Free Republic

Judges overseeing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's trial urge prosecution to drop bribery charge in Case 4000, demand to expand trial schedule to five days a week. The panel of judges presiding over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's corruption trial - Judges Rivka Friedman-Feldman, Moshe Bar-Am, and Oded Shaham - announced Monday that their view regarding the difficulties in proving the bribery charge in Case 4000 remains unchanged even after Netanyahu's cross-examination. The judges said they have returned to the position they first expressed in June 2023, when they recommended that the State Attorney's Office consider withdrawing the bribery charge in Case...

U.S. officials believed that Israel might have been plotting to kill Iran’s top negotiators while Washington was engaged with Tehran in delicate talks this spring to reach an interim peace deal, according to current and former American officials. Killing senior Iranian leaders had been part of Israel’s strategy from the start of the war. But American concerns about the targeting of two particular Iranian officials — Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s foreign minister, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of the Parliament — spiked during delicate cease-fire negotiations that began in April. Fearful that an Israeli assassination effort would doom the negotiations,...

A Ukrainian woman has been identified as the main suspect for a parcel bombing in Monaco that seriously wounded a sanctioned Ukrainian multi-millionaire and two others. An Interpol Red Notice has been issued for Anastasiia Berezovska, 39, who speaks German and is wanted for attempted murder, placing an explosive device on a public road with criminal intent, and criminal conspiracy. Police are looking into identifying any possible accomplices as they continue to search for the named suspect. The suspect, pictured on CCTV cameras wearing a dark bucket hat, was then seen fleeing towards the French commune of Beausoleil.

The Kremlin is planning an armed incursion on Polish land to test Nato's response, according to Washington. The provocation could see Putin's troops cross over into Poland, and vital infrastructure could be targeted by missiles and drones. Sources close to Polish President Karol Nawrocki told news outlet Onet that the US had been warning Warsaw about the plan for a while. Russia's plan aims to start a crisis to scare Western nations into stopping their support for Ukraine. Polish security experts also warned that Russia and Belarus might send a small number of troops across the Nato border. Power stations...

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Philadelphia ​from enforcing a new city law that would have prohibited federal law enforcement agents ‌from wearing masks, ruling the city cannot dictate how they conduct operations amid a national debate over masked immigration agents carrying out arrests. U.S. District Judge Chad Kenney, at the request of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration, issued a ​preliminary injunction, opens new tab barring Philadelphia from enforcing key provisions of the law against federal officers ​before they are scheduled to take effect on Tuesday. Philadelphia’s mask ban was enacted ⁠earlier this year as part of a larger “ICE...

Several leading European nations now accept that ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz will need to pay fees to Iran and Oman, according to a Bloomberg report Thursday.The possibility of service fees following the US and Israeli war with Iran is now reportedly viewed by some EU countries as unavoidable. Some Gulf Arab officials are said to also privately share this view, though it may not reflect their governments' official positions. The type and amount of fees that nations would accept remains unclear. The US and Gulf Arab countries maintain that Iran and Oman cannot impose any charges for...

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision to protect women's and girls' sports is making waves across the pond, too. Author J.K. Rowling, a staunch defender of women's rights in the face of radical trans activism, even took the BBC to task for its shameful coverage of the ruling.

The United States Central Command (CENTCOM) is considering moving its military bases’ operational systems in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia to Israel in order to increase their distance from further Iranian missile and drone attacks, The Wall Street Journal reported last Thursday. The US Navy may revamp its base in Bahrain, which has suffered severe damage since late February up until the recent US-Iran ceasefire. Bahrain has been home to the US Navy’s central forces in the Middle East for over 50 years. One option is to establish a new base in the Negev big enough to hold the American...

A middle-class upstate New York mom has been charged with allegedly supporting an Islamic terrorist organization after donating $30,000 in cryptocurrency to the violent, antisemitic group, federal prosecutors announced Wednesday. Catherine Beth Washburn, 37, a self-proclaimed stay-at-home mom, according to her Facebook account, exchanged messages with a terrorist in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) group in Gaza, once telling him “I wish every day were October 7,” according to prosecutors in the Western District of New York. Washburn, who is from Irondequoit, just outside of Rochester, is the alleged leader of an extremist group that formed in the wake of...

