Free Republic

Billionaire Barry Diller has come out as gay - but insists he enjoyed a full sexual relationship with fashion designer wife Diane Von Furstenberg. Diller, a renowned media exec who previously served as CEO for both Fox and Paramount, opened up about his homosexuality in a soul-baring article penned for New York magazine Tuesday. The 83-year-old credited with creating the Fox channel wrote of Von Furstenberg: 'While there have been a good many men in my life, there has only ever been one woman. 'And she didn’t come into my life until I was 33 years old.' Diller and Von...

After great reviews and buzz, Ryan Coogler's vampire film had an extraordinary second weekend at the box office. It's a victory for a wholly original big-budget film in a cinema landscape dominated by familiar franchises. …Featuring Michael B Jordan as a pair of twins defending their juke joint from vampires, Sinners is a horror film – but it's also a blues musical, a gangster thriller and a deeply-researched period drama about Mississippi in the 1930s. It doesn't stick to the rules of one particular genre, and it isn't based on existing intellectual property (IP), so audiences don't come to it...

The frontman of the influential, avant-garde rock band was heralded for his untamable voice and spiritDavid Thomas, the founder and frontman of the influential, avant-garde rock band Pere Ubu, died yesterday (April 24) at his home in Brighton, England, the band wrote on Facebook. The statement attributed his death to a long illness, adding, “MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be ‘thrown in the barn.’” Thomas was 71 years old. During their initial run from 1975 to 1982, Pere Ubu were an...

JoJo Siwa made a major discovery about her sexuality while competing on “Celebrity Big Brother UK.” “I’ve always told myself I’m a lesbian, but I think you — I think being here, I’ve realized, ‘Oh no, I’m not a lesbian, I’m queer,'” the pro dancer told co-star Danny Beard, a “RuPaul’s Drag Race UK” alum. “I think that’s really cool. I’m switching letters!” she said, referencing the LGBTQIA+ community. Siwa’s epiphany comes after she and her other housemate Chris Hughes engaged in flirtatious behavior throughout their time on the show, in which celebs move into a house and cut off...

The World Health Organization (W.H.O.) announced on Wednesday that its negotiators had completed a final draft of a proposed international legal document to govern pandemic response, to be voted on at the World Health Assembly in May. Negotiations on drafting the pandemic agreement took years of often heated debate as W.H.O. negotiators pressured countries to agree to provisions to share medical technology with poor countries at discounted prices and accept international authority on public health policies. The drafters have not yet apparently agreed on what kind of international legal document the agreement will be — a covenant, treaty, or other...

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.‘s visit to the FDA made headlines as he schooled employees on everything from past CIA experiments, mind control and the Deep State. Kennedy, who also warned FDA employees against becoming “sock puppets” of the industries they regulate, didn’t hold back.

The controversial Ethiopian politician and Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, practically begged the United States to rejoin the UN-run agency after President Trump made good on his vow to pull the plug on U.S. participation on his very first day back in office. President Donald Trump has signed an executive order to formally withdraw the United States from the WHO, citing its failure to hold China accountable and its role in pushing radical globalist health agendas that undermine American sovereignty. Trump’s executive order halted all U.S. funding to the WHO, redirecting those resources to...

MrBeast is the latest high-profile figure to attack President Trump’s punitive tariffs, which he says will make it “way cheaper” to produce his ethically sourced chocolate brand Feastables overseas. “Ironically because of all the new tariffs it is now way cheaper to make our chocolate bars we sell globally NOT in America,” the YouTuber, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, wrote on X on Tuesday. Donaldson noted it would be cheaper to produce his popular candy abroad because “other countries don’t have a 20%+ tariff on our cogs.” Feastables products are “designed” in Donaldson’s hometown of Greenville, North Carolina, and...

Among Richard Nixon’s many presidential priorities—ending the Vietnam War, thawing relations with China, expanding environmental protections—there was one initiative his team hoped to keep well under the radar: his secret “enemies list.” In an August 1971 memo, White House Counsel John Dean offered a piquant summary of the project’s goal: to “use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.” The formal list began in June 1971as a short memo of 20 names of people, most of whom had deep ties to the Democratic Party. Actor Paul Newman made an appearance, with the notation “Radic-Lib causes. Heavy Mc Carthy...

The formula used by the Trump administration to levy reciprocal tariffs contains a serious math error that over-inflates the impact by about a factor of four, economists at the American Enterprise Institute said. Why it matters: The conservative think tank says the error led to tariff rates massively higher than they should have been to achieve the goals the administration sought.

