Free Republic

The United Methodist Church lost one-fourth of its U.S. churches in a recent schism, with conservatives departing over disputes on sexuality and theology. Now, with the approach of its first major legislative gathering in several years, the question is whether the church can avert a similar outcome elsewhere in the world, where about half its members live. The question is particularly acute in Africa, home to the vast majority of United Methodists outside the U.S. Most of its bishops favor staying, but other voices are calling for regional conferences to disaffiliate. At the upcoming General Conference in Charlotte, North Carolina,...

The world is losing the battle against electronic waste, a UN expert said on Wednesday (March 20), after a report found 62 million metric tons of mobile phones and devices were dumped on the planet in just one year — and this is expected to increase by a third by 2030. Electronic waste, also known as e-waste, consists of any discarded items containing an electric plug or a battery. It can contain toxic additives and hazardous substances such as mercury, and represents an environmental and health hazard. "These goods are often not easy to repair. They easily become waste and...

On Wednesday, Thailand’s House of Representatives voted 400-10 in favor of same-sex “marriage.” Only 10 lawmakers voted against the bill. Two abstained and three didn’t vote. The country’s Senate “rarely rejects any legislation that passes the lower house,” the Associated Press noted. Once it passes the Senate, it then must be approved by the majority-Buddhist country’s king. In addition to redefining marriage, the bill “extends all rights and protections contained in the Civil and Commercial Code to LGBTI+ persons,” the pro-LGBT group “Fortify Rights” said in a press release. The group’s lobbying to add the “gender-neutral language of ‘parent’ addition...

WASHINGTON (AP) — For Jonathan Peter Jackson, a direct relative of two prominent members of the Black Panther Party, revolutionary thought and family history have always been intertwined, particularly in August. That’s the month in 1971 when his uncle, the famed Panther George Jackson, was killed during an uprising at San Quentin State Prison in California. A revolutionary whose words resonated inside and out of the prison walls, he was a published author, activist and radical thought leader. To many, February is the month dedicated to celebrating Black Americans’ contributions to a country where they were once enslaved. But Black...

Cities coast-to-coast grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed .. Between the federal government, states and municipalities, untold billions in taxpayer dollars have been spent adding electric buses to transit fleets across the U.S. in an effort to reduce carbon emissions. However, cities from coast-to-coast are grappling with broken-down e-buses that cannot be fixed, are too expensive to fix, or they have scrapped their electric fleets altogether. Officials in Asheville, North Carolina, recently expressed frustration that three of the five e-buses the city purchased for millions in 2018 are now sitting idle due to a combination of software issues,...

Ann Coulter Tries to Debunk Ray Epps "Conspiracy Theory" by Invoking NY Times

Home schooling has become — by a wide margin — America’s fastest-growing form of education, as families from Upper Manhattan to Eastern Kentucky embrace a largely unregulated practice once confined to the ideological fringe, a Washington Post analysis shows. The analysis — based on data The Post collected for thousands of school districts across the country — reveals that a dramatic rise in home schooling at the onset of the pandemic has largely sustained itself through the 2022-23 academic year, defying predictions that most families would return to schools that have dispensed with mask mandates and other covid-19 restrictions. The...

Richard Roundtree, star of the genre-defining blaxploitation series Shaft, has passed away at 81 years old, according to his agency. Per Deadline, Roundtree died Monday afternoon surrounded by family, after a brief bout with pancreatic cancer. A statement from his representatives reads: “Artists & Representatives Agency mourns the loss of our friend and client Richard Roundtree,” the agency said in a statement. “His trailblazing career changed the face of entertainment around the globe and his enduring legacy will be felt for generations to come. Our hearts are with his family and loved ones during this difficult time.” ....Snip..... At the...

A naked selfie of Joe Biden's brother Frank has been discovered on a gay porn site. The photo was uploaded to GuysWithiPhones.com in 2018, when Frank – who has a long-term female partner Mindy Ward – was 64. *** When approached by DailyMail.com, Frank, 69, conceded he was the man in the photo but denied he was the one who posted it. 'I've absolutely no comment. I could care less. I haven't even looked at it,' Frank said Monday morning when asked about the shot at his Florida home. 'They must have hacked my phone,' he added. 'Anything that is...

Twitter sparked backlash this week after some users noticed it had quietly removed language in its hateful conduct policy that explicitly protected transgender people from online harassment. The social media platform had prohibited the targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender people since 2018. Some online noticed this month that the sentence had been plucked from Twitter’s section on slurs and tropes, while all other descriptions of policy violations remained intact. Archives captured by the Wayback Machine showed the previous version still existed April 7, the day Twitter announced it had updated its abuse and harassment policy to redefine “targeted harassment.”...

