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One of the world’s most-wanted drug traffickers owns an unsuspecting ranch in a Riverside County valley — and the federal government is trying to seize it. Juan Carlos Valencia Gonzalez, 41, of Santa Ana, is the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, nearly five months after his stepfather, Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera, was killed during a Mexican military anti-drug operation. When Valencia was just a 26-year-old living in Orange County, he bought a ranch in Hemet, California, that was offered to him for just $250,000. The property sits in a ranching community surrounded by farmland and upscale homes, according...

Daily Readings from the USCCBTwenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time“Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Matthew 16:23This scene likely unfolds in or near Caesarea Philippi, a Gentile region steeped in pagan worship. There, at the mouth of a cave long associated with the entrance to the netherworld—believed by some pagans to be the very gate of Hades—Jesus had just questioned His disciples: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and then more directly, “But who do you say that I am?” (cf....

Join me to support Free Republic some posts from this blog are reposted on 'Free Republic' FR can now be supported via Venmo... Newsdump Update: The military government in the African nation of Niger speaking of a mutiny by soldiers overnight... Newsdump Alert: Russia Hits Back After Weeks Of Ukrainian Attacks On Russian Warehouses... Iranian President Urges "That Trump Not Create Turmoil" And "Israel Does Not Cause Insecurity And Aggresson'... Here we are again your host the winner of the Daughters of the American Revolution American History Award. It's right on my high school graduation program. Well historic events to...

In a year as chaotic, violent, and economically destructive as this one has been, it is interesting that, to many Americans, the great villain of 2026 is turning out to be a traffic camera.But, indeed, we are seeing visceral, cross-partisan opposition to so-called Flock cameras—named after the leading manufacturer of these automated license plate readers—take hold in communities across the country. And that opposition is, to be sure, entirely legitimate.Flock’s camera networks are based on the idea that, while it would obviously be illegal and unconstitutional for law enforcement at any and all levels to put GPS trackers in everyone’s...

A recent report from Stanford reviewed the latest employment data and found that, so far, AI has not resulted in large scale job destruction. Meanwhile, new hiring data from the Economic Times reveals that AI is actively fueling unprecedented job creation, with AI skills now powering nearly two-thirds of new Global Capability Center hiring. Together, these recent dispatches from the front lines of the labor market point to a calming reality: the much-dreaded AI job apocalypse hasn't materialized as a sudden extinction event.The (sometimes buried) lede: AI is delivering real impact, and it is broadly changing the nature of work....

Despite the tech industry’s conviction that the rise of AI is an inflection point that will change the course of humanity, many humans remain skeptical whether the new direction we’re headed in is the right one. As Statista's Felix Richter reports below, the pace at which AI seems to be taking over parts of our lives, whether we like it or not, is especially worrisome to many.In a recent Statista Consumer Insights survey, 31 percent of U.S. respondents said that they were worried about the speed at which AI is developing and 25 percent of respondents claimed to be avoiding...

Imagine for a moment that you are a terrorist, and you had a large number of rockets, guns, rifles, ammo, explosive devices, and grenades on hand, and more coming in all the time. Where would you store it all? Hamas recently came up with an answer to this question that would confuse and distress its leftist American supporters who have swallowed all the nonsense the establishment media propaganda outlets have inundated us with over the last quarter-century, about how Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance, and Muslims only resort to violence when they’re fighting back against oppression. That’s...

We’ve heard a lot about a “God gap” between Republican and Democratic voters in the United States – and for good reason. The gap between churchgoing conservatives and secular progressives, when measured by voting habits, has become conspicuously wide. In 1980, 40 percent of Democrats attended church regularly, with GOP voters a couple of points higher. Today, Republican church attendance is still in the low to mid-40s, while less than a quarter of Democrat voters are regular worshippers; only 17 percent of Harris voters in 2024 reported weekly attendance. Meanwhile, according to the Pew Research Center, roughly 40 percent of...

Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and a professor of religious studies at Elon University, made these statements during a recent sermon at The Community Church of Chapel Hill. During the sermon, Peters shared her personal experience of having two abortions, stating: “I can also attest that I felt God’s presence with me as I made the decision to end two pregnancies and I felt no guilt, no shame, no sin”. She delivered the message while wearing a pink stole emblazoned with the Planned Parenthood logo. Peters is known for arguing that abortion...

It’s hard to avoid the constant prophecies of doom about how AI is going to take our jobs – with some of these already being borne out. However, AI leaders such as Elon Musk have declared that the population will be supported by Universal Basic Income (UBI) instead, in which the government will financially support everyone through the huge revenues produced by AI. “Universal HIGH INCOME via checks issued by the Federal government is the best way to deal with unemployment caused by AI,” Musk posted on X earlier this year. Musk imagines that we wouldn’t be unemployed but rather...

Sweden is putting books, handwriting, and human attention back at the center of education—and reminding the rest of us that technology should serve children, not master them. For years, parents were told the future of education was digital. Out went textbooks. In came tablets. Out went handwriting. In came keyboards. Children barely old enough to tie their shoes were handed screens and told this was progress. Sweden embraced that revolution more enthusiastically than most countries. Now Sweden is hitting the brakes.Not, as some viral posts claim, by “banning digital classrooms.” The truth is actually more interesting. Sweden is deliberately...

Growing up on a small farm in Missouri, five miles outside of a town of 350 people, Glenn Jacobs viewed sports as his way out. He became a WWE star, and then, Knox County mayor. After eight years of leading Tennessee’s third-largest county, Jacobs is reflecting on his time in office. “My family didn’t really have a whole lot,” said Jacobs. “And if an unexpected expense came along, a car broke down, or something like that. Things get real tight. For my family, I always saw professional sports as my way out to a better life.” The son of a...

A GHOST WRITER is haunting the English language. The linguistic spectre can turn its hand to prose, poetry, journalese and corporate jargon. It is frightfully versatile: you can get it to mimic Shakespeare’s sonnets or a schlocky beach read; Ernest Hemingway’s taut prose or the office-printer manual. It is frightfully fast, churning out thousands of words a minute. (Hemingway rarely produced as many in a day, and required much more booze.) Wordsmiths are spooked. AI writing is everywhere. It is in your inbox and on your LinkedIn feed. It is all over the internet, drafting more than a third of...

Dolly Parton died Tuesday of cancer at the age of 80, surrounded by loved ones. She was loved like few other entertainers in American history. The story of how her most famous song, “I Will Always Love You,” came to be—and how Whitney Houston came to record it—may be the best of all the Parton stories you’ll hear as the nation grieves her loss. And celebrates her life. Parton was born dirt poor in 1946 to a loving family in the mountains of Tennessee. Her father couldn’t read or write, and often worked two jobs to make ends meet, but...

A Fremont resident who fought with armed home invaders on Friday grabbed a suspect’s firearm and used it to fatally shoot the burglar, according to police. Officers responded to the shooting around 12:12 p.m. at an apartment on San Pedro Drive. Fremont Police Department investigators said two teenagers forced their way into the home and assaulted two residents. “During a struggle, one occupant gained control of the suspect’s firearm and fired it towards them, fatally wounding one of the suspects,” Fremont PD wrote. The suspect who was shot succumbed to his injuries at a local trauma center. Suspect at large...

SpaceX is targeting Sunday, August 30 for Falcon Heavy’s launch of NASA’s Roman Space Telescope mission from Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A) at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Liftoff is targeted for 7:26 a.m. ET, with a backup opportunity available on Monday, August 31 at 7:22 a.m. ET. A live webcast of this mission will begin about one hour prior to liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. This is the first and third flight for the two first stage side boosters supporting this mission, which previously launched the GOES-U and Viasat-3 F3 missions. Following stage separation,...

Florida Republican Rep. María Elvira Salazar did a quick about-face on President Trump’s massive Venezuela oil deal Saturday — deleting a social media post blasting the pact before returning to declare it was “a great deal” for America and the Venezuelan people Salazar, who has been outspoken of communist Venezuelan President Delcy Rodríguez, took to X to declare that the pact would come to an end once President Trump’s term ends. “Any oil “deal” with Venezuela’s interim regime has an expiration date: the day President Trump leaves the White House,” Salazar wrote on the site. She later deleted the English...

The spur of St.Erasmo, looming above the village of Cesi... represents the best preserved example of a fortified high ground site in the Umbria region and, in general, one of the main sites of this type in central-southern Italy. This point was fortified, encircling an area of about 7000 sq.m with massive masonry in polygonal work, with a wall of about 400 linear metres, which alternates various types of polygonal work, from the more regular and well- smoothed that distinguishes the northern side, to more cursive ones, with not well-worked blocks, attested in several points, perhaps less visible on the...

CIA Director John Ratcliffe proposed a trilateral meeting between President Trump, Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky during his covert trip to Moscow earlier this week in an effort to end the war, two sources briefed on the matter told Axios.

Professor Edmund Whitmore takes the stage to make an argument most scientists won't say out loud: that we are probably alone in the universe. Not "we haven't found anyone yet." Actually alone. The only technological civilization that exists, or has ever existed, within any distance that matters.