Free Republic

There was trouble at a concert at Warsaw’s National Philharmonic Hall celebrating Antoni Wit’s 80th birthday and 60 years of service to music in Poland. Climate activists mounted the stage shouting ‘This is an alarm. Our world is burning. We are the last generation that can stop the climate catastrophe. We demand radical investments in public transport.’ Wit, still conducting, grabbed a ‘Last Generation’ banner from a young woman before they were ejected. Watch. https://twitter.com/i/status/1764363480944071095

The painting depicts Arthur Balfour, author of the 1917 declaration that established Britain’s aim to create a Jewish state in Palestine. Members of the activist group Palestine Action spray-painted and slashed a portrait of British former Prime Minister Arthur James Balfour on view at Trinity College, University of Cambridge. The protest action was documented in a video posted to Instagram today, March 8, by the organizing group along with other pro-Palestine accounts. In the video, a brown-haired individual wearing a dark blue puffer jacket sprays what appears to be red aerosol paint on the work, a 1914 painting by Anglo-Hungarian...

A judge has ordered the Department of Homeland Security to hand over sensitive material about Prince Harry’s immigration papers for him to review while he decides whether to make them public. Judge Carl Nichols told DHS that its arguments so far were ‘insufficiently detailed’ for him to make a decision. He asked the agency, which oversees immigration, to give him declarations explaining the ‘particular harm’ that would arise from the disclosure of the Duke of Sussex’s visa application. The development came after a hearing at the court in Washington last month in which Judge Nichols heard from DHS and the...

The UK’s first transgender national news anchor has reported “Harry Potter” author JK Rowling to the police for “misgendering” her as a “man” on social media. India Willoughby, 58, reported having “contacted Northumbria Constabulary” over a series of X posts Sunday by the outspoken author. Rowling, also 58, called Willoughby “just a man reveling in his misogynistic performance of what he thinks ‘woman’ means: narcissistic, shallow and exhibitionist.” Rowling had “definitely committed a crime,” Willoughby alleged to Byline TV Wednesday, claiming the best-selling author was guilty of a “cut-and-dry offense.”

An Afghan judge who has been forced to go into hiding from the Taliban was wrongly refused relocation to the UK, the High Court has ruled. The anonymous claimant prosecuted Taliban and Islamic State group members, and has since avoided an assassination attempt, the court heard. The UK government argued he had not worked closely enough with the UK in Afghanistan to qualify for relocation. A UK government spokesperson says officials are "considering" the ruling. The Afghan judge is currently in hiding in an unspecified third country with his wife and children, two of whom are in poor health, it...

<p>Britain’s top officer has warned that tackling violence against women and girls needs the same level of funding as terrorism policing as he faces questions over the recruitment of Sarah Everard’s killer to police.</p><p>Sir Mark Rowley’s comments came as the mayor of London branded the recruitment of Wayne Couzens and repeated failures to stop him as “one of the most shattering accounts of failure in British policing history”.</p>

Jeremy Hunt has revealed an ambition to abolish National Insurance (the payroll tax) for workers as a centrepiece of the Conservative re-election bid. In his Budget speech on Wednesday, the Chancellor criticised “double taxation” by income tax and NI, vowing to “end this unfairness”. He lowered the rate of employee NI from 10 per cent to eight per cent from next month, benefiting 27 million workers and matching a similar 2p drop in the autumn. Downing Street and Treasury sources confirmed that the aim was to get rid of the employee element of NI entirely, suggesting it could be a...

Rochdale By-Election 2024: Results A by-election on Thursday 29 February was called following the death of Sir Tony Lloyd MP. Election Results: (Turnout: 39.7%) (Majority 5697) Votes Workers Party of Britain George Galloway (Elected) 12335 Independent David Tully 6638 Conservative Paul Ellison 3731 Labour Azhar Ali 2402 Liberal Democrat Iain Donaldson 2164 Reform UK Simon Danczuk 1968

A historical all-ladies swimming pond has held a vote to make a decision on whether to be inclusive to transgender women. Hampstead Health's all-ladies swimming pond has been around for decades and it's remained a popular spot for women looking to cool off. This week, a committee voted on a policy that would've rejected transgender women. The committee voted against the policy, meaning the pond will be inclusive to transgender swimmers. The pond, which opened in 1926, is located in North London. It's one of England's biggest open-air swimming spots. A "large majority" of the pond's members were in favor...

A 62-year-old man from Germany has, against medical advice, been vaccinated 217 times against Covid, doctors report. The bizarre case is documented in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal. The shots were bought and given privately within the space of 29 months. The man appears to have suffered no ill effects, researchers from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg say. ...Evidence for 130 of the jabs was collected by the public prosecutor of the city of Magdeburg, who opened an investigation with the allegation of fraud, but no criminal charges were brought.

