Free Republic

Russian President Vladimir Putin is urging women to have as many as eight children as the number of dead Russian soldiers continues to rise in his war with Ukraine, worsening the country's population crisis. Addressing the World Russian People's Council in Moscow on Tuesday, Putin said the country must return to a time when large families were the norm. "Many of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers had seven, eight, or even more children," Putin said. "Let us preserve and revive these excellent traditions. Large families must become the norm, a way of life for all of Russia's people. The family is...

Russian President Vladimir Putin made his first comments on the recent attack by Hamas on Israel during talks in Moscow with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani on Oct. 10. During the meeting, which was filmed by Russian state-owned media, Putin claimed that the situation was "a clear example of the failure of U.S. policy in the Middle East." Putin alleged that the U.S. has not taken into account "the fundamental interests of the Palestinian people," adding that it is necessary to create an "independent sovereign Palestinian state."This requires the implementation of "the decisions of the UN Security Council" on the...

New York Rep. Mike Lawler on Sunday warned that hard-line Republican colleague Matt Gaetz's plan to call a vote on removing Speaker Kevin McCarthy would be "destructive to the country" and further delay conservatives' work on long-term government funding bills. "Nobody in our conference disagrees with the need to do single-subject spending bills. Nobody disagrees with the need to cut spending," Lawler told ABC "This Week" co-anchor Jonathan Karl. "In fact, it's one of the biggest reasons why I ran." Gaetz, in a separate interview on "This Week," denounced a temporary funding bill passed by Congress on Saturday to avert...

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation appears to be zeroing in on Sidney Powell, a conspiracy-theory-obsessed lawyer who was a key figure in Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. On Monday, Bernie Kerik — a longtime Rudy Giuliani associate and a Trump ally who worked on the Giuliani-led legal team challenging Trump’s 2020 defeat — sat with special counsel investigators for a roughly four-and-a-half-hour interview, according to his lawyer Tim Parlatore. (Parlatore previously served as a top attorney to Trump.) “Based on the contents of their questions, and my understanding of criminal law, the main individual who was discussed...

In January 2023, a polar bear in Alaska attacked and killed a mother and her one-year-old son, the first fatal mauling of its kind in over 30 years. However, these types of interactions between humans and animals may become increasingly common due to the growing threat of climate change. Here's everything you need to know: Why might the polar bear attack be attributed to climate change? Polar bears have been acutely affected by the warming planet because arctic ice is rapidly shrinking. "It is rare for polar bears to attack humans, although anecdotal evidence suggests the frequency is increasing," David...

One way to do that would be to restructure some food companies, distribution warehouses and retailers as a public utility, like how the energy grid, sewers and water delivery are managed. If some processing plants, distribution warehouses and retailers were owned by government, they could use subsidies to buy grains, legumes like beans and meat directly from farmers, and the resulting goods could be made available free to everyone. Programs could alternatively take the form of universal school meals and open-to-all cafeterias that serve meals throughout the day.

Republicans and Democrats around the nation are statistically tied when it comes to which party voters prefer to control the House of Representatives — but Republicans have a 6-point lead in key battleground states, according to a Penn Program on Opinion Research and Election Studies/SurveyMonkey poll of over 100,000 likely voters. Nationally, 49% said they would vote for the Democratic candidate if the election for House were being held today and 51% said they would vote for the Republican candidate. But more concerning for Democrats — with just 18 days to go before the election — is that the Republican...

it turns out that zooming in on an ant’s face is an absolute nightmare. A close-up photograph of an ant was sent in as a submission to the 48th annual Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition — and the results are freaky. The tight shot of the tiny insect, captured by Dr. Eugenijus Kavaliauskas of Taurage, Lithuania, shows the ant’s beady red eyes, angry expression and what appears to be long, sharp teeth.

Liberals are perplexed by conservatives' increasing use of the word "groomer" to describe opponents of the Florida parental rights law and similar policies elsewhere. They are right that the term is hyperbolic at best and worst conflates a host of complex issues with pedophilia. But liberals (and conflict-averse conservatives) are wrong to confidently predict it will necessarily be perceived by persuadable people as QAnon craziness. It's not entirely clear that many such people even know what QAnon is. And it is just as risky for liberals to reduce all concerns about child pornography and age-appropriateness of sex education to Pizzagate....

'It’s unreal how he was treated just because he’s a little bit more tan than I am....' Marc Wilson / PHOTO: Bulloch County Sheriff's Office (Ben Sellers, Headline USA) As desperately trailing Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams scrambles for a winning message to avoid yet another defeat at the hands of Gov. Brian Kemp, activists are using a road-rage killing as a rallying cry to attack the state’s self-defense laws. On Aug. 31, William “Marc” Wilson, a 21-year-old biracial black man, was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the shooting death of 17-year-old Haley Hutcheson. Wilson claimed that a pickup truck...

