Free Republic

The US comedian whose late-night show was briefly cancelled after pressure from Donald Trump’s government is to urge UK audiences to stand up for free speech. In a defiant alternative Christmas message on Channel 4, Jimmy Kimmel will liken the first year of Trump’s second administration to the rise of fascism. Sitting beside a cup of tea and a plate of biscuits, Kimmel will quip: “From a fascism perspective, this has been a really great year.” He is also expected to warn that press freedoms can be snuffed out quickly, and urge UK viewers to resist attacks on free speech....

The ammunition boxes stacked on the stage opened up to reveal figurines of angels and an infant Jesus lying in his manger. Six actors sang plaintive carols, accompanied by readings of the brooding poetry of Kharkiv writer Serhiy Zhadan. The audience sat, transfixed by the almost unbearable intensity of the spectacle. The nativity play, performed on a recent evening at Kharkiv’s puppet theatre, was a reminder that conflict has seeped into the fabric of almost everything in Ukrainian life over the past four years. “We can’t just put on comedies and escape from reality,” said Oksana Dmitrieva, the nativity play’s...

The federal government will launch a new gun buyback scheme in response to the Bondi beach terror attack in what Anthony Albanese says will be the biggest collection of weapons since the Port Arthur massacre nearly three decades ago. It comes as New South Wales announced a suite of gun control measures including capping the number of firearms most recreational shooters can hold at four. Costs for the buyback, which is expected to see hundreds of thousands of weapons destroyed, will be split between the federal government and the states, the prime minister said on Friday. States and territories will...

Noise machines installed by LA Home Depot ‘torture’ for day laborers, advocates say Advocates call for removal of machines and demand that company speak out against ICE raids in parking lots Victoria Bekiempis Thu 18 Dec 2025 21.23 EST A Home Depot in Los Angeles installed three high-pitch noise-emitting machines outside to deter day laborers from seeking work there, causing them to suffer headaches and nausea, advocates alleged at a press conference on Wednesday. The Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (Idepsca), an advocacy organization that helps day laborers, called for the removal of these machines from Home...

Downing Street insists the $40bn Tech Prosperity Deal between the US and UK that is on hold is not permanently stalled. The BBC reported on Tuesday evening that the prime minister’s office claimed that the UK remains in “active conversations with US counterparts at all levels of government” about the wide-ranging deal for the technology industries in both countries to cooperate. The agreement, previously billed as historic, was paused after the US accused the UK of failing to lower trade barriers, including a digital services tax on US tech companies and food safety rules that limit the export of some...

He grew up on a farm in Indiana, the son of a factory worker and eldest of five children. He studied at Liberty, a Christian university founded by the conservative pastor and televangelist Jerry Falwell, and recalls wearing a T-shirt expressing opposition to the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Two decades later, Justin Douglas is running for the US Congress – as a Democrat. He is among about white 30 Christian clergy – pastors, seminary students and other faith leaders – known to be potential Democratic candidates in next year’s midterm elections, including a dozen who are already in the...

Donald Trump on Tuesday called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they should be sent back home in a rant that came as the administration is reportedly increasing immigration enforcement against undocumented Somalis in Minnesota. In a xenophobic rant during a cabinet meeting, Trump went off on Somalis and Ilhan Omar, the congressional representative who is from Somalia and is a US citizen. He said Somalia “stinks” and is “no good for a reason”. “They contribute nothing. I don’t want them in our country, I’ll be honest with you,” he said. He called Omar “garbage” and said “we’re going to go...

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is not “afraid” of Donald Trump unlike other western leaders and dismissed reports that their last meeting in Washington was volatile, adding that he had good relations with the US president. He also said in an exclusive interview with the Guardian that King Charles had helped build relations with Trump and described the British monarch as “very supportive” of Ukraine. The Ukrainian president denied claims Trump had tossed maps of the battlefield aside in a stormy exchange in October at the White House, where he had arrived hoping to secure supplies of US Tomahawk cruise...

Republican voices were mostly silent as No Kings rallies and marches against Trump administration policies unfurled on Saturday, many in the spirit of a street party that countered the “hate America” depiction advanced by senior members of the party. Instead of provocation, there were marching bands, huge banners with “we the people” references to the US constitution, and protesters wearing inflatable costumes, particularly frogs, which have emerged as a sign of resistance. It was the third mass mobilization since Trump’s return to the White House and came against the backdrop of a government shutdown that not only has closed federal...

