Free Republic

President Joe Biden wore a mask at an event at a children’s hospital on Friday with first lady Jill Biden, demonstrating extra caution while visiting a medical facility in Washington, DC. Both the president and the first lady arrived at the event wearing their masks as they were escorted by two children who were also wearing masks. Precautions surrounding the coronavirus pandemic continue, even after Biden declared it “over” in September.

Texas Democratic candidate for governor Beto O’Rourke said Thursday on “MSNBC Prime” that he believes there will be a “reckoning” led by voters reacting to mass shootings in the upcoming midterm elections in November. O’Rourke said, “The choice is to vote for people who reflect and represent your values. What I’m trying to say is that too often, we dismiss folks to others who belong to the other political party. We say all Republicans are this or that or all Democrats are this and that. I’m just saying that the majority of us in Texas, which includes Republicans and Democrats,...

Emily Jenkins, whose book A Fine Dessert has drawn criticism for ‘misleading depiction of slavery’, now plans to donate her fee to diversity campaign The author of a glowingly reviewed picture book says that she has “come to understand that my book, while intended to be inclusive and truthful and hopeful, is racially insensitive”, following criticism over its images of smiling slaves. A Fine Dessert, published in January, tells how “four families, in four different cities, over four centuries”, make blackberry fool. Starting in Lyme, England, in 1710, Emily Jenkins’s story, and Sophie Blackall’s pictures, go on to depict a...

**UPDATE** Breitbart News exclusively learned on Thursday afternoon that ESPN will air the original ad on Saturday from Cardinal Glennon Children's Medical Center with the words "Jesus" and "God." ESPN issued this statement to Breitbart News on Thursday: “We have again reviewed the ads submitted for the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center and have concluded that we will accept the original requested commercial. It will run in Saturday’s VCU at Northern Iowa basketball game on ESPNU. This decision is consistent with our practice of individual review of all ads under our commercial advocacy standards.”

Arab textbooks are not the only ones erasing Israel from their maps. Scholastic, the world’s largest publisher of children’s books, has also eliminated the Jewish state in a book. “Thea Stilton and the Blue Scarab Hunt,” part of the popular Geronimo Stilton children’s series translated from Italian and published by Scholastic in 2012, tells the story of a group of investigative journalists involved in a treasure hunt in Egypt. Writers Elhanan Miller Elhanan Miller Elhanan Miller is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel Follow or contact: Facebook Twitter Email RSS Newsroom Email Facebook Twitter Related Topics children...

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay and Democrats held a gun control rally in downtown St. Louis Saturday afternoon. Only about 150 people turned out for the event. Several gun rights supporters held their own counter protest. Dr. Robert Flood , director of pediatric emergency at SLU, gave the keynote speech at the end of the rally. The good doctor urged supporters to call congress and turn your rights and sovereignty over to United Nations by supporting the Child Rights Act. Dr. Flood said the Children’s Rights Amendment would counter balance the Second and 14th Amendments used by gun rights activists....

PROVIDENCE — Dominic Johnson, a 10-year-old fourth-grader with a fledgling Mohawk, brandished his black, long-nosed toy gun and caressed the muzzle appreciatively. “It’s like a shotgun mixed with a rifle,’’ he said, as his mother, April, told him to stop pointing it at nearby children. Soon it would be junk. Dominic joined dozens of children yesterday at the annual Toy Gun Bash in the gymnasium of Pleasant View Elementary School. There, they lined up to toss their toy guns, from dainty purple water guns to camouflage-painted pistols, inside the Bash-O-Matic, a large black, foam creature with churning metal teeth and...

When discussing a new study about liberals’ and conservatives’ favorite television shows recently, pundit Bill O’Reilly and his guests mentioned that liberals like works about “flawed people.” If this is so, they will certainly appreciate Barack Obama’s just published children’s book, Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters. Much like Rudyard Kipling’s poem “If” (which the author wrote for his 12-year-old son), Obama’s book was penned for his children Malia and Sasha — hence the subtitle A Letter to My Daughters. Unlike Kipling’s poem, however, I very much doubt his kids will be the better for reading it....

`The Campaign That Never Ended on November 4, 2008’, comes to an abrupt, merciful and undignified end tomorrow night. Most of the Democrats have been greedily picking the pockets of the poor, begging—on an almost daily basis—breaking the backs of the most vulnerable: the poor they claim to represent.

Kuang Jinbi, the author of the famous Chinese fable The Magic Ox and Other Tales of the Effendi died from cancer in Zhuhai City at 2:30 a.m. on August 15. Kuang was born in Doumen County, Zhuhai City in 1939. Since his first published work in 1958, he had engaged in writing for several years and created a large quantity of praised literary works for young readers, among them, the fable The Magic Ox and other tales of the Effendi, enjoyed great popularity with children. Kuang combined the aesthetics of Chinese traditional stories with the rationality of Western allegory and...

