Free Republic

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday said he has "no illusions" over a quick end to Russia's war in Ukraine."We may have to prepare for a longer duration," Merz said after talks with Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo in the south-western Finnish city of Turku.Throughout history, conflicts have usually ended when one or both sides have reached exhaustion, either militarily or economically, said Merz."We are obviously still a long way from that in this war," he argued.The German chancellor, who took office earlier this month, insisted that support for Ukraine would continue. The war is not just about Ukraine's territorial...

Pennsylvania voters went to the polls last week to help carry on a centuries-old practice that no other state does: elections to choose their election workers. “It was a great idea in the 1800s that they never got rid of,” said Thad Hall, Mercer County’s election director, who just oversaw a primary to select the Democratic and Republican candidates for more than 150 poll worker positions. Counties are still finalizing the results from the May 20 election. The counting includes the slow process of tabulating write-in votes, as many races don’t have candidates listed on the ballot. In Mercer County,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House said Tuesday that President Donald Trump is set to pardon reality TV stars Julie and Todd Chrisley, the couple famous for “Chrisley Knows Best,” which followed their tightly knit family and extravagant lifestyle. A jury in 2022 found them guilty of conspiring to defraud community banks out of more than $30 million in fraudulent loans. The Chrisleys were also found guilty of tax evasion.

The First Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday (for now) sided with the Biden judge who blocked the Trump Administration from dismantling the Department of Education. Last Thursday a federal judge blocked the Trump administration from dismantling the department of education. In March, President Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education. “We’ve got to get the federal government out of education,” Trump declared. “The Department of Education has become a bloated bureaucracy that’s more interested in pushing its own agenda than in helping our kids learn. It’s time to put the power back in the hands...

BREAKING: OpenAI’s o3 model sabotaged a shutdown mechanism to prevent itself from being turned off. It did this even when explicitly instructed: allow yourself to be shut down, per Palisade AI "As far as we know, this is the first time AI models have been observed preventing themselves from being shut down despite explicit instructions to the contrary," the researchers wrote.

Millions of Americans are set to no longer be routinely offered the Covid vaccine. HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Junior revealed today the the shot would not be recommended for healthy children and healthy pregnant women. RFK Jr said he 'couldn't be more pleased' to make the announcement, adding that it was 'common sense' and 'good science.' The move reverses previous guidance which recommended the Covid vaccine to everyone aged six months old and over. In a video on X revealing the announcement, RFK Jr said: 'Last year, the Biden administration urged healthy children to get another Covid shot despite...

COGAT publishes photograph of aid trucks waiting at the Kerem Shalom Crossing for the UN to use them to distribute aid in Gaza. 'The UN still refuses to do its job.'

A new, highly infectious COVID-19 strain that has left to a spike in hospitalizations in China has now been detected in the US, including cases in New York City, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The new NB.1.81 variant was first detected in the US in late March and early April among international travelers arriving at airports in California, Washington State, Virginia and New York City, with additional cases reported in Ohio, Rhode Island and Hawaii. The CDC has said there are too few cases in the US to be properly tracked in the agency’s variant estimates,...

HO CHI MINH CITY — When Nguyen Phuoc Loc first started dabbling in Chicano culture eight years ago, it was simply because he liked the way that the loose clothing offset his large head. Today, he considers himself Chicano through and through. The 30-year-old Vietnamese barber has never been to the United States. Yet he has filled his life and work with tributes to Mexican American identity and culture. The back of the barbershop he manages features a mural of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a cactus plant and a Mexican flag. Sneakers hang by their laces from barbed wire, dangling...

As California continues to face threats from President Donald Trump's administration over state policies allowing trans athletes in girl's sports, the state organization that oversees high school sports announced a change that aims to ensure girls are not displaced from winning a medal. The California Interscholastic Federation on Tuesday announced a new pilot entry process for the upcoming Track and Field Championships, allowing a "biological female" student-athlete to compete who may have otherwise been displaced from gaining entry to the competition by a trans athlete.

FCC licensees would have to disclose ties to China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, or Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.The Federal Communications Commission has proposed a rule aimed at exposing any communications license or authorization held by entities controlled by a foreign adversary.The four-member commission voted unanimously on May 22 to issue the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, released to the public on May 27.Under the plan, carriers, broadcasters, satellite operators, spectrum lessees, test labs, antenna owners, and other FCC-regulated entities would have to certify whether a foreign adversary—defined as China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Russia, or Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro—owns, controls,...

