Free Republic

A rally for Alberta independence in Airdrie had no shortage of encouragement from passersby on the highway, as it appears an Ottawa-appointed judge blocking the Stay Free Alberta petition has strengthened support for the movement. Sydney Fizzard | May 27, 2026 | News Analysis | 2 Comments Alberta's growing separatist movement is gaining momentum following a controversial court ruling that temporarily blocked a citizen-led referendum on independence. In Airdrie, supporters of the sovereignty movement voiced their frustration with Ottawa, skepticism toward federal institutions and anger over what they describe as decades of Western alienation. The recent court decision that found...

U.S. and Iranian negotiators have reached an agreement on a 60-day memorandum of understanding extending the current ceasefire and launching negotiations on Iran's nuclear program, but the deal still needs President Donald Trump's final approval, U.S. sources confirmed to Fox News.

We are often best defined not by the company we keep, but by our enemies. Having the right—left—enemies tends to be a very good thing indeed, as it’s a reliable indicator we’re doing the right things with the right people and for the right reasons. It’s not always easy, however, to know the motives of people, or nations, when we’re dealing with issues of technology and/or public policy. One such issue is the proliferation of data centers, necessary for the burgeoning AI revolution, but controversial for that and other reasons. Among them is the amount of water and power they...

The Trump administration has quietly instructed federal prosecutors in Miami to avoid pursuing criminal investigations into Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez, a longtime target of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, according to current and former U.S. law enforcement officials, in the latest sign of warming relations between the White House and the oil-rich nation. It’s unclear whether prosecutors had implicated Rodríguez in any crimes or whether investigators were moving toward an indictment. A Justice Department spokesperson said in an email “there was never an investigation into her to shut down.” But DEA records obtained by The Associated Press earlier this...

The negotiations between the United States and Iran to end their war are following President Trump’s familiar playbook for resolving a Middle East crisis: agree to a cease-fire and deal with the toughest problems later. Analysts say the approach has had mixed results in the Gaza Strip, where Mr. Trump brokered a truce last year between Israel and Hamas, the Iranian-backed militant group. Plans for a so-called Phase 2 agreement — under which Hamas was to lay down its arms and Israel would allow Gaza to be rebuilt after a devastating war — have stalled. A similar approach in U.S....

The social media post by President Trump made it sound straightforward. The United States would orchestrate a deal to end the war with Iran and, in exchange, a slew of countries across the Middle East and South Asia would join an agreement, called the Abraham Accords, establishing relations with Israel. In fact, he said, that “should be mandatory.” But half of the countries he named — such as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey — already have relations with Israel. And the other half — including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Pakistan — have no interest in establishing them anytime soon. As a...

US forces in war zones have been targeted through commercially available location data, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a letter from US Central Command shared by US Senator Ron Wyden. CENTCOM said it had received “multiple threat reports concerning adversary exploitation of commercial location data to target or surveil US personnel in theater,” according to the letter. A bipartisan group of lawmakers warned the Pentagon that commercial location data could reveal where US troops gather and their daily patterns, exposing them to missile, drone and roadside bomb attacks. Wyden said Washington should start treating the adtech industry as a national...

[Translated from German] Since Thursday morning, a major police operation has been underway at Winterthur train station. Several areas and stairways around the new pedestrian and bicycle underpass are cordoned off. An eyewitness, who works across from the cordoned-off area, tells this editorial office that a man of middle age shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is great) around 8:30 a.m. and stabbed four men with a knife. At that very moment, a school class also passed the scene. The teacher then positioned herself protectively in front of the children. Another witness, a taxi driver, confirms that a man had been running...

Speculation is mounting over the fate of Brig. Gen. Ali Azmaei, the newly-appointed commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Navy, following reported US strikes on the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas. The Iran Watcher, a conflict monitoring group, said "unconfirmed reports" suggest Azmaei “may have been targeted and possibly eliminated” during the strikes, though Iranian authorities have not publicly commented on his status. Senior commander Azmaei is regarded as one of the IRGC Navy’s most senior commanders, previously leading the force’s 5th Naval Region, a strategically important command overseeing operations in the Arabian Gulf and the Strait...

For years, much of the American media has operated under a peculiar assumption: that the best way to confront adversaries such as China and Iran is to accommodate them. If the United States applies pressure, the narrative quickly becomes that America is overextended, losing leverage, or somehow empowering its enemies. That narrative has resurfaced during President Donald Trump's confrontation with Tehran and Beijing. According to outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post, both Iran and China are supposedly emerging stronger from the current conflict. It is a difficult claim to square with reality. Iran's senior military...

