Free Republic

Robert Francis Prevost, who was selected as the Catholic Church’s first American pope Thursday and took the name Leo XIV, has a family history that some were celebrating as uniquely diverse, with one genealogist claiming he has ties to “free people of color” in New Orleans. Key Facts The maternal side of Pope Leo XIV’s family can be traced back to at least the 1840s among “free people of color” in New Orleans, according to Jari C. Honora, a genealogist with the Historic New Orleans Collection, a research center documenting the city’s history. Rep. Troy Carter, D-La., who represents New...

The U.S. is still reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic with more and more long COVID cases emerging. Bird flu is a growing threat. Measles outbreaks have been occurring. Antibiotic-resistant organisms continue to spread in healthcare settings. So what do you do next if you are in charge of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is supposed to protect the health of humans in the U.S.? How about lay off the entire staff of the U.S. government’s Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy?

Ex-attorney Rudy Giuliani’s trial against the Georgia election workers he’s been forced to turn over his assets to has been called off after the two sides reached a settlement that the parties say allows Giuliani to keep his personal belongings , after a trial over several of the former mayor’s assets was slated to begin Thursday but was postponed after Giuliani never showed up to court. Key Facts Giuliani said in a statement Thursday that he and the plaintiffs have reached a settlement that allows him to keep “all of my personal belongings,” after the former mayor had been in...

Musk’s fortune soared by a record $170 billion in 2024–putting him an all-time high dollar amount ahead of Jeff Bezos, the world’s second richest person. The soaring valuations of Tesla, SpaceX and xAI boosted Elon Musk’s fortune to an estimated $421.2 billion as of December 31, 2024, up from $251 billion at the start of 2024. He’s the first person to ever be worth more than $300 billion (a milestone he briefly achieved in 2021), let alone $400 billion. As a result, Musk ended the year a record $188 billion richer than the world’s next wealthiest person, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos,...

With employees from various walks of life, the holidays can present both opportunities and challenges for fostering inclusion in the workplace. Ensuring that everyone feels respected and valued requires thoughtful planning and action. Outside of the more commonly known holidays such as Christmas, New Year’s, and Labor Day, dozens of celebrations take place every year that most likely affect a few people in your team. But it’s not enough to simply be aware of these differences. As the holiday season approaches, nothing highlights a sense of community more than embracing and appreciating the diverse beliefs in the workplace. Let’s take...

It was a great year for billionaires. Especially these fortunate few, who together got more than $700 billion richer. It’s been an astounding year for billionaires, with more than half of the planet’s 2,800-plus members of the three-comma club getting richer in 2024 as markets soared—some by billions and even tens of billions of dollars. This year’s top ten billionaire gainers increased their collective wealth by $730 billion, through December 13, according to Forbes’ estimates. Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, got the richest: He became the first person to pass the $400 billion mark after his rocket company SpaceX...

Former President Donald Trump has secured victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in an election that wasn’t nearly as close as pollsters predicted it would be, with the Republican nominee picking up more points than expected among key demographics like Black voters and young people.

Cynthia Nixon took heat Monday from black leaders over her comments that creating a legalized pot industry in New York could serve as a form of reparations in black communities. Nixon on Saturday told Forbes magazine "now that cannabis is exploding as an industry, we have to make sure that those communities that have been harmed and devastated by marijuana arrests get the first shot at this industry." "We (must) prioritize them in terms of licenses. It's a form of reparations." The comments came under fire from some community leaders.

Since the end of 2023 Berkshire has sold 505 million Apple shares — 115 million in the first quarter and another 390 million in the second quarter. As of June 30, that represents a 55.8% reduction in Berkshire’s Apple holdings since the beginning of the year, Reuters noted.

House Republicans passed a resolution Thursday criticizing Vice President Kamala Harris’ record on immigration as attacks on her work have ramped up since she became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee—referring to her as the Biden administration’s “border czar”—but their criticisms misinterpret the actual task Harris was given on immigration, which is more narrowly focused on why people immigrate in the first place.

