Free Republic

Ukraine’s unprecedented drone strikes on Russian air force bases weaken Moscow’s ability to wage war on its smaller neighbor and undermine its capacity to threaten more distant rivals such as the U.S.—a shift with potentially far-reaching geostrategic implications. A sizable portion of the fleet Moscow uses to launch guided-missile attacks on Ukraine—and would rely on to strike adversaries in the event of a nuclear war—was damaged or destroyed in the coordinated attacks. Russia no longer produces the decades-old Tupolev planes, meaning it has lost a cornerstone of its ability to project military power beyond its borders. Newer Russian planes are...

In one of the nation’s first wrongful-death claims seeking to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for its role in the changing climate, a Washington state woman is suing seven oil and gas companies, saying they contributed to an extraordinarily hot day that led to her mother’s fatal hyperthermia.

...Pacific Gas and Electric Company has finally revealed the staggering price tag for dismantling the century-old hydroelectric facility: $532 million. That’s the estimated cost PG&E submitted to state regulators on May 15, a half-billion-dollar teardown that will be funded by PG&E customers, many of whom also risk losing the year-round water supply the system delivers to 600,000 people across Northern California. ...Tony Gigliotti, PG&E’s senior licensing project manager, told SFGATE the half-billion-dollar figure is still a “very high-level estimate,” but it’s meant to reflect the full scope of the task ahead. “We did the best we could with the information...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) is currently in El Salvador out of concern for an illegal immigrant MS-13 gang member and human trafficker, for whom he “won’t stop fighting until he’s home.” The criminal illegal immigrant is already home — he’s a Salvadoran citizen. Where was the Maryland senator’s concern when one of his own constituents, Rachel Morin — an innocent mother of five — was brutally murdered by an illegal immigrant? Van Hollen didn’t even bother to contact her family. Where was his concern when an accused killer was allowed to roam free due to the so-called “sanctuary” policies...

Clear Skies Coming? States Rally to Ban Geoengineering as RFK Jr. Calls Out ‘Toxic Dousing' rt 51m 18s

William Shakespeare's birthplace will be de-colonised over fears that portraying his success as the 'greatest' playwright 'benefits the ideology of white European supremacy'. Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust owns buildings in the playwright's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon. It wants to 'create a more inclusive museum experience' and announced it will move away from Western perspectives after concerns were raised that Shakespeare's ideas were used to advance 'white supremacy' ideas. The trust also said that some of its items could contain language or depictions that are racist, sexist, or homophobic. It comes amid an ongoing backlash against the writer. Some productions of his works...

The Department of Government Efficiency announced that the National Institutes of Health has canceled more than $2.1 billion in grants, including one for $620,000 involving a "teen pregnancy prevention program for transgender boys." In addition to the teen pregnancy program, DOGE wrote in a post Tuesday night on X that the NIH canceled a $699,000 grant for studying "cannabis use" among "sexual minority gender diverse individuals," $740,000 for examining "social networks" among "black and Latino sexual minority men in New Jersey," $50,000 for assessing "sexual health" among "LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in an agricultural community," and $75,000 for researching "structural racism."...

California has long been the most insurrectionist of the states. Some states promised sanctuary to illegal aliens. California promises to go after law enforcement if they follow the law and cooperate with federal immigration authorities. Now California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who hopes to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, is threatening hospitals that they must ignore Trump’s executive orders and go on sterilizing kids. California Attorney General Rob Bonta today reminded California hospitals and federally-funded healthcare providers of their ongoing obligation under California anti-discrimination law to provide gender affirming care amid confusion resulting from President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget...

As the Democratic National Committee prepares to elect a new chair, outgoing leader Jaime Harrison says Democrats should have stood by Joe Biden in the 2024 race. In an interview, Harrison reflected on the party's defeat and argued that Biden, despite his struggles, had earned their loyalty. Newsweek has reached out to the DNC for comment via email. Why It Matters The Democratic Party's loss in 2024 has prompted internal debate over whether dropping Biden was the right decision. Harrison's comments highlight divisions within the party and raise questions about how Democrats should approach future elections. What to Know Harrison,...

A mountain in New Zealand is now legally recognised as a person after being granted all the rights and responsibilities of a human by the government. The new law offers extra protection for Mount Taranaki - now known as Taranaki Maunga, its Maori name - and means it has all the rights, powers, duties and responsibilities of a person. It is part of an agreement between New Zealand's government and the indigenous Maori tribes, which have long considered the 8,261ft mountain an ancestor.

