Free Republic

Spain's prime minister has blamed trafficking gangs after about 60,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. At least 57 people died during the surge, according to local media. Pedro Sánchez called the incident a "violation of Spain's territorial integrity". Italy has responded by suspending the EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain. The influx comes after Spain's Supreme Court ruled that migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish enclave, cannot be summarily returned to Morocco. As of Friday evening, more than 48,000 people had voluntarily returned to Morocco, Spanish...

The Pentagon is confronting a growing reality after months of fighting Iran: America's stockpile of missile defense interceptors. It is shrinking so much, military planners are weighing whether they can continue the current cycle of limited retaliatory strikes. The Center for Strategic and International Studies, using open-source budget numbers provided to Congress, estimates U.S. Patriot interceptor inventories have fallen from roughly 2,300 pre-war to fewer than 827. THAAD interceptor inventories have also dropped from 452 to fewer than 278. CSIS warns rebuilding those stockpiles could take three years or more, raising concerns about protecting U.S. forces and bases worldwide if...

Iran has said it struck two tankers trying to pass through the Strait of Hormuz under the escort of the US military as Donald Trump gathered his cabinet to discuss the stalling war and rising prices as midterm elections in the US loom. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said on Friday the “non-compliant oil tankers ... were struck and brought to a halt, while four other oil tankers quickly changed course and returned to their previous positions”.

HARLINGEN, Texas (AP) — Advocates warn that tens of thousands of migrant children who came to the United States alone could lose legal representation in immigration court and increase their risk of deportation as the Trump administration allows a contract with legal services providers to expire.Friday marks the last day of a contract under which the federal government pays for legal services for children who enter the U.S. without a parent or guardian. The government contracts out those services to a network of nearly 100 legal groups across the country that provide services to roughly 20,000 children.The Trump administration did...

The United States and Israel are planning what would be one of the harshest bombing campaigns to date against energy infrastructure targets in Iran, multiple sources told CBS News, with strikes possible throughout the weekend. There was some discussion about trying to conclude by the time financial markets open Monday because of concern about how the bombings will affect the U.S. and global economy, but an end point wasn't locked in. The Israelis have been notified and are coordinating with the United States, according to multiple U.S. sources. The president has yet to give the final go orders for the...

U.S. President Donald Trump declined to provide Ukraine with 300 Patriot interceptor missiles that President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had requested to defend the country against Russian attacks this winter, The Atlantic reported on July 30. Instead, on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Trump offered Kyiv a license to produce its own interceptors domestically — though large-scale production could reportedly take years. The Atlantic's report did not specify exactly when Zelenskyy made the request to Trump. According to an analysis by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the war in Iran has depleted U.S. Patriot interceptor...

Widely circulated video showed thousands of Moroccans storming a Spanish outpost in North Africa. The White House condemned Spain as weak on immigration. ROME — The sudden arrival of a massive group of migrants at a Spanish exclave in North Africa triggered a fresh wave of political attacks against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on both sides of the Atlantic, as voices from the right in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, with the White House joining in, lashed out against Europe’s leading liberal in office. Spanish officials said nearly 50,000 migrants rushed the Spanish territory over the past 24 hours, swimming...

When President Donald Trump ordered an early morning raid to arrest Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and brought him to the United States to face trial on narco-terrorism charges, the warnings came fast. House Armed Services Committee ranking Democratic member Adam Smith cautioned that United States military intervention always “ends badly,” citing Iraq and Libya as examples. Representative Jim Himes, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, drew the parallel directly. “This is exactly the euphoria we felt in 2002 when our military took down the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Himes said, “in 2003 when our military took out...

WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not planning an aggressive campaign at voting sites during the upcoming midterm elections, the Department of Homeland Security said Thursday in response to a States Newsroom inquiry about a letter from U.S. Senate Democrats voicing concerns about armed federal agents at polling places.ICE, an agency within DHS that has sustained intense criticism since the start of the second Trump administration for its aggressive and sometimes deadly tactics, has no plans to target polling sites in November, a DHS official told States Newsroom in an email.The official left open the possibility, though, that...

The State Department on Thursday proposed changes that would expand and clarify the grounds for ceasing participation in the J-1 Exchange Visitor Program, while also updating how sponsors manage extensions and reinstatements of status. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, published in the Federal Register on July 30, focuses on regulations governing nonimmigrants who come to the United States for educational and cultural exchange programs. These visitors hold J-1 visas, also called exchange visitor visas, while their spouses and children typically hold J-2 visas. The department monitors them through the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), a database overseen by...

