Free Republic

A stubborn patient has refused to leave her Florida hospital room even though she was discharged by doctors five months ago, a lawsuit alleges. Charlotte Paynter has allegedly been unlawfully occupying Room 373 at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital since October, according to a civil lawsuit filed by the hospital on March 3. Paynter, 69, was admitted to the medical facility for treatment for an undisclosed condition last year, the hospital said in the complaint obtained by the Daily Mail. Doctors issued a formal discharge order on October 6 after it was determined that she no longer needed acute care services, the...

The U.S. Navy’s newest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), has been pulled from active operations in the Red Sea and sent to Naval Support Activity Souda Bay in Crete following a March 12 onboard fire and mounting system strain after months of sustained combat operations. The fire, which broke out in the ship’s main laundry area, injured sailors, damaged living spaces, and required hours of firefighting and recovery efforts. After nearly nine months at sea – one of the longest and most demanding deployments in recent Navy history – there is growing concern that the Ford could now...

By Dr. John Bergsma (intro, first and second readings) and Dr. Brant Pitre (Gospel Reading) This Sunday’s readings might seem bipolar or schizophrenic. We begin Mass with exultant cheering as we relive Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We end the Readings on a note of solemn silence, unable to process the reality of one of the most egregious abuses of judicial process and power in human history, in which the only innocent man ever to live is executed. What does it all mean? Despite a few mysterious prophetic texts that seemed to intimate this possibility, the idea that the Messiah...

Most of the country saw population growth slow down or even reverse in 2025, new data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals. Of the country’s more than 3,000 counties, about 80% saw declining population or slower growth between July 2024 and July 2025. Counties that were already shrinking also saw that trend accelerate. One major reason for the drop, according to the agency, was a significant decline in international immigration to the U.S. in the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term. The biggest swings were along the U.S.-Mexico border. Laredo, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and El Centro, California, all...

For generations, the conventional wisdom went something like this: serious money lives in New York. The serious decisions about who gets capital, who gets to list on an exchange, who gets to participate in the grand machinery of American finance—all of it emanated from a few square miles of lower Manhattan, governed by institutions so entrenched they seemed geological. Wall-Street wasn’t just an address. It was a statement about where power lived and who held it. That era is ending. And the remarkable thing isn’t simply that it’s ending — it’s why it’s ending, and what that tells us about...

Explanation: Robert H. Goddard, considered the father of modern rocketry, was born in Worcester Massachusetts in 1882. As a 16 year old, Goddard read H.G. Wells' science fiction classic "War Of The Worlds" and dreamed of space flight. By 1926 he had designed, built, and flown the world's first liquid fuel rocket. Launched 100 years ago on March 16, 1926 from his aunt Effie's farm in Auburn Massachusetts, the rocket, dubbed "Nell," rose to an altitude of 41 feet in a flight that lasted about 2 1/2 seconds. In this posed photo, Goddard stands next to the 10 foot tall...

Tens of thousands of people have gathered in London to march against the far right in the biggest multicultural demonstration in UK history. Organisers claimed half a million people had travelled to the capital for the Together Alliance march. Police estimated the turnout closer to 50,000, although they admitted it was difficult to judge due to how spread out the crowd was. Beginning in Park Lane, more than 100 charities, campaign groups and trade unions marched to Trafalgar Square via Whitehall in a show of unity against far-right politics. The protest was in response to Tommy Robinson’s “unite the kingdom”...

NBA and NFL players are involved in a truly remarkable story after being scammed by a catfish pretending to be a famous adult actress. The NFL Players Association is now speaking up and make players aware of shady characters. The nature of the statement from the NFL PA stems from a fraudster targeting many stars and their personal information. The Athletic detailed a shocking account recently regarding various NBA and NFL players being targeted by a man that posed as an OnlyFans creator. Kwamaine Jerell Ford allegedly pretended to approach top athletes and gain their trust for the purpose of...

A man was killed and several others were wounded by an Iranian ballistic missile fired at central Israel late Friday, the sixth attack that Iran launched on the country throughout the day. The missile carried a cluster bomb warhead, spreading bomblets over a wide area. A bomblet impact in Tel Aviv killed a 52-year-old security guard who was not in a bomb shelter at the time. The victim was named as Vyacheslav Vidmant. Vidmant was employed by the Tel Aviv municipality to secure residential buildings that had been evacuated in the same location after a deadly Iranian attack on the...

"Activist and trial lawyer attacks on herbicides imperil US and global health and nutrition" President Trump recently signed an Executive Order invoking the Defense Production Act to ensure increased domestic supplies of elemental phosphorus – a critical component of glyphosate-based herbicides that are vital for America’s non-organic crop productivity and thus national security. The EO has rekindled anti-pesticide activism and public concern about glyphosate, which used to be the primary ingredient in Roundup for home use but was changed following numerous class-action lawsuits. It’s also created internal conflicts within the “Make America Healthy Again” movement because the President and HHS...

