Free Republic

(Live Action) — In an op-ed for USA Today, elections columnist Sara Pequeño admits the real reason that abortion advocates are fighting so hard to stop a prenatal development video from being shown to students in schools. It isn’t the video’s so-called “inaccuracy,” even though they repeatedly claim it will “mislead” people because it tracks the baby’s development from fertilization instead of from the mother’s last menstrual period (an estimated two weeks before the baby’s existence). The specific issue they take with Live Action’s “Meet Baby Olivia” video is that by sharing a realistic look at the development of preborn...

Rainer Zitelmann's book, How Nations Escape Poverty, is particularly interesting for American veterans who served as G.I.s in Vietnam or for those who may have lost their fathers or family members in the conflict. The irony of history is that the communists initially won — however, upon establishing their socialist regime across Vietnam, they came to realize what a huge mistake they had made. Today, young Vietnamese in particular admire the USA and capitalism, as Zitelmann’s book shows. He asked the Vietnamese which economic systems they admire and which they reject. According to the survey data, people in Vietnam have...

Since the 2021 admissions cycle, Cornell University’s eight undergraduate colleges have adopted test-optional and test-blind policies. However, starting in the 2026 admissions cycle, all colleges will mandate prospective students to submit a standardized test score with their applications. Although colleges will continue test-optional and test-blind policies for the Fall 2025 admissions cycle, students are encouraged to submit SAT and/or ACT scores. Cornell initially suspended standardized test requirements for applicants in April 2020 due to SAT and ACT test cancellations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Many peer institutions — including Yale and Dartmouth — recently announced that they would reinstate the...

A transgender sex offender has been arrested for attempting to kidnap a young boy during recess at his elementary school. Solomon Galligan, 33, was caught on camera walking onto a field at Black Forest Hills Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado around 2:20 pm, according to an affidavit from the Aurora Police. In the surveillance footage, Galligan is seen walking up to the children in the field before running away from him after he tried grabbing them, according to the affidavit. When Galligan stumbled over a white blanket he was carrying, the child managed to escape. As per the affidavit, he...

A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y. You might have learned it as a chant, a song, or a simple declaration, but this is how you learned the vowels of English. You may have wondered, why is Y so unsure of itself? Can't we just decide what it is? Why is Y a "sometimes" vowel? Because writing is not the same thing as speech. While we casually refer to letters, which are written symbols, as vowels or consonants, the concepts of vowel and consonant properly belong to the domain of speech. In general terms, a consonant is a...

A teacher in San Jose, California, has been arrested after being accused of raping a student 20 years ago and then coercing her to have an abortion. Shawn Thomas was a teacher at Leigh High School, as well as a football and track and field coach at Los Gatos High School. The alleged abuse took place between 2002 and 2003, but the victim did not report the crime to police until March 3, 2024. She has also filed a civil lawsuit against San Jose’s Campbell Union High School District, claiming that after forcing her to have an abortion, Thomas continued...

Taking up a discourse of idealised whiteness in conjunction with star theory, Sean Redmond frames white female stardom as a privileged yet restrictive state. Locating Johansson within such a construction of stardom, Redmond looks to how her idealised white star image as resolved through her roles in Her, Under the Skin and Ghost in the Shell is simultaneously recognisable and alienating within these texts. As idealised white star, Johansson traverses the cinematic universe, moving with privileged access into roles, spaces and intimacies laid open for her. Yet as an unobtainable and non-reproductive idol, Johansson is also alienating, an embodiment of...

Secretary of State Antony Blinken recently appointed Zakiya Carr Johnson as the State Department’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Her mission, according to Blinken, was to help build a workforce that reflects America. Given that Blinken has previously promoted a politically correct agenda, for example, suggesting that employees avoid gendered terms such as manpower and mother, this comes as no surprise. Blinken justified this diversity effort in terms of national security, saying, "We will continue to pursue this mission aggressively, because recruiting, nurturing, and promoting the most capable workforce possible is critical to our national security." Since Blinken knew of...

FROM MAY 1st, the proud holders of doctorates will no longer be allowed to put the title Dr in front of their name in German passports. For a country obsessed with qualifications—Prof Drs are fairly common and even Dr Drs not so rare—this decline in standing may be hard. But it is not so hard as the decline in German educational standards. The most recent results from three very different testing regimes, comparing pupils of varied ages, point in a single direction: downwards. The best-known, the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) tests performance in maths, reading and science among...

The Orthodox rabbi at Columbia University and Barnard College sent a message recommending Jewish students leave campus and go home, as anti-Israel agitators have continued an "encampment" on campus and participants were caught on camera espousing full-on support for terrorism and supporting violence towards Jewish students. In a WhatsApp message sent to hundreds before the start of Passover, Rabbi Elie Buechler, director of OU-LJIC at Columbia/Barnard, told students to leave "as soon as possible" until the situation improves, noting that "what we are witnessing in and around campus is terrible and tragic." "The events of the last few days, especially...