The U.K. has a new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Tech and the Digital Economy, Conservative MP Saqib Bhatti, and the politician seems very enthusiastic when talking about things like “cooperation” with Big Tech, particularly in terms of elections. That’s because, critics will say, those in power want to absolutely control the conversation, what can and can’t be said online, and thus directly influence the vote; whereas those in power say, it’s all just a perfectly benevolent effort to make sure misinformation plays no part in the campaign.

British police have failed to solve a solitary burglary in almost half of the neighbourhoods in England and Wales over the past three years, an analysis of policing data has found. Despite a much-heralded and historic pledge signed by all 43 police constables in England and Wales in 2022 to have officers personally visit the scene of all home burglaries, there has been a decline in the overall solve rate and 48 per cent of all neighbourhoods have seen zero burglaries solved over the previous three years, the Daily Telegraph reports. According to Home Office data, the charge rate for...

Galloway sworn in as the newest Member of Parliament...The next election will be about Muslims, George Galloway said as he was sworn into the Commons as the new MP for Rochdale. The controversial politician said it was “clear” to him that Rishi Sunak had identified “Muslims and Gaza” as the “wedge issue” that he intended to use as his “only hope of re-election”. He vowed to target Angela Rayner’s Ashton-under-Lyne seat, claiming to have “at least 15,000 supporters” in the Greater Manchester constituency – enough to overturn the deputy Labour leader’s majority of about 4,000. At an impromptu press conference...

Sometimes, it’s helpful to receive the occasional reminder that incompetent politicians and toxic identity politics are not the sole purview of the United States. As it happens, our allies across the pond are just as capable of stoking pointless factionalism among minorities and white residents as our own homegrown politicians. The politician providing us this example today is British far-left Parliamentary candidate George Galloway, whose different letters sent to his Muslim and Caucasian constituents are going viral for all the wrong reasons. As seen in this post on the social media platform X, which already garnered 2.3 million views, Galloway...

The detective who led the Sarah Everard murder inquiry has told the BBC about the moment she found out killer Wayne Couzens was a police officer. Ms Everard, 33, was abducted, raped and murdered by serving Metropolitan Police officer Couzens as she walked home in London in 2021. Det Ch Insp Katherine Goodwin tells of the "shock" of telling her boss "you're not going to believe this". She made the comments in a new BBC documentary that will air on Tuesday. The detective recounted how officers had traced a name linked to a car seen in CCTV footage. The footage...

At the start of World War II, the invading Wehrmacht made swift progress through France and by 14 June 1940, they had occupied Paris. They wasted no time in raising their military flag on the Eiffel tower and the swastika above the Palace of Versailles. Naturally, such triumphant use of these flags was highly symbolic. Versailles had been the venue both for the Proclamation of the German Empire (Deutsche Reichsgründung) in January 1871 following the Franco-Prussian War, and, on 28 June 1919, it had been where the Treaty which bore its name was to conclude the First World War. Hitler...

Free speech concerns have been raised after a Leeds man was sentenced two years in prison after being found guilty of inciting racial hatred with a library of stickers. Sam Melia, 34, was in charge of an online collection of downloadable stickers that contained anti-immigration messages for activists of the “Hundred Handers” group. At Leeds Crown Court last month, Melia was also found guilty of encouraging racially aggravated criminal damage because his collection was involved in multiple “stickering” incidents. During the trial, jurors were told that members of the group would access the downloadable stickers that they could download and...

To the authentically British backdrop of drizzle, a distant heckler and the piccolo patter of a Downing Street tree sparrow, Rishi Sunak confronted the 'poison' of Islamist and far-Right extremism. It needed saying and it needed saying well. Our Prime Minister did that. Arc-lit by TV cameras as Friday afternoon slipped into evening, a deadly serious Sunak said: 'This situation has gone on long enough. Our great achievement in building the world's most successful multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy is being deliberately undermined. There are forces here at home trying to tear us apart. We must not allow that to happen.' 'Forces...

Is it possible to speak obvious truths without being chastised? It depends entirely on whether that truth supports The Narrative™ or challenges it. The most powerful tool to enforce compliance with the dominant Elite ideology is the requirement that the language we use be chosen and defined by that Elite. Legally and common sensically everybody knows that men do not belong in women's sports and women's spaces. So for those who want to make that happen the answer is to redefine the word "women" to include everyone who wants to be one. Hollow out words and pour in whatever meaning...

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin warned on Thursday that NATO will be drawn into war if Ukraine is defeated by invading Russian forces. Speaking at a Republican-led House Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss his recent absence while hospitalized for complications from prostate cancer surgery, Austin predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not "stop" if Moscow wins the war in Ukraine. Austin made the remarks after being asked about Congress failing to approve a $60 billion military aid package for Ukraine, as requested by President Joe Biden. Despite significant bipartisan support for Ukraine aid, the measure has stalled amid...