Free Republic

A person in Canada wants taxpayers to fund surgery to make them a vagina while also keeping a functional penis, in a first-of-its-kind case. The Ontario resident, 33, was born male but identifies as non-binary, meaning they are not exclusively male or female 'but literally a mix', court documents show. Ontario's Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) initially denied the request on the grounds that the procedure is experimental and is not performed in Canada... Now the case is with Ontario's Superior Court of Justice, which is due to issue its ruling in the coming months. It is unclear how much the...

A Florida man accused of facilitating an illegal health care scheme has been spared additional prison time, ending the Justice Department's attempt to reprosecute him after his sentence was commuted by former President Donald Trump. Philip Esformes on Thursday pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and was sentenced to time served, with prosecutors agreeing to dismiss the remaining five counts. It's a quiet conclusion to a controversial prosecution that saw the federal government resuscitate the criminal case against him not long after he'd spent four and a half years behind bars and was released...

A New Jersey teacher who had a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old female student evaded prison time last week after her former students sent letters of support to the court ahead of her sentencing. Ex-Fair Lawn High School graphics arts teacher Christine Knudsen was placed under lifetime parole supervision and forced to register as a sex offender, but won’t see a day behind bars if she doesn’t violate the terms of the sentencing, according to the Bergen Record.

The Jan. 25 episode of “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” went viral after creating a divide among fans for a racially-charged rape episode. The episode features a white female rape victim that resisted testifying against her black attacker out of fear that he wouldn’t get a fair trial due to his race. The episode, called “Truth Embargo,” stars actress Romina D’Ugo in the role of the rape victim, Natalie, and the role of the rapist named Jay is played by actor Mykey Cooper, according to Fox News. Social media exploded after Natalie’s lesbian partner, played by actress Keeley...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The downfall of Harvard’s president has elevated the threat of unearthing plagiarism, a cardinal sin in academia, as a possible new weapon in conservative attacks on higher education. Claudine Gay’s resignation Tuesday followed weeks of mounting accusations that she lifted language from other scholars in her doctoral dissertation and journal articles. The allegations surfaced amid backlash over her congressional testimony about antisemitism on campus. The plagiarism allegations came not from her academic peers but her political foes, led by conservatives who sought to oust Gay and put her career under intense scrutiny in hopes of finding a...

Western officials should be wary of public comments that suggest Russia has already been defeated in Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) wrote in its Dec. 22 report.In recent days, high-ranking Western officials have made public comments emphasizing Russia's strategic failures in Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Dec. 22 that Russian dictator Vladimir Putin "has lost Ukraine altogether." U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken made similar comments on Dec. 20, saying Russia has already failed to meet its key aim of conquering Ukraine.As military aid to Ukraine stalls and the country girds itself for...

Colorado utilities regulators will consider the new plan, which was revised in hopes of capturing lucrative renewable energy credits while slashing greenhouse gas emissions... Xcel Energy has a vision for Colorado’s clean energy future — one independent power producers, consumer advocates and regulators didn’t see coming — a vision that is both expensive, with a $15 billion price tag, and unparalleled in its sweep. Xcel Energy’s preferred electric resource plan submitted to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission in September includes 7,100 megawatts of new generation and storage, mainly wind and solar and nearly $3 billion in new transmission lines. “We...

.....This former accountant told me about one friend's death and seeing a man's fingers sheared off by shrapnel as he delivered water to families sheltering in basements. 'War is pure hell,' she said through tears, but insisted they had to win. These are words I heard repeatedly, this shift to an acceptance that the war might last a long time and scornful dismissal Ukraine might contemplate anything but recovery of all its lands after suffering such pain. 'A peace deal is never discussed. We've sacrificed too much. Would all the young people have died for a peace deal?' said Maria...

Donald Trump appeared on the Clay & Buck show, and the host (I don’t know whether Clay or Buck) asked Trump if he’d consider Tucker as a running mate. After waffling along for a while about the number of viewers he got when he talked to Tucker (very high), compared to viewership for the Republican debates (very low), Trump finally said he would consider Tucker because the latter has “great common sense.” That’s true but Tucker has something even more important: He’s a remarkably gifted communicator in ways that Trump is not. In his own way, Trump is a very...

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) has announced a jobs program for tens of thousands of border crossers and illegal aliens who are arriving in the sanctuary state every week, even as about 380,000 New Yorkers are unemployed. As more than 100,000 border crossers and illegal aliens have arrived in New York, mostly in New York City, since the spring of last year, Hochul has pleaded with President Joe Biden not to stem the flow of illegal immigration but to more easily provide new arrivals with work permits.

