Free Republic

Thousands of protestors took to the streets in hundreds of cities across the U.S. Saturday, participating in "Families Belong Together" rallies and demonstrations. What protestors are hoping to gain: The immediate reunification of families that have been separated, the end of family detentions, and, more broadly, the dissolution of Trump administration's "zero-tolerance" policy.

Researchers have discovered an alarming trend: the average I.Q.s of human beings is on a downward spiral. Westerns have lost 14 IQ points on average since the Victorian age, according to a study published by the University of Amsterdam last year.  Jan te Nijenhuis thinks this could be because intelligent women tend to have less [sic] children than women who are not as clever[.] ... [E]ducated people are deciding to have fewer children, so that subsequent generations are largely made up of less intelligent people. Richard Lynn, a psychologist at the University of Ulster, calculated the decline in humans' genetic potential....

There will soon be more focus on flushes and scrutiny over showers with a new law signed in by the governor. California is now the first state in the nation to enact tough new water-efficiency standards. The controversial rules limit how many gallons a person can use inside their home per day. “So that everyone in California is at least integrating efficiency into our preparations for climate change,” said Felicia Marcus, Chair of the State Water Resources Control Board. So, what are the new rules? In 2022, the new indoor water standard will be 55 gallons per person, per day....

Damage from extreme weather events during 2017 racked up the biggest-ever bills for the U.S. Most of these events involved conditions that align intuitively with global warming: heat records, drought, wildfires, coastal flooding, hurricane damage and heavy rainfall. Paradoxical, though, are possible ties between climate change and the recent spate of frigid weeks in eastern North America. A very new and "hot topic" in climate change research is the notion that rapid warming and wholesale melting of the Arctic may be playing a role in causing persistent cold spells. It doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to suppose that...

"President Winfrey" was the talk of the entertainment world after Winfrey accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award at the Golden Globes. And the "Oprah for president?" possibility was a top story on morning TV. The touchstone of her speech was the #MeToo movement. But her hopeful message -- "A new day is on the horizon" -- could have doubled as a campaign rallying cry. Many liberal-leaning celebrities and viewers certainly heard it that way. And that may have been exactly what Winfrey wanted. As some political strategists have pointed out in the past year, her fame and wealth could make...

A Russian ambulance spotted in central Stockholm sparked far-fetched fears on Twitter that the city might be undergoing an invasion. The ambulance, a good 865 kilometers from the Russian border, was first noticed by local Måns Jonasson when it stopped to help a sick man in Stockholm's Södermalm district. To the great surprise of passers-by, the ambulance had Russian plates and inscriptions, and its Russian-speaking personnel wore uniforms with Russian script. Swedes have a perennial fear of "Russian invasion," and the unexpected guest – although benevolent – played into their anxiety. While some who responded to Jonasson's tweet guessed a...

A preschool that leases space from the Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder is shutting down at the end of the month after the church congregation voted to become a sanctuary for undocumented immigrants facing deportation. "It put us out of business," said Active Boulder Kids owner Kristen Argow Heaton. About 90 percent of the congregation that attended a church meeting on the matter last month voted to move forward with plans to outfit a portion of the building to provide living quarters for an immigrant taking sanctuary. Argow Heaton said that parents notified the church ahead of the vote that...

PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Art Commission voted Wednesday to recommend the Stephen Foster statue in Oakland be removed. The recommendation is that the statue is removed from the public and placed in a place in private and "properly contextualized." The Pittsburgh Art Commission will recommend removal of the statue within six months. Foster, a Pittsburgh native who died in 1864, is famous for classic songs including “Oh! Susanna” and “Camptown Races.” Many of his songs were used in minstrel shows in which actors performed in blackface. The statue depicts Foster sitting above shoeless, banjo-playing “Uncle Ned,” a slave character from...

Donald Trump took a lot of heat when he announced his candidacy for President, stating that he would build a border fence from San Diego to Brownsville and make Mexico pay for it, all to keep Mexico’s “unwanted” and “undesirables” from flooding the United States. In August 2015, on the campaign trail, he shed light on a flawed interpretation of the U.S. Constitution that has caused much of the problem of illegal immigration. That misinterpretation of the 14th Amendment, written to guarantee the citizenship rights of freed slaves after the Civil War, has morphed the amendment into a guarantee of...

Take one round-trip flight between New York and California, and you’ve generated about 20 percent of the greenhouse gases that your car emits over an entire year. If you’re flying, you’re adding a significant amount of planet-warming gases to the atmosphere — there’s no way around it. But there are some ways to make your airplane travel a little bit greener. The most effective way to reduce your carbon footprint is to fly less often. If everyone took fewer flights, airline companies wouldn’t burn as much jet fuel. ...according to some calculations, a round-trip flight from New York to San...

