Free Republic

Sir Keir Starmer no longer believes trans women are women, his spokesman has confirmed after the Supreme Court’s ruling on biological sex. Starmer told The Times in 2022: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law.” However, making his first comments on the Supreme Court judgment, the prime minister welcomed the “clarity” it brought. When asked if Starmer thought a trans woman was a woman, the prime minister’s official spokesman said: “No.” Starmer said he was “really pleased” with the...

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Monday the city faces a $800 million deficit, plans on laying off 1,647 staff, is seeking a state bailout and has “identified new revenue.” Bass blamed the Trump administration and the economy for falling revenue. “Cities like ours are going through challenging economic times across the nation,” said Bass. “Turmoil and uncertainty from Washington and a slowing economy are causing lower revenue projections.” With 61,455 employees, 1,647 layoffs equate to a workforce reduction of 2.7%. With just over $8.3 billion paid out in payroll last year, the city pays its employees an average of...

Two Honduran nationals were charged in connection with an alleged drug trafficking organization. Jorge Luis Hernandez-Valle, 36, and Luis Alfredo Hernandez, 35, both of Honduras, were living in Salt Lake County, the U.S. Attorney's Office District of Utah said. Detectives with the Utah County Major Crimes Task Force had been investigating an alleged drug trafficking organization since March 2025. They reportedly purchased narcotics during a controlled buy and identified two possible "drug runners" and their vehicles. On April 8, 2025, one of the vehicles, a Toyota 4-Runner, was stopped in Kearns

Veteran reporter Bob Woodward said Monday on MSNBC’s “Inside” that President Donald Trump is “throwing bombs of ignorance” onto the U.S. economy. Woodward said, “He thinks tariffs are good remedy. Well tariffs are a tax on consumers. I mean consumers wind up paying. There may be some benefit but if there was real benefit we’d feel it in the economy now. And we basically have a good economy that he’s meddling with in a way, throwing bombs of ignorance right in the middle of a process that, you know, should be allowed to go on naturally. It’s a shame and...

ASHBURN, Va. (DC News Now) — The Loudoun County Sheriff’s Office (LCSO) said a substitute teacher was arrested for indecent exposure outside Stone Hill Middle School Monday morning. LCSO said deputies responded to the school in the 22000 block of Carter Meadow Terrace in Ashburn just before 10:45 a.m. It had been reported that a man was engaging in a sexual act while alone inside a parked car. Man arrested for sexual assault inside Target in Reston, police say The car was about 30 feet from the school’s perimeter fence and 200 feet from the rear entrance, LCSO noted. Wade...

“If the guys around Hegseth, if there’s indictments or investigations going on and there’s no indictments—there’s no release of the Epstein files and there’s no investigation of Brennan and the 51,” “And you’re not spending your time on that and it somehow gets diverted over to this, it is going to be a FIRESTORM from the MAGA base.” “I think people are fed up with it. I think Tom Fitton gives a lot of the frustration that in the first 100 days we’ve seen nothing out of that crowd. ZERO.” “With all the hard work that went in to get...

On Sunday Pope Francis publicly blessed the Easter crowds from the balcony of St Peter's Basilica and privately received the Vice President of the United States to give Mr Vance's children a gift of Kinder Eggs. Yes, really: those Kinder Eggs. The following morning, the Holy Father died at his residence in the Vatican. If the choice of Easter chocolate was a conscious jest on the part of the Pontiff, it was an excellent one, and a reminder that even in America chest-thumping about liberty will only take you so far. So I thank him for that. Other than his...

The New York Post has noted that a joint commission to monitor the ceasefire is being considered as part of US President Donald Trump's peace plan. It would include representatives of Ukraine, Russia and a non-NATO country. Source: European Pravda with reference to The New York Post Details: Although the details of the peace deal have not yet been determined, a senior administration official told the news outlet that they could include the deployment of European forces to Ukraine if a ceasefire is reached. "The hard part is what does a security force look like – we're calling that a...

Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) claimed Thursday on CNN’s “The Source” that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was the wrong person for his position. Kaine said, “This is a sad but very predictable situation. I think those of us on the Armed Services Committee who looked at Pete Hegseth’s material and it was voluminous before his hearing and the vote on his confirmation. Two things were plain when he was in the uniform of the United States, he served admirably, but in his leadership positions in many organizations, since his uniform service, he’s demonstrated appalling lack of judgment, both professionally and personally....

