Free Republic

SCOTLAND Yard wants to downgrade the importance of written English tests at police recruitment centres to make it easier for candidates from ethnic minorities to join the Met. Bosses believe people who do not have English as their first language are being discriminated against under current assessment rules. They have recommended the weighting placed on the “Written Communication” section of the Metropolitan Police’s tough entrance exam is lowered. However, they fear a “white backlash” among rank and file officers who feel they have already been passed over for promotion. Home Affairs Committee chairman, MP Keith Vaz, said last night any...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — A projected $650 million in welfare benefits will be distributed to illegal alien parents in 2013, county officials said Monday. Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich announced the latest figures from the Department of Public Social Services, which showed more than $376 million in CalWORKs benefits and food stamps combined have been distributed through July to illegal alien parents for their native-born children. Approximately $54 million in welfare payments are issued each month, consisting of nearly $20 million in CalWORKs and $34 million in food stamp issuances, according to the data. An estimated 100,000 children of 60,000 undocumented...

Aaron Alexis, the man identified by Washington D.C. police as a suspect in this morning’s tragic attack on a US Navy Yard, was previously arrested by Seattle police in 2004 for shooting out the tires of another man’s vehicle in what Alexis later described to detectives as an anger-fueled “blackout.” Because Seattle police have received numerous inquiries about the incident, we are posting the details, detective logs, and the original report for the May 6, 2004 case. At about 8 am that morning, two construction workers had parked their 1986 Honda Accord in the driveway of their worksite, next to...

CNN anchor Don Lemon has, of late, turned the focus of his frequent conversations on race to the idea of personal responsibility in the African American community. On Saturday night’s edition of CNN Newsroom, Lemon continued that controversial trend with comic legend Bill Cosby, who has also felt the heat of controversy on the subject. Cosby talked to Lemon about young black men raising their kids, over-medication of juvenile inmates, and may have even coined a new word: “No-groes.” For the past few months, Don Lemon has courted controversy with several segments pegged to his general agreement with comments by...

It has been nearly 50 years since Princeton University began admitting women and actively recruiting minority students, but the school is still too white and too male, according to a new report that calls for big changes on the Ivy League campus. Christopher Eisgruber, the university’s new president, and the school’s board of trustees signed off today on a series of recommendations by a campus committee convened to take a hard look at campus diversity. The 19-member group found that Princeton has made great strides in welcoming minorities, women and low-income students into its undergraduate classes in recent decades. But...

The fourth man charged in an attempted rape and home invasion assault was arraigned Monday in Washington County Sessions Court and one of his co-defendants immediately raised the judge’s ire by laughing at the allegations. Najier “Tim” Hugley, 21, 515 Pardee St., faces charges of aggravated assault, especially aggravated burglary and attempted aggravated rape in the Aug. 22 incident at a 600 St. Louis St. apartment. The assault left one victim hospitalized with severe head injuries. As Hugley was being arraigned, Judge Don Arnold read the affidavit in open court to inform Hugley what he’s accused of doing. During the...

On the 12th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, one man allegedly chose to mark the somber occasion by defacing a Louisiana memorial honoring the victims. Police have arrested 35-year-old Salvador Perez, accused of placing two cardboard cutout images of crashing planes at the 9/11 Memorial in downtown Lafayette. Lafayette Police Cpl. Paul Mouton said Perez was arrested Wednesday on a charge of criminal damage to a historic building and criminal trespassing. Perez was booked into the Lafayette Parish Correctional Center. He faces up to $1,000 in fines and two years in jail if convicted. Police responded to Parc San...

BALTIMORE (WJZ) — Kids in Baltimore City may soon need to be home earlier at night. A new proposal is on the table for a stricter curfew in the city. The current curfew for children in the city of Baltimore is midnight on weekends and 11 p.m. on weekdays. Now Councilman Brandon Scott has proposed legislation to make it earlier. Young people tore into a 7-Eleven in upper Fells Point around midnight in February. City leaders are trying to stop teens involved in incidents like that. “We don’t want kids to harm anyone [or] to be harmed themselves,” said Mayor...

Recent video shows former CIA director David Petraeus being chased down a New York City street by student activists at the City University of New York. Petraeus was reportedly on the way to teaching his first class at CUNY’s honors college, entitled “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade?” He took on the teaching gig as part of rehabilitating his image following an extramarital affair scandal that led to his resignation from the CIA. The students can be heard yelling “War criminal!” at the retired military officer who played a key role in the “counterinsurgency” strategy of...

