Free Republic

For about 30 hours, the illusion of transatlantic unity over Ukraine was maintained. Europe and Ukraine had demanded a deal on the 30-day unconditional ceasefire the Trump administration proposed two months earlier. European leaders said US President Donald Trump had personally backed their plan – and threat of sanctions if Russia declined to sign up by Monday – in a Saturday phone call, a picture of which they posted online from Kyiv. Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, even joined a chorus of US allies demanding Russia adhere to the ceasefire demand. But then Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke,...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Biden-era federal regulations on “ghost guns,” mail-order kits that allow people to build untraceable weapons at home – handing gun control groups a rare win at the conservative high court. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the opinion for a 7-2 majority that included both liberal and conservative justices in one of the most closely watched Supreme Court cases of the year. “Perhaps a half hour of work is required before anyone can fire a shot,” Gorsuch wrote. “But even as sold, the kit comes with all necessary components, and its intended function as instrument of...

Greenland’s prime minister said a planned visit to the island by US officials, including second lady Usha Vance, is “highly aggressive,” plunging relations to a new low after President Donald Trump vowed to annex the autonomous Danish territory. Vance, the wife of US Vice President JD Vance, will travel to Greenland this week to watch the island’s national dogsled race and “celebrate Greenlandic culture and unity,” according to a statement from the White House. National security adviser Mike Waltz is also expected to visit the territory this week, according to a source familiar with the trip. Greenland Prime Minister Mute...

In 2020, then-Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard introduced legislation calling on the federal government to drop all charges against Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who in 2013 revealed the existence of the bulk collection of American phone records by the NSA before fleeing to Russia. On Thursday, she refused under persistent questioning by Republican and Democratic lawmakers on the Senate Intelligence Committee to say whether she now believed Snowden’s actions were traitorous. Gabbard’s repeated dodges during her nomination hearing to become President Donald Trump’s director of national intelligence may have further imperiled a nomination that already appeared to be...

CNN has banned a conservative commentator from appearing on the network again after he told a Muslim journalist "I hope your beeper doesn't go off," an apparent reference to the spate of exploding pagers in Lebanon that killed members of the Hezbollah militant group last month. Ryan Girdusky made the comment during a heated debate with Mehdi Hasan, a prominent British-American broadcaster and an outspoken critic of Israel's war in Gaza, on "CNN Newsnight" with host Abby Phillip. The guests were discussing the racist jokes made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, which overshadowed former President Donald Trump's rally at New York's...

CNN will introduce a “metered” paywall early next month for online readers, part of a broader plan by chairman/CEO Mark Thompson to restructure the news giant into profitability.The plan was first reported Thursday by the New York Times. A CNN spokesperson declined to comment.The metered paywall will require frequent users to pay for access after clicking on a set number of articles. The model is common among major news outlets, including the New York Times and the New Yorker.CNN first hinted at the plan in July, when it said it would be launching a digital subscription service as a part...

If it had been up to Kasie Hunt, host of CNN This Morning, the rest of today's show could have been ditched, replaced by a non-stop loop of Trump making his claim, during last night's debate, that migrants are eating the pets of residents of Springfield, Ohio. She cited leftist late-night jester Stephen Colbert, and smirked at Trump "spouting baseless allegations about migrants eating pets." After playing it once, Hunt begged a show director: "Can we, can we just, Jimmy in the control room, can we play the pets bite one more time? Can we just watch that one more...

New York CNN — Moments after Donald Trump was rushed to safety following a failed assassination attempt at a Saturday night rally, some of his supporters turned toward the press pen with obscenities as they fingered reporters for blame.“This is your fault!” one attendee emphatically yelled, pointing at individual journalists as he approached the fence line separating them from attendees. “This is your fault!”“It is your fault!” exclaimed another.Axios reporter Sophia Cai, who quoted some in the crowd warning the press, “you’re next” and that their “time is coming,” even reported that a few rally goers tried to breach the...

Republicans are lashing out at CNN anchor Jake Tapper for his supposed efforts to "save" President Joe Biden during the first of two scheduled debates with former President Donald Trump......Tapper and CNN are also frequently accused by Republicans of harboring an anti-Trump bias, although both Trump and Biden agreed to the conditions of the debate, which include time limits for each candidate to speak, before it took place on Thursday.Biden seemingly lost his train of thought during the debate on Thursday while speaking about his plans for spending money saved by reversing Trump-era tax cuts that he said "benefited the...

Kate Cox, the woman who sued the state of Texas to have an abortion late in pregnancy after her preborn daughter Chloe was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, announced in an interview with CNN that she is pregnant again. She followed up that interview with a speech at a pro-abortion event on the anniversary of the overturning of Roe v. Wade with Kamala Harris. “You may remember, she sued Texas last year for a court-approved abortion to end her dangerous pregnancy,” began CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “At the time her baby was diagnosed with a deadly genetic condition and it put her...

Chris Wallace, the moderator of the sole debate between President Biden and President Trump in 2020, said that lost the presidency due to his performance that night. Biden and Trump will face off against each other Thursday in a CNN-hosted debate in Atlanta. “I actually think it was one of the most consequential presidential debates in history,” Wallace said Wednesday on “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” on CNN. “I actually think Donald Trump lost the presidency in that debate by his performance. He dropped about 4 or 5 points. He never regained it.” Wallace, who worked at Fox News in...

They opened the box on a Sunday in late March, getting their first look at Asfan Mohammed since he departed India for Russia four months earlier. He was better dressed than when he’d left – a black suit, white shirt, tie and shoes replacing the casual attire he’d worn when family and friends saw him off. But he had to be buried in line with his Muslim beliefs, so his body would need to be prepared; the neat clothes removed. ...videos on YouTube about job opportunities in Russia gave Asfan new hope, and he contacted an employment agency, his brother...

In a surprise move, an Illinois judge has removed former President Donald Trump from the state’s ballot based on the 14th Amendment’s so-called “insurrectionist ban.” The decision is paused, giving Trump a short period of time to appeal.

“Putin is trying to court the MAGA GOP in the United States. In fact, one of the leaders of the MAGA GOP is in Moscow tonight.” “It's the man you see here with the MAGA leader, Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson, possibly there in Moscow to interview Putin, definitely there as a Putin supporting celebrity.”

Russia has lost a staggering 87 percent of the total number of active-duty ground troops it had prior to launching its invasion of Ukraine and two-thirds of its pre-invasion tanks, a source familiar with a declassified US intelligence assessment provided to Congress told CNN. Still, despite heavy losses of men and equipment, Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to push forward as the war approaches its two-year anniversary early next year and US officials are warning that Ukraine remains deeply vulnerable. A highly anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive stagnated through the fall, and US officials believe that Kyiv is unlikely to make...

Ukrainian forces have carried out their most complex and ambitious operations to date against Russian military facilities in the occupied region of Crimea, officials in Kyiv have said. Special forces landed on the western shore of Crimea, near the settlements of Olenivka and Mayak, in a joint operation with the country’s Navy, according to Ukrainian Defense Intelligence. “While performing the task, Ukrainian defenders clashed with the occupier’s units. As a result, the enemy suffered losses among its personnel and destroyed enemy equipment,” the intelligence agency said. While they were there, the Ukrainian unit also raised the national flag, it added.

CNN — Federal prosecutors have obtained an audio recording of a summer 2021 meeting in which former President Donald Trump acknowledges he held onto a classified Pentagon document about a potential attack on Iran, multiple sources told CNN, undercutting his argument that he declassified everything.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the combative boss of Russia’s Wagner private military group, relishes his role as an anti-establishment maverick, but signs are growing that the Moscow establishment now has him pinned down and gasping for breath. Prigozhin placed a bet on his mercenaries raising the Russian flag in the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, albeit at a considerable cost to the ranks of his force and probably to his own fortune. He spent heavily on recruiting as many as 40,000 prisoners to throw into the fight, but after months of grinding battle and staggering losses he is struggling to replenish Wagner’s...

A group of Russian wives and mothers have called on President Vladimir Putin to stop sending their husbands and sons “to the slaughter” by forcing them to join assault groups without adequate training or supplies. In a video shared by the independent Russian Telegram channel SOTA, the women said their loved ones had been “forced to join assault groups” at the beginning of March despite having just four days training since their mobilization in September. The video shows the women holding a sign in Russian that reads, “580 Separate Howitzer Artillery Division,” dated March 11, 2023. “My husband… is located...

Russia carried out a test of an intercontinental ballistic missile that appears to have failed while President Joe Biden was in Ukraine on Monday, according to two US officials familiar with the matter. Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through deconfliction lines, one official said. Another official said that the test did not pose a risk to the United States and that the US did not view the test as an anomaly or an escalation. The test of the heavy SARMAT missile – nicknamed the Satan II in the West and capable of delivering multiple nuclear...