The mischievous traveling monkey that became a childhood favorite, Curious George, might never have become an American curiosity had it not been for the Nazi invasion of France. His creators escaped oppression, and he eventually became an icon. Now the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center in Skokie is honoring thier achievement in a new exhibit that shares the story of the husband-and-wife creators of the “good little monkey,” reports the Sun-Times H.A. and Margret Reys were German Jews living in Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion. During their five-month escape in 1940, they fled on bicycles with...

WASHINGTON, June 5, 2009 – This year, as it’s been for the last five, no high school senior graduating from a Department of Defense Education Activity school in Europe will look around wishing a parent could be there as the sound of “Pomp and Circumstance” fills the air. For the sixth year, DoDEA is providing webcasts of graduation ceremonies from 17 European schools. Two of those ceremonies occurred yesterday, another 12 will take place today, and the remaining three will happen tomorrow, June 7 and June 12. When the DoDEA graduation season is complete, about 125 parents deployed to...

The House of Representatives has passed an expanded version of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), and made it easier for illegal aliens to access the program's benefits. HR 2, the new version of SCHIP, weakens verification requirements. Those who enroll will be required to show only an easily forged Social Security card -- not secure documents proving U.S. citizenship. The legislation also extends benefits to non-citizen children of legal immigrants. The SCHIP bill is designed to provide health coverage to low-income children, a laudable

A new government regulation scheduled to take effect next month has thousands of retailers, thrift stores and small businesses worried they will be forced to permanently close their doors – and destroy their merchandise. The law is expected to have such a devastating impact that Feb. 10 is now unofficially known as "National Bankruptcy Day." Congress passed the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008, or HR 4040, a retroactive rule mandating that all items sold for use by children under 12 must be tested by an independent party for lead and phthalates, which are chemicals used to make plastics...

11/25/2008 - SIAULIAI, Lithuania (AFNS) -- More than 20 Airmen from Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, volunteered their time and talents with Lithuanian children Nov. 15 at the District Vijurkai Children's Home in Vijurkai, Lithuania. The Airmen, deployed from the 48th Fighter Wing, are in Lithuania to perform the NATO Baltic air policing mission, and took time out to play sports, do puzzles and eat pizza with the children. "We wanted to give something back to the community," said Master Sgt. Margaret Williams, the 493rd Expeditionary Fighter Squadron first sergeant. "The primary reason we go to the children's home is...

AL HILLAH — How do you measure success? “Regarding the $7 million newly-renovated Al Hillah Maternity and Children’s Hospital, located in Babil Province, it’s more than bricks and mortar — it’s all about saving lives,” said U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ (USACE) Construction Representative Edward Jones. Like many USACE military, civilian and contract employees serving in Iraq, Jones will soon return home knowing his efforts directly benefited thousands of Iraqi families. “There are many stories that I will take away from this project but there is one that will stay with me forever,” Jones said. “On our final site visit...

FALAHAT, Iraq, July 9, 2007 — The sounds of laughing girls and boys could be heard as soldiers from Troop D, 1st Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment brought the children here for a day of fun, through painting, as well as other activities, July 7, 2007. "I feel really good about it, because you can actually see the results. Before it didn’t feel like anything was happening and there was no proof that anything would ever change." Spc. Matthew Dixon The soldiers handed out paint brushes and paint and watched as the children painted pictures and their names on concrete...

WASHINGTON, July 2, 2007 – A new children’s hospital being built by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in Basrah, Iraq, is the result of a partnership between the Iraqi Ministry of Health and U.S. governmental and non-governmental agencies, senior U.S. officials said in Baghdad. Construction of the 94-bed hospital, which will specialize in children’s cancer research and treatment, is scheduled for completion next year, Army Col. Paul Babin, director of the Corp’s Gulf Region Division, said at a June 30 news conference. The hospital is slated to open in early 2009. Ground was broken for the facility in 2005....

Roy Richard Grinker, a professor of anthropology at George Washington University, whose 15-year-old daughter is autistic, has just come out with a new book that calls into question what we’ve come to know as the autism “epidemic.” It’s called “Unstrange Minds,” and it makes the argument that the dramatic rise in the incidence of autism in the past few decades is mostly – if not entirely – the result of more and better diagnoses... ...It’s easy to believe: After all, in 2001, the National Institute of Mental Health issued a widely-cited report [pdf] stating that 20 percent of children in...

6/8/2006 - MILFORD, Mass. (AFPN) -- When servicemembers deploy, they aren't the only ones who serve. Their families serve also, and usually the separation is hardest on the children. Homecomings are joyous moments for military families, but until recently, the service and sacrifice made by the children of deployed troops went largely unrecognized. That has all changed here, thanks to the Massachusetts State Family Program Office and their new Youth Service Medal. “At each reunion briefing, we are all amazed at how strong these children are and the degree of resiliency they demonstrate” said Jennifer Cesaitis, youth program coordinator for...