Free Republic

Uri Berliner, the veteran NPR editor who accused the outlet of liberal bias earlier this month, announced his resignation on Wednesday. NPR suspended Berliner after he criticized the public radio network in an op-ed and interview with The Free Press. “I am resigning from NPR, a great American institution where I have worked for 25 years,” he wrote in his resignation, which he posted to X, formerly Twitter. “I don’t support calls to defund NPR,” Berliner wrote. “I respect the integrity of my colleagues and wish for NPR to thrive and do important journalism. But I cannot work in a...

Sometimes, a person enters the public spotlight and is such an embodiment of an established stereotype that it seems impossible for him or her to be a real person. If Tom Wolfe wanted to capture the essence of arrogant, alienated progressivism, he would reject NPR’s new CEO, Katherine Maher, as too unbelievably on point. ... t would be impossible to create a resume of a person more disconnected from Americans and more intertwined with the wealthy, urban, globalist elite who run the largest banks, media companies, and nonprofit groups in the United States. In other words, Maher has the perfect...

All eyes are on Capitol Hill, watching as Congress gets closer and closer to failing to fund the federal government, forcing a shutdown. Shutting down the government could have big reverberations across the country — and significant consequences for the people who live and work and visit the nation's capital. Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia combined have about 400,000 federal workers, plus hundreds of thousands of military service members and government contractors. The region's growth and competitiveness have long been tied to the federal government.

Some of the tall, stately trees that have grown up in California's Sierra Nevada are no longer compatible with the climate they live in, new research has shown. Hotter, drier conditions driven by climate change in the mountain range have made certain regions once hospitable to conifers — such as sequoia, ponderosa pine and Douglas fir — an environmental mismatch for the cone-bearing trees. "They were exactly where we expected them to be, kind of along the lower-elevation, warmer and drier edges of the conifer forests in the Sierras," Avery Hill, who worked on the study as a graduate student...

Just over four months ago, the U.S. and several allied nations levied unprecedented sanctions against Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. For weeks afterwards, the Russian ruble's value tanked, foreign multinational companies pulled out of the country, and economic prospects began looking grim. But Russia responded aggressively. It shored up the ruble's value and increased oil exports to China and India. The ruble is now the world's strongest performing currency. Thanks to years of preparations, Russia has become far more self-sufficient, and has massive foreign exchange reserves. It has also reopened several companies that were previously under foreign...

National Public Radio issued a correction after running a false statement about the laptop of Hunter Biden in a story about Biden’s recent memoir, “Beautiful Things.” The article by NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving stated categorically that the laptop story was discredited by news organizations. It was later compelled to correct that false statement but still has language casting doubt on the story and evades glaring contradictions in Biden’s book and his interview. Moreover, NPR continues to run false claims from prior controversies. The NPR story originally stated that “The laptop story was discredited by U.S. intelligence and...

Now that the U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the Biden administration's vaccine-or-test rule for private employers, companies nationwide are faced with a decision: Go ahead with a vaccine mandate anyway, or abandon it. No matter which path companies choose, backlash appears near certain. This week, workwear company Carhartt became the latest example of the public tightrope employers must walk to balance the health and safety concerns of employees against staffing challenges, potential legal liability and customer blowback. "Employers are between a rock and a hard place. You have a responsibility as an employer to provide a safe working environment for...

The usual sources of outrage are all atwitter over the fact that Justice Sotomayor isn’t a queen with the authority to demand that other justices wear face gags at her behest. Apparently, the overweight and diabetic Sotomayor wants everyone around her to take extra precautions to care for her after she didn’t care for herself, which puts her in a higher risk category for COVID complications. While her Type 1 diabetes was not avoidable, Sotomayor’s weight problem is surely manageable through diet and exercise. She isn’t hiring a personal trainer or going on a diet; oh no, that would require...

When state senators in South Carolina held two hearings in September about COVID treatments, they got an earful on the benefits of ivermectin — which many of the lawmakers lauded along the way, sharing experiences of their own loved ones. The demands for access to the drug were loud and insistent, despite the fact that federal regulators had just issued a strong warning against using the drug to treat COVID-19. One member of the public, Pressley Stutts III, reminded the panel that his father, a prominent GOP leader in the state, had died from COVID just a month before. He...