Free Republic

German public broadcaster ZDF accused Elon Musk and British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson of inciting anti-immigrant violence in Belfast following a brutal stabbing attack that triggered days of riots across Northern Ireland. A 30-year-old Sudanese man, Hadi Alodid, was charged with attempted murder, possession of a knife and making threats to kill. He entered Northern Ireland in 2023, applied for asylum and was granted refugee status the same year, with leave to remain until 2028, a Home Office spokesperson confirmed to Newsweek. The victim — a man in his 40s — was hospitalized with serious injuries to his eyes, face...

Even if you’re sick of hearing about Jeffrey Epstein — President Donald Trump and his team have been far more fixated on the relentless controversy than they have ever acknowledged. That (and plenty of other juicy revelations) is based on three years of reporting for a forthcoming book. "Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump" is by New York Times correspondents Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan and slated to be published in two weeks. Whether you’re a Trump supporter or detractor, the book is packed with facts that make clear that most or all of the major participants...

A commercial airline pilot that spoke to MeidasTouch this evening has filed aviation safety reports after powerful lighting used during the construction and testing of the UFC octagon on the White House grounds allegedly shone directly into their cockpit during a nighttime approach into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), creating what the pilot described as one of the most severe visibility disruptions they have experienced in their career. ———- According to the pilot, the lights illuminated the cockpit during the final stages of landing, a critical phase of flight when pilots rely heavily on visual references. The pilot described...

Republicans on Capitol Hill are seething that Donald Trump is not more focused on the economy as this year's midterm elections approach, warning it could obliterate the narrow GOP congressional majority. Polling indicates that voters are souring on Trump and his Republican allies in Congress ahead of his November's elections that will prove fateful for the President's agenda. In addition to the lack of attention to fixing the economy, senior aides also identified the nomination of Federal Housing Finance Director Bill Pulte, a close ally of the President, to lead the Office of the Director of National Intelligence as an...

President Trump announced that he canceled planned strikes against Iran on Thursday and claimed Iran's leadership "approved" a draft agreement that would extend the ceasefire, reopen the Strait of Hormuz and launch 60 days of negotiations on Iran's nuclear program. (snip)The sources said the gaps were narrowed on three key issues: The mechanism for releasing Iran's frozen assets — the most important issue for the Iranians.Arrangements for reopening the Strait of Hormuz during the 60-day ceasefire period.How negotiations over Iran's nuclear program would be conducted during the 60-day ceasefire period.

President Donald Trump called into Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Thursday morning and told the hosts that he has always wanted to invade Iran’s Kharg Island, one of the country’s key energy infrastructure sites. Trump ranted at the media coverage of the war in Iran and fumed, “The Wall Street Journal, they did an editorial today about we’re not hitting them hard enough.” “I mean, it is just, ‘not hitting them hard enough.’ We dropped $250 million worth of bombs on them last night. The whole thing is crazy. And they’re really in submission. They just don’t know it...

a black man films himself riding down the street on a bicycle, reportedly in Florida, before he pulls over where a white man is sitting on the ground talking to a white woman while they appear to be waiting for a bus. Out of nowhere and without provocation, the black man punches the seated white man in the head, accusing him of being part of the “jury selection” for the Karmelo Anthony trial; he also says to the white veteran, “you gonna die.”

European confidence in an American “security guarantee” has hit a historic low, a survey suggests, with only one in 10 people across 15 countries seeing the US as an ally and majorities in all doubting it would come to their aid if they were attacked. The survey, published on Wednesday by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) thinktank before critical G7 and Nato summits in France and Turkey over the coming weeks, revealed “deep European distrust in the US”, the authors said. It also showed that, while many Europeans felt relations with Washington would improve once Donald Trump leaves...

Given its oft-proclaimed calling as a peace project, the European Union can sound oddly bellicose when it sets about crafting policy. There are trade and fiscal “bazookas” to blast away crises, “silver bullet” solutions for every problem, and “nuclear options” to be used as a last resort. Yet in the absence of an EU army or even a police force, the pen-wielding Eurocracy rarely gets its hands on anything that looks like an actual weapon. The only exception—tellingly—is the club’s border-patrol agency. For over a decade after it was founded in 2005, Frontex agents wielded little more than whistles and...

US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday the crash involving a US Apache helicopter was not a “major incident” and that the pilot was safe, while affirming that sanctions and restrictions targeting Iranian ports would remain in place for as long as necessary. [ snip ] Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi denied Iranian involvement in the incident over the Strait of Hormuz, stating that “Iran was not behind the attack” and that there had been no deliberate action targeting the aircraft.

