Free Republic

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...

MIAMI (AP) — Franco Caraballo called his wife Friday night, crying and panicked. Hours earlier, the 26-year-old barber and dozens of other Venezuelan migrants at a federal detention facility in Texas were dressed in white clothes, handcuffed and taken onto a plane. He had no idea where he was going. Twenty-four hours later, Caraballo’s name disappeared from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s online detainee locator. On Monday, his wife, Johanny Sánchez, learned Caraballo was among more than 200 Venezuelan immigrants flown over the weekend to El Salvador, where they are in a maximum-security prison after being accused by the...

Whoever steered President Trump into removing of the security teams protecting former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and others facing Iranian death threats was way off-base — and the prez should reverse that dangerous call at once. Pompeo tops Tehran’s hit list for his part in taking out Iranian Gen. Qassem Suleimani in January 2020, a massive strategic win for Trump in his first term. The threats are neither hypothetical nor vague: In 2022, Supreme Leader (and Grand Ayatollah) Ali Khamenei’s website published the video “Revenge is definite” that showed animated versions of Pompeo and Trump being scoped out by...

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Dwindling ammunition threatens Ukraine’s hold on the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line under withering assault by Russian artillery. Defensive lines are in jeopardy.Ukrainian forces withdrew from the city of Avdiivka in the Donetsk region on Saturday after daily Russian onslaughts from three directions for the last four months.Avdiivka was a stronghold for Ukrainian positions deeper inside the country, away from Russia. A frontline city ever since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, the fortified settlement with a maze of trenches and tunnels served to protect important — less strengthened — logistical hubs further west.Its seizure boosts Russian...

Hardcore woke activists and Critical Race Theory (CRT) pushers, including professor Ibram X. Kendi, raged into the void of social media on Tuesday in response to the news that Claudine Gay was resigning from her position as president of Harvard University. As Breitbart News reported on Tuesday, Gay finally announced her resignation after weeks of battling accusations of plagiarism in the wake of her botched testimony before Congress about the rise of antisemitism on college campuses from anti-Israel activists. The report noted:

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The birth of their daughter should have marked the beginning of a joyful chapter for the young Palestinian couple. Instead, the devastating war in Gaza, now in its third month, has turned childbirth and parenthood into a time of worry and fear for Salim and Israa al-Jamala. First, they endured a perilous journey, dodging missile fire, to reach a maternity ward. And now, the couple is sheltering with their newborn in the partially tented courtyard of another hospital where they can’t care properly for their now 3-week-old daughter, her mother’s namesake. His wife’s breast...

Family of Armed Store Robber [Now Dead] Is Angry the Clerk Was Armed

New York City Mayor Eric Adams said on Monday that Washington D.C. "has abandoned us" in regards to the ongoing migrant crisis the city and other parts of the country are facing - days after he announced stinging budget cuts to education and policing due to the crisis. "D.C. has abandoned us, and they need to be paying their cost to this national problem," Adams said during a town hall in Brooklyn, according to Politico. The "sanctuary" city has seen over 130,000 migrants come into the city since last year, a relatively small number of which have been bussed in...

An American woman – who spent her life advocating for Palestinian rights – was murdered by Hamas terrorists in Israel, according to her family. More than 1,300 Israelis have been slaughtered ever since Hamas terrorists executed a surprise attack on Israel on Oct. 7. There were also 29 Americans killed in the Hamas attacks in Israel, including 67-year-old Cindy Flash. Flash – a native of St. Paul, Minnesota – was reportedly murdered by terrorists when she was hiding in a safe room inside her home in Kfar Aza, a southern Israel kibbutz close to the Gaza border. Cindy's husband, 66-year-old...

Volodymyr Zelensky pleaded with US lawmakers to maintain military support for Ukraine on Thursday, as Republicans signalled that they would try to block a new funding package put forward by Joe Biden.The Ukrainian president addressed senators in a private meeting on Capitol Hill, warning that his country would “lose the war” without US support, before meeting the US president in the White House.His second visit to Washington since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion comes as Ukraine attempts to push through Russian defensive lines in the south and east as part of a major counteroffensive that Kyiv says requires more...

