Free Republic

More than 30 pro-Palestinian Harvard students participated in a 12-hour hunger strike Friday in solidarity with 17 students at Brown University who refused to eat for eight days to pressure the Brown Corporation to divest from Israel. Nineteen students at Brown began the strike — which was originally indefinite — on Feb. 2, ahead of the Brown Corporation’s planned meetings beginning Feb. 8. The students intended to strike until the Brown Corporation considered a resolution to divest from “companies which profit from human rights abuses in Palestine,” but they ended the strike after Brown University president Christina H. Paxson denied...

Here in Boston, we know just how corrupt the FBI can be. For instance, framing innocent men for murders they did not commit, or providing explosives for gangsters to use to kill reporters. Or taking payoffs to set up informants to be rubbed out by serial-killing cocaine dealers, and then after committing such crimes being promoted to director of the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia…. I could go on and on about the Boston FBI office. But you get the picture. Still, as bad and as overrated as the G-men have always been, they’re worse now. And the feds’...

PROVO, Utah — A teen is in troubled waters after he was arrested for allegedly taping fish to ATMs, a police car and other areas around Provo and Orem, documenting his fishy business on social media. The 17-year-old was arrested at the end of December, but police allege he was involved in more than a dozen cases of fish being taped to various areas from August through October. Provo Police told FOX 13 News that while the prank seemed to be done in innocent fun, cleanup started costing money, which is when it o-fish-ally became a crime. Besides ATMs, the...

The agency responsible for standardizing geographical name spellings throughout the federal government has decided against a proposal by a New Hampshire woman to change the name of Mount Washington in Coös County to Agiocochook, but did say it can be used on federal products alongside the official name. In a letter to Kris Pastoriza of Easton, the U.S. Board on Geographical Names said: “We regret to inform you that the U.S. Board on Geographic Names, at its Jan. 11, 2024 meeting, did not approve your proposal to change the name of Mount Washington in and on the White Mountain National...

Clarence Thomas is a black American icon. There is no more American story, and no blacker story, than his. We should celebrate him as a living embodiment of this nation’s greatness, given his rise from the challenging circumstances of his upbringing—poverty, segregation, colorism, linguistic alienation—to holding a seat on the Supreme Court. Excluding Thomas from any history of African-descended people in this country would render it incomplete, just as ignoring his influence would leave any history of the current Court incomplete. Justice Clarence Thomas is unquestionably a towering figure in American jurisprudence. As Scott Douglas Gerber, a leading authority on...

After an emergency exit-sized hole opened in the side of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 at 16,000 feet, a separate chaotic episode erupted when the cockpit door mysteriously flew open. That meant the pilots were subjected to the deafening wind and noise from the back of the plane—and also made the cockpit accessible to anyone inclined to try to force their way in. What the flight crew didn’t know at the time, federal investigators said Monday, was that it was supposed to happen that way. What the flight crew didn’t know at the time, federal investigators said Monday, was that it...

Life may not be like a box of chocolates, but a shakedown is what you’re always gonna get from trial attorneys. Consider the class-action lawsuit filed late last month against Hershey Co. over its Reese’s candy. At issue is whether Hershey fudged on the packaging of seasonal treats. Recent wrappers showed tiny eyes and mouths on chocolate pumpkins and ghosts, but the candy inside was faceless. Similarly, the chocolate football inside “contains no carving for the laces” as depicted on the wrapper. Anthony Russo of the Florida-based Russo Firm says this has caused untold hardship to his client Cynthia Kelly...

Jonathan J. Dunn, a former Delta Air Lines first officer who allegedly threatened to shoot his captain after suggesting to divert for a passenger’s medical emergency, called the incident a “misunderstanding” and joke, as reported by the Associated Press (AP). According to the news agency, Dunn, who was charged with interfering with a flight crew, made his first court appearance Thursday in Salt Lake City after being indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 18, 2023. The altercation between Dunn and the captain, who remains unnamed, occurred back in August 2022 on a flight from Atlanta to Salt Lake City....

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation. In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. And they fear the Tesla TSLA -0.18%decrease; red down pointing triangle and SpaceX chief executive’s drug use could have major consequences not just for his health, but also...

Texans bought land in Brazoria County looking for solitude. Then they heard about the monkeys. Last year, a $12 billion biomedical research firm quietly bought more than 500 acres of land in a sleepy corner of the county and shared a plan to house up to 43,200 monkeys on the property. Now, the neighbors want them out. “How much racket does 43,000 monkeys make?” asked Jason Robert, a shrimper who owns about 1,100 acres near the plot. “I’m sure they’re not quiet.” “I thought this would be a place to get away from everything,” said John Stern, a retired veterinarian...

