Free Republic

When Turkey’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in 2002, it generated considerable debate between those who saw its success as a potentially liberalizing force and critics who feared it would ultimately bring the end of Turkish democracy. Depending on who you spoke to, the AKP was poised to turn Turkey into either Sweden or Iran; to finally realize Ataturk’s vision of making the country modern and Western or permanently destroy it.Today, a decade and a half later, the future of Turkish democracy certainly looks grim. With President Recep Tayyip Erdogan now leading a heavy-handed campaign to further...

An Oregon resident has been infected with the state’s first case of bubonic plague since 2015, health officials said last week. The resident was likely infected with plague by their symptomatic pet cat, Deschutes County Health Services said in a news release on Wednesday. "All close contacts of the resident and their pet have been contacted and provided medication to prevent illness," Dr. Richard Fawcett, the Deschutes County health officer, said in the release without identifying the infected resident. Officials said there was little risk to the community since the case was identified and treated in the earlier stages of...

Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna blasted a so-called “immigration expert” testifying before a House committee in Washington on Wednesday when he began laughing at her over her accusations that the Biden administration is aiding in the trafficking of children at the southern border. David J. Bier, associate director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute, was testifying before lawmakers during a House hearing on immigration when he began openly laughing at Rep. Luna when she was asking him her questions. The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C., that is funded by the Koch Brothers...

On Thursday, New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez launched a major legal offensive in an attempt to address the online risks faced by minors. The lawsuit targeted Meta Platforms, Inc., its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and associated entities such as Instagram, LLC and Facebook Holdings, LLC. This bold action seeks to prevent the exploitation of children on social media platforms. “Our investigation into Meta’s social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex,” Attorney General Torrez said in a statement. “As a career...

Animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) was fact-checked by Community Notes, a service on X, after PETA claimed in a viral post that turkeys would never eat humans at Thanksgiving. "We’re lucky turkeys would never do this to us - you don’t have to do it to them, either," PETA wrote in a caption to a post that has received over 26.7 million views online. The picture attached to the post depicts a family of turkeys sitting around a human turkey at the center of the table. "Turkeys are not vegetarians," according to the Community...

According to the sheriff, 42 of the suspects admitted to detectives that they were married; 13 said they received government assistance; 42 brought illegal drugs to the undercover location; two had firearms on them and 18 were from other states. Authorities reported that the oldest person arrested was 76-year-old Frank Bydairk, and the youngest was 18-year-old Latrice Vilsaint.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., trashed supporters of former President Donald Trump in an interview with Bloomberg Television, claiming they’re people who either don’t value the dignity of "every person" or are "afraid" of change. She added that the "malignancy of Trump" is a "cancerous situation" in America and urged the Republican Party to "remember its heritage." Pelosi made her dig on Trump and his supporters while speaking to Bloomberg reporter Francine Lacqua in Venice, Italy, on Thursday. Lacqua mentioned that Pelosi "stood up against President Trump many times" while he was in office. "I didn't stand up to...

Prof. Begun said: "Our findings further suggest that hominines [bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas] not only evolved in western and central Europe - but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa."....This migration, he added, was "probably a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests."

A natural El Nino, human-caused climate change, a stubborn heat dome over the nation’s midsection and other factors cooked up Tropical Storm Hilary’s record-breaking slosh into California and Nevada, scientists figure. Cooked up is the key phrase, since hot water and hot air were crucial in rapidly growing Hilary and then steering the storm on an unusual path that dumped 10 months of rain in a single weekend in normally bone-dry places. Nearly a foot of rain fell in parts of Southern California’s mountains, while cities smashed summertime records. “It was a combination of sort of a perfect situation of...

A report published by India’s Union Home Ministry last week revealed that over a million women and girls disappeared between 2019 and 2021. 250,000 of the disappearances involved girls under the age of 18.Roughly 80,000 of the women went missing in the national capital of New Delhi.India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), which provided data for the report to parliament, blamed “forced marriage, domestic work, sexual exploitation, and child labor” plus “mental illness, miscommunication, misadventure, domestic violence, and being victim of a crime” as the main reasons for the huge number of missing women.The NCRB said many of the women...

