Free Republic

A luxury yacht worth nearly $1 million plunged into the waters off the shore of Turkey just 15 minutes after its maiden voyage as panicked passengers and crew jumped overboard. Dramatic amateur video shows the vessel, named Dolce Vento, ease into the waters off the coast of Zonguldak in northern Turkey’s Eregli district Tuesday before lurching to one side and slowly sinking into the depths. It was the first time the approximately 85-foot boat, worth around $940,000, was launched after being delivered to its owner from Istanbul. The owner, captain and two crew members jumped overboard and safely swam to...

A newly uncovered archaeological site in southeastern Turkey may predate Göbeklitepe, long considered the world’s oldest known temple complex. The discovery at Mendik Tepe, located in the rural Payamlı neighborhood of Eyyübiye district in Şanlıurfa province, is offering early insights into the Neolithic era and reshaping timelines of early human settlement in the region. Researchers believe the site may date back to the very beginning of the Neolithic period, when humans first began shifting from mobile foraging to settled living. Excavation director Prof. Douglas Baird, from the University of Liverpool’s Department of Archaeology, said the team is investigating the early...

Muhammad Ali Jr. was detained by the Department of Homeland Security on Friday, weeks after he was detained at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport. U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted out, Friday. Wasserman Schultz’s tweet read, “On way home on DOMESTIC FLIGHT Muhammad Ali Jr. detained AGAIN by @DHSgov. Religiously profiling son of ‘The Greatest’ will not make us safe.”

Why the Term "Fakestinians" Resonates More Than Ever Since the Genocidal-Islamist October 7th Terrorist MassacreSince the October 7th Hamas-led massacre—a genocidal, premeditated assault targeting Israeli civilians—the Palestinian narrative has been increasingly exposed as manipulative, deceptive, and rooted in distortion. The term “Fakestinians” has gained traction not as an attack on individual Arabs, but as a critique of a manufactured identity and a propaganda machine that fuels violence and global misinformation. Here's why: 1. Invented National Identity Rooted in Historical RevisionismThe majority of so-called “Palestinians” are descendants of relatively recent Arab immigrants who moved into the British Mandate of Palestine during...

Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York, prosecuted Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen, and his office is investigating Rudy Giuliani.

The information that provided the basis for the warrant to search John Bolton’s home Friday was based on intelligence collected overseas by the CIA, according to people who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing criminal investigation. John Ratcliffe, the CIA director, provided Kash Patel, the FBI director, with limited access to the intelligence. It involved the mishandling of classified material by Bolton, the people said. The search of the home and office of Bolton, who was national security adviser during President Donald Trump’s first term, was a major escalation of a long-running inquiry into whether he collected...

FBI agents raided former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton’s DC-area home Friday morning in a high-profile national security probe, The Post can exclusively reveal. Federal agents busted into Bolton’s house in Bethesda, Md., at 7 a.m. in an investigation ordered by FBI Director Kash Patel, a Trump administration official told The Post. “NO ONE is above the law… @FBI agents on mission,” he said in a cryptic post to X shortly after the raid began. The probe — which is said to involve classified documents — was first launched years ago, but the Biden administration shut it down “for...

They Became Symbols for Gazan Starvation. But All 12 Suffer from Other Health Problems. A Free Press investigation found that the viral photos lacked important context: The subjects have cystic fibrosis, rickets, or other serious ailments. A photographer points his camera at a child in Gaza on July 24, 2025. (Khames Alrefi / Anadolu via Getty Images) By Olivia Reingold and Tanya Lukyanova 08.18.25 --Israel and AntisemitismFor the past several weeks, critics have fumed at The New York Times over a misleading photo of an 18-month-old boy in Gaza on its front page. It turns out that Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub...

"Israel is likely to launch another war with Iran before December--perhaps even as early as late August" Trita Parsi-"Foreign Policy' Commentary 8/11/2025... "So here is the great news. The moment your country is free Israel's top water experts will flood into every Iranian city... We will help Iran recycle water...we'll help Iran desalinate water... I urge you to be bold and brave...take to the streets...protest tyranny" Portions Of Israeli Prime Minister's Video Message To The People Of Iran 8/12/2025... The next round of the Israel-Iran War is on the way with signs of US-Israeli activity to appease nations neighboring Iran...

I’m old enough to remember when Barack Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize for — I give up. I can’t think of anything that Obama did to earn it just eight months into his presidency. For what it’s worth, the Nobel Peace Prize website says that the committee gave him the prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”In his second term, President Donald Trump has gotten real results in his efforts to bring peace to areas of the globe that desperately need it. And he’s done it in less time than it took for...