Related thoughts on injury and responsibility, as they show up in several different discussions this week. First, the madness of the California state legislature is richly displayed in Senator Scott Wiener’s remarkable new bill that would allow people to sue the oil industry because climate change damaged their property, via “natural catastrophe, including a hurricane, tornado, storm, high water, wind-driven water, tidal wave, tsunami, earthquake, volcanic eruption, landslide, mudslide, snowstorm, or drought, or, regardless of cause, a fire, flood, or explosion.” I hope you caught that “regardless of cause” thing, there at the end. If this bill passes — it...

Transgender activists broadcast their intrusive takeover of at least one women’s bathroom on Capitol Hill on December 5. The transgender takeover marked an escalation by the mostly male movement in their campaign to demand access to spaces that are used by women to guard their sexual privacy and career opportunities in a diverse society. The activists were later constrained by the U.S. Capitol policy, according to a tweet shared by Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC). She has recently pressured GOP leaders to recognize that incoming House Democratic Rep. Sarah McBride is a man, despite establishment media support for his claim of...

“We must reclaim many more historic lands, restore historical equity... Finland, the Baltic States, everything's ours. Let's take Alaska too”. These are phrases thrown around by propagandist polemicists, but which we should nevertheless pay attention to. Russia 1 is considered the official voice of the Kremlin and its master. For her part, a few weeks ago Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry's Director and Spokeswoman for Information and Press, didn't hesitate to comment on the provocative statements made by Russia 1's propagandists: “So you haven't played Risk? People at Russia 1 certainly have, and they're keeping up the good humor...

A Yale-affiliated psychiatrist encouraged LGBTQ+ people whose family members voted for Donald Trump to cut ties and shun their relatives over the upcoming holidays — as fallout from the election reached hysteria on left-leaning MSNBC. Yale University child psychiatry fellow Dr. Amanda Calhoun dug into the issue of the post-election crises in the LGBTQ+ community with MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Friday night. “There is a societal push that, if somebody is your family, they are entitled to your time. And I think the answer is absolutely not,” Calhoun said in a clip shared online. “So, if you are going through...

I was vilified for criticizing the Dewey Decimal system. We librarians need to stop perpetuating its systemic racism in our libraries. Almost a decade ago, my colleagues and I wrote an article for SLJ entitled “Are Dewey’s Days Numbered?” in which we made the argument that the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system had lost its relevance. We took a bold stance, and the backlash was swift. Fellow librarians would wait outside the rooms I was speaking in at conferences, backing me into corners to demand that I stop talking about alternative systems.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump on Saturday again decried two gold medalist Olympic athletes, falsely labeling the female boxers as men. Trump made the comments while speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania and pledging to “keep men out of women’s sports,” turned his attention to the recently concluded Olympic Games and the case of two athletes who became the subject of international scrutiny regarding misconceptions about their gender. Trump has long criticized transgender people as part of his rallies and focused specifically on transgender athletes, using language about gender identity that LGBTQ+ advocates say is wrong and...

... As of this publishing, the poll racked up nearly 3,000 votes, and clearly, a majority reckon the government had a significant hand in the 9/11 attacks. About 27 percent are convinced it was an “inside job,” while nearly 24 percent think the U.S. government knew about the upcoming attacks but chose to let them happen. Another 22 percent believe the attackers were intelligence assets gone rogue. That’s incredibly telling—and frankly, quite disturbing. It shows just how much trust in our government has plummeted, reaching depths many of us never imagined possible. There’s still time to vote, so it’ll be...

California is awash in water after record-breaking rains vanquished years of crippling drought. That sounds like great news for farmers. But Ron McIlroy, whose shop here sells equipment for plowing fields, knows otherwise. “I’ll be lucky if I survive this year,” he said. Illustrating how broken California’s vast water-delivery system is, many farmers in Central Valley, America’s fruit and vegetable basket, will get just 40% of the federal water they are supposed to this year. Why? Endangered fish. The pumps that transport water from wet Northern California to the semiarid south have been drastically slowed to protect threatened migrating smelt,...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- World No. 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler was detained by Louisville Metro Police on Friday morning while trying to drive into the entrance of Valhalla Golf Club, the site of this week's PGA Championship. Traffic outside the golf course had been stopped after a man was struck and killed by a shuttle bus around 5 a.m. ET. According to ESPN reporter Jeff Darlington, who witnessed the incident, Scheffler was trying to drive around the crash scene on a median. A police officer instructed Scheffler to stop, but Scheffler continued to drive about 10 to 20 yards toward the...

Democrat Climate Change Cult: Ban Everything! Ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations have agreed to eliminate all coal-fired power plants by 2035. The countries that are members of the Group of Seven (G7) are Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, as well as the European Union. This declaration was made by Andrew Bowie, a UK minister at the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, during an interview in Turing, Italy. “We do have an agreement to phase out coal in the first half of the 2030s,” Bowie said. “This is, by...