As of 11 a.m. Mountain Time today, rescue helicopters were expected to be en route to help extract occupants of a de Havilland Twin Otter twin turboprop on a private charter flight, operated by Air Tindi of Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. The aircraft went down for unknown reasons on a frozen lake near its intended destination some 300 kilometers (162 nautical miles) northeast of Yellowknife, around noon yesterday (Dec. 27). All 10 on board, eight passengers and two crew members, survived, some with minor to “moderate to serious” injuries, later said to be possible broken bones. Three rescue technicians parachuted...

The Osage Nation won a massive ruling in Tulsa federal court on Wednesday that requires Enel to dismantle a 150-megawatt wind project it built in Osage County despite the tribe’s repeated objections. The tribe’s fight against Rome-based Enel began in 2011 and is the longest-running legal battle over wind energy in American history. As reported by Curtis Killman in the Tulsa World on Thursday, the ruling grants the United States, the Osage Nation, and Osage Minerals Council permanent injunctive relief via “ejectment of the wind turbine farm for continuing trespass.” The decision by U.S. Court of International Trade Judge Jennifer...

It may be no coincidence that colleges are abandoning SATs at the same time three university presidents were flunking questions in public about genocide. After receiving Fs for insisting that the answer to any direct question is “It depends on the context,” University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill lost her job and Harvard’s board of governors retained Claudine Gay with a limp vote of confidence—“she is the right leader to help our community heal.” Uh-huh. This may be the moment to bring back vocabulary tests. Question: What six-syllable word describes the three university presidents who testified before Congress? Answer: Pusillanimity....

The most important question about Mayor Michelle Wu’s no-whites-allowed Christmas party at the Parkman House Wednesday night is obvious: What if the reverse had happened – what if a white mayor had held a whites-only party at a city-owned building, after specifically disinviting all the non-white members of the City Council? Related Articles Poll: What’s your opinion of Boston’s ‘electeds of color’ party? We all know the answer to that question. It would have been the end of the world, a national story for days if not weeks on end. On the night of the party, there would have been...

Whether you’re a morning person has long been tied to personality, but new research suggests DNA inherited from our extinct Neanderthal cousins ups the chance we’re early risers. Our circadian rhythms—the biological clocks inside our cells that time when we sleep and wake—are linked to countless genes. Now researchers say they have found that bits of genetic code passed down to some of us from Neanderthals relate to our sleeping habits in the present day. The study was published Thursday in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution. “We’ve found many Neanderthal variants that consistently associate with a propensity for being...

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that it received 31 pages of records in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit from the Department of Homeland Security that show the identity of the companion of Obama’s chef Tafari Campbell as a woman named “Ms. Taylor,” who reported that “[Campbell] fell in the water and struggled for a couple of seconds before giving up and sinking underwater.” The records also show that the Secret Service could not get the first two boats they tried to use to search for Campbell to function and had to use the groundskeeper’s boat. Also,...

If there’s one principle that Dementia Joe Biden cares about more than any other, it’s that all Americans should pay their “fair share” of taxes. As he sternly tweeted last January: “We’re making corporations and the super-wealthy start to pay their fair share in taxes.” Because, you see, these tax-cheating rich bastards aren’t paying a damn thing, as he so often points out, as in June 2022: “They don’t pay a penny so if we had a minimum tax of 15 percent, a minimum 15 it doesn’t hurt them at all. They make a lot of money still and we...

Children who grow up in politically liberal households are more likely to suffer mental health problems than their conservative peers, according to a new study. An Institute for Family Studies-Gallup report found that "political ideology is one of the strongest predictors" of which caregiving styles a parent adopts, and conservative parents are associated with the best mental health outcomes for their children. "Conservative and very conservative parents are the most likely to adopt the parenting practices associated with adolescent mental health," study author Jonathan Rothwell, who is also the principal economist at Gallup and nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings...

A U.S. Air Force CV-22B Osprey tiltrotor crashed yesterday (U.S. time) off the southern coast of Japan. One body has been recovered, and the remaining seven crew members were still missing as of 4 p.m. EST Wednesday (Nov. 29), according to the Japanese coast guard. According to the USAF Special Operations Command statement, the Osprey was assigned to the 353rd Special Operations Wing at the Yokota Air Base. The tiltrotor departed along with a second Osprey from the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Yamaguchi and was bound for Kadena Air Base on the island of Okinawa. Six Ospreys...

A passenger suffering an apparent “mental health emergency” popped an overwing emergency exit on a Southwest plane in New Orleans and jumped to the ramp Sunday evening. Airport police were called to the gate after ground personnel detained the passenger. No one was hurt but the passenger was described as being “incoherent.” “When deputies made contact with the man, they found he was incoherent and not fully aware of his surroundings,” a news release from the police said. He was still in the hospital on Monday for evaluation. Southwest said everyone did everything right in the incident. “We commend our...