Free Republic

A UK citizen who ripped off American taxpayers through a U.S.-funded foreign aid program has been sentenced to time served after a brazen kickback scheme drained nearly $100,000 in USAID funds — and he’ll now be handed over to immigration authorities. Stephen Paul Edmund Sutton, 53, of the United Kingdom, pleaded guilty in Washington, D.C. federal court Monday to conspiring to commit theft concerning a program receiving federal funds, a felony offense. Sutton was a Logistics Operations Manager for a contractor implementing the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Power Distribution Program (PDP) in Pakistan — a five-year effort that...

All major mobile networks went down in Spain on Tuesday, just four weeks after the country was hit by a national power outage. Movistar, Orange, Vodafone, Digimobil and O2 were all reported to have been affected by outages hitting professional services, including health centres. Complaints soared as landline, internet and emergency contact services were knocked offline early this morning. Madrid, Andalucía, Galicia, the Basque Country, Aragon, Navarra, Extremadura and the Valencian Community were all reportedly affected. Networks contracted with Telefónica appeared to have been hit, but outages did not appear to be affecting individuals' network access. The company told MailOnline...

I am so bored with being lied to. I am even bored with the new lies being told to cover the old lies: Now It Can Be Told!!! The Behind-the-Scenes Inside Story of How I Lied to You for the Last Half-Decade by Jake Tapper and Wossname. Exclusive Excerpt! The longtime granite-jawed Deputy Assistant Under-Counselor to the President for Running the Country peered thoughtfully through the Oval Office window to the vast city beyond before loosening his cocktail dress and kicking off his three-inch heels. I was stunned by the evident anguish on his face as he turned to me...

A senior Department of Justice official has suggested former first lady Jill Biden should face criminal charges for “elder abuse” for not revealing what she knew about her husband’s health problems. Leo Terrell, a senior counselor to the assistant attorney general for civil rights, made the call soon after news broke that former President Joe Biden had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer, which many suggested may have been hidden, like his cognitive decline. Terrell responded to an X post that said Jill Biden “knew about President Biden’s health problems” but “still wanted him to run for President.”

On Monday’s broadcast of Comedy Central’s “Daily Show,” host Jon Stewart stated that the attempt to hide then-President Joe Biden’s mental decline “was a terrible coverup, because we all f*cking knew. All of us knew. There was no coverup. Poll after poll showed vast majorities of the public thought Biden was too old and too out of it to run again.” While discussing the book “Original Sin” by CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios National Political Correspondent and CNN Contributor Alex Thompson on Biden’s mental fitness and the promotion for the book in light of Biden’s cancer diagnosis, Stewart mocked...

After firing back at Bruce Springsteen for criticizing him during a concert tour, President Trump is now calling for “major investigations” into Springsteen and other celebrities for their support of his opponent, Kamala Harris, in the 2024 election. In addition to Springsteen, Trump also named two other singer/songwriters — Bono and Beyoncé — as well as longtime TV host, actress, and producer and l Oprah Winfrey. Giving the all-caps key his usual workout, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform on Monday, May 19: “HOW MUCH DID KAMALA HARRIS PAY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN FOR HIS POOR PERFORMANCE DURING HER CAMPAIGN FOR...

The Conservative Party has sunk to its lowest ever poll rating recorded by one of Britain’s most reputable pollsters. A YouGov poll carried out on May 18 and 19 found the Tories are now in fourth place and polling at just 16 per cent, which the company said was a historic low. It comes after the Conservatives lost every single council they were defending at this month’s local elections and as Reform UK continues to surge. The Tories are in fourth position for the first time since June 2019, which was at the height of the Brexit deadlock and shortly...

BRUSSELS (AP) — The European Union on Tuesday agreed fresh sanctions to impose on Russia, notably targeting almost 200 ships from the shadow fleet illicitly transporting oil to skirt Western restrictions imposed over the war on Ukraine. The 27-nation bloc targeted 189 ships in all, and imposed asset freezes and travel bans on several officials as well as on a number of Russian companies. The measures were endorsed by EU foreign ministers in Brussels. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said that while President Vladimir “Putin feigns interest in peace, more sanctions are in the works. Russia’s actions and those...

The reaction of the American left and its adjacent black political class to the arrival of 59 white refugees fleeing de facto genocide in South Africa, combined with ever-accelerating racist rhetoric and demands from America’s black population has further exposed the depth of anti-white racism in the United States and accelerated race fatigue among the vast majority of the American population. ... These openly racist comments are not surprising, given that there is among the black political class a constant and endless drumbeat of anti-white rhetoric from virtually every black member of Congress, state legislators, mayors, and many of those...