The Supreme Court struck down President Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan on Friday, a measure that would have wiped out nearly half a trillion dollars in debt for millions of Americans. The decision will impact the nearly 700,000 Wisconsinites that have federal student loan debt -- a total that adds up to more than $20 billion. Sid Bagley is one of those people who took out a federal student loan. He went back to school at age 45 to get a business administration degree and better himself. “I hated my job so much I made the initiative to go back...

South Africa's governing African National Congress has long-standing ties to Moscow, which supported its struggle against a racist apartheid regime that many Western states considered a Cold War ally...said Cobus van Staden of the China-Global South Project. As Russia and China now seek to build new international coalitions, he said that history is coming to the fore in Africa where some nations are keen for alternatives to Western hegemony.

The first openly transgender woman set to be executed is pleading with Missouri Gov. Mike Parson for mercy because “she” claims to be “mentally ill.” Amber McLaughlin, now 49, was convicted of raping and murdering an ex-girlfriend in St. Louis County in 2003. At that time, “Amber” was Scott McLaughlin. The inmate “transitioned” in prison. McLaughlin says it’s a “sad thing” to be executed because of mental illness. “I don’t agree with it,” the inmate said. “People should know I’m mentally ill.” The anti-death penalty advocates want “her” life spared because McLaughlin is so brave.

The US says it agrees with Western allies that Iran's supply of explosive drones to Russia violates UN sanctions. Kyiv was struck by so-called "kamikaze" drones on Monday, unleashed by Russia but believed to be Iranian-made. The US agrees with the French and British assessment that the drones violate UN Security Council Resolution 2231, the US State Department said. That resolution, linked to Iran's nuclear accord, bars Iranian transfers of certain military technologies. Ukraine has identified the drones - or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) - as Iranian Shahed-136 weapons. They are called kamikaze drones after the Japanese fighter pilots who...

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week reported at least seven deaths among gay and bisexual men from the serious meningococcal disease outbreak in Florida and at least 24 cases of the disease. The agency described the situation in a news release as "one of the worst outbreaks of meningococcal disease among gay and bisexual men in U.S. history." While the CDC referenced those figures last Wednesday, data from the Florida Department of Health showed 44 cases of the disease in 16 counties in Florida as of Wednesday.

Russia typically supplies about 40% of Europe's natural gas, mostly by pipeline. Deliveries last year were around 155 billion cubic metres (bcm).... Germany, Europe's biggest consumer of Russian gas, which has halted certification of the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia because of the Ukraine war, could import from Britain, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands via pipelines. Norway, Europe's second biggest gas supplier behind Russia, has been raising production to help the European Union towards its target of ending reliance on Russian fossil fuels by 2027. Britain's Centrica (CNA.L) has signed a deal with Norway's Equinor (EQNR.OL) for...

Columbia Steel Casting Co., a Portland metal casting company that dates back more than a century, told state regulators Wednesday it plans to shut down operations at its North Portland foundry and lay off most of its workforce. The company said 225 employees, many represented by three different unions, would be laid off beginning in October. The filing indicated the closure would be permanent, though a letter to employees indicated that the company was in talks with “various companies” about buying the foundry and maintaining operations.

Russian prosecutors have asked a court to sentence the US basketball star Brittney Griner to almost 10 years in prison on drugs charges. The Olympic gold medallist was detained in February at an airport near Moscow when cannabis oil vape cartridges were allegedly found in her luggage. Cannabis is illegal in Russia for both medicinal and recreational use.

The plight of female basketball star Brittney Griner relating to her arrest on drug charges in Russia earlier this year is even more uncertain than ever. Yesterday in a court near Moscow, the legal prosecution of Ms. Griner finally began, with her trial kicking off in an abbreviated session. Prosecutors had intended to call on four witnesses, but only two showed up to give testimony. Cameras were not allowed in the courtroom, but footage of Griner entering the proceedings showed her sporting a white and black Jimi Hendrix t-shirt. Media reports after the court had adjourned explained that during her...

France has long been one of the world’s greatest champions of nuclear energy. France leads the European Union in nuclear production, with the most productive reactors in the bloc, and relies on nuclear power for a larger share of its energy mix than any other country in the world. It makes sense that France should lead the charge for nuclear energy development as they have long been the global poster child for safe and reliable nuclear energy – until now. A recent flurry of unexpected issues at the Électricité de France (EDF), the state nuclear power operator representing the largest...