Free Republic

Jimmy Kimmel is taking a lengthy summer break from the late-night hosting gig he has had for nearly 18 years. Kimmel announced Thursday that he will be stepping away from “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” starting July 6 and his departure will last all the way through September when he hosts The Emmys, according to a report from Variety. The show will be taken over by a variety of guest hosts while Kimmel steps back to spend time with his family.

Top donors to President Trump are also pumping thousands of dollars into the campaign kitty of the Democratic primary rival to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, campaign records show. Broadcaster Stanley Hubbard, who contributed $175,000 to the pro-Trump Great America PAC, contributed the maximum $5,600 to Caruso-Cabrera, according to opensecrets.org and filings with the Federal Elections Commission. “Cowboy venture capitalist” Darren Blanton, who has given $41,000 to pro-Trump campaign entities, also donated $5,600 to Caruso-Cabrera.

Martin Gugino — the 75-year-old man who was shoved to the ground by Buffalo police in a video seen by millions — is a long-time peace activist and “gentle person,” according to friends. The resident of Amherst in Erie County is a member of the People United for Sustainable Housing Buffalo and anti-nuclear group Kings BayPlowshares, the Buffalo News reported. “He’s a gentle person who really believes that he must stand up for what he thinks is right,” said Gugino’s pal Terrence Bisson. “That’s why he went to the demonstration. He would never resist physically any kind of orders. He’s...

For most of Donald Trump’s brief political career, chaos has been his friend. He draws energy from an endless storm of difficulties and controversies that would send most presidents into the fetal position. Critics and supporters alike compare his presidency to a reality television show, one that always ends with the leading man getting the last word. From Russia, Russia, Russia to Ukraine and impeachment, Trump’s time in the White House has been a continuing roller-coaster ride between danger on one side and disaster on the other. A political Houdini, he has always escaped and emerged stronger in victory, but...

Protesters flooding streets across America are putting themselves at risk of catching the coronavirus — and likely exacerbating its ongoing spread, officials have warned. “If you were out protesting last night, you probably need to go get a COVID test this week,” Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms warned those taking to the streets in her city. Bottoms was one of many to note the dangers of thousands suddenly ignoring any form of lockdown or social distancing to protest George Floyd’s caught-on-camera death in police custody. She stressed that “there is still a pandemic in America that’s killing black and brown...

The white dog-walker, who called 911 on a black man when he asked her to leash her cocker spaniel in Central Park, allegedly stalked a former love interest and chided him for voting for President Barack Obama, The Post has learned. Martin Priest, a former friend of Cooper who’s known her since 2003, claimed when he told her he voted for Obama, the first black president of the United States, she slammed his decision, saying she couldn’t “believe” it. Priest claimed the asset manager developed romantic feelings for him and began “stalking” and “harassing” him when they went unrequited, leading...

Former FBI Assistant Deputy Director Terry Turchie said on “Fox & Friends” on Monday that he has noticed that the mainstream media used to denounce Federal Bureau of Investigation abuses — until the agency went after President Trump. “It’s something that's kind of surprising,” he said. Turchie made the comment reacting to The New York Post editorial, which noted that “Democrats and their puppets in the media – once fierce critics of US law enforcement and spying agencies – have suddenly become their biggest champions, at least when the issue is these agencies’ targeting of Team Trump.”

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Thursday that he’s “concerned” about the revelations that the city’s health commissioner ignored an NYPD request for 500,000 surgical masks amid the coronavirus crisis, telling a police official that she didn’t give “two rats’ asses about your cops” – and added it would be “inappropriate” to say. “I need to understand what happened here. I am concerned about it,” de Blasio said during his daily press briefing when he was asked about the callous comments made by Dr. Oxiris Barbot.

President Donald Trump launched an angry attack Thursday at Dr. Rick Bright ahead of the whistleblower’s highly anticipated congressional testimony — calling the ousted head of the agency tasked with creating a coronavirus vaccine a “disgruntled employee.” “I don’t know the so-called Whistleblower Rick Bright, never met him or even heard of him, but to me he is a disgruntled employee, not liked or respected by people I spoke to and who, with his attitude, should no longer be working for our government!” the president said in a tweet. Bright, who was removed from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development...

An upcoming CNN town hall on the coronavirus pandemic will feature 17-year-old Greta Thunberg alongside a panel of medical experts. The program, “Coronavirus Facts and Fears,” also includes CNN broadcaster Sanjay Gupta, 50, former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, 71, and former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Richard Besser, 60. CNN anchor Anderson Cooper, 52, will host alongside Gupta. However, social media watchdogs are foaming at the mouth over the choice to place a teen climate activist on a panel with public health experts. “What place does Greta Thunberg have in this town hall?” asks Twitter...