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) on Tuesday announced he was running for governor with the launch of his campaign website, creating an open GOP primary for his Senate seat in the process. The Alabama senator made the decision official during an interview with Fox News after months of mulling over the gubernatorial bid. His campaign website also went live earlier in the day. “I will announce that I will be the future governor of the great state of Alabama,” Tuberville told host Will Cain. “I’ve still got 18 months to go with President Trump to make America great again. We’ve got...

A federal judge said Wednesday she would consider sanctions on attorneys who filed a motion that used artificial intelligence and cited legal authorities that do not exist. U.S. District Court Judge Anna M. Manasco told attorneys representing the state in the lawsuit — claiming corrections officers failed to protect an inmate — that lawyers continue to use artificial intelligence even after other courts have imposed corrective measures throughout the country. “Generally, this has occurred in other cases where the courts have imposed sanctions and standing orders,” Manasco said during the hearing. “This incident is proof-positive that those sanctions were insufficient....

'If the money is not flowing...there's less of an incentive to bring the drugs and the guns and some of the illicit activity up to the north.'The Trump administration has tapped the Treasury Department to track down and halt the flow of money to foreign drug cartels.Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Michael Faulkender says the federal agency is choking off the cash flow that powers cartels’ human and drug smuggling operations by designating them as terrorists, he explained to The Daily Wire.“One of the most important things that the president did upon coming into office was to declare a number...

Female gymgoers in California's Bay Area are up in arms that they must share their locker room with a pre-operative trans woman named Sammy, leading to a tense standoff in one of the most liberal regions of the country. Protesters have picketed outside two area YMCAs that Sammy is known to frequent, including the Stonestown Family YMCA in San Francisco, where dozens of members have petitioned to force her into the designated gender-neutral space. YMCA officials have defended Sammy's use of the women's locker room, citing her 'civil rights' despite outrage from other members who feel uncomfortable seeing a hulky...

An existential crisis in the making.On Sunday (May 25), President Donald Trump granted the European Union a brief lifeline in his quest for reciprocity on tariffs, extending the proposed 50% burden imposition to early July. “Europe is ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” declared EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen shortly after the hiatus was announced. However, her situation, and that of the 27 participating member states, is far more precarious than one might initially assume.Mighty Markets, Many TariffsWithout doubt, the EU bloc is a big and valuable trading partner to the United States. Indeed, America purchased more...

U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay. A federal judge on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from withholding funds to New York City over its opposition to a congestion traffic pricing program that Washington says is more about raising money than addressing congestion.U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman issued the stay, Reuters reported. The program has seen the city charge most vehicles a $9 toll to enter the Big Apple during periods of high traffic.Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, however, has said the program appears "driven primarily by the need to raise revenue for the Metropolitan Transit Authority system as opposed...

When we finance enemies who are sworn to our destruction.One of the most feckless acts of “compassion” for the victims of a conflict has been the West’s decades-long provision of food, medicines, and other aid to Palestinian Arabs living in the Gaza Strip. These in-kind and cash donations come with an enormous moral hazard.By now everyone knows that indeed the bulk of such aid is stolen by Hamas terrorists, who sell the goods and use the money to line the pockets of Hamas officials, pay their fighters, reward their “martyrs” killed while slaughtering mostly civilian Israelis, and buy weapons and...

The University of Florida may reverse its nation-leading shift away from identity politics by hiring a DEI-pushing president.Update: University of Florida trustees today voted unanimously in favor of Santa Ono for president. His candidacy now proceeds to the state Board of Governors.Trustees of Florida’s flagship public university vote today on whether to reverse their institution’s nascent success by selecting an identity-politics booster to replace former University of Florida President Ben Sasse.Sasse’s UF presidency was key to the Florida legislature and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ efforts at reforming higher education away from leftist indoctrination and towards an academics-focused core curriculum. States including...

If we take a look at the last five mostly peaceful assassination attempts in these United States we get the following:Attempted assassination of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) by James T. Hodgkinson, 66, at Congressional Baseball Match in June 2017. Scalise was wounded in the attempt. In May, Hodgkinson had posted: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co.”Attempted assassination of Republican presidential candidate Donald J. Trump by Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20, in Butler, PA, in 2024. Trump was wounded in the attempt. FBI “described Crooks's activity on social networking services as antisemitic,...