'If it were not for the Trump administration, Azerbaijan would have attacked, and we would have had severe instability in the region.'When President Donald Trump sat between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan last week, few people realized the significance of the meeting and the months of negotiations that took place beforehand to get two hostile nations to come together at the White House. Just weeks before the president and his team stepped in to maintain stability in the South Caucasus earlier this year, a full-scale invasion of Armenia’s southernmost province, Syunik, appeared imminent, according to Dr. Nerses Kopalyan, an...

Russian state propaganda has sharply intensified its bellicose rhetoric toward Azerbaijan amid reports of a possible lifting of Baku’s arms supply moratorium to Ukraine. A new “special military operation” could begin in the South Caucasus, propagandist Vladimir Solovyov stated on the program “Evening with Vladimir Solovyov” on the Russia-1 channel. According to him, NATO bases could appear in the Caspian Sea region, which he called “a very big problem.” With this, he was unmistakably alluding to Azerbaijan, which is close to Türkiye, a member of the North Atlantic Alliance. “And this is so dangerous that, from a geopolitical perspective, the...

Advance voting for Norway’s upcoming parliamentary election began on Monday, with 22 parties competing for 169 seats across eight electoral districts. Among the candidates are seven Kurds ...

Since returning to office in January 2025, President Donald Trump has shown a marked shift in his approach to South Asian geopolitics, displaying what analysts describe as a more favorable stance toward Pakistan while simultaneously straining relations with India. This represents a significant departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy that had increasingly favored New Delhi as a strategic counterweight to China. The most striking aspect of this policy shift appears to be intertwined with the Trump family’s business ventures. World Liberty Financial (WLF), founded in 2024, is no ordinary fintech startup. The company is 60% owned by Donald Trump’s...

The Debate This 16th Century Battle Created the Modern Middle East The pivotal legacy of the Battle of Chaldiran still reverberates 500 years later. Akhilesh Pillalamarri By Akhilesh Pillalamarri August 21, 2014 This 16th Century Battle Created the Modern Middle East Credit: Wikimedia Commons Chaldiran (چالدران) today is a small, sleepy town in northwestern Iran near the Turkish border. Yet, nearly five hundred years ago to the day, on August 23, 1514, the plains outside of Chaldiran groaned under the weight of men and horses and thundered with the sound of cannon-fire and muskets. The Battle of Chaldiran is one...

United States President Donald Trump has hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the White House for the signing of a peace treaty between the two longtime rivals. The US president said during a ceremony on Friday that he believed the two men would have a “great relationship” and that the agreement would bring peace and new economic opportunities to the region. list “I want to congratulate these two great people, Prime Minister Pashinyan and President Aliyev, for coming to Washington to sign this momentous joint declaration,” Trump said. “The countries of Armenia and...

Taiwan has a “far more robust” claim to statehood than Palestine does, former British prime minister Boris Johnson said during a conference in Taipei, Taiwan, according to a Tuesday report by British outlet The Telegraph…. “Never in the wildest dreams of former Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, can he have believed – when he and his colleagues instigated the horror of October 7, 2023 – that only 22 months later the United Kingdom itself would be so craven and pathetic as to fall for Hamas propaganda and to turn against Israel,” Johnson wrote in his column in the UK outlet Daily...

A new investigation raises serious allegations against Anas Zayed Patia, a Gazan photographer accused of staging suffering scenes to serve Hamas propaganda. A recent investigation by the German newspaper Bild has raised concerns about Gazan photographer Anas Zayed Patia, alleging that he was involved in staging humanitarian scenes used in pro-Hamas media narratives. Patia, whose work has appeared in various international newspapers and news agencies, is accused of selectively curating images to highlight suffering in Gaza in a way that may distort context and serve political messaging against Israel. One widely circulated image captured by Patia shows a group of...

Donald Trump is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington this week for a summit which could advance a much-anticipated peace agreement between the two. The meeting would send a strong signal to Moscow regarding the two countries' commitment to finding a solution without Russia. The leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia are set to meet US President Donald Trump for a peace summit in Washington on Thursday and Friday, which could advance a much-anticipated peace deal between the two countries. After almost four decades of bitter conflict, Baku and Yerevan might finally settle for peace in the region...

Turkish authorities have released footage showing a man attempting to set fire to the interior of Hagia Sophia, the 1,500-year-old Byzantine landmark in Turkey. Security guards at the historic site quickly intervened and stopped the arson attempt, preventing any major damage. The incident took place on July 11 but the video was only made public now, drawing renewed attention to Hagia Sophia’s Byzantine heritage The man tried to ignite the Bible behind the lectern According to a police statement, the suspect wore a red cap and partially covered his face as he ignited a Bible near a column behind several...