I am a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) expert. Will Trump seize the apparent assassination attempt against him as an opportunity to meaningfully address the epidemic of gun violence in America? Will he deem unacceptable the dangers to which citizens are exposed as they go to schools, places of religious worship, concerts, movie theaters, supermarkets, shopping malls, sporting events, and now, presidential campaign rallies? It’s possible, but unlikely. Butler is less than an hour north of Pittsburgh. It isn’t an urban center. But many big cities in which large numbers of Black Americans reside have long been plagued with inexcusably...

Forbes has deleted an article musing about whether or not former President Donald Trump will use surviving an assassination attempt to help him win over more black voters. The article was titled “Will Surviving Gunfire Be Donald Trump’s Next Appeal To Black Voters?” and was written by contributor Shaun Harper, a tenured professor described by Forbes as a “DEI expert.” The link to the article now reads, “We can’t find the page that you are looking for,” across the top. Unfortunately for Forbes, the internet is forever, and the article was archived many times before it was removed. The article...

Steve Forbes warns that a major war between Israel and Iran, which could bring in more nations, is nearly inevitable.

The Ukrainian military has labored, for years, to root out far-right extremists in its ranks. The latest clash between the extremists and the defense ministry in Kyiv couldn’t have come at a worse time—or in a worse place. After weeks of drama, the defense ministry redeployed and shook up the staffing within the army’s 67th Mechanized Brigade this weekend. The brigade was holding the most vulnerable district in the most vulnerable city in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast: the canal district of Chasiv Yar. Now the 67th Brigade—what’s left of it—has redeployed to the Ukrainian rear, and a brigade of Ukrainian...

WASHINGTON (TND) — Transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney was named to Forbes Magazine’s “30 Under 30” list this week. The list commemorates “young movers and makers changing the world,” according to Forbes. It has formerly featured figures such as singer Miley Cyrus and disgraced tech entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried. Sharing the news with her nearly 2 million Instagram followers, Mulvaney said the designation was a dream come true

Forbes is taking the Thanksgiving season to wokescold companies on why they should “decenter whiteness” in their workplaces. Yes, you read that right. Forbes’ racist Nov. 19 post of its propaganda on X spoke for itself: “3 Ways To Decenter Whiteness In Your Workplace.” The article, published Oct. 25 by senior contributor Janice Gassam Asare, railed how “[w]hite-centering can be thought of as a system that prioritizes white dominant culture to the detriment of non-white groups and cultures.” The agitprop pontificated to readers how “White-centering has been given many names including the white gaze and whiteness as the default.” According...

Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Marco Rubio of Florida are teaming up to push the Biden administration to review the planned acquisition of Forbes magazine. The pair sent a letter Wednesday to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warning her that the planned buyout involves entities tied to Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, which previously tried to purchase the outlet. "Forbes reportedly holds a significant market share among younger Americans, with tens of millions of monthly users," the lawmakers wrote. "This puts Forbes in a unique position to collect and store sensitive personal data on these populations and influence...

Forbes pointed to misleading data and claimed on Monday there had been over 330 “mass shootings” in the United States so far in 2023. They labeled their report “breaking” news. Writing at Forbes, Ana Faguy relied on the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a pro-gun-control database which abandoned the long-standing definition of a “mass shooting” as four or more deaths in a single incident by a single gunman and replaced it with “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.” GVA’s new definition allows...

The Ukrainian army’s 33rd Mechanized Brigade and 47th Assault Brigade massed their Leopard tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles for a powerful assault on Russian positions two miles south of Mala Tokmachka in southern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Oblast on or before Thursday morning. A dense minefield lay between the Ukrainians and their objective. And the Ukrainians knew it. They deployed at least one IMR-2 engineering vehicle and a Leopard 2R breaching vehicle in the hope of plowing away the mines and clearing a path for at least a company of 47th Brigade M-2A2 Bradleys and some attached Leopard 2A6s from the 33rd...

While inflation has come down slightly since record highs last year, nearly half of American voters feel President Biden's policies are hurting them and 83% of voters feel the economy is "only fair/poor." On "America's Newsroom" on Friday, Forbes Media chairman Steve Forbes argued that the state of the economy will cost President Biden the 2024 Democratic nomination. STEVE FORBES: I think what's happening with the economy, even though it's not officially in a recession, it's sort of the economic equivalent of walking pneumonia. Not enough to put you in bed yet, but just dragging you down, draining the energy....