Free Republic

It’s Christmas season and the little town of Bethlehem is jammed with a big-city problem: Traffic snarling streets everywhere, including around the church marking the spot where tradition says Jesus was born. The city is considering a dramatic solution to the problem—digging a tunnel under Manger Square. Traffic is a mess year-round. It may be the biblical town of grottos and shepherds’ fields in the minds of many around the world, but Bethlehem is a modern densely populated town of 28,000 with a dizzying weave of small streets that practically guarantee traffic jams. […] Bethlehem’s municipality hopes to eventually build...

    Fore!Every once in a while the truth slips out…The AP reported that Obama went to see the doctor today because the rain kept him off the golf course “where he spends most Saturdays.” Acid reflux is caused when the contents of the stomach flow back up the esophagus, causing heartburn and other symptoms. Treatments include avoiding certain foods and using over-the-counter or prescription medications, including antacids.White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Jackson suggested that Obama have the diagnostic test done on Saturday afternoon because the president had free time in his schedule. Rain kept Obama off...

In the wake of serious allegations of sexual assault from multiple women against Bill Cosby, the Associated Press has released the full video from a Nov. 6 interview. During the on camera exchange, an AP reporter, Brett Zongker, asked Cosby about the allegations and he replies “No, no. We don’t answer that.” Cosby then requested that none of the questions and answers about the allegations appear anywhere. “I would appreciate it if it was scuttled,” Cosby said. “I think if you want to consider yourself to be serious,” Cosby said to the reporter, “that it will not appear anywhere.” The...

BOSTON (AP) -- Lawsuits filed Monday against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill argue that affirmative action policies should be banned at colleges across the nation. The federal suits allege Harvard and UNC rely on race-based affirmative action policies that impact admissions of high-achieving white and Asian American students. The Harvard lawsuit also contends that the Ivy League university specifically limits the number of Asian Americans it admits each year. The Project on Fair Representation, an Alexandria, Virginia-based legal defense fund, said Monday's filings will be the first in a series of legal challenges against...

The unemployment rate no longer seems to reflect America’s mood. Friday’s strong jobs report showed that the jobless rate—the most closely watched gauge of the economy’s health—is down to 5.8 percent. A year ago, the rate was 7.2 percent. Five years ago, it was 10 percent. It’s the kind of sustained decline that would normally suggest a satisfied public. Not so much anymore. […] Many Americans don’t feel they've benefited from falling unemployment any more than they have from a sustained rise in the stock market or from solid U.S. economic growth. Some hints of their discontent can be found...

FBI Director James Comey says an agent impersonated an Associated Press reporter during a 2007 criminal investigation, a ruse the news organization says could undermine its credibility. In a letter to the Justice Department last week, the AP requested Holder's word that the DOJ would never again misrepresent itself as the AP and asked for policies to ensure the DOJ does not further impersonate news organizations. In a letter Thursday to Comey and Holder, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press asked the agency for full disclosure about the incident. "The utilization of news media as a cover for...

An Associated Press photographer in Cuba, Franklin Reyes Marrero, has died in a car accident while returning from an assignment west of Havana. Reyes, 39, was driving from the port of Mariel on Monday after working on a story about the Cuban economy. He apparently hit a patch of gravel and lost control of his car, which crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with another vehicle, police and medical officials said. They said he died at the scene. […] Reyes is the fourth AP journalist killed on assignment this year. …

The AP used to be a reliable disarmenter organization.  John Lott documented how an AP editor edited out of the story, armed students who helped subdue a university shooter, at the Appalachian Law School.    But this has been changing as the gun culture media has been able to document and challenge AP stories and procedures.   AP has been feeling the heat.  It was with interest that I read this AP story, just before the election.   It starts with a usual disarmenter passive construction:     The latest U.S. school shooting claimed the lives of two students and the teenage...

International news agency Associated Press (AP) has been accused of anti-Israel bias before, but this time the agency has surpassed even itself in reporting the Jerusalem terror attack in which 3-month-old Chaya Zisel Braun was murdered. Its headline reporting the attack was "Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem", referring to the terrorist (!) who was driving the car that drove into people waiting at a light rail station. The original article (later changed), began with the words: "Israeli police say they have shot a man whose car slammed into a crowded train stop in east Jerusalem, in what they...

JERUSALEM, Israel -- The Associated Press is facing some heat for its offensive headline following Thursday's terror attack in Jerusalem. The AP's initial headline read, "Israeli Police Shoot Man in East Jerusalem," with no mention that police were responding to a terror attack. The vehicular attack injured seven people and killed three month-old Chaya Zissel Braun, who held dual U.S.-Israeli citizenship. After repeated complaints, AP changed the headline to "Car Slams Into East Jerusalem Train Station. And finally, AP acquiesed to complaints, changing it to "Palestinian Kills Baby at Jerusalem Station." But there are still calls for the wire service...

