Free Republic

"Today, our University held firm, enforcing our rules while protecting the Constitutional right to free speech. Peaceful protests within our rules are acceptable. Breaking our rules and policies and disrupting others’ ability to learn are not allowed. The group that led this protest stated it was going to violate Institutional Rules. Our rules matter, and they will be enforced. Our University will not be occupied," the president added.

Hundreds of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers cracked down on pro-Hamas protesters at the University of Texas campus on Wednesday. The protesters in the Texas capital city came out in solidarity with students at other major universities across the country. According to a post on Instagram, the protest in Austin was organized by the Palestine Solidarity Committee. The group posted: Today, Palestine Solidarity Committee at the University of Texas started their Popular University movement on campus, and were welcomed by massive university and state trooper repression, with at least 16 arrests made so far. KVUE, Austin’s ABC affiliate, reported...

<p>At least nine protesters were handcuffed and loaded into police cruisers at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine. And several more were arrested at the university's South Lawn.</p>

Law enforcement officers on Wednesday handcuffed and removed at least 10 people participating in a student protest on the University of Texas at Austin campus in support of Palestine amid the Israel-Hamas war. UT Austin students demanding that the university divest from manufacturers supplying Israel weapons in its strikes on Gaza gathered outside the university’s Gregory Gym with plans to march to the South Lawn, where they said they would sit down throughout the day. More than 200 students had gathered as of noon.

The missing American who’d traveled to Ukraine years ago to aid Russian separatists in Donbas was found dead in the country’s war-torn eastern region. The body of Russell Bentley, a 64-year-old U.S. Army vet, was recovered in the Russian-controlled region of Donetsk Oblast, Reuters reported. -snip- The former pothead, who used “Texas” as his military call-sign, left behind a yoga instructor girlfriend to travel to Ukraine. He utilized crowdfunding sites to finance his trip, and had since become a Russian citizen. He also got married after moving to Ukraine, where he began working as a reporter for the state-owned Sputnik...

Space X CEO Elon Musk and Argentinian President Javier Milei have met in Texas and spoke about working together to promote free markets and potential lithium projects. President Javier Milei’s chief spokesperson said that during their visit to Tesla’s Austin headquarters, the two talked about a range of issues, including the need to boost declining birth rates globally and the pursuit of technological advancement while upholding “liberty.” Musk has previously expressed his admiration for Milei’s unabashed support of private enterprise as well as his distaste for what he considers to be socialist excesses.

WARNING: This story contains graphic images A gender clinic in Texas dubbed 'Frankenstein's lab' has performed hundreds of unconventional genital surgeries that many experts describe as 'dangerous.' The Crane Center for Transgender Surgery in Austin bills itself as a world leader in operations for non-binary people - those who don't identify exclusively with one gender. The surgeries include giving patients a penis and vagina, or completely removing their sex organs, essentially 'Barbie-dolling your genitals,' as one critic put it. The center director, Dr Curtis Crane, has previously bragged he couldn't 'think of a surgical request that I haven't been able...

The University of Texas at Austin has sent layoff notices to an estimated 60 staff members who previously worked in diversity, equity and inclusion roles, according to the Texas NAACP and the Texas Conference of American Association of University Professors. The staffing cuts come as the university works to comply with the state’s anti-DEI law, or SB17, that bans public colleges and universities from maintaining DEI offices, holding mandatory DEI training, and having departments focused on “promoting differential treatment” based on race, sex or ethnicity. In a statement released Wednesday, the Texas NAACP and AAUP said impacted staff members were...

AUSTIN, Texas — A Texas man who was convicted of killing an 8-year-old girl in the 1980s and then run out of several towns following his early release from prison has been indicted on two new murder charges, including one that could carry the death penalty, prosecutors announced Friday. Raul Meza Jr., 62, was arrested on murder charges earlier this year in the deaths of his roommate in May and a woman in 2019. Decades earlier, Meza caused an uproar in Texas towns where he tried settling down after serving about a third of a 30-year sentence in the rape...

The man photographed another passenger's boarding pass and used it to board the aircraft. A Texas man has been arrested after taking a picture of another passenger's boarding pass and boarding a Delta flight out of Salt Lake City. The stowaway - 26-year-old Wicliff Yves Fleurizard - had been booked on a Southwest flight but was rebooked as the flight was full. Rather than waiting, he wandered into the Delta side of the departure terminal and took photographs of several boarding passes, which he would then use to board the aircraft. According to court documents filed in Utah on Monday,...

