally reconstructed the squashed skull, thought to be 1 million years old, and its features suggest that the fossil belonged to the same lineage as a striking specimen called “Dragon Man” and the Denisovans — an enigmatic and recently discovered population of prehistoric humans with murky origins. The skull’s age and categorization as an early Denisovan ancestor would mean the group originated much earlier than thought. The researchers’ wider...

Chinese gangs are taking advantage of loose marijuana rules in Oklahoma to grow and transport marijuana to other states for sale on the black market, authorities say. Oklahoma narcotics officials told Congress $153 billion worth of marijuana is unaccounted for and likely leaving the state for the black market in other states. As many as 85 percent of licensed grow sites have connections with Chinese owners or operators, according to Mark Woodward, information officer with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. Since 2022, the state has shut down more than 6,000 illegal growing operations. Most U.S. states have made marijuana legally...

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has issued an emergency directive asking federal agencies to take immediate action to identify and mitigate system vulnerabilities to protect their devices from a major hacking campaign, the agency said in a Sept. 25 statement.“This widespread campaign poses a significant risk to victims’ networks by exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities that persist through reboots and system upgrades,” CISA said.Zero-day vulnerabilities refer to unknown or unaddressed security flaws in computer hardware, firmware, or software. Such vulnerabilities are called “zero-day” since the software or device with such flaws has zero days to fix the issue, thus enabling...

For context, Hegseth explained that the DoD is investigating the involvement of Chinese nationals to assess potential code vulnerabilities in vital US systems. He reiterated that it is indispensable for the end of Chinese participation in DoD systems, prioritizing U.S. national security over corporate profits In any case, Hegseth began his comments by explaining how this program came to be. “Last month, the Department of Defense was made aware of an Obama-Biden era legacy program called Digital escorts. For nearly a decade, Microsoft has used Chinese coders remotely supervised by us contractors to support sensitive DoD cloud systems,” he explained....

Henry McVey, KKR CIO of balance sheet, joins 'Squawk Box' to discuss the state of the economy, the Fed's interest rate outlook, latest market trends, opportunities in the Asian markets, and more. There's a productivity boom in the U.S. similar to the 1990s, says KKR's Henry McVey | 9:06CNBC Television | 3.23M subscribers | 38,798 views | September 25, 2025

The process of mummification is often associated with the tombs of Ancient Egypt or the dry deserts of Chile. Many people frequently assume that the origin of this burial practice also traces back to these cultures. A new study in PNAS challenges these assumptions by suggesting that the people of southern China and Southeast Asia developed a different approach to this practice by curing bodies over low, smoky fires. Archaeologists recently uncovered evidence that these hunter-gatherers practiced smoke-drying their dead as early as 12,000 years ago. This discovery implies that early human societies were practicing mummification long before the construction...

Nate Robinson spotlights fentanyl’s devastation with a stark Philly video.Former NBA guard Nate Robinson recently used his platform to shed light on the devastating impact of fentanyl addiction. On Instagram, Robinson shared a disturbing video from Philadelphia that showed individuals slumped over and staggering in public, their movements eerily resembling “zombies.” The clip was set to Rae Sremmurd’s hit song Black Beatles, the same track once associated with the lighthearted “Mannequin Challenge.” The mix of the upbeat song with such grim scenes made the footage even more jarring. “Man who put this music over this post? Smh. Swaelee the song...

Britain will introduce a mandatory digital ID scheme for British citizens and residents in an attempt to curb illegal immigration. But the 'dystopian' plan has been met with furious backlash, with critics arguing that the move could infringe on civil liberties. Some have even voiced fears such a scheme could spiral into the kind of Orwellian-style surveillance used in China where facial recognition keeps a close eye on their huge population of 1.4 billion. The communist nation has been expanding its Big Brother-like mass surveillance system across the country. Chinese cops have been wearing sunglasses equipped with facial-recognition technology to...

A Navajo Nation man charged by federal prosecutors with running a vast illegal cannabis cultivation and distribution ring pleaded guilty Tuesday to 15 felony crimes and faces up to life in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced. Dineh Benally, 48, admitted in his federal plea agreement that he operated more than 30 farms covering some 400 acres on land obtained from Navajo Nation members. He also admitted hiring illegal Chinese workers to grow cannabis on his farms. Benally entered the plea on Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque before U.S. Magistrate Judge John F. Robbenhaar. Benally also admitted that...

The eastern DR Congo province of South Kivu has recorded its first confirmed cases of Ebola in the country's year-old epidemic, one of which was a fatality, the provincial government said Friday. "Two cases which tested positive for Ebola were confirmed overnight in South Kivu, in Lwindi district in the Mwenga region," it said in a statement South Kivu Governor Theo Ngwabidje told reporters: "Teams from the national anti-Ebola coordination campaign arrived yesterday to provide support." The disease is spread by contact with infected bodily fluids and is fought with time-honored but laborious techniques of tracing contacts and quarantining them....

BUKAVU, Democratic Republic of Congo (Reuters) - Gunmen killed a policeman and kidnapped five Chinese nationals near a mine in southeast Democratic Republic of Congo overnight, a local official and an army spokesman said on Sunday. It was not clear who carried out the attack near the village of Mukera in South Kivu province. Relations are already strained between Chinese mining companies and local authorities, who say some firms are operating illegally without licenses. "An armed group exchanged fire with police. Five Chinese nationals were kidnapped," Major Dieudonne Kasereka, the army spokesman in the region, said. A spokesperson at the...

The Trump administration threw Argentina a financial life raft this week, and Argentina promptly responded by offering China an enticement in the form of untaxed soybeans. Why it matters: It's a harsh blow to already struggling U.S. soybean farmers, and illustrates the complex implications of rescuing a close ally. Driving the news: On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced concepts for broad financial support to stabilize Argentina's economy, including potential loans, currency purchases and debt buying. Argentina's currency, the peso, rallied on the news. Argentina, looking to rake in more capital, suspended its export taxes on several products Monday, including...

The New York Times reporter who wrote the article alleging that Trump pressured Comey to drop investigation of Flynn, Benjamin Wittes, is married to Tamara Wittes. “Wittes is in fact a senior advisor on the Clinton campaign’s Middle East working group” http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/02/10/inside-hillary-clintons-massive-foreign-policy-brain-trust/ “Wittes was a top Middle East policy official under Clinton when she was secretary of state” http://www.jta.org/2016/05/04/news-opinion/politics/hillary-clintons-foreign-policy-advisers-are-exactly-who-youd-expect-them-to-be-which-is-now-rare

Russia and China asked the United Nations Security Council to vote on Friday on a draft resolution to delay by six months the reimposition of sanctions on Iran, diplomats said. All U.N. sanctions on Iran are due to be reimposed at 8 p.m. EDT on Friday (0000 GMT on Saturday) after Britain, France and Germany triggered a 30-day process accusing Tehran of violating a 2015 deal with world powers aimed at preventing it from developing a nuclear weapon. A resolution in the 15-member U.N. Security Council needs at least nine votes in favor and no vetoes by either Britain, France...