Free Republic

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says that the demand that Iran withdraw completely from Syria "is unrealistic." In a meeting with Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, Lavrov argued that Iran is one of the strongest countries in the region...

Curing cancer ‘not a realistic goal,’ doctors focus on managing instead of curing disease Over the last five years, cancer research has seen the “greatest advances,” including a new approach to treating the complex disease as a “chronic disease,” instead of trying to cure it. “We have seen the greatest advances in cancer medicine in the last five years with drugs targeting the immune system moving into the clinic and showing remarkable response rates with quite a few different malignancies,” Lisa Coussens, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Cell, Developmental & Cancer Biology, said to Fox News at the American...

New York City and its teachers' unions have reached a deal to put an end to a bizarre and Kafkaesque system in which suspended teachers are placed in holding centres, dubbed "rubber rooms", doing nothing on full pay in some cases for as long as 10 years. The rubber rooms — so nicknamed after the padded cells of old-style mental hospitals — have become a symbol of the unacceptable face of the city's education system, which is the largest in the US. Around 600 teachers are currently occupying the temporary reassignment centres, as they are officially known, in locations across...

LONDON - Here's all Barack Obama has to do to meet the world's expectations if he's elected president of the United States: End an unpopular war in Iraq, heal misery in nations hit by the global food crisis and stop global warming in addition to building bridges to Muslim countries and reverse the unilateralist approach of the Bush administration. The euphoria that has swept much of the world at the sight of a young and idealistic black politician seizing the Democratic nomination has generated waves of anticipation. Yet Obama, precisely because of his lofty yet undefined message of hope and...

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that the state could balance its budget next year with revenue from bigger Indian casinos is unrealistic, a report released Friday by the state's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst says. Schwarzenegger's proposal to let tribes install some 22,500 new slot machines and then collect more than $500 million in new fees and taxes from them is critical to his plan to wipe out the state's chronic budget deficit next year. Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, who in recent weeks has blasted the governor's spending plan for relying on rosy revenue projections, on Friday took aim at its...

Expectations of huge financial and medical returns on California's $3 billion investment in stem cell research are unrealistic and based on overblown analysis, according to a study by a panel of research, business and academic professionals. The biggest benefit Californians can expect to reap from their investment – improved quality of life for people living with devastating diseases – is at least 20 years away, the report said. In the meantime, the state should quickly make basic scientific discoveries and tools made with the taxpayers' investment available to the broad scientific community to further stem cell research, the report said....

Kate Hudson says monogamy is tricky business – but she's still faithful to her hubby. The Almost Famous Oscar nominee, hot on the promotional trail for her new thriller, The Skeleton Key, opines that marital fidelity isn't practical – though some folks can pull it off. "I don't believe (monogamy) is realistic," Hudson, 26, tells TV's Access Hollywood. "But, I believe that we, as people, have the power to make it happen." Hudson – who married Black Crowes singer Chris Robinson on Dec. 31, 2000, and welcomed their son, Ryder, Jan. 7, 2004 – was quick to add: "I will...

<p>Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to cut air pollution by 50 percent within a decade -- mostly by urging drivers to use hydrogen-powered vehicles -- was described as unrealistic by environmentalists and scientists, even as they praised him for promoting the new fuel cell technology.</p>