A brave Pennsylvania girl has spoken out furiously against teachers and administrators at her school after a transgender student savagely beat her friend using a Stanley cup. The incident took place at Pennbrook Middle School Wednesday, when the 13-year-old blindsided her 12-year-old female victim in the school cafeteria using the cup, hitting her on the head and creating an open wound. The unidentified student had to be hospitalized and get staples to close the cuts in her head before undertaking concussion protocol, according to police. School Superintendent Todd Bauer said that the attack - which was caught on security camera...

A caregiver has been caught viciously beating a 93-year-old dementia patient with a soiled diaper before trying to choke her out in horrific footage released by police. Dontia Shawnra Arrington, 26, has been charged for allegedly assaulting the vulnerable patient at Landings of Genesee Valley in Flint, Michigan on April 4. The attack was caught on nanny cam, which was placed in the victim's room after her daughter noticed 'handprint bruises' on her mother as far back as December. 'I'm watching and all I kept saying was, 'My mom,' you know? 'Why are you doing this to my mom?' She's...

South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, sitting at a news anchor desk alongside his four Black Republican friends and colleagues from Congress, confessed his grandmother was conservative. “She may never (have) said the word conservative. She may never (have) voted conservative but everything she taught me was conservative,” he said on his new YouTube series called “America’s Starting Five,” aimed at dissecting the narrative peddled against Black Republicans, by the five elected Black Republicans in Congress.

A California gym coach who was looking for ways to drum up motivation for the students on his cross-country running team as they went away for the summer break came up with a brilliant idea: pair them with shelter dogs. It was eight years ago when GNN first reported on it, and ever since it has become a mainstay of the training program at St. Joseph High School in Santa Maria, California. It became so much more, however, after a simple video of the kids running with the dogs went viral, causing athletic directors around the country to phone St....

The University of Southern California has cancelled all of the speakers scheduled to speak at the commencement ceremony amid controversy. On April 15, the prestigious private university announced its decision to ban the valedictorian from speaking at this year's graduation on May 10. Asna Tabassum, 21, was banned for being outspoken in her pro-Palestinian support, which has led her to be labeled anti-Semitic.

A Michigan elementary school district is doubling down on a lesson for students about using novel gender pronouns, including the phrase “tree,” with the superintendent saying it promoted “inclusivity.” Schavey Road Elementary School, in DeWitt, Mich., sent out a letter on April 11 informing parents of the school’s plans to “help students share and explore pronouns” in a lesson using the book “They She He Me: Free to Be!” by Maya Gonzalez, which includes cartoon pictures of men and women using interchangeable pronouns. The letter also states parents are able to opt their children out of the curriculum. “We would...

Today marks the 249th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, the “shot heard ‘round the world” started the American Revolution and gave us not just the country we know today, but also started a chain of events that led to other countries freeing themselves from the yoke of tyranny. Scores of patriots gave their lives or were injured that day to stop the British Crown from further brutalizing the people. Their sacrifices were not in vain, as April 19, 1775 marked the beginning of the American Revolutionary War and culminated in...

SAN FRANCISCO, CA — As part of their mission to combat misinformation online and ensure accuracy of what people read, Snopes journalists announced plans to personally fact-check the entire San Francisco Poop Map. The initiative will allow Snopes to judge the legitimacy of user-reported sightings of human feces strewn along the city's roadways and provide residents with reliable information on the locations of publicly deposited poo. "Confirming the existence of reported dumps is important," said Snopes journalist Fred Larkin. "We simply cannot allow false reports of human waste to be propagated across social media. There are a lot of people...

The mother of a 12-year-old girl who was pulled from her wheelchair and beaten by bullies in a horrifying attack is speaking out about the abuse. Footage of two disturbing attacks on the 12-year-old in the bathroom and an elevator at Conway Middle School in Orlando show her being dragged around like a rag doll and shoved onto the cold tile floor in an attack filmed by fellow students. Speaking to DailyMail.com, her mother revealed that she had been bullied for weeks by the same girls. DailyMail.com has decided not to publish the disturbing footage. 'I'm sickened to see that...

Allegations of students at Mt. Nebo Junior High School dressing up like animals and biting, barking and pouncing on fellow students created a social media firestorm on Wednesday. As it turns out, these allegations were "completely unfounded," said Seth Sorensen, spokesman for the Nebo School District. Last week, "students were not treating each other respectfully and things were occurring that they just did not feel were appropriate and conducive to education," Sorenson said.