Free Republic

President Donald Trump signed an executive order drastically shrinking the size of two national monument areas in Utah on Monday. The order applies to the Grand Staircase-Escalante and Bears Ears national monuments, shrinking their total coverage by roughly 90% from 3 million acres to 300,000. The areas were established as federal monuments by President Bill Clinton in 1996 and Barack Obama in 2016, respectively. "They took the land from the people quite honestly," Trump said during the Monday signing ceremony. "We’re giving it back." Utah Gov. Spencer Cox also attended the signing and praised the move, saying the original size...

The US announced a new round of strikes on Iran on Monday, hours after President Donald Trump said that the United States is 'reinstating' a blockade on Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. 'We're taking out all of their capability for anything having to do with the strait, the Hormuz Strait,' Trump told CBS News Monday evening. 'And I think in the end we will end up just controlling the whole thing.' Trump said the US is prepared to hit Iran 'very hard' on Monday and Tuesday, saying the country’s heavily fortified nuclear facility at Pickaxe Mountain was a target....

Amnesty International UK has expressed "regret" over the publication of a report that labelled dozens of Christian, pro-life and gender critical organisations as "anti-rights". The report was hastily removed from Amnesty's website last week after it triggered a huge backlash, with JK Rowling and John Cleese among the high profile figures denouncing it. At the time, Amnesty said the report had been temporarily withdrawn so that an internal review could be carried out. In a further statement addressing the furore on Monday, Amnesty International UK said the report had not gone through the proper internal checks before being published on...

America never agreed to a world tribunal that can override our own courts and the Constitution. Most of us would struggle to imagine a world in which U.S. soldiers, police officers, Border Patrol agents and elected leaders could be dragged before an international court, tried by judges from random countries across the globe, found guilty under international laws we neither consent to nor control, and then imprisoned thousands of miles from America. But that is what the International Criminal Court now claims the power to do. The ICC was born at the turn of the century. At first, it was...

Erling Haaland and his taxidermy raccoon have touched back down in Norway after a sensational performance in his first FIFA World Cup “It followed me home,” Haaland joked in a post on social media after fans quickly circulated the photos of the Norwegian soccer star with his new decor. “It’s been quite a row, thank you for making it so special,” Haaland wrote in a post on X after Norway’s quarterfinals defeat by England Erling Haaland and his raccoon are back in Norway after the soccer star delivered a career-changing World Cup performance. As Haaland, 25, touched down back in...

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, launched a campaign to dismantle the International criminal court (ICC) on Monday, claiming that the global tribunal was interfering with US military and law enforcement operations at the risk of American sovereignty. Rubio invoked images of US Border Patrol agents and elected leaders being “dragged before an international court” and tried by judges from around the world in a lengthy op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Monday. “If we stand idle, all of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away – facing the constant risk of...

The home secretary will change the law so the freed ringleader of a Rochdale grooming gang can be deported, the BBC has been told. As first reported by the Telegraph, Shabana Mahmood is expected to set out on Monday how she plans to amend the 1971 Immigration Act which currently stops Shabir Ahmed being removed from the UK. Ahmed, 73, was jailed for 22 years in August 2012 for a number of child sexual offences including rape. He was released on licence last week. Known to his victims as "Daddy", Ahmed had dual British-Pakistani citizenship but was stripped of the...

On the other end of the line, Javed sounds worried and tired. "Our situation here is getting worse every day," he shares with The New Arab. "Some of my comrades have been locked up here for eight months, others for ten. This situation is generating a lot of stress and tension." His voice trails off for a moment, then he adds, "There have already been several suicide attempts in this camp." Like Javed, dozens of Afghan refugees are currently being held in closed centres in Poland. Most were arrested by Polish police after irregularly crossing the Belarusian border; others were...

Poland has resumed deportations to Afghanistan despite protective measures ordered by the European Court of Human Rights, local media reported on Monday. According to daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna, three Afghan nationals were taken from a guarded detention center to the military section of Krakow-Balice airport in April. They were flown on a military aircraft, accompanied by more than a dozen Polish Border Guard officers to Tashkent via Tbilisi. Poland’s Commissioner for Human Rights has been investigating the deportation. The Border Guard knew that interim measures had been issued in the cases of at least two of the three men who...

Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been put under house arrest by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps after intelligence authorities uncovered his secret dealings with Israel, The New York Times has claimed. For years, Israel conducted a covert operation aimed at grooming Ahmadinejad as an intelligence asset who could be installed as Iran's new leader, American and Iranian sources told the newspaper. Israel even secretly transferred money to Ahmadinejad for housing and travel, while operatives met him abroad on several occasions. The discovery of the secret relationship is shocking given that Ahmadinejad was known for accelerating Tehran's nuclear programme, calling regularly...

