Free Republic

President Trump shed his shoes Monday to take in the splendor of the largest mosque in the United Arab Emirates — a rare visit by a sitting American chief executive to an overseas Muslim house of worship. “It’s so beautiful,” Trump, clad in stocking feet as a mark of respect, told reporters inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. “This is an incredible culture.” Trump, 78, was joined at the ornate white marble edifice by Abu Dhabi’s crown prince Khaled bin Mohamed Al Nahyan, who recently signed a deal with Disney to develop a theme park on nearby Yas Island. The...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — President Trump urged Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa to sign the Abraham Accords in a previously unplanned meeting on Wednesday, one day after lifting all sanctions on the Middle Eastern country. The two leaders met on the sidelines of a Gulf Cooperation Council gathering in Riyadh, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan phoning into the conversation. Syria currently doesn’t recognize Israel’s statehood, and the Abraham Accords were just one of Trump’s requests to Syria in an effort to normalize relations. Trump also told the Syrian leader to make all foreign terrorists leave Syria, deport Palestinian terrorists, help...

resident Joe Biden struggled in practice debates ahead of his disastrous showing against Donald Trump last year — leaving his advisers with little option but to cross their fingers and hope he would be a “game-day performer,” a new book about the collapse of the Democratic administration reveals. Biden’s advisers “blocked out substantial time to prep over several days” at the presidential retreat at Camp David in rural Maryland in June 2024. When the president turned up after a trip to Europe to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and attend a G7 summit, he was “rusty and exhausted,” according...

PORTLAND, Me. — Miss Congeniality, Jordon Hudson is not. Bill Belichick’s 24-year-old girlfriend fell short yet again in the Miss Maine beauty pageant, placing third Sunday — and she couldn’t hide her disappointment. Hudson — who came in second in the contest last year — once again didn’t have quite the stuff to strut all the way to the crown.

A New Jersey home exploded overnight, killing two people in a fiery flash that rocked a sleepy neighborhood, officials said. The bodies of a woman and a man, who had not been publicly identified, were recovered from the remains of the home Sunday along Tranquility Court in Washington Township in Gloucester County, NBC 10 reported. Neighborhood doorbell cameras captured the moment the South Jersey home suddenly exploded around 2 a.m., with the house completely engulfed in flames in just minutes as first responders raced to the scene. Officials described the emergency as an “intense fire,” with neighbors confirming that a...

Fed-up AOC constituents in Bronx, Queens mock absentee ‘rock star’ who’s never in the district: ‘This woman has done nothing’ Frustration with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has reached a breaking point on her home turf, with fed up Queens and Bronx constituents telling The Post they’re sick and tired of being second fiddle to the jet-setting socialist’s primary focus — herself. Her district offices in the Bronx and Queens offer little to justify the $1.9 million the congresswoman gets to run them — one is only open a single weekday and the other is closed on Fridays, with phones that go...

That’s rich! Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders refused to apologize for chartering private jets to ferry him across the country as part of his campaign to rip the wealthy — snapping, “You think I’m gonna be sitting on a waiting line at United … while 30,000 people are waiting?” Sanders (D-Vt.) defiantly defended his mode of transport after he was widely ridiculed for opting to fly private during his recent “Fighting Oligarchy” tour alongside far-left New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “No apologies for that,” Sanders, 83, told Fox News’ “Special Report” late Wednesday when asked about the backlash. “That’s what campaign...

Grand Old Popey. Pope Leo XIV was an active voter who participated in several Republican primaries in recent years and voted in the most recent presidential election, according to a report. Then-Cardinal Robert Prevost, a Chicago native, pulled the lever in Republican primaries in 2012, 2014, and 2016, the Washington Free Beacon reported, citing election records. The Dolton, Illinois, born pontifex also voted in general elections in 2012, 2014, 2018, and 2024, the report stated.

He’s got jokes. Michelle Obama said her husband, Barack Obama, joked she was “next up” after her mom, Marian Robinson, passed away at age 86 in May 2024. During Wednesday’s episode of the former first lady and her brother Craig Robinson’s “IMO” podcast, Michelle recalled a conversation she had with the 44th president of the US. “I guess if anything, with mom’s loss, I think that — thank God you’re my big brother and I have a husband who’s older,” she told Craig, 63. “Barack was saying, you know, ‘Well, you’re next up.’ I was like, ‘I’m not really ready...

The FBI and US Attorney’s Office in Albany have launched a criminal investigation into mortgage fraud claims against New York Attorney General Letitia James, a source familiar with the probe told The Post. The investigation, first reported by the Times Union, follows a federal criminal referral sent by Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte to the Justice Department earlier this month. Pulte’s letter alleges James “falsified records” to obtain favorable loans on a home she purchased in 2023 in Virginia and a Brooklyn brownstone she’s owned since 2001.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted operations in Nashville this week, resulting in the arrests of a convicted child sex predator and an alleged gang member, but the mayor of the city said the arrests were not focused on making the city safer. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) shared Democratic Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s letter to the city about the ICE arrests. “Our top priority is keeping people safe, and we’re deeply concerned that what appear to be federal actions are making that harder,” O’Connell wrote. “Overnight, we understand that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agents detained people...