Human trafficking — both sex trafficking and labor trafficking, including of children — remains a widespread global problem, and America is not left untouched. Here is what you should know about human trafficking.

A team of researchers in the United States and United Kingdom say they have created the world’s first synthetic human embryo-like structures from stem cells, bypassing the need for eggs and sperm. These embryo-like structures are at the very earliest stages of human development: They don’t have a beating heart or a brain, for example. But scientists say they could one day help advance the understanding of genetic diseases or the causes of miscarriages. The research raises critical legal and ethical questions, and many countries, including the US, don’t have laws governing the creation or treatment of synthetic embryos. The...

Taiwanese-American actor, Benji Wang, 40, and his wife, Cindy, welcomed their baby girl into the world on 12 May. They posted a Reel on the husband's Instagram account, @kungfubenji, on 14 May. The Reel, which has been flagged by the platform as containing graphic content, shows Benji demonstrating how he cooked the umbilical cord and placenta by first washing and cleaning them. He then chops the placenta with the umbilical cord into bite-size pieces before boiling it in water. After boiling once, he changes the water and boils the pieces again. He then stir-fries them with onions, ginger, and capsicum...

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that abortion was a “human rights issue.” Anchor Dana Bash said, “Former President Donald Trump’s campaign said this week that the Supreme Court got it right when they ruled abortion was a state issue.” She asked, “I’ve heard you say both on this issue that it is a state issue, but now you do support a federal ban. So who’s right here?”

Amnesty International has admitted that Ukraine is using children and other civilians as human shields in its war against Russia, launching attacks from populated areas and turning schools, hospitals, and homes into military outposts; all things that Amnesty International says constitute a violation of humanitarian law.Amnesty International is frequently cited by the globalist class as the foremost organization on human rights and has been openly in favor of taking down Russia and its President, Vladimir Putin. However, a recent admission by the globally-operating NGO sheds light on the human shield tactics that Ukraine is using as the war with Russia...

ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – January is National Human Trafficking Prevention Month and the local Safe Harbour Programs are asking for your help recognizing human trafficking in our local community. Human trafficking is a crime involving the exploitation of someone for the purposes of compelled labor or a commercial sex act through the use of force, fraud, or coercion. Human trafficking affects individuals across the world, including here in the United States, and is commonly regarded as one of the most pressing human rights issues of our time. Human trafficking affects every community in the United States across age, gender, ethnicity,...

Imagine being loaded onto a plane and promised what? A job? A new life? A way out of a crowded refugee camp? And then landing on an island off the coast of Massachusetts where no one was expecting you and few speak your language. For more than 40 mostly Venezuelan refugees, including a number of children, who landed in Martha’s Vineyard midday Wednesday, this was no magical mystery tour. Some thought they were headed for Boston. Most had no idea where they were when they landed. No wonder the incident has caught the eye of federal law enforcement. Imagine the...

More human remains have been found at Lake Mead, marking the third set discovered in the area since early May. On Monday, the National Park Service (NPS) was alerted about human remains at Lake Mead National Recreation Area around 4:30 p.m. local time, the NPS said in a news release. Park rangers arrived on the scene and blocked off the area to "recover the remains," NPS added. The Clark County Medical Examiner has been contacted to determine the cause of death. Authorities are still investigating, the NPS said, adding that "no further information is available at this time." The gripping...

Can collaborative robots work with humans? Robots are filling more jobs than ever before, a trend that was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, a shrinking pool of willing workers and new innovations that reduced the cost of automation for smaller companies. FAIRFIELD, Ohio — Editor's note: An earlier version of this story erroneously reported the cost of the cobot at the Fairfield Skyline. A Skyline restaurant in Fairfield has a new server that rolls through a 12-hour shift while treating customers to songs like "Happy Birthday" and the "Skyline Time" jingle. While it isn't getting paid hourly, it costs about...

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced late Thursday that a person in Colorado has tested positive for an H5 bird flu virus — the first such recorded infection in the United States. The CDC did not reveal the neuraminidase subtype of the virus — the N portion of an influenza A virus’ name. The country is currently experiencing an unprecedented outbreak of H5N1 bird flu in both wild birds and in commercial poultry flocks. The man, described by Colorado health officials as being younger than 40 years old, experienced only fatigue; he is now in isolation and being...