The Georgia man who filmed the shooting death of unarmed black jogger Ahmaud Arbery says he’s “not proud” he did so — but he hopes it “helps in the end.” William “Roddie” Bryan, whose cell phone footage of the Feb. 23 incident sparked national outrage, told Good Morning America he has “tons of regrets” over the incident. “Yeah, I wish I hadn’t been there,” Bryan told the ABC-TV show Tuesday.

Scientists are preparing for a potential close encounter of the viral kind. Researchers say that when humans return from a planned visit to Mars in the 2030s, they’ll have to quarantine because rock samples from the Red Planet could be as dangerous as Ebola — even if the likelihood they are is low. Rockets returning from Mars will have to undergo a chemical cleaning involving intense heat as well.

The best way to understand the dismissal of the phony prosecution case against Gen. Michael Flynn and the release of secret congressional testimonies is to imagine a giant jigsaw puzzle. We know the final picture will show a broad conspiracy by law enforcement and intelligence agencies under Barack Obama to undermine Donald Trump’s campaign and help Hillary Clinton win the 2016 election. When that failed, many of those same people turned their efforts to sabotaging Trump’s presidency. Some are still at it. That’s the big picture, and last week two more significant pieces of the puzzle fell into place.

Two possibilities arise from the guilty plea of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn’s plea marks the beginning of the end of the Trump administration. Flynn’s plea marks the end of the desperate hope that America will be delivered from the Trump presidency by impeachment and removal from office on the grounds that his campaign colluded with Russia to win him the 2016 election. There are other ancillary events one can easily imagine. For example, Trump could fire independent counsel Robert Mueller and/or pardon Flynn and others. But those moves would eventually make the end of his administration...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo revealed the key to navigating his contentious relationship with President Trump ahead of their coronavirus summit Tuesday at the White House: simple New York bluntness.

Hundreds of New Yorkers were caught flaunting coronavirus social distancing restrictions in Brooklyn’s Domino Park on Sunday — and cops did little about it, according to witnesses. The scene, captured on a video posted on Twitter, shows rows of people soaking in the sun at the riverfront park in Williamsburg despite City Hall’s professed crackdown on large gatherings — and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s initiative to have residents snitch when they see lockdown violations. It’s an indication of how New York’s Finest continue to grapple with how aggressively to enforce the restrictions. The video, shot from a moving car, shows...

As the president of the United States shelters in place with the White House press corps, and Joe Biden gibbers senselessly into the GoPro camera in his Delaware basement, this fall’s national election has been thrown into a cocked tricorn by the coronavirus. Many of Donald Trump’s retail-politicking strengths — the huge rallies, his command of crowds — have been neutralized, and while he still has control of the narrative from his bully pulpit in the West Wing, the national media remains dead set against him, and puts the worst possible spin on every word he speaks. Meanwhile, Biden and...

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange secretly fathered two children with one of his lawyers while he was holed up at the Ecuadorean embassy in London and fighting extradition to the US, according to a report. Stella Morris, a South African-born lawyer, began a relationship with Assange, 48, in 2015, she told The Daily Mail, which broke the story of the couple’s secret romance and birth of their two sons on Saturday. Gabriel was born in 2017, said Morris, 37. Their second child, Max, was born last year. Both births were filmed with a GoPro camera and the footage sent to Assange,...

A Florida hurricane may be about to hit Washington, DC. Laura Loomer, a 26-year-old conservative provocateur running for Congress in the Sunshine State, is gaining strength with activists and donors buzzing about the possibility she is the conservative answer to New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “She’s the Republican’s AOC,” longtime GOP strategist Roger Stone gushed to The Post. “She’s young. She’s energetic. She’s feisty. She’s anti-establishment, and she has an enormous national following, as does AOC, which can help finance a congressional race.” Like the Queens/Bronx congresswoman, few took Loomer seriously when she declared her candidacy in the heavily-blue 21st...

Floridians didn’t waste any time getting back to the sun and surf when beaches and parks were reopened in Jacksonville — the same day the state clocked a record number of coronavirus cases. Crowds were seen cheering and rushing the beach as police removed the barriers around 5 p.m. Friday, CNN reported. Aerial photos show hundreds of people packing the sand to swim, stroll, surf and fish. Many were without masks.