As an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to grow, the Trump administration says it is focused on keeping the disease out of the United States. “We cannot and will not allow any cases of Ebola to enter the United States,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a Cabinet meeting Wednesday. The US “is setting up a state-of-the-art facility” in Kenya for Americans who may have been exposed to the Ebola virus but who do not have symptoms, Trump administration officials said Wednesday.

"Russia is considering limiting exports of diesel and jet fuel," Bloomberg and other sources reported Tuesday, "as refinery run rates fall to multi-year lows amid Ukraine’s escalating attacks." An Interfax source claimed that the decision to ban exports is at "an advanced stage," but no date has been set. If it comes to pass, that would be bad for diesel prices and inflation right here at home, but worse for Moscow's finances. Just the fact that the Kremlin is considering an export ban is more evidence that Kyiv's drone campaign is increasingly effective — against Russia's energy production at home,...

The problems in the Strait of Hormuz, we should remember, are not confined to Iran, the Middle East, or the United States. The troubles, the open-again, closed-again problems in the Strait of Hormuz are affecting the economies of Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, to the point where even a landlocked European nation and, by the way, a NATO member, is offering some help to the United States to get that sorted out. The nation is the Czech Republic, and they are offering to help with specialized surveillance tech.The Czech Republic is prepared to help protect freedom of navigation in the Strait...

The times, they are a-changin', as then-folk music troubadour Bob Dylan once sang about the radical era America found herself swimming/wading through in the Sixties. You could say the same thing about whatever they end up calling this era, and the second Trump administration at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Readers may have seen some of our pieces - so far on Wednesday - covering the Cabinet meeting open to the media. Treasury Sec. Scott Bessent, per a Playbook report on the team meet-up, explained that "The continued resilience of the economy speaks for itself, even during the Iran — the conflict."...

The US military carried out new strikes in Iran Wednesday, targeting a military site that threatened American troops and commercial shipping traffic in the Strait of Hormuz. “Today, US Central Command Forces shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz,” a US official said in a statement. “US forces also struck an Iranian ground control station in Bandar Abbas that was about to launch a fifth drone,” the official added. Despite the skirmish, the fragile cease-fire that has been in place since April 8 is still considered to be holding.“These actions were...

Secretary of State Marco Rubio called out “incompetent communists” who are in charge of the Cuban government, as the United States is eyeing possible intervention regarding the island nation just off the coast of Florida. The country is facing nearly all-day electricity blackouts, as CIA Director John Ratcliffe traveled to Cuba earlier this month to meet with officials. There are also concerns about Cuba possibly wanting to act against the U.S. with military drones, according to Axios. “Cuba’s in a lot of trouble because, unfortunately for them, it’s run by a bunch of incompetent communists,” Rubio said. “Being a communist...

Israel has killed two top Hamas military chiefs in 11 days, demonstrating near-total surveillance, air supremacy, and intelligence capabilities across Gaza and the Middle East.What is so shocking about Israel's achievement of assassinating two Hamas military chiefs, Izz-al-Din al-Hadad, and his successor, Mohammed Ouda, within 11 days of each other, is that no one is even shocked anymore. Depending on the country or area, from drones to fighter jets, to the navy, to satellites, to Mossad, Shin Bet, and IDF Unit 504 agents, Israel has its enemies' leaders covered and in its crosshairs practically on demand, including: Iran, the Yemen...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump will meet with his Cabinet on Wednesday at a precarious moment for talks aimed at ending the war with Iran, just days after insisting that his administration and Tehran had “largely negotiated” a settlement but with the negotiations still in a state of flux. As he prepares to huddle with his top aides, Trump is projecting confidence that he's closing in on a deal that will reopen the Strait of Hormuz and provide him a credible argument that Iran’s nuclear capability has been diminished enough to declare victory, winding down a conflict that's been...

To reach the church, we walked single file. The path was narrow. On either side of us were landmines. The Burma military had bombed the church in 2023. The roof was mostly gone. The walls were cracked and scorched. But the building was still standing, and so the people of this village in Karenni State still used the church. Not because it was safe but because it was theirs, and because there was nowhere else to go. On this day, myself and the Karenni demining team were going there to meet some survivors of landmines - the Karenni leadership had...

Ghana has welcomed Pope Leo XIV's apology for the Catholic Church's historic role in slavery, describing it as an "act of moral courage" that was important in the global pursuit of "truth, human dignity and justice". The Pope issued the clearest apology yet for the Church's involvement in legitimising slavery and its delay in condemning it for centuries. The apology was published on Monday in the Pope's first major teaching document of his papacy, which also focused on the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI). Ghana was a major hub for the transatlantic slave trade when millions of people were captured...