Free Republic

the International Monetary Fund has urged governments to encourage fit, older workers to delay retirement. Its recommendation is that people of the baby boomer generation should stay in work for longer to help balance public finances amid fiscal pressures caused by an ageing global population. The IMF said: “The 70s are the new 50s,” and released data that suggested a person aged 70 in 2022 had the same cognitive function as the average 53-year-old in 2000. Physical health had also significantly improved, the IMF found. Governments burdened with historically high levels of public debt, the IMF said, could not afford...

Los Angeles is hosting the 2028 Summer Olympics. The games were awarded to the city back in 2017 and since then it is preparing for the arrival of tens of thousands of visitors. They city was already struggling a bit because of the deadly wildfires which destroyed significant portions of two neighborhoods in January.No one is suggesting that the Games be postponed or canceled in response to the fires. But there is rising concern that an already difficult endeavor for both Los Angeles, the main host city, and LA2028, the private committee in charge of raising most of the money...

YOU ARE NOT SUPERMAN There are times when some events of life overwhelm us. Things at home or things at work can drain us. Sometimes we sense an urge to be "Superman" or even "God". We want to "fix" things or "make everything better." In reality, this feeling can be the source of great stress and tension. We sometimes have to admit that certain things can't be fixed; certain things will not go away. Got a problem, talk about it. It may not get "fixed" or go away, but you will feel better! CAPT Thom Dansak, CHC, USN

A growing number of Americans are looking at dual citizenship as a fallback plan in times of widespread uncertainty and deepening political divisions, with young people leading the change.A recent survey conducted by Harris Poll found that four in ten U.S. adults (42 percent) have considered or plan to relocate outside the country to improve their quality of life or financial position. Among Gen Zers, this number went up to 63 percent, while 52 percent of millennials were considering moving abroad."For most of modern history, the American Dream was rooted in one place: America. But that's shifting," Tim Osieki, director...

Nathan’s Famous has found a foothold in Ukraine, a hot dog-loving country.The hot dog statue wore tennis shoes and held a Ukrainian flag in its left hand and an American flag in its right. (The hot dog had hands.) Standing outside the flagship store of the Ukrainian gas station chain Socar, the statue displayed a sign advertising “Nathan’s Famous” hot dogs in the same green curlicue script that promotes the chain at its original location in Brooklyn’s Coney Island and Nathan’s outlets everywhere. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Ivan Pozniak, a 35-year-old airline pilot, walked past the statue and into...

PAINTSVILLE, Ky. (AP) — Janet Lynn Stumbo leaned on her cane and surveyed the two dozen or so voters who had convened in a small Appalachian town to meet with the chair of the Kentucky Democratic Party.A former Kentucky Supreme Court justice, the 70-year-old Stumbo said the event was “the biggest Democratic gathering I have ever seen in Johnson County,” an enclave where Republican Donald Trump got 85% of the presidential vote last November.Paintsville, the county seat, was the latest stop on the state party’s “Rural Listening Tour,” a periodic effort to visit overwhelmingly white, culturally conservative towns of the...

President Donald Trump this week enjoyed one of his biggest legislative victories during his second administration. "THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL" has PASSED the House of Representatives!" Trump touted in a social media post Thursday. The president's post came soon after the GOP-controlled House passed Trump's sweeping tax and spending cuts package by a razor-thin margin. The Republican-crafted measure is full of Trump's campaign trail promises and second-term priorities on tax cuts, immigration, defense, energy and the debt limit. Ahead of the House vote, two surveys released earlier in the week indicated that the president's poll numbers remained underwater.

During an interview with Telemundo 47 on Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) argued that the state is going to lose money under the Republican tax and spending bill and people will lose health care and responded to if she’ll have to cut services to some immigrants by saying, “I don’t want to go there.” And “This is something we have to look at very seriously for how we can not leave these people without essential care.” Hochul said that “no state will be able to make up those kind of cuts. We just don’t have enough money. And...

India may not be majority Muslim, but it remains host to the world’s third-largest Muslim population. Although Indian officials focus largely on Pakistan’s efforts to recruit and radicalize Indian Muslims, increasingly Qatar takes advantage of New Delhi’s relative blind spot to its efforts to further radicalize millions of Indian Muslims. While Qatar’s ties with and efforts to mediate for terror outfits such as the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Al-Nusra Front, and Hamas are well-documented, Indian security forces no longer can afford to ignore Qatar-based individuals and institutions that pose a threat to India. Qatari interests today fund Kashmir-based jihadist groups,...

Today, President Donald J. Trump took a series of executive actions to unleash nuclear energy in the U.S. as part of the administration’s effort to secure the energy future of America and unleash American energy dominance.Joining President Trump were some of the top leaders in nuclear energy:“We have some of the largest companies in the world — the hyper-scalers — who need this energy for AI, who are now working with us to fund the development and construction of the next-generation nuclear,” said Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez. “Nuclear is a 24/7 resource. These datacenters run 24/7. Some of them...