UN has condemned US strikes on small boats it believes to be trafficking drugs as extrajudicial executionsDonald Trump said the US has struck another small boat that he accuses of carrying drugs in waters off Venezuela, killing six people.“The strike was conducted in International Waters, and six male narcoterrorists aboard the vessel were killed in the strike. No U.S. Forces were harmed,” Trump said in a statement on his Truth Social social media platform.The United Nations has condemned the US strikes on small boats it believes to be trafficking drugs as extrajudicial executions. The US defends the attacks as countering...

If you’re old enough to have admired CBS in its heyday, watching its decline has been painful.Decades ago, it was dubbed the Tiffany Network – home of the great journalist Walter Cronkite (“the most trusted man in America”), and innovator of the top-flight magazine program, 60 Minutes.Even outside its news division, the network was a place where the variety-show host Ed Sullivan could break down racial exclusion by inviting outstanding Black entertainers to his Sunday night program; that was controversial in an era of intense racial turmoil. The CBS news department had some of the best journalists in the nation,...

The president of the United States seemingly does not understand what the military is forNo dictator or would-be dictator on day one has ever assembled before him in one room the entire senior officer corps of his armed forces in order to have them belittled as failures and humiliated for their slovenly personal appearance, while degrading whole classes serving in the army, navy and air force degraded as inferior and unworthy. No dictator has ever pleaded for generals and admirals to applaud his remarks, followed by deafening silence.Donald Trump is used to entering to the din of a mob jazzed...

The prime minister has called for protesters to “respect the grief of British Jews this week” after the Manchester synagogue attack. Ahead of a planned demonstration against the ban on Palestine Action this Saturday, Keir Starmer wrote in the Jewish Chronicle that activists should recognise this is a time of mourning. “Peaceful protest is a cornerstone of our democracy – and there is justified concern about the suffering in Gaza – but a minority have used these protests as a pretext for stoking antisemitic tropes,” he wrote. “I urge anyone thinking about protesting this weekend to recognise and respect the...

Postal workers in Canada have gone on strike after the government warned of an “existential crisis” and ordered sweeping changes to the national service – including an end to door-to-door delivery within the decade. The union representing Canada Post employees described the proposed changes as “an attack” on its workers who have struggled to compete with a surge in private courier services. The strike, announced by the union late on Thursday, marks the second time in the last 12 months that the country’s postal services have ground to a halt. Mail and parcels will not be processed or delivered for...

Many professors in the US south, particularly in Florida, South Carolina and Texas, are considering leaving their state because of the impact the political climate is having on education, according to a new survey by the American Association of Professors. Of those interviewed in the survey, roughly a quarter of respondents said they applied for a job in higher education in another state since the start of 2023. Heather Houser worked as a professor in the English department, teaching American literature and environmental humanities, at the University of Texas at Austin for 14 years. Like the growing number of professors...

Keir Starmer is facing demands from Labour MPs to reprimand Donald Trump’s administration after the US president falsely claimed London wanted to “go to sharia law” under its “terrible mayor”, Sadiq Khan. In an address to the UN general assembly, Trump said: “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law. But you are in a different country, you can’t do that.” The development will cause further discomfort in No 10 after Trump was last week honoured with an unprecedented...

Aerial footage shows a crowd of tens of thousands of people marching through central London on Saturday in a protest organised by the far-right activist Tommy Robinson. The Metropolitan police believe about 110,000 people attended his ‘unite the kingdom’ demonstration and about 5,000 a Stand Up to Racism counter-march

Keir Starmer must obey his “legal duty to act to prevent a genocide”, Greta Thunberg has told the Guardian while travelling onboard an aid flotilla heading for Gaza. The Swedish activist said there was a “huge absence of those whose legal responsibility it is to step up” under international law, and called out the UK prime minister before a potential meeting this week with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog. In a message to Starmer, who has been urged by his own MPs not to meet the Israeli head of state on Wednesday, Thunberg said: “The words we will use to describe...

For quite some time, the leftist political establishment has been accusing President Donald Trump of abandoning the US Constitution. Now they have me wondering why that’s supposed to be a criticism. Just last week The New York Times, the establishment’s chief house organ, boosted the arguments of writer Osita Nwanevu in a column headlined: “Abolish the Senate. End the Electoral College. Pack the Court.” Why? Because “The left can’t win without a new Constitution.” He’s hardly the first Democrat to say so. I’ve noticed that whenever the Constitution stands in the way of something the left wants at the moment,...

Russia is preparing its troops for new offensives instead of getting ready to stop the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday, ahead of talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in Alaska on Friday. “[Putin] is certainly not getting ready for a ceasefire and war end,” the Ukrainian president said in his nightly address. He added, without providing specifics, that Russia was moving its troops for new operations on Ukrainian soil. “There is no sign that the Russians have received signals to prepare for a postwar situation.”