Free Republic

The governing body that oversees high-school athletics in Florida could soon approve a proposal that would lead to high-school athletes getting paid through business agreements such as endorsement deals. The Florida High School Athletic Association held a discussion Tuesday about a potential change to the organization’s bylaws that would allow student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness under what is commonly known as an NIL policy. The 13-member board, which includes eight members appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in August, is slated to vote on the proposal during a June 4 meeting. “Student-athletes and their parents/guardians will be...

Last week, President Biden said he would withdraw military aid to Israel if it commenced military operations to go into Rafah and go after Hamas. There were many reactions to this announcement because it seemed to perfectly encapsulate the incoherent Israel policy the Biden administration has been developing since Hamas’ brutal attack last October that touched off the war in Gaza. On one hand, the American people are broadly supportive of Israel and the moral justification for this war. Lest anyone forget, Hamas is still holding American citizens hostage at this very moment. On the other, the hard-left grassroots that...

Some voters in battleground states are confused about the origins of the current abortion landscape in the United States, despite President Joe Biden making abortion the centerpiece of his reelection campaign. A New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll of voters in battleground states — including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Wisconsin — found that nearly one in five registered voters (17 percent) think Biden is responsible for the end of the constitutional “right” to abortion. Fifty-six percent credit former President Donald Trump, and 13 percent say they do not know or refused to answer. Notably, Trump nominated three Supreme Court...

San Francisco residents fed up with rampant crime in California stepped up when a man allegedly tried to steal an expensive laptop from a woman at a small cafe. The incident unfolded on Saturday afternoon at Sana'a Cafe near the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art on New Montgomery Street. Witnesses said the man walked into the cafe, immediately grabbed a woman's Apple MacBook laptop and tried to run away. Video showed one man tackle him and others jump in to help him. 'Most people want to do the right thing.' The man who first tackled the would-be thief was...

Mothers, law-enforcement officers and veterans are among people included in a new $5 million statewide ad campaign aimed at boosting support for a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow recreational use of marijuana in Florida, supporters of the measure announced Tuesday. Four ads will run on broadcast, cable, streaming, radio and digital platforms, according to the Smart & Safe Florida political committee, which has led efforts to pass what will appear as Amendment 3 on the November ballot. The ads say, in part, that regulated recreational marijuana is a better alternative to cannabis products sold on the black market.

President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have both accepted an invitation from CNN to debate on June 27, a historically early showdown that will set the tone for the final months of the 2024 campaign.

Texas is on the cusp of a major victory for school choice. School choice has become a centerpiece of Republican policy, empowering parents to choose the best school that suits their children's needs. Education tax dollars should follow the child, not the schools and programs lobbied on behalf of progressive institutions like left-wing teachers' unions. However, many so-called “Republicans” are beholden to these institutions and have continued to vote against school choice policies. Even in the alleged conservative bastion of Texas, 21 Republicans in Texas’s House of Representatives voted against school choice last year. But conservatives across the state aren’t...

Steve Moore, from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity, a free market think tank, says Democrats were to blame for refusing 'to mandate work for welfare.' They 'view food stamps as an economic stimulus and/or virtuous income redistribution,' he said. Meanwhile, the scheme is increasingly targeted by fraudsters. A New York Times investigation spotlighted the scammers who use illegally installed skimming machines to lift payment card data from beneficiaries who swipe their SNAP cards through the devices in stores or at ATMs. Skimming cons picked up in 2022, and that the federal government has spent at least $30 million reimbursing stolen...

WAUKESHA, Wis. - A Waukesha man and woman separated by nearly 40 years in age face disorderly conduct charges for having sex in the Waukesha County Jail lobby. The accused are 28-year-old Desmound Cleveland and 67-year-old Karen Hill. According to the criminal complaint, a sheriff's deputy was dispatched to the Waukesha County Jail lobby on Thursday, May 2 for a possible disorderly conduct/lewd and lascivious call. The jail supervisor "called to report two individuals had sex in the jail lobby" and that the female, who was later identified as defendant Karen Hill, was still on the scene.

—In a huge city awash with tiny schools, few are smaller than the Hilda L. Solis Learning Academy. The public high school, housed in a former hospital in East Los Angeles, is down to 170 students from the surrounding Latino neighborhoods. On a hallway bulletin board, handwritten hearts display reasons students love the school, including, “how everyone knows each other” and “the fact that school is small.”