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s latest strikes on Lebanon and Iran have made clear that U.S. President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who started the war in lockstep, want different things.Trump had publicly warned Israel not to strike Beirut in its war with Iran-backed Hezbollah militants. When it did, on Sunday, Iran responded by firing ballistic missiles at Israel for the first time since the April ceasefire. Israel then struck Iran, with which Trump has been engaged in weeks of high-stakes negotiations.The fighting has since died down, but the differences between the two leaders are likely to persist.That’s...

In the days before the latest flare-ups of violence in the Middle East, President Trump’s aides were negotiating with Tehran on four major elements of a nuclear agreement that U.S. officials contend would grind the program to a halt for 15 years or so. The negotiations, according to U.S. officials and diplomats who have been briefed on the confidential talks, have gone considerably beyond discussion about reopening the Strait of Hormuz, which the Iranians have all but shut down for 101 days. The result is what American officials describe as the hazy outlines of an accord — assuming the Islamic...

Democratic state Representative James Talarico holds a 3‑point lead over Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton in the latest poll of Texas's U.S. Senate race released Tuesday. Despite Texas’s reputation as a reliably Republican state, Democrats are hopeful about their chances of flipping the seat in November due to a favorable national environment fueled by President Donald Trump’s negative approval rating, political baggage carried by Paxton and reversion among Hispanic voters who trended toward the GOP in 2024. Even as polls show a potentially competitive race, Texas is viewed as an uphill challenge for Democrats, but the new poll released Tuesday...

JD Vance suggested Israel may not be on board with a US-Iran peace deal as he was grilled over bombshell intelligence reports claiming Benjamin Netanyahu's spy agencies have been eavesdropping on American negotiators. US intelligence officials are alarmed by Israel's eavesdropping on American diplomats negotiating with Iran. The Pentagon now ranks Israel as a bigger counterintelligence threat than some of America's enemies, according to The New York Times.The report details concerns that Israel has been spying on senior Trump officials, including the President's top negotiator Steve Witkoff and Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby, along with other American military and government...

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Hulu series host Nikole Hannah-Jones is set to speak at a Juneteenth event in Springfield. The University of Illinois Springfield Center for Lincoln Studies, in partnership with Juneteenth Inc., the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum and the UIS Institute for Race, Gender, Sexuality and Social Justice, will host a conversation with Nikole Hannah-Jones, host and executive producer of the Hulu docuseries “The 1619 Project,” as part of its Juneteenth Lecture Series.

Americans have run their credit cards to the limit. Now they’ve turned to buy-now-pay-later plans to buy gas and groceries. This is yet more evidence that American consumers are broke, stressed, and buried in debt as inflation steals their purchasing power. Buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) platforms allow users to purchase items by paying several smaller installments (typically around 4) over time. Block operates the Afterpay BNPL platform. The system was originally set up to provide short-term financing for bigger purchases. But according to company data, usage is expanding into everyday spending categories. The average customer used Afterpay to purchase gas 3.6 times...

After years of being asked to leave gratuities everywhere from coffee shops and takeout counters to ride-share apps and self-service kiosks, many consumers say they have had enough - and are now tipping less than they did just a year ago. A new nationwide survey found that 78 percent of Americans believe tipping culture has become 'ridiculous,' while nearly half say they have actively cut back on gratuities in 2026 as household budgets come under increasing pressure. The findings, from restaurant technology company Popmenu, suggest a growing backlash against what many consumers see as relentless requests for extra money on...

This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet"NICOSIA, June 8. /TASS/. EU member states have authorized their warships operating in the Mediterranean as part of Operation IRINI to detain foreign tankers suspected of transporting Russian oil as part of what Brussels describes as the "shadow fleet," EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said. TASS has summed up what is known to this moment. Kallas’ statementEU member countries have authorized their warships to detain foreign tankers suspected of shipping Russian oil, Kallas said. This applies to tankers described by Brussels as "shadow fleet." According to Kallas, the main objective...

Recent U.S. intelligence reports raised alarms about Israel spying on American officials to gain insight into the Trump administration’s approach to the Iran War, according to separate reports from the New York Times and NBC News. The Times reported Saturday that U.S. intelligence offices discern an elevated threat of Israeli espionage operations targeting Steve Witkoff, the top American negotiator with Iran, Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for policy, and Michael DiMino, one of Colby’s top deputies. Colby and DiMino are widely perceived to be part of an America First faction that is skeptical of military intervention in...

Decision Desk HQ made the call Saturday night after several days of vote counting: Democrats are out of California's 40th Congressional District. Rep. Young Kim advanced out of the primary alongside Rep. Ken Calvert, and November will be a Republican-versus-Republican. California voters passed Proposition 50 last year, redrawing the state's congressional maps. Governor Gavin Newsom (D) was the driving force behind it, and the stated goal was flipping Republican seats. The new 40th was supposed to be one of them. The plan was to jam two Republican incumbents into the same district, let them bloody each other, and walk in...