Free Republic

Each year, Reporters Without Borders issues a worldwide ranking of nations based on the extent to which they protect or abridge press freedom. The group’s 2015 ranking was released this morning, and the United States is ranked 49th. That is the lowest ranking ever during the Obama presidency, and the second-lowest ranking for the U.S. since the rankings began in 2002 (in 2006, under Bush, the U.S. was ranked 53rd). The countries immediately ahead of the U.S. are Malta, Niger, Burkino Faso, El Salvador, Tonga, Chile and Botswana. Some of the U.S.’s closest allies fared even worse, including Saudi Arabia...

Conservative opponents of the Obama administration are urging supporters to resist the upcoming US census, saying it asks too many questions and reflects increasing government intrusion into private matters. The census, held every 10 years since 1790, is becoming a focal point for the growing anti-government movement in the US. The government will endeavour to count every person living in the US, regardless of legal, immigration or citizenship status. The count, which helps determine political representation and the distribution of hundreds of billions of dollars in government funds, is mandated by the constitution. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, a virulently conservative, anti-Obama...

Detective Robert Kole must ensure residents have moved out of their repossessed home, Cleveland

SAO PAULO, Brazil — Maybe they should have tried "John McCain." At least eight "Barack Obamas" who borrowed the Democratic presidential candidate's name to run in Brazilian local elections lost.

JERUSALEM – Reports that he received prior warning about yesterday's deadly London terror attacks "have no basis in reality," former Prime Minister Benjamin Netantyahu told WorldNetDaily this morning. "Absolutely not. The reports are entirely false," said Netanyahu, still in London on a trip to address a corporate investment conference yesterday at the Great Eastern hotel near the site of one of the blasts. Immediately following the attacks, media reports quoted an Associated Press story claiming British intelligence told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before yesterday's explosions it had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city. The AP...

Since handing out its first award in 1955 for a picture of a motorcyclist skidding out of control, the annual World Press Photo contest has grown into photojournalism's premier event. The 50th-anniversary exhibition, featuring prize-winning news images from 2004, opens tomorrow at the United Nations headquarters in New York. This year's Photo of the Year award went to the Indian photographer Arko Datta for his shot of a woman in Cuddalore, in southern India, lamenting the death of a relative killed in the tsunami. World Press Photo, a nonprofit foundation based in Amsterdam, also handed out prizes to more than...

BRUSSELS — A mixture of dismay, despair — and in one case an unflattering assessment of the IQ of Americans who voted for President Bush — dominated European newspapers yesterday. "How can 59,054,087 people be so dumb?" asked British Daily Mirror in a front-page banner headlin

Papers across the globe bid a mostly fond farewell to former US President Ronald Reagan, who died on Saturday after fighting Alzheimer's Disease for the past 10 years. Many editorials in Russia and Eastern Europe underline Mr Reagan's role in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union and the ending of the Cold War. Chinese papers also praise his legacy, but Iranian dailies complain that Mr Reagan supported and armed Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran in the 1980s. --- Reagan was a statesman who, despite all the differences between our countries, showed foresight and the will to stop...