Free Republic

The Weaponisation of ScienceYesterday, I took part in a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., on the weaponisation of science — specifically, how conflicts of interest, industry influence, and scientific deception have reshaped modern medicine.It was an important conversation about how the scientific process has been hollowed out by financial incentives, regulatory capture, and institutional cowardice.For me, this is not an abstract debate. I’ve spent much of my career investigating how science becomes distorted — not by a few rogue actors, but through an entire system built on commercial dependence.Once you start pulling the threads of how evidence is produced, who...

A senior conservative legal scholar who holds one of Princeton University’s top academic chairs has resigned from the Heritage Foundation’s board in protest of the think tank president’s defense of Tucker Carlson’s interview with white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Robert P. George, long regarded as one of the right’s leading constitutional thinkers, is the latest figure to step down amid an internal revolt that has already prompted at least seven other staffers, fellows and task-force members to sever ties.

The Palestinian flag was raised this morning at Toronto City Hall despite fierce grassroots and institutional political resistance. The flag-raising ceremony has been planned since Canada conditionally recognized Palestinian statehood in September. It was facing fierce pushback from Canadian Jewish advocacy group Tafsik, and more than 25,000 people have signed a petition to halt the plans. But despite the furor, the flag was raised over the Canadian building this morning. Groups of supporters looked on in glee as the black, white, green and red flag waved in the wind. Others took smiling selfies with it fluttering in the background. Attendees...

President Donald Trump's sudden pivot on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files was not an impulsive gamble but a tactical move to end a months-long drama that has consumed the White House and Congress. In a sudden shift, Trump said Sunday night that 'House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files.' But White House insiders have told the Daily Mail that the move by Trump wasn't a U-turn, but a calculated move to expose senior Democrats and his critics who had links to Epstein. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday: 'We have nothing to do with Epstein....

The United Nations Security Council passed a resolution on Monday in support of President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan in Gaza, and Trump has been named chairman of the Board of Peace. The resolution passed the council 13-0-2, endorsing the president’s plan, which Hamas agreed to on October 8 and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan officially endorsed in a signing with Trump on October 13. “Congratulations to the World on the incredible Vote of the United Nations Security Council, just moments ago, acknowledging and endorsing the...

Nov 18 (Reuters) - Hamas rejected the United Nations Security Council passing a U.S.-drafted resolution endorsing U.S. President Donald Trump's Gaza plan, saying it fails to meet Palestinians' rights and demands and seeks to impose an international trusteeship on the enclave that Palestinians and resistance factions oppose. "Assigning the international force with tasks and roles inside the Gaza Strip, including disarming the resistance, strips it of its neutrality, and turns it into a party to the conflict in favor of the occupation," the group added.

Emily Bickford is challenging a December 2024 custody order that prohibits her from bringing her daughter to Calvary Chapel in Westbrook PORTLAND, Maine — Maine Supreme Court justices heard arguments in a parental-rights case on Thursday involving a mother who says she has been unconstitutionally barred from taking her 12-year-old daughter to church. Emily Bickford is challenging a December 2024 custody order that prohibits her from bringing her daughter to Calvary Chapel in Westbrook. A district court judge sided with the child’s father, Matthew Bradeen, ruling that some of the church’s teachings could be psychologically harmful to the girl. The...

Nonsense. Magistrate Judge William Fitzpatrick--appointed by partisan DC-area Democrat judges in 2022--is going out of his way to carry water for James Comey. Fitzpatrick--through his highly irregular ruling--is grasping at straws to make his findings that Lindsey Halligan (somehow) did something wrong. She did not. Fitzpatrick is even pretending there is missing evidence. Is there any basis for his conspiracy theory? They know the evidence against Comey is damning. He lied to Congress to coverup his clear corruption in politicizing and weaponizing intel agencies and law enforcement to take out political enemies--the biggest scandal in American history. So they are...

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday ruled there would be no prison time for a former Alaska Airlines pilot who had taken psychedelic mushrooms days before he tried to cut the engines of a passenger flight in 2023 while riding off-duty in the cockpit.U.S. District Court Judge Amy Baggio in Portland, Oregon, sentenced Joseph Emerson to time served and three years’ supervised release, ending a case that drew attention to the need for cockpit safety and more mental health support for pilots. Federal prosecutors wanted a year in prison, while his attorneys sought probation.“Pilots are not perfect....

Home values are falling for more than half of America — the biggest share since the country was still clawing its way out of the Great Recession.New data from Zillow shows that 53 percent of US homes have lost value over the past year, the highest level since 2012, when the housing crash finally hit bottom.The national market looks flat on paper, but that average masks huge differences between regions, cities and even neighborhoods. Prices have been slipping in much of the South and West as more homes hit the market and buyers stay on the sidelines. Many would-be buyers...

