Free Republic

President Donald Trump's restoration of the Great Reflecting Pool on the Washington Mall and the many fountains throughout the District of Columbia is really a metaphor for what is happening all over the country. Trump is succeeding at Making America Great Again. The president posted via Truth Social on Friday, "The Great Reflecting Pool, that stretches between The Lincoln Memorial and The Washington Monument, just opened to 'rave reviews' but, maliciously or not, some say, like The Washington Post, it was a 'paint job.' This was not a paint job. This was highly sophisticated material, industrial strength, that could last...

Water has mass, and mass has leverage. Move enough groundwater from aquifers onto farms, into cities, and eventually into the ocean, and Earth’s spin changes by a measurable amount. The shift is tiny on a planetary scale, but the number still grabs you: between 1993 and 2010, researchers estimated that groundwater depletion nudged Earth’s rotational pole by about 31.5 inches. The figure comes from a 2023 study in Geophysical Research Letters, which estimated that humans depleted about 2,150 gigatons of groundwater between 1993 and 2010. When researchers added that water movement to their polar-motion model, the model lined up much...

A blue-glowing spider was only the first clue. Deep in Angola, scientists uncovered a hidden world of species still waiting for names after long trek. A crowned crab spider that glows bright blue under ultraviolet light. An armored cricket that can squirt defensive fluid. A ladybird orb-web spider that mimics a toxic beetle. These are among the dozens of species potentially unknown to science discovered during a February 2026 expedition to Angola’s remote Lisima plateau. The survey, called the Cassai Life Atlas, was conducted by The Wilderness Project, an organization founded by South African explorer Steve Boyes. The team of...

The union behind SoFi Stadium’s workforce has voted 96% in favor of authorizing a strike, ahead of the 2026 World Cup next week, a move that could cause a possible work stoppage as the venue prepares to serve as a key location in the soccer tournament. Unite Here Local 11 represents the stadium‘s nearly 2,000 cooks, dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders and servers. They had been voting Thursday and Friday on whether to strike. The decision to strike comes after negotiations had stalled with the stadium’s food service operator and FIFA. “SoFi Stadium cashiers, dishwashers, cooks, bartenders, concessions workers, and food...

Four violent D.C.-area youths had the tables turned on them after trying to rob a Marine veteran of his vehicle. As FOX 5 DC reported, an Oxen Hill, Maryland man named Jheyco Borda was operating on his vehicle near Oxon Hill High School around 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday when four teenagers sauntered up to him on the sidewalk. Oxon Hill is a suburb in Maryland located just southeast of D.C. Video shared by FOX 5 DC next shows the youths cornering Borda at the bed of his truck. One youth wearing a red, white, and blue sweatshirt then pulls out...

America Spent $12.5 Billion Fighting the Emerald Ash Borer. The Woodpeckers Did It For Free In 2002, a beetle from eastern China arrived in a Detroit shipping crate and went on to kill more than 100 million American ash trees. The federal response cost $12.5 billion. It did not stop the beetle. What did stop it was already in the woods. Four native bird species — and one parasitic wasp the size of a sewing needle — quietly built a predation pyramid that no quarantine, no insecticide injection, and no government program had ever designed. This documentary follows the decade...

I am told that these people can't be racist because they aren't white. Black man 1: 'The only good cracker is a dead cracker! The only good cracker is a dead cracker!' Black woman 1: 'That's right.' Black man 1: 'The only good cracker is a dead cracker!' Black woman 2: 'Right on!' Black man 2: 'Cracker!' Black man 1: 'The only good cracker is a dead cracker!' Yep, for years now, I have been told by our higher institutions that it is impossible for someone to be racist unless they have light skin pigmentation in their skin. I'm not...

WASHINGTON – Water began refilling the recently renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Thursday, President Donald Trump announced from the Oval Office. Trump showed a video during an unrelated event with water bubbling into the freshly painted basin at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial. “That's clean, beautiful water,” the president said. Live video showed water accumulating in the center of the basin, with workers and trucks still inside the pool. Trump noted the work to paint the shallow basin a deep shade, which he calls “American flag blue,” was completed Wednesday. The administration said in a court filing that...

Multiple Knicks fans were arrested Wednesday night while celebrating their hometown team’s thrilling NBA Finals Game 1 victory at Madison Square Garden’s first outdoor watch party permitted by the city in weeks. The celebratory sea of Knicks fanatics packed the streets surrounding the Garden, where they cheered the team’s 105-95 win against the San Antonio Spurs as hundreds of cops looked on — and a waving Mayor Zohran Mamdani was driven by in a black SUV, according to social media clips. The outdoor event had been scrapped for weeks after the city pulled permits over concerns of unruly fan antics....

It seems like, without fail, the activist Left seeks out ways of using the legal system to get whatever radical policy they want retained via a judge's ruling, or stop some Conservative policy that half of the American people overwhelmingly voted for during a recent presidential election. Such might be tha case in this new story, where an environmental group has filed suit in my state of Arizona against the Trump administration ... over the habitat of a rare species of desert spring snail. But the fact that this snail can only live where President Trump is planning on building...

Police in Clearwater Beach, Florida revealed that hundreds of teenagers flooded into the area on May 31, 2026, for a “teen takeover” event that quickly devolved into violent, bloody chaos, promising that such an event “will not happen again,” vowing to slap anyone involved in similar incidents with harsh consequences. And those consequences will not be for the teens only, but their parents as well. Things got so out of control at one point that a shooting took place. Detectives told the press that they have identified a suspect in the incident, but no arrests have been made as of...

CHP says excessive speed caused a Corvette driver to lose control on Friant Road. The C8 slid hundreds of feet before overturning and being nearly torn apart. Despite the severity of the crash, the driver survived with serious injuries. ============================================================================================= Police are often quick to cite speed after all kinds of crashes, and that’s not always the whole story. In this case, however, the evidence is hard to ignore. According to CHP, this Corvette slid hundreds of feet before overturning, and the resulting damage suggests the driver carried far more speed into the curve than either the road or their...

Over the weekend, as part of the Black Crowes' "Southern Hospitality Tour" along with Whiskey Myers, Crowes lead singer Chris Robinson tried to shut down the patriotic Tampa crowd and instead watched a steady stream of concertgoers leave mid-set rather than listen to his woke nonsense. During the show, according to TMZ, a screen showed the band’s crow mascot as Uncle Sam, which sparked “USA” chants from the crowd. Robinson seemed miffed by the patriotic outburst and snidely lectured the crowd, saying, “Thanks for the geography lesson.” As the chants continued, he added, “I don’t know what you have to...

Remember how South Africa used to be a functional country? 🚨 New product alert! 🚨🇿🇦 Introducing the new SVI Gimbal Gunport, a patent-pending product designed for armoured security vehicles. 🙌✅ Weapon secured in place🎯 Vastly improved accuracy👉 No risk of in-cabin ricochet👀 See it in action here: https://t.co/YAexKHcKNq pic.twitter.com/bLpBqKQl8L— SVI Engineering (@SVI_Engineering) June 2, 2026 Progress? Re-engineering Arrow Loops for the modern failed progressive state! pic.twitter.com/wtz76sDNi8— Mark the Red (@MarktheRed21) June 2, 2026At this point just drive a tank or apv— NPC767480 (@NPC00767480) June 2, 2026I remember seeing a South African anti-carjacker flamethrower on TV when I was a kid...

A viral video making the rounds on social media is proving once again that reality has a way of humbling even the most ambitious publicity stunts. The clip, which has racked up millions of views across Instagram, TikTok, X, and Facebook in just days, shows an unidentified Nigerian pastor decked out in a flowing white robe and clutching a staff, striding confidently into the ocean waves like he’s reenacting the Book of Exodus. His followers stood nearby, Bibles in hand, chanting prayers and hyping up what was supposed to be a modern-day Red Sea moment. But unlike the account in...

Mount Everest climbers were seen in a huge human traffic jam amid a record number of visitors to the major landmark. Footage published on social media shows hundreds of people at a standstill slowly making their way up Hillary Step, a 40-foot vertical rock on the path of the mountain. The caption of the video read: 'Nearly 3 hours to cross this area due to congestion and difficult movement conditions at high altitude. 'Is this serious? Spending all this money on carriers and guides just to get stuck in a traffic jam!' Sitting at 8,790 metres above sea level on...

Almost every day now, there is another headline warning about the collapsing birth rate across the developed world, and along with it, another think piece attempting to diagnose why younger generations seem increasingly reluctant to build families. This week, new figures out of England and Wales showed that the number of babies being born has fallen to the lowest level since 1977, with couples delaying parenthood until their thirties or deciding against children altogether. The total fertility rate dropped to 1.39 children per woman, the lowest level ever recorded. The explanations offered for this phenomenon tend to revolve around economics,...

Reikado Hall on Miyajima Island's Mount Misen has been known as the home of the "eternal flame" for over 1,200 years. And the thing about eternal flames is that if they do get out of control, you can't really put them out. Otherwise they're not so eternal are they? And then the inevitable happens: A Buddhist hall in Western Japan known for housing an "eternal flame" that has been burning for over 1,000 years caught fire and burned to the ground on Miyajima Island. pic.twitter.com/8HPHGdDu4A— The Associated Press (@AP) May 21, 2026Yep, according to News on Japan, the eternal flame...

On May 30th, a 17-year-old girl was arrested for allegedly stabbing three horses at a National Barrel Horse Association (NBHA) barrel racing event in Las Vegas. The incident, which occurred early that morning, happened at the South Point Arena & Equestrian Center during the NBHA Professional’s Choice Las Vegas Super Show. According to police, the suspect had access to the barn where the horses were held awaiting competition, and three horses were "intentionally injured with a sharp object." The Las Vegas Metro Police Department said in a statement, "On May 30, 2026, at approximately 2:07 a.m., LVMPD Communications received a...

Researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) are taking significant steps that can help boost production of oil and natural gas that can be recovered from unconventional formations. The method focuses on recovering these additional resources in shale and other tight reservoirs that have already produced hydrocarbons through hydraulic fracturing in primary recovery operations but still contain large amounts of oil and gas trapped within rocks. In unconventional formations, only a small percentage of hydrocarbons in place are typically extracted. While the new research could help ensure affordable, reliable, and secure energy for the United States. Primary recovery from...