On Tuesday night, voters in two Colorado districts ousted two prominent state senators due to their support for strict state-level gun control measures. Colorado, which has been trending Democratic over the past four election cycles, has been uniquely resistant to the Republican message. For a moment, that trend in the Centennial State was halted as voters ejected state Sen. Angela Giron and state Senate President John Morse from elected office. Pundits and political scientists often warn observers that special or recall elections are not indicative of any political trend. They are not predictive of the results of a general election...

IN AMERICA Roman Catholic ears are ringing from sermons supporting immigration reform. On September 8th, just before politicians returned to Congress after their summer break, several Catholic bishops spoke in favour of a bill passed by the Senate in June. The legislation would provide a bridge to citizenship for the 11m people currently residing in America without legal authorisation to do so (and also proposes $46 billion for border security measures). It followed on from vigils in August in support of reform of immigration policies (pictured). Prospects for the passage of any sort of immigration reform in the current legislative...

Juror B29, also known as “Maddy,” made her first major television appearance with Al Sharpton Tuesday afternoon since she first revealed her face and spoke to ABC News’ Robin Roberts about her conflicted feelings on the George Zimmerman verdict. Maddy offered her reactions to Zimmerman’s recent detainment in connection with a domestic dispute involving his estranged wife and father-in-law. After viewing dashcam video of Zimmerman being put in handcuffs by officers, Maddy told Sharpton, “it hurts a lot,” because she keeps going back and thinking “what could I have done” to change the outcome of the trial. At the same...

At the same time the IRS harassed Republican nonprofit groups during the 2012 political campaign, it selectively advised black churches and other Democrat nonprofits on how far they can go in campaigning for President Obama and other Democrats. This raw exercise in political favoritism has not been reported in the context of the still-smoldering IRS scandal, in which the agency in 2012 audited big GOP donors and blocked Tea Party groups trying to obtain tax-exempt status as part of what House investigators suspect was an effort to re-elect the president. But that same year, top officials with both the IRS...

During halftime at Alabama State’s Saturday night game against Jackson State, the ASU marching band took the field and spelled out the name “Trayvon.” Several people who attended the matchup between the two historically black universities tweeted photos of the commemoration of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was fatally shot last year by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman.

Terrified Christians claim Syrian rebels ordered them to convert to Islam on pain of death when they ‘liberated’ their ancient village. Opposition forces, including fighters linked to Al Qaeda, gained temporary control of the Christian village of Maaloula after fighting with regime forces. The reports have reignited fears about western support for the rebel groups, which are increasingly being infiltrated by Islamic extremists. One Maaloula resident said the rebels, many of whom had beards and shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ (God is great), attacked Christian homes and churches shortly after moving into the village.  ‘They shot and killed people. I heard gunshots...

A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent. The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013. Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores. The Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific has remained blocked...

Since the exoneration of George Zimmerman on July 13, we have witnessed a heightened awareness of racism, a heightened openness to discuss the truth of racism, a heightened enthusiasm to drive racism out of the core of American institutions and thought. Racism talk is flying around our nation, buzzing in the ears of sweating conservatives, annoying them to no end. It is a fascinating rhetorical strategy conservatives are using to shoo away the circulating conversation on racism. They are not merely saying racism is now inconsequential. They are not merely blaming the victim. Conservatives say racism talk is breeding disunity,...

EUGENE, OR (KPTV) - A sign found hanging on an Interstate 5 overpass in Eugene sparked a debate about racism this week. The banner, found handing on a pedestrian bridge over the freeway, says "Anti-racist is a code word for anti-white." It wasn't immediately clear who put the sign there, but the regional NAACP president said the slogan is a sign of intolerance in our nation. "If it was speaking against anything, it was speaking against multiculturalism and I think multiculturalism is a strength of our country," said Eric Richardson, of the NAACP. The banner is now banned from the...

Charlotte’s recent spate of violence took a new twist Thursday night when gunfire broke out at an anti-violence vigil in the city’s Villa Heights neighborhood. Four people were injured, but police say none of the victims’ injuries is considered life-threatening. No arrests have been announced. Mothers of Murdered Offspring sponsored the vigil, calling attention to last Thursday’s death of Javon Booker, who police say was fatally shot when he allegedly tried to rob a convenience store on Tom Hunter Road in north Charlotte. The service took place in the 2500 block of Pinckney Avenue, a block south of Matheson Avenue....

Albert Einstein. George Takei. Jerry Garcia. All of those men and many others have had an asteroid named after them. And if William Lowell Putnam III, trustee of Lowell Observatory, has his way, another name will be added to that list: Trayvon Martin. The retired broadcast executive, alpinist, author and Flagstaff resident believes that Martin has not received justice. It was an unusually warm night at Anderson Mesa south of Flagstaff on Oct. 2, 2000, when Lowell Observatory astronomers found the asteroid 2000 TM61. It was just one of hundreds that observatory’s researchers discovered as part of their search for...