President Trump announced Tuesday that Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen had agreed to stop attacking American vessels in the Red Sea and that his administration will cease strikes on them in response. “The Houthis have announced that … they don’t want to fight anymore,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office while meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. “They just don’t want to fight. And we will honor that, and we will stop the bombings, and they have capitulated, but more importantly, we will take their word [when] they say they will not be blowing up ships anymore, and that’s...

Police shot and killed a death metal pioneer in San Francisco this week after an argument with a neighbor over tree clippings turned violent. Brian Montana, 60, guitarist for the band Possessed, died in a shootout with cops after he pulled a gun on a neighbor during an argument... One neighbor sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the shootout, during which Montana took cover behind parked cars and landscaping and used three different guns to shoot at cops for almost half an hour, according to authorities, per CBS Bay Area. “[Montana] fired multiple times at officers using a handgun, shotgun, and rifle...

Hollywood celebrities using popular weight loss drug Ozempic to shred those unwanted pounds are now facing an unexpected new side effect dubbed “Ozempic mouth,” according to a report. Users of the hottest prescription drug in Tinseltown, including Sharon Osbourne, Whoopie Goldberg, and Rebel Wilson, are showing signs of the distinctive side effect linked to rapid facial weight loss from a higher dose of the GLP-1 medication, a New York-based cosmetic dermatologist told the DailyMail.com. “Many users of Ozempic who I know report noticeable volume loss in the face, which can result in the formation of fine lines, wrinkles, sagging skin,...

Self-checkout is checking out. Target is removing self-checkout stations from stores as thieves use the kiosks to conduct their crimes. Last March, the popular chain announced plans to limit self-checkout to 10 items and limit or remove self-checkout kiosks amid complaints about clunky technology and concerns about rising theft. Along with paring back customers’ self-checkout hauls, stores will expand the number of traditional checkout lanes available. Reddit user @jxbermudez72 shared a photo two weeks ago showing where the store they shop at had a large empty space where the self-check out stations had been. “The target I live near completely...

Three crew members of the Bayesian superyacht are officially under investigation for crimes including negligence, recklessness and failing to save the ship from an oncoming storm, according to Italian prosecutors. Captain James Cutfield, chief engineer Timothy Parker Eaton and deckhand Matthew Griffiths are in line to face criminal charges, according to the public prosecutor of Termini Imerese in Sicily, close to where the yacht sank amid a severe storm. The potential charges were set out as rescue workers strive to raise the vessel, currently 50 meters (164 feet) below the surface, off the coast of Porticello. Allegedly, “through negligence consisting...

Nearly 100 volunteers and rescue personnel showed up on Long Island Saturday to continue the frantic search for a missing political candidate who inexplicably vanished last month. Splitting off into pairs, the volunteers set out at 7 a.m. to canvas and comb through Long Beach, where Petros Krommidas, 29, was last seen on April 23 when he went for a training swim, cops and family said. Soon after he went missing, police found the Krommidas’ locked car by the Allegria Hotel, just near the beach he had regularly visited to train for a triathlon, his family added. Krommidas – a...

A Pennsylvania woman was caught on camera taking a dump on another driver’s car during a revolting road rage incident Tuesday — and then bizarrely bragged about it being a “clean poop,” according to authorities and a report. The victimized driver didn’t report the poop-filled fracas, but the disgusting act was videotaped by a bystander and posted on Instagram. The footage shows a woman hop out of her vehicle, storm over to the other car, pull down her pants and squat on the grill of the other car — quickly ripping loose in just a matter of seconds as the...

A Democratic House lawmaker, known for his jaw-dropping remarks, repurposed a Holocaust-era poem on Wednesday to argue that the Trump administration is targeting “Latinos outside of the Home Depots.” Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), who once worried Guam could sink from overpopulation, subjected lawmakers to his bizarre variation of German theologian Martin Niemöller’s famous “First They Came For …” poem during a House Judiciary Committee hearing – leaving some people stunned. “You know, first they came for the Latinos outside of the Home Depots, trying to get work so that they could feed their families,” Johnson began. “And I didn’t say...

Department of Education newsletter claiming Israel is committing “genocide in Gaza” was sent out to hundreds of teachers — prompting fuming Jewish educators to call it out as another example of ingrained antisemitism in the city’s public school system. The 14-page “Teacher Career Pathways” spring 2025 newsletter — which sports the logos of the city DOE and the United Federation of Teachers union — went out over the last week to “master teachers” across the system’s 1,800 schools. “The genocide in Gaza, among other global injustices, emphasized the urgent need for student voices to be centered and heard,” it said....