In late 2009, the question everyone was asking was put to the man himself. What made Usain Bolt – an era-defining champion of immense speed and consummate ease at just 23 – so fast? Bolt cited his God-given talent, while crediting a diet that ranged from ultra-processed chicken nuggets to the Jamaican staple of yams. But he also pointed to the cruelties of man. "I think over the years what makes Jamaica different is because of slavery really," he said of his sprinting roots. "The genes are really strong." It is a hypothesis that existed before Bolt's comments and has...

A report reveals that key radical left-wing organizations central in the current anti-Israel and anti-America protest movement are significantly funded and influenced by a network tied to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), which seeks to advance a “revolutionary, anti-government, anti-capitalist agenda,” threatening U.S. internal stability. A major report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), published Monday, details how the Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P) movement, which has connections to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) through the Singham Network, uses protests and media campaigns to push anti-America and anti-Israel narratives and significantly contribute to social unrest.

A class disparity has emerged within the Russian military, contrasting the fates of ordinary soldiers and the privileged elite. This divide has ignited widespread anger and criticism, even among top-level troops who feel betrayed by their leadership during the ongoing battle over Ukraine.

UKRAINE’S generals warned they have run out of reserves to halt Russia’s shock assault on Kharkiv. It comes as Vladimir Putin masses more than half a million troops on the frontline in a bid to overpower Ukraine's forces. Ukraine's military has admitted it is struggling to contain the advance in the north east of the country. General Kyrylo Budanov, boss of Kyiv’s military intelligence said: “I’ve used everything we have. “Unfortunately, we don’t have anyone else in the reserves.” Putin’s troops have seized miles of ground in their fastest advances in months.

Last fall, a congressional report revealed that I was on a secret list of public figures compiled by agencies within the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with Stanford University, that was used to pressure social media companies into suppressing and censoring my public statements. This was all part of an “Election Integrity Project” that was created in the summer of 2020. Ostensibly, the goal was to prevent the spread of so-called “disinformation,” which the Washington establishment considers a threat to “democracy”—words that in recent years have become political weapons divorced from any meaning. In reality,...

A close ally of Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader Ramzan Kadyrov resigned unexpectedly as speaker of parliament on Wednesday, creating a vacancy in the elite at a time when Kadyrov’s health is under close scrutiny. Magomed Daudov was widely seen as one of the most influential politicians in the southern Russian region. He gave no reason for his departure.

MOSCOW (Reuters) -President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday that Russian forces were improving their positions every day along the front in Ukraine in all directions and that the advance was going to plan.Russia has been pushing Ukrainian forces back at various points in recent months despite hundreds of billions of dollars worth of aid from the United States and its allies.Putin, at a meeting in the Kremlin with new Defence Minister Andrei Belousov, Secretary of the Security Council Sergei Shoigu, and top generals, said the work of the military was "proceeding according to the plan" approved by the General Staff."The...

"Today, based on evidence uncovered in @COVIDSelect's recent report, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services commenced formal debarment proceedings against EcoHealth Alliance. EcoHealth will now face an immediate, government-wide suspension of taxpayer funds — including a hold on all active grants," read a tweet issued by the Subcommittee on May 15. Senator @RandPaul (R, KY), who has been the most ardent member of Congress demanding answers for the pandemic since its outbreak, celebrated the news with a tweet of his own. Paul wrote, "Finally, the Biden Admin. agrees to ban Peter Daszak and EcoHealth Alliance, who financed the...

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, argued that President Joe Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump after the Justice Department brought indictments against the former president and pressured New York prosecutors not to pursue Trump's ongoing hush money trial. In an exclusive interview on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle,” Romney expressed his dismay in response to Republican lawmakers, including the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s vice presidential prospects, rallying to Trump’s defense outside of the Manhattan courthouse where Trump’s hush money trial is taking place.

Foreign terrorist organizations may seek to exploit "LGBTQIA+-related events and venues," including events during 2024 Pride month -- celebrated in June, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security warned in a recent public service announcement. "Organizations like ISIS may seek to exploit increased gatherings associated with the upcoming June 2024 Pride Month," according to the announcement, which the agencies issued last week. The announcement added that the threat is "compounded" by the "current heightened threat environment" in the United States. The threats could come online, in person or in the mail, according to the FBI and DHS... Nearly eight years...