Before the COVID pandemic, Dr. Paul Marik became well-known for his development of a highly effective sepsis protocol using intravenous vitamin C, which resulted in a dramatic reduction in mortality rates. Then, in 2020, he cofounded the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC) and subsequently published one of the most comprehensive and effective protocols for treating COVID-19. Despite a stellar career up to that point, the sin of insisting on early treatment for COVID-19, and sharing that information with the public, resulted in him being vilified, discredited and ultimately forced to resign. I’m a veteran of this too, so...

One of Hollywood’s leading Native American figures is being accused of faking her claims of Cherokee heritage, The Post can reveal. Award-winning Heather Rae, 56, serves on the Academy of Motion Pictures’ Indigenous Alliance, previously headed up the Sundance Institute’s Native American program and claims “my mother was Indian and my father was a cowboy.” Multiple prior news reports have also cited her as having a Cherokee mother. But a watchdog group called the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds is now demanding the Academy and the producer drop her “false claims” while activists insist she’s at best 1/2048th Cherokee. The group...

"I've had hiccups," the "Frasier" star admitted to USA Today. "I've had some tragic times." He continued, "I have wrestled with those and worked my way through them: sometimes rejecting faith, sometimes rejecting God even, in a period of being pretty angry about it, like, 'Where were you?' That kind of thing." "But I have come to terms with it and have found great peace in my faith and in Jesus. It's not cavalier – Jesus made a difference in my life. That's not anything I'll apologize for."

Why is Turkey now "Türkiye" and what does it matter? This linguistics expert sheds insight.Is Türkiye’s recent spelling change about being more authentically Turkish? Or is there more to the story? In June 2022, the United Nations agreed to change the spelling of the country known in the English-speaking world as Turkey to Türkiye, heeding a request by the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In January, the United States State Department also agreed to adopt the requested change in its written communications. A number of news outlets have reported that Türkiye has changed its name, but that’s not...

The French publishers of Roald Dahl on Tuesday (Feb 21) ruled out any changes to the late British author's translated books after reports that English editions were being rewritten for modern audiences. The Daily Telegraph said last week that publishers Puffin had made hundreds of changes to characters and language in Dahl's stories for children including making the diminutive Oompa-Loompas in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory gender-neutral and calling Augustus Gloop enormous rather than fat. Twit in The Twits is also no longer ugly, but beastly instead, while the Cloud-Men in James and the Giant Peach are now Cloud-People.

The IBM chief said that fields like customer service, human resources and positions within finance and health care could all see automation - not years from now but in the current day. The Artificial Intelligence (AI) trend has taken the world by storm. From passing medical and law exams to delivering speeches, AI has evolved so much that it even converses with users and offers solutions to their problems. Now speaking about AI systems and the explosion of language-based AI ChatGPT, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna has stated that artificial intelligence is on a rapidly progressive pace to take over "clerical...

CNBC’s Jim Cramer on Monday said that it’s time to acknowledge that his group of Big Tech FANG companies are no longer market leaders. The acronym, which was first coined by Cramer, stands for Facebook parent Meta Platforms, Amazon, Netflix and Google parent Alphabet.

Nearly half of the passengers on two recent flights from China to Milan tested positive for COVID-19, Italian health officials said on Wednesday. About 38 percent of passengers on one flight into Milan’s Malpensa Airport tested positive for COVID-19, as did about 52 percent of those on a second flight, according to local officials in Italy’s Lombardy region. Italy will begin testing all new arrivals from China and sequencing the tests for new variants amid China’s surge in COVID-19 cases, Italy’s health minister said on Wednesday. “The measure is essential to ensure surveillance and detection of possible variants of the...

A local LGBTQ+ event was met with protesters Saturday morning in Central Fresno. Fresno's Drag Festival kicked off at 11:30 a.m. at Our Saviors Lutheran Church. The ticketed event features well-known drag performers who do family-friendly numbers, including to Disney songs. There's also a story time portion where the performers read age-appropriate books to the kids. The event had pushback from dozens of people who protested outside of the church. It also drew criticism from Fresno City Councilmember Garry Bredefeld on social media where he called the event "sickening and disgraceful." "I just feel like instead of the love that...

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, federal policymakers acted quickly and decisively to make school meals available to all children at no charge. This policy remained in effect for two and a half years. It was a game-changer. Across the country, school nutrition staff reported numerous benefits in the Food Research & Action Center’s (FRAC) Large School District Report, including removing the stigma from program participation and eliminating school meal debt to the benefit of both families and school districts. The policy also helped address household food insecurity, which rose significantly due to COVID-19 and allowed an additional...