About 60,000 migrants have crossed into Spain's North African territory of Ceuta from Morocco in the last 24 hours, Ceuta's president says. At least 34 people have died during the crossing, Juan Jesús Vivas said during a news conference. The influx comes after Spain's Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants stopped at sea while trying to reach Ceuta or Melilla, another Spanish exclave, cannot be summarily returned to Morocco. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described the situation as an "attack" and said the government was working to return all illegal migrants to Morocco "as soon as possible". Several European leaders...

About a dozen Democratic Socialists of America activists have publicly pledged to “support” and “defend” China amid an apparent push by the communist nation to court members of New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s party. Friends of Socialist China, a London-based group, touts 952 signatories on its pledge to “support the People’s Republic of China and to promote understanding of Chinese socialism.”Eleven self-described DSA or DSA International Committee members are among those that “resolve to support, defend and build understanding of Chinese socialism,” The Post found.The pledge argues that “the global advance to socialism is indispensable if humanity is to...

President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu estimated the intense part of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran would last four to six weeks. It is now entering the sixth month without a decisive military victory or a diplomatic breakthrough. Now, as Mr. Trump weighs his next steps and the future of roughly 50,000 U.S. troops across the Middle East, two of Washington's closest regional partners are pressing the president with sharply different visions for how the conflict should proceed. The president received input Wednesday from his partner in this war, Netanyahu, as well as from Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin...

Ukraine has succeeded in every combat domain except for ballistic missiles, which remain a critical gap in Kyiv’s arsenal against Russia, the Ukrainian envoy to the U.S. said Thursday. The ambassador, Olga Stefanishyna, noted that President Trump gave Ukraine the green light to manufacture its own interceptors for the Patriot missile system. That timeline could range from 12 months to five years before a domestic Patriot missile could be deployed, and she said that means trouble. “This winter we need missiles,” Ms. Stefanishyna said. “So many people will die over the winter” without them.

The U.S. delegation briefly walked out of a United Nations Security Council meeting during France's address in protest on Monday after the European ally criticized America’s human rights record. Dan Negrea, an alternate U.S. representative to the U.N., accused France of feigning “moral outrage” while pretending to lecture the world about the Ukraine conflict and human rights in general. “That is why we walked out during France's intervention,” he said during a meeting on Russia's war in Ukraine. “This disingenuous grandstanding is tiresome, but we have tolerated it out of a sense of camaraderie and mutual respect as P5 members.”...

A Russian missile crashed in Poland on Thursday during an overnight assault on neighboring Ukraine, NATO said, an event that could risk bringing Russia closer to direct confrontation with the Western military alliance, to which Poland belongs. Mark Rutte, the NATO secretary general, said the incident was a “violation of Poland’s airspace by a Russian missile” and vowed to strengthen alliance defenses. The missile — which the Polish authorities originally called an “unidentified object” — struck a field in southeastern Poland, causing no injuries. On Thursday morning, Prime Minister Donald Tusk of Poland told an emergency meeting that the missile...

Hundreds of migrants have crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta by sea in recent days, exposing renewed pressure on one of the European Union’s most politically sensitive external borders and raising fresh questions about migration management between Spain and Morocco. Local authorities say more than 1,500 migrants, including adults and unaccompanied children, have reached the North African territory over the past few days, with arrivals exceeding 200 people a day. Television footage showed migrants swimming around border barriers before running into the town after reaching shore. Juan Jesus Vivas, president of Ceuta, described the situation as a “total humanitarian...

Dozens of soldiers from the Givati Brigade’s Tzabar Battalion left the Sde Teiman base without authorization on Thursday afternoon after commanders removed signs and symbols tied to a longstanding battalion tradition, prompting widespread coverage in Arab media that portrayed the incident as a rebellion within the IDF. The soldiers were filmed leaving the base while chanting an obscene slogan against their officers. Some reportedly left their weapons behind before returning home. Videos and images from the scene quickly spread on X and were amplified by Lebanese, Syrian, Qatari and Iraqi outlets aligned with or sympathetic to the Iranian-led regional axis....

215,474 views Jul 28, 2026 Europe says confronting political Islam is impossible, but Germany has quietly been dismantling extremist networks. Using a unique "Militant Democracy" doctrine, Germany can ban and erase entire organizations overnight. Even as it takes a hard line on structures, it refuses to touch faith. This approach challenges Europe to rethink its strategy against online radicalization and foreign influence. Is Germany's narrow path the only way to win?

The U.S. Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington arrived in Vietnam on Thursday, marking the beginning of its first goodwill visit to the central coastal city of Da Nang. The carrier, named in honor of the first president of the United States, entered Vietnamese territorial waters in the morning after a nearly-two-month deployment from its homeport of Yokosuka, Japan. It had sailed through several areas of the western Pacific before reaching Vietnam. The visit marks the first time USS George Washington has docked at a Vietnamese port. In 2010, it became the first U.S. aircraft carrier since the normalization...