World Health Organization admitted that it has “no choice” but to cut its budget substantially. America’s exodus from the organization left the WHO with a budget gap of $600 million for FY2025, and it plans to cut expenditures by 20%. The United States provided 16.3% of all funding from FY2022-2023, amounting to $1.3 billion of the organization’s $7.89 billion. Trump believes the WHO partnered with China to hide the origins of COVID-19, and he is particularly disgruntled that the US was paying 10X more into the organization compared to China at a cost of $500 million annually. “The World Health...

He passed away on SaturdayAWARD-winning Irish writer Ken Bruen has died at the age of 74. The Galway crime writer published more than 50 pieces of work and is best known for his Jack Taylor novels. Most notably, he wont the prestigious Shamus Award for Best Crime Novel of the year. Nine of Bruen's novels were adapted into a long-running TV series in 2010, starring Iain Glen and Killian Scott. Bruen passed away on Saturday at University Hospital Galway. He was born in 1951 in Galway before studying in Gormanstown College in Co Meath. He went on to study at...

She died before she was 40, leaving behind a body of blazingly original short fiction set in America’s segregated south. But her reputation has been tarnished by accusations of racism. Amonth before she died aged 39, on 3 August 1964, of complications from the autoimmune disease lupus, the American writer Flannery O’Connor wrote from her home in Milledgeville, Georgia to a regular correspondent, the academic and nun Sister Mariella Gable: “The wolf, I’m afraid, is inside tearing up the place.” The “wolf” that O’Connor refers to is her illness, the name of which derives from the Latin. The disease can...

CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said Tuesday on CNN’s “News Central” that the percentage of Americans who believe the country is on the right track is “through the roof” in President Donald Trump’s second term. Enten said, “All we talk about is how unpopular Donald Trump is. But in reality, he’s basically more popular than he was at any point in term number one and more popular than he was when he won election back in November of 2024. What are we talking about? His net favorable rating right now comes in at minus four points. Compare that to...

Stepping into the van guarded by armed soldiers with five surgeons and nurses, Zheng Zhi didn’t know he was entering into a world that would haunt him for the next quarter of a century. Dr. Zheng, then a resident doctor at one of China’s largest military hospitals, knew little more than they were on a “secret military mission” near a military prison located around the northeastern Chinese city of Dalian. A light blue fabric covered the four sides of the vehicle, shielding it from any curious glances. When the door opened, four burly soldiers carried in a man whose limbs...

Utah State Senator Daniel Thatcher left the Republican Party this week to join the Forward Party, becoming the first sitting member of the Utah State Senate affiliated with the organization and its ballot line. In a statement released Friday, the Forward Party said that Thatcher changed his registration on the last day of the legislative session. Reasons provided from a speech Thatcher gave that afternoon include his disappointment with the Utah Republican Party’s leadership on voting rights and legislative priorities. Specifically, Thatcher voiced concerns over the passage of HB 300, which he believes undermines the vote-by-mail process, as well as...

On Wednesday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) wondered what the federal government is “doing as they find a new COVID virus in China and we’re not part of the World Health Organization?” Co-host Boris Sanchez asked, “The argument from supporters of DOGE is that the federal government, as the president put it, is bloated and overgrown, that spending levels are unsustainable, that the country would go, de facto, bankrupt, as Elon Musk put it, without drastic changes to spending. Where do you think DOGE should focus then? Where should we see cuts?” Dingell answered, “

The Indian Bar Association (IBA) sued WHO Chief Scientist Dr. Soumya Swaminathan on May 25, accusing her in a 71-point brief of causing the deaths of Indian citizens by misleading them about Ivermectin. Point 56 states, “That your misleading tweet on May 10, 2021, against the use of Ivermectin had the effect of the State of Tamil Nadu withdrawing Ivermectin from the protocol on May 11, 2021, just a day after the Tamil Nadu government had indicated the same for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.” https://science.thewire.in/health/tn-revises-protocols-leaves-out-Ivermectin-for-covid-patients/ Advocate Dipali Ojha, lead attorney for the Indian Bar Association, threatened criminal prosecution against...

BREAKING: The World Health Organization has warned that its largest global laboratory network is at risk of collapsing without additional funding.

At a gathering in Madrid, members of Europe’s far-right parties set aside any trepidation they might have about President Trump’s threats, and instead focused on a common enemy — the European Union. ...There was Marine Le Pen of France’s far-right National Rally; the Netherland’s populist, Geert Wilders; the leader of Italy’s League party, Matteo Salvini. All made clear that they shared Mr. Trump’s charge against what they see as “wokeism,” “gender theory,” and overweening environmentalism. For them, the American president had blown through the last barriers that had confined their parties to the political margins. The taboos had been toppled....