Mesquite ISD’s $600 Million Bond Would Cost $1.1 Billion With Interest School district property taxpayers are already on the hook for $979 million in bond debt principal and interest. Yet the district’s bond marketing claims the billion-dollar debt will have minimal impact on Mesquite ISD taxpayers, who are already on the hook for $979 million in outstanding bond debt principal and interest. All this while only 42% of the district’s 38,000 students meet or exceed grade levels across all subjects

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - Dan Caldwell, once one of U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's most senior advisors, issued a joint statement on Saturday along with two other Pentagon officials casting doubt on an internal leak investigation that led to their ouster this week. "We are incredibly disappointed by the manner in which our service at the Department of Defense ended," Caldwell posted on X. "Unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door." Caldwell and the others added: "We still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there...

Security experts say that climate change should not become a strategic "blind spot" and militaries must respond to the evolving threat of weather disaster. Their warning comes amid growing concerns that climate action is being sidelined as Europe beefs up defence and the US retreats from allies and its green commitments. "You can't escape this. Climate doesn't care who's president or what your political goals are at the moment," said Erin Sikorsky, director of the Washington-based Center for Climate & Security. "It is coming, and militaries need to be prepared," she said. In the US, where President Donald Trump's administration...

If Donald Trump is upset about higher interest rates, he should stop doing just about everything he can to undermine the U.S. economy in the eyes of the world. As the U.S. becomes a riskier place to do business because of tariffs and fiscal uncertainty, and the independence of the central bank comes under threat from the president, people will demand higher yields to make buying U.S. sovereign debt worth their while. Maybe you think Trump’s trade policy has merit or the Federal Reserve needs to be brought more firmly under the president’s control. That’s a separate question from how...

As the threat posed by US President Donald Trump tops Canada's federal election agenda, the issue of the country's contribution to global warming has been largely overshadowed. The two main contenders are pushing plans for new energy infrastructure as the country seeks to pivot away from its reliance on the US. Mark Carney's Liberals are promising to make Canada a global superpower in both conventional and green energy. The Conservatives under Pierre Poilievre want to invigorate the oil and gas sector and scrap the industrial carbon tax. It's a big shift from the 2021 election, when the environment topped the...

The longest molecules ever found on Mars have been unearthed by NASA's Curiosity rover, and they could mean the planet is strewn with evidence for ancient life. Molecule chains containing up to twelve carbon atoms linked together were detected in a 3.7 billion-year-old rock sample collected from a dried-up Martian lakebed named Yellowknife Bay, according to a study published March 24 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. These long carbon chains are thought to have originated from molecules called fatty acids, which, on Earth, are produced by biological activity. While fatty acids can form without biological...

A prominent Democratic pollster has expressed shock at data revealing a significant conservative shift among Gen Z voters, particularly young men, who helped propel Donald Trump to victory in the 2024 presidential election against Kamala Harris. Why It Matters Recent AtlasIntel polling shows President Trump's approval rating among 18–29-year-olds has climbed to 52.7 percent in February, marking a substantial improvement since his January inauguration. This demographic transformation challenges long-held Democratic Party assumptions about younger generations forming an "ascendant majority" that would secure their electoral future. The conservative trend among Gen Z voters—especially young men—appears to be solidifying during Trump's second...

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:Section 1. Background. The United States controls one of the largest and most abundant ocean resources in the world, with over 4 million square miles of prime fishing grounds. With this vast resource and centuries of hard work from American fishermen, our Nation has the greatest seafood in the world.Most American fish stocks are healthy and have viable markets. Despite these opportunities, seafood is one of the most heavily regulated sectors in the United States. Federal overregulation...

By the President of the United States of AmericaA ProclamationTwo and a half centuries ago, a small band of minutemen answered the call of freedom in the legendary Battles of Lexington and Concord, an epic tale of American strength and the first major armed conflict of the Revolutionary War. We honor the memories, remember the sacrifices, and summon the courage of every hero of liberty who gallantly shed his blood for the cause of independence on April 19, 1775.After years of intensifying frictions and escalating hostility between the British Crown and the American Colonies, all avenues to peace and diplomacy...

An Idaho woman filed a notice of tort claim Monday with the Kootenai County clerk saying county officials and others violated her constitutional rights when she was removed from a town hall meeting in February. “Town halls are intended to foster conversation and discourse across the aisle, which is why I am deeply alarmed that private security dragged me out of the public meeting for simply exercising my fundamental right of free speech,” Teresa Borrenpohl said in a press release. The tort claim says Borrenpohl is seeking damages of at least $5 million. Wendy Olson, an attorney for Borrenpohl, said...

Where is counter-intel? It feels like they have been MIA for a long time - hope that has changed. SABOTAGE: Caught red handed undermining the president's agenda, three top political appointees at the Pentagon were forced out. With one, John Ullyot, engaged in a propaganda campaign against SecDef Hegseth to pressure Congress to demand his resignation. Ullyot was caught doing the same thing in Trump's first administration and was himself forced out in 2019. Please quit hiring these people...