Free Republic

Two teenage girls from Germany were detained, arrested, and deported at an airport in Hawaii after immigration officials said it was suspicious they had not booked a hotel room. Backpackers Charlotte Pohl, 19, and Maria Lepere, 18, arrived in Honolulu from Auckland while undergoing a round-the-world trip. The duo planned to spend five weeks in Hawaii before moving onto California and Costa Rica for the next legs of their journey. But despite having ESTA travel authorization, immigration officials accused them of attempting to enter the U.S. to work illegally, and they were placed in handcuffs and taken to a nearby...

Is Germany on the path to secularization? In 2024, for the first time, the country recorded more individuals without religious affiliation than Catholics and Protestants, according to the research group Weltanschauungen in Deutschland, which bases its findings on publications from the German Bishops' Conference and the Protestant Church in Germany (EKD). Indeed, Germany reported 47% atheists, compared to 45% Catholics and Protestants combined, and 4% Muslims. In 1990, only 22% of Germans identified as non-religious. By way of comparison, non-religious individuals have been in the majority in France for several years, with a National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies...

New figures show that ethnic Austrians are about to become a minority in Vienna’s elementary schools. For the first time, Muslim pupils are now the largest religious group in Vienna's schools. According to recent figures, they make up 41.2% of pupils, while Christian pupils have dropped to 34.5%. The rapid demographic change has prompted Austria’s largest party FPÖ to sound the alarm. ”41.2% Muslim pupils - it's no longer a minority, it's becoming the new majority. This isn't immigration anymore, it's displacement,” says the head of FPÖ’s youth wing Max Weinzierl. The figures come from the city's school council. They...

The European Central Bank has cut interest rates for the seventh time in a year, looking to prop up an already struggling economy that will take a large hit from US tariffs. The bank announced a cut of one-quarter of a percentage point, which brings its benchmark deposit rate down from 2.5% to 2.25%. The move will immediately benefit tracker mortgage customers and put downward pressure on other rates. The ECB has been lowering borrowing costs as post-pandemic price pressures retreat and recent trade-related turmoil on global markets is adding to the case for further policy easing. […] While US...

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel said Wednesday it would keep blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, where a relentless military offensive has turned the Palestinian territory into a "mass grave", a medical charity reported. Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday Israel would continue preventing aid from entering the besieged territory of 2.4 million people. "Israel's policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said in a statement. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian...

Europe is once again talking about forming its own defense alliance. The idea of a European army—discussed on and off since the early days of the Cold War—was revived in February by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian president claims that Donald Trump’s retraction of military support for Ukraine and ambivalence towards the EU shows that the bloc urgently needs its own military unit. Zelensky has reignited a debate that has failed to generate consensus within Europe, despite its long history.Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, is the latest EU leader to echo Zelensky—and according to a YouGov poll conducted in 2022,...

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher stated that he believed Vice President JD Vance was correct in his criticisms of European speech laws during a recent speech. Maher said, “JD Vance…the other week, made a speech, in Munich. A lot of people were shocked by it. I thought half of it was pretty shocking because it was about this election that they just had in Germany where there is a party on the ballot that is very Nazi-friendly.” He continued, “But the first part of the speech was about free speech, that I didn’t think he...

More and more mosques are being built in Sweden, including mega projects potentially funded from abroad.. Sweden has seen massive demographic changes over the last 25 years, and this is not only reflected in the demographic composition, but also the religious composition of the country. While churches continue to close their doors, the country went from approximately seven mosques in 2000 to now 300 in 2025. The exact figures are difficult to ascertain, however, the 300 mosques refers to permanent prayer places built for Muslim worship, which often feature a minaret and a dome. If unofficial places of Muslim worship...

NATO is a corpse. All that remains is the grotesque performance art of a diplomatic zombie stumbling from summit to summit, mouthing tired clichés about “shared values” and “burden sharing,” even as its core strategic logic lies rotting beneath the surface. The Atlantic Alliance, once the steel scaffolding of Western security, has become a hollow ritual. Its military readiness is an illusion. Its political cohesion is fraying. Its future, if it has one, lies not in revival—but in reinvention or replacement. This is not a triumphalist declaration from the Kremlin or Beijing. It is a sober diagnosis, grounded in realism...