He used a kid's boarding pass to get on the flight, but flight attendants soon realized he didn't belong.A Delta passenger from Texas somehow managed to use a child’s boarding pass to get on a flight from Salt Lake City, Utah to Austin, Texas; flight attendants caught onto his little scheme after he hid in multiple bathrooms shortly before takeoff. Salt Lake City police arrested Wicliff Fleurizard on March 17 after he was removed from Flight 1683. Fleurizard managed to board the Airbus A320 and stayed in the front lavatory for an extended period of time, according to USA Today....

As government schools continue to show their commitment to promoting sex and gender ideology to children, Austin Independent School District is preparing to host its annual “Pride Week” pushing teachers and kids to “celebrate LGBTQIA+ students, staff and families.” Austin ISD said the event, set for March 18-23, will “highlight the district’s commitment to creating a safe, supportive, and inclusive environment.” According to the district’s website, each campus will receive a guide of suggested resources and activities staff can put on for students. Staff are advised to reach out to coordinators of their campus Genders and Sexualities Alliances (formerly known...

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has responded to the dozens of bands who have pulled out of this year’s SXSW Festival in protest of its sponsorship deal with the U.S. Army. “Bye. Don’t come back,” Abbott wrote Tuesday in a post on X. “We are proud of the U.S. military in Texas. If you don’t like it, don’t come here.” Bands pull out of SXSW over U.S. Army sponsorship. Bye. Don’t come back. Austin remains the HQ for the Army Futures Command. San Antonio is Military City USA. We are proud of the U.S. military in Texas. If you don’t...

Texas Governor Greg Abbott hit out at musicians on Tuesday who are pulling out of the South by Southwest festival (SXSW) over the U.S. Army's sponsorship of the event, telling them "Don't come back" to the state. The internationally recognized event brings thousands of visitors to Austin each March, showcasing music, film and interactive media. This year's festival is running from March 8-16 and includes live panels and special events. However, it comes amid heightened tensions in the U.S. and around the world due to the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The U.S. is currently the foremost supplier of weapons to Israel,...

Is it a coincidence that McConnell is stepping down as Senate minority leader? On Feb. 12, 50-year-old Angela Chao was found dead in her Tesla that was submerged in a pond on private property in Blanco County, Texas, according to the incident report from fire department EMS personnel. Ms. Chao was the sixth and youngest daughter of Chinese-American shipping magnate James Si-Cheng Chao, who founded the New York-headquartered Foremost Group in 1964. She had been CEO of the company since 2018 and was a founding member of The Asian American Foundation. On Feb. 28, 82-year-old Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell...

A group of YouTube Music staff found out that they had been made redundant while speaking at a council meeting in Texas, urging councillors to support them in their efforts to get the Google-owned company to negotiate with their union. Google says they were contractors whose agreements have expired ..."Then, as he began to expand on that point, a colleague of Benedict's stepped forward to let him know that the entire team had been laid off. "

AUSTIN, TX — Early last December, a billionaire named Daniel Lubetzky, who had moved to Austin, Texas, from New York City during the pandemic, hosted a meeting of civic leaders and businesspeople in the city. The number one subject on everyone’s mind was Austin’s troubling crime rate. According to FBI crime statistics, as of October 2023, crime was higher in the Texas capital than the average number of murders, aggravated assaults, and robberies in the rest of Texas—and the nation. Violent crime, for instance, was nearly 40 percent higher in Austin than the national average. Meanwhile, since 2021, felonies were...

Workers contracted with YouTube Music made headlines this weekend for saying they’d been laid off in the middle of an Austin City Council meeting. A clip of last Thursday’s city council meeting shows Jack Benedict, a member of the Alphabet Workers Union (AWU-CWA), appealing to the city council to pass a resolution in support of the workers. As he’s speaking, one of his coworkers, Katie Marschner, walks up and tells him: "Not to interrupt but they just laid us all off."

Austin, Texas residents are expressing outrage over police staffing shortages and longer 911-call response times in the aftermath of the city council's vote to defund the department in 2020. In February, a section of the city was notably left without a single police officer for a few hours on a Saturday due to the ongoing shortages. Austin Police Association President Michael Bullock, who called attention to the vacancy on X, told Fox News Digital that a steady decline in public safety has put the city on the "brink of disaster."

Lloyd Austin underwent an invasive surgical procedure called a prostatectomy for his prostate cancer. He was readmitted to the ICU ward of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center seven days later, on January 1st, due to complications caused by a severe infection. It appears he was septic. He concealed his inability to carry out his duties from Biden, Congress, the Pentagon, and his Deputy Secretary, Dr. Kathleen Hicks. On January 4th, finally becoming aware of Austin’s hospitalization, security adviser Jake Sullivan notified Hicks, who was on vacation in Puerto Rico. Even though Biden continued to back Austin, Austin was already...