It’s the Trump Effect in action: gas prices this Memorial Day weekend will be the cheapest since 2021 — and “if you adjust for inflation and rising wages, Americans are actually going to spend the least amount filling up this Memorial Day since 2003, excluding COVID,” according to GasBuddy.The national nightmare that was Biden’s war on American energy is over. After President Donald J. Trump declared a National Energy Emergency on his first day in office, his administration has taken relentless action to revive the nation’s energy capabilities and undo the Biden-era stranglehold on American energy production.The news is being...

3 in 4 parents of college-age students also oppose men in women’s spaces A majority of parents with college-age students want universities to stop prioritizing race in hiring and scholarship decisions ... The results showed a majority of parents “are at odds with our country’s higher education institutions on several contentious issues that are consistently in today’s political dialogue,” according to a news release. Defending Education works to rid education of ideological agendas. In the poll, which involved parents of 15- to 21-year-old students, 54 percent said universities should not prioritize a student’s race when awarding scholarships, and 57 percent...

A PJ Media post alleges that there is an Evangelical Fellowship of Canada “brochure” from 2024, still circulating, that is in opposition to that nation’s Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) program. That sounds right on its face, but there’s more. The brochure reportedly states: A special committee of MPs and senators studying MAiD has recommended allowing MAiD for mature minors. A mature minor is a child or teen who is deemed capable of making a decision for MAiD. This would essentially remove the minimum age of eligibility.Not shocked and appalled enough? Read on: The committee also suggested parents may not...

A 62-year-old Mexican national, deported from the United States in 2017 but allegedly gained illegal re-entry, was taken into custody this week after being suspected of embezzling $7 million from his employer, authorities said. Alexander G. Ramos of Newport Beach was charged on Thursday, May 22, with fraud, a felony that carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Ramos was being held without bail. According to an affidavit filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Ramos was employed in the victim company’s risk-management department from 2017 until his termination...

The Trump Administration has frozen billions in federal grants to Harvard University, threatened its tax-exempt status, and sought to dictate its curriculum and hiring. Now the government seems bent on destroying the school for the offense of fighting back. And for what purpose? That’s how we read the Department of Homeland Security’s move Thursday to bar foreign students from attending the world-renowned institution. That’s 6,800 students, or a quarter of Harvard’s student body, whose futures are suddenly in disarray. It’s also a short-sighted attack on one of America’s great competitive strengths: Its ability to attract the world’s best and brightest....

Antisemitism is increasing on university campuses — and throughout the world. But let’s be clear: Donald Trump and the right wing are not fighting antisemitism. They are exploiting it. And they are deliberately doing so, using Jewish people as pawns in a broader war on education.

When astronomers announced last month they might have discovered the most promising hints of alien life yet on a distant planet, the rare good news raised hopes humanity could soon learn we are not alone in the universe. But several recent studies looking into the same data have found that there is not enough evidence to support such lofty claims, with one scientist accusing the astronomers of "jumping the gun". Two of Madhusudhan's former students, Luis Welbanks of Arizona State University and Matthew Nixon of Maryland University, were among the researchers who have since re-analysed the data behind the announcement....

Rather than honoring the military men and women who gave their lives defending their fellow Americans’ right to live in freedom, two-time failed Democratic Party presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is calling on her supporters to bash President Donald Trump and his One Big Beautiful Bill that passed the House this week when they get together with friends and neighbors at Memorial Day gatherings this weekend:

The share of people becoming undocumented immigrants in the United States not by illegally crossing a border, but by overstaying their visas was almost 40 percent of estimated new undocumented immigrants in the fiscal year 2023.While an estimated 860,000 new undocumented arrivals were created due to illegal border crossings that year, more than 510,000 people overstayed their visas. This fact has in the past called into question the effectiveness of sealing off borders to curb illegal immigration. During the first Trump term, when the construction of a wall at the U.S.-Mexico border took central stage, the number of overstayers even...

The Texas Legislature passed a resolution May 20 to install a statue of the Virgin Mary bearing the unborn Christ child at the state Capitol. Senate Concurrent Resolution 19, now awaiting Gov. Greg Abbott’s signature, describes the “Texas Life Monument” as “a mother with an unborn child cradled in a world-shaped womb.” However, the piece, created by renowned Catholic sculptor Timothy Schmalz, is unmistakably Marian. Schmalz, known for spiritually evocative public art, confirmed the statue depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary and the unborn Jesus. “People are afraid to have children these days,” Schmalz told The Austin Chronicle. “Well, this is...