Three Saronic Corsair unmanned surface craft were used in a Sunday attack on an Iranian port, U.S. Central Command announced on social media. In the 25-second video posted Monday on X, the Corsairs approach an Iranian pier at Bandar Abbas near the Strait of Hormuz with what appears to be a Ghadir-class midget submarine suspended from a gantry out of water. “Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran,” reads the X post. “Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first...

You may remember the whole world going nuts in late May when the Free Palestine keffiyists, over 400 in this performative episode of catch-me-if-you-can posed heroism, staged yet another virtue-signalling flotilla to Gaza – Greta Thunberg mysteriously absent this time – bearing their token "humanitarian aid" of six tins of tuna and a few bags of potato chips. Once again, they were apprehended by the Israelis and treated like the maritime scofflaws they were. The sight of activists handcuffed and kneeling, and being mocked by National Security Minister Ben Gvir caused a global seizure of horror and near-universal condemnation. Turkey,...

CCTV captures civilians taking cover during Russian strike on Sumy in Ukraine CCTV footage from the Ukrainian city of Sumy captured the moment visitors at a local coffee shop scrambled for cover during a Russian air strike. The video shows customers rushing toward a safe place after the explosion of a Russian guided glide bomb shatters.

According to Israeli media, Israel has killed no fewer than 2,561 of the around 3,000 terrorists who crossed from Gaza into Israel on October 7. About 1,000 of these were killed in traditional combat with the IDF. The remainder got their one-way trip to Hell courtesy of a secretive unit called Nili. Nili was formed shortly after the October 7 attack and given the mission of tracking down every single terrorist who invaded Israel on October 7. The name Nili is an acronym for a biblical phrase (1 Samuel 15:29) that translates as “the Eternal One of Israel will not...

Houthi rebels in Yemen say Sanaa International Airport has been hit by Saudi strikes. Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said Monday on Telegram that Saudi Arabia launched the airstrikes in what he called an “end to the de-escalation phase.” He warned that “this aggression will not go unanswered or unpunished.” Orders to evacuate the airport and surrounding areas have been issued.

UN humanitarian coordinator says gunmen forcibly entered WFP distribution point and warehouse; COGAT (Coordination of Israeli Government Activities in the Territories/SB): Hamas undermining aid distribution and seizing humanitarian assistance. Hamas terrorists on Saturday forcibly entered a World Food Programme (WFP) food distribution site in Jabaliya, forcing the suspension of distributions that had provided daily assistance to thousands of families. According to United Nations Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process and Humanitarian Coordinator Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, humanitarian workers were forced to halt food distributions after armed personnel affiliated with Hamas authorities forcibly entered the Abu Rashid food distribution...

Co-organizer of the demonstration Piotr Bartosz said, “Kraków is the city of Polish kings, and Poland is a nation-state with a thousand-year Christian tradition that we will defend.” On Monday evening, hundreds of people gathered to protest in front of a residential building in Kraków, Poland’s second-largest city, after it had been revealed that a “community center” in one of the rental apartments had actually been operating as an illegal mosque for some time, without the knowledge of other residents. The main organizer of the demonstration was right-wing activist Michał Kostrzyński, who led a months-long investigation into the alleged community...

MOSCOW, July 13./TASS/.Air defense and electronic warfare systems repelled an attack by 81 drones over the Moscow Region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said on his Max channel... "Unfortunately, there are casualties. Three people were killed and three others injured in the Pionersky settlement near Istra after a drone crashed," he added....

The army's account has one armed man. His tweet has settlers, plural, brandishing rifles. Somebody's description is wrong, and it can be checked. When Shabbat went out on Saturday night, I turned on my phone and found what everyone else in Israeli media found: Ro Khanna – a congressman from California – telling two million people that Israeli settlers with American-made M4s detained him in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and that when the IDF showed up, the soldiers sided with the settlers and kept him there. My first reaction was anger at the men who blocked that road....

The United States has taken delivery of 2,000 Ukrainian F10 attack drones after manufacturer F-Drones secured a Pentagon contract during the opening phase of the Drone Dominance program. The shipment follows Ukraine's first official export permit for completed combat drones, marking a notable change from earlier approvals covering mainly technologies, components, or accessories. The delivery also comes as the Pentagon advances the next stage of its broader $1.1 billion Drone Dominance initiative aimed at expanding domestic and allied unmanned capabilities.