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) said that Democrats should try to impeach Vice President Mike Pence after they impeach President Trump on “The View” on Friday. “Do you think Pence will be better than Trump?” host Joy Behar asked Waters. “No, and when we finish with Trump, we have to go and get Putin. He’s next,” Waters said. “Putin or Pence?” Behar asked, confused. “Pence,” Waters said, correcting herself. Waters has been calling for Trump’s impeachment since February.

Aiming to help thousands of students who get sidetracked in developmental courses that don’t count toward their degrees, California State University will do away next year with traditional remedial education. In an executive order issued Wednesday night, Chancellor Timothy White directed the 23-campus system to overhaul by fall 2018 its curriculum for students found to be unprepared for college-level English and math. About 39 percent of CSU’s incoming freshmen, or 25,000 students, are required to take remedial classes for no credit before they can begin their general education. University officials argue this is no longer the right approach in an...

Los Angeles still leads the nation in television pilot production, but a study released today by FilmL.A. reveals that the home of Hollywood took a double-digit hit this year to fall to its lowest total since 2009. However, with pilots down this most recent cycle in all the major production centers except tax-incentive lucrative Louisiana, a jump in straight-to-series orders by cable outlets and the streaming services might be part of the problem.

Do you have any idea how stupid this is? Then you may have "cognitive privilege"? As the intersectional left continues to kill satire through its very existence, we advance toward the bright future of idiocracy. Here's the Daily Iowan. The college paper of the University of Iowa. And where better to denounce "cognitive privilege" than a college paper. There are many kinds of privilege besides white privilege: cognitive privilege, for example. We now know that intelligence is not something we have significant control over but is something we are born with. We are living in a society in which success...

The chancellor of the California community college system has stated that institutions’ algebra requirements are “the biggest barrier” for “underemployed or unemployed Americans,” and as such is … a civil rights issue. According to NPR, Chancellor Eloy Ortiz Oakley is “among a growing number of educators who view intermediate algebra as an obstacle to students obtaining their credentials — particularly in fields that require no higher level math skills.” In an interview with the chancellor, NPR’s Robert Siegel pointed out the low graduation rate in the community college system (48% for an associate’s degree), and then asked Oakley if ditching...

BRUSSELS, May 28 (UPI) -- Since 1889 to 2004, IQ declined 14.1 points among those from Western nations, researchers in Europe say.

Consider this before you assume you can have a long or lucrative career in the retail industry: Up to half of all current jobs in the retail sector are likely to vanish because of e-commerce, automation of jobs and the closing of brick-and-mortar stores. Millions of retail jobs — as we now know them — are going the way of gas station attendants. Just as ATMs replaced many bank tellers, automated check-out stations are supplanting retail clerks. And have you watched in-store “shoppers” who do Amazon price checks while they’re standing in the aisles? Have you noticed how many of...

Microsoft won a patent for augmented reality glasses that would provide a guiding voice at mealtime – whispering for you to consider grabbing a salad for lunch, rather than a greasy burger. The patent claims a device with image data would use a sensor to detect foods – and then provide feedback information to the user on the food's nutritional information. “A see-through, head mounted display and sensing devices cooperating to provide feedback on food items detected in the device field of view,” the patent abstract reads. “Feedback can include warnings based on personal wearer needs, general nutrition information, food...

Here’s another bizarre school assignment to add to the pile, courtesy of Wisconsin-based talk show host Vicki McKenna. Students are asked to work in groups to choose seven people to save from a shipwreck. To help in their decision, they are given some rudimentary information about each passenger, such as race and religious views. Mr. Blake, for example, is a Mormon who “sympathizes with anti-black views,” while Mr. Newton is a “black power advocated” [sic] who is “suspected of homosexual activity.” You can see the educational value, especially when you take into account Father Frans, a priest who is “often...

"Pretty, but not very solid. Cement walls could be higher/more reliable. C'mon dam, you had one job."--Noah Lantz, one star "I here the spillway is great right now for white water rafting. Watch out for street poles down stream though"--David Lansing, five stars "I give this dam 5 stars, because it's a shining beacon of the kind of California doctrine that they want for the rest of the country!"--Richard Howell, five stars "Dam does a great job at showcasing American ingenuity, the advances we have collectively made in water management, materials science, and our fundamentally negligent attitudes towards maintenance and...