On Friday, the Associated Press posted an advisory to editors about suspected cases of Ebola, which they’re hearing of more and more. “The AP has exercised caution in reporting these cases and will continue to do so,” the advisory reads. Here’s the rest: Most of these suspected cases turn out to be negative. Our bureaus monitor them, but we have not been moving stories or imagery simply because a doctor suspects Ebola and routine precautions are taken while the patient is tested. To report such a case, we look for a solid source saying Ebola is suspected and some sense...

An Associated Press fact-check on President Obama’s climate change speech to the United Nations Tuesday accused the president of clearly spinning the facts and distorting the truth about America’s response to global warming. The AP fact-checker faulted Obama “gloss[ing] over some inconvenient truths” in his global warming lecture Tuesday, particularly in regard to his claims about America’s attempts to clean up emissions at home and his insistence that emissions reductions do not have an impact on the economy. The fact-check says that not only did Obama distort the numbers to claim that in the last eight years the U.S. reduced...

Last week, Breitbart News revealed a secret video game journalist mailing list used by a clique of influential writers, editors, and bloggers, some of whom attempted to bully their colleagues with it in an attempt to shape the news agenda for political purposes. We can today reveal the complete list of journalists, some 150 key industry figures, on the list. Outlets with representation span the entire video games journalism universe and include Polygon, Ars Technica, Wired, Eurogamer, Destructoid, Kotaku, Joystiq, TechRadar, and many other well-known brands in games publishing. But they also include freelancers and staffers for publications as solidly...

School’s back — and so is the liberal agenda! Across the country, parents and lawmakers are up in arms about an honors curriculum that gives new meaning to the phrase “history in the making.” The 95-page outline is so agenda-driven, educators complain, that basic U.S. facts are either distorted — or worse, omitted altogether. The College Board’s proposal is a study in liberal indoctrination — so much so that the Republican National Committee (RNC) formally opposed the idea in August. In a vote, the RNC concluded that the Advanced Placement (AP) curriculum is a “radical revisionist view” of America’s greatest...

Editor’s Note: When you’re too far left to work in the government for a Democratic Administration, an academic berth probably awaits. With wars raging in the Middle East, and Russia still threatening Ukraine, the problem of anti-Americanism in Latin America has been put on the back burner. But since Secretary of State John Kerry declared last year that the Monroe Doctrine was dead, Vladimir Putin of Russia has traveled to Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua and Cuba. This doesn’t seem like an accident. The Obama administration is inviting aggression against the U.S. During the Cold War, Cuba hosted Soviet nuclear missiles targeting...

The Associated Press Stylebook states that in reports referring to a person’s age, the figure for the age number should be used. It also states that reports should “use man or woman for individuals 18 and older.” Why, then, are AP reports on the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown solely referring to him as a “teen” and “teenager”? ADVERTISEMENT “Don’t know’ if Missouri teen shot with hands up,” reads one AP headline from Monday. “County autopsy: Unarmed teen shot 6 to 8 times,” reads another. And an excerpt from yet another AP story, emphasis added: “Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon lifted...

An unexploded munition detonated in Gaza on Wednesday during an attempt to neutralize that device. Six were killed in that explosion, including one of GazaÂ’s top explosives decommissioning expert and an Associated Press photographer. Simone Camilli, 35, died Wednesday when Gaza police engineers were neutralizing unexploded ordnance in the Gaza town of Beit Lahiya left over from fighting between Israel and Islamic militants.Camilli and a translator working with the AP, Ali Shehda Abu Afash, were accompanying the ordnance team on assignment when the explosion occurred. The police said four other people were seriously injured, including AP photographer Hatem Moussa.Camilli,...

Hamas sources in Gaza report that a dud IDF missile exploded on Wednesday, killing five including an Italian journalist, after Hamas terrorists clumsily tried to dismantle the missile. Hamas emergency services spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra stated that in addition to the five dead, there are several more who are seriously wounded. "A number of explosives experts were killed while dismantling a missile in Beit Lahiya. Among them was a foreign journalist," Hamas Interior Ministry spokesperson Iyad al-Buzam told AFP. The Italian government shortly thereafter named the dead journalist as Simone Camilli, a cameraman for Associated Press. AP confirmed the 35-year-old Italian...

Hamas' so-called sappers managed to kill themselves and a foreign journalist Wednesday. Hamas terrorists accidentally killed at least four and maybe five of their own members and an Italian photo journalist Wednesday when they tried dismantling what apparently was an IDF artillery shell that did not explode. The Italian civilian was reportedly working for several news agencies, including Associated Press, according to the Greek news service ANSA. Several others, including a Gaza journalist and medics, were wounded in the blast around 11 a.m. in Beit Lahiya, located in northern Gaza. The incident occurred in a civilian neighborhood, one of...

Tuesday morning the Associated Press fired of a tweet mocking Congress over its support of Israel. "As much of the world watched Gaza war in horror, members of Congress fall over each other to support Israel."