On Friday's episode of HBO's "Real Time," host Bill Maher called out Zohran Mamdani and Sen. Bernie Sanders, pointing to "collapsed" Democratic Socialist policies as evidence that socialism doesn't work. "Democrats should recognize the party moved too far left on social issues after Obama left office. Gosh, if only someone had been saying that all along. But, you know, welcome home," Maher said in his monologue at the end of the program. "Radical economic policy is always ineluctably married to radical social policy," Maher said. "Their platform, for example, calls for completely open borders. They're for what Biden was doing,...

Although mainstream outlets claim closing the Department of Education is unpopular, a new poll shows that once voters hear the specifics, most actually support the idea.Initially, 51 percent oppose shutting down the Department, while 38 percent are in favor. But after learning that K-12 funding would remain intact and that useful functions would be shifted to other agencies, support rose to 56 percent. In comparison, opposition drops to 30 percent, according to a survey by the Yes Every Kid Foundation, which fights for school choice. Madi Biedermann, deputy assistant secretary for communications at the Department of Education, told the New...

A short time ago the UN Security Council voted to adopt President Trump's peace plan for Gaza. This is being seen as a big win for the Trump administration.The United Nations Security Council on Monday approved President Trump’s peace plan for Gaza, a breakthrough that provides a legal U.N. mandate for the administration’s vision of how to move past the cease-fire and rebuild the war-ravaged Gaza Strip after two years of war.The Council’s vote was also a major diplomatic victory for the Trump administration. For the past two years, as the conflict between Israel and Hamas has raged, the United...

Who would have thunk it? We now have two democratic socialists who have won their mayoral races in major American cities – Zohran Mamdani in New York City, of course, and inexperienced Katie Wilson in Seattle. Both cities have already suffered greatly at the hands of “progressive” politicians, and the only question here is how much lower they can sink. Could Los Angeles be the next to throw their city into the hands of radical leftists? You could argue that they already have with Mayor Karen Bass and their radical city council and county Board of Supervisors, but what if...

Keir Starmer has insisted he will be Prime Minister at the next general election - despite nearly half of Labour voters saying he should stand down. A YouGov survey of 2,100 people found 23 per cent think the party leader should quit now and elect someone else, while a further 22 per cent believe he should give up his role at some point before the next election. Only a third, 34 per cent, said he should continue to lead the Labour Party into the contest. Asked if he would stay on, Sir Keir told The Mirror: 'Yes, I will. Let...

The Department of the Interior today announced the successful seizure of more than 37,000 fentanyl pills during a coordinated drug interdiction operation on the Pueblo of Isleta Reservation in New Mexico, led by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Drug Enforcement and Pueblo of Isleta Tribal Police. The operation, which also included the Homeland Security Task Force, resulted in the seizure of approximately 37,300 fentanyl pills with a street value of nearly $1.5 million and $37,877 in cash. "We commend the law enforcement teams from the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Pueblo of Isleta, and all of the other...

DENVER – The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Field Division (RMFD) has announced the seizure of approximately 1.7 million counterfeit fentanyl pills from a storage facility in the Denver suburb of Highlands Ranch. This is the largest one-time seizure of counterfeit pills in Colorado history, and the sixth-largest, single seizure of suspected fentanyl pills in United States history. “This played out like an episode of a TV show, where a winning bidder legally bought a storage unit and unbeknownst to them, the unit contained 1.7 million counterfeit fentanyl pills and another 12 kilograms of fentanyl powder,” said DEA Rocky Mountain...

Britons' anxiety about climate change plays a big role in many mental health struggles among the country's youth and can trigger guilt about having children, a new report has claimed. The report by the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) also suggests that yoga and visiting "climate cafés" could help stave off this "eco-anxiety" and build emotional resilience in times of change. "An awareness of climate and environmental change can also lead to emotional or psychological responses, such as eco-anxiety," it reads, defining the term as distress caused by the threat of climate change. The authors also reference "solastalgia," which...

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday urged countries at United Nations climate talks to take “concrete actions” to stop climate change that is threatening the planet, telling them humans are failing in their response to global warming and that God’s creation “is crying out in floods, droughts, storms and relentless heat.” In a video message played for religious leaders gathered in Belem, Leo said nations had made progress, “but not enough.” “One in three people live in great vulnerability because of these climate changes,” Leo said. “To them, climate change is not a distant threat, and to...

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Trump administration’s blueprint to secure and govern Gaza won strong approval at the United Nations on Monday, a crucial step that provides international support for U.S. efforts to move the devastated territory toward peace following two years of war. The U.S. resolution that passed the U.N. Security Council authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security in Gaza, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state. “This will go down as one of the biggest approvals in the History of the...