The European veil of leftist intellectual and moral superiority is starting to crumble. In recent weeks, we’ve seen Europe begin to take responsibility for its defense, the climate crazies seeing many of their goals collapsing under the weight of the twin realities of science and economics, and the rise of conservative politicians who are seeking an end to the immigration invasion. ... Europe is now fully awake to the fact that the U.S. is not their on-call military ... Thanks to decades of cradle-to-grave benefits, in addition to their reliance on the U.S. for their defense, Europe essentially has no...

snip... ~This, for example, is an interesting development. From the Reinickendorf district of Berlin: Mann stürmt mit Machete in Bäckerei – und wird mit Baseballschlägern totgeprügelt Which means: Man storms into bakery with machete - and is beaten to death with baseball bats Who takes a baseball bat to a bakery? Well, as usual, the local media coverage is minimal and designed to obfuscate. The 38-year-old deceased had apparently been living in a homeless shelter and was a regular of the baker's who believed him to be Romanian. He entered the shop on the Residenzstraße bearing the increasingly popular Euro-accessory...

The Spanish family of five - including three children - killed on a tour helicopter that crashed into New York City's Hudson River have been identified. Agustín Escobar, the president of the Spanish branch of the technology company Siemens, and his wife and three children were killed in the crash, the New York Times reported. Heartbreaking photos showed the family posing on the helipad and inside the aircraft before the crash. The family had arrived in the Big Apple from Barcelona earlier in the day, law enforcement sources told the New York Post. Escobar was appointed to serve as the...

AfD and CDU continue tied at 24.5

Ferdinand Porsche became widely known as the brilliant engineer behind the bestselling Volkswagen Beetle and some of Porsche’s first sports cars. But like his creations, the German industrialist had a dark side that is impossible to separate from his technical achievements. During the Second World War, Porsche’s manufacturing business, along with many others, became a key pillar of the Third Reich – helping to sustain Adolf Hitler’s war effort by churning out tens of thousands of militarized versions of what would later be renamed the Beetle. […] Yet amid a new era of European instability, the Porsche clan has revealed...

Germany’s likely new coalition government, expected to be formed between the conservatives (CDU) and the Social Democrats (SPD), is planning a law that could effectively ban politicians deemed ‘unpleasant’ or ‘populist’ from standing for election. A draft coalition paper, presented to the press last week, proposes a significant tightening of the country’s already repressive ‘incitement of the masses’ law. Under the proposal, politicians convicted more than once under the law would no longer be allowed to stand as a party candidate. Germany’s law against incitement of the masses (Section 130 of the Criminal Code) has long been a tool to...

Germany’s outgoing Chancellor voices the frustrations felt across the European ruling class at President Donald Trump tearing up the status quo on trade, decrying an “attack”.The European Union, which has been hit with tariffs twice as high as post-Brexit Britain given the bloc’s protectionist policies and tariffs on imports, is expressing its distress and even outrage at President Trump’s bid to reform the United States’ trade relationship with the world.Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz who is still technically in power nearly six weeks after he lost the Federal elections in February spoke in defence of the globalist status quo on Thursday....

Germany has embarked on its first permanent foreign deployment since World War II, with the nation's parliament approving the dispatch of troops to eastern Lithuania, along NATO's eastern boundary. This marks a historic moment for Germany, as it will be the inaugural occasion of a continuous German military presence overseas since the Second World War. The full operational capability of the unit is expected by 2027. Brigadier General Christoph Huber, who leads the brigade, stated, "We have a clear mission. We have to ensure the protection, freedom and security of our Lithuanian allies here on NATO's eastern flank." While Germany...

The president launched a new chapter in U.S. trade, imposing a 10 percent universal tariff on trading partners and higher reciprocal levies on some.. WASHINGTON—Just 72 days after taking office, President Donald Trump announced on April 2 sweeping trade policy changes, introducing what he called “reciprocal tariffs” for all countries and declaring it “Liberation Day in America.” For decades, the United States has kept low trade barriers, promoting free trade agreements with minimal or zero tariffs—at least on its part. Those days are now over. ​​At a White House event, Trump presented a large chart outlining baseline and reciprocal tariff...

The controversial move to ban National Rally leader Marine Le Pen from standing in the French presidential election has been accused of demonstrating double standards, with reports claiming that over a hundred other European politicians violated the same rules without facing prosecution. A Paris court enacted a five-year ban from running in any election against populist firebrand Marine Le Pen after finding her, and other members of her National Rally party ... one in five members at the time, had been found to have broken the same rules, the Times of London noted on Tuesday. ... BBC journalist Michael Crick...

Muslims are still trying to "avenge" themselves — including through acts of terrorism — against historical Christian victories over Islam from more than a millennium ago, such as the battle of Tours in France, in 732. Meanwhile, the city council of Vienna has been more than happy to appease Muslims against the man who saved Vienna from Islam in 1683 — all in the name of combatting "Islamophobia." ... a special look at what Vienna has become since opening its doors to Islam: ... Leftist domestic terrorists are fire-bombing Tesla dealerships and harassing owners across the country. They must face...