Palmer Luckey's Anduril just gave the world an inside glimpse of its new project for the US Air Force — an uncrewed fighter jet that teams up with piloted aircraft. The military startup was featured on Sunday in a CBS 60 Minutes segment, during which a few clips showed Anduril's Fury drone being assembled in a hangar or warehouse. It's not the first time the drone was shown to the public — the Air Force unveiled a test representative model on May 1. But the TV segment reveals a few more details about the drone's make. In one clip, two...

The far-right anti-Islam activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, also known as Tommy Robinson, is due to be released from prison four months early. His 18-month sentence for contempt of court was reduced after a hearing at the High Court on Tuesday. Yaxley-Lennon was jailed last October because he ignored an order not to repeat false allegations about a Syrian refugee who successfully sued him for libel. His lawyers told the court he had since shown a "commitment" to comply with the order. Mr Justice Johnson granted the application to have the sentence reduced because Yaxley-Lennon had shown a "change in attitude" since...

A UFO that struck and damaged a US fighter jet is just one of a swarm of mystery objects buzzing around Air Force training ranges in Arizona, according to multiple reports. One of the unidentified flying objects hit the clear bubble “canopy” over the head of a pilot in a $63 million F-16 Viper jet in January 2023, damaging it and temporarily grounding the plane, according to Federal Aviation Administration documents first reported by the War Zone. The military jet was struck midair by “an orange-white UAS,” or “uncrewed aerial system,” the FAA documents said. The term refers to drones....

AOC benefits from financial disclosure 'loophole' by remaining unmarried to fiancé, watchdog says.. Look closely and you'll see: Something is missing from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D., N.Y.) ring finger. Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t been pictured wearing her engagement ring since November 2023, according to an extensive Washington Free Beacon review of Getty and Associated Press images, as well as the lawmaker’s social media posts and public appearances. The ring’s 17-month absence, which has gone unnoticed in the press until now, raises questions about the status of her betrothal to her low-profile fiancé, web developer Riley Roberts, who proposed to Ocasio-Cortez during a...

US-based defense contractor AeroVironment has revealed a drone that can choose its own targets and cause a lot of damage upon hitting them. Called the Red Dragon, this "one-way attack" drone is intended to help the US maintain "air superiority." The Red Dragon can reach speeds of 160km/h and travel nearly 400km

Story highlights Ilya Sutskever, the co-founder of OpenAI, and the man behind ChatGPT fears the advanced version of AI can trigger wars between world powers, and so there is a need for bunkers to safeguard the scientists.

DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro notched a significant legal victory Monday after retired four-star Navy Adm. Robert Burke was found guilty of bribery charges related to a scheme to steer government contracts to his future employer. Burke, who served as the vice chief of naval operations during part of President Trump’s first term, was convicted of conspiracy to commit bribery, bribery, performing acts affecting a personal financial interest and concealing material facts from the US after a five-day trial. Formerly the Navy’s second-highest-ranking officer, Burke is now the senior-most member of the US military to ever be convicted of a...

A Hernando High School teacher and football coach was arrested last week after police say he gave a student Kratom. Kratom is a drug that, in low doses, produces stimulant-like effects like high energy and increased alertness. In high doses, it can act as a sedative. The Hernando County Sheriff’s Office said on May 9, a school resource deputy responded to a classroom where a 17-year-old student was having a medical emergency. The student was unresponsive, had a rapid pulse, shallow breathing and was hot to the touch, the deputy said. He performed a sternum rub on the student, who...

Gov. Newsom of California is determined to see the high-speed rail system completed or at least started, but the bad news just keeps rolling in like a freight train (pun intended). Newsom is in the process of pushing for next fiscal year's budget and as part of that process he has announced a plan to make sure the bullet train project gets money from the state climate fund.California Gov. Gavin Newsom wants to tap at least $2.5 billion from the state’s climate fund to pay for state firefighting crews and the long-troubled high-speed rail project.In his budget proposal unveiled last...

[FULL TRANSCRIPT BELOW] “I was as astonished as anyone might be that ivermectin has potential as an anti-cancer agent,” says cancer surgeon Dr. Kathleen Ruddy. She’s observed multiple cases where patients with severe, late stage cancer started to make a turn for the better after taking ivermectin. One patient with stage four prostate cancer tried all the traditional protocols like chemotherapy and radiation before being told that there was nothing left that his doctors could do. He started taking ivermectin as a last resort. In a few short months, he had made a stunning recovery. After observing several cases like...

President Trump let his wife Melania co-sign legislation Monday to outlaw artificial intelligence-generated porn with real people’s faces — moments after claiming that Russian president Vladimir Putin had gushed about the first lady during a high-stakes phone call about the Ukraine war. The Take It Down Act, which spurred the first lady to make a rare trip to Capitol Hill to lobby lawmakers earlier this year, criminalizes the distribution of non-consensual intimate imagery — including “revenge porn” that features real images and artificial intelligence-generated photos and videos. After Trump, 78, signed the legislation, he passed the bill and a pen...