While it looks a lot like the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is running the show in Iran right now, it's also very likely that the mullahs are still wielding a lot of influence, even from whatever rocks they are hiding under. Iran's supposed civil government, or what's left of it, is still talking about a possible peace deal, but the IRGC is still trying to hit shipping in the Strait of Hormuz as well as tossing whatever they have left at neighboring nations. Now, at least one group of the 7th-century barbarians who have been in power in...

Lindsey Graham: "The liberation of Cuba is upon us." "We are marching through the world." "Cuba is next."

A helicopter from the U.S. 5th fleet had an “emergency water landing” in the Arabian Sea on Wednesday, according to the U.S. Naval Forces Central Command. The emergency water landing happened at 3:30 a.m. ET on Wednesday, according to an X post from the U.S. 5th Fleet. The helicopter had a crew of four people; three were recovered, but one crewmember is still missing, according to the X post. The helicopter was an MH-60S Seahawk helicopter assigned to USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), according to the X post. There is no indication that the emergency was caused by hostile...

More than two million Russian and Ukrainian troops have been killed or wounded in the four years that Russia has been waging war against its neighbor, according to a new study, a bleak milestone as Russia’s assault grinds on. The study, published on Wednesday by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said Russia has borne the heavier toll, with 1.4 million troops killed or wounded since February 2022, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Of that total, 450,000 were killed, a number that is four times greater than U.S. fatalities in all wars combined since World War II. Ukrainian...

President Donald Trump responded to Tuesday’s Supreme Court’s ruling striking down his birthright citizenship executive order by appearing to back immigration legislation that would further clarify how immigrants can become citizens.In a 6-3 ruling, justices held that an executive order Trump issued on the first day of his second term violated the Constitution. The order greatly restricted the circumstances in which a baby born in the United States would automatically be granted American citizenship.The Fourteenth Amendment states, in part, “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States...

Zhang Yadi, 23, also known as Tara, is supposed to be studying at a prestigious university in the UK.Instead she is believed to be in detention in China.In one of her last posts on the social media platform "X", she wished the Dalai Lama a happy 90th birthday. She had also helped edit an online Chinese language platform promoting Tibetan rights while studying in France.Her words of support for Tibetans, posted while abroad, are believed to have put her in prison. Beijing views the exiled spiritual leader as a separatist and what it calls the Tibet Autonomous Region, which it...

SNIP China wants the fighting in Eastern Europe to stop right now. Beijing is issuing a clear, uncompromising command to both Russia and Ukraine. The message came directly from the United Nations floor. Sun Lei serves as China’s deputy representative, and he delivered his remarks during a recent Security Council gathering. The Moscow Times reported that China is firmly demanding an immediate return to the negotiating table. Beijing claims it wants to guide the political process. Lei held nothing back when addressing the packed room. “We strongly urge you to end the conflict as soon as possible. We also strongly...

We are one step closer to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland becoming the Islamic Republic of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. King Charles III has a new description in his role as monarch to that end. In an annual review published for 2025-2026 reported by the U.K.’s Telegraph on Friday, the king was previously the “Head of Nation” and “Head of the Church of England and Defender of the Faith.” This year the language has changed, reading, “His Majesty is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and protects the space for Faith within the multi-faith...

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman pressed President Trump earlier to cripple Iran. But as Iran asserted its power, the prince urged a cease-fire, and is now pursuing his security priorities.President Trump and his military commanders were in a bind.They had announced the start of a new mission to help guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran had effectively closed early in the war. U.S. naval and air power would ward off any Iranian attacks during a tentative cease-fire, the commanders said.But U.S. Central Command was caught by surprise when officials from Saudi Arabia said American forces could...

Todd Blanche to target tourists and migrants despite such births accounting for less than 1% of US babies born yearly gle A day after the US supreme court upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, has said federal prosecutors and law enforcement officers will focus on combating so-called “birth tourism” – the process of tourists, temporary visitors and undocumented immigrants traveling to the US and giving birth. “There’s other things that [the Department if Homeland Security] can do, and the federal government can do in the visa process, and the application process, to try...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio appear to be staking out differing approaches to carrying out President Donald Trump’s national security agenda as the possible 2028 presidential rivals jostle for position in a divided Republican Party.With vastly different backgrounds and policy experience, they have moved along separate paths to stake out territory: Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants with a long history in the Senate and major interest in Latin America, and Vance, a child of the Midwest and Marine Corps veteran who served in the Senate for only two years before being...