A homeowner stopped by to check on his suburban Atlanta property — only to be arrested for trespassing. Days after the departure of a previous tenant, Tim Arko pulled into the driveway of his house in desirable Decatur, where he suddenly encountered a stranger waving a gun in his face. “I just jumped the fence and ran. I didn’t know what else to do,” Arko told local channel WSB-TV. “I didn’t walk in on a family eating dinner. I walked in on weapons, a prostitute, a bunch of dogs in the back, my fence broken down,” he told a reporter....

On its website, California wine company Ocean Fathoms praises the waters of the Santa Barbara channel as “the perfect environment” for aging its wines. “[T]he set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product,” the company claims, before praising the abundant underwater flora and fauna that attach itself to each bottle. In 2017, Ocean Fathoms started to submerge specially designed crates of its wine in the channel, and when the bottles were retrieved 12 months later, they were sold for up to $500 each. The problem — and this is a significant one —...

The utility’s 1.6 million Colorado customers will see their bills rise 4.4% — about $4 on the average residential bill — on Sept. 1 ... lectricity bills for 1.6 million Colorado customers of Xcel Energy will rise 4.4% — about $3.99 on the average residential bill — on Sept. 1, under a settlement approved Wednesday by the state Public Utilities Commission. In 2022, Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electricity supplier, filed for a $312 million rate hike, but under the settlement it will get an increase of $96 million. The reduced revenue figure was reached in a settlement between Xcel Energy...

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Kremlin-connected businessman who controls the notorious Wagner mercenary group, has accused “decision-makers” in Russia of treason for not providing his troops and military units of Russia's regular armed forces with ammunition needed to fight in Ukraine. "A criminal group did not give us ammunition,” Prigozhin said in a five-minute audio statement posted on Telegram on April 26 in which he reiterated his claim that ammunition is being stockpiled in depots but not delivered to the battlefield. Prigozhin claimed his troops have no ammunition to fight against Ukrainian artillery because of "treason" by unspecified top Russian officials, pledging...

Twitter users had a field day lambasting male Canadian lawmakers who paraded around a room wearing pink high heel shoes in order to encourage men and boys to help combat violence against women. Members of Canada's Parliament donned the heels as part of the "Hope in High Heels" event sponsored by Halton Women's Place, a women's shelter in Ontario, to bring awareness to violence targeting women.

While ignoring a cornucopia of crises in his two-plus years as Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg has found a supposed crisis that he will address, and it sounds a lot like his previously trotted-out theory that bridges are a tool of racism. Speaking with Al Sharpton on MSNBC, Buttigieg declared "we've got a crisis when it comes to roadway fatalities in America" before making his usual pivot to frame the problem as one of race. "We lose about 40,000 people every year," Buttigieg told Sharpton, adding roadway fatalities are "a level that's comparable to gun violence" for emphasis. "And we...

A Manhattan parking garage attendant who was shot twice while confronting an alleged thief at his business was charged with murder after wrestling away the weapon and using it to fire at the suspect. The nightside worker, Moussa Diarra, 57, was slapped with assault and criminal possession of a weapons charges in the Saturday incident, which occurred at around 5.30am. The attendant saw a man peering into the car windows on the second floor of the West 31st Street garage, reported the New York Post. Thinking that the man was stealing, the attendant brought the suspect outside and asked what...

One man wey no fit read or write until im be 18 go become di youngest ever black professor for di UK Cambridge University. Dem diagnose Jason Arday wit autism and global development delay for im early years, and im no fit speak until im be 11 years old. Now, di 37-year-old dey set to become professor of sociology of education for di prestigious university. Although im no fit tok, di young Jason dey always question di world around am. "Why some pipo dey homeless?" im remember dey wonder "Why war dey?"

A left-wing rally in support of reduced penalties for carjackers in Washington, D.C. was disrupted this week after a man attempted a carjacking in broad daylight. To clarify, no, this is not a scene from an episode of “Seinfeld.” This gem of comedic gold actually happened in our nation’s crime-riddled capital Wednesday afternoon outside of Union Station. The National Desk, owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, reported a group called Hands Off DC held a rally outside the station to share its anger at the U.S. Senate. Lawmakers were voting to reverse a rogue city council move that would have...

You may have heard the term “ESG” popping up in the news lately. Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) disclosures provide important metrics to understand how a company’s practices could impact future financial performance. CalPERS uses an ESG framework to assess potential risks to our investments. For example, under the “social” framework, there is tremendous value in an investor’s ability to verify a company’s data security, as breaches can cause litigation, loss of customer loyalty, and other impacts to profitability. This kind of information is critical to fulfilling the CalPERS mission of achieving a high rate of return to provide retirement...