One of Richelle Brooks' dreams is to send her two children to college without taking out any loans. She knows firsthand how taking out a loan to pursue higher education can amount to crippling debt. "My daughter wants to be an anesthesiologist. My son wants to be a computer engineer. Two little Black kids want this for their future," Brooks, 35, told Insider. "And this country is telling me it's impossible for me to get them there. It's a terrible, hopeless feeling." Brooks borrowed $203,000 collectively to attend undergrad, graduate, and doctoral studies. And over the years, has accumulated over...

Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly and publicly called for the release of an FBI affidavit that formed the basis of the bureau's search of his Mar-a-Lago club and private residence. On Thursday, a federal judge granted Trump's request, ordering the release of a redacted version of the affidavit. But legal and national-security experts say the former president should be careful what he wishes for and that the document's release could land him in more hot water. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart ruled that the Justice Department must file a redacted version of the affidavit to the public docket by noon...

Mike Pence's aides ensured all government documents were indexed and boxed up before he left office. Two of his top aides oversaw the process, The New York Times reported. The process falls distinctly out of line with reports of Trump's handling of government documents. Former Vice President Mike Pence was organized about making sure all White House documents were preserved and packed up, The New York Times reported on Saturday. His aides, according to The Times, ensured all documents were indexed and boxed up. His chief of staff and his counsel — Marc Short and Greg Jacob, respectively — oversaw...

Voters in Kansas are the first in the US after the collapse of Roe v Wade to decide whether to protect the right to abortion care, a high-stakes test that could have a major impact on abortion access in the heart of the country. The outcome of the election on 2 August will determine whether the state’s constitution explicitly denies the right to abortion access in Kansas. Anti-abortion state lawmakers are likely to pass severe restrictions on abortion care if the amendment passes. One poll from co/efficient shows the election is likely to be close, with 47 per cent of...

The Jan. 6 committee has released more evidence showing then-President Donald Trump's reluctance to harshly condemn the violent mob of his supporters the day after their deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol. (snip) Among the lines crossed out were a reference to how he was “sickened” by the violence and a call by Trump for the Justice Department to prosecute the rioters.

Alex Holder said that during the interviews he conducted for his Discovery+ docuseries Unprecedented, Donald Trump never wavered from his contention that the election was stolen from him, while his children, including Ivanka, supported their father’s post-election challenge. Yet Holder’s access to the First Family isn’t the only reason that the January 6th Committee was interested in his footage, something that put him in the spotlight this week after news broke that his materials had been subpoenaed and he appeared for a private deposition

Mike Pompeo, former Secretary of State under President Donald Trump, has been summoned by a Spanish court to explain an alleged US government plot to assassinate WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, according to ABC Spain. The alleged plot was first revealed by Yahoo News in September, which reported that senior CIA and Trump administration officials discussed possibly kidnapping or killing Assange after being angered by Wikileaks' publication of sensitive CIA hacking tools. The discussions took place "at the highest levels" of the Trump administration, a former senior counterintelligence official told the outlet, with officials even requesting "sketches" or "options" for how...

Multiple embarrassing traffic stops. A credible accusation of insider trading. Photos of him sporting hoop earrings and a bra. A video of a male staffer’s hand near his crotch. Another video showing him jokingly but nakedly humping the upper body of potentially the same man—his cousin. And possibly more to come. Few in politics have seen anything like the ever-worsening public relations trainwreck that has consumed the political career of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-NC). The unrelenting pile-up of damaging stories, insiders say, is the clear handiwork of political players determined to take out the 26-year old MAGA hero in the...

Jimmy Nsubuga Tue, May 10, 2022, 10:27 AM·3 min read Watch: Nick Ferrari claims he is a person of colour in bizarre interview Radio host Nick Ferrari has been criticised after claiming he is a “person of colour” during a debate about racism. The white LBC presenter was hosting a segment on his show in response to reports in the Times that NHS leaders are being offered non-mandatory courses on micro-aggression behaviour. One course, called "Awareness of your intent" is focused on "creating social justice" and is delivered by Nova Reid, who has previously said that "regular exposure to racial...

ROME—Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Pope Francis has floated the idea that he wants to take a trip to Kyiv to try to broker a ceasefire. But now he says he would prefer to go to Moscow to try to talk some sense into Vladimir Putin, who he has not outwardly condemned in the now nearly three-month-old war and only did so lightly in a lengthy interview with an Italian newspaper. “I feel that before going to Kyiv, I must go to Moscow,” he told Corriere Della Sera in an interview that ran Tuesday. But the meeting...