Free Republic

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,...

SAN ANTONIO – Over the past month, KSAT 12 has been investigating the relationship between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and the Wren Collective, a criminal justice reform group based out of Austin. KSAT 12 originally unearthed hundreds of pages of text messages between Gonzales, his staff and the founder of the Wren Collective, Jessica Brand, through a public information request. Now, we’ve obtained more than 400 pages of emails between Brand and Gonzales’ personal email that suggest Brand played a larger role at the DA’s office than Gonzales has admitted. Since our first report on Jan. 30, Gonzales...

A Texas college has reinstated a professor who was reportedly terminated for teaching about the traditional, biological definition of gender. In a statement published Tuesday, the law firm First Liberty Institute announced that St. Philip's College adjunct professor Johnson Varkey has been reinstated after he was fired in January 2023 for rejecting aspects of LGBT ideology.The law firm filed a charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission after the San Antonio, Texas-based historically black community college fired Varkey because the biology professor told his students that sex is determined by an individual's chromosomes. The professor was accused of...

The law firm representing Dr. Johnson Varkey said he will resume teaching by this fall ... A biology professor who was fired from a Texas community college for teaching students that X and Y chromosomes determine sex has been reinstated. First Liberty Institute, a law firm that defends religious liberty for Americans, announced .. that St. Philip's College in San Antonio, Texas, had reinstated Dr. Johnson Varkey, a former adjunct professor, a year after he was terminated. ... "We are happy that the Alamo Community College District voluntarily reinstated Dr. Varkey," Kayla Toney, Associate Counsel for First Liberty Institute, said....

Delta Airlines has been hit with a lawsuit for the wrongful death of a woman whose husband fatally mowed her down in a Utah airport parking lot — with her estate claiming flight attendants overserved her beau. Representatives for the estate of slain mom Charlotte Sturgeon and her child — who witnessed the gruesome accident — say in the suit filed Thursday that the airline is to blame for her tragic death because its employees served husband Shawn Sturgeon at least two additional drinks despite him consuming “multiple” alcoholic beverages before even boarding the plane, according to a report by...

SAN ANTONIO – KSAT’s discovery of hundreds of emails and text messages between the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office and an Austin-based criminal justice reform group has revealed just how much of an influence the group had on the DA. Earlier this week, KSAT obtained more than 200 pages of conversations between the firm’s founder, District Attorney Joe Gonzales and First Assistant District Attorney Christian Henrickson — many of which involve specific cases and policies. KSAT obtained the records through an open records request. The Wren Collective’s website states it is a strategic advising firm made up of former public...

A Northeast Side homeowners association wants residents of a home at 7310 Roveen Trail to be held in contempt of court for allegedly failing to remove livestock from the property. The request is the latest twist in a legal fight the Ventura Maintenance Association Inc. has been waging against a homeowner and his tenants. In August, Ventura sued homeowner William Wade, his wife Amanda and tenants Richard and Ja’Net Hayes, alleging they had been keeping “various unauthorized animals” — including “a horse, goats, chickens and most recently ducks” — on the property since about April. The Wades live in Arizona;...

Pack of feral pigs caught on camera damaging lawns in Bexar County neighborhood VIDEO AT LINK............. A pack of 10 wild hogs rooted up several lawns in a Bexar County neighborhood over the holiday weekend. The pigs were caught on camera damaging multiple yards as they used their snouts to forage for underground food. The neighborhood, located about three miles south of SeaWorld, was hit a few weeks earlier, resulting in major damage to multiple yards. One of the homes that was initially hit had its yard completely uprooted. The more recent incursion left damage to at least four properties....

The Austin American-Statesman reports that Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo made a comment this week regarding San Antonio at a news conference touting recent successes against the Mexican Mafia. Austin Police Chief Art Acevedo said the 309 years doled out on Friday are “a tremendous gift to the people of Austin.” “The Mexican Mafia is not welcome in Austin,” Acevedo said. “I hope they go back to San Antonio.” Federal, state and Austin law enforcement officials took part in the Tuesday presser. The Statesman reported: The FBI said the case is the largest joint prosecution of the gang in Austin....

In San Antonio, Texas, at the Alamodome parking lot, a gun buyback is planned from noon to 5 p.m. “Buyback” is an Orwellian term designed to give the impression all guns come from the government. You can not “buy back” what you never owned. A more correct term would be gun turn-in because the guns are turned in to the police to be destroyed.A flurry of gun turn-in/”buyback” events have been scheduled recently for Dallas, El Paso, and San Antonio, Texas, and for three cities in New Mexico. Much of the money for these events comes from dollars created by...

In a fervent battle for their deeply-held beliefs, pro-life groups have filed a lawsuit against the city of San Antonio, alleging that residents are being compelled to finance abortions against their will. The lawsuit is a culmination of tensions surrounding the use of taxpayer funds for activities that directly contradict the moral and religious convictions of a significant portion of the city’s population. The San Antonio Family Association (SAFA) and Texas Right to Life (TRTL) have sued the City of San Antonio over its decision to allocate $500,000 in taxpayer money to abortion-trafficking organizations that violate Texas law. Their attorneys...

Ron DeSantis is attending a Texas fundraiser hosted by Lamar Smith, a former Texas Congressman who is now a registered foreign agent and a donor to Democrat politician Jamie Raskin, who led impeachment efforts against Donald Trump over January 6th.Smith is advertised by Team DeSantis as one of the hosts of the Friday fundraiser in San Antonio. The Florida Governor is currently polling at 10 percent to Trump’s 61 percent in Texas, and Smith seems unlikely to help burnish the Floridian’s America First credentials, being a registered foreign agent.Despite his background as a GOP legislator, Smith is also a donor...

San Antonio, Texas' top police official turned to social media on Friday and questioned how a repeat offender with a long rap sheet could walk freely and shoot two officers. At about 5 p.m. Thursday, two San Antonio Police Department officers responded to the area of a wanted suspect who left his apartment complex with a long gun before getting into a vehicle being driven by an unidentified person. San Antonio Police Department Chief Bill McManus said the suspect, later identified as Jesse Garcia, saw police behind them and started shooting, hitting one of the officers. The duo then carjacked...

The owner of a Kia shot an accused car thief several times during a confrontation at a Texas apartment complex, San Antonio police told news outlets. Officers responded to a 911 call from an apartment complex on the city’s northeast side at about 4 a.m. Aug. 10, police told KENS. A resident spotted a man trying to break into his Kia, police told the station. The resident went outside, along with his girlfriend, to confront him, police told the outlet. The accused thief ordered the man to bring him his car keys, which he had left in his apartment, police...

Terrified villagers in a rural Peruvian district have claimed they have come under attack by 7ft-tall aliens they have dubbed Los Pelacaras, or The Face Peelers. Members of the Ikitu tribe from the San Antonio native community have reported mysterious figures in dark-coloured hoods attacking the villagers, who live in the rural district of Alto Nanay, north east of Lima, Peru. After one such 'attack', a 15-year-old girl had to be taken to hospital. According to the community leader, Jairo Reátegui Dávila, the teenager narrowly escaped but 'as a result of the struggle they cut part of her neck.' Now,...

A man whose car had been stolen tracked down his vehicle to a Texas shopping center lot - before shooting dead one of the alleged thieves and wounding the other. Gunfire erupted in the parking lot outside South Park Mall, San Antonio, just before 1pm Thursday after the man figured out where his stolen car was located. The owner of the stolen car had ordered the driver and his female companion out of the vehicle - and sat them down by the tire at gunpoint while they waited for police. But the stolen car victim was hit with a bullet...

A Texas professor who also works as a Pastor has been fired after teaching students that sex in humans is determined by X and Y chromosomes. Dr. Johnson Varkey was fired from his role at St. Philip's College in San Antonio in January of this year after teaching at the facility for 20 years. He was sacked after four students walked out of his class last November in protest over his teaching that X and Y chromosomes determine sex in humans. In an interview with First Liberty Live, Varkey denied claims he injected religious teachings into his lessons - which...

A Texas biology professor is appealing to be reinstated after being fired following telling students that sex is based on chromosomes. According to a letter from First Liberty Legal Group, released June 20, biology professor Johnson Varkey was fired from St. Philip’s College in San Antonio after four students walked out of his class when Varkey said that sex is determined by chromosomes in November 2023. A January 10 email from Randall Dawson, the Vice President for Academic Success at St. Philip read, “I am sending you notification that Alamo Colleges District Human Resources department is in receipt of an...

Three Texas police officers have been charged with the murder of a 46-year-old woman who was having a manic episode and was cutting wires to her apartment building's fire alarm system. San Antonio police sergeant Alfred Flores, officer Eleazar Alejandro, and officer Nathaniel Villalobos were the three officers involved in the June 23 incident. The woman, identified as Melissa Petez, was experiencing a mental health crisis around 2am on Friday, officials said. Bodycam footage captured her yelling and at one point holding a hammer. 'It appears Ms. Perez was having a mental health crisis,' the police chief said. The officers...

From kens5.com Video:The Bexar County Commissioners have approved a program to acquire 3,800 small gun safes/lock boxes and 1,000 cable locks for guns to give away to county residents this summer. Bexar County is in Texas and includes San Antonio. The money for the program is part of ‘The American Rescue Plan Act‘ of 2021. The Act authorized a minimum of 1.9 Trillion dollars of spending, focused primarily on leftist programs.From ksat.com:The Bexar County Commissioners Court approved the distribution of 3,800 portable handgun safes and 1,000 handgun cable locks free of charge to county residents throughout the summer.(skip)According to the...