Free Republic

"It actually (found itself – ed.) in the epicenter of repelling a massive attack by enemy drones. We simultaneously conducted an anti-aircraft battle and ensured the safety of the president's helicopter in the air," said the commander of the air defense division, Yuri Dashkin. The events took place during Vladimir Putin's trip to the Kursk region earlier this week. According to Dashkin, the president was on board the helicopter during the drone attack.

Planned Parenthood North Central States announced it plans to close four clinics in Iowa amid financial challenges. The organization said it will close its clinics in Ames, Cedar Rapids, Sioux City and Urbandale in addition to four of its clinics in Minnesota in the coming year. It will also layoff 66 staff members and offer 37 others reassignments. Planned Parenthood said in a press release that the decision to restructure and close the clinics "comes as patient needs and preferences have changed, the broken aspects of our health care system have intensified, the organization’s Minnesota Title X funds have been...

The United Nations could become unable to pay its staff and suppliers by September and its peacekeepers by mid-2025, following an outsized projected deficit and a leaked White House proposal to end funding for the intergovernmental body,.. The U.N.’s $200 million deficit in 2024 is measly compared to the $1.1 billion deficit the organization is projected to incur at the end of 2025, barring any budget cuts, .. The deficit reportedly will hobble the organization’s ability to pay salaries and suppliers by September. The U.N. is billed to inform its member states Saturday that its $3.7 billion budget intended to...

The 24-year-old said she didn't want to give money to universities that opposed student protests. Hope Walz called herself a "privileged white woman" and said she was refusing to attend a graduate school that had accepted her application. The daughter of the failed vice presidential candidate posted a video on social media explaining that she was angered by universities shutting down dissent from student protests "I got into grad school. I will not be attending starting this fall though, and I will no longer be attending the university that I originally applied for," she said on the video posted to...

President Trump’s immigration crackdown and reports of an impending federal sting operation have sent waves of fear through Los Angeles’ Latino community — and even legal residents are on the lookout for the feds. Following leaked documents revealing plans for a citywide Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid at the end of the month, nervous Central and South Americans have been afraid to shop, use public transportation or drop their kids off at school, local sources told The Post. Legal residents with prior criminal convictions are also worried about being nabbed and deported, and even those with clean records have been...

The administrative state is petrified that President Donald Trump will fulfill his promise of purging the government of rogue and corrupt actors within the “deep state.” Many establishment media outlets reported Wednesday about Trump’s early stages of the purge with more than 1,000 firings, raising hopes among America First voters that the federal bureaucracy will be accountable to their new boss, who won a landslide election. “Bureaucracies hate the American people,” Trump’s OMB nominee Russ Vought previously told Tucker Carlson. “The American people currently are not in control of their government, and the President hasn’t been either.”

A stunned migrant woman wailed in anguish at the southern border after President Trump shuttered an app that made it easier for migrants to cross into the US. Margelis Tinoco, a Colombian woman awaiting entry to the US, was overcome with emotion after the president axed the CBP One app moments after he was sworn-in. She had been hoping to cross into El Paso from the neighboring Mexican city of Ciudad Juarez when the app suddenly went dark, leaving her stuck. Also filmed in a state of despair was Cuban migrant Yaime Perez, who had hoped to use the CBP...

Migrants waiting in Mexico for an appointment with the Biden administration’s CBP One app broke down in tears after learning their appointments were canceled immediately as President Trump took office on Monday. CBP One went offline at 12 p.m. EST Monday, according to an announcement from Customs and Border Protection. It’s just one small part of Trump’s promises to make sweeping reforms at the southern border beginning the first day of his second term. The app allowed tens of thousands of migrants into the US. Up to 1,450 migrants per day were allowed to schedule immigration appointments and request asylum...

There were reports that his destination was Moscow. Yet, it appears as if his plane has disappeared. We don’t know if this is a diversion or a case of an aircraft being misidentified. We’ll update accordingly if anything changes, but for now, it seems as if the ousted Syrian leader’s aircraft dropped off the radar and is now missing near Homs.

Up to 50,000 Russian soldiers could be missing in action in Ukraine, a senior defence official who is related to President Putin has revealed in an apparent slip-up. Anna Tsivileva, a deputy defence minister, told a parliamentary roundtable that there had been tens of thousands of requests for DNA testing to identify the remains of servicemen. “We accept the DNA of relatives, as I have said, free of charge,” Tsivileva said. “[There are] 48,000 relatives who have applied to us.” However, Andrei Kartapolov, the head of the parliamentary defence committee, stressed that the figures cited by Tsivileva were classified and...

More broadly, one network executive told features writer Charlotte Klein, "It's going to change everything" if Trump wins. The exec said it could signify the complete failure of the news industry. "If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they're not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form," they said.

Former President Bill Clinton spoke with a raspy voice and said he may be unable to attend future Democratic conventions in a Wednesday night speech to delegates — as stunned viewers noted his hands trembling during his remarks.

BREAKING: 7.2-magnitude earthquake strikes off Russian coast - tsunami warning issued

Far-left Democrat Cori Bush appears to have lost her bid for re-election in Missouri’s First Congressional district by a landslide. While full results from the race are yet to be counted, it is already clear that Bush will not be returning to Congress next year. Cori Bush has LOST her primary in St. Louis. She is officially a LOSER! pic.twitter.com/DDjPedBfOe — Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) August 7, 2024 With almost 20% report, incumbent Squad member Cori Bush is down more than 30% in her primary against pro-Israel Democrat Wesley Bell. Bush would join Jamaal Bowman as incumbents from The Squad to...

On Tuesday, Axios announced that it would be laying off around 50 employees. This equates to roughly 10 percent of the news company’s staff. In a memo sent to employees, obtained by The Washington Post’s Katie Robertson, Axios CEO Jim VandeHei said the company was making "some difficult changes to adapt fast to a rapidly changing media landscape." We’re eliminating around 50 positions to get ahead of tectonic shifts in the media, technology and reader needs/habits. This is a painful but necessary move to tighten our strategic focus and shift investment to our core growth areas," he wrote. He said...

US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode. The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired goliath who has led the German manufacturing charge in support of Kyiv, was the most mature. When the Americans learned of the...

From the show transcript: "...tragically 1:36 ended their own 1:38 life because 1:41 well this person decided to mutilate 1:44 thems in their own backyard 1:47 surgery..."

The shooting of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico seems likely to be recognised as a terrorist attack after the gunman admitted he shot the head of government for political reasons.Slovak prosecutors have published comments by the man who confessed to shooting Prime Minister Robert Fico last week for the first time, offering the first official insight into motivations behind the attack that rocked Europe. The confession opens the way for the Slovak authorities to reclassify the attack from mere attempted murder to a terrorist attack. (snip) While Cintula said he disagreed with several of Fico’s policies and political reforms, according...

BREAKING:'No sign of life' detected at crash site of helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, others, Iran state TV says

I haven't cross checked this but...