Free Republic

(The Center Square)—The Los Angeles City Council’s delay on a $30-an-hour minimum wage has some groups shaking their heads and others clapping their hands. The council last week voted to postpone implementation of the new minimum wage for hotel and airport workers. The vote was 9-6 and would move the timeline from 2028 to 2030. The vote came amid pressure from businesses threatening efforts to repeal the city’s gross receipts tax, which is a major source of revenue for Los Angeles. Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson has been quoted in various news reports as calling this a placeholder to keep talks...

A major explosive volcanic eruption is ongoing, the largest so far of 2026, and yet the media is largely missing it. What I am referring to is a volcano which few people have ever heard of located within the central Bismarck Sea. Going by the same name of that area, it is currently producing its largest eruption on record, having already generated abundant pumice rafts and an eruption plume that rose 13,000 feet above the ocean surface. This is all due to the planet's largest deep submarine volcanic eruption in more than a decade! A Major Explosive Eruption in Ongoing;...

SpaceX's Starship megarocket may indeed get off the ground next week.The company is apparently targeting May 15 for the test flight, which will be the 12th for Starship overall but the first for the new, more powerful "Version 3" of the giant vehicle.SpaceX cleared a big hurdle on the path to liftoff on Thursday (May 7), conducting a static-fire test with Starship's Super Heavy first stage at its Starbase site in Texas. The company lit up all 33 of Super Heavy's Raptor engines while the booster remained anchored to the pad — and everything apparently went well."Full duration and full...

One of the most significant challenges for any spacecraft is reentering Earth's atmosphere safely. The Space Rider spacecraft is no different, but recent tests have marked considerable progress. ESA engineers subjected the spacecraft's thermal protection system to extreme conditions, simulating the intense heat of atmospheric reentry. Using the largest plasma wind tunnel in the world at the Italian Aerospace Research Centre (CIRA), ESA exposed the spacecraft's components to temperatures reaching up to 2,900°F (1,600°C). This crucial test ensures that Space Rider can survive the fiery descent back to Earth.The thermal protection system also underwent tests to simulate how it would...

Activists who demand strict oversight for homeschooling rarely apply the same standards to public schools, entrepreneur and defense contractor Palmer Luckey argued this week. Luckey pushed back against growing calls for tighter regulation of homeschooling, responding to critics who say parents should face more evaluations and state monitoring. Home invasion His comments came after writer Jill Filipovic argued that homeschooling families should accept more scrutiny if they believe homeschooling delivers better educational outcomes. “If homeschooling is actually super high quality, then homeschooling families should not object to being evaluated, tested, and checked-in-on to make sure their kids are actually learning,”...

What's really happening inside Apple's AI strategy behind the Tim Cook succession? The common story is a smooth handoff to an Apple lifer -- but the reality is more interesting: Apple just restructured the entire company around a race the rest of the industry isn't running. Apple Just Positioned Itself for the Next Trillion Dollars | 20:55 AI News & Strategy Daily | Nate B Jones | 273K subscribers | 177,195 views | April 26, 2026

Investigative questions about UFOs, aliens, and the supernatural are no longer staying on the fringes. In this fascinating conversation, Billy Hallowell sits down with pastor and broadcaster Joseph Z to unpack claims surrounding a reported closed-door meeting involving pastors, military-connected figures, and alarming discussions about so-called “alien disclosure.” From alleged government technology and mysterious “orbs” to theological debates over demons, Nephilim, and spiritual deception, this interview dives deep into one of the most talked-about topics in both faith and culture right now.

Interview with Joe Tegtmeyer. Another Setback for Starship Flight 12? What Happened Now? | 18:11 Ellie in Space | 223K subscribers | 32,205 views | May 3, 2026

President Trump withdrew the Casey Means nomination yesterday afternoon, blamed Senator Cassidy, and within minutes named Dr. Nicole B. Saphier of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center as his third Surgeon General nominee in fifteen months. The first MAHA-base reaction I have seen, online and in my inbox, has been something between “who?” and “Fox News pick - sellout.” I want to push back on the second reaction before it hardens, because the documentary record on Saphier is genuinely more interesting than the press coverage has so far conveyed, and the right MAHA reading of her is not the obvious one.This...

The most powerful rocket engine test ever conducted on Earth happened ten days ago. 33 SpaceX Raptor 3 engines. Six seconds. We talked about it on the show. What we didn't talk about is what happened before that. Because we didn't know. Nobody outside SpaceX knew. Until this week, when SpaceX released a 24-minute documentary and showed us the two static fire attempts that didn't work. This documentary changes how I'm thinking about Flight 12. Let me show you why. SpaceX Finally Gives Out The BIG Starship News!!! This Changes Everything About Starship Flight 12 | 21:03 What about it!?...

A SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launched the ViaSat-3 F3 communications satellite from NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in Florida on Wednesday (April 29), lifting off at 10:13 a.m. EDT (1413 GMT). The 6.6-ton (6 metric tons) satellite is headed to geostationary orbit (GEO) which lies 22,236 miles (35,786 kilometers) above Earth, according to Space.com. Blastoff! SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket launches nearly 7-ton satellite, nails landings in Florida | 8:46 VideoFromSpace | 2.12M subscribers | 1,583 views | April 29, 2026

The British monarch urged Americans to protect the environment during his speech before Congress, and it’s far from the first time he’s stood up for nature. King Charles is one of the world’s most vocal environmental activists — and he made sure to highlight his passion for protecting the globe in his speech to Congress on Tuesday. Charles stressed to lawmakers that “our generation must decide how to address the collapse of critical natural systems.” He warned that “we ignore at our peril the fact that these natural systems … provide the foundation for our prosperity and our national security.”...

SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket is getting to take to the skies again as it launches the ViaSat-3 F3 mission to geosynchronous transfer orbit from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. UPDATE: The launch attempt was scrubbed due to weather on April 27, 2026. Next launch attempt will be April 28. Scrub! SpaceX Falcon Heavy's first launch since 2024 delayed due to weather | 13:27 VideoFromSpace | 2.12M subscribers | 19,216 views | April 27, 2026

This innovative gel can be quickly applied to teeth in much the same way as standard fluoride treatments. Unlike traditional products, it contains no fluoride. Instead, it is made from proteins that imitate those naturally responsible for guiding enamel formation early in life.Once applied, the gel forms a thin yet durable layer that seeps into the surface of the teeth, filling in tiny cracks and holes. It then acts as a scaffold that captures calcium and phosphate ions from saliva. These minerals are carefully organized into new enamel through a process known as epitaxial mineralization. This allows the regenerated enamel...

The Texas Tech University System in Lubbock, Texas announced on April 9 that it will phase out academic programs related to gender identity while establishing new guidelines for how race and sex topics are taught. A university memo states that the institution will recognize “only two human sexes” and prohibit the endorsement of “gender spectrum” theories or “fluid gender identities.” The policy, issued by Chancellor Brandon Creighton, outlines a system-wide effort to eliminate sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) programs while allowing currently enrolled students to complete their degrees. Under the new guidelines, Texas Tech will freeze admissions to SOGI-related...

This should be headline news EVERYWHERE. A Pfizer insider who was former head of toxicology in Europe has just come out and said something that many "conspiracy theorists" suspected. He estimates that 20,000 to 60,000 people in Germany have died from the covid vaccine. This was said at a parliamentary enquiry commission in Germany. So why isn't this massive news being reported everywhere? Is the mainstream media that has received millions in funding from Bill Gates deliberately covering this up... 🤔

ALS took Brad's voice, but with Neuralink, he's gotten it back. I was honored to join Brad in his home with his family to learn more about ‪@neuralink‬ and how it's completely changed his quality of life. ALS Patient: How Elon Musk's Neuralink Has Given Him Purpose | 33:04 Ellie in Space and 2 more Bradford Smith | Neuralink P3 | Future Link Pod Neura Pod – Neuralink 4,966 views | April 8, 2026

Gender-referred adolescents showed significantly higher psychiatric morbidity than controls both before (45.7% vs. 15.0%) and ≥ 2 years after referral (61.7% vs. 14.6%). Those referred after 2010 had greater psychiatric needs than earlier cohorts, both before (47.9% vs. 15.3%) and ≥ 2 years after (61.3% vs. 14.2%) referral. Among adolescents who underwent medical gender reassignment, psychiatric morbidity increased markedly during follow-up—rising from 9.8% to 60.7% in feminising gender reassignment and from 21.6% to 54.5% in masculinising gender reassignment. After adjusting for prior psychiatric treatment, all gender-referred adolescents had similarly elevated risks of psychiatric morbidity, with hazard ratios approximately three times...

NASA is counting down to the first crewed mission to the Moon in over 50 years. Launching on SLS and Orion, a crew of four will fly around the Moon as a precursor to humans returning to the surface. Artemis II Stakeout - NASA's Crewed Mission Around The Moon | Live NASASpaceflight | 1.44M subscribers | lots watching now | 4/1/2026

Credits: Rocket Lab Launch of ESA's Celeste mission 1 | 3:15 European Space Agency, ESA | 1.36M subscribers | 27,893 views | March 28, 2026