California Governor Gavin Newsom sits down with CNN's Dana Bash to talk about the future of the Democratic Party. He says the party should be "less prone to spending disproportionate amount of time on pronouns, identity politics. More focused on tabletop issues, things that really matter — the stacking of stress in terms of the electricity bills and childcare costs and health care and obviously housing costs."

In Georgia, the state Court of Appeals ruled that the Democrat-majority of the Fulton County Board of Commissioners has the discretion to reject Republican nominees it doesn't like. Though the statute says the board "shall make appointments from a list of nominees submitted by each Party," Presiding Judge Anne Barnes decided that "the power to appoint is inherently discretionary. If the Democrat majority doesn't like the nominees the Republicans name it can reject them until more acceptable nominees are named." Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon called the ruling "predictable but outrageous. The integrity of the whole election process is...

As the MAGA faithful gather for another day of CPAC in Grapevine, Texas, they are openly celebrating what they believe is tantamount to a major midterms victory: keeping President Donald Trump from endorsing John Cornyn ahead of May’s GOP Senate primary runoff. MAGA world is taking a victory lap — and fresh comfort — in the receipts: A lack of significant spending and polling so far by not only Cornyn’s campaign, but also the NRSC and One Nation, the Senate Leadership Fund-aligned nonprofit. It amounts to a pattern the MAGA cohort reads as Washington making peace with a matchup between...

The number of Americans claiming asylum in Canada has jumped dramatically, as voters who dislike Donald Trump and his policies flee north of the border. In 2025, there were 1,850 asylum applications for Americans seeking to move to Canada - more than double the 700 in 2024, the year Trump won his second presidential election. Immigration data, viewed by the Daily Mail, shows that US asylum claims are approaching figures not seen since Trump's last term, with a record 2,535 applying for asylum in 2017, at the height of the anti-Trump 'Resistance' movement. Prior to Trump taking office in 2017,...

28 March 2026 Saturday of the 5th week of Lent Mission Basilica San Juan Capistrano Church CaliforniaReadings at MassLiturgical Colour: Violet. Year: A(II).First readingEzekiel 37:21-28I will bring them home and make them one nationThe Lord says this: ‘I am going to take the sons of Israel from the nations where they have gone. I shall gather them together from everywhere and bring them home to their own soil. I shall make them into one nation in my own land and on the mountains of Israel, and one king is to be king of them all; they will no longer...

[Catholic Caucus] Leo XIV Praises Catholicism as State Religion in MonacoIn a brief visit today to the second smallest European state, Monaco (the smallest being the Vatican itself), Pope Leo XIV had many interesting remarks, including the following:You are among the few countries in the world to have the Catholic faith as a state religion. This faith places us before the sovereignty of Jesus, who calls Christians to become in the world a kingdom of brothers and sisters – a presence that does not cast down but raises up, that does not separate but connects, always ready to protect every...

[Catholic Caucus] Cardinal Roche’s Unity Means SubmissionArthur Roche has spent years doing the sort of damage that only a curial functionary can do well: dressing coercion in the language of pastoral concern, dressing rupture in the language of continuity, and then acting scandalized when Catholics notice the costume slipping. In his new OSV interview, he says liturgical debates should be viewed through the lens of unity, not personal preference; he repeats that the older rite was being used against the reform of Vatican II; he calls the traditional Mass a concession still available only “by papal authority”; and then, with...

A search is underway for an American Airlines flight attendant whose disappearance while on a layover in Medellín, Colombia, has left his loved ones desperate for answers. Eric Fernado Gutierrez Molina, 32, a U.S. citizen and North Texas resident, went missing Saturday evening after a night out with a fellow flight attendant, according to Ernesto Carranza, Gutierrez Molina's longtime partner, and Sharom Gil, his best friend. The two flight attendants visited a bar in Medellin's El Poblado neighborhood popular with international tourists, according to family and friends as well as Colombian officials. Carranza told CBS News he has been "shattered"...

The surfer who had a frightening run-in with a great white shark at Newport Beach said she didn’t realize it was the feared predator circling her surfboard until it was too late. “Went to this beach my whole life with my friends,” Vivian Phongngo told KTLA. “I’ve never seen anything bigger than a stingray.” She at first thought the beast was “a really nice fish” before believing it was actually a dolphin.“And then like after three seconds, I was like no, that’s a shark,” she told the outlet.

Kai Trump was enjoying the Miami Open when her mother’s beau Tiger Woods rolled his SUV in his hometown of Jupiter Island. The eldest President Trump grandchild was schmoozing with professional athletes at the major tennis tournament at the exact time Woods flipped his car. Trump, 17, shared one shot to social media of herself smiling with youth golf professional Allan Kournikova and Jason Stacy, who coaches the world